101: Long Distance Run
In the middle of a large rainforest stood a research lab. It had been quiet for months now with no activity, but that was all about to change.
Three men in white coats walked into the patch of sunlight near the beginning of the concrete ground. Nearing a gated fence surrounding a huge damaged auxiliary generator, the man in round glasses turned to his companions. “Finish repairing the generator,” he ordered in a gruff voice. “I have work to do in the lab.”
The two men nodded, and entered the gate. The other man turned around, his eyes flashing with strange eye-looking black symbols. “Your work will be finished, Xana,” he whispered, “and the end of those children will come.”
---
“Come on, you lazy bums!” Jim called out as the PE class idly walked out onto the track. “There’s no way you’re going to beat Central Prep looking like that!”
“What’s going on?” Aelita asked, catching up to the others.
There was a collective sigh. “The track meet is tomorrow,” Odd said crossly as Jim took roll. “Mr. Rusty Squeaking Jim has decided to drill us all to beat Central Prep who’s going to be there tomorrow.”
Ulrich sighed. “I rather doubt we’re ever going to beat them,” he said, bluntly but truthfully. “They’ve been training for weeks, and we only started, what, two days ago?”
“I heard that, Stern,” Jim bellowed, as the class quieted down. “Drop down and give me twenty!” Ulrich sighed, and got down on the ground and started his push-ups. “If you talk like that, there’s definitely no way you’ll win tomorrow in the long distance run!”
“This is just crazy, Jim,” Jeremie said. “We’re not even required to participate in the track meet, and what right do you have to force us to participate?”
“That’s twenty from you as well, Belpois,” Jim retorted. Jeremie dropped to the ground, grumbling. “What right do I have, you may ask? I’m in charge of all things athletic-related, and I have the power to force you to. And unless you want to earn your Physical Education credit by running ten kilometers around the track, I suggest that you participate tomorrow.”
There was a loud groan from the entire class.
“Anyone agreeing with Belpois and Stern can drop down and give me forty,” Jim said, narrowing his eyes and scanning the group of students. The noise was instantly dispelled. “There is no way that we are loosing for the third year in a row to Central Prep, you all got that?”
“Yes, Jim,” the class muttered under their breath.
“I can’t hear you!” called Jim.
“Yes, Jim!” they shouted in unison.
---
Hundreds of kilometers away in the deserts of New Mexico, another lab stood quiet…at least for now. This was a military base, and it was supposedly abandoned. The glaring sun shone down with no one near to feel its heat.
Inside the base below the ground, a large, green supercomputer glowed with energy and power. It was back online. A white eye-resembling symbol was displayed on its front, glowing in the dark lighting.
In a room not too far from the supercomputer room stood another room. This room was much larger, and strange pieces of machinery sat silent, forming an assembly line.
Suddenly, that strange eye symbol appeared in red on the control terminal. With creaks and squeaking of gears and joints, the assembly line came to life. The incomplete motherboards lying on the assembly line were slowly finished, and many more began to be formed.
---
Jeremie sat down, dropping his lunch tray noisily onto the table. “My arms ache,” he said, sighing and rubbing them.
“Welcome to the club,” Ulrich said grimly.
“I’m guessing gym class was as hard as it was for us?” Yumi asked.
“Jim won’t give up,” Aelita said, rolling her eyes. “It’s just frustrating. There’s no way we’ll win tomorrow if we’re going to be forced like this.”
“You’d be surprised,” Odd said, grinning. “I think that tactical forces training did us pretty good.”
“Oh no, not that one with the wild boar,” Ulrich said, groaning. The others agreed, laughing.
“What boar?” William asked curiously.
“I’ll tell you another time,” Yumi said, winking. Ulrich’s grin dropped into a frown as William smiled back.
“Anyway,” Jeremie said, putting his empty cup back down on the table, lowering his voice as everyone leaned in closer, “don’t forget about Xana. Aelita and I have spent the last few days making the final adjustments to the Skidbladnir, and we’re ready. Tonight, we go to that Replika and destroy it, and then I’ll be able to activate a simple program to terminate Xana from Lyoko and for good.”
“It’s all moving so quickly,” Aelita said, sighing. “I mean, with Xana gone, we’ll be able to shut down the supercomputer again…”
Odd sensed what Aelita was getting to, and quickly changed the subject. “So, what events are you guys participating in? Ulrich and I are doing the 400-meter sprint.”
“I’m doing the javelin,” William said.
“And I’m doing the shot-put,” Yumi said. “It surprisingly resembles throwing my fans, so it should be interesting.”
