Sithking Zero: Megaman, Code: Lyoko, and all affiliated companies, characters, products, or voice actors do not belong to me. Cadance and the Replicons belong to me, though.

Well, it’s a little soon, but here is Heart of a Warrior Chapter numero uno! LET’S ROCK!!!

Heart of a Warrior 3:
Warrior’s Redemption

Chapter 1:
Origins and Explanation

If one was to read a story, one would naturally assume that the story begins on page one and ends on the last page. That is a gross injustice against those who wrote the story in question. People who do this fail to ask, “Why was the character like this?” “How did the villain become so twisted?” “Could something have been done differently?”

The same is true with “Heart of a Warrior.” The story did not begin with Bass’ entrance to Lyoko, it did not begin when Bass was crippled at Scilabs, and it did not begin when Franz and his only daughter fled to Lyoko while Doctor Cossak fled to Japan with the Lyokoan Prototype defensive program, Bass.

This particular epic began almost twenty years ago, when a science teacher by the name of Franz Hopper began work on a great and powerful project, which he called Project Lyoko. It’s purpose was to destroy a French government project, called Project Carthage. However, time and military cutbacks canceled Project Carthage, and Project Lyoko was left open-ended, without a purpose.

Then, when Franz’s wife was killed in a car crash, he was left alone with his daughter, Aelita, who was eight at the time. And it hit him like a tidal wave:

The world was a corrupt and dangerous place. And so he set out to remake the world he had made, the world of Lyoko, into a world without danger, where he and his daughter could be safe forever. So he repeated the same day over two thousand times using the return to the past program, and at the end, he had a feeling. Aelita was getting it too, but not as strong, that they were both being watched by something.

In desperation, Franz turned to his close friend, Dr. Mikhael Cossak, in order for him to design a program to defend Lyoko from viruses and the like. And thusly, for the next year, Dr. Cossak worked tirelessly on a new program, one whose potential was nearly limitless. His name was Bass.EXE.

However, it was shortly after Bass was brought online that a new, dark program known as XANA struck. Her power was unbelievable, and nearly overwhelmed Bass. However, Franz used his newest program, the Heart of a Warrior program, to fuse his daughter with Bass in order to ensure everyone’s survival. The result was an awesome being known as Cadance, who beat XANA in about five minutes. However, once the two defused, the program could not be removed.

Shortly after that, XANA proved she was still alive and well, creating a series of false leads and accusations that pointed to Franz as an anti-government terrorist. In horror, Franz and his twelve-year old daughter fled to Lyoko, expecting to be greeted by Dr. Cossak and Bass.

However, Dr. Cossak and Bass were out in one of Cossak’s labs, and Dr. Cossak, fearing for the program that he had created and considered almost his son, fled for Japan, where the newly created internet system was a perfect new home for the revolutionary program Bass.

However, XANA was not done yet. After capturing Franz Hopper and erasing Aelita’s memories, she went after the only other person who had ever stood in her way: Bass.EXE. Using a tower, she possessed the core of the Alpha internet system prototype, causing it to go haywire. Bass, who already had a bit of a reputation of being reckless and powerful, was blamed, and nearly killed. This one simple act set Bass against humanity forever.

Fast forward ten years. A young boy named Lan Hikari receives a custom-made net navi, named Megaman.EXE. Together, they were very powerful. They defeated villains such as Dr. Albert Wily, who planned to delete the internet, Gospel, who had planned to flood the net with Bass clones, and Wily and Alpha again. However, in the process of defeating Wily a second time, both Megaman and Dr. Wily were absorbed into Alpha’s bulky goo-body.

At around the same time that Lan Hikari and Megaman.exe were brought together, however, another group was coming together for the first time nearly half a world away.

A 12-year old boy, Jeremie Belpois, was rummaging through an old, abandoned factory for robot parts when he stumbled upon a massive supercomputer in the basement. He turned it on and discovered Lyoko, a virtual world, and Aelita, who had amnesia and could not remember her true origins, and believed herself to be a computer program.

XANA was also awakened through the supercomputer’s reactivation, and almost immiediately started to attack the real world using towers, which were interface ports from the Real world to Lyoko. Jeremie and his friends, Ulrich Stern, Yumi Ishiyama, and Odd Della Robia worked together, and each time that XANA rose her ugly head, saved the world through use of Aelita’s tower-deactivating ability, her friends (and the scanners that allowed them to enter and exit Lyoko), and sheer dumb luck. However, Jeremie and his friends had an ultimate goal: Bring Aelita to the Real world as a human being, and thusly, allow them to shut down the supercomputer and kill XANA. The problem was, once they did bring Aelita to the real world, XANA infected her with a computer virus, linking them. If XANA died, Aelita would go too. (Sadly, the reverse was not true).

No person, on either side of the conflict, could have predicted what happened next, or how it would turn out.

Net agents went to Dr. Wily’s island and recovered the remnants of Alpha, including the core, which still contained much valuable data. From this, Megaman.EXE was recovered.

About a week after that, Megaman and Bass, who had been absorbed by Alpha but had escaped and fused with the remaints of the bug-born Gospel beast, faced off once again. Megaman triumphed again over Bass, whose increased power came to naught.

Bass, his pride and body wounded, fled to the safety of the undernet, in order to regain his strength.

However, XANA, knowing that she was vulnerable to Bass and Aelita (who were still gaining strength), set into motion new plans to destroy Bass, whom she considered to be the bigger threat. In an attempt to destroy him on her home turf, where she was strongest, XANA opened up a link portal to Lyoko, which Bass moved into. XANA attacked about a day later, deliberately choosing a tower that was very close to Bass, hoping that this would put Bass into contact with Aelita and cause her destruction, allowing XANA to move in and destroy Bass quite easily.

Needless to say, this plan failed. Bass merely talked to the humans, then left. Fortunately for XANA, neither Bass nor Aelita remembered each other, but XANA decided to cripple the power of the Black Shadow, as he was known, by planting a virus inside of him with a Scyphizoa. Later, during a XANA attack, Yumi found him lying prone on the ground, being attacked by a variety of monsters. She defeated the monsters and took him to a tower to be healed.

However, the act of viral implantation activated the Heart of a Warrior program, forcing him to protect Aelita from harm. This was evident two weeks later, when Aelita was attacked by an army of monsters, Bass remotely sent her his aura force field. In the process, he was knocked unconscious, but Aelita managed to complete the mission solo.

About 2.5 weeks later, Jeremie concocted a plan to decode Franz Hopper’s diary. It would take a little while to load, so he just set it to download.

XANA didn’t like this, and sent four Scyphizoas to the real world to destroy the Lyoko gang. Bass took this time to make a trip to the real world, and saved Aelita’s life from a tentacled monster in the process. Bass then formed a deal with Aelita to help save the world, though he would love nothing better then to destroy the humans infecting the earth. However, before Aelita got ten steps from Bass, she fell unconscious, and had a flashback of her father, her, and Dr. Cossak creating Bass. When she woke up, she was sent to Lyoko and the world was saved once again by a bunch of kids.

A day later, XANA hacked into the Scilab mainframe in Japan and stole the remnants of the Alpha-internet system. After engaging with an official, Protoman.EXE, XANA fled back to the portal’s entrance, with several captured computer viruses waiting. After possessing them, she marched them into Lyoko.

The next day, Franz Hopper’s diary was decoded. XANA tried to stop it by first sending tarantulas, and after those were deleted, sent in her viruses, which were scuttlists, one of the strongest type of virus in existence. After Odd and Yumi were devirtualized, Ulrich alone was there to stand up to them, and he nearly was devirtualized as well. Bass managed to save him at the last second, though.

However, XANA was not quite done yet. She attacked one last time with Polymorphic clones made to look like Bass and Ulrich. Bass vs. Bass lasted a long time, but Bass won by using the Gospel cannon, his second-most powerful move, on the foul copy. Ulrich won his fight too, but was devirtualized when a tarantula took him from behind.

XANA finally decided to just take over Jeremie’s activated tower, but Franz decided that this was a bad thing, and overrode XANA’s possession of the tower, decoding the diary in a matter of seconds.

The next day, Jeremie revealed two particularly interesting pieces of gossip from the diary to the gang: Franz Hopper was Aelita’s father and Bass was technically her brother.

Bass denied these claims by saying that Dr. Cossak was his father, as he was the one who created him. Then, he gave them the history of his life, or at least why he hated humans.

After he was done, Bass went to Lyoko to think about the various revelations of the past day, when he was attacked by a huge army of XANA monsters. Bass leapt into the fray, which lasted over twelve hours.

The next day, Aelita, willing to sacrifice her own life rather then have others pay for hers, turned off the supercomputer, thusly ending her own life.

Jeremie, noticing the break in his connection to the supercomputer, raced to the factory to find the problem. Noticing that Aelita was dead on the floor, he quickly turned on the Supercomputer, bringing her back to life. Then they kissed.

However, their moment of bliss was shattered by Bass’ swearing, because the ground had started to disappear beneath him.

That night, the gang went to sector five, in order to get Aelita’s missing piece. However, the data was a trap, and it turned out to be Alpha, the same goo-beast that had bested Bass twice in the past. XANA then revealed herself to be a girl, and with Alpha’s help, devirtualized everyone but Bass and Aelita, whom XANA had absorbed into Alpha.

Bass and Aelita were rescued by Franz Hopper, who fused them together into the being known as Cadance. Cadance blew her way out of Alpha, then destroyed XANA and sector five with the most powerful move in the arsenal, Vanishing World.

Bass then materialized the humans in the real world and explained what had happened, before leaving with the promise that “We will meet again.”

Two weeks later, Bass visited his father in the hospital, filling in more of his past and asking his father for forgiveness.

Two months after that, XANA brought her father out of the Supercomputer, and into the real world.

Four weeks after that, Bass faced off against a squad of beings known as “Replicons,” who bore a type of hybred XANA symbol. At the same time, XANA recruited the help of a Darkchip-addicted Bass clone, known as Forte.

Now, the pieces are falling into place for the forces of darkness, and Lyoko, Aelita, Bass, and the rest are at the core of a vast conspiracy to bring down humanity.

And that is where our story begins…

Sithking Zero: That’s the first chapter! Hope you like what I’ve got coming down the tubes in the future.

Read and Review, People!

Sithking Zero: Code Lyoko and Megaman (and all related rights, subjects, people, places, and things) belong to their respective owners. The exceptions are Cadance and the Replicons, which are the property of Sithking Zero Fanfictions Inc. Use them without my permission and you will be annihilated with the gospel cannon. DOOM!!

Anyway, after the recap, I decided to get off of my lazy duff and start off with a touching romance scene.

But since my substitute author isn’t exactly healthy right now (REALLY bad cold), I thought I’d build up some suspense. How? You’ll have to read it to find out!

Oh, and if you haven’t read Heart of a Warrior and Heart of a Warrior II, go back and read them. If you read the first chapter, this shouldn’t be a problem, but still, it’s nice to get some feedback.

Anyway…

Sithking Zero Fanfictions, inc, proudly presents…

Heart of a Warrior III:
Warrior’s Redemption

Chapter 2:

Dark Designs

The man slumped into his soft, leather chair, for a moment, merely happy to be alive. Then, remembering his duties, he reached over and picked up his screwdriver and a circuit board.

Tightening a few screws, he then leaned forwards, using his cane to support himself out of the soft chair. His legs creaked slightly as he made his way across the room, to a very strange object.

It looked like a doll, but was obviously not a doll. It was vaguely robotic, with rivets and panels and slots all over the body, not to mention its blue control jewel in the middle of its “face” and chest.

Reaching out, he tapped a small panel on the arm, which retracted, revealing its internal circuitry. Pushing aside a patch of wiring, the man carefully inserted the chip into its designated slot on the board. Carefully, he pushed back the tangle of wires and closed the panels, then walked over to a large computer monitor.

Gently, he tapped several keys, and the doll sprang to life. With a whirring noise, the jewels began to glow neon blue, then disappeared under multiple panels that slid out of specially contained slots. The hidden panels, coupled with several hologram projectors and the input data the computer was giving it, combined into a sinister form.

It was a female, covered in what looked like black samurai armor. Her legs had less of the black armor, but instead had a short skirt made of it and gray pants that went down to her knee-length black and red boots. On her breastplate, armor skirt, and the back of her palms, the being’s logo was proudly displayed: A red bulls-eye with one stick coming out the top, and three shorter sticks coming out of the bottom.

For a moment, the figure stared at the ground. Then, she turned her head and gazed at her hand, watching the flex of the various muscles and tendons.

It’s not real, you know, her mind told her. She looked up at the older man sitting at the computer, typing in several commands, and watched as several schematics for strange programs were revealed.

“XANA.”

XANA looked at the man for a moment before responding.

“Yes, Father?”

“Did you give Forte the chip?”

“Yes, father. There were no system anomalies, and he is now much more powerful then before, not to mention totally loyal to our cause.”

The man was silent for a moment.

“And the… others? Do they suspect anything yet, my dear?”

“I do not think so, father, but nothing drastic has been done yet, so it’s possible they may notice soon, especially with them regaining Hopper.”

The man typed up a command.

Immiediately, a picture filled up half the screen. It showed a tall netnavi wearing a black jumpsuit with purple lightning bolts running down the sides, Black-and-gold gauntlets and ankle-coverings, and a four-pointed star in between two large golden fins on his helmet. Purple stripes were etched underneath his eyes, and continued on until his cheekbones.

“What about Bass?”

XANA winced as her father turned back to glare at her.

“Father, after the Replicons failed to destroy him, my sources tell me that he has been seen trying to find us. I haven’t been able to confront him directly, especially after the last battle in sector five…” her voice trailed off as she unconsciously rubbed the two-foot long scar on her right arm.

She shook herself, adding, “But I have been able to prevent him from learning anything about us, so he has been significantly delayed. Also, to prevent him from making contact with the others, I sealed the portal.”

The man turned sharply to her. “You WHAT?!?!” he cried.

She stood calmly, saying, “Father, I have run tests. I can open micro holes which should serve our purpose better then that gaping hole was. The micro holes would be more stealthy, as well- much less likely to attract attention from Net agents, the others, Hopper, or Bass.”

The man stared at her for a moment, then smiled slowly.

“Excellent work, my dear.” He reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, and she smiled warmly.

“Now,” he started, removing his hand, “the time is growing short. Their resurrection must happen soon, or we may lose our chance.”

She looked hard at her father as he paused.

“It’s time to do it. I think their interference is an acceptable risk, and we should expect it. Do you have the plan?”

XANA nodded.

“Excellent. You may go now. I will see you again, my dear.”

As he finished speaking, she began to segment and blur as the doll’s components began to slide back into their respective areas, leaving nothing but a doll behind.

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MEANWHILE, IN THE FOREST SECTOR…

All was quiet in the forest sector of Lyoko.

Suddenly, a swarm of creatures of all shapes and sizes descended on the tower, from the puny Kankrelots to the graceful Mantas, most of the Lyoko monster population was represented around this tower.

Suddenly, the blue tower pulsed once, turning a brilliant Crimson.

Sithking Zero: Well, Chapter number two is done! Did you like it?

Sorry this wasn’t up sooner. I had some things I needed to have taken care of.

Please Review!

Sithking Zero: I don’t own Megman or Code: Lyoko. Neither do I own anyone related to them, except for Cadance and the Replicons.

Well, here’s chapter three, where the real story begins. What will happen? Just read it…

Heart of a Warrior III:
Warrior’s Redemption

Chapter 3:

A Perfect Day, A Perfect Comeback

It was a beautiful evening at Kadic Academy.

The sun was setting, stretching out its colors in beautiful shades of violet, blue, red, pink, and every color of the rainbow. and it was Sunday, and as such, the students of Kadic were entitled to a day free of classes.

As such, Jeremie Belpois and Aelita Hopper were enjoying the day off with their first date.

Now, Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich had been pressuring them into doing it since Odd had spotted them smooch on a security tape shortly before Cadance destroyed Sector Five, but only recently had Jeremie gotten up the courage to ask her out on an “official” date.

Before then, they had taken plenty of what Odd called “Unofficial,” dates- long walks in the park, watching movies at the Hermitage together, working with Franz Hopper on restoring Sector Five, or just relaxing on a park bench hand-in-hand.

However, today was special: Jeremie had reserved a table at the local Italian restaurant, Giordonos, to be followed by them going to see Pirates of the Caribbean II.

Naturally, he was extraordinarily nervous, despite his being in more dangerous situations before now. After all, who would not be nervous in his situation? Going on a date with a pink-haired angel… whom he had definitely been in love with for the last year or so…

He walked slightly hurriedly towards the Hermitage, his bouquet of roses in one hand, and his corsage in the other. He was wearing a powder-blue tuxedo that was approximately the same color as his normal shirt, but overall, with its navy trim and white button-down T-shirt underneath and black tie, looked much nicer.

Nervously, he opened up the gate to the Hermitage, which had been cleaned thoroughly by the Lyoko warriors and Franz Hopper himself.

Making his way up the front walkway, he finally stopped at the front door, and hesitantly reached out and rapped the door several times with his knuckles.

He waited for a minute, feeling extremely nervous at the prospect of their first real date. Such a scary prospect…

However, his nervousness was erased (only to be replaced by awe) when an angel opened the door.

Aelita, since the events in sector five, had let her hair grow out so it was now reached past her shoulders, and a her jade-green eyes shone brightly, even in the evening twilight.

She wore a simple pink dress that almost touched the ground, and from Jeremie’s point of view, looked perfect on her. It did not hug her curves too tightly, yet at the same time it was not too loose, either. She also wore crimson high-heeled shoes, a pink-pearl necklace, and long white gloves that extended up to her elbows (I forget what they’re called… sorry…)

Jeremie made several sounds along the lines of “I… uh… you…”

This caused Aelita to smile at his lack of coordination/lack of ability to come up with a coherent sentence, causing his rapidly spreading blush to migrate even faster across his face.

“Here.” he finally managed to say, thrusting the bouquet of blood-red roses towards he cause of his distress.

Aelita gasped, looking at the flowers.

“Jeremie, these are beautiful!” she cried, taking them in both of her hands and pressing them to her face, inhaling deeply.

“Thanks.” He said quietly. However, before he could screw up any worse, Franz Hopper showed up.

“Ah, Jeremie! Come in, come in! I’d like to have a word with you,” he looked at Aelita, “Privately.” She nodded and walked off to the kitchen.

Franz turned back to Jeremie.

“Now Jeremie, I know that you are a good lad, and kind, and an excellent programmer, and my daughter likes you a lot.”

Jeremie nodded; all these things were true, of course.

“But…” Franz said in a low and dangerous voice, “if you try ANYTHING funny with Aelita, and I mean anything at all, I will trap you in a scanner and virtualize you into the digital sea myself. Are we in agreement?”

Jeremie was now positively terrified of the gleam in Mr. Hopper’s eyes, but nodded yes anyway.

“Good. Now go take her on that date,” Franz finished cheerfully, and with no sign of the murderous tone in his voice moments before.

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After leaving the Hermitage, it was about seven o’clock, and the two had to hurry to catch a taxi. They managed to make it to the movie theatre with only a few minutes to spare

The movie and dinner, in Jeremie’s opinion, went off without a hitch. They both grabbed a small popcorn to share, and the movie was better then both of them expected. They were both disappointed at the end, but honestly, who wasn’t?

The dinner was also perfect; Jeremie and Aelita split an order of Lasagna. Over dinner, they made small talk, and generally had a good time.

When they left, they realized the time was nearly eleven o’clock, meaning they had to get home (so Jeremie would get back before curfew, and Aelita wouldn’t get in trouble with Franz).

Jeremie, being the gentleman that he was, walked Aelita to the door.

Then, he lost his nerve completely.

“Umm… Aelita…”

She turned towards him, fixing him with her sea-green eyes.

“Yes, Jeremie?”

He blushed furiously, trying to gather his resolve.

“I… I…I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time…”

Aelita waited patiently.

He drew in a big breath.

“Ithinki’minlovewithyou.” He blurted.

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Aelita blushed from the comment. Words were beyond her capacity at the moment, so with burning cheeks, she leaned in closer to the blonde computer genius.

Jeremie, blushing equally red, took the obvious cue and leaned in close to the pink-haired girl.

They were inches apart, and still they moved closer. A mere millimeter separated their lips-

Then, the distance grew rapidly greater as Franz Hopper’s fist connected soundly with the side of Jeremie’s head.

Aelita looked up at her father, shocked. “FATH-” she started to yell, before he looked at her, electricity crackling around him, and his pupil pulsed once to reveal a horrifyingly familiar bulls-eye sign with sticks coming out of it.

“No…” She began to gasp, before Franz shot her in the face with a ball of lightning.

As she fell back, she had time only for one conscious thought.

It’s not possible, she thought. Bass and I beat you together…

And with that, her world dissolved into darkness.

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Odd was playing solitaire on Jeremie’s laptop back in his room when suddenly the game quit.

“Hey, what giv-” he began, but then turned pale white as a screen popped up, scrolling through the various towers of Lyoko. It finally stopped on one, which displayed a biohazard logo next to it and a XANA logo underneath that. The tower was pulsating red.

