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…
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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.
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