"Transfer Odd, Transfer Aelita..."
"Scanner Odd, Scanner Aelita... "
"Virtualization!"
Odd and Aelita materialized in the desert region along with the overboard. "Hop on princess." Odd said in his most regal manner, eliciting a giggle from the pink haired girl.
"Ok, you two need to get to the way tower and transfer to the mountain sector. There you can deactivate both towers." Jeremy's serious voice cut into whatever Aelita was going to reply with.
"Alright Jeremy, we're on it." Aelita answered in a calm voice.
"Why the desert sector?" Odd whined.
Jeremy groaned out of frustration seeing as the hyper boy hadn't bothered to pay attention the first time he explained the plan then answered: "XANA's using one tower to scramble the virtualization program. Aelita and I created a workaround but we can't virtualize directly into the mountain sector..."
Jeremy was interrupted by something and when he got back to Odd his voice was cold steel, somewhat poorly concealing the worry that was boarding on panic. "Get to the mountain sector now! I'll figure out which tower is responsible for the attack on earth while you travel there... Watch the hornets at five o'clock high."
With that Jeremy went back to his programming, sweat rolling down his forehead as he worked. He had to isolate the data and energy streams emanating from the active towers so that he could figure out which one to deactivate first. The wrong choice would probably doom Yumi and Ulrich to XANA's mercy as XANA's trick had already forced them to fight on their own for almost twenty minutes. Jeremy looked at the news feed on one of his monitors for a split second and quickly returned his attention to the task at hand. The news summary graphic that had grabbed his attention said it all, the four officers he'd dispatched with a bit of creative hacking to help Yumi and Ulrich deal with the specter were now in critical condition at a local hospital. There was nothing he could do but suppress his guilt at sending them into harm's way and continue working.
Their sacrifice had bought Yumi and Ulrich the precious time that he and Aelita used to figure out how XANA had blockaded Lyoko and program a virus to counter it. Unfortunately, the window was short and XANA's firewall program would still have irretrievably damaged Odd and Aelita's profiles if he had tried sending them directly to the mountain sector. So he sent them to the desert sector while using some of sector five's energy and an active tower to create the illusion that he was sending them to the ice and forest sectors. Though XANA had taken the bait and Odd and Aelita arrived without an unpleasant welcome the process left him with precious little energy to spare, barely enough to execute a return to the past and only enough system resources to materialize a single vehicle.
Jeremy looked up from the energy and data flow diagrams to call to Aelita, "I need you to stop at the desert way tower, I need some info from the inter-tower network."
"Hey Einstein, maybe you'd like us to pick..."
"Shut up Odd!" Aelita yelled. "I'll get you the data." She called more gently towards the sky and Jeremy.
"Odd, the hornets." Aelita suddenly called out as she launched an energy field.
"That's one down, four to go." Jeremy's alarmed voice called out. In the background the clacking of keys could be heard.
Odd shifted his body back and into Aelita, bringing the overboard into a steep climb which he quickly converted to a stable but upside down flight. Surveying the incoming swarm he launched several arrows into the group and hit two of the four hornets he saw. They broke away from each other and headed in opposite directions. Odd shifted his weight forward and completed the loop then leaned to the side to turn in the direction of one of the escaping hornets. Aelita jumped clear of the board after Odd had stabilized it and activated her wings, allowing her to chase the other hornet.
"Aelita, Odd. I need that data and Yumi and Ulrich don't have the time for you to chase monsters. Let them go."
Odd grumbled and fired at his hornet, finishing it just as Jeremy was about to yell at him. Looking triumphant he flew after Aelita who had obviously given up the chase on Jeremy's order since she was a ways ahead of him. With a quick yell he let Aelita know he was coming and joined into formation, trailing behind and above her. He couldn't resist checking out her avatar, the form fitting suit and translucent skirt did wonders for her image. Unfortunately, the moment of distraction was all the remaining hornet needed. Jeremy's warning came a bit too late and Odd took two hits from behind. Forced off balance and unable to stabilize himself in time to avoid the collision he bumped into Aelita, sending her falling towards the ground. Aelita recovered and yelled at him about paying attention to where he was going. He mumbled an apology before turning to engage the hornet while Aelita pressed forward, heading towards the way tower at her top speed.
Odd barrel rolled on the overboard then spiraled outwards to avoid the hornet's laser fire. As one bolt passed by he suddenly straightened out and turned sharply into the hornet's path while firing arrows. Having scoring a direct hit, a victory cry escaped his lips as he passed through the shower of light and data that the exploding hornet left behind. At Jeremy's not so polite request he cut his victory celebration short and turned towards the way tower that Aelita had entered.