“Damn.” he whispered, and raced to find his friends.

Sithking Zero: Yes, I know that this was really bad. And I mean REALLY bad, but I haven’t written romance in a little while, so I’m rusty. besides, this chapter was more for setup then anything else. Oh well, read and review anyway!

Sithking Zero: Howdy! Megaman, CL, and a lot of the other topics in this story belong to their respective owners. I own Cadance and the Replicons. Fear me.

Well, it took a while, but here is chapter four. I’m a little behind schedule, but bear with me, I got some good stuff coming down the tube.

Anyways, Here’s chapter four.

Heart of a Warrior III:
Warrior’s Redemption

Chapter 4:

Fiends and Friends

Franz Hopper, famous scientist, creator of Lyoko, master of the supercomputer, was on the move.

Now, generally, when one is moving at the speed that Franz was currently moving, one is typically in a car, and most often on the freeway, doing approximately eighty. One would also typically not be carrying ones unconscious daughter over ones shoulder.

Then again, most times, one is not possessed by a digital demon from the bowels of the most powerful computer in existence, and as such, Franz’s case was not one of the “most times.”

Franz moved faster and faster, phasing through obstacles in his path, including fire hydrants, tables, plants, some trees (keeping Aelita safe the entire time) and even a poodle.

On and on he ran, propelled by the dark manipulations of his own worst foe.

XANA smiled as she manipulated his limbs. She was forcing one of her oldest foes into sealing not only his own, but his daughter, her lover, and her brother with the system he designed.

She began to laugh at the irony: the world without danger, as it were, was very dangerous indeed…

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“I’m telling you, Jeremie’s laptop went crazy! The Superscan activated, and it shows there’s an activated tower!”

“Odd,” Ulrich replied into his cell, “XANA was killed months ago. Why would the superscan pick anything up at all?”

“I don’t know,” Odd said as he dashed through the forest to the sewer entrance, “but I don’t like it. And Jeremie and Aelita aren’t answering their phones, and neither is Mr. Hopper.”

Ulrich groaned.

“All right. We’ll head to the factory, just in case. I’ll call Yumi and see if she can mee- Odd?!? What was that?”

There had been a resounding crash on Odd’s end as Franz plowed through a tree nearby Odd. Moving at nearly eighty miles an hour and powered by XANA, Franz barely flinched from the impact, but the damage had been done. A huge chunk had been torn from the tree, and with a tortured groan, the tree toppled.

Odd saw the tree coming, and tried to dodge, but the tree was moving too fast, was too huge, or Odd was too tired, because he found himself pinned to the ground by tree branches. Hazarding a glance to his left, he noticed his cell phone was impaled by a tree branch.

‘Crap.’ He thought.

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Franz Hopper, currently a mindless slave of XANA, aimed a bolt of lightning at the scanner, forcing it closed and sealing his daughter inside of the tube. Smiling maliciously, his outline began to fizzle, and he leapt through the ceiling, straight into the computer control room.

Touching down gently on the ground, Franz walked calmly to the keyboard, typing a series of commands at near-lightspeed.

“Scanner, Aelita.” He warbled in the strange, distorted way that all XANA-possessees talk. “Transfer, Aelita.”

He paused. “By your command, Lady XANA. Virtualization.”

He waited a moment more. Then, he raised his arms over his head and smashed the monitor into shards of plastic.

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ON LYOKO…

Aelita woke up screaming.

The reason for this was because of a black-clad samurai female shooting tendrils of lightning towards the princess of Lyoko, burning and electrocuting her digital flesh.

“Ten years.”

Aelita levered herself up off the grass of the forest sector. “Wh…what?”

“Ten years…” repeated XANA. “Ten years… I’ve waited to do THIS!!!” she cried, punctuating the last word with more bolts of lightning. Aelita cried again in agony.

“And this time…” XANA said, slowly drawing the moment out. “NO ONE CAN SAVE YOU!!!”

A blast of energy rocketed towards Aelita, who barely managed to roll out of the way in time.

“JEREMIE?!?!” Aelita shrieked as she dodged wave after wave of energy.

“Go ahead, try and call them.” XANA smirked, seeing Aelita scramble to her feet. “Who can help you anyway? Is the answer a: Jeremie? Currently unconscious, with his face pounded in. Is the answer b: your warrior friends? I smashed the controls, so no help from that end. Is the answer c: Franz Hopper? Once I’m done with you, he’s a dead man. Is the answer d: Bass? I sealed his only path from his home to Lyoko. Or is the answer e: NONE OF THE ABOVE?”

XANA punctuated the last one with a bolt of lightning that sent Aelita flying through the air. Her arms flailing, Aelita was barely able to snag onto a tree, preventing herself from falling into the digital sea. However, the price of arresting her motion so suddenly scratched and hurt her hand badly. Tumbling to the ground, she landed on her back, where she lay for a moment, catching her breath. She slowly turned and looked towards her left hand. It was bloody, torn up, and altogether near useless. She got up slowly, wincing as her hand touched the ground.

XANA floated towards Aelita, hatred and anger evident in her every movement. Her arms crackled with hyperexcited photons and electrons, and balls of red fire pulsated in her grasp.

She floated down until she touched down next to Aelita, where she gently forced her to look at her by cupping her face in her hand, fingernails digging into Aelita’s virtual flesh. As quick as lightning, XANA drew her other arm back and backhanded Aelita as hard as she could, sending Aelita spiraling through the air until she slammed into another tree, dropping like a sack of potatoes to the ground.

Forcing herself into a sitting position, Aelita began to cough. Holding her hand to her mouth, she felt something wet splash onto her hand. Glancing down, her aquamarine eyes registered it as blood. Dimly, Aelita recognized this as a bad sign.

She felt a presence over her. Hesitantly, she looked up.

XANA was readying her katana, the blade glowing and humming with power.

However, that wasn’t what Aelita was seeing…

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Aelita looked up from her sitting position to find herself in a very different place. She was sitting on a rectangular platform over a blue ocean, and she was slumped down next to a strange purple-gold-red pillar.

She also noticed, with a slight thrill of shock, that she didn’t look the same, either.

Her body was clad in a black jumpsuit with purple lightning stripes running down the sides, ending at black boots that matched the gold-and-black gauntlets she was wearing. She reached up to feel her head, as it was hurting badly, and she touched something she had never felt before:

A ridge. She explored it as it swept back, and found that it was connected to a golden fin, one of two that sweapt back along her skull.

“Given up yet, Bass?”

She looked in front of her to see a boy.

About her age, the boy was clad in a blue jumpsuit with blocky blue gauntlets, a red-and-gold logo shining brightly from his chest. He was wearing some sort of blue backpack with four cylinders protruding from it, and his helmet, unlike Aelitas’ helmet, was pretty spherical, except for a hole for the face and neck. From below there sprouted a spray of blue hair. The helmet was blue, with a slightly lighter blue section separated by twin lines of turquoise. Running between the lines was a row of golden blocks.

Aelita felt herself moving without her own free will. She was first aware of this as her lips formed a cruel grin.

“Never, Megaman. I will never surrender to a slave of humanity.”

She felt a warmth in her hand, and found herself clutching a ball of goldenrod energy.

“I am BASS!” she cried. “I will never accept defeat from a pathetic human scumbag!”

With that, Aelita hurled the blast of energy. But even as she did, her vision began to be overtaken by a white fog, which rapidly solidified into something else…

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Aelita’s eyes snapped open. XANA was crouching at the base of a tree almost one hundred feet away, holding her smoking chest armor with both hands.

“You… little…” XANA growled, picking herself up.

“I little what?” Aelita retorted angrily, her eyes flashing blood-red for a moment.

In that moment, Aelita’s hand glowed, and a pink ball of contained energy sprang into existence in her palm. Aelita looked surprised for a moment, then grinned. With every erg of force in her body, she threw the ball. In an instant, it slammed into XANA’s face, causing her to yell in pain.

Aelita stumbled to her feet, feeling smug. That ceased the instant that XANA launched herself at Aelita, sword drawn, a snarl on her lips.

Aelita crossed her arms over her face, preparing for the end.

But the end never came. What did come was a very loud “SZZZSSHRRUMMM!!!” noise, followed by an unearthly scream of pain.

Aelita opened her eyes. In front of her stood a figure through whose eyes she had seen mere minutes earlier.

“AELITA!” Bass cried. “Get to the tower! You need to do a Return to the Past!”

His hands flared up with violet energy, preparing to bombard the Lyokoan Demon.

“Where is it?!?” She cried.

Bass pointed behind him. “GO!!!”

Aelita needed no second invitation. Running faster then she had ever run before in her entire life, she sprinted along the miraculously vacant catwalks and pathways of the forest sector. She kept running until finally the tower came into sight. Increasing her speed, she phased right through the tower wall, floated upwards to the upper platform, and placed her hand on the computer interface.

AELITA

CODE:

LYOKO

Sithking Zero: Well, first chapter of the new year! Sorry it took so long…

So, Bass is back, Aelita has new powers, XANA’s still evil, and with the prophecy fulfilled, the comets won’t destroy the earth for weeks. Well, except for that last one.

However, mysteries still abound. Who is Forte? What’s XANA’s dad up to? How did Aelita get her new powers?

All excellent questions, my friends. But I’m not telling.

Yet.

Please Review!

Sithking Zero: Code: Lyoko, Megaman/Rockaman, Moonscoop, Taffy, France 3, Antefilms, Canal J, Garage Kids, Capcom, Nintendo, Cartoon Network, Warner Brothers, Time, AOL, or any companies, characters, settings, or items affiliated to the concepts of this fanfiction don’t belong to me, save Cadence and the Replicons. And the plot. And my words. And the name- Ah, just get on with it.

I have exciting news. Starting today, I’m working on the rough draft of a story. A very crucial one in my life. “But Zero,” you may ask, “Why is this different from what all of us do every day of our lives as writers? We all come up with stories.” Well, this is a little different. You see, it’s not a fanfiction.

I’m writing a book.

I’m actively working on turning “Heart of a Warrior” into an actual novel, which will be published by a publishing company, I hope. So far, here’s the premise:

It’s a dark and desolate future. The strange K’sh’nas, monsters more machine then living thing, had long-since destroyed most of human civilization, led by their five generals, supposedly humanoid, ruled by their leader, Kexa’na. However, there’s hope. Two scouts for the resistance, Ariel Hope and Jerome (insert last name here), stumble upon an ancient secret in the ruins of an old laboratory: A very old Andromoid-class robot, designed by Ariel’s great grandfather. A robot of such power, that whoever possesses him would gain the upper hand on the balance of power. And his name is… I haven’t figured it out yet. I need ideas, and it can’t be a name from CL, Megaman, or anything. Any ideas?

Anyway, on to the story at hand…

Okay, in the words of ???, I’d like to say, I’m sorry. I was rushing, and it was sort of necessary. For me, mostly. I needed to actually get something down on paper, so… I forced it. And the quality suffered. Badly. I didn’t like how it turned out. So, I took my time with this chapter. I tried to plan ahead, and I’m working on correcting the problem. So… enjoy Chapter five!

Heart of a Warrior III: Warrior’s Redemption

Chapter 5:
Something Wicked This Way Comes

Jeremie Belpois walked out of his room, as he had done earlier that day on his way to Aelita’s house. However, a few changes were evident. In place of his nicer outfit, he was wearing his usual powder-blue turtleneck, black glasses, and khaki pants. And instead of a bouquet of roses, his laptop was in his arms.

He walked hurriedly, knowing the events of yesterday- or yesterday relative to him and his friends- were indications that something very, very wrong was going wrong with the world, and that they needed all the knowledge and power they could get.

He thought back to the “previous,” night, examining every detail in his mind.

He had leaned in to kiss Aelita…

… and then Franz Hopper ran up and punched him in the head, fracturing his skull and breaking his nose, and he went unconscious.

In all, not the high point of his career as a Lyoko Warrior.

Still, he thought, I can’t dwell on that. I’ve got more important business to worry about. For example…

What happened? I thought XANA was dead. How can she be alive? And what’s Bass doing back on Lyoko? I thought he left the supercomputer. More importantly, how did XANA come back without anyone noticing?

Jeremie sighed as he walked up the front path to the Hermitage.

He rapped his knuckles against the doorway, causing the persons inside the abode to begin moving around, as was evident from the sounds of chairs scraping along the wooden floor, and the heavy steps of someone walking from the kitchen.

Moments later, much like he had done yesterday (which was, Jeremie reflected, technically today if you took into consideration the RTTP,) Franz Hopper opened up the door. Unlike the previous time, however, he looked apprehensive, even frightened.

Also different was the presence of the other Lyoko Warriors, all sitting around the kitchen table, drinking tea, coffee, and hot chocolate (Aelita had the latter,) and conversing quietly amongst themselves. They immediately stopped talking when they saw Jeremie enter the house.

Jeremie sighed, pulling out his laptop and plugging it into the wall socket.

“Well,” he said, turning on some programs, and a window opened up on his computer screen.

“It had to happen. She just couldn’t stay down, could she?” Odd remarked dryly.

“Nope. She’s back.” Jeremie said humorlessly. He then turned to Aelita.

“By the way, what happened on Lyoko? None of us were there, so…” he let his words trail off, indicating his lack of understanding.

Aelita shot him a glare. “I’m not totally helpless, you know,” she remarked somewhat icily. Jeremie recoiled under her glare, while Ulrich and Yumi smirked at the display.

Aelita leaned back in her chair and took a long drink from her mug of cocoa.

Taking a breath, she replied, “Well, after Jeremie was knocked out, XANA zapped me and knocked me unconscious. Then, using Dad’s body, she sent me to Lyoko, where she was waiting for me.”

“…woah.”

“Yes. Then she started to attack me with everything she had. Finally, she slammed me into a tree and-”

“And then she took you and told you how much she lov-”

This was as far as Odd got before the was punched thrice: once on each arm by Ulrich and Yumi, and once in the head by Jeremie.

Aelita shot him a nasty glare, while Franz shot Odd a look that clearly said “Say that again, and I virtualize you into the digital sea.”

“Anyways,” continued Aelita, “That’s when something weird happened.”

Everyone leaned in closer to hear what Aelita had to say.

“Remember those visions I used to have?” she asked.

She continued on, not waiting for an answer. “Well, I had another one on Lyoko, but… it was like I was seeing things through BASS’ eyes instead of mine.”

“Weird… you sure it wasn’t a hallucination?”

“No, Ulrich, not really. Basically, the vision was that I was Bass and I was talking about never being a slave of humanity, or something similar. I shot this Earthbreaker blast at some guy named Megaman. The strange part is that when I woke up, it turns out that I’d done it while in my vision.”

Franz opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again.

“Then I started to blast her with these energy blasts that I could make.”

NOW Franz was paying attention. “What?” he stood up straighter, staring at Aelita as if she had grown horns.

Aelita looked very startled at her father’s outburst. “I… think that’s a new ability of mine. I can generate blasts of energy that can blow things up.”

“What do they look like?” snapped Franz.

Aelita was taken aback. “Umm… Kind of like a ball, about the size of a cantaloupe, pink, and ripples like the digital sea…”

Jeremie was staring at Franz now.

“Mr. Hopper? What’s wrong?”

Franz was now pale, and he was looking like he was very weak in the knees.

Franz gulped before answering, and his answer was weak.

“I… I have a hunch… but I need to do some tests. Aelita, honey… do you mind if we go to the factory? You can finish telling us on the way over.”

Aelita nodded and stood up, her friends doing so as well.

A few minutes later, the six humans walked briskly towards the old factory, trying to keep up with Franz Hopper’s longer stride.

Aelita finished her narrative. “Anyway, I was going to say, but there’s a small problem after that. Once XANA figured out my attack, she learned to dodge and counter it with her sword, and she still nearly killed me. She wasn’t wasting any more time, and she rushed at me with her sword…”

She gave a shudder, remembering how she felt, so helpless and afraid. Jeremie pulled her into a hug.

She smiled as she drew in strength and warmth from his embrace, and she hugged him back.

For close to five minutes, the two stayed in their own little world, until finally, Odd couldn’t take it anymore.

“So, Aelita,” he said, rather loudly, as they passed the forest entrance to the sewers, “How did you escape?”

Both Einstein and Ms. Einstein jumped back after hearing these words, almost as if they’d been electrified, both their faces a lovely hue.

“Oh, umm…” she wondered for a moment where she had been before… Oh! Yes.

“Oh, so XANA was coming after me with her sword. I closed my eyes, and prepared to die.”

She was much more confident now then she was mere minutes ago.

“However, at the last minute, I heard this sound… like… someone being stabbed. Then I heard XANA scream. So I looked up.”

She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

“Bass was there.”

EVERYONE reacted to this news. Franz’s neck nearly cracked, he spun around so quickly.

“WHAT?!?” came the near-unanimous chorus.

“He saved me.” She said simply.

“He caught the blade in one of his bare hands and was holding back XANA with the other one. The last thing I heard him say was that he wanted me to get to the tower and stop the attack.”

By now, the Warriors of the Cyber-realm Lyoko were inside the factory. They all got into the elevator and Franz hit the button, sending them down.

The elevator dropped down thirty feet before stopping at a huge, circular room, the first of three: The Lab, as Jeremie called it.

“All right, sweetie, I need you to go down to the scanner room, and I need you to get into one of the scanners.”

“All right, daddy.”

The Lyoko Warriors piled out of the elevator, leaving Aelita alone in the box.

Two minutes later, Aelita was standing inside of a huge circular tube, a large black ring running up and down her body, scanning the chemical compounds inside of her body.

Upstairs, her father looked over the results, looking extremely grave, and looking worse by the second.

It was a minute before Yumi spoke up.

“What’s wrong, sir?”

Franz sighed, taking off his glasses to reveal forest-green eyes.

“Do you remember how, when sector five was destroyed, Bass and Aelita fused together into one being, Cadence? Don’t answer, you remember. Well, when that happened, there was a… complication that I didn’t foresee when I created the Heart of a Warrior program with Dr. Cossak.”

“Is something wrong with Aelita?” asked Jeremie suddenly.

“I don’t know yet.” Said Franz tiredly. “But when Aelita and Bass fused, there was a transfer of material between them. It affected them both. For example, Aelita is now more durable, and from what she said, she has some of Bass’ memories. Until I ask Bass himself, I don’t know what kind of effects Bass has suffered.”

“Is this bad?” asked Odd.

“As I said, I don’t know. It could be that she’ll only be affected on Lyoko, but worst case scenario, her entire DNA and cellular structure could come unglued.”

Franz opened his mouth to speak again, but unfortunately, the supercomputer started to beep at this point.

“DANGER!!! DANGER!!!” it beeped out in Jeremie’s voice. “UNAUTHORIZED MATERIALIZATION COMPLETED! STAND BY FOR INCOMING MONSTERS!!”

Needless to say, everybody disregarded the warning, racing towards the elevator to hit the switch.

Not that it was nessecary.

The elevator came up after a few seconds, carrying two people.

One was easily recognizable. Her pink hair was obvious to all but the colorblind.

The other… you had to know him.

His body wrapped in a brown cloak, only the top half of his head was exposed. A black-and-gold helmet with a dark blue, four pointed star in between his eyes shone in the darkness, as did his purple stripes underneath his eyes.

“So… we meet again, humans.” Said the voice of the net navi.

Sithking Zero: Cliffhangers are evil. But, so am I, so who cares?

Read and Review!

Sithking Zero: Code Lyoko, Megaman/Rockman.exe, and any and all things, ideas, and companies affiliated are not mine. Cadence, the Replicons, and the plot are mine. Sue and I will sic Bass on you.

Well, I figured it’d be a good way to hone my skills as a writer if I wrote dramatic tension. So here’s some now!

Oh, and to all of you who thought, “Hey, maybe he’ll settle that cliffhanger,” I laugh at you.

            A creature scuttled across the vast plains and deserts of the undernet. It had a spiked, disc shaped head, attached to the cylindrical torso by what looked like a ball and socket joint. Its four, Krabe-like legs scuttled back and forth rapidly, scurrying it across the desert quickly away from its foe. Its arms melted into silver metal, before suddenly becoming two sub-machine guns.

Swiveling its torso, it began firing wildly at the incoming figure, hoping to (by some sort of divine miracle) destroy the swift warrior that had destroyed every member of the group so far.

The figure brought its arms up into a cross formation across his chest, and the bullets ricocheted off harmlessly.

“…heh.” The male grinned, thinking that this would be easy.

And the male was quite right.

The figure dispelled the shield with one hand, turning it first into a wire-frame shield, than it vanished altogether.

Next, he transformed his arm into a sword.

Now, he simply disappeared.

The creature swiveled back and forth, scanning everywhere for his foe.

Left, right, up, down, the figure was nowhere to be seen.

Cautiously, the creature inhaled deeply, holding its breath.

This wasn’t, however, because he was scared (though he was), and not because he wasn’t trying to make noise (which he wasn’t.)

Rather, this was because the act of inhalation pumped the liquid cyber-metal through his digital veins, passing through damaged portions of his body, and filling and healing the gaps. Thusly, Replicons were programs that could heal themselves almost instantly, a very rare trait among programs throughout the world. Most viruses and net navis recovered slowly, like humans, unless special “Recovery Chips,” were used to speed up the process.

