Author’s disclaimer: I don’t own Code: Lyoko, Megaman, or any anime for that matter. I would give a kidney to do so, but I don’t.

Sithking Zero: Hi! Ummm… Happy Thanksgiving! Did everyone see the two new episodes last Friday? Good!

Just a quick note. From this point on, I will not be following the Lyoko series officially. Especially since the last two episodes (where XANA escaped from Lyoko.)

(DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! DANGER! SPOILERS AHEAD! DANGER!!)

Instead, I will be following along on the story path that I had previously decided on, and this will go how I want. This means that it really IS a virus that Aeilita has, Franz Hopper still hasn’t revealed that he’s Aeilita’s dad, and Aeilita finds her memories later.

(Okay, SPOILERS ARE OVER!)

The Code Lyoko song is awesome.

Thank you to Shademan, ReneeA111, Merielle (REALLY sorry if I got your names wrong,) Chise-sama, and anyone else who has supported or reviewed my fic. By the way, I do accept anonymous reviews, so anyone can review, really. SO WHY THE HECK AREN”T YOU DOING IT?!?!?!?

To everybody who celebrates it (and as my little way of saying “Screw you” to the ACLU), MERRY CHRISTMAS! To everybody who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL OF YOU!

Long author rant over. Please proceed to the chapter.

            It was three weeks since that faithful day in Lyoko, where our favorite adventurers from Kadic Academy had meet Bass.

            The sky was blue…

            The birds were singing…

            Sissi and Odd were making out…

            Do I have your attention?

            (A.N.: They weren’t really making out. I was just testing your hearing.)

            It really was a beautiful day.

            Except for the big fat sweaty guy wearing a red jacket, yelling at everyone on the track.

            “COME ON, YOU MAGGOTS!!” roared Jim, the slightly dumber-then-your-average-tree-sloth director of the Physical Education program at Kadic Academy.

            “I KNOW YOU CAN RUN FASTER; PUT YOUR BACK INTO IT!!” he yelled.

            “Do you ever get the feeling that Jim just likes tormenting us for the sake of tormenting us?” panted Odd to Ulrich.

            “I get that feeling only on certain days, but I have a special classification for those days,” Ulrich stated.

            “What do you call them?”

            “Days we have class.”

            Odd sniggered at Ulrich’s joke.

IN LYOKO...

            A lone figure stood on the peak of a tall cyber mountain.

            It was his destiny.

            It was his only desire, to be alone.

            However, though he was usually in a dark humor, today seemed especially… cold.

            His cloak fluttered around him, but he took no notice of this.

            His gaze was fixed resolutely upon the horizon.

            He pondered his existence.

            He pondered so hard, in fact, that he was completely oblivious to the movement of tentacles around his feet.

            Like a viper, the tentacles struck their target.

            An agonized scream, like a soul puked up out of hell, like a stab through the heart with a rusty knife, rippled through the mountain sector.

IN THE REAL WORLD…

            In Jeremie’s room, all was completely quiet.

            Silence.

            Suddenly, one of his many computer screens started to glow.

            Images of towers from all the different sectors flashed by, too fast for the eye to see.

            Suddenly, the towers stopped on one, a fairly isolated tower that was in the mountain sector of Lyoko.

            The tower was flashing red.

            The silence was broken by a steady, loud beeping.

            XANA had activated a tower.

            In the lunchroom…

            Aeilita and Jeremie were immersed in deep conversation about all the XANA attacks that had happened over the last few weeks.

            “I really don’t know, Jeremie, We can’t keep up with this. There have been twelve Xana attacks this week alone; and we really need a rest.”

            “I know, Aeilita, but we can’t just ask XANA to stop asking because we’re tired, that would only make him attack more! Besides, we’ve only got a few more weeks of this.”

            Aeilita looked at him quizzically. “Why’s that, Jeremie?”

            Jeremie blushed slightly, then answered, “The data we got from Sector 5 contained lots of data concerning XANA’s viruses. I should be able to create an antidote from it. If only w-”

            He never got further then that.

