This is a continuation from The New Kid. Suggest you read that first.
Chapter 5-T2
Stephan looked directly into Jeremy's eyes, but saw nothing. Nothing but malice. "So this is how it's gonna be then?" Stephan said as he heard the results again in his head. He…was…out. Jeremy, Aelita, and apparently Ulrich even, didn't want him. His own friends turned their back on him like he was some sort of monster. He would show them a monster, he would show them all.
Without even a glance in their direction, Jeremy stated, "You two might as well start walking too."
"What? Why us too?" Yumi said as she took a step back. Odd stared at the others in disbelief. No words, only shock in the childish actions taken by Jeremy.
Aelita spoke up now. "You sided with a monster. Someone who can't be trusted. So, now you can't be trusted either."
Yumi looked in Ulrich's direction with hopeful eyes. "Do you feel the same way?" She asked. Ulrich didn't speak, or even look at her. He just hung his head low in shame. "Fine then. We don't need you. But you're gonna see that you will need us." She stood up and turned around, leaving her tray behind. Odd followed, eyes narrowed with hatred. Stephan finished his tray, then looked directly at Ulrich. Ulrich reacted by visibly shrinking back in shame. He cowered into a ball on his chair.
Stephan huffed, then walked off. He began to hear a voice in his head. It said, "Do it. You and I both know you want to join me. Come home to daddy. I'm waiting for you on Lyoko, in the desert." I won't give in to you. I don't want to wipe them out, just teach them a lesson. Having already hatched a plan, he quickly ran up and nudged both Odd and Yumi.
"Hey Stephan." Yumi said as she was walking outside. Odd looked in his direction and nodded.
"Guys, I have an idea. We can teach them a lesson."
Odd looked up at him, surprised. "You mean like blackmail? Or revenge?"
Stephan smiled. "No, we can one-up them. If we beat X.A.N.A., then they will have to trust us."
"But how can we do that on our own?" Yumi asked.
"X.A.N.A. told me that he is waiting for me to come home. If we can ambush him, then destroy him, I might even be able to locate and save William."
"That's amazing!" Yumi said, speaking louder than she intended. After getting a few odd reactions and people looking at her, she blushed a little bit.
"Yeah!" Odd said in agreement.
"Also, we're gonna need more people than just us. I have two more people in mind to join us, in case things go wrong. Plus, the more of us there are, the more likely we are to stop X.A.N.A. now."
Yumi narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "I don't know about this. Bringing extra people in is against what we stand for."
"Yeah, but the others are gonna have to anyway to keep going without us." Odd commented. "We might as well so this can be over as quickly as possible."
Stephan pointed both index fingers at Odd and smiled wide. "Exactly! And I was thinking that we get both Emily and Sam."
Odd raised an eyebrow in confusion. "You mean Samantha Knight? How do you even know her? I haven't mentioned her once."
"Yes, but X.A.N.A. remembered her from the time she stole a laptop while he was dropping the building into a sinkhole. He also remembers the interactions you had with her." He winked in his direction. "Reviewing what I know of her personality, she would make a good addition. On Emily, from what I know, she is quick to attack when irritated. She also stands up to things that would send others shivering. Plus, I know she can keep a secret. She's known the truth about me longer than anyone."
"That reminds me, we never heard your backstory." Yumi said this while Odd started punching Sam's number on his phone.
"Sure I guess. You see, using data gathered from watching interactions between you guys and humans in general, X.A.N.A. decided upon creating the ultimate polymorphic specter, one capable of digging into your group and tearing it apart. He used William's DNA helix as an example and translated it into code. It took a while, but he coded a program that would react naturally to emotional stimuli. Me. Then he coded my personality and appearance. He made it so that females in general would fall in love with me. My skills and preferences would help me be accepted by the whole group."
"He went so far as to even upload me the memories of a teenage boy who had been experimented on about a year ago. He was hooked up to a computer and the scientists attempted to upload his consciousness into the digital world. It failed miserably resulting in his death, but most of his memories were translated into a video feed that they were able to watch. It ran up to the last few minutes of his life, when the mind ran out of long term memory. I have it all."
"He then virtualized me into the real world and created a home and supervisor for me. Giving me the laptop, he told me to remove my data from Lyoko so that deactivating the tower wouldn't kill me. Next, he ordered me to hack into Jeremy's laptop and either redirect or destroy the super scanner. While doing so, I came upon a to do list that I wasn't supposed to find. It was a message sent from X.A.N.A. to William outlining the full plan to him so that he would understand why I entered the group."
"What did it say?" Yumi said curiously.
"X.A.N.A. wanted me to blend in with humans so much, he even chose to give me the power of choice."
"So?" Odd said as he heard the phone begin to ring.
"That means that I had the choice to follow him or my own desires. I chose to read the document, and was horrified. His plans involved making you fall in love with me." Stephan looked at Yumi saying this. "It would devastate Ulrich, and he would leave the group. I would then break your heart and you would leave. Odd, caught up