“What about you two, Mr. and Ms. Einstein?” Ulrich asked, taking a sip from his cup.
Jeremie glanced at Aelita apprehensively. “Well…”
“Don’t tell me you were able to get out of doing it!” Yumi gasped. The others sat there, open-mouthed.
“Well…we did,” Aelita said in a small voice, almost apologetically. “Before we missed class yesterday, we had to give Jim an excuse…Jeremie used the voice synthesizer to use Mr. Fumet to tell Jim that we had a history presentation to teach the class…”
“I don’t know how you guys do it,” Ulrich said, shaking his head.
“I would have at least expected you to share the pain with us, Einstein,” Odd said, elbowing Jeremie lightly in the ribs.
Jeremie rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding?” he said. “I would die faster by jumping off a cliff.”
“Hey guys,” Sissi said, walking up and sitting down.
“Hi Sissi,” Odd replied. The others nodded their greetings. “Can you believe that we have to participate in the track meet tomorrow?”
“It’s just pointless,” Sissi scoffed. “I mean, I saw Central Prep’s track and field team when I went with Daddy for a conference a year ago. If they’ve improved since then, they’re going to get into the Olympics.”
Ulrich sighed. “I guess that’s the only thing they know that they can beat us at, so they must be pushing it.”
“Attention, all of you!” Jim shouted to the cafeteria. The room jumped into silence. “As all of you know, tomorrow is the track meet against Central Preparatory Academy.”
“How could we forget?” Odd said under his breath. “You’ve been reminding us about it every chance you get.”
“All of those participating are required to be in the gym at 7 PM sharp for warm-ups,” Jim said. There was a groan, but everyone was smart enough not to let Jim hear it to avoid reprimand. “If any of you are not there by then,” Jim continued on, “you will be marked late and will be unauthorized to participate. Then I’ll see you this Saturday afternoon for your ten-kilometer run.”
Jeremie gaped. “If we miss out on the meet tomorrow, we have to do a ten-kilometer run to make it up?”
“Choose which way you want to take the pain,” Ulrich said crossly.
---
“Jeremie, we’re here,” Yumi called out as the Lyoko Warriors ran into the Skidbladnir Hangar at the northernmost point of the Core Zone.
“You know the routine,” Jeremie said, smiling. “Each of you, get onto a Transporter Spot.”
They ran onto the inner arc of the navy blue floor that surrounded the Skidbladnir. “We’re ready, Jeremie,” Aelita said as all five of the Transporter Spots were now occupied. It’s the first time that all five of us are here, Aelita thought to herself.
“Energize!” said Jeremie. Each Lyoko Warrior disappeared in a thick beam of white light that was projected upward from each of their Transporter Spots. They reappeared in their respective NavSkid: Yumi in the NavSkid with a line of bright red along the sides, under the front end of the Cockpit; Ulrich on the bottom left NavSkid with a streak of desert yellow; Odd in his NavSkid, on the opposite side of the Skidbladnir and facing the opposite direction with a line of dark purple; and William on the only NavSkid under the back end of the Cockpit. Aelita herself reappeared in the large Cockpit.
“This is cool,” William said. “It looks like a spaceship in here!”
“Don’t even think about it,” Ulrich said to Odd.
“What?” Odd said, sounding disappointed. “This is always ten times better than Galactic Invaders!”
“Just don’t kill yourself,” Aelita said, smiling as she entered codes into the keypad near her left hand. “Jeremie, all systems are online. Time for our launch!”
“Got it,” Jeremie said. “Releasing support.”
The five support beams surrounding the Skidbladnir dropped their white light and leaned back. Aelita pressed the red button; she was familiar with the launch protocol. “Engaging turbo thrusters,” she said.
The engines on the wings of the Skidbladnir rotated to face downward and sparked like flashlights.
“Here we go,” Aelita called out. The Skidbladnir rose slowly out of the Hangar through the sky portal, and entered the Celestial Dome. It circled around Sector 5 and through the open Data Tunnel.
“I hope you remember how to do this, princess,” Odd joked as the Skidbladnir hovered out of the tunnel to sit in the Desert Sector. “I don’t want to end up in the Digital Sea without a bathing suit!”
“Ha ha, very funny,” Aelita said, rolling her eyes. “Let’s see now. Shields, activated. Sonar, activated. Stabilizers, online and checked out. Primary axis, clear. Laser generators online. Ready for a dive.”
“Here we go,” Yumi said, exhaling in anticipation.
The Skidbladnir dove down into the digital liquid below like a rocket.