The pressure of his inhaled breath did exactly what it was supposed to, and liquid metal flowed from his wounds, filling them in perfectly. Within a second, his wounds were healed completely.

The Replicon, sighing with relief, had a sudden thought:

The mission is priority one. Complete the mission. Ensure mission success.

‘Yes, but-’ he thought, before the voice in his head cut in.

The Replicon paused, for a mere moment, before his chest split in two, and opened like a pair of doors. Soundlessly, he pulled the contents of his chest out.

The object was a perfect sphere of pure energy. Pulsating slightly and glowing blue, the ball gave off a bright ambient glow.

He raised his arm up to his face, saying, “All clear, this part of the Project is se-”

He stopped speaking, feeling icy pain suddenly lance through his chest.

He looked down, past the orb of pulsating light.

It wasn’t good. Unless one was to count a red-tinged blade, thrumming with power, protruding from your chest as “Good.”

Then, the blade sliced upwards, bisecting the creature’s head and killing it instantly.

The figure behind him grimaced, his eyes hidden behind the black visor he wore constantly.

A window in the air opened up behind him, and a human face appeared.

The look on the face was cold, and somewhat uncaring, and had a level of maturity not usually seen in thirteen-year-old males. His hair was white on top, but, as some had pointed out at times, “looks like his black hair got partially covered by an eggshell.”

However, those who knew the boy knew that his hair was not something to laugh at. The boy was a prodigy, and was the youngest net official ever.

“Protoman, did you catch the criminal?”

“He gave me no choice, Chaud, sir. I was forced to delete him.”

“Did you get the memory chip?”

“There was none, sir.”

“Any battlechip, then?”

“No, sir. None.”

“That’s weird…”

“He did leave something behind, some sort of energy orb. I’m scanning it now.”

Protoman.EXE tapped two fingers to the side of his helmet. Small, multi-colored flecks of light sped across his visor for a moment, analyzing the ball of condensed power.

“It seems to be a condensed orb of energy. Nothing more, sir.”

“Good. Send it to the PET, I’d like to study it some more. Once you’ve done that, survey the area for any clues as to his identity.”

“Roger, sir.”

The blue ball of light vanished, as well as the image of Chaud Blaze’s head.

Protoman looked around. He was about five foot eleven, meaning he was a little shorter then our finned hero (and that DOES NOT COUNT FINS). He wore a black jumpsuit with a Grey diamond on the front. Starting at about chest-height, a red triangle of hard, rigid material began, extending out over the shoulders. His boots were red with gold trim, as were his gloves. On the backs of his gloves and his chest was his crest: a jagged line separating two halves of the circle: one white, one black.

From the back of his helmet, a long, knee-length, pure white ponytail of hair reached back, nice and thin, not a giant target, but not threadbare. It was perfect.

The helmet, under which the hair came from, was a red, slightly egg-shaped object. There were two stripes of white that swept back from where the eyes would be underneath the black visor. Two dimples in the sides served as ears. As a finishing touch, a foot-long spine stood straight up from the middle-front area of the helmet.

He transformed his blade back into a normal arm, sighing dejectedly.

“ANOTHER of these stupid missions… That makes thirteen of these things I’ve killed in the last month alone. What the hell-”

It was at this moment that he was interrupted by a brilliant flash of light.

He instantly transformed his arm into a blade of red power, and crossed his arms over his chest protectively. After a moment, a red, curved circular shield with a silver rim encompassed his entire front side.

“If I had wanted to destroy you, I would have done so long ago and with far more stealth, Protoman. I need to talk to you.”

Protoman lowered his shield. Carefully he looked at the figure before him.

A five-foot five figure stood before him. The upper part of its body was garbed in a black jumpsuit with what looked like wooden gauntlets. The lower half of the body was garbed in a golden belt (containing the navi symbol: A green circle with a black rectangle on top.) and what have been called time and again as white “Harem pants.” That is to say, the type of pants that are often worn in the movie “Aladin.”

Now, her helmet was rather remarkable. Slightly egg-shaped, the golden helmet had two long, thin, curving ornamental horns sweeping back and downwards from above the eyes. The back of the helmet had an uprising horn. None of this was, however, truly what made her who she was.

Hovering slightly away from her backside were two massive, diamond-shaped… energy plates. They were curved enough that if she wanted them to, they would-and could- orbit around her continuously without touching her body.

Which, Protoman knew, was part of her signature attack.

Giving a slight smile and banishing away his shield, he stood up straight, but kept his sword at ready attention.

“So, what brings you here, Serenade, King of the Undernet?”

She sighed slightly. “Well, primarily, the beings which you have been annihilating quite effectively. I know where they come from, and who leads them. Not to mention where they’re coming from. What I want is for you to stop them at the source.”

Protoman lowered his blade cautiously. “And why can’t you just do this yourself, may I ask? You are, after all, KING OF THE UNDERNET, the toughest section of the cyberworld, am I correct in saying this?”

“You are.” She responded heavily. “But I can’t do this for three reasons.

“Reason one:” she started, “I am King. That means I have a lot of work to do. I can’t go off on a hunt, because things would degenerate into chaos.”

“Reason Two: The next ranking starts soon. Meaning that I have to supervise-and possibly destroy- all the freaks who want my job.”

“And number three is…?” Protoman asked, already bored with the conversation.

“Those things have ALREADY overrun the Secret Net! I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d say the damn things were reproducing down there. I’ve practically got my hands full trying to kill them all and maintain order.”

“Couldn’t you just-”

“NO, I will not act like… HIM, firing energy blasts everywhere. The last time he did that, I had to rebuild the entire secret net from scratch.” Protoman caught something muttered under Serenade’s breath, which sounded amazingly like “Stupid earthbreakers…”

“What?” he asked.

“NOTHING!!!”

She settled down a bit, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a compressed file. “Here. Share this with your netop. This contains everything you need to know about who you’re dealing with. You’re going to need every byte of it.”

Protoman reached out, taking the file and glancing over it. His eyes widened in shock and horror underneath his visor. “That’s… No. King Serenade, that’s really… No. If this is a joke…” he turned, trying to reason with the King of the Undernet.

But it was too late.

She was gone.

Sithking Zero: Well, My evilness has been compounded. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!

Well, Protoman’s here, as is Chaud, and Serenade. For those of you who don’t know, Protoman and Chaud are characters who are Megaman and Lan’s rivals in the Megaman Battle network games. And Serenade is a secret boss you fight just before Bass GS in Megaman Battle network 3. This is AFTER you fight Alpha, collected every standard chip in the game, and beaten Darkman and Yamato/Japanman.

And yes, even though I called Serenade “KING of the Undernet,” even though she’s a girl (In Japan, Serenade’s a girl. In America, She’s a guy. If you ever saw her official picture, she’s kinda androgynous, but I think she leans towards the female side). The reason that I called her king is because I imagine that it’s just a job. There’s a title for “Queen” but it isn’t as high placed as king. So, when Protoman calls her “King,” it’s more of a Job title, like Professor, or Doctor, then anything else.

Except cooler, and doctors can’t order people executed. On second thought, I don’t want to know.

Oh, and there is an art challenge on my Deviantart page: Draw the best Crossover fight possible!

Please Read, Review, and submit entries to the contest!

Sithking Zero: The plot, Cadance, and the Replicons, belong to me. Nothing else.

Now, we’re getting back to the actual story. WOO!

Now, I know what you’re all thinking: What was the data that Protoman seemed so horrified at?

Or, at the very least, “Is that macaroni in the fridge spoiled?”

Well, you’ll find out later. By my estimates, I’d say around chapter… fourteen. Not too sure about that, but based on how the story’s progressing, and at the rate it is, I’d say that there might be up to thirty chapters for this story. I dunno.

BTW, On deviantart I have a deviation called “How to write a Fanfiction.” I want everybody to read it. Or I will go Bass on you.

One more thing:

I have a secret.

But I digress. On with the show!

Heart of a Warrior III:

Warrior’s Redemption

Chapter 7:

Of Heroes and of Darkness

Franz opened his mouth to speak again, but unfortunately, the supercomputer started to beep at this point.

“DANGER!!! DANGER!!!” it beeped out in Jeremie’s voice. “UNAUTHORIZED MATERIALIZATION COMPLETED! STAND BY FOR INCOMING MONSTERS!!”

Needless to say, everybody disregarded the warning, racing towards the elevator to hit the switch.

Not that it was nessecary.

The elevator came up after a few seconds, carrying two people.

One was easily recognizable. Her pink hair was obvious to all but the colorblind.

The other… you had to know him.

His body wrapped in a brown cloak, only the top half of his head was exposed. A black-and-gold helmet with a dark blue, four pointed star in between his eyes shone in the darkness, as did his purple stripes underneath his eyes.

“So… we meet again, humans.” came the voice of the net navi.

“BASS?!?” cried Ulrich, shocked.

The messenger of Darkness rolled his eyes.

“No, Ulrich. I’m Mary Poppins, hired by XANA to take care of you with my whimsical ways. WHO ELSE WOULD IT BE, YOU IDIOT?!?” he scremed.

Everyone stared at the black-garbed, cloaked netnavi. Even though he was pretty much the same, he had changed in ways that hadn’t been noticed before.

His eyes, for one, convayed a sense of eagerness, something that they hadn’t seen before even when about to kick XANA’s ass. His purple stripes under his eyes had changed a shade, almost imperceptibly. His cloak also appeared to be much better cared for then it had been before he had left to visit, in his words, “an old friend.”

“It’s… good… to see you again,” he added, slightly more composed after his outburst.

“I have some news on XANA, if you’re interested.” He said, feeling slightly uncomfortable with everyone staring at him.

Odd motioned them all to sit down, in preparation for a long story.

Bass willingly obliged.

“After I left and met up with my…” he paused for a moment, as if tasting the word, “Friend, I came back here and sent myself back to the internet. I was then attacked by some new XANA monsters, and after I crushed them, I did a little snooping on XANA.”

Franz leaned in slightly. “Well?”

“Turns out XANA’s got an ally this time.”

Bass watched as the looks on their faces ranged from shocked to horror ( though Jeremie, Aelita, and Mr. Hopper held most of the horror.)

“I couldn’t find out anything really about him,” he continued, “Only that the man was working out of a small island off of the coast of India. From the looks and sounds of it, he’s some angry old coot who makes stuff for the Indian government, and XANA offered him a big paycheck to help. Unfortunately, going in to get him would cause an international incident, so the French government (even if they DID know about Lyoko), couldn’t go in and get him.”

“Why don’t you just go in there and blow him up?” Odd piped up. “I thought you hated all humans and, quote, ‘Wanted to make all humans suffer for their crimes,’ unquote.” He finished with a not entirely inaccurate impression of Bass.

Bass glared at Odd. “While that was correct a while ago, I have seen, through you kids, that not all humans are bad. So, my conscience wouldn’t let me just “Go in there and blow him up” as you so eloquently put it. At least,” he gave a grim smile as he said this, “Not anymore.”

“REALLY? You can’t hurt anyone anymore?” Odd blurted enthusiastically. He had seen what Bass had done to things before, and he wasn’t eager to be on the receiving end of those attacks.

Bass nodded. “Correct, Odd. In fact, I can only warn people of things now. For example;” he said, pointing one finger at Odd’s hair, “Your hair’s on fire.”

Odd reached up and felt his head. “Bass, are you feeling all right? My hair’s not on fire.”

Bass morphed his hand into a blaster, and fired a microburst of power, grazing the top of Odd’s tall hair and leaving a small singe mark on the wall. Immediately, Odd’s hair began to smoke, and a small tongue of flame rose from the tip. Bass smirked. “Yes, it is.”

Odd yelped, beating out his hair with his hands, succeeding after about ten seconds, a small black spot of charred hair now marring his conical blonde hair. He glared at Bass.

“Thanks a lot, Bass. My beautiful blonde hair, ruined! NOW how am I supposed to pick up dates?”

“What dates? You’ve dated and broken up with everyone in Kadic but Sissi!”

“… Shaddup, Ulrich.”

Odd’s cheeks pinked slightly at his older friend’s words.

Bass grinned.

Aelita looked at him for a moment, as if confused, but the expression vanished quickly.

“Bass,” she said carefully, “I have a question.”

He looked at her.

“Would you like to come to school and live with us?”

Bass gave her a look that clearly said ‘You’re kidding, right?’

She didn’t pick up on it. So the black shadow sighed.

“Even though I like humans better now, I don’t think that I’m ready to take that step yet, Aelita. I mean,” he looked around at all of them, “ten-year old habits are kinda hard to break, and honestly, I’m still learning.”

He turned around and walked back towards the elevator, saying over his shoulder, “And Jeremie? Is it okay if we talk after dinner? I need to work on my socialization skills, and I figure that’d be a good way to practice.”

Jeremie looked shocked for a moment, then responded with a nod and “Mmm-hmm.” (or whatever that sound effect is.)

Yumi spoke up now. “Last time you left, you said that you had a friend to visit,” she called after him. “Who was it?”

Bass turned around and hit the elevator button.

“That, my friend,” he stated smugly as the doors closed, “Is my secret.”

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

How dare she, I thought. How dare she…

The figure stood rock still near an abandoned campsite where a mighty warrior had tried to recuperate after a mighty battle, before an enemy of his opened a portal to her world in front of him. Had the warrior not entered the portal…

Rest assured, your death shall be swift.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Sithking Zero: WOW. Long few months, huh?

I can’t say I’m proud of this, but I finally just pushed through the crap and got it done.

Now, after this, I bet a bunch of people know…

Read and Review.

Sithking Zero: Code Lyoko, Megaman, and all other things do not belong to me. However, Cadence, the Replicons, and the plot of this story all DO belong to me. Copy and burn in the deepest level of hell.

O.M.F.G.

Code Lyoko. Season Four. Premier episode.

If you missed it, don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll be on in reruns and Youtube, so go see it right away.

However, I will say that that is totally unfair. XANA picks a new disciple, and then uses him in his fight. Come on, I came up with the idea WAY before that! (if you have no idea what I’m talking about, re-read Heart of a Warrior II: Trials of the Warriors.)

Granted, the circumstances are slightly different… but I digress.

Season four looks… AWESOME… Can’t say much else about it. What with all the talk and spoilers flying around Lyokofreak, I can virtually assure all that it’ll be cool.

Ah, but I ramble. As I write this, it is 5/23/07. I’ve decided to start writing down when each chapter is updated.

A scant week had passed since Bass was re-welcomed into the fold of the lives of the Lyoko Warriors. True to his word, Bass did talk to Jeremie after dinner, and both agreed to talk at least once a day about the Lyoko Warrior’s state of readiness.

Aelita had not had much of a chance to talk to Bass at all, and only in passing when she did. Things like, “Hello, Aelita.” Or “Gotta go, Krabes at three o’clock!” Things like that.

For Aelita, this was bad. After all, she had experienced some side effects after the Cadence fusion (such as glimpses into Bass’ memory, the gain of an earthbreaker-like attack, etc.) She wanted to have a long, drawn-out talk with him to see how HE was handling the side-effects of being fused to her (perhaps he had received the ability to control Lyoko? She wondered)

However, her musings were cut short by an event that happened about a week after his dramatic reappearance.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

ON EARTH…

It was a Wednesday, as she would later recall. A totally normal day until something happened about noon.

Every source of electrical power in Kadic Academy died at the same time. Now, given that the school had been constructed almost a hundred years ago, power outages were quite frequent (once you took into account the ancient wiring), many people had backup batteries and generators installed, and the classes (except for the heavily electronically-driven ones, such as computers class) went on as usual. The repair people told the members of the Kadic Staff that they would have the power up and running in less then an hour.

--- 29 hours later---

Jeremie punched a key on his cell phone, and glanced down at it, awaiting a response.

There was none, of course. The cell phone’s batteries, as with all the other batteries in the school, had inexplicably died a few hours ago. However, no one had noticed, because classes were still in attendance, and after the “Satellite Laser” incident (which no one remembered, conveniently enough), he and his friends had helped enforce the cell phone ban in classes.

He sighed.

‘Wonder what XANA’s up to this time…’ he thought.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

ON LYOKO…

It was a beautiful day in sector five, if you were the right person.

Squadrons of Mantas and Hornets flew in tight squadrons around the huge sphere, and Creepers stalked the darker passageways to prevent more “break-ins” that had been so common in the months before the sector’s destruction.

And under the billions of data screens that comprised the Celestial Dome, the supreme ruler of the entire virtual world stood attentively before the Carthaginian data terminal, the source of all her data and primary link to the outer world.

XANA gazed expectantly at the screen, awaiting the appearance of her superior officer.

“Milady?” came a hesitant voice from behind her.

She turned and strode forwards, her boots making soft tapping noises as she walked over to the replicon, who was clutching a wooden box reverently.

“You have it?” she snapped, and the creature recoiled slightly.

It gulped, then began again. “Y-yes, milady. As you ordered.” As he said this, he opened the box.

On top of a velvet pad, a small, rectangular device covered in horizontal blocks and a purple-black-red jewel in the center was visible for an instant before XANA snatched the box from him and snapped it shut.

“NO, you idiot!” she hissed. “Forte’s still here, and you know how sensitive he is to the stuff!”

“S-s-sorry, m-milady,” he cowered and placed his hands over his head. “I… I forgot!”

XANA rolled her eyes, looked at the ground, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Just be more careful. I’m expecting a guest, so…” she threw her hands up in the air. “Go hang out with the Krabes, or something.”

The Replicon darted away as fast as possible, a constant stream of “Yes, mistress, of course mistress, right away mistress,” spewing from his hinged mouth, until he was out of her earshot, when finally, he whimpered, “But they always beat me up…”

XANA breathed a sigh of relief, until she heard a cough from behind her.

Spinning on her heal, she bowed low.

“Greetings, father. What news?”

The old man harrumphed. “Things are going faster, with the new source of power you’re providing. Still, the school and surrounding town don’t have as much power as I’d like or need. At this rate, it’ll take over a month to revive them, and I don’t have that sort of time or luxury. I need more power and fast.”

XANA gritted her teeth. “I’m working on it, father, but if I try anything else, others will get suspicious of the po-”

“I DON’T CARE!” he screamed. “I’ve waited well over fifteen years to have my revenge on society, and I’m not going to wait any longer! I need more energy NOW!”

The dark mistress of Lyoko glared at her father, then turned away from the screen. After taking a few deep breaths, she turned back.

“All right, father. I’ll activate another tower… the nuclear power plant isn’t out of my reach, after all…”

“Excellent…” suddenly, he turned from the screen, muttering, “Let me check… the local nuclear plant…”

He whipped back into the screen, a dark smile evident on his face.

“If you were to add the power from there to the power from the school and the surrounding city, we would have them online in a little more then a week! Good thinking!”

“Thank you, father.”

“You’re welcome, my dear.”

And with that, he signed off.

XANA sighed.

She turned , walked a few feet back towards the sphere of sector five, turned left, and stepped off the edge. Manipulating the current of power running through her body so as to manipulate the fabric of Lyokospace, she swooped down to the bottom of sector five, where a gaping maw opened and closed at regular intervals. Positioning herself directly underneath it, she rocketed upwards, the hole closing behind her.

Up, up, and up she rose, until she came to the core of sector five, the source of all power to the sector.

She flew up and landed on a ledge of steel, and looked at the wall next to her.

The sector still had scars from being destroyed, and cracks and damage were easily visible in even the smallest structure. Creepers, Scyphizoa, and other monsters had formed a temporary truce with the humans’ spherical data recovery drones in order to shore up and defend the sector from further damage.

She sighed, then turned to look at the massive sphere inside the two orbiting cubes. She walked forwards calmly, then laid a hand on the outermost cube. With a slight whirring like an automatic door, the it opened outwards for her in an appearance not entirely unlike a flower. She reached in and repeated the process with the second cube. Immediately, the core began to pulse orange, a measure designed to show when the core was vulnerable. Laying one finger on it, however, returned it to it’s pure white spherical state.

XANA whispered a few words to the sphere, and a bright beam of light shot out of the core, whipping around until it latched onto the wall of the sector.

At first, the area around the wall merely turned red, then the wall began to deform. A cone shape was the first to appear, with what looked like golden talons rimming the top. A clear dome capped the cone, and several gooey tentacles pushed their way out of the dome.

With a throaty shriek, the new Scyphizoa floated towards the dark queen, its tentacles outstreatched.

Holding out the box, she made a few throaty rumbles, and the squid monster bowed down to her, taking the box at the same time.

The monster gave a hiss, and then melted back into the wall of the sector.

XANA waited a moment more before she dissolved into a plume of smoke and drifted down and out of the sector…

And in the forest sector, a second tower activated.

A.N.: You’re wondering why I included the core? Well, aside from that it looks cool, it will serve a purpose later.

Also, observe the wording. The core is SECTOR FIVE’s core, not LYOKO’s core. This is my little way of covering a plot hole created by the third season of the show (when the core is destroyed, Lyoko goes Boom!), and given what happened in the last dustup between XANA and Cadence… well, you can see the need for the Lyoko system to be decentralized in retrospect.

