Howdy everybody! It's me, your favorite Handmaiden of Artemis. I now present to you my first foray into the Code Lyoko ficdom, I hope it is to your liking. It was inspired by the new episode (hooray new episodes on Tuesdays!) "Double Take" and also by a picture I saw online. It is also my first fic that is not complete fluffiness. Gasp! Someone call Hell to see if it's still hot down there! Haha anyway, please review when you're done and don't flame me for not updating my other stories. I'm trying gosh darnit! You may, however, flame me if this story totally sucks. I apologize in advance if it does. Toodles!

Also, I do not own Code Lyoko. It belongs to some French people and not to me. Darn.

The Dark Prince of Lyoko

You may think you know what happens after an evil supercomputer takes control of you, but trust me— you don't.

Yes, many have been used by the program known as X.A.N.A., sweet little Aelita perhaps more than anyone, but none for as long or for the same purpose as I have. For I am William, once known as William Dunbar, but here I am just a pawn. Does X.A.N.A. even care what he has done to me? Does he know who I am? He must, because he knows I had access to his archrivals, those Kadic Academy students who pledged to fight against him.

Ulrich, Odd, Jeremie, Aelita, Yumi… Those names used to spark thoughts and ideas inside of me, but now I can only think of them as X.A.N.A. does—with blind rage, and an urge to kill. These are the only thoughts that fill the timeless void that is the virtual world of Lyoko. And who knows how long even these thoughts will be allowed to last, or if I will ever remember my time in this place if I am ever free from X.A.N.A.

Freedom. The word tries to reclaim images of the past, of times when I walked in the light of day instead of sitting on my throne in a dark virtual room in the depths of Lyoko. I do like to call it my throne, for if X.A.N.A. is the King of Lyoko, and Aelita the Princess, then certainly I am its Dark Prince.

My eyes, with X.A.N.A.'s symbol superimposed over the center of my field of vision (unseen by everyone else, even if there was someone else here to see) watch as X.A.N.A.'s tool lifts up its black-gloved hand and clenches it into a fist. It is at times like this when X.A.N.A. likes to remind me of his power. And I do feel it—powerful, unstoppable, inhuman. I could destroy those would-be heroes with a slash of my sword. The desire to wield my weapon with superhuman force grows so great it becomes agony. I need to obliterate them. This is X.A.N.A.'s greatest trick— it doesn't force the person (if I am even that anymore) to act as it commands, it places the idea in the person's head until it becomes an obsession. Only by fulfilling the plan X.A.N.A. intended will you find respite from your own mind.

Suddenly I feel the call of X.A.N.A. and I'm standing in the desert sector. The supercomputer guides the black energy out of me and sends it into a tower, turning the green haze red. A voice issues out of me that is not my own, but I don't even bother listening anymore. X.A.N.A. is now my master, and nothing is going to change that.

Later, whether minutes, hours, or days I do not know, they arrive. I can sense their presence before I can even see them. The fact that they have responded to X.A.N.A.'s actions sends a jolt of malice through me. Now is my chance to destroy them.

I take on one fighter first and quickly devirtualize him—his triplicate is no match for my heightened abilities. But this is simply the catalyst to my desire to destroy. I must finish the rest of them, and quickly. Another attacks, but my sword easily absorbs her energy blasts. She flies away—the coward. I will need to go elsewhere for my next victim. I cannot get to her before the tower is deactivated, but X.A.N.A.'s anger is nothing to me now—all I care about is my thirst to see all of them gone. I take the last one remaining by surprise, my blade at her throat. She backs up, her foot unsteadily searching for ground beyond the ledge. My cold eyes take in her feeble attempts at escape, but don't really see her. Then she speaks.

"Jeremie! William's trying to push me into the digital sea!"

I pause my attack, confused. That voice…so familiar. And she said William. That's me, or rather, who I used to be. I put down my sword and caress her cheek, trying to let her know that I remember her—Yumi, the girl who once meant so much to me—and that William is still inside me somewhere. I would speak to her, but I know all that would come out would be the harsh computerized voice of a demon of this digital world.

X.A.N.A. senses what I am trying to do and sends an angry burst streaming through me until I finally give in and push Yumi over the edge, but not before she grabs my arm and pulls me down with her. I watch her, as we both plummet toward the emptiness of the sea, and I wait for the release I will feel as she is lost forever in this barren world. But the hopes of this new virtual me are dashed when she is scooped up by her comrade and pulled to safety.

X.A.N.A. is furious, but as I watch Yumi soar farther and farther away from the monster that is me, I feel something like relief as well. I allow myself to slip back into the virtual nothingness and descend back into my lair, to take my place at X.A.N.A.'s right side as the Dark Prince of Lyoko.