“Hey, we didn’t explode!” Odd said as they left Lyoko through the entrance gate and entered the Network. “Aww, now I have to go to the track meet tomorrow.”
“Be quiet, Odd,” Yumi and Ulrich said at the same time.
The entrance gate closed shut behind them. “Are you guys okay?” Jeremie asked tentatively.
“We’re fine,” Ulrich said. “But would you mind dropping Odd off at the nearest Hub? I think he’d appreciate a good trip back to home on his own.”
“Hey, how am I supposed to concentrate with all the chatter?” Aelita asked, a little annoyed.
“Sorry, princess,” Odd and Ulrich said together.
“Jeremie, I’m ready,” Aelita said. “All indicators are go.”
“I’m sending you the Replika’s coordinates,” Jeremie said.
Suddenly, red windows displaying the warning signs appeared all over Jeremie’s screen. “Oh no…” Jeremie said, smacking his head in frustration. “The sonar just went down!”
“We’re not even one hundred meters away from Lyoko!” William said, surprised.
Aelita sighed. “Can you see what the problem is from your end, Jeremie?” she asked, slightly edgy.
“No, I can’t,” Jeremie said, sighing. “The sonar’s down. You guys know the drill. It’s too risky to go out into the Network without the sonar working.”
Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd groaned. “But we did it once!” Odd said. “The time Yumi got lost, and we had to find her without sonar?”
“That was an exception,” Jeremie said, “because it was more urgent than any of our missions. This time, it’s not worth loosing all five of you into the Network. Aelita?”
“Got it,” Aelita said. “Turning around and heading back into Lyoko.”
Lyoko’s entrance gate swung open as the Skidbladnir turned around and went back to Lyoko.
---
“Following docking procedure,” Aelita called as the Skidbladnir hovered down into position in the Hangar. The Support Beans leaned forward once more and locked onto the Skidbladnir.
The five Lyoko Warriors appeared on the Transporter Spots. “I’m bringing you guys in,” Jeremie said.
Aelita, Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and William walked out of the elevator, sighing. “Do you know what went wrong, Einstein?” Ulrich asked.
“Unfortunately, no,” Jeremie said, obviously upset. “I’ve activated an analysis program that will run through the night. Tomorrow when it finishes, Aelita and I will head back over here and fix it, since we’re exempt from the track and field meet. Hopefully the Skidbladnir will be ready again by tomorrow night.” He sighed, getting out of the chair and stretching.
“Let’s go to sleep,” Yumi said, yawning. “It’s late, and we all need our sleep for tomorrow.”
“Do you think Jim will kill me if I oversleep tomorrow morning?” Odd asked, as they walked back into the elevator. “Because right now, I could sleep for a century.”
---
Far above the Earth, spinning through space, was a space station. Missions to it had been postponed a year ago when it malfunctioned from an oil leak, but it had now been repaired. So far, there had been two successful missions to it as teams of astronauts sought to gain research from space.
One of the rooms had been locked for an unknown reason, and the astronauts aboard had been unable to open it, even with override codes. They had finally given up and left it alone…and they were lucky they had. Inside it, strange metal spheres flew out of a small machine. Some of them had spikes upon them; others simply spun around and around in midair.
The eye of Xana glowed on screens nearby. Xana had not yet been discovered in the space station’s mainframe, but it was a matter of time before something bad happened.
---
Odd yawned, joining the rest of the students in the gym. “I barely had time to eat breakfast,” he complained to Ulrich, Yumi and William. “There’s no way we’re going to win, so what’s the point?”
“It’s just useless,” agreed Yumi crossly. “There’s no reason for us to try with this little experience.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong, Ms. Ishiyama,” a voice said from behind him as Jim walked into the gym. “We will try our hardest, we will win, and we will beat Central Prep!”
“Is this something personal, Jim?” Ulrich said, a contempt edge to his voice. “Because all you seem to care about is beating them, not how hard we do. You’ve been drilling us for the past three days.”
“What?” Jim said, widening his eyes. “Why would I care about beating Central Prep more than about how well you participate? I mean, it’s not like there’s a huge rivalry between the head coach of Central Prep and me or anything.”
After Jim had walked away, Yumi winked to the others. “He’s lying.”
“How do you know?” William asked incredulously.
“Female intuition,” Yumi said.
“Might I remind you,” Odd said, “that last time you and Aelita used your ‘female intuition’ to check if the Jeremie at the controls was a clone or not, the Mountain Sector was destroyed?”
“Stow it, Odd,” Ulrich said, rolling his eyes.