Though in my defense, I did finish my first story less then twelve hours before season three started, so…

Yeah, shorter chapter, but I like it anyway. Got some good XANA action in there, and a bit of a hint as to the dark designs ahead. You rabid Mega/Rockman fans should be semi-expecting what’s to happen; as for you rabid Lyoko fans… well, it’s just a surprise for you.

Please Read and Review!

At lunch, (approximately four hours ago), our heroes (Sans Bass) had been discussing why XANA was bothering to go to all the trouble of draining the city of power, with explanations ranging from “Using the power as a superweapon, just like before,” to “Causing us to get sick without power and running water.” However, one thing was certain: discussing it would get them nowhere. And so they had made the decision to sneak off after school, when they would be less likely to be caught (due to the lack of power in buildings, it was easier to get hurt or have looters come in and try to hurt someone, so security had been ramped up greatly.)

             And so after fifteen minutes of jogging through the park, climbing into a sewer, riding along the thin sidewalk alongside the river of god-knows what, and into the factory, everyone was on the floor of the factory.

            Odd reached out and hit the button to summon the old freight elevator.

            It didn’t come.

            After waiting for a minute or so, he felt compelled to say, “Hey, what’s going on! Why isn’t it coming up?”

            “Well, the power’s out, so it’s probably not running.” Stated Yumi.

            “But how come XANA and Lyoko still work? Don’t they-”

            “No, Odd.”  Came Jeremie’s voice. “Lyoko has its own internal nuclear battery. That’s why the power’s staying off, instead of flickering on and off repeatedly.”

            Ulrich gave Jeremie a strange look. “Care to explain how you came to that conclusion, Einstein?”

            Jeremie nodded. “Well, if XANA turned off the power, she’d shut herself off. Then the power would come back on, because XANA wouldn’t be turning it off anymore. But then XANA would turn back on and shut the power off again, and so on and so on…”

            “Can we just deactivate the tower already?” Aelita interrupted.

            Yumi looked at Aelita, a little shocked.

            “You feeling okay?”

            Aelita looked at the hole where the elevator was supposed to be.

            “The last time I went to Lyoko, I was beaten up and nearly killed by XANA. I… if it wasn’t for Bass…”

            Odd placed a hand on her shoulder, grinning cheerily.

            “Don’t worry, Aelita. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

            He took his hand off and mimed blasting something with it.

            “And if she tries anything, I’ll give her a Laser arrow between the eyes!”

            Ulrich rolled his eyes before beginning to climb down into the abyss. The rest of the gang quickly followed him down into the hole and into the scanner room and lab.

            Jeremie, with the practiced ease of one who does this every day, quickly typed in the codes with the following words:

            “Scanner, Aelita. Scanner, Yumi. Scanner, Ulrich. Transfer, Aelita. Transfer, Yumi. Transfer, Ulrich. Virtualization!” he then turned his attention to Odd. “Scanner, Odd. Transfer, Odd. Virtualization!”

            One by one, the four heroes turned into wire frames and dropped to the slippery ground of the ice sector in the middle of a platform ringed by gigantic ice boulders and mini-waterfalls.

            Jeremie spoke into the com set, “Okay. I’m doing a scan of the area… the tower is thirty two degrees north by northwest, about twelve monsters between you and the tower, and Bass is heading towards your position. He should be there right about… now.

            As Jeremie said this, the former messenger of darkness floated down to land directly behind Odd, looking angry.

            “Well, it’s about time that you guys showed up. XANA’s doing something weird, and I don’t like it at all. I can’t contact your news networks and see what’s going on at all…” his voice trailed off. “How bad is it on the surface?” he finished.

            “Pretty bad,” Jeremie admitted after a moment. “There’s no power, so a lot of our society that relies on electricity for basic necessities like food, water, and lighting. There’s cases of looting and robberies, not to mention disease.”

            “In that case, we should probably get moving.” Ulrich stated practically, drawing his sword from it’s sheath.

            “Right, as I said, the tower is north by northwest. Take the first left through the system of caves over there. Be careful.

            “What, us, act recklessly? Why, I never! Such an accusation, Jeremie. How dare you!” Odd cracked, and grins spread on the faces of the warriors.

            And with that, the force moved out. Across the thin walkway, they dashed as fast as they could, until the first branching of the walkway, when they turned left onto a path that lead directly into the core of a mountain.

            For a long way, the tunnels got narrower and narrower, and eventually, there came a point where the Lyoko warriors had to go single file for a while before it became wide enough to go as a group again.

            Odd turned to his left, looked at Bass, and opened his mouth.

            “No.”

            “But-” Odd protested.

            “No. I know what you’re thinking. I won’t just ‘Blast our way out.’”

            “Bu-”

            “Because that could cause the mountain to cave in on us. No.”

            As if XANA was waiting for an opening like that, the tunnel started to rumble.

            With a series of thundering crashes, the ice of the cave began to fall to the floor. Bass, acting quickly, grabbed the nearest person to him and threw them out of the way, then dove after them, barely dodging blocks that would have hurt, even for him.

            Soon, the dust cleared, and there was a calm for a few minutes. Then Bass groaned and lifted his head up off the ground.

            “Odd?” he whispered, afraid of causing another cave-in. “Odd, are you there?”

            A groan and a shifting cone-shaped object revealed that the jokester of team Lyoko was, while not unharmed, certainly not out of the fight just yet. Though he had taken a bump on the head, and he was now down forty life points, he was essentially all right and ready to fight.

            Bass strained for a second and pulled his leg out from under an ice boulder, then began moving some of the larger chunks off of his weaker companion.

            With a moan, Odd pulled himself out of the wreckage, swaying unsteadily on his feet for a moment before acquiring a sense of balance.

            “Uhh…” he groaned, holding his side with one hand and clutching the wall with the other for support. “What happened?”

            Jeremie’s voice crackled through the celing.

            “XANA caved in the tunnel in an attempt to devirtualize Aelita and kill Bass.” He replied simply. “I can see it failed on both accounts, as Aelita’s still alive. She’s heading towards the tower as we speak with Ulrich and Yumi in tow.”

            “That’s good to know,” Bass said, gratefully.

            “Yeah, except for one problem,” Odd muttered glumly, looking around the room.

            “What?” Bass looked at Odd quizzically.

            “Do you see a way out of here?”

            “… Crap.”

            Bass’ cuss was totally warranted, as indeed, there was no way out of the cave they were trapped in. The smooth wall of the cave had them trapped in on one side, and the rockslide had trapped them in on the other.

            Odd sighed. “Jeremie, we’re kinda stuck. Could you help-”

            “Not now, Odd. Ulrich, Yumi, and Aelita are in the middle of a swarm of monsters. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

            Bass leaned back against the ice wall, fins keeping his head leaning forwards slightly.

            “Does this situation seem familiar to you?” he asked Odd.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            ELSEWHERE ON LYOKO…

            Ulrich slammed his Katana down onto the red Eye of XANA on the Krabe’s back, then flipped off just in time to escape the blast radius as the Krabe exploded.

            He turned in time to see Yumi’s fans slice through a Blok and another Krabe, while Aelita blasted the head off of a Tarantula with her new energy manipulation powers.

            “I think that’s the last one, Jeremie,” he reported to the sky, aware that Jeremie could hear him quite well, no matter how loudly he talked.

            “Just in time, too. XANA’s activated another tower! Hurry up and get to the tower as fast as you can. I’ll try and materialize Odd and Bass, or at least get them out of that cave…”

            “Got it Jeremie,” Ulrich responded quickly. “Any monsters?”

            “Not that I can see…” Jeremie muttered as his hands flew over the keyboard like a master playing the piano.

            Suddenly, and with barely a warning, a storm of electricity engulfed the screen, flinging Jeremie out of his seat and knocking him against the wall.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            IN THE ICE CAVE…

            Bass and Odd were relaxing on opposite ends of the wall, resting and waiting to be brought back to the real world in order to escape.

            Or, at least, they were, if they had not been startled out of their inattentiveness by a shrieking, wailing roar.

            Two huge bundles of tentacles phased through the wall, snaring the two warriors before either could move or resist. As one, the tentacles glowed red as the bodies of two Scyphizoa followed the appendages through the walls, freezing the two before they could struggle.

            Odd felt three pulsating mandibles pressed against his forehead, squeezing all thought and will out of his mind, pulping thoughts, wisdom, and anything that had been in there before.

            In it’s place, Odd ‘saw’ a mental image of a flame. The flame was bright white, with multicolored bands crisscrossing their way through it.

            Suddenly, an ooze climbed up the flame, blotting out the light with tendrils of darkness, until the entire thing was entirely black.

            He was utterly alone. There was nothing there anymore.

            With a whooshing noise, a massive purple flame exploded into existence, engulfing the area in a sickly light.

            For a moment, nothing happened.

            Then, three hot-pink lines appeared at thirty-degree angles to one another in the flame.

            Another moment passed.

            Then, the three lines expanded into hot-pink eyes, which seemed to bore into Odd’s very soul.

            The flame opened its dark mouth, sickly black smoke leaking out.

            “Welcome to the Darkness.” It rumbled.

            Then, Odd felt as if he was dissolving, the familiar sensation of floating, then of waking up in the scanner tube, a cold sweat on his face.

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            Aelita stepped into the Forest tower just as Ulrich disintegrated in a brilliant flash of light. She stepped briskly towards the center of the Eye-of-XANA platform, then began to sing. As she sang, she rode the current of energy to the upper platform of the tower, where she walked to the center, typed In her name, and completed the time-honored tower deactivation sequence:

NAME:

AELITA

CODE:

LYOKO

            She glanced at the floor.

            “Return to the past now.”

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            XANA saw the bubble of time-alteration racing towards her.

            She knew that her plan to suck the city dry of energy had failed.

            A replicon, standing somewhat behind her, and hearing strange sounds coming from his mistress, glanced fearfully up at her to see if she was crying.

            She wasn’t.

            Her laughter, long and dark and full of sinister plots and plans, continued right up to the point where the bubble engulfed her.

            IN SECTOR 5 AKA “CARTHAGE…”

            “I’m sorry, father. The warriors managed to deactivate the towers, and now they have power back to their facilities.”

            The old man sighed and rubbed his hand across his brow.

            “Well,” he began, on the plus side, we did get eighty-six percent of the power we require… and that has pushed up our timeline for success greatly… So no real harm done. Too bad we weren’t able to get total success…”

            XANA smirked. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that that was all we accomplished, father…”

            Her father perked up. “What’s that?”

            “You do happen to realize that I was able to implant a darkchip into one of their members, correct?”

            “Into a human?”

            “Yes.”

            “… nice work. In fact, I have just the plan where this sort of thing would be excellent…”

            “Really, father? What is it?”

            “All in good time, my dear, all in good time. In the meantime, how’s Forte doing? Are your sync rates comparable?”

            XANA scowled at her father’s image. “Yes, we’re doing admirably. I would estimate that we are at a sixty-two percent sync rate. And Forte is being… himself. He’s wondering why he has to do, in his words, ‘Such menial, degrading work suitable for a Mettaur.’”

            She took a breath, then burst out, “Father, why do we have to ready ourselves for implantation? I was able to fight off Cadence alone last time, why can’t I just-”

            “I WILL HEAR NO DISOBEDIANCE!!!” roared the old man. “I did not spend so much time working hard to copy so many of Hopper and Cossak’s stupid programs to have my efforts wasted by the likes of one naysayer.”

            “And if you’ll recall,” he shot at her sharply, “Cadence nearly DESTROYED you the first time. And the second time,” he gave her a look of rage, “Cadence was rusty and didn’t even know what she was capable of, not to mention YOU knew what you were facing this time, and you STILL lost! If it were not for my own skill and your natural defenses, you would be junk data floating on the breeze! You still think that you do not need the Heart of Darkness?” he cried.

            XANA winced visibly. “N…n-no, father, of cou-”

            “Good,” he interrupted. “Now, what we are to do with the human-” but his watch interrupted him. “Damn,” he muttered, “I’ll just send you the plans later. By the way…” he added, almost as an aside, “Make sure that you launch an attack sometime in the next twenty four hours, and make sure that you send lots of monsters against the dark human.”

            With that, he terminated the connection, leaving XANA embarrassed and fuming.

            Didn’t that crazy old man ever think that maybe, just maybe, she would be sufficient to destroy the Lyoko Warriors? After all, she could take on each and every one of them in single combat and win.

            Still, that annoying little voice in the back of her head replied, You did fudge the last time you fought Bass.

            ‘No way!’ she thought. ‘I won that fight fair and square.’

            Yeah, by having Alpha distract him and then stabbing him.

            ‘Shut up,’ she mentally muttered, rubbing her arm and side, tracing the outline of the massive scar that was the physical reminder of where the energy blast of Cadence had ripped her open.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            Odd woke up with a small cry, drenched in sweat.

            Ulrich turned over, still about eighty percent asleep, but caring enough to mutter, “Wasgooenon?” (What’s going on?)

            Odd turned and replied shakily, “Nothing. Nothing at all… just a bad dream… a really bad dream…”

            Ulrich, however, wasn’t even awake enough to understand, he had gone straight back to sleep right after he made his barely intelegable remark.

            Odd closed his eyes. The dream- nay, nightmare, he knew, had been so unbelievably vivid…

The dream ended there, leaving Odd to ponder its meaning.

            Why had Bass killed all those people? Wasn’t he supposed to be a good guy? And what was the deal with Bass calling him brother? Why had he even had the dream at all?

            All Odd knew was that these nightmares had started just after the Scyphizoa had attacked him about a week ago. After the fourth night, he had gone to Jeremie, but it seemed that nothing was wrong or had changed about him, according to the scanners.

            Odd sighed a deep sigh. He then pulled his covers over himself and fell back into a fitful sleep, plagued with visions of purple flame and a dark, menacing voice…

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            In the most remote part of the desert sector, a tower rumbled as a new source of power entered it, charging it with power.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            In the darkness of the Undernet, just beyond the Forest Sector Gate, the hunter waited.

            The shadows themselves seemed to quiver in fear of the hunter, but still, he was patient.

            He could wait for all eternity, if need be.

            He had seen Replicons scurrying out of the portal, and he knew more would soon.

            He couldn’t open the portal himself, so he waited.

            And the instant that the portal opened…

            XANA would die.

Sithking Zero: Nothing but Good ‘ol Heart of a Warrior belongs to me.

Well, I missed last year, so let me say this right now:


HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Yes, it was on this day two years ago, October 9, 2005, while watching Season Two of Code Lyoko, that I uploaded the first chapter of Heart of a Warrior.

Now, Thirty-seven chapters and two stories later, we find ourselves today: Here, now. A more complex and sophisticated individual writing them, with more subtle and powerful tools of writing.

I have to thank a lot of people. First off, my parents, without whom I would not exist, All my reviewers, especially Shademan V.39, one of my most faithful reviewers, my sister, who is my Artistic muse, my friends, including Hannah, Robert, Brandon… you guys know who you are! Next on the list are the directors of my school’s Anime Club, Mr. Thomas and Mr. McMeel, (The latter of which dines entirely upon Hobos). You  guys just make my day.

I’d also like to thank the fellow authors: CBIzumi (one of the few Megaman/CL crossover artists), Franken-XANA (who, despite my joking allegations of copying me became a good friend), Digifruit (Super awesome writer), Clamp Lover (Super awesome Megaman writer), Vulpix1000, Lune-Solei (She wrote an AMAZING JXA songfic for me), Mirielle, TB3, Neko-Salosa, Bobby-Neko, Radiant Beam, Blitz Chick (GO LITTLE SIS!!!), Atreyu452 (Hikari Enzann really got me into Fanfic writing, you know), and Chise Yamaguchi.

Last, but most certainly not least, all of my characters that I’ve worked with!

Zero: About time we get some respect.

Roll: Yeah, we haven’t gotten any attention at all in years!

Matt: Come on, what’s the holdup?

Maylu: Come on, guys…

Me: Sorry, guys, but your story was just too… n00bish. Sorry, it was too bugged up.

Zero: WHAT?!?
Me: Oh, relax! I’m still using you for my personal stories!

Matt: Whadayamean? How come he gets to be in your stories?!?

Me: … You ARE me, remember?

Matt: Oh, yeah…

Sigma.exe: I’m honestly glad I’m out of work right now. It was kinda boring working for you…

Me: Oh, really?

Sigma.exe: Yeah, this way I know it’s really over, rather then being unemployed for months at a time.

Beta.exe: You stole that from “Bob and George.”

Sigma: Yeah, I know.

Beta.exe: You’re lucky, you know. You were at least used in the story! I was only a shadowy figure in the background.

Me: :Sweatdrop:

(Ominous looming shadow behind me)

(Hands grab my neck)

Bass: What’s the big idea?!?

Me: (Gasp) What?!?!?

Bass: You’re ALREADY starting a new story when ours isn’t even half-done yet?

Aelita: Yeah, and on our birthday, too!
Yumi: You should be ashamed of yourself!
Ulrich: Kinda low, man.

Odd: Why, I oughta-

XANA: Does this mean I win?

Everyone: NO!!!

XANA: Jeez… Just wondering…

Me: BASS!
Aelita: Ummm… Brother, could you stop choking him? If he dies, we kinda… die as well…

Bass: No, we won’t. Only Sigma, Matt, Zero, Beta, and the representation of XANA will die! The rest of us are canon characters!

Jeremie: Actually, because the forms of us that are shown here are in essence how Sithking Zero perceives us, if he goes, we all go.

(Bass lets me go)

Bass: Fine, you win… this round.

Me: YOU ASSHOLE!!!
Bass: I was well within my rights to defend my story if-

Me: YOU DUMBASS, DIDN’T YOU KNOW?!?

Bass: Know what?
Me: YOU’RE going to be in my next story, crap-for-brains!

Bass:… That was a bad idea, right?

Me: YES!!!

Bass: Who will I be working with?

Megaman.exe: Is this the right studio?

Agumon: I think so. What do you think, Tai?

Tai: looks right to me!

Bass:… you will die. Slowly, and painfully… you will all die.

Me: You do act more like yourself in the new story, if that helps…

Bass: You mean, never quite helping, being a general badass, and just causing havoc and destruction?

Me: Pretty much.

Bass: … And-

Me: Yes, there will be a masseuse on site.

Bass:…

Me: And free baguettes.

Bass: SIGN ME UP!!!

So, the casting call for all my stories up to Heart of a Warrior III: Warrior’s Redemption, Chapter 11 are:

SIGMA.EXE: WRAITH OF THE MAVERICKS

Matt Stanek

Zero Omega.exe

Roll.exe

Maylu Sakurai

Sigma.exe

Mr. Famous

Dexter

Beta.exe

HEART OF A WARRIOR:

Bass

Aelita

Jeremie

Ulrich
Sissi

William

Yumi

Odd

Franz Hopper

XANA

Mysterious Old Man ™

Protoman.exe

Chaud Blaze

Dr. Cossak

HEART OF A WARRIOR II: TRIALS OF THE WARRIORS

An Invid Tripetaled Flower of Life

Bass

Forte

XANA

Replicons

HEART OF A WARRIOR III: WARRIOR’S REDEMPTION

Bass
Aelita

Jeremie

Franz Hopper

Yumi

Ulrich

Odd

Chaud Blaze

Forte
XANA
Mysterious old man ™

Protoman

Serenade

Dr. Cossak
Replicons

Well, it’s been two years since I Started this great work, and hopefully, it’ll be over way before then.

HERE’S TO THE NEXT TWO YEARS OF WRITING GREATNESS!!!

-Sithking Zero

Sithking Zero: Hi. Megaman, Code Lyoko, and all related companies don’t belong to me. At all.

Go away…

Trust me, there will be a HUGE revelation soon. Something that will make you question all that you know about this story. Yes… my secret is coming closer and closer to being revealed!!!

But… that’s not important… yet.

            The morning was dark. Very dark. Unusually dark for seven o’clock in the morning. As in, pitch-black. It was fairly unsettling, even for Jim, who had apparently seen and done many strange things.

            The finned figure glaring out at Jeremie from the computer monitor was not happy about the climactic change that morning. Granted, no one was, but he was ESPECIALLY angry.

            “Why haven’t you gone to Lyoko yet?” he demanded, shaking a fist in front of the camera to emphasize his anger at the blonde computer genius.

            Jeremie sighed, then replied, “The reason is because the classes have been canceled, and we’re supposed to stay in our rooms. If we were to all leave, Jim would get suspicious again. Do you want that?”

            Bass’ already foul expression soured greatly. “Though the blithering idiot can’t do much damage on his own, he could tell someone more… important. And then kiss the world goodbye…” his voice trailed off.

            “Exactly.” Jeremie massaged his forehead with his fingers, trying to work out some sort of incredible brainwave that would save them all. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him.

            “Bass…” he asked the finned computer program slowly, “You’ve said before that Net Navis can cause destruction in the real world by causing electronic devices to malfunction, right?”

            “Yes.” He said this without the slightest hint of sorrow or regret.

            “I have an idea…”

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            Jim, imagining himself as a valiant guardian of the children, stood watchful and attentive at the door to the boiler room. The obese gym teacher was ready for anything, and he was so sure in his state of readiness that he completely missed a slight scraping noise in the hallway.