Aelita immediately ascended to the upper platform then pulled up the interface and began to search for the data Jeremy needed. Odd floated on his overboard with an anxious and impatient look for the entire two minutes it took Aelita to find the information and transfer it to Jeremy. His voice, rendered harsh with stress and worry, still held a touch of warmth as he thanked her and told them both to wait for another minute while he checked something.
The tactical map showed Jeremy exactly what he had feared and he frowned slightly before realizing the opportunity he had. With a short, relatively simple program and Aelita's tower access Jeremy redirected the data streams in the inter-tower network then ordered them to make the trip. Aelita smiled and winked at Odd before gracefully dropping off the upper platform and missed the lower one to enter the data-stream. Odd followed after her, wondering what was going on and emerged from the exit tower to find no monsters or any other sign of trouble. Jeremy's proud voice came from the sky. " XANA had the usual tower guarded by a few mantas and mega tanks, it was time and risk you needed to avoid."
"My hero," Aelita called to the sky before laughing as she imagined the blush Jeremy would have. Odd looked up as Jeremy's harsh voice came over the intercom: "Knock it off you two, there's still a tower to deactivate. Head west and it's 5 klicks away."
Odd looked at Aelita, "you compliment him and he yells at you. Tell me why you like him again?" He also gestured to his overboard, offering her a ride. Aelita let out a frustrated sigh as she tapped her bracelet and took off on her wings, snubbing Odd's offer of transportation. He followed after her, a little upset that Jeremy would treat her that way and more so that Aelita kept taking that from him. In Odd's mind, the damn workaholic sometimes didn't deserve friends, let alone something as pretty as Aelita.
Aelita flew beside Odd, trying to calm her emotions. She was upset with Jeremy over being yelled at and generally angry at the way he could sometimes treat her even when they weren't under XANA's immediate threat. But at the same time she was angry with Odd as well. He was treating this like it was a video game and that when a XANA attack was over the whole mission was done. Sometimes she wished Jeremy had more of Odd's personality, specifically his self confidence and just a bit of his carelessness. But she always wished that Odd had some of Jeremy's work ethic and sense of responsibility. She also wouldn't have minded if Odd had some of Jeremy's intelligence, or maybe that Odd would put his intelligence to more productive uses. She was getting tired of having to either cover for Odd's pranks and careless mistakes or watch the others cover for him.
"Odd, Aelita. Mantas at 10 and 2'oclock high." Jeremy's voice snapped her out of her revere and she dove to her right before entering a rapid vertical climb. At the same time Odd climbed to directly engage the mantas. "Odd that's an..."
"Shut Up Jeremy! If you think you could do better then come to Lyoko and actually fight like you were part of the team."
The mantas opened fire and Odd began to have second thoughts about his approach. "SHIELD!" He yelled as he ploughed into the laser fire from the leftmost group of three mantas. The protective circle of energy formed just in time, however the lasers pounding against the shield and drove him back towards the tail of his board. Unable to continue taking the fire he rolled to his side and dove for the ground, manta's trailing too close behind.
Aelita tossed an energy field into her group of mantas as their laser fire passed harmlessly beneath her. The three mantas slowed their descent to get a better shot while with a powerful thrust of her wings Aelita shot upwards still faster. The energy field missed but her quick thinking now gave her the high ground. A quick look revealed that Odd was in trouble but she had her own set of problems to deal with right now so he'd just have to wait. She dove into the ascending mantas and rolled over to the side after firing an energy field.
Odd zigzagged in every direction as he avoided laser fire from the trailing mantas. The ground was coming up fast and it offered an escape route in the form of bridges that connected several platforms. If he was quick enough he could manage this. Pushing off on the board he jumped, the momentum of his dive carrying him over the bridge while his board went under it. Two mantas followed the board, one pulled up to try and hit Odd as he flew over the bridge. Twisting around he fired arrows at the manta and watched in satisfaction as it exploded. Unfortunately the other two mantas managed to hit the overboard and Odd passed through the flickering wireframe of his board and screamed for rescue.
Jeremy quickly swapped his diagrams for a program window and virtualized the overwing to catch him after calculating his trajectory and taking into account the time required to materialize a vehicle. The two mantas that had been after Odd left him to fall to his doom and headed to join the fight with Aelita. "Damn it Odd, think before you attack." Jeremy yelled as Odd complained about having to drive the overwing. "Now get to Aelita quickly."