---
Three hours later, as lunch neared, William walked out of the competition area, rubbing his arm. “That really…hurt…” he said, walking up to Yumi, Ulrich and Odd.
“It’s okay,” Ulrich said, sighing. “It’s not your fault that Central Prep is so good that they’ve beaten us in every event so far.”
“I still think that Central Prep’s shot-put guy was on steroids,” Yumi said, frowning.
Far away in the abandoned Factory, Jeremie and Aelita were working on the Skidbladnir’s sonar. “Have you checked the command processes?” Aelita asked Jeremie, who was sitting at the controls. “The command might have been corrupted, which caused the sonar to function at the wrong frequency.”
Jeremie nodded, contemplating. “Actually…I think that might be it,” he said, starting to type again. “With any luck, we’ll be finished in a few minutes, and the mission for tonight will be all set to go.”
---
In the far extents of the Network, activity was starting to begin. The calm before the storm was slowly drawing to a close.
There was the moment of complete silence, right before the bomb explodes.
Simultaneously, hundreds of digital worlds started to appear. Replika after Replika, Xana was gaining power by the nanosecond.
Supercomputer after supercomputer on Earth started to operate their own Replikas once more: the research lab’s supercomputer in the Amazon jungle; the military base’s supercomputer in New Mexico; the supercomputer hovering aboard the space station, kilometers above the Earth; the military base in the northern snow blinded reaches of Siberia, and many others.
Xana was powerful once more.
As the repair program finished, Jeremie and Aelita sighed in relief. Aelita checked her watch. “Maybe if we’re lucky, we can make it back in time to see Odd and Ulrich in the 400-meter sprint.”
A Super Scan window appeared. Jeremie sighed. “Just when we thought we had everything fixed,” he said crossly. “Activated tower.”
“Which sector is it in?” Aelita said, turning toward the elevator. “I can go right now, and the others can come when they arrive to give me backup.”
Jeremie frowned. “That’s…really weird…” he said, double-checking the results. “I can’t locate the activated tower.”
Aelita halted, and walked back to stand next to Jeremie. “What?”
Suddenly, a window appeared, not unlike the one that had appeared when Xana consolidated the energy of his supercomputers to use the Kolossus for the first time. Jeremie’s eyes widened, as virtual world after virtual world was created.
“No…” he moaned. “No, no, no, no, no…”
Staring at each other and then back at the screen, Jeremie and Aelita stood stock still, as if frozen.
Aelita sighed. “We waited too long,” Aelita said in bitter resentment. “We weren’t fast enough. Xana gained his power back, and he recreated his Replikas. He can do whatever he wants now, and unless we bring back the multi-agent system, there’s nothing we can do…”
Jeremie instantly opened the mobile program. “I’ll call Yumi,” he said. “No matter what, we need everyone over here right now. We don’t want to waste any time, and we have to act as soon as we can.”
Back at Kadic, as the 400-meter sprint started, Yumi’s cell phone started to ring. She quickly took it out and pressed the answer button. “Hello?”
“Yumi?” Jeremie’s voice sounded strangely tense and quiet. “Activated tower.”
Watching Ulrich and Odd race against their competitors, Yumi was a bit distracted. “Okay, we’ll be there,” she said. “But…wait, you don’t sound too good. Is something wrong?”
“Xana was able to recreate his Replikas.”
The news dropped like a bomb. “Wh-what?” Yumi stuttered.
“I can’t explain everything now,” Jeremie said. “I have to work with Aelita to check some of the Skidbladnir’s programs. Get here as soon as you can.” Jeremie hung up.
Yumi put her phone slowly back into her pocket, her expression still disbelieving.
“Is something wrong, Yumi?” William said, glancing at her and seeing her expression.
“We have to get to the Factory right now,” she told him grimly.
---
“What’s this all about, Einstein?” Ulrich said, as the four of them walked into the lab. “Yumi said something about an activated tower, but you guys all seem upset about something.”
“I didn’t want to tell them before I was sure of it myself,” Yumi said grimly to Jeremie.
He nodded. “Well…then look here for yourself.”
They walked over to stand on both sides of Jeremie’s chair.
The window in front of them on the screen displayed a window that was still locating the virtual worlds on the Network. Its counter already read “52”, and the number was increasing.
There was a gasp. And then the room plunged into silence with the shock of realization.
“It…it can’t be possible…” Yumi said, wide-eyed.
“Xana recreated his Replikas?” Ulrich said in an empty voice.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Aelita said, sighing. “We weren’t fast enough. Xana was able to regain control of the supercomputers, and from there he recreated his Replikas.”