            Without warning, a crackle escaped the PA system.

            “Jim Moreales, Please Report to Principal Delmas’ office. I repeat, Jim Moreales, please report to Principal Delmas’ office. Thank you.”

            Jim started, having spaced out slightly. With a distinct set of well-chosen words for the PA system and the night-like blackness, he stormed off.

            Almost immiediately, five silhouettes crept into the room, clinging to their flashlights as though their very lives depended on them. And for all they knew, they did. Who knew what lurked out there in the darkness?

            From the back of one of the smaller figures, a dull, bored, tinny sound came to their ears.

            “Okay, he’s gone. Can we go now?”

            Five lights clicked on, the door was opened, and they disappeared into the darkness.

--- --- --- --- --- --- ---

TIMESKIP

The four Lyoko Warriors dropped down to the surface of the mountain sector. Moments later, like some sort of giant ghost, a brown-clad figure rocketed up from below the platform, hovering in the air for a moment before touching down on the rocks.

Bass nodded to Aelita, than began to speak.

“The tower is north of here. We should get moving.”

With that, he began to walk away at a relaxed pace, giving the Lyoko Warriors time to catch up.

The others almost immiediately broke into a jog, but Odd did not. He was crouched on the ground, holding his stomach. Something felt… WRONG…

On cue, Jeremie’s tinny voice cut through the skies.

“Odd? What’s wrong? You’re lagging behind!”

The pain in his insides throbbed, than vanished without a trace.

Slowly, he got to his feet, a little wobbly, than fine once again.

“Yeah, I’m okay Jeremie. I think I ate something that disagreed with me…”

“It happens to all of us sometimes. Head north, I can’t materialize the Overboard, not enough machine resources. Sorry!”

“That’s okay, Jeremie. We know you’re doing your best.”

With that, Odd dashed off, failing to notice the black hornet tailing him from a distance…

--- --- --- --- --- ---

IN SECTOR FIVE…

XANA sat in a hard, angular chair, constructed from the same materiel as the rest of the sector.

“I really have to find softer chairs…” she grumbled as she tried desperately to get comfortable.

Suddenly, a window opened up in space, showing the progress of the purple cat-boy.

With a predatory smile, she stopped fidgeting and began to watch the child, even as his laser arrows began to eat away at the enemy ranks.

Still smiling, she tapped the chair’s arm in a spot seemingly unlike the rest.

Almost instantly, a window appeared, her father’s visage taking its place.

It took the old man a moment or two to realize that he was on camera, but responded quickly once he did.

“XANA?” he asked, confused. “What is it? You know you’re not supposed to use this line- it can be tracked!” he cried angrily.

“Oh, I know that, Father,” she replied soothingly. “But I thought that you should see the human we’ve gifted first-hand.”

A smile spread across his face.

“Patch it through.”

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

It was dark. The campsite, so long abandoned, was once again the site of a mighty, roaring campfire, as it had had once before. That had come mere hours before a great journey had taken place.

He certainly hoped it would help.

As though luck was on his side, as the fire reached its peak, a loud crackling sound rent the air.

He stood up. Surely he was not this fortunate. Surely, He said to himself, such luck simply did not exist!

He stood up, rippling the fabric that clung to him. The crackling electrical noise grew louder and louder as he walked towards it.

He finally stood before the source of the disturbance. At the source, a series of concentric circles, floating in midair, existed. The circles were not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, as they appeared to be more like cracks than anything else.

Carefully, He stretched out a gloved hand towards the circles, than recoiling as a tiny spark leapt to them.

Growling in anger, He let his power flow through his hands, and plunged them through the center of the circle. With an almighty grunt, he wrenched the hole in space open.

Holding it with but a fraction of his strength, he stepped through casually.

“Hey!”

He turned. Two Replicons were guarding the entrance to the Portal, and were now aiming weapons towards him.

“Halt!” “Surrender!”

He glanced at both of them.

Moments later, both of the Replicons were dead- rent to their elementary particles.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Odd leapt through the air, feeling… something.

He knew something was different about how he was fighting, but he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly.

Ulrich watched as Odd fought, as well. He noticed something had changed.

Ulrich noticed that Odd was no longer the prankster of the Lyoko Warriors.

Rather, Odd… was now a berserker.

Kankrelots, Krabes, even Megatanks melted away before him as he fired arrows with reckless abandon into their eyes, monsters exploding with chilling precision.

Two Hornets attempted to sting him with their poisonous stingers, but Odd pivoted, growled, blasted one of them, and jumped. His trajectory intersected with the Hornet, and he grabbed onto it, digging deep into its flesh with his claws, than snapping it in two with a twist of his wrist.

He wasn’t done yet, though. Grabbing the front half of the deceased Hornet, he snapped off the stinger, landed on the ground, and dashed for the nearest Megatank. Dodging left and right, he avoided the creature’s elliptical laser blasts, and plunged the stinger into the Eye.

The survivors, terrified of the thing before them- surely, this wasn’t the same Purple Warrior who had been so easy to beat before?- began to form a semicircle around the berserker.

Suddenly, even as they were deploying, the monsters froze.

Aelita was walking calmly out of the tower, and it was slowly returning to a normal blue hue.

Odd glared at the monsters as they left, but said nothing.

--- --- --- --- --- --- -- -- -- ---

XANA smiled happily at her father as he beamed at her in pride.

“Well done, my d-d-d-dear,” he said, distortion playing across the screen. “I look f-f-f-orrrrr—d to---”

Suddenly, the old man vanished in a blast of static.

XANA immiediately began to tweak the frequency, hoping to find the correct channel and eliminate the interference.

She got close to the monitor, thinking that she saw her father’s face through the static.

It was not her father’s face.

Two crimson eyes gazed out of the screen at her, malice and hatred practically dripping from their stare.

“XANA.” Came the voice that haunted XANA’s nightmares, “I am coming for you.  I will have my REVENGE!!!”

--- --- --- ---

Sithking Zero: For the love of god… I hate this chapter… I hate it so… But HEART OF A WARRIOR IS BACK, BABY!!!

Please review… I miss them so…

Sithking Zero: ‘Sup? HOAW is mine. Cadence, Replicons, plot, basic design of XANA, mine. Inspiration for XANA’s design, Sylentnite on Deviantart. Most characters and things in the story: Property of Moonscoop and Capcom, when it really boils down to it, you know?

Well, Things are gearing up to a huge climax. And though it’s been a long time, the whole reason behind the entire story is coming soon.

New Chapter.

Same Heart.

10:45 PM, SECTOR FIVE:

            XANA sat in her comfortable control room, fuming quietly. Not brooding, as that would be a sort of controlled anger mixed with sadness, but this was fuming, a low-level, simmering rage that threatened to bubble over. She had already vaporized several Kankrelots that had happened to get in her way at the time, and more than one Replicon was making use of its healing powers by this point.

“Boss get you down?”

That voice, so similar to that of her most ancient foe, caused her to start slightly, before she realized its identity.

“CAN IT, Forte, I’m not in the mood!” she snarled, turning her chair away from the dark navi.

A soft chuckle caused the hairs on the back of her neck to raise slightly.

“But of course you’re not. Things aren’t progressing on schedule, are they?”

She remained silent, while a distinctly sibilant smile slid across Forte’s shadowed face.

“I guess ‘Daddy Dearest,’ isn’t afraid to reprimand you, is he?”

For any normal man, the aura of hatred now surrounding XANA would have been a clear sign to stop, but Forte continued.

“Awww… are you gonna cry? You couldn’t even keep a simple line secure,” his voice was like a whip, gouging with each crack, “So you deserved whatever it was that you-”

With a snarl, XANA vaulted over the back of her seat, katana drawn mid-jump, and she slammed a fist into the center of his chest, knocking the dark navi to the wall with a grunt of pain escaping from the taller program.

She glared rage into his eyes as he stared down at her.

“Just remember, FORTE,” she hissed, emphasizing his name, “That without MY Darkchips, you wouldn’t even EXIST right now!”

“And you,” he snapped, “Would do well to remember who exactly is the one who’s making sure that Belpois doesn’t catch on and ruin everything? Or perhaps you should remember who is the one gathering the necessary information on every single one of them? Maybe you’ve forgotten-”

“ENOUGH!” she cried angrily, her katana’s tip scratching his throat.

Forte’s insane smile crept further up his face. “Or maybe, you don’t even know why you’re doing this anymore…”

The Katana flickered down, and there was a slight twinge of pain from Forte as the blade entered his side. He glanced at it momentarily, before turning his blood-colored eyes to her aquamarine gaze.

“You are out of order.” He hissed, hands grabbing hold of the blade. With barely a hint of effort, he wrenched the razor-sharp metal from his side, tossing it away from himself. He did this all without removing his gaze from hers, and followed by spinning and slamming her into the wall, hand covered in purple lightning.

“You can’t do this,” she breathed.

“I can. The Doctor may be patient; I am not.”

“You don’t understand. Father needs confirmation of the Spore project, and we still don’t have enough energy-”

“We have more than enough energy to finish it!” he snarled.

“We don’t. If you even knew what we were doing-”

“Your project to turn the Warriors to Darkloids? Or about the Regenesis project?”

XANA’s eyes widened. “H-how-” She stuttered.

“I am the most powerful NetNavi in existence. I think the firewall you put up was more an insult than anything else, personally. And such information! You really shouldn’t put all your data in one place, dear XANA.” He reached out to condescendingly pat the top of her armored head. “Or perhaps I should call you by your true name, Ir-”

Her hand whistled through the air, swatting away the offending appendage.

“Get out.” She growled.

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere, Zanny,” He whispered, black lightning racing up and down his form. His wound was already healed, and his fins were starting to gain purple streaks that flickered like fire. “In fact, I think I’m gonna stay here a lot more from now on. No more pretending…”

Her virtual blood turned to ice. “What?”

“I’ve just received confirmation from the Doctor. We’re moving out on the final plan for the extermination of the Warriors.”

“You can’t be serious! The cloaks haven’t been tested fully yet, and the siphons are still in need of recalibration!”

“Than you have twelve hours,” he said nastily, “And after that, we go ahead anyway.”

“You’re a fool. He intercepted the transmission, and he knows that I’m still alive. How much longer before he senses your power and finishes you off like the rest of your brethren?”

“By then it won’t matter. Aelita will be dead and we can take him easily.”

“Can you even HEAR yourself?” she gasped, “You can’t beat him. It’s impossible. He’ll take everything you are, and even than…”

“You assume much, Darkling,” he hissed. “You have twelve hours.”

He appeared to burst into black flames, and was gone.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

2:00 PM, KADIC ACCADEMY

Ulrich Stern was probably one of the most “Normal” boys in the group of children that called themselves “The Lyoko Warriors.”

He wasn’t a geek (Jeremie), a weirdo Casanova (Odd), or a dark god of destruction (Bass).

As such, he seemed to be plagued with more of the normal sort of problems, such as low grades or inability to admit his true feelings about a certain black-haired Japanese girl.

However, because he was more “Normal,” than his friends, he also had a great advantage: Ulrich Stern was a far more capable people-watcher. He could sense the mood in a crowd, or read a person’s problems, or show/feel far more empathy than they could.

As such, he could feel that something in the air was utterly, and completely, wrong. It wasn’t something that he- or any of the other students, for that matter- could positively identify, but there was a definite sense of unease flowing through the school.

It was currently lunchtime, and the sky was a fairly even gray. Utterly featureless, and perfectly smooth, it was positively depressing. Suddenly, something flitted at the edge of his vision.

His senses already on high alert, he tried to casually glance towards the source of the disturbance without drawing suspicion.

There was nothing there. Suddenly, he saw it again- this time, closer to the cafeteria.

He saw… something. But than it was gone again. Slowly, discretely, Ulrich began to ease his cell phone out of his pocket, carefully trying to turn it on without raising suspicion.

Even as he did this, the flicker returned, and this time from the top of a building. Ulrich pivoted quickly, and this time, even the swift motions of the monster couldn’t save it: A cube-shaped form with a bulls-eye mark in the center was ducking down below the building’s edge.

Throwing caution to the winds, Ulrich ripped his phone from his pocket, slamming one finger down on the speed-dial button. Immiediately, a dial tone could be heard, and Ulrich pressed another button.

Across the school, Jeremie picked up his cell, glancing at the caller ID. His expression turned to stone as he saw the Eye of XANA staring back at him from his cell, Ulrich’s voice in the caller ID box.

He moved his hands to try to activate the Superscan, but it was too late.

A loud whining screech reached Jeremie’s ears from the courtyard, and he paused in horror.

He had heard that sound before, just after he had used “Code Earth,” on Aelita for the first time. It was XANA’s first attack involving the materialization of monsters.

It was the sound of laser fire.

To be continued…

Sithking Zero: Sorry for the short chapter. Just felt like it.

So, as a summary, Forte returns! Sort of. You’ll understand later. Also, no signs of Bass in this chapter. The secret, having laid dormant for so very long, is close to being revealed…

Please Review!

Heart of a Warrior III:
Warrior’s Redemption

Chapter 14:
Betrayal
Part II

Jeremie stumbled from his room, laptop clutched to his chest, as the fire alarms began to shriek their siren song. He dashed as fast as he could before making it to the stairwell, than strapped the laptop to his back for safekeeping.

He made his way down the stairs as quickly as possible, pausing at a window to view the chaos below.

It was utter pandemonium. Bloks, suttling back and forth, were firing ice beams and fire rings at will at the students and teachers, who were trying to escape. Some were trying to fight back, though- Jim had grabbed a crowbar and was attempting to bash one to pieces. The remains of two deceased Bloks behind him were proof that the tactic could succeed, though burns were now visible beneath his clothes, and his jacket was smoking in several places. However, even as he bashed away at the cubically-shaped monster, another snuck up behind him and froze him up to his neck in ice.

Jeremie continued down the flights of stairs, pulling out his cell and calling the Supercomputer mainframe.

There were several rings, and Jeremie pressed a few more buttons, and a small circle appeared on the caller ID slot, with a diagonal slash through it.

“Jeremie?” came the voice of their ally.

“Bass. It’s awful. There are Bloks everywhere, and we need to get to the factory!”

“I’m on my way. Just be careful- things up there might get worse…”

Three beings in Lyoko heard Jeremie’s words. One responded to them verbally, and began to move towards a tower.

Another began her own preparations to activate another tower.

The final one, wrapped in his cape, flickered slightly and vanished.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Aelita hopper was crouched behind an overturned table, hearing the rapid thuds and bangs of laserfire against the door.

Suddenly, her cell rang. She whipped it out, recognizing the caller ID immiediately.

“Jeremie? Where are you?”

“I’m heading for the boiler room. Ulrich’s pinned down in the courtyard, and I can’t get hold of Yumi!”

“The Bloks froze her, Jeremie. She took an ice blast for me,” Aelita responded. She glanced next to her, at Odd. He was staring at the door with an icy look in his eyes. Aelita took a moment to respond, unsettled by his seriousness. “Odd’s with me, though. Try to meet us in the Cafeteria. We can get through to the boiler rooms from there.”

“Sounds like a plan. And Aelita?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful. I just spoke to Bass, and he seems to think that something bad is going to happen. Just… try to stay alive, okay?”

“Of course, Jeremie. I love you.”

“I love you too, princess.”

Then, he hung up.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

AT THE FACTORY…

In a secret chamber, hidden from the public eye, a tall scanner opened with a slight hiss, followed by escaping steam.

Out stepped a tall figure. At six foot even, he was an impressive height, and his golden fins made him even more so. His brown cape fluttered in the ventilation of scanner, and he smiled slightly.

Wordlessly, he walked forwards, pressing one button on the elevator on one side of the room. Two huge bars began to retract themselves, and the massive lock in the center of the door sparked, shifted, and twisted. Slowly, the huge doors opened, revealing an unassuming freight elevator. Without any further ceremony, the figure climbed in.

The massive, EMP-proof doors slid shut with astounding precision, only a few small thudding noises marking their closure. But these thuds were intermingled with a whirring hum, followed shortly afterwards by a loud hiss as steam and vapor poured out of a now-open scanner…

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Jeremie, normally the one working behind-the-scenes and away from the action, found himself creeping along the side of the dorm building, trying hard not to be seen by horrible, extradimensional monsters.

For what it was worth, these Bloks were acting strangely, he reflected. They seemed to move in fixed paths, either crawling or blasting anything that got in their way, unless they saw someone. Than, after freezing them, they would be taken to the center of the courtyard by a team of what looked like modified Bloks, with two short arms instead of four-directional eyes.

“What’s going on?” he muttered to himself. He knew that the humans were being rounded up, and he knew that, for some reason, the humans weren’t deliberately being harmed. The true question was, for what purpose?

Jeremie crouched down on the ground, hidden from view of the Blok patrols, and pulled out his laptop. Waiting for it to connect to the school’s wireless network, he set up the superscan, waiting until a secure connection onto the internet could be established before checking Lyoko.

A small light flickered in the bottom-right corner of the screen, indicating a connection was made. Smiling slightly, he hit the enter key. Towers on Lyoko, superimposed over a forest-green screen, flitted across the window, faster and faster. It paused on some, only momentarily, but than continued on with the scan.

Jeremie’s eyes widened in shock as a small message came back:

NO ACTIVATED TOWERS FOUND. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTINUE? Y/N?

He frowned, hitting the “Y” key, hoping desperately for results. Several minutes passed, and the same results were yielded. The message was clear: nowhere on Lyoko was there an activated tower.

Jeremie was staring in disbelief at the screen when a loud explosion rocked him back to the real world. Quickly, he slammed the laptop closed, and shot to his feet, ready to make a run for the cafeteria if XANA’s forces were making a move against him.

But when he cautiously peered around the corner, the stretch of ground leading to the cafeteria was littered with pieces of monsters and multiple smoldering craters. Standing in front of the Cafeteria, looking almost bored, was Bass, arms folded over his chest.

Jeremie smiled, but glanced around once more, checking to make sure that no Bloks were visible. When he was sure that there weren’t any there, he jogged out from behind cover to reach the building before any more trouble showed up.

Bass’ eyes widened as he saw the blonde running towards him.

“Ah, Jeremie!” he called pleasantly. “It’s a good thing you’re here. I need to discuss something with you.”

Jeremie slowed and stopped a few feet from the caped Navi. “Sure, what’s up?”

Bass clapped his hands together in front of himself.

“Jeremie, are you familiar with the concept of bait?”

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Aelita heard the explosions, but because the students had piled a large amount of garbage and tables against the wall, was unable to see exactly what had happened.

Carefully, and ignoring the protests of some of the other students, she carefully pulled a piece of wood aside. It didn’t do much, but she could see Bass and Jeremie standing outside, and heard the muffled sound of them talking to each other. It was fairly quiet outside. Still, she wondered why the two didn’t just enter and take her and Odd to the factory, and stop this madness.

These thoughts and fears were banished in an instant as she watched Bass slam his fist into Jeremie’s stomach, lifting him off the ground and throwing him twenty feet, where he lay on the ground, curled in a ball.

Aelita began to desperately claw at the pile of debris blocking the door, and after a moment, Odd joined in.

Outside, Bass was punishing Jeremie in ways that seemed hellish. Black lightning raced along his arms, causing the boy to arch his back and scream. The screams continued as he reached out to the teen’s arms, breaking them square in the middle of the bones, before making a fist around the computer genius’ hand, pulverizing the boy’s fingers. His legs were immobilized with swift downward kicks, causing loud cracking sounds that echoed off of the walls of the buildings.

In order to give the boy a respite, the navi tore the laptop from his back and, with a flash of power, vaporized it. After that, he pumped more black lightning into the prone boy’s form. Screams wrenched themselves from the boy’s tortured body, and bruises blossomed across his body, the sub-dermal bloodloss growing quickly.

The creature’s perverse, demonic “Fun” was interrupted by a shrill shrieking. A pink blur raced past the navi, and dropped to her knees besides Jeremie. Aelita was staring in horror at Jeremie’s horrid appearance, tears seeping down her face.

She finally spun around, rage in her eyes. “BASS!! What is the matter with you? Why did you-”

Her tirade was cut off as the cloaked navi backhanded her across the face, sending her flying. She hit the ground and rolled, finally coming to a stop. She scrambled to her feet, but she was shaky.

The navi stared at her, a dark, perverse glee permeating his violet eyes.

“You’re wrong, my dear,” came his voice, and the cloak dropped away. His jumpsuit was slowly beginning to turn purple, and the fins were gaining spikes. Two huge skeletal bird’s wings stretched from his back, and the golden sections of his armor turned to silver. His fins were glowing purple, and his canines were elongating slightly.

“You’re wrong because you can’t grasp how utterly stupid you are.” His voice was now several shades higher than before, and almost had a reverb. “You have been calling me by that name for months now, and you still can’t grasp who I am. You never noticed. Ever.”

He began to walk over, deliberately grinding his foot into Jeremie’s hand as he passed. “You haven’t seen Bass since he left after the Battle in Sector Five. He’s been gone and hasn’t looked back once.” His hostile look gave way to a sympathetic one. “Though in your defense, I do rather look like him, don’t I?” he laughed as he approached, and Aelita backed away as fast as she could.