            At that moment, the peace and calm of the morning was destroyed irrevocably.

IN LYOKO…

            Screams racked the cloaked figure.

            Every inch of his mighty body was churning in absolute agony.

            It was beyond physical, beyond mental… It was like a god was slowly constricting his fragile soul in a vise.

            He was so much less then he was now; he was not the being feared by every netnavi over the age of two, he was not the being who would look God himself in the eye and tell him exactly what he would think, he was not the being who would look into the gates of hell and laugh, saying that it tickled.

            He was less then a cowering child retreating from a bully, less then the most pathetic puppy, less then even the lowest life form.

            This was the being who could destroy the world, but was now reduced to a sniveling ball, a poor unfortunate soul curled into a fetal position, hoping that his problems would go away if he waited long enough.

            To put it politely, and not to upset younger people, it did not.

            To put it not so politely, to the figure, it felt like his intestines were trying to desperately escape his own body to spare themselves. It felt like his soul was being put through a meat grinder. It felt like someone rammed their hand through his chest, ripped his heart out, threw it on the floor, and stomped on it.

            However, he was being tormented with his own past…

BASS’S POINT OF VIEW

            Oh… GOD in HEAVEN… The pain…

            My past… I…

            Is this death?

            People describe that before one dies, their life flashes before their eyes.

            That would explain it.

            My father… His strong accent, slim figure and blonde mustache all seemed so caring. I was his son. I loved him. I trusted him. I needed him.

            I was an experiment. I was the first of my kind. I hurt everywhere. I was the best… the most powerful of all.

            The executives decided that I was dangerous. I was only trying to help. I wanted to make father so very proud of me. I loved him.

            It made no difference. They locked me away, took away my powers, and mocked me from behind bars.

            My father comforted me from the real world. I tried to make the best.

            Then… That day.

            The field dropped. I was attacked. I was nearly overwhelmed. I was crippled.

            Then… power. The strength of a god. Bestowed on me. I used my foe’s own weapon to kill him.

            My father betrayed me. I left, revenge in my heart. I should be dead, but I was alive.

            My mission was clear.

            And no human could stand before me.

            But a virus…

            A mere packet of data… Has laid me low?

            I slip willingly into the void.

IN ANOTHER PART OF LYOKO…

            The Crab observed the sight of the male writhing in agony.

            The figure standing on top of the Crab also observed it.

            The being could sense the pain of the male.

            It was good.

            The being drank in the pain, drank in the agony, and drank in his darkness.

            A flicker of awareness, barely perceptible to the human mind, flashed a warning across the being’s mind.

            It vanished, but not before ordering the Crab to kill Bass.

            The Crab stood over its target, contemplating murder. Suddenly, in front of the three eyes, a ball of energy built itself up, preparing to eliminate his master’s foe.

IN STILL ANOTHER PART OF LYOKO…

            Four creatures raced across the thin mountainous walkways.

            They were on a mission.

            A tower had activated, and it was their mission to deactivate it.

            If you hadn’t guessed, it was our four heroes, Ulrich, Odd, Aeilita, and Yumi.

            A tinny voice came from the sky, interrupting the silence that had been cast over the small group by sheer determination.

            “Guys, I’m picking up a Crab due west. That’s strange…”

            “What, Einstein?” asked Odd.

            “It’s not moving to block you guys… It’s just standing still and blasting a rock…”

            Yumi sped up slightly. “I’ll go check it out, Jeremie. The rest of you go and deactivate the tower.”

            A few minutes later, Aeilita let out a gasp of relief. “Look! There’s the tower!”

            “Hey, Princess, look! There’s two tarantulas guarding it!” Odd cried.

            No response.

            “Princess?”

            Still no response.

            Slowly, Ulrich and Odd turned around to see Aeilita in the tentacled grasp of the Skipazoa. The monster was about five times as tall as Aeilita, with a long, tapered triangular base and a clear dome on top. Rimming the base of the dome was about twenty tentacles, several of which were wrapped around Aeilita. Three others, which at their tips were swollen, were almost touching her head, and pumping a strange red liquid. This red liquid was actually Aeilita’s memories, being drained into the creature, and being channeled into XANA’s storage banks.