“But…” Odd said, puzzled. “Are there even 52 supercomputers around the world? I know that there are four others besides this one, but surely there can’t be that many to support the Replikas?”
“I’m not entirely sure of that,” Jeremie said. “But I do know that this window isn’t a fake. Regardless of how many supercomputers he possesses, Xana has brought his Replikas back.”
“Yumi said there was something about you not being able to locate an activated tower?” prompted William.
“Yeah, about that,” Aelita said, taking over for Jeremie. “The Super Scan located an activated tower…and Jeremie couldn’t locate where it was at first. But he found it, and you aren’t going to like the news.”
“What news?” asked Ulrich.
Aelita took a deep breath. “Xana’s activated a tower on the Ice Sector Replika, and with an upgrade Jeremie developed to the Super Scan, we localized Xana’s focus to be Kadic.”
“What’s he going to do?” Odd asked.
“We don’t know,” Jeremie said. “But that’s nowhere near the worst part. Xana can now activate towers on any of his Replikas or on Lyoko, and now he can attack anywhere in the world.”
The news dropped like a bomb. The room plunged into silence once more.
“Does that mean that Xana doesn’t have to attack close to the virtual world’s supercomputer anymore?” Yumi asked quietly. “He can activate any tower on the Network, and attack with no limits to his location on Earth?”
“That’s precisely it,” Jeremie said, sighing, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes, a sign of his disbelief and anxiety.
“Does that mean that he can attack anywhere in the world without us knowing?” Odd asked, afraid of the answer.
“Well,” Jeremie said. “If we didn’t have the Super Scan, yes. But we’ll still know whether Xana has activated a tower, we just won’t be able to do anything on Earth to stop him.”
“But I don’t think that’s going to be an issue for us,” Aelita said, trying to make the situation a little less worse than it already is. “Right now, we’re the only threat to Xana because we’re the only ones who are aware of him and can do something. He’ll focus on eliminating us before he goes off to do anything else.”
“So what’s the plan?” Ulrich asked. “What do we do to deactivate the tower?”
“You’re going to have to take the Skidbladnir there,” Aelita said. “We don’t know what the attack is yet, so it’s best that we take care of this as quickly as we can.”
The others nodded, and followed Aelita into the elevator.
Back at Kadic, there was a short intermission. All of the athletes were hydrating to get ready for the long jump.
Suddenly, a lamppost nearby the field started to spark. Sissi, under it at the moment, heard a fizzing noise. She looked up and screamed, running away as a dark black specter suddenly formed.
The figures of the Central Prep competitors suddenly started to flash black as the specter attacked their section.
“What’s going on…?” Mr. Delmas said, surprised and shocked as the Central Prep team started to attack the rest of the people on the track and in the stands.
“Talk about poor sportsmanship,” Sissi commented, as she hurriedly helped her father organize an evacuation.
---
The Skidbladnir rose out of the Digital Sea and onto a nearby plateau. “We’re here on the Replika,” Aelita said to Jeremie.
“Okay,” Jeremie replied, opening a radar window. “The closest activated tower is just a little farther north of your position.”
“I can see it,” Aelita replied, as the Skidbladnir turned and crossed the long plateau. They could see the tower at the edge of the plateau, glowing the blue that signified its inactivity.
“Docking.” The purple sparks flew out from the Skidbladnir and attached it to the tower.
“Okay, Einstein, what’s the plan?” asked Odd. “Do we all go to deactivate the tower?”
“No, it’s too risky,” Jeremie said. “Only two of you can go with Aelita to the tower. The other two need to stay here and protect the Skid.”
The five Lyoko Warriors teleported out of the Skidbladnir to stand in front of it and the tower it was docked to. “I’ll go,” William volunteered.
“I’ll go with you,” Yumi said, not noticing Ulrich’s change of expression.
Suddenly, the Super Scan window opened once more on Jeremie’s screen. “Wait,” Jeremie said, glancing at the results. “Don’t go just yet. Xana’s just consolidated the energy focused through the tower.”
“Meaning?” Ulrich asked, four out of the five of them there not understanding a word of what Jeremie had just said.
“Xana’s attacked,” Aelita answered for Jeremie. “What’s the attack, Jeremie?”
“It seems…” Jeremie blinked, opening a camera window to check. “Uh oh…you’re not going to like this. Xana has possessed about twenty people at the meet back at Kadic. Ironically, they’re all Central Prep students.”