“Wh…who are…” she stammered, before she tripped into one of the holes blasted into the ground by the new person mere minutes earlier.

She rolled to the bottom, and the navi stood at the edge of the crater. She pointed at him.

“You’re working for XANA, aren’t you?” She cried.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Aaaaahhh… just the person I wanted to see. Though not exactly in that position…

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

“Working for XANA?” he burst out laughing after this accusation.

“We’re partners, for the moment,” he stated, after gaining control of his laughter. “But I think, after you die, I’ll change that slightly.”

He raised one hand above his head. A ball of condensed black lightning and yellow lightning began to coalesce in his hand, swirling and twisting upon itself.

“Do you have any idea what it was like? Pretending?” he snarled softly. “Every moment of that was torture. I had to pretend to be everything that I was not. I am not sympathetic. I am not a friend. I am a conqueror. An Emperor-to-be. I do not love. I do not regret. And I do not show mercy.”

The ball of energy was as big as a basketball now. It was glowing faintly, but in such a way that it appeared to absorb light.

“My name is Forte. And it will be the last name that you will ever hear.”

He reared his arm back. “DARKNESS….”

Aelita screamed, screwing her eyes shut against the inevitable.

“OVERLO-”

“EARTHBREAKER!!”

A sudden brilliance erupted, brilliantly enough to hurt her eyes even behind the closed lids.

When she opened them again, Forte was gone. The Administration building was now partially collapsed, and her crater was now part of a much larger crater.

There was a soft tapping noise, and Aelita spun around to see the source.

A tall figure was standing behind her on the lip of the hole. A long, brown cloak fluttered in the slight breeze. A circular symbol stood in the middle of his chest, in the shape of a lowercase “F.” Golden gauntlets and white gloves adorned his hands, and twin golden fins seemed to glow in the sun. Gold-and-black boots covered his feet, and two lightning-bolt designs ran up the sides of his black jumpsuit.

The figure had two purple marks below his crimson eyes, but those eyes were trained on the administration building’s ruins.

Suddenly, they flickered downwards to her prone form.

The two locked eyes, and for a moment, a connection between the two was forged.

Then, he spoke.

“Hello, Aelita.” Came his deep voice. “Unlike Forte…”

He returned his gaze to the ruins, out of which a clawed hand could be seen.

“My name is Bass,” He began,

“We need to talk.”

Heart of a Warrior III:
Warrior’s Redemption

Chapter 15:
Betrayal Part III

Aelita stared in shock at the figure before her. Then, her eyes narrowed.

“How do I know you’re who you say you are? How do I know you’re not another fake?”

Bass’ eyes flickered back to hers.

“You don’t. But consider this to be a lucky break for you. Take Jeremie and Odd to the factory. Stop the tower. Hurry.” He answered in a monotone voice.

She looked at him and nodded. Then, she turned around and ran to Jeremie’s prone form, whom Odd was trying to pick up gingerly. His size, (or lack thereof), prevented him from doing so, and Aelita had to help him.

Bass’ eyes followed her and Odd, and they narrowed as they looked at the purple-clad boy. There’s something off about him… he thought, wondering about the faint energy he could feel radiating off of him.

Suddenly, the remaints of the administrative building exploded in a ball of black energy and debris. Forte’s violet eyes smoldered with hatred, and a faint purple energy seemed to flow from his body. His wings were fully extended now, rigid and glinting dangerously.

Bass turned to look at the navi with what appeared to be a blank expression, but his eyes told a different story. They, too, smoldered with hatred and fury at the one who had dared impersonate the Black Shadow.

“Why did you stop me?!” snarled Forte, taking a step forwards and slashing diagonally with his clawed hand. “With your hatred for humans, you should be helping me!”

Bass scoffed, pulling off his cloak to allow for more freedom of movement.

“I hate humans, true. But I happen to dislike XANA and your REAL boss much more.”

Forte looked shocked for a second, and Bass continued. “You didn’t really think that I wouldn’t figure it out? A half-baked assault on my home by half-baked freaks, wearing big “W’s” on their chest, and you thought I wouldn’t be able to figure it out?”

“We seek to remake the world, you filthy hypocrite. At least we try to make things better!”

Bass didn’t bother to dignify the accusation with a verbal response. Rather, he decided to dash forwards to punch Forte’s head in. Forte backflipped over some debris, swiping at Bass with glowing, purple, clawed hands.

The Black Shadow leaned back, and the claws swiped mere inches away from his face, leaving a black scar of night-colored power in its wake. In bending back, however, he left himself open to the direct kick that impacted with his abdomen, sending him flying across the courtyard, and into the science hall.

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

TIME SKIP

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

Aelita and Odd gently laid Jeremie down on the ground, face up, on the floor of the lab.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Odd whispered, fear trickling into his voice.

Aelita paused for a moment before looking at the purple-clad boy, her face a stony mask.

“No, I don’t think so. Forte…” at this point, she had to stop and blink back tears from her eyes.

Odd placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Shh… Princess, it’s going to be okay…”

A few more tears leaked out of her eyes

“We just need to get to the tower, okay?”

She nodded.

“So… can you send us? If I did it, I’d probably wind up giving us extra arms or something...”

The pink-haired princess of Lyoko smiled slightly through her tears, and walked to the terminal, starting the process.

-- -- -- -- -- --

Bass, clutching his arm, picked his way slowly out of the rubble. Data flowed between his fingers, and smoke rose from a thousand places around the campus.

Over half of the Bloks had been obliterated in his duel with Forte, and the remaining ones were dealing with French Special forces agents. The troops were holding out all right against the otherworldly monsters, but more reinforcements were showing up all the time, and they were simply not used to the sort of enemy that these creatures presented.

Data continued to flow between his fingers, and he winced as one of his footsteps jostled his arm uncomfortably. The wound, slowly closing of its own accord, still hurt a great deal, as it was caused by a Dark-Powered attack. Dark Power did cause him to heal slower than normal, after all…

He waited a few minutes, exploring the ruined campus. He paused at a few points, removing some students and teachers from the rubble, and leaving those that were already dead. An uncomfortable twinge came to his mind once he realized that he was, at some level, responsible for their predicament. Granted, it probably would have been worse if he HADN’T tried to stop Forte from obliterating the school, but he still felt a little bad about it.

As he helped a shaky Mrs. Hertz from the ruins of a building, he could feel her trembling in his hands.

“Are you all right, ma’am?”

She stared at him in confusion and fear.

“I…I-I think so…”

“Good. Get out of here. It’s still very dangerous around here.”

“B-but my students-”

“If they’re alive down there, I’ll get them out.”

She looked away, relief evident in her voice.

“Thank you, sir.”

Bass didn’t even bother to answer, making a noncommittal “Hn,” sound instead.

Suddenly, with a roar of light and sound, the pile of rubble that Mrs. Hertz had emerged from exploded. The school’s science teacher shrieked as a purple-clad, winged humanoid figure slammed into Bass, who barely had time to bring up his fists to block the tremendous blow.

He flew back a few feet, but his own flight powers and sheer strength prevented him from being catapulted very far. However, he was knocked off balance long enough to allow Forte to launch a barrage of kicks and punches, as well as multiple slashes with his razor-sharp, metallic wings. Slowly, the Black Shadow was being pushed back, something that had only happened a few times before, mostly by a small, blue net navi.

Bass growled as he dodged backwards, hands glowing with a nimbus of yellow light now. As Forte tried to close in on him again, Bass dodged the initial blow of the saber-sharp claws, and unleashed a terrifying blow to Forte’s face. The blow, amplified by the energy surrounding his hands, sent Forte flying away, most of his face cleanly shorn off.

“GAHAHGAGAHAGA!!” screamed the dark-powered foe, as his tounge lolled out of the side of his now-destroyed face. Bass smirked, until tiny whisps of black smoke began to form around the destroyed portion of his face, re-creating it quickly and efficiently.

The Messenger of Darkness frowned, and transformed his forearms into two identical tubes. His hands sank into his arms, and rainbow energy built itself up around the openings at the ends of his arms.

Forte’s dark smile was almost back in place when Bass cried out, “EXPLOSION!!”

Hundreds of billiard-sized balls of energy streaked from his cannons, swarming the distance between the two navis, and impacting again and again on Forte’s exposed body. Massive explosions wracked the darkling’s frame, and he shrieked in agony.

Smoke shrouded the area around the clone, and Bass stopped his assault to try to gauge its effectiveness.

A tiny, whispering hiss was all the warning his had.

Forte rocketed from the smoke, two purple energy sawblades clutched in his hands, slashing towards Bass as he screamed, “TASTE THE DARKNESS!!”

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Aelita and Odd were racing along the myriad paths of the Forest sector, blasting monsters out of the way with a combination of Laser Arrows and Energy Spheres. They didn’t know where they were going exactly, but, as Odd put it, “Where there are enemies, there’s something that they want to guard.”

“How’d you figure that?”

“Videogames. The more tough baddies there are in one area, the better the loot you get from beating them!”

Aelita had internally facepalmed at this when she first heard it, but after they had deactivated the first tower in that fashion, she had reconsidered her initial evaluation of Odd’s logic.

They were now moving towards a second tower, which Aelita had only picked up because of the Pulsations, and were currently mowing down Kankrelots and Krabes as a scythe through a field of wheat.

After almost ten minutes of fighting, they reached a circular platform, about one hundred feet across each way. Directly ahead was the path to the tower, and behind him was the walkway they had entered on. There was only one problem.

Standing in their way, was an armor-clad, smirking XANA, and about twenty Krabes.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

From a secure control room, in a secret location inside Central City, an old man watched with great satisfaction at the events occurring on Lyoko and at Kadic. Behind him, a tall man with a glass eye watched with what was clear and obvious boredom.

“Am I boring you, Regal?”

The taller man started. “N-no, Sir, I just-”

“If you want something to do, go and take care of Nebula. We can’t have too many people looking too closely at my work. It would cause… problems, to say the least.

“Of course, Sir.”

The older man watched the younger man leave, before pulling a small microphone to his mouth.

“XANA, do it now.”

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

Back in Lyoko, XANA gave a small smirk as she touched a finger to the side of her head. “Roger that, Sir.”

Aelita looked at the rogue program with confusion. “Who are you talking to?”

XANA gave an infuriatingly superior smile as she replied, “None of your business, Aelita. But I do believe that Odd and I have some business in common…”

With that, she raised a gauntleted arm, and the tower behind her, already activated, seemed to glow even brighter. The red mist surrounding it seemed to get thicker, and began to send out tiny tendrils of red that made it seem like the cream-colored pillar was on fire.

Aelita didn’t notice this, because at that exact instant, Odd exploded with violet-black energy.

“ODD?! ODD!!” She cried, watching as his form was twisted and contorted while he collapsed and writhed on the ground.

His purple jumpsuit slowly turned black, and the logo on his chest of Kiwi urinating changed into a crimson eye of XANA. His pupils turned to slits in green eyes, his claws lengthened, and his ears seemed to melt into his skin. Two new, cat-like ears sprouted up underneath his signature hair, which now had a patch of blood-colored red instead of the normal purple spot. His tail seemed to harden and become segmented, and a wicked curved blade grew from the tip. Three long, dinosaur-like claws grew from the front of each foot, and one grew from the back. Large plates began to cover his body, encasing him in dark armor.

The black aura slowly shrank into his body, and the Joker of the Lyoko Warriors rose to his feet, arms at his sides.

Aelita stared at him in fear. “…O-odd?”

Odd turned to look at his friend, malice in his eyes.

Then, he raised his arm in a familiar fashion as if he was going to fire a Laser Arrow.

Odd DellaRobia, now a servant of XANA and her dark alliance, smiled cruelly as he spoke in a heavily distorted, deep voice.

“For the Glory of Lady XANA, Lord Forte, and Doctor X, your termination shall be carried out by me. Prepare yourself, Aelita Hopper…”

Heart of a Warrior III:
Warrior’s Redemption

Chapter 16: Victory, Defeat, and Revelations

Aelita gasped as she stared down the business end of Odd’s arm, a tiny hole aimed directly for the center of her head.

“Odd…what are you doing?!” she cried, looking shocked at his betrayal.

“My only actions are those that follow the will of Lady XANA. Nothing else matters to me.”

“Very good, Odd!” XANA fake-cheered from the exit of the platform. She twitched her hand, and half of her Krabes scuttled off to secure the other exit.

“However,” she continued, “I do believe that there is a little of your old self still in there somewhere… so I have but one task for you. It’s a little thing, really,” she said, waving a hand in the air as though shooing a fly. “Just something to prove your loyalty. It’s about Ms. Hopper…”

XANA’s eyes suddenly narrowed, and her gaze sharpened to the point that it seemed as though they could see through you.

“Kill her.”

The command was still ringing in the air when Odd’s wrist erupted, and Aelita barely managed to dodge the purple bolts that were loosed at her head. She tucked her legs in and rolled to the left, springing to her feet as years of Lyoko fighting had conditioned her to do. Her hands snapped open, pink balls of shimmering light charging themselves up in her hands, crackling slightly.

“Odd, I don’t want to hurt you-” she began.

“But I want to hurt you!” came the reply. Aelita held up the two spheres of energy, holding them in place while Odd’s new purple ammo embedded themselves into them.

After a minute, Odd had to stop to reload his new weapon, and Aelita got a good look at the new shots. They weren’t the golden shards of metal that had been Odd’s previous weapon, but instead were long, crystalline shards of some kind of purple-pink jewel. She leaned in a little closer…

And all of them exploded, sending her flying backwards into a tree. Unharmed, but dazed, she blinked stars out of her eyes in time to see Odd diving for her, claws extended to their fullest, a snarl ripping out of his throat. She rolled again, and then again, as he swept his arm up as he landed, spraying the area with needle shots. She dodged left, then right, jumping and ducking under hastily aimed shots with the desperation only fear can bring.

“Odd, I don’t want to fight you,” she murmured, “But if I must, I… WILL!!” She punctuated the last word with an Energy Field attack, which slammed into Odd’s stomach. She tried to make a dash for the exit while he was preoccupied, but a barrage of lasers from the Krabes made this impossible.

By the time she scampered out of the way, Odd had fully recovered and was angry. Giving an inarticulate roar of rage, he leapt forwards, knocking her to the ground and giving her a large slash mark across her back. She gasped in pain, but struggled to her feet anyway.

He gave a deadly smile at her, as his red jewel began to glow slightly…

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Franz Hopper was nearly insane with worry. He had been monitoring his daughter’s progress on Lyoko, and had seen the plumes of smoke and heard the massive blasts from the battle between the two super-powered programs. One, he knew, he could not possibly interfere with. The other was the battle on Lyoko, where his daughter was fighting for her life against her own friend. That battle, he knew, he could do something about, but unfortunately, he was unsure of the consequences.

The program was untested, and could potentially hurt his daughter. However, at the same time, it had the potential to save her life and give her an added advantage over XANA and her allies.

Carefully, he considered his options, checked his variables, and triple-checked them. He debated. He pondered. And he carefully, carefully, hoped and prayed that the program would work as planned.

His musings were interrupted as he heard his daughter gasp in pain. He swiveled around to view the battle, and saw that Odd had dug his claws into her side. He slashed upwards, causing her to scream in pain.

Franz sprang into action, spinning back to his keyboard and typing in command codes and access codes to Lyoko. Data began to spin and reconfigure itself, and a single line of text appeared on-screen:

“HYPERLINK MODE ACTIVATED.”

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

In the skies above Kadic, strange flashes of light shone against the clouds, causing civilians to gaze towards the heavens in wonder. On a nearly cloudless day, there was what appeared to be random bursts of lightning. A few had taken to the streets, yelling about how it was the end times, but none of this mattered to the two combatants.

Bass’ cloak billowed about him as he dove forwards, only to be cut off by a razor-tipped wing slashing across his face. Hissing as a tiny stream of data escaped, Bass darted backwards to avoid a massive purple buzzsaw, while peppering Forte with his own energy blasts.

“You fool!” snarled Forte, “You compare yourself to me? You’re not strong enough to be even CONSIDERED on my level. Why the Doctor wants you dead so bad is utterly-”

“WISE!!” Bass roared as he darted in and slammed his hand through Forte’s chest.

Forte looked down at the arm now planted firmly through his upper torso, and smirked, even as his outermost extremeties began to turn into a wire frame, his skin flaking off and de-virtualizing.

“I wouldn’t say that you’re exactly wise,” Forte grinned as his legs and arms disappeared, “Especially when you only have one arm free…”

His head was nearly gone now, but he had time for one last statement, “And XANA gave me the Triplication ability…”

Even as he said this, Bass felt vise-like hands latch onto his neck, razor-sharp claws digging into his windpipe, vital data flows being blocked from his central data processor…

One hand scrambled with Forte’s clawed hand, while the other worked desperately to try to free itself from the disintegrating corpse of one of Forte’s clones. Suddenly his neck was getting twisted around, as Forte reeled his arm back.

FABOOM!!

With a loud explosion, Forte threw Bass against the ground, the Black Shadow’s body breaking the sound barrier as he plummeted. With a cacophonous thunderclap, he handily demolished the rest of the dorm rooms.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Aelita skidded across the ground. Large gashes leaked blood and data from her sides and chest, and she carefully rose onto two legs, one hand leaning heavily on a tree trunk.

With her free hand, she tentatively charged a ball of light, and held it out towards the approaching, untouched, Odd. As he approached, he smirked angrily, and fired a single shot at her.

The bolt shot through the air at supersonic speeds, and ripped straight through the Energy Field as though it were a tank through tinfoil, before blowing apart her entire forearm.

She screamed and fell to the ground, cradling the stump that used to be her arm.

Odd sneered at her as he walked up to her prone form on the ground.

Aelita stared at her friend. Things were so different now. Even the light…

Wordlessly, he raised his arm so it was pointing at the center of her forehead.

“Goodbye,” he murmured, and fired.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Time seemed to slow for the barest instant

A beam of light rocketed from the heavens, slamming down directly on top of the Princess of Lyoko. While originally finger-wide, the beam expanded to completely cover her entire body, trapping it in a column of the purest, whitest light that XANA and Odd had ever seen. But it was not just white, all the colors of the rainbow flitted across its surface, yet remained whiter than the purest snow, all at the same time.

As if in slow motion, the shard of explosive crystal poked its way out of Odd’s skin, than began to crawl at microscopic speeds towards the Princess, who was now protected by the pillar.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Aelita awoke inside the pillar, feeling oddly refreshed and relaxed. She was on her back in the middle of an infinite plane, rolling with rainbow-white smoke as far as the eye could see.

“AELITA.”

A slight whoop noise sounded just behind her, and she stood up and turned around. Her father’s face was gazing down at her from a rectangular window about seven feet off the ground.

“Daddy-?” she started, but was cut off.

“AELITA, MY DEAREST, I PROMISE TO EXPLAIN EVERYTHING LATER. RIGHT NOW, HOWEVER, YOU ARE IN GRAVE DANGER.”

His image appeared to fiddle with some controls just outside of the camera’s range, then he turned back to the recording device.

“I HAVE CREATED UPGRADES FOR YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS. I GIVE YOU YOURS NOW. BE CAREFUL, IT WILL STING A BIT…”

Suddenly, waves of black energy assaulted Aelita’s frame. She opened her mouth to scream, but that only allowed energy to flow into her, assaulting her very core…

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Time slowly began to return to normal as the pillar of light vanished.

Odd, his new slit-like pupils widened in shock, stared as Aelita’s arm blurred, catching the shard out of the air and threw it into a far-away tree.

Only Aelita... was changed.

Her outfit was a one-piece, double-toned pink jumpsuit not entirely unlike her brother’s. a steel belt wrapped gracefully around her waist, connected to a transparent miniskirt that looked as though it were made of glass and steel, but felt as though it were made of the finest silk. A titanium bandeau wrapped snugly around her chest, with a small red alloy plate squarely in the center. Her arms were clad with two fingerless gloves that extended all the way up to her shoulders, where their ends were covered by shoulderpads made of the same transparent materiel as the skirt. Around her wrist was a star-shaped watch, now glowing soft pink. Two angelic wings, glistening like precious gems at dawn, were folded gently against her back.

She smiled, and Odd could feel a twinge of fear in the pit of his dark heart.

“Hello Odd,” she said in a light, conversational tone, as she charaged up her Energy Field, “I figure that you might not know who I am, what with my upgrade looking so drastically different and all, so let me introduce myself.”

She pointed her hands out in front her, the fields fusing into a massive rose-colored ball of light.

“My name is Aelita. We need to talk…”

With that, she released her wave of power. Odd was propelled backwards by the pulse of pure energy. He tumbled head over heels for several dozen feet, before he slammed into a tree. Instantly, he dissolved into reddish-black smoke, before vanishing entirely.

Aelita breathed a sigh of relief, before ducking to avoid a furious barrage of lasers from XANA’s Krabes, and the lady herself was looking furious.

Aelita dodged behind a tree, and smiled slightly. Dropping to her knees, she placed her hands together as though praying. Tiny filaments, infintismially thin, rose from the ground and wrapped themselves around her hands.

