Jeremie sat at the supercomputer mainframe, keeping an eye on the situation in Lyoko. Yumi's lifepoints were nearly gone, Ulrich was lucky to be mobile, Odd was out of laser arrows, and Aelita was still not even close to the tower. To make things even worse, now there was an alien signature in the virtual world.
It was an avatar, but the file was encoded in a key that the young genius couldn't crack. At least it appeared to be taking out monsters more quickly than the three warriors combined.
"Ulrich, are you sure that you don't see anything? No explosions, lasers, or suspicious figures?" Jeremie asked into his microphone.
"For the hundredth time Jeremie, I don't see anything except for desert and the tower, which is still too far away. I have seen the occasional hornet fly by, but they just leave us alone. I don't think they see us as a threat."
He was right, too. XANA had completely disarmed the Lyoko warriors. However, just as the virus had prepared a final strike, a new avatar appeared, and the very second it did, it started to destroy the monsters as if they were basic programs. As far as he could read, the person was male, about the same age as the rest of the humans that entered Lyoko, and used two types of weapons, one projectile and one blade. It was a force to be reckoned with.
But, as XANA could only scan the physical elements, the virus could not see what this avatar's personality was like. To begin, the name of said avatar was Jason Krilel. He was 13, American, and very cocky, considering his current situation. At the moment, he was balancing on a krab (which was firing aimlessly, trying to hit its attacker) while shooting at hornets, which never seemed to run out. The amazing thing about this situation was that he had only lost five life points when he was hit in the chest by a Roachster. He had gone on a frenzy after that.
"Hang in there Jason," said his twin sister, Lilly, "I think that the virus is giving up... No, scratch that, I'm counting another twenty bogies coming in from your right."
"Yeah, maybe you should get off that terminal and HELP ME!" Jason shouted to his sister. She was the smarter one. Their mom always said that there was a trade off in the womb: She got the smarts while he got the muscle. In truth, he was smart, just not smart enough to hack an outdated supercomputer, in the basement of an old factory, and from a remote terminal too. His sister amazed him sometimes.
"I would, but then we'd never get out of there, would we?"
"Good point..." Jason sighed as he continued to fend off the seemingly hopeless strike.
At the same time as Jason was doing this, Jeremie decided to give up trying to track the encryption and instead tried to see where the avatar's info was being sent to.
"Aha! I knew they'd leave a trail of bread crumbs," Jeremie stated smugly.
"What was that, Einstein?" Odd asked.
"Just follow the hornets, you'll be able to find the new avatar there. It seems to be friendly, it's wiping the floor with the krab over there, so at least it's not a friend of XANA's."
"Okay, Jeremie," Yumi sighed, "I just hope you're right about it being an ally."
"Don't worry Yumi," Jeremie said reassuringly, " I'm tracking down the one who hacked the firewall as we speak."
He kept an eye on their status, but focused most of his attention on finding this hacker. He had the location narrowed down to the factory. The computer screen displayed a 3D floor plan of the factory, and the cursor moved to a definite location. A room they all knew well. The scanner room. Jeremie told everyone he would be gone for a little while, and ran to the elevator. He punched in the code and rode down to the scanner room. When the door opened, he saw that one of the scanners had a cable in the base of it that led behind the machine to where there appeared to be a glow on the wall. Jeremie walked as quietly as he could to the small splotch of light, and heard keys tapping. He poked his head around the scanner to see a girl about his age typing furiously on a laptop. She had a dark brown ponytail, skin that was unhealthily pale, a pink t-shirt and tight fitting jeans. The first thing that came to his mind was how she got past the firewall with just a standard laptop. Then he noticed that she was completely oblivious to the world around her, as he was looking right over her shoulder.
"So you're the one who hacked my firewalls," Jeremie said, making her jump a little and let out a frightened scream, "Why don't you tell me who's in there and how you know how to work Lyoko."
"Uh..." Was all she could manage to say. Then she turned to a USB microphone and said, "Jason, look out, you've got a megatank coming from behind!"
Jeremie could hear the boy's response, a brief "Oh shit!", coming from the speakers.
"Can you let me communicate with my friends in there?"
"Sure?" The girl replied.
Jeremie took the laptop and typed a few line of code into the program. Odd, Ulrich, and Aelita appeared on the screen just as a scanner hissed and opened, letting Yumi out.
"I was hit by a stray shot..." Yumi said sulkily, but then added strongly, "but that guy is going commando on those monsters. If only you could have been there Jeremie, he's amazing to see in action."
She didn't even notice the girl sitting cross legged next to her friend. But she did notice that there was computer cable coming out of the scanner he was next to, and it led to the girl who looked just like the guy she had just seen in Lyoko.
"Jeremie," She began her question, "Who is she?"
"That's a question that I want answered myself," Jeremie said suspiciously and turned to the girl on the small computer, "Who are you?"
"My name is Lilly Krilel," She replied, "The boy in Lyoko is my twin brother, Jason."
"How do you know about Lyoko?" Yumi asked surprised.