“Not much change,” Ulrich said. “They already had bad tempers before.”
“Do you want one of us to go back to Earth?” Yumi said. “To protect the people at the meet who weren’t possessed?”
“I think that’s our safest bet,” Jeremie said. “Any volunteers?”
“I’ll go,” Odd said. “I have a score to settle with the guy in the Number 21 jersey.”
“Materialization, Odd,” Jeremie said, entering the code and pressing the enter button.
Nothing happened.
“Uh…Jeremie?” Odd said. “I’m still here. Don’t tell me that the supercomputer’s having bad reception again; the distance isn’t that far between here and Lyoko.”
“Stow the jokes for a minute, Odd,” Jeremie said, frowning as an error window appeared. “I can’t materialize you. I can’t materialize any of you, for that matter.”
“What?” Aelita said, giving the sky a look of disbelief. “Are you sure?”
“I’m checking it out right now,” Jeremie said. Another window opened. “Uh oh…you’re not going to like this. Xana’s prevented rematerialization from his Replikas!”
“What?” The five Lyoko Warriors froze.
“It must have been an ‘improvement’ he made from the Replikas before,” Ulrich said grimly.
“So we can’t be materialized from here to Earth?” William said, trying to comprehend the mess. “And if we’re devirtualized, it’s for good?”
“That’s it,” Jeremie said, sighing.
There was silence.
“Well, if we don’t want to waste our time,” Yumi said, looking at the practical side of the best solution to the situation, “it’d be best if we continued the mission to deactivate the tower.”
There was a moment of contemplation.
“Yumi’s right,” Jeremie replied, sitting straight and typing, entering the necessary codes. “Vehicle materialization!”
The Overboard and the Overwing appeared in front of them.
“The tower is east of your position,” Jeremie instructed as the three of them mounted the vehicles. “Take the path to your right.”
“Make sure not to scratch the paintwork!” Odd called roughly to Aelita. She rolled her eyes at him and zoomed away, William and Yumi on the Overwing just behind her.
---
The Overwing and the Overboard grounded to a halt to sit in front of a cavern. Hidden from view of the tower, Aelita, Yumi and William glanced around to look at the tower. “Uh oh,” William said.
A humongous horde of monsters was awaiting them. Three Megatanks stood ready to shoot their elliptical lasers. Four Krabes walked around the tower, while two Tarantulas sat in their firing positions, waiting for their targets to appear.
“Jeremie…” Yumi said, reluctantly opposing the situation, “it’s going to take a while to get past these monsters. Xana’s at full force.”
“Is there any chance that you could call Ulrich and Odd to help us?” Aelita said, sighing. “There’s no way we can do it alone.”
“Unfortunately, no,” Jeremie said. “You’re on your own, guys. It’s crucial that Ulrich and Odd stay to protect the Skid, because if it’s destroyed, with the materialization down I can’t guarantee you a return to Earth.”
Yumi suddenly had an idea. “What if instead of deactivating the tower, we destroy the Replika?” she pondered. “That would deactivate the tower, and it could save us some trouble.”
Jeremie considered the idea. “That’s not a bad idea,” he replied, switching audio frequencies. “I’ll tell Ulrich and Odd. Stay put for now. Ulrich? Odd?”
Back at the other tower, Ulrich and Odd, sitting on the black cable-like features coming out of the tower, looked up to the sky. “Yeah, Einstein?” Odd called. “How’re you guys doing?”
“Not so great,” replied Jeremie. “The tower’s being guarded by a ton of monsters, and it’s going to take Aelita, Yumi and William a while to get through.”
“Should one of us go to help them?” Ulrich said, standing up.
“No,” Jeremie said. “But Yumi gave me an idea. Which one of you would like to be Translated?”
“What?” Odd said, standing up as well. “I thought we had trashed the idea of destroying Replikas since there are more of them than the pimples on Herb’s face!”
“We had,” Jeremie replied, “but it’s going to take Aelita a while to get through to the tower, and there’s an even bigger risk at being devirtualized for good with materialization down. Destroying the Replika might be our best bet.”
“I already know my way around the Siberia lab,” Odd said, “so I guess I’ll go. I’m not doing it to show off, you know.”
Ulrich coughed.
“Sorry,” he replied to Odd’s questioning look, his grin visible through his faked innocent expression. “I just have this annoying cough today.”
“Teleportation, Odd,” Jeremie said. Odd vanished, and reappeared in his NavSkid.
“I’m ready to go, Einstein,” Odd called.
Jeremie nodded. “I’m activating the tower.”