Aelita's energy field smashed into one of the climbing mantas, destroying it instantly. Forcing down the feeling of accomplishment and remembering that she still had friends in danger Aelita closed her wings and twisted so that her controlled dive became a seemingly uncontrolled fall. The confused mantas aborted their climb and nosed over to follow. As they did Aelita spread her wings, arresting her fall and wrenching her body. Thankful that such things didn't hurt on Lyoko she launched an energy field that hit one of the mantas square on its belly, destroying it. Closing one wing she rolled over and fell at an awkward angle with respect to the remaining manta to avoid it's fire.
Odd chased the two mantas he had left and, thanks to the overwing's inherent stability, managed to snipe one of the mantas he was chasing. The other banked and began firing at Aelita who was avoiding her remaining manta. She rolled out of the way just in time as Jeremy's voice came down from the sky. Odd grumbled as the manta banked and narrowly avoided taking a laser arrow on the eye of XANA. It reared and turned towards him, causing Jeremy to actually offer praise. Odd smiled wickedly as he rolled the overwing on its side to avoid the lasers it spat out. As he recovered and fired though, one of the manta's shots connected and the overwing broke apart along with the manta that had shot it.
Odd screamed for Jeremy's attention and got Aelita's instead. The moment of distraction cost her and she took a shot to her wings, causing her to fall towards the digital sea. It took a bit of effort but she recovered and flew after Odd, plunging down to grab him before he could fall into the digital sea. The hit she took cost Aelita thirty life points and she dodged wildly before dropping Odd roughly on the ground and landing herself. Running in opposite directions she and Odd confused the manta before she turned and fired on it.
Unfortunately Odd had the exact idea as he called the kill and fired arrows at the Manta's estimated position without really looking at the intended target. They sailed through the disintegrating manta and blasted into Aelita's form, leaving her with only 30 life points remaining. Aelita glared at him for a moment while Jeremy yelled. But Aelita cut him short, there was no time to waste and they had to reach the tower. Grabbing Odd, Aelita took off flying as fast as she could and hoping she could still reach the tower in time.
"Aelita, get to the ground now!" Jeremy's angry voice came down from the sky. "Tarantulas ahead."
Odd shook his head as Aelita complied with Jeremy's command and then ran out to engage them after Aelita had taken cover. He knew that Aelita was running out of life points and couldn't afford to take much risk.
"Odd be careful, Aelita's..."
"I know what I'm doing" Odd called back at the sky. "I'll protect our princess while you just sit back, relax and enjoy the show, same as always."
Jeremy winced in his chair, all of his feelings and fear of inadequacy called up because of Odd's taunt. Even if he wasn't afraid of going to Lyoko it wasn't an option today. The automated procedure would throw him into XANA's firewall and that would be the end of his life. So he remained in the chair, focusing on the display and trying to block out the pain of Odd's reminder that he didn't fit in and didn't deserve Aelita.
Odd ran from boulder to boulder as the tarantulas fired in vain at their target. Stepping out while both were distracted Aelita began to sing a note then stopped, realizing that she would waste her remaining life points. Summoning an energy field instead she carefully lined up a shot and took it. Her aim was true and now Odd had only one enemy to kill. "Nice shot Aelita!" Smiling, she answered "thanks Jeremy."
Deciding to take a chance she began an advance on the tower, moving forward when Odd did so that she didn't make herself a target. Odd meanwhile fired arrows at the remaining tarantula as he advanced to keep its attention focused on him. Finally thinking they were close enough Odd began to climb up a boulder. His mind filled with thoughts of proving that he was the real hero who deserved her, Odd shouted at Aelita to run for the tower as he reached the top. She dashed out without thinking, fully trusting that Odd had the situation under control. Odd leaped backwards off the boulder and flipped forward on the way down, lining up his outstretched claw to take the kill shot. The tarantula fired on Odd, blissfully ignoring Aelita as she advanced towards the tower.
Jeremy watched in horror as Odd's antics ate up precious time and added to the risk. He knew one day Odd's selfish antics would cost them. It looked like it would be today as Odd twisted out of the way of the lasers and his perfect shot missed its target. Aelita cursed under her breath as Odd landed awkwardly and she entered the monster's sight range. It fired on her, one laser bolt hit and she stumbled. She had only ten points left now and was on the ground, scrambling to get up. Odd recovered and fired, hitting the eye dead center and smirking in satisfaction as the monster exploded. His victory celebration was cut short when he noticed Aelita's wireframe flickering out of existence.
Aelita picked herself up and just started running when she felt the impact of the second laser. Odd had killed the tarantula but it was too late, she hadn't been fast enough to avoid its last shot. As her virtual body dissolved and she couldn't help the anger she felt over Odd's selfishness and that because of it Jeremy was being left to face XANA alone.