"I don't want to answer that question." Lilly said, slightly annoyed.
Then there was a voice on the speakers. "Sis! Spawn some more ammo! I'm out!"
"What do you want me to do? Spawn it on the krab?" Lilly shouted into the mike, now very annoyed, "I can only put it on a sturdy surface, and the one you're on is hardly sturdy."
"Then put it in front of the krab! I'll jump down and destroy this mother-"
"Okay, spawning laser pistol ammo in 5...4...3..2..."
In Lyoko, Jason saw the small box form right on the ground in front of the krab. He pulled his machete from the sheath on his leg. He stabbed the XANA emblem on the krab's head and leaped from it, landing right by the ammo, he slammed his pistols down on it, reloading them, cocked them, and went Rambo on the surrounding bloks and hornets.
Ulrich and Odd just stood there with there mouths open. What they were seeing defied most of what they considered the laws of physics. This guy's speed was much higher than Odd's and his accuracy was also much higher than Odd's, but that wasn't saying much. He could swing a blade much better than Ulrich could. Aelita was just impressed with the style in which he was dispatching XANA's creatures. He made it look as if they were not even fighting back.
Once Jason finished the last Blok off, he turned to face the three Lyoko warriors. His apparel consisted of a green camo jumpsuit without sleeves on the arms, a sheath on his right leg with a machete in it, and two holsters on the back of his black belt. He was about Odd's height, and had short hair that was spiked. He did a mental head count and found on missing.
"I thought I saw four of you coming," He said, his voice was almost like Odds, just a little lower, "What happened to the other one?"
"The krab fired a shot and hit her," Odd stated the obvious, "It probably thought it could take one of us out."
"And it did." Ulrich said.
"Thank you for clearing the path for us." Aelita thanked Jason happily, "Now I just need to go and deactivate the tower."
She ran off, leaving the three boys to chat before the whole situation ended. Jason avoided any and all questions about who he was and where he came from, unaware that his sister had answered one of these questions.
Aelita entered the tower unopposed. She walked to the center of the platform, and rode up to the control platform. She logged into the mainframe, it displayed her name, and then showed the command prompt. She entered Lyoko in to deactivate the tower, and the spectre in the real world dissipated into nothing.
After Jeremie materialized everyone, they all stood in the lab. There were quite a few things to be said.
"Okay," Ulrich said to break the silence, "I guess the first question would be... Who are you two?"
"Well..." The twins said in unison, then Jason said, "I'm Jason, and this is my twin sister, Lilly. We're from America, our mother just sent us here because she wants us to go to the same school our father went to."
"Which school is that?" Odd asked.
"Kadic Academy." The twins said, once again in unison.
"That's where we go," Jeremie said, "When do you start?"
"Tomorrow." The two said.
"Okay," Odd said, "You two need to stop doing that. It's really creepy."
The twins looked at each other. They really did look almost exactly alike. Lilly was Jason's exact height. Jason must have been made fun of it because he had the same effeminate build that his sister had, it was like he was built for speed. They had the same hair color, eye color (which was a deep blue), and it was arguable if their fingerprints were the same. The only differences were the obvious ones between a boy and a girl.
"We start tomorrow," Lilly said, "We're getting our rooms tonight."
"Okay," Jeremie said, "How did you know about Lyoko?"
"That's a longer explanation," Jason said, "Our father worked on the Lyoko project about twenty years ago. He left when the government started to track the project. About five years ago, he just disappeared, now he's presumed dead..."
Lilly continued after Jason was quiet for a few minutes. "He may have been captured by some agents and interrogated. I can only guess that, because there are no records of his existence anywhere. But he used to tell us about Lyoko, how he and several others would use the scanners to go into Lyoko to control and contain the virus when it's power spiked. He gave me his laptop before he left to go to work. He told us that the access codes and instructions for Lyoko were in there. That was the day he disappeared."
Jeremie noticed that the portable computer in her arms looked outdated, very outdated. That explained everything, though. If they already knew about Lyoko and had instructions on how to use the super computer, then getting her brother into Lyoko must have been simple. But for Jeremie, one question remained unanswered.
"How did you get past my securities?" Jeremie asked, "The firewalls are almost impenetrable, and the factory's security cameras should have seen you coming."
"Yeah," Jason snickered, "Almost impenetrable. Lilly is a genius. I'm smart, but not as smart as her."
Lilly smiled at Jeremie and said. "The instructions didn't explain how to get past securities, but they didn't mention any either. I had to find a way into the system, so I hacked the firewalls. Oh, and sorry if a skull and cross bones pops up on the screen, I like to leave my mark."
Just then, as if on cue, a jolly roger popped up on the computer screen, laughing.
"That's kind of funny!" Odd exclaimed, very impressed with the digital prank.
"It'll go away after a few minutes." Lilly reassured Jeremie.
"Well, we beat XANA for today," Jeremie said, sighing, "Good work, and nice to meet you two. I guess we'll see you tomorrow."
With that said, the seven entered the elevator, which got a little cramped, and rode up to the factory floor.