            Acting swiftly, the two warriors attacked the monster. Odd fired laser arrows into the clear dome, causing the creature to retreat in fear. Ulrich, meanwhile, was busy attacking the tentacles, severing them and freeing Aeilita.

            Unfortunately for our heroes, the two tarantulas hadn’t been waiting idly. Both were now within firing distance, and began rapidly firing on Ulrich, Odd, and Aeilita.

            Ducking behind a rock, the three shivered as the boulder shook underneath the fearsome onslaught.

            “I have a plan. Follow my lead.” Odd stated after a few moments.

            “What is it?” Ulrich asked.

            “THIS!” He cried. Grabbing Ulrich’s katana, he whipped himself behind Aeilita, pressing the razor-sharp blade to her neck.

            Quickly, he stood up, and the barrage of laser bolts immediately stopped.

            Odd looked at the monsters with a hint of satisfaction. “See, Jeremie? Since they can’t hit Aeilita without risking her memory, they can’t hit us!”

            “Odd?”

            “Yeah, Einstein?”

            “For the sake of my heart, could you let us know your plans next time?”

            Odd rolled his eyes. “Picky, picky, picky. I just got out of this mess, and now you want me to change my style?”

            He then released Aeilita, and she entered the red, burning tower.

            Passing through the wall, she stepped on the center of the circular XANA-eye symbol, and began to rise upwards towards the top of the tower.

            Gradually, her ascent slowed, and she landed gently on a small platform floating on the top of the tower.

            She held out her hand, watching as it accepted her ID, then watching as she typed in the code.

            CODE: LYOKO.

            From the outside, Odd and Ulrich noted the change in the tower’s glow from red to blue.

            Aeilita exited the tower looking angry.

            “What-” Odd managed to get out before Aeilita slapped him flat on the cheek.

            “Don’t you ever do that again!” she shrieked shrilly.

            Then she stalked off to talk to Ulrich.

            Jeremie’s voice filtered down from the sky.

            “Odd, you just lost ten life points. What happened?”

            “I got a girl mad.”

ELSEWHERE ON LYOKO…

            Yumi was walking alone around a cluster of boulders.

            “Come ON, Jeremie, I’ve been searching for over ten minutes and I haven’t seen an-”

            She let out a small gasp.

            A human-sized black bundle was shivering in the middle of a group of monsters. Two blocks, two roaches, and a Crab were blasting the crap out of the bundle, and small moaning noises could be heard emitting from the bundle.

            Reacting like chain lightning, she quickly unleashed her steel fans, eliminating both blocks, but losing one fan in the process. Again, she launched a fan, but used her telepathy to guide it through the Crab and the roaches.

            Catching her fan with one hand, she jumped down from a boulder, and walked down to the lump of blackness.

            Gingerly lifting the cloth, she gasped in horror to see that the bundle was none other then Bass himself.

            His fins were chipped and cracked, his black bodysuit was fading to a dark gray-brown hue. His face was pale as her powdered Lyoko face. His eyes were rolling in their sockets, and he was obviously gravely wounded.

            She gently placed a hand on his forehead, but instantly his hand rocketed out and snatched her hand and pulled her close.

            “Filthy, disgusting human…” He rasped, his voice barely understandable, “GET AWAY FROM ME!!!” he nearly shrieked.

            With that, he went totally limp.

            Yumi stared up at the sky.

            “Jeremie, we have a problem…”

Sithking Zero: CLIFFIE!!!

After receiving an anonymous review, I have decided to re-do the last few paragraphs. It was determined that Bass was not acting Bass-like. In short, he was acting OOC.

I am hosting a poll, but only participate if you have a comment on my story to go with it.

Which is cooler:

1. Good
2. Evil
3. All your base are belong to us!

Please review!