Sithking Zero: Howdy! CL, Megaman, or their parent companies do not belong to me.
Chapter 8:
Legacy of the Shadow Part 2:
Lost Memories
The tree-trunk sized laser slammed into Bass’s exposed stomach, slamming him through the air and through the tower’s wall, leaving a hole the size of a small car.
The force of the strike caused Bass to keep on flying through the air, until his momentum was forcefully halted by a tall mountain of ice.
It is a well-known fact that when ice is cold enough, it can become as hard as steel. Okay, maybe not well-known, but I know it. What does this have to do with Bass’s current predicament? Only that no creature, in this or any parallel world, can ignore being blasted by a massive laser and being slammed into a mountain of about the same hardness of steel at approximately five hundred miles an hour.
Bass sunk to the ground, and darkness quickly overtook him.
A figure strode over to him, its arm turning back into a normal hand.
Gazing down upon the helpless figure of Bass, the figure swiftly turned and walked back to its four massive creatures.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
ON EARTH…
“So all we have to do is protect one tower until your program finishes, Einstein?”
Jeremie rolled his eyes, then answered the question for what felt like the tenth time that day.
“For the last time, Odd, yes. XANA will, in all likelihood, not like us prying into Franz Hopper’s secrets. He’ll probably try to destroy the tower, like when Aeilita was being virtualized. That’s why Aeilita and I,” he said, glancing at his pink-haired companion, “have selected the tower carefully so that XANA can’t get a megatank anywhere near it.”
Odd cocked his head.
“So… why don’t we go after class?”
Jeremie sighed. He then opened his laptop and pointed to a pie chart, which was covered in glyphs and symbols that none but Jeremie, Aeilita, or a computer program could understand.
“If you look at this part of the graph, you can see what I mean.”
After a long silence, Aeilita cleared her throat.
“Ummm… Jeremie…”
“Yes?”
“I lived inside of a computer all my life, and I still barely understand that.”
“Oh. Sorry, guys.”
Ulrich gave a small grin.
“No offense taken, Einstein. But still, could you explain it?”
Jeremie pointed to a red chunk of the pie chart.
“This represents memory usage of the supercomputer. This green portion,” he continued, gesturing to the piece of the pie, “represents how long it will take a program to load, given the size of the program.”
His fingers deftly pressed a few keys. The green slice expanded, and the red slice shrank.
“This is the program for an average materialization code for your vehicles.”
He clicked again.
“And for your materialization codes,” he stated, nodding to Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich.
He clicked again.
“And for your materialization code, Aeilita.”
And again.
“And now for the dairy decoding software.”
He clicked a final time. By now, the green slice was about sixty percent of the graph, and the glyphs changed to represent it.
Jeremie clicked on a glyph. It instantly turned into an text box in French, which stated, Estimated time of Download: 48:00 hours.
Jeremie glanced at Odd.
“That’s why. Only once the program is set up can anyone go into Lyoko, and only then can we go without our disappearance being noticed.”
Odd’s eyes finally widened in understanding.
Aeilita, on Jeremie’s opposite side, was looking at the program with intense interest.
“Jeremie,” she began, “You do realize that if you fully decode his diary, you might find the key to the antivirus?”
“Yes.” He stated simply, before adding, “That is, if we’re lucky. This virus could be a new creation of XANA’s, and Franz knows nothing about it.”
Yumi clapped a hand to his back.
“Well, It’s worth a shot, right, Jeremie?”
“I suppose so…”
Even so, no one could have predicted the catastrophe that loomed before all of them…
Sithking Zero: That was short, but it was fun to write. Please read and review (as always.)