Sithking Zero: WASSUP! And now, a poem I heard online, adapted to my purpose:
Roses are red, violets are blue, If This stuff I own, then stupid are you.
It’s the continuation of the previous chapter. To summarize, After Odd and Yumi were sent back home by the viruses, Bass showed up and helped Ulrich destroy his first viruses, mainly by disabling their protective aura shields. However, as the first battle came to a close, the second battle began shortly afterwards, with dark curtains of smoke dropping across their paths. Things are about to take a darker path, and not just on the field of battle. What’s next? Read on…
Chapter 16
Truth and Daring
Bass and Ulrich both took an unexpected step backwards from the dark curtains of energy, which even as they moved back, rolled, bubbled, and collapsed upon themselves.
As the two fearsome warriors watched, the blobs of inky blackness solidified into two completely familiar figures.
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“Aeilita, abort the program, XANA’s taking over the tower!”
“Understood.” She said in that soft, peaceful way of hers. She reached out and pressed the red “Stop” button.
Now, for those who either have seen the episode “Revelation,” or know Murphy’s law, you know what happens next. The diary did not stop decoding itself.
“Jeremie, it won’t stop!”
“That’s impossible!” he cried, searching desperately through the lines of coding to find and correct the error. After about a minute, he moaned.
“There’s no stop function!” He said in despair. “Someone removed it!”
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Deep in sector 5, XANA chuckled. “It’s good to be evil…” it sighed.
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The black smoke on one mutated itself into a black haired, gray-skinned figure with an orange and black kimono drew a sword, a red Katana blade, similar to Ulrich’s blade. The other figure had a navy-blue cloak, dark gray skin, a brown jumpsuit, and purple fins. In short, they were the dark versions of Ulrich and Bass.
“I told you fools we were superior,” came the voice of the Bass Clone. His voice sounded weird, like it was coming from a recording.
Bass leaned down to Ulrich. “Do I really sound like that?”
“Ulrich, there’s three weird energy signatures near you, what’s going on? We need the tower to be destroyed now!” Jeremie’s slightly panicked voice came from the sky.
“Relax, Joel-” Bass began.
“Jeremie!” Jeremie said indignently.
“Whatever, I’m one of the signatures, and a clone of me and… You said your name was ‘Ulrich,’ Right?” he asked.
Ulrich nodded.
“Right, there’s clones of me and Ulrich.”
Jeremie moaned again and placed his hand on his forehead. “Just what we don’t need. Listen, we need those towers deactivated NOW! If XANA activates the tower, he’ll be able to get to all of our secret information!”
“Not only that,” Aeilita chimed in, “But we’ll lose all our weapons, materialization codes, Lyoko forms, everything!”
“We get the point, Einstein.” Ulrich grumbled. He drew his Katana.
However, before he even got it out halfway, his dark self dashed forwards, hacking and slashing like a madman. Thanks to his reflexes, he managed to avoid what would be (in a human) a very messy death, but the clone pressed on, trying desperately to keep the Lyoko Samurai off balance. Bass and his clone watched them dash off into the distance, slashing at each other while doing their supersprint move.
All of a sudden, Bass was knocked off balance as his clone took a flying leap and tackled him, sending them both over the edge and spiraling towards certain doom in the digital sea, far below.
Struggling madly against the clone’s vise-like grip, Bass finally broke free a mere fifty feet above the sea of death that permeated all of Lyoko. Swooping upwards, the real deal then turned to face his dark copy. The evil clone did not stop, but merely continued his upwards climb, an insane smile on his face, and slammed directly into Bass.
Bass made a whooshing sound as the breath went out of his virtual lungs, feeling himself be pushed along by the insane creation of a dark entity. He didn’t have much time to contemplate this, however, as he was slammed into the ground of a mountain, leaving a decent-sized crater.
The clone backed off for a second, then his hands began to glow red. Small spheres of energy began to build themselves in those gauntleted hands, preparing themselves for the terrible Earthbreaker attack.
The clone never got the chance. Bass sprung forwards, landing a solid left hook on the copy’s face, noticing the balls of energy popping like soap bubbles out of the corner of his eye. He then refocused, using his left arm to punch the clone repeatedly in the face, crest, stomach, anywhere.
As he readied himself for another punch, the clone grinned insanely. As Bass’s fist whistled through the air, another hand shot up and caught the punch with one hand.
Bass’ eyes widened in absolute shock.