The Krabes and XANA remained in position, blockaiding the only path that led to the tower. XANA’s face was like a statue’s, hard and uncompromising. She would hold the line HERE1 The Brat would not interfere with her father’s plans again…

“Hey, XANA!”

Aelita’s head was now poking out from behind the tree. The monsters’ eyes swiveled towards her, charging, refining their aim-

And suddenly, with a lurch of XANA’s virtual stomach, she was plummeting towards the Digital Sea. Her loyal monsters were flailing wildly, but without the ability to fly, they were doomed. One by one, they fell down into the void.

XANA snarled as she halted her downward momentum, and began to rise quickly. She drew her katana out of her scabbard, and already it was glowing with bloody power. She rose, rose, rose… but not quickly enough.

Overhead, Aelita shot past where XANA’s troops had fallen, cruising as fast as a motorcycle on her new wings. Without the hassle of walking everywhere, she was at the tower before anything could stop her.

XANA peeked over the edge of the deconstructed path just in time to see the white bubble’s approach…

In the real world, Bass was on all fours, bleeding and leaking data from a thousand grievous wounds. Forte was laughing as the bubble overtook them…

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

THREE WEEKS LATER…

LOCATION: TOP SECRET, CLASSIFIED UNDER ACCESS CODE “F40u5.”

It was dark in the briefing room, the only light coming off of a few computer screens and holograms, showing various humanoid figures. These humanoid projections were standing next to actual humans, but no one’s face was visible. There was no telling who could be listening.

“Your navi has recovered?”

“Yes, he has. He should be back up to optimal performance in no time.”

“You have reviewed the documents.”

“Of course he has.”

“Is this necessary? After all, we already have an operative in position among the Kadic staff.”

“He has no Navi, Agent Punk. He can’t give any more support than the occasional after-action report.”

“I still find it suspicious that he’s the only one who can remember these events.”

“If you were to have read the reports, you would know why that is.”

“Quiet, Agent Searchman.”

“Quiet!” said the leader, a man wearing an overcoat. The table immiediately fell to attention.

“Agent Eugene, you will go. Your expertise in this field is only rivaled by Hikari’s, but he can’t be trusted with this information.”

“Are you sure, Famous?”

“Yes. I’ll have the passports and paperwork filled out as soon as possible. Go.”

A boy stood, collected a small device from the table, and walked out. As he left, the light flickered off of his dual-colored hair…

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

LOCATION: KADIC ACCADEMY

It had been three weeks since the massive assault by XANA. Three weeks since Odd had been taken. Three weeks since a tragedy had struck.

Fifteen students and Rosa, the cafeteria lady, had simply fallen dead for what appeared to be no reason. William Dunbar, Thomas Jolviet, and twelve others. Gone. Forever. Odd DellaRobia was gone as well, but no one could find him. His dog, however, was found dead in his room. Jim had been surprisingly understanding, and had allowed the small animal to be buried under a small tree in the park. He even chipped in for a small gravestone.

Jean-Pierre had confined all the boarding students to their rooms, the school was closed down for investigation, and students like Yumi, who traveled to school, were barred from the building. But after three weeks of investigation, searches, inquiries, and in-depth probings, nothing turned up. The school was re-opened, and a somber weight pressed down on everyone.

The remaining Lyoko Warriors met at Aelita’s house, the Hermitage, with Jim’s permission, on the condition that he escort them there and back. Jim was waiting outside the house while the conversations took place.

“Odd’s been taken,” Ulrich stated sullenly.

“People are dead.” Yumi added with the same tone.

“We’ve been working with a monster… No offense.” Jeremie stated.

“None taken,” chimed Bass from a computer monitor set up for this purpose.

“At least we have your upgrades, Daddy…” Aelita’s voice trailed off as she gazed upon the sullen face of Franz Hopper.

“But that’s not the solution, dear,” he answered tonelessly. “We have no idea who this ‘Forte’ is, nor how he’s working with XANA, or even how XANA turned Odd!”

“I know.”

The eyes of the Lyoko Warriors turned to Bass.

“Forte was a clone of me used to resurrect Alpha, almost a year ago. I thought I destroyed all of them…” he grumbled.

They waited patiently for him to continue.

“However, I do know how he’s working with XANA, and how she turned Odd. Odd was turned because of a force known as ‘Dark Power.’ It’s a deadly, corruptive force found in artifacts known as Darkchips. I don’t know how they got into Odd, but it would fit in with her partners.”

Bass took a deep breath. “Forte uses Dark Power to attack, so he’s using darkchips to fuel himself. And there’s only one person who has access to darkchips that I know of. This is the same person who I saw XANA call, “Father,” and the same person who resurrected Alpha the first time.” He was angry now, and the volume of his voice rose considerably.

“The person responsible for everything here is-”

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

LOCATION: UNKNOWN

In another darkened room, far from the prying eyes of the multitude of morons populating the planet, a man was standing, examining data from six different computer programs.

Two figures materialized out of the gloom, bowing to their lord and master before speaking.

“Father, I-”

“Save your breath, XANA. You’ve apologized enough.”

“But Father-”

“I SAID QUIET!!”

Silence rang following his outburst.

“Forte, XANA, I want the next energy shipment on time. No screw-ups. It’s been three weeks; be cautious.”

“Yes Sir.” The two spoke in unison, before teleporting away.

The man was alone, clutching his skull-topped cane.

“The fools…” he rasped, angry.

“The total fools. They know nothing. They think me dead. They think me gone. They know NOTHING AT ALL!!”

“I’ve been planning this since before the LifeVirus. I’ve been planning this ever since I first heard of Hopper’s little discoveries. And everything has gone EXACTLY according to plan…”

“Oh yes. Soon they’ll all pay…” he growled.

“THE WORLD WILL PAY FOR DOUBLE CROSSING THE GREAT, AND ALL-POWERFUL DOCTOR ALBERT WILY!!”

Heart of a Warrior III:

Warrior’s Redemption

Chapter 17:

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, but Nothing Blue

“WILY?!” Cried Hopper, “Are you sure?”

Bass shot him a glance out of the corner of his eye.

“His minions were wearing skull-shaped logos, and I met the human plenty of times while trying to revive Alpha,” he spat, “enough to know his style.”

“Wait,” sputtered Ulrich, “YOU were-?”

“I still hated humanity then.”

“Then?”

“I’ve revised my opinion somewhat, okay?” Bass snapped at the Lyoko samurai.

Jeremie spoke up, “who’s Doctor Wily?”

“An insane madman.”

EVERYONE turned to look at Yumi.

“He was responsible for countless acts of terrorism because of the Cyber Matrix- what you would call, ‘The Net,’ Bass,” she explained in a monotone voice. “He resented that his design for a utopian world wasn’t realized, and hated it so much that he decided to destroy it.”

By the time she finished, everyone was staring at her, completely shocked at Yumi’s unexpected knowledge.

“Yumi… how do you know this?” asked Ulrich slowly.

“Yumi took a deep breath before answering.

“My parents used to own an electronics store in ACDC town… but they were driven out by Wily’s men. They decided to move away, to where Wily had no reach…” She blinked back a tear. “I guess they were wrong…”

Ulrich placed a comforting arm around her shoulder.

She started to cry in earnest as she continued, “We lost a lot of money in the move, and my parents have to work so much, their relationship started to…” At this point, she broke down completely. Ulrich began to rub her back gently, before looking up at the rest of them.

“I think I’ll take her home… I think she’s done for today…”

Carefully, he helped her up and out of the house.

Aelita, Jeremie, Franz, and Bass stared at one another for a while.

“So what now?” asked Jeremie.

“We have to be good actors.” Responded Franz stoically.

Jeremie and Aelita stared at him, confused.

“We need to pretend that Odd is gone, and that we’re worried about him. Oh, you know what I mean,” he cried, noticing the raised eyebrows of his adopted son and his daughter’s boyfriend. “I mean, if someone asks if we know where Odd is, pretend as though we’re upset about his disappearance, and try to avoid any questioning. Since your group sticks so closely together, the four of you will be closely regarded objects of suspicion. You will need to watch your words, your actions, and everything that you do for any slipups, which could jepordize everything. If the government found out about Lyoko again…”

He let his voice trail off. Both he and Aelita could remember running for their lives from the government agents on June 7, 1994…

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

ELSEWHERE, THE NEXT DAY…

“So, Agent Blaze, you seem to be a little on edge.”

“I’m not exactly perfectly fluent in French yet. It’ll come with time.”

The man on the other side of the two-way video conference chuckled as the limo containing the agent rumbled along towards Kadic Academy. His appearance was cloaked in shadow, preventing his identity from being read.

“I see. You know, not everyone was so keen to allow someone like you into the school on the tail of all that… business… so be on your best behavior, all right? They’ll be looking at you for any sign of screw-up or slip-up, so watch your step.”

“Affirmitive, Commander Cossack. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“Oh, and one more thing?”

“Yes, commander?”

“most people around here have never heard of a Net Navi before. Try not to flaunt yours everywhere.”

Agent Blaze glanced next to him at the hologram of the red-clad program on his shoulder.

“Understood, commander.”

“I can see you’re almost there, so hold on tightly. Good luck, Agent Blaze.”

“Copy that. Agent Blaze, out.”

The screen fizzled out, leaving the boy sitting alone with his Navi in the darkened, sound-proof section of the specially prepared limousine. He felt the inertial forces tug him to the left as the elongated vehicle made the turn through Kadic’s front gates, the stylized circle-with-slash logo glistening in the afternoon sunlight.

The car pulled up to the front of the administrative building, before stopping and disgorging a swiftly-striding butler in an immaculately clean outfit. He walked towards the back door of the motorized vehicle, and opened it.

A thirteen-year-old, Japanese boy stepped out of the limo. He wore camo-colored cargo pants, a black long-sleeved t-shirt, and a red vest, worn unzipped. Attatched to his belt was a small, oval device that resembled a thicker, more multipurpose iPod. A circle was printed proudly in the device’s red finish, showing a jagged line separating light and dark from one another. It resembled his hair slightly, which was dyed white over the entirety of the top, while leaving the sides their natural black color.

A large, beefy man stomped out of the administrative building, his hand already extended in welcome.

“So YOU’RE the new transfer student, huh?” boomed the gym teacher’s voice. “Good to meet’cha!” He bellowed, extending his hand.

The boy did not respond. He merely stared coolly at the teacher.

“Aaahhh… Eugene, was it?” asked Principal Delmas, slowly stepping down towards the now-put-out instructor and the young boy.

Immediately, the boy glared at the Principal.

“I prefer not to be called that, if you don’t mind,” he snapped coldly.

“I… see. My apologies, Mr. Blaze.” He made no outward sign of irritation at the strange-haired boy, yet his voice seemed to drop a degree or two. “why don’t you come with me, let’s get your paperwork sorted…”

The boy held up a paperclipped packet of papers, which Jean-Pierre Delmas took gratefully.

“Thank you, Mr-” Jean-Pierre paused mid-sentence, looking at the boy with the ice-blue eyes. “I’d prefer not to call you Mr. Blaze the whole time…”

“I understand, sir. You can call me by my middle name…”

“All right, then. Well, Chaud Blaze, welcome to Kadic Academy.”

HEART OF A WARRIOR III:
WARRIOR’S REDEMPTION

CHAPTER 19: BLAZE OF GLORY

            Given the attitude of the student body in the wake of the tragedy, Chaud’s immersion into the boarding school did not go quite as swiftly as he had originally hoped. Many of the students, especially friends and relatives of the deceased, were outwardly hostile towards him, their glares accusing him of daring to “replace” their fallen comrades.

            He didn’t care in the slightest what anyone else thought, and the attention, hostile or otherwise, passed quickly as it was replaced with average, day-to-day concerns of getting good grades, who broke up with who, and in general, surviving. They all saw what he wanted them to see: a quiet, studious boy who was more than a little antisocial, and for the most part kept to himself.

            A few of the cheerleader squad had proposed offers to go out for coffee with him, but their reaction to him was almost always the same: he would ask a few questions about the school, pay for his drink, and leave as quickly as he had come. He was cute, but he was either shy or did not want company. Though highly intelligent, he was not one to show it off. It was almost as if he was a polar opposite of Odd at times. Where Odd was vibrant and full of life, this new boy was introverted almost to the point of creepiness. Where Odd had, at one point, been dating multiple ladies at the same time, Chaud seemed almost totally not interested in other people. And where Odd had a group of friends… Chaud had none.

            For almost a whole month, the newest addition to Kadic Academy was fairly quiet. Attention slid over him, and people started to take him for granted, with the exception of four children that were all that was left of the Lyoko Warriors.

            The four had conferred amongst themselves, and had thought that a new, super-smart, emotionally distant person who was unwilling to talk about his past, arriving JUST after the warriors had lost a member, was just a little too convenient. Ulrich and Yumi both suspected that it was some sort of XANA attack or Wily agent, while Jeremie was merely cautious about it. He had been wrong about Taelia, after all, and was reserving his judgment.

            Aelita… was undecided. She didn’t believe that the boy was evil, per se, but she also didn’t think he was exactly normal. And considering that she had been to Lyoko a few times looking for Odd, and hadn’t found so much as a single trace of an activated tower, she was fairly confident that this wasn’t some sort of XANA attack. However, considering that she herself and her friends weren’t exactly normal, she could sense that there was something a little more unusual about Chaud.

            Still, there was nothing that could be done about it if he didn’t do anything to them, so nothing but speculation happened between the four warriors for the next week.

--- --- ---- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            “Sir, I have some… ah, bad news.”

            “Hrmm? What now?”

            “It seems that, from our mole in the Officials, that the Officials have decided to send an agent, and what’s worse-”

            “WHAT?!? How could he let this happen?!?”

            “Evidently, we’re not as omnipotent as we’d like to think, eh, Zanny?”

            “Quiet, Forte. Our mole was not present at the time of the meeting, so they made the decision without him. We were only informed of it once he returned to active duty.”

            “Well, are they on to our activities?”

            “No, sir, but they are highly suspicious of multiple events that have happened in the last few years. They always thought that the reports were faked, or that their mole-”

            “A what?” growled Wily.

            “He’s not well-liked among the Officials due to his ‘crazy reports,’ and his father, so he wasn’t paid much attention to, and I didn’t think him worth mentioning.”

            “You idiot. Without this data, Lord Wily could have made a huge tactical blunder!!”

            Red eyes glared at Forte for a second before widening in pain as Dr. Wily pressed a button. XANA clenched her jaw shut as black lightening sapped the energy from her body,  draining it away as though it were nothing. She forced herself, bravely, to remain motionless, knowing that any sign of weakness would mean that this torture would only be prolonged.

            After nearly five minutes of forced drain, she sucked in a breath as Wily lifted his finger from the button.

            “Don’t ever,” hissed Wily, “withhold information from me,” He paused for effect, “ever again. Do you understand?”

            “Y… Yes, Father.”

            “Good. Continue.”

            “The official that they assigned to this case was… Chaud Blaze and Proto Man, sir.”

            Wily visibly slumped in his chair.

            “Damn… is there any GOOD news?”

            “Yeah,” Forte growled, “In the last attack, the Warriors missed several of our cloaked towers. They’ve been transporting energy this entire time.”

            “How much energy was transferred?”

            “I couldn’t say at the moment, sir, but we’ve reached seventy-five percent energy levels for the Resurrection Project.”

            “I really don’t see what’s the point of this whole thing; I’ve proven my loyalty, can’t I have the scoop?”

            “No.”

            “But-”

            “Shut up, Forte, Master Wily said no.”

            “SCREW YOU, YOU WASTE—”

            “FORTE!! Enough!”

            A growling noise echoed through the chamber for a few seconds before Wily spoke again.

            “Attack again. Make sure the humans use their “Return to the past,” device.”

            “I think I have a plan, Master Wily.”

            “Oh?”

            As Forte and Wily discussed their plans, neither noticed a small, sad expression cross XANA’s face, before being wiped away by a neutral, passive expression. And absolutely NO ONE noticed that at the very core of her eyes, in a hair-thin line next to the pupil, was a tiny amount of green.

--- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            Chaud carefully ate small bites of food from his tray. Well, he personally didn’t think of this as “Food.” More like “Slop,” or “Crap,” as those more closely matched the physical description and taste of the paste-like substance.

            Granted, he was slightly spoiled, what with being rich and all, but even he knew, in his heart of hearts, that no one in this school could possibly like this sludge.

            “AWESOME! It’s Meatball Gravy Day!”

            “Sweet! We’ll actually get some this time!”

            … those two excluded.

            He glanced at Protoman, who replied nonverbally by summoning their files.

            “Herve Pichon and Nicholis Poliakoff… friends with Sissi Delmas, and maintain status of being acquaintances with the primary suspects. While Nicholis isn’t that smart, Herve has good technological skills, and may potentially have had contact with Target Number One. Threat level, minimal.”

            He glanced around the room. “Elisibeth Delmas: Prefers the nickname Sissi.  obsessively stalks one of primary suspects, and appears to have a very low-level friendship with them. Recently has been in a state of depression following the incident for unknown reasons. Due to this unusual behavior, coinciding with the incident, our operative has taken extended measures to watch her for suspicious behavior. Threat level: Medium, due to continual contact with suspects and beginner-level martial arts.”

            He spotted a pair of girls- one an African-American girl wearing green pants and a yellow shirt, the other a pale, red-haired girl of about the same age, wearing a burgundy t-shirt and brown pants.

            “MillySolovieff and Tamiya Diop… known to maintain a low-level friendship with vanished suspect, as well as a friendship with the other suspects. Both are news reporters, who single-handedly publish the Kadic Times, the only student-run newspaper on campus. It is due to this that they probably have good computer skills… but also why they are not likely to have any sort of contact or knowledge of Target Number One. They would have divulged the information already. As investigative journalists, they have the potential to blow the cover of any deep-cover agents who do not have an alibi prepared, as this operative does. Threat level: Medium, for potential to blow cover. They are highly observant and intelligent.”

            He spotted two boys sitting across the cafeteria from the two girls.

            “Hiroki Ishiyama: brother to Primary Suspect Number Five. Has a crush on Milly Solovieff. Used to live in ACDC Town, Japan, until their family was forced out by WWW minions seven years ago. The resulting move has caused massive internal problems for the Ishiyama family, including the Primary Suspect. While this individual probably did not make contact with the Primary Target, his sister could have introduced him to it, or he could have found out through her. In addition, his friend Johnny has a massive crush on Suspect Number Three, AKA Hiroki’s sister. He could know about the Target by sheer evesdropping and accident. Threat Level: Medium to High. While combat skills may be lacking, he may know about the Net Agents, and is a relative of one of the Primary Suspects. Potential to have come into contact with the Primary Target is greatly increased. Observe carefully for signs of knowledge of Net Technology.”

            All around the dual-haired boy, the chaos of everyday school life and lunch swirled around him like a cyclone, with him at its calm, unaffected eye.

            He saw, and observed, many things. Many potential lines of inquiry rose and fell in his genius mind, modified by the patterns that he observed. He was an outsider looking in, able to see things that others took for granted.

            He had little doubt that those considered “Primary Suspects” had something unusual up their sleeves. Others might not notice it as much, but they were unusually self-absorbed, had some sort of secret codes, and would disappear from school pretty much simultaneously. At other times, they would display odd, out-of-character knowledge or actions, somehow seeming to influence events to their favor.

            The Official’s mole had confirmed that so-called “XANA Attacks” occurred precisely at these times. The mole had also included details of the attacks that were related to actions that the warriors tried to manipulate away. For example, if the attack was supposed to be carried out with cell phones, they would be seen posting up reminders of the ban on cell phones in the classroom. All very curious.

            However, as much as he would have liked to help, there was the matter that he had no concrete evidence that this “XANA,” person actually existed, nor that they had anything to do with the real mission.

            Their real mission, quite simply, was one of the toughest jobs in the universe:

            Locate Bass.exe, and destroy him.

            “…aud! CHAUD!”

            Chaud’s eyes darted to the PET at his waist, knowing that Protoman wouldn’t dare try to contact him this way unless there was an emergency. Deciding to take a chance, he grabbed the iPod-like device and brought the screen up to his face.

            Protoman was anxious, and that in and of itself scared Chaud. Protoman was nearly inflapable. Almost nothing could really make him worried, and here he was, slightly flustered. That was pretty big.

            “I’m detecting large energy readings near you’re position, sir, and not only are they getting closer, but-”

            There was a loud bang, and everyone’s attention was drawn towards the windows, where a large SUV had just slammed itself into the administration building. Students and teachers slowly began to look outside…

            Just in time for over a dozen more cars, their headlights crackling with black lightning, to speed around the corner, through the gates of the academy, and onto the campus grounds. Their engines purred like a demonic, mechanical cat, and streaks of black now gleamed in the sunlight.

            Chaud glanced at his PET and quirked his eyebrow. Protoman cleared his throat and announced, deadpan, “They’re here, and they show signs of electronic possession.”

            “Hmmm….” Thought the Official, before glancing back at his Net Navi. “Protoman, I’d like to try something. Please forgive me if this does not work…”

            “Of course, Chaud. I couldn’t stay mad at you…”

            “What about the time I used a Darkchip?”