Jeremy yelled in horror and grief as he watched Aelita die on Lyoko. Her card registered the attempted transfer to earth and he banished the window, he already knew the transfer would fail due to XANA. Almost worse than the loss of Aelita was the knowledge that Yumi and Ulrich were left to face XANA and die at his hands. In desperation he tried to launch a return to the past. But with XANA still in control of two towers he couldn't, the program failed. Now there was nothing left, no hope of defeating XANA without Aelita.
Unless all of XANA's replicas could be found and destroyed. He couldn't manage it now but maybe the world's governments could. And maybe he could save Yumi and Ulrich too, all it would take was the destruction of the computer beneath him. He disabled the cooling system and began transferring data to every world government advanced enough to have a hope of countering XANA. After that was done he'd wait here for the computer to explode. With Aelita gone there was nothing left for him to live for. As for Odd, he didn't deserve the consideration of an escape. It was a comfort, knowing that he'd soon be as dead as Aelita and that Yumi and Ulrich might survive. Jeremy tossed the earpiece away and wrote one last program, using a tower to boil off the coolant pool that the supercomputer was normally submerged in.
Aelita woke up inside a scanner, her head throbbing and every muscle sore from the materialization process. How she was alive was a mystery, she shouldn't have survived XANA's firewall. Part of her mind filled with dread, would XANA be waiting for her in the lab? Would Jeremy be bound and tortured, begging for his death as an end to his suffering? Was that why XANA had let her live? Was that his plan for her? The thoughts made her want to curl up in the scanner and cry. But there was the chance that Jeremy had figured out another solution and had once again saved her. The thought filled her with hope and she got up slowly, still dreading what she would find as she carefully left the scanner and climbed up the ladder to the lab.
XANA's specter loomed over the bloodied and battered forms of Yumi and Ulrich as they slowly got up and assumed a weak looking fighting stance. With an evil smirk the specter, shaped as a police officer, shifted forward and threw Ulrich half way down the block. Yumi managed to hit XANA as he lunged at her but the blow was inconsequential and she too went flying. Her rough landing made her tumble, snapping her arm and leaving a jagged piece of bone sticking out through her skin. XANA chuckled then finally laughed as Ulrich crawled to Yumi and gathered her into a hug. Yumi's cry of pain was like music and their ginger hug, complete with its quick admission of love, seemed a futile effort to find some comfort before their long and exceptionally painful deaths.
Finally reaching his first two victims, XANA reached out to grab Yumi but collapsed instead as his form flickered and pixilated. Shifting its focus, XANA noticed the sabotage to the computer and the outgoing data transfer. His form flaring in something like anger he gave up trying to maintain the human shape and simply lunged at Yumi and Ulrich with dark spikes. The energy phased through their bodies and XANA knew he had to do something quickly. All the energy he had he focused on the two warriors huddled in front of him, trying to inflict fatal damage despite the increasingly error prone calculations used to hold his energy form together. It did work, the conflicting electromagnetic fields writhing within their bodies finally started to cause burns. Pure agony was heard as both Yumi and Ulrich endured the holes being burned into their bodies by XANA's failing specter. When the scene was finally silent two smoking corpses remained, locked together in a final embrace.
Odd took refuge inside the active tower and screamed for Jeremy's attention. Giving up after only a few moments and assuming that Jeremy was too caught up in his loss of Aelita to care about getting him out of this mess he sat down on the tower's floor. The deathly silence of Lyoko was almost painful. But the realization that he had gotten Aelita killed through his careless desire to show off and show up Jeremy really did hurt. There were no tears and no breath as he sobbed on the floor of the tower, filling the silent structure with sound. As he gripped himself in a hug he managed to compose himself, offering an apology to who or whatever might care to listen. He vainly hoped that if he met the rest of the gang in the afterlife they would forgive him. He would understand if they wanted to simply leave him alone to rot for all eternity though.
In the lowest level of the factory the supercomputer crackled and fizzled in a noxious cloud of vaporized coolant and smoke from the burning electronics. Components failed, some releasing impressive bolts of electricity as charged coils and capacitors unleashed their stored energy. Heatsinks glowed red hot as they struggled to deal with the power being shed by the chips beneath them. One by one the integrated circuits failed, some exploding into bits. Across Lyoko pieces of the virtual environment simply disappeared as the physical circuits holding their data failed.