Jeremie pressed the enter key. But instead of a Super Scan window opening to indicate the activated tower, an error window opened.
Jeremie frowned. “What’s going…” He stopped as he read the contents of the report. “Just our luck,” he sighed.
Odd looked around, frowning. “Jeremie, did you use the wrong language or something?” he asked. “Because I haven’t been Translated; I’m still here in the Skid.”
Jeremie sighed. “Teleportation Odd,” he said once more. Odd reappeared outside next to Ulrich, still puzzled. “Sorry guys, it looks like Xana has also put new coding into the Replikas to prevent me from activating towers. Like hacking through to restore rematerialization, it’s going to take me a while to crack.”
“What?” Ulrich said, aghast. “So we can’t do anything on the Replikas anymore?”
“Well, besides moving and fighting,” Odd said.
“No,” Jeremie said. “At least not until I hack through this stupid coding. Looks like we’re back to the original plan of deactivating the tower.”
“At least we won’t be bored,” Ulrich said, pointing in front of them. Four Tarantulas were coming toward them, getting ready to attack them and the Skidbladnir.
---
“Aelita? William? Yumi?”
The three Lyoko Warriors looked up to the sky. “Yeah, Jeremie?” Yumi called. “How’s the Translation going?”
“Well…no one’s been Translated yet,” Jeremie replied, sighing.
“What?” William said. “Why? What’s the hold-up?”
“Xana’s put coding into his Replikas to prevent me from activating towers,” Jeremie said.
The three of them gasped. “What?” Yumi asked, giving a start.
“We’re back to trying to deactivate the tower,” Jeremie said.
“It looks like Xana’s covered up all of the loopholes,” Aelita said, sighing as she stood up.
“Okay,” Yumi said, taking charge. “William, we’re going to be attacking the monsters to get their attention. Aelita, wait for my signal, and then go around to the back of the tower. With a little luck, there’ll only be a monster or two that isn’t occupied.” Aelita nodded.
“Toranamo!” shouted William, wielding his sword and running from their cover toward the monsters.
“William, wait!” shouted Yumi. She sighed, and then mounted the Overwing and followed him.
William quickly took out two of the Krabes, slashing at their legs so that he could jump onto them as they crashed to the ground. He blocked fire from the Tarantulas and ran toward them, shouting battle cries.
Avoiding the Megatanks’ fires, Yumi swerved this way and that, and launched her fans. One of them was caught by a Megatank’s shot and flew away.
Yumi focused her energy on the fan. With Telekinesis, she drove the fan straight across two of the Megatanks’ Xana eyes in one swipe.
Aelita, watching the fight from behind the cavern, glanced at Yumi to see her turn around and wave her hand in a signaling motion. She nodded, and jumped onto the Overboard and swerved around the other side of the cavern to head toward the back of the tower.
Suddenly, she heard bird-like noises from above her. She looked up and groaned to see three Flying Mantas overtake her. William and Yumi, dealing with the two remaining Krabes and Megatank, didn’t notice the two Tarantulas turning to face toward Aelita.
Yumi heard a shout and turned to see Aelita throw Energy Fields at the approaching Tarantulas. Instead of being destroyed, they froze and fizzed pink as the Energy Fields made contact with them.
“Hi, Lady Long Legs,” Aelita called to the approaching Tarantulas. She maneuvered the Overboard like a spinning knife and aimed it toward the Tarantulas. The Overboard started to spin endlessly as Aelita jumped off of it. As it flew towards them, both ends swiped through the Tarantulas, and the three virtual objects exploded.
As Aelita started to fall towards the ground, she activated her wings. She flew toward the tower…but she had forgotten about the Mantas.
The three Mantas clustered around her. One of them fired at her, and with a cry she fell to the ground as her wings deactivated.
Destroying the last Megatank and leaving William to handle the Krabes, Yumi ran to help Aelita. She quickly took out two of the Mantas with her fans. With the threat down, Aelita ran into the tower.
As she deactivated the tower, the Central Prep students fell to the ground at Kadic. Many random items lay in pieces, and the non-Xanafied people trying to protect themselves sighed thankfully.
“Great job, you guys,” Jeremie said, smiling, as William destroyed the last Krabe.
Suddenly, a radar window opened. Jeremie gave a start as a red virtual form resembling a large human-like object was shown to be approaching the Skidbladnir and the tower it was docked to. “Guys..” Jeremie called worriedly to Aelita, Yumi and William. “We have a problem. Get back to the Skid right now!”
“What’s the problem?” Aelita said as she exited the tower.