            The red Navi sniffed hautily, before turning away from the screen. “That’s the exception that proves the rule.”

            Smiling slightly, Chaud aimed his PET at one of the car’s headlights.

            “Jack in,” he whispered, “Protoman.exe. Execute!”

            A beam of infrared light shot from the device, through the glass, across the courtyard, and into the headlight of the possessed car…

            --- --- --- --- ---- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            By sneaking through the boiler room, the Lyoko Warriors had managed to avoid any traces of the cars, and had made it to the factory relatively quickly.

            As the three remaining warriors positioned themselves in the scanners, Jeremie spoke out.

            “Scanner, Ulrich. Scanner, Yumi. Scanner, Aelita. Scanner, O-”

            He broke off, memory of the purple-clad warrior still painful.

            Uncomfortably, he completed the process, but as soon as his friends were on Lyoko, he saw multiple unfamiliar cards appear on his screen, signifying enemies near the activated tower. Four Krabes, Odd, and something unfamiliar… and the unfamiliar thing was fighting XANA’s forces!

            “Uh, guys…” he muttered into the headset, “I think you need to check this out…”

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

The three remaining warriors dropped to the ground of the Desert Sector, a little winded from the transfer.

Aelita’s new outfit drew the attention of her teammates, as it was a bit of a radical shift from the almost homespun virtual form she had worn before. Even Ulrich couldn’t help but stare a bit at the form-hugging costume (until Yumi kicked him.)

Wincing, Ulrich managed to say (with equal parts mirth and pain) that “our camouflage is shot, now.”

“And Odd was the model of invisibility?” growled Bass, who floated down from the sky to meet them. “We need to move.”

“Why?” came Yumi’s response.

“Because,” he explained slowly, as though to a small child, “As of right now, XANA, Forte, and I are not the only Net Navi’s on Lyoko.”

Silence greeted this statement, until Jeremie, ever observant, asked, “XANA’s a Net Navi?”

“Yes, didn’t I tell you?”

“No.”

“Hnn. Must have forgotten to mention it.” He growled again.

And so they set off. As in a few earlier missions, they encountered few monsters, but given that, according to Jeremie, XANA was now facing a new enemy, that was at least a little understandable that she’d keep her forces back to engage the new foe.

Aelita extended her wings and flew into position next to her adopted brother.

“You didn’t just forget, did you,” she murmured accusingly.

A smirk ghosted its way onto his face. “No,” he stated, deadpan. “I only sensed it since I got back and compared her signature to Forte’s. It makes more sense, though,” he said, seeing Aelita’s confused expression, “because though Wily hates the Net, he’s one of the best programmers in existence.”

“Ah.”

They continued on for almost five minutes with only a lone Kankrelot appearing before them. Unusually, it took one look at them, then scurried off to the side, bowing low.

It was Ulrich who came up with the answer for this activity.

“They think you’re Forte!” he cried, pointing at the cloaked Navi with glee, “They don’t want to engage you because they’ll get in trouble!”

“I preferred my idea that they were too scared of me.”

“Nah, we’ve killed them by the hundreds, why would they be afraid of you?”

Bass stopped, and turned around, his eyes crimson, cloak billowing, aura crackling and snapping, as he looked towards Yumi (for it was she who make the comment.)

“I don’t know, human,” he snarled, “Why would they be?”

It was fortunate for Bass that he had done this, as his Aura was still up, because it was at that moment that a laser hit his defensive shield. Aelita was already charging an energy field when her team turned and saw a wounded Krabe tottering towards them, determined to destroy its mistress’ enemies before succumbing to its own. Yumi’s fans sliced through it easily, but the point was made: They were close.

This was further emphasized by the sounds of a large explosion from nearby.

When the Warriors finally reached the area of combat, they were shocked at what they saw.

Odd, snarling like a caged beast, flew at his opponent with a fury that none of them had ever seen in the blonde slacker. His claws extended with a sinister, yet efficient, click, and his blow should have taken his opponent’s face off.

Instead, all it did was scratch the helmet.

The new figure was taller than Bass at six foot two, and had a tight ponytail of shock-white hair that stretched down to his knees. He was clad in a one-piece jumpsuit that was purple-blue towards the center of the body, but black on the sides, with a trapezoidal red vest that flared out at the shoulders. His right arm was transformed into a sword with an H-shaped device at the point where the blade was connected to the arms. His left arm was clad in a red gauntlet with white gloves, similar to Bass’ but less stylized. His boots were done in much the same fashion. His head was entirely encased in a red helmet with a white facemask and what appeared to be some sort of sunglasses. Unlike Bass, who went out of his way to appear mysterious and subtlly terrifying, this man- for with a skintight jumpsuit, there was really no doubt as to his gender- exuded a strong sense of professionalism and cold-bloodedness, not even responding to Odd’s screams and curses.

“GAAAHHH!!! WHY WON’T YOU JUST $%^# DIE?!?” screamed Odd as he launched a barrage of crystal shards in the direction of the newcomer, who merely raised his arm as a red shield with a silver rim faded into existence. The shards ricocheted off the shield, burying themselves into nearby rocks before exploding violently.

His opponent, not even flinching underneath the assault, dispelled the shield and swiped his sword across empty air. A thin blade of air shot from his blade, cutting effortlessly through Odd and his Krabe.

The other two Krabes stared at him for a moment, before turning and running away.

Once Odd’s smoky form had faded away to nothingness, the red warrior turned to face his new foes, before taking a few steps backwards, gasping in surprise.

Then, without warning, he vanished.

The warriors glanced around the clearing, trying to see where the new combatant had disappeared to, when Bass slumped over on the ground, his aura shield split in two places. A long cut was carved into his side, and cube-shaped bits of data were leaking out. Ulrich brought out his blade, ready to defend Aelita, when Yumi  disappeared, headless. After a few more terse seconds, the crimson-clad soldier reappeared in the middle of the platform.

“For crimes against the Cyberworld,” the red navi explained in a monotone, chilling voice, “Die.”

Bass shot to his feet and immediately began charging up energy, rocketing forwards as he did so. The two met and vanished, teleporting across the entire sector, exchanging punches and slashes like some sort of high-speed brawl.

While the two Navis attempted to pound each other into oblivion, Ulrich bodily picked up Aelita, and activated his Super Sprint, carrying her all the way to the tower. Winded, she stumbled in, barely managing to calm herself enough to rise to the top and enter the code.

And over the car-destroyed Kadic, a white bubble swept across the land…

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

At the Hermitage, after school on that day, the Lyoko Warriors stared at Bass, a long scratch still healing on his face.

“Protoman,” he growled, “One of the best Net Agents in existence. He’s easily at Triple-S rank, the highest ranking level an official can receive. Completed over five hundred missions flawlessly.”

He turned so that his scratch wasn’t as visible to the camera. “Fast, too.”

“Why was he here?” asked Yumi, getting to the crux of the matter.

Bass glowered. “Me.”

The warriors waited for him to speak again, while his glower only deepend.

“What, you wish to know why? I am called the ‘Messenger of Darkness,’ for a reason,” he chuckled humorlessly, “and it is not because of my caring attitude. I am a Triple-S ranked target, a title previously only granted to Dr. Wily himself… if they have tracked me here, it means that there is either a traitor in our midst or that someone outside our group knows about Lyoko.”

Jeremie nodded while Ulrich and Yumi looked shocked. “I suspected as much,” he murmured.

The silence that reigned was deafening.

The blonde genius looked around at them. “What?” he asked, “What’s so hard to believe about that?”

“We wouldn’t turn traitor,” snarled Ulrich.

“So that means that someone outside of our group knows about Lyoko,” explained Jeremie, deadpan. “The only people who know about Lyoko, to our knowledge, are in this room.”

“Wrong,” said Aelita, “There’s Odd.”

“And XANA, and this Protoman,” blurted Yumi.

“And Forte and Dr. Wily.” Came Ulrich’s response.

“And one other, one who I know wouldn’t betray us,” growled Bass, “Dr. Mikhael Cossack, creator of the Lyoko Defense Program.”

“Well, how do you know that?” asked Yumi.

As she said this, all the power in the building (save for Bass’ computer) turned off, before the lights came on bright and hot enough to rival the sun’s heat.

“ANY QUESTIONS?!?” Snarled the cloaked Navi as he returned the lights to normal, before vanishing, leaving behind the warriors to nurse their new sunburns.

--- --- --- --- ---

Protoman found himself back in the Cafeteria, Chaud glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

“You were saying something about Ms. Delmas?” he prodded.

Protoman stared at him for a moment.

“Sir,” he gulped, “I think I have some very important news for you…”

HEART OF A WARRIOR III

WARRIOR’S REDEMPTION
CHAPTER 20

            Chaud sat on his bed, deep in thought about what he had learned.

            Somehow, those people he called “Suspects...” were, in fact, in league with Bass himself. Their Net Navis… resembled them closely, but were about as strong as a level-one normal navi. Coupled with the fact that they had apparently recruited darkloids to their numbers… the situation was already too complex as it was.

“I guess they can’t all be easy, heh?”

            “No, sir. I guess not.”

            “So what now?”

            “I would advise that we strike first, before they get a chance to adapt to our presence.”

            “… I agree. Do you know where their base of operations is?”

            “I think so… But I’ll have to check to make sure about it.”

            “Good. Make sure, and we’ll attack soon.”

            “Yes, sir.”

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            Ulrich, Yumi, Aelita, and Jeremie glumly stared into their trays of food. It wasn’t a good feeling- the knowledge that someone knew about them, and was trying to kill them. Well, not that they hadn’t experienced that before, but for some reason, this was different.

            Jeremie sighed loudly, unfortunately drawing the attention of the overweight athletic coach, Jim.

            “ALRIGHT, Belpois, what’s the matter?” he bellowed as he marched up to their table. “I haven’t seen people so depressed since I did all that work with the,” he hesitated, “Red Cross… back in Yumland…”

            “You were in the Red Cross?”

            “I’d rather not talk about it. Now spill- we got enough depressed people here as is, so either tell me what’s wrong or I’ll haul your butts down to the Counselor’s office faster than you can say, uhh…. ‘Counselor’s Office!’”

            Jeremie’s genius intellect, as amazing as it was, could not seem to fabricate a story. Thankfully, Yumi came to the rescue.

            “We’re trying to figure out a problem we’re having with… Aelita’s brother!” she blurted.

            Jim’s eyebrows raised a few inches at this proclamation, while her fellow warriors shot her glares.”

            She flushed and continued, “W-well, her brother’s not old enough to come to Kadic, so he lives back home with their parents… and there’s this bully who’s threatening to beat him up.”

            At this point, Ulrich jumped in, slowly at first, but picking up steam as he went.

            “A-and he’s a friend of ours, so we want to help him, but this bully is…”

            “The son of a policeman!” Burst out Aelita, a little brighter now, “And if he fights my brother, and my brother fights back, he could get in a lot of trouble!”

            “But what with,” Jeremie’s voice caught in his throat, “Odd, and all, it’s kinda overwhelming…”

            “So we can’t really think up any good ideas on how to help him. You have any clue, Jim?” finished Yumi.

            Jim looked at each one in turn.

            “Have you tried talking to this… bully?”

            The four warriors looked at one another. By the silence, it was clear that none of them had.

            “Look, you’re not going to make any headway against him with this strategy. Why,” and his voice regained it’s usual bluster, “When I was in the army, we were taught that sometimes, you had to deal with situations where sometimes, you had to make peace with someone, even if you didn’t like them, for the sake of the mission!”

            Ulrich nodded at this, but then frowned, before opening his mouth to ask the usual question. “When were you-”

            However, it was at this moment that Jeremie’s backpack began to beep loudly. His eyes shot wide, and he stuttered, “Uhh… th-that must be him! He’s got that online-phone-thing. You know, where you can call people over the internet…?”

            “I got’cha, go and talk to him. If you need any help, just come talk to me.” He rumbled as he walked away with a smile and a spring in his step.

            As the Lyoko warriors got up and walked quickly for the door, Chaud Blaze brought his PET to his mouth, and whispered, “They’ve taken the bait. In pursuit.”

            “Good. You and Protoman should be careful.”

            “Understood.”

            --- --- --- --- --- --- ---- ---

            In less than five minutes, the Warriors were on Lyoko, ready and waiting to charge into battle against their foes. Thankfully, since the last battle, Franz had decided to complete the upgrades to their weapons and armor.

            Ulrich now wore a one-piece yellow-and-black jumpsuit, with a high-tech scabbard for his two katanas. He also had a HUD device that wrapped around his head and rested comfortably over his left eye. He looked around in amazement through the instrument, surveying all that he saw and receiving a veritable gold mine of data in return.

            Yumi was clad in another jumpsuit, this one was burgundy-and-wine colored hugged her curves tightly, but provided her with enhanced strength and came with holsters for her two tessen fans. These weapons themselves had been modified to be heat-seeking and to have a thin layer of energy cover the edges, to enhance their cutting power.

            Aelita, of course, already had her own weapons and outfit upgraded by Franz, but it was still interesting for them to fully appreciate their outfits as one group for the first time. Still, something seemed off to the techno-Lyoko-elf.

            “Jeremie? I can’t feel any pulsations. It’s like he hasn’t activated a tower at all… Jeremie? Jeremie?”

            “I think you have more problems to worry about than your friend right now,” came a cold voice.

--- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            In the Lab, Jeremie was watching his friends appear on Lyoko, saw the new figure appear, and then…

            The screen turned black.

            “Jeremie Belpois?”

            He spun around in his seat to see Chaud Blaze holding a small electronic device in his hands, as well as a badge.

            “By order of the Officials, you and your friends are under arrest for aiding and abiding a Triple-S-ranked Cyberworld threat.”

            Jeremie scrambled up from his seat, ripping the headset from his ear as he scrambled a few feet from the Net Agent, before setting into a basic fighting position he had learned from Ulrich.

“You’re not fooling me, XANA,” snarled the blonde boy, resulting in a confused look on the Official’s face. “I won’t let you hurt them!”

“XANA? What are you-?” questioned Chaud, before Jeremie launched himself at him. Chaud coolly sidestepped slammed the helpless nerd into the wall before tapping him in a pressure point, knocking him unconscious in seconds.

            Walking over to the computer, Chaud placed the headphones on his head, and spoke, “It’s your show now, Protoman.”

--- --- --- --- --- ---

            “Protoman? Who’s-?” asked Aelita, but she was interrupted by a blade of crimson crystal sliced down mere inches from where she had been standing.

            “I am Protoman,” the red Navi growled, “And you are under arrest for association with a known SSS-Rank criminal.”

            Yumi backed up, her hands raised in a placating gesture. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking ab-”

            “Bass.” He spoke, monotone. “The Black Shadow. The Messenger of Darkness. The Ultimate Undefeated Net Navi. Destroyer of the Red Bandits. Wields unimaginable power, wears a brown cloak and has big fins on his head. You’re under arrest for aiding him in… whatever he’s doing.”

            “Don’t you need a warrant for his arr-” began Ulrich, but he was cut off.

            “Don’t spout legal matters to me. This little factory that we’re in is privately owned, so not only are you abetting a known criminal, you’re committing truancy AND trespassing on private property! That’s not even mentioning how you have hacked into top-secret files. Some of those carry the death penalty for even knowing about them.”

            “And,” he added, “Bass is the most-wanted criminal in the world. He has been deemed an SSS-Rank threat to cyberworld security. There is no one we want more than him, if nothing else, to face justice for his crimes.”

            Something about this sparked something in Yumi’s memories.

            “Wait,” she asked, “Isn’t there another SSS-rank criminal out there?”

            Protoman scowled. “That doesn’t matter. You’re all under arrest, and-”

            “You’re right, Yumi,” growled a figure from behind the Crimson Swordsman, “And I’d appreciate it if none of you would interfere with Father’s WORK!!!” She roared, and catapulted herself towards Protoman.

            Protoman, however, wasn’t known as the finest Net Agent without reason. His blade instantly manifest, he ducked and parried the initial strike, then followed up with his own stab at XANA’s heart.

            Ulrich and Aelita looked at each other for a moment, before leaping forwards to attack Lyoko’s demoness. Protoman, surprised at the unexpected aid, let his guard down for a moment, and was blasted aside from the energy-enhanced strike of the malevolent program’s blade.

            He tumbled over the landscape briefly before rolling to his feet, and observed as a black shape shot out from behind a boulder, taking Aelita and Ulrich with it. XANA grinned tighly, before advancing slowly upon the Net Agent, black smoke gently leaking out from wounds, sealing the noxious points of exit as they went.

            “You have no idea whatsoever what you’re doing.” Came the low, predatory, (and to Protoman’s great shock,) seductive voice. “You come here, waving around your little sword, so convinced that you are in the right… you have no idea.”

            Protoman angled his blade across his body in a defensive posture.

            “And I assume you’re going to tell me?”

            “Do I look like a two-bit Saturday morning cartoon villain? Father is careful. Father is brilliant. And father knows that failure is not tolerated. Why should I tell you? Not when you-”

            “ARE ABOUT TO f$#%& DIE, YOU $#@*!!!!”

            A purple meteor slammed into the ground in front of Protoman, knocking him backwards.

            “Ch-Chaud…” gasped the red navi, growing increasingly more worried, “Cha…ud…”

            “Don’t bother, bugsucker,” Smirked Forte, “The Big W’s got a way of jamming signals to the surface.” He leaned in closer, a particularly nasty smirk forming on his wild-eyed face. “It’s just you and me, cupcake…”

            “Oh really? Must I talk to you again for you to realize your pitiful nature, copy?”

            Protoman’s eyes (hidden by his sunglasses/visor) widened as a golden blast of energy blasted the Bass-like being out of the way. His head swiveled to see the source, a familiar brown-cloaked Navi with ominous golden fins.

            “The agents are finally here?” he asked, eyes radiating a cold anger. Protoman noted, with some confusion, that it was not directed at him. He merely nodded.

            Bass’ frown deepened, and his arms began to crackle with power once more.

            “Contact your operator. All will be explained once the battle is concluded,” came the response, before he jumped into the air to dodge a dark energy disc.

            “YA KNOW,” screamed the insane clone, “As I recall, it was YOU who had his sorry loner hard drive pasted all over the walls of the school the last time we met!”

            “And yet,” intoned Bass calmly, “I accomplished my goal while you were left floundering…” he smirked.

            The two flew at each other, Forte’s razor wings clawing desperately at Bass’ shield, while Bass aimed rapid-fire bursts of power.

            All of this nearly made Protoman miss XANA attempting to pierce his skull with her blood-hued blade.

            --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

            Yumi had been taken out in the first few seconds of the fight, as Odd literally ripped through her. Ulrich and Aelita were taken off guard by this strange, berserker Odd, but quickly began to prepare themselves.

            Aeltia leapt to the sky, and began to pepper the cat-boy with energy. Snarling, he raised an arm in response, spewing the explosive, razor-sharp, crystal bolts from his wrists. Aelita, having gained a measure of  maneuverability and speed not available to her on the ground, dodged and looped over and past the anti-personal fire.

            It was nearly inevitable that at least one would hit, until Ulrich intervened. Moving at speeds that were impossible before his upgrades, the felinoid was attacked with a maelstrom of blades, and the Samurai was at the center of it all.

            Odd wasn’t out of the fight yet, though, despite his gradually increasing damage from both energy and blade. With a sinister click, his claws extended out from his fingertips, glowing with the dark pink energy that gave him his powers in the first place.

            Ulrich barely had a second to respond before his face was clawed off. As his limbs flailed, they stabbed the cat straight through the heart.

            The blade stuck out of the darklings’ chest, and, had Jeremie been present, he would have found it funny that the sword attracted the energy of Aelita’s blasts like a lightning rod, causing the slave of XANA to explode in a black fireball.

TO BE CONTINUED…..

OMAKE for CHAPTER 14: (please don’t kill me for this…)

            Forte grinned as energy began to charge in his hand, ready to smite Aelita from existence, when he felt another presence nearby. He turned just in time to see Bass land on top of the Administration building.

            “Hey, that’s…” started Forte, as he stared at Bass.

            “…That fake Navi again, of all places!” Growled Bass.

            “I found you… FAKER!!” Cried Forte as he pointed dramatically at Bass.

            “Faker? You’re comparing yourself to me?” Bass asked incredulously, indicating himself. “You’re not even good enough to be my fake!”

            “I’ll make you eat those words!” Cried Forte, and he lunged at Bass before getting knocked back by a burst of red light.

            Shadow the Hedgehog stood in the middle of the Kadic grounds, glaring at the two navis and Aelita.

            “We got our scripts mixed up. AGAIN.”

            “WHAT THE #$^&?” Screamed Aelita, “We’ve been doing that for the last four hours, and it was with the WRONG FRAKKING SCRIPT?!? Screw this, I’ll be in my trailer.”

            Forte immediately put on a monocle and spoke in a highly cultured, snobbish voice.

            “I do say, I did believe that there was something decidedly off about that last script.”

            Sithking Zero walked onto the scene, snatching the scripts from Shadow before yelling, “Okay everyone, take five! We’ll try it again at three!”

            “Fyyngh bgum Mumph!” spluttered Bass, who already had six Ho-Ho’s in his mouth.