The tower beginning to quake beneath him wrenched Odd out of his self pity and he pushed through the wall then gasped at the sight before him. The mountain sector was breaking apart, whole platforms simply winking out of existence. The sky and sea were rendered as shifting patterns of color and distant towers began to glow a golden color. Beneath his feet the ground flickered and distorted, patches coming back with the wrong textures and colors. Behind him the tower he had left moments earlier morphed into a blinding golden light then exploded outward, the blast catching him and throwing him off the platform. With nothing beneath him but the digital sea and with Jeremy not answering he knew this was the end. Except he didn't fall as his avatar wavered and distorted. He drifted in the air then clutched at his skull as the world broke apart into a painful array of light and sound. He endured his torture, screaming at the top of his 'lungs' until the world once again fell silent, his digital avatar winking out of existence as the programs rendering his consciousness failed completely.
Aelita pushed up the hatch to the lab and ran to Jeremy, jumping into his lap and taking in the look of shock and joy for only a few seconds. Time was a luxury she couldn't waste now so she forcefully pressed her lips against his, expressing all the feelings she had built up over the two years they had known each other in a period of a few seconds. Jeremy understood and, knowing that it was literally now or never, kissed back with everything he had. They pulled apart for breath and simultaneously confessed their love. Jeremy looked into Aelita's eyes "I thought you were dead... I'm sorry... I." He fell silent, not at all certain how to say he had killed them both.
A quick glance at the monitors told Aelita everything about the situation that Jeremy hadn't. Anger flooded through her for just a moment before understanding blossomed and took its place. Finally settling on forgiveness, she snuggled against Jeremy. He wrapped his arms around her and simply held her tightly, her final words giving him some measure of peace. "It's ok Jeremy, I understand and I forgive you."
The supercomputer shuddered once and exploded, the blast wave reaching upwards and piling up debris from the scanner room before penetrating the floor of the lab. Jeremy and Aelita clung to each other as they flew across the room and slammed against the wall, cold metal shrapnel impaling their bodies as the force of the explosion pressed them into the wall. Somehow still together as the pile of stuff they were in groaned and settled they endured their agony for a few moments before the injuries claimed their lives.
5 years later: XANA would have smirked had he had a human form. Jeremy, Aelita, Yumi, Ulrich and Odd had fought and died in vain as not a single nation spent more than two weeks hunting for him. The technology sent as evidence for the existence of XANA and meant to be tools used against him had been put to much more "practical" use by the world's governments. But security was lax as each country scrambled to outdo the others in the new quantum systems arms race. A simple signal and all elements of XANA's plan snapped into action.
Deep beneath the Cheyenne mountain, NORAD commanders get the first indication that something is seriously wrong. Early warning radar stations go off-line, their data feeds replaced by a flickering static. But it's neither random nor a malfunction and within minutes the supposedly isolated systems are compromised, the eye of XANA pulsing on two monitors. Two became four and four became eight as panicked operators frantically tried to contain the rapidly spreading infection. Unknown to them, this scene was playing in bunkers and other supposedly secure locations across the world. None of the tech teams were able to contain the infection and soon the heavily fortified defense networks of every advanced nation fell under XANA's control. Un-commanded by the officials who had the authority, thousands of nuclear missiles around the world were launched. Leaders around the globe watched in horror as clocks counted down to the exact moment of the worlds end. Time to target was a well known variable and officers, leaders and anyone else who knew what was really happening scrambled to get one final moment with their families before the inevitable.
Less than 45 minutes later the toll of XANA's first strike was known as billions of lives disappeared into blinding, blue-white flashes and the fireballs that followed. With the first wave of the extermination complete, clouds of thick black smoke poured out of supercomputer facilities that XANA had spared from nuclear annihilation. Humans infected by XANA's virus-like smoke marched outwards, infecting every able bodied person they came across. The wounded and dying were killed, leading to the second wave of death. Finally, over a week later, the robots and cybernetic animals under XANA's control exterminated the remaining human population.
Now cleansed of all human and most animal life, XANA began his primary task. Bit by bit XANA built infrastructure, manipulating the weather to clear the air of radioactive particles. Genetic samples, preserved deep within XANA's memory were recovered and materialized to plant new forests. Cities were cleared of debris and some rebuilt to service the maintenance needs of the supercomputers XANA controlled. It took decades but earth had been terra-formed into a planet resembling Lyoko, with forest, ice, mountain and desert areas. Towers were surrounded by small cities to service their needs while in the hearts of the North American and Eurasian continents great cities representing Carthage sat. The lonely planet sat silent, ready and waiting for its two intended occupants: Waldo and Aelita Schaeffer.