His mirror image just stared back, his red eyes gleaming with glee.
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Ulrich, on the other hand, was having much more luck with his battle. His sparring partner was exactly equal to him in every way, though, so it wasn’t better by much.
Hacking, slashing, parrying, each move tired him a little more, while his clone seemed to be gaining strength with each strike. Each move was a little harder, until finally, with a flick of the wrist, his clone knocked the sword from his hands like it was a toy. Faster then his eyes could follow, the clone dashed up to the sword and grabbed it.
Now Ulrich was facing a dark copy of himself with two swords, while he had no weapon of his own.
Needless to say, this was a bad thing.
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“You’re weak.”
Copy Bass slammed a blast of energy the size of a medicine ball into Bass’ chest.
“What makes you think you stand a chance against me?”
Bass winced against the painful hits his body was sustaining, but still, he fled before the copy.
He knew, in his heart, that he was delaying the enemy, and that soon, XANA would possess the tower, capturing all the vital data.
However, he had a plan.
“Because, my dear copy,” he cried, “I’m not an inferior fake!”
XANA’s logo briefly flashed on the clone’s forehead, before the cloaked imposter dove back into the fray, aiming a Karate chop to the shoulder blades.
Bass easily dodged it, and used his left hand to grab the fake’s boot and slam him into a nearby mountain. “Point proven,” he smiled and turned to fly off.
That is, until he was hit in the back of the neck with another burst of energy.
Bass sighed, and prepared for the second round.
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KRANG!
The sound of metal hitting rock echoed in Ulrich Stern’s ear, as he rolled over again to escape another sword strike from his psychotic counterpart.
Slash after slash came his way, and each time, he used bursts of his power to dodge by the breadth of a hair time and again.
The copy charged again, attempting to impale him upon twin swords.
Swiftly, Ulrich dashed forwards, under the blades, and kicked as high as he could, managing a painful blow on his stomach, then kicking off and back out of range of his foe.
The copy bellowed in anger, dashing forwards again. This time, however, Ulrich just stood there. Then, the swords pierced his body, and it vanished.
However, at the same time as Ulrich vanished, the clone was suddenly attacked by two other Ulrichs, who punched and kicked the copy as hard as they possibly could, in a last-ditch attempt to stop the clone.
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Jeremie and Aeilita busied themselves trying to save and sever the links to the tower, but in their hearts, they knew it was no good.
Jeremie and Aeilita both stared at the rising percentage of XANA penetration into the tower with forlorn looks on their faces.
44...45...46...
“Come on,” Aeilita breathed, but even she did not know exactly who she wanted to help her and her friends.
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Punch. Kick. Blast.
Punch. Kick. Blast.
Punch. Kick. Blast.
Bass slowly fell into the rhythm as he fought against his dark foe, knowing that his enemy had the upper hand, as he was sustained by the very land around him, and that it would heal any wounds quickly.
This was bad, he reflected.
“You’re pretty good,” he grunted to his opponent.
“I know,” Copy Bass said, almost cheerily.
“What are you doing?” Bass asked.
“Trying to kill you. What else?” said the clone, humor in his eyes.
“No, really, for what purpose will my death achieve?”
The dark clone stopped for a moment, a moment that Bass did not hesitate to take, firing a blast that sheared off one of the fins of his clone’s helmet.
The clone growled, and the battle was on again.
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Ulrich watched as his ally was pierced through with the sword, then his foe turned back to him.
He could see the dark clone chuckle, then put one sword away.
Then it charged, sword raised in a classic killing stroke that would bring the sword down and through Ulrich’s skull.
Ulrich tensed up, waiting for the right moment…
The sword brought the sword swinging down…
And Ulrich caught it.
The clone’s eyes widened in shock, then fear, as Ulrich snapped the blade out of the clone’s hands and sank the sword through his foe’s stomach.
The clone stared at him in shock for a moment, then it evaporated into thin air.
Ulrich smirked, then sheathed his sword and used his supersprint to hightail it back to the tower.
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Jeremie saw the little Ulrich icon approaching the tower at high speed again, and knew that something good had happened.
“You win?” he asked.
“Yeah, but he was pretty tough. What do I have to do?” Ulrich replied.
“Sever the cables reaching to the tower. XANA shouldn’t be able to attack then.”
Ulrich nodded, then raised his sword to slice through a thick metal cable.
