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…”