“Volcano Brain is back,” Jeremie said grimly.
---
“Uh…Houston?” Odd said, backing away with Ulrich toward the tower. “We’ve got a problem here. And he’s fiery, mean-looking and gigantic…”
The Kolossus approached them. The ground shook with every step it took toward them.
“Ugh,” Ulrich said, retching. “I forgot how ugly he was.”
Suddenly, about fifty meters away, the Kolossus stopped. It held out its arm as if it was about to throw something. Fiery threads started to circle in a sphere, and a ball of fire with the circumference the size of one of them formed in its hand.
“Incoming!” shouted Odd, and he and Ulrich dropped to the ground as the Kolossus threw the Fireball in their direction. Luckily, it didn’t hit them, but hit the Skidbladnir with an explosion that shook the plateau.
“Jeremie?” Ulrich said. “I hope the others are on the way, because our guest here seems to have a fiery taste for destruction.”
“They’re on the way,” Jeremie said. “For now, just try to distract the Kolossus until Aelita arrives.”
“Why?” Odd said, as the Kolossus resumed its march toward them. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but what can Aelita do to this thing that we can’t?”
“You’ll see,” Jeremie replied.
Ulrich turned to Odd. “Do you want to give the new move a shot?”
“Sure, why not,” Odd said, shrugging. “But I don’t think Firehead will appreciate it.”
Ulrich quickly backed up about ten meters. He sprinted toward Odd. As Ulrich got closer, Odd leaned backward into a handstand. Ulrich jumped onto Odd’s upright feet, and Odd gave him an extra boost of momentum, sending him onto the Kolossus’ outstretched arm.
There was a shout from behind them. Odd turned to see Yumi and William flying toward the Kolossus on the Overwing, while Aelita headed for the Skidbladnir.
“How’s it going, Princess?” Odd called as Aelita flew toward him high above.
“I don’t think my wings have this much mileage,” Aelita replied back, deactivating her wings in midair and landing next to Odd. “Jeremie, I’m ready.”
“Teleport!” called Jeremie. Aelita disappeared and reappeared in the cockpit at the controls.
Aelita entered a code into the white keypad, and then hit one of the large hexagon buttons on her right. “Super shield!” she shouted.
Just as the Kolossus swung a mighty arm down to the Skidbladnir, a second shield appeared around the Skidbladnir. The Kolossus’ arm came down heavily on the Skidbladnir, sounding a loud crash, but the shield merely fizzed lazily.
“Great job, Aelita,” Jeremie said, smiling.
Aelita, still holding down the button, called, “Teleport.” William, Yumi, Ulrich and Odd reappeared in their NavSkids.
“What is this thing…?” Ulrich asked curiously.
“This is one of the modifications Jeremie and I installed,” Aelita replied, smiling. “It was mostly made to protect our naval ship from Big and Ugly here. Say goodbye, Mr. Kolossus!”
The Kolossus waved its large arms in frustration as the Skidbladnir hovered to the edge of the plateau and dove back into the Digital Sea.
---
The five Lyoko Warriors walked out of the elevator.
Jeremie stopped typing and turned to face them, rubbing his glasses and sighing. “Great job, you guys,” he said wearily.
“What’s going to happen now that Xana can activate any tower and attack anywhere?” Yumi asked worriedly.
“We continue to fight,” Jeremie replied. “No question to that. But I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot harder. You guys were fortunate enough not to encounter problems getting to the Replika. But Xana may decide to delay you guys in the Network, which will only create more trouble for us.”
“And what about fixing the materialization codes from the Replikas?” Odd said. “I don’t want my next trip into the digital world to be my last.”
“I’ll be working on that,” Jeremie replied, turning back to the computer. “And I’ll be working on hacking through the coding that’s preventing me from activated towers. But…”
“Something else, Einstein?” Ulrich asked.
“Well, I’ve had a little idea that will give our friend Xana a nasty surprise,” Jeremie said, smiling. “But I can’t tell you guys about it until I’ve done more research if it’ll work.”
“It’s not something to destroy Xana once and for all, is it?” Aelita asked hopefully.
“I didn’t say that,” Jeremie said, grinning, continuing typing.
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Return to the past now!”
Story Notes:
09.17.08 – 09.23.08
From now on, I will not be writing the episodes in chapters. It's just pointless to me when the chapters are so short and don't serve a purpose. I may decide to write future "important" episodes in chapters, but we'll see.
Chapter End Notes:
Sneak peek at the next episode's title picture: http://lff.lyokofreak.net/stories/257/images/102.png