However, at that moment, the last tarantula from the original raiding party on the tower attacked at that moment, sending a barrage of blasts of energy to destroy Ulrich’s Lyoko avatar.
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In the real world, Jeremie heard the elevator opening up, and knew, without seeing, that Ulrich was dripping with sweat and panting with exhaustion.
“Aeilita…” Jeremie whispered softly.
Tower possession: 98...99... Warning: Error. Tower Deactivated. System anomaly detected.
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The Bass clone held his counterpart by the scruff of the neck, holding him up, looking at the tower.
“Now, Bass, feel despair… for you and your stupid human friends have just lost the battle.” Crowed the triumphant clone.
“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?” was Bass’ reply.
As soon as he said these words, the tower went from flashing green-and-red to a blazing white color.
The light was so pure and brilliant that both Basses were forced to look away in shock and amazement.
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“What’s going on?” Jeremie asked, looking at the files, not believing what the computer was telling him.
“Jeremie!” Aeilita cried. “The diary is decoding itself at maximum speed!”
“How?”
In an attempt to answer his question, Aeilita jumped down to the entrence of the tower and jumped outside.
The tower was brilliant. A white pillar of data and energy, she was awestruck for a moment before answering Jeremie’s question.
“Jeremie? It’s Franz. Franz deactivated the tower.”
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The clone tightened its grip on Bass.
“You…” it hissed. “You knew this was going to happen! DIDN’T YOU?”
“No, actually. It was merely a coincidence.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you notice that the whole fight, I was only using my left hand to attack and defend?” asked Bass with a smug look on his face. “I could have killed you at any time I chose. I was just waiting until I was ready to show you what happens to those who dare impersonate me.”
With that, Bass whipped aside his cloak, revealing a monstrosity.
Where his right arm once was, a massive purple-scaled wolf head with glowing yellow eyes now resided. The scales glowed purple and gold, and the eyes gazed cruelly at everything surrounding them.
Kicking off from the copy, he took aim.
“Goodbye, copy.”
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Tomorrow Morning (Saturday, 9:30 A.M)
Jeremie looked around the room. All his friends were there. Yumi, Ulrich, Odd, and Aeilita. He let out a sigh of sadness.
Would they still be his friends after the bombshell he was about to drop?
He turned back and looked directly into crimson eyes.
“AAAAHHH!” he yelled, falling back and knocking himself and his chair over.
Bass let out a loud laugh. “You can figure out a way to turn programs human, yet you can’t stay upright,” he said from his position on the computer screen.
Everyone, even Jeremie (except with a slight blush) laughed for a bit at that.
Then, Jeremie stood up, brushed himself off, picked up the chair, and placed himself squarely in it.
“When I was reviewing the documents of the Diary, I found out some things about Franz. He was the one who created Lyoko and the Supercomputer. I also found out some things…”
He took another deep breath before continuing.
“He developed the Supercomputer and Lyoko as a weapon to destroy a government project, code-named Carthage. However, after the project was abandoned and his wife died, he decided to make it a world where he and his children could rule.”
THAT was new information. Everybody, even those in the computer, pricked up their ears at this new information.
“Franz Hopper had children?” Aeilita asked. “I didn’t know that.”
“He was supposed to have two. One was his daughter. The other was a digital being he was designing and planned to turn human.”
Jeremie looked around the room. “He had the help of a certain ‘Dr. Mikhael Cossak.’ Evidently, the program was extremely advanced, and had the ability to-”
“Copy the abilities of its enemies?” asked Bass, a sick feeling curling around the pit of his stomach.
“Yes.” Jeremie said, while the rest stared at Bass. “But something happened to Franz and his daughter, and the program was taken away by Dr. Cossak. Then, Franz and his daughter sent themselves to Lyoko.”
Aeilita stood up. “That’s impossible! If someone else was on Lyoko besides me, I would have known about it!”
Jeremie didn’t say anything as the true implications of what he had just said sunk in.
“No.” she whispered. “No, no, no. There’s no way that I’m Franz Hopper’s daughter! It’s impossible! It can’t be!”
Everyone else was silent during these revelations, mostly because they were speechless at what this meant.
Jeremie looked at the floor. “There’s more. You actually have a brother.”
“Oh my god.” This from Bass, who was now very pale and sweating profusely.
“Yes.” Jeremie said quietly. “Aeilita… not only is Franz Hopper your father… Bass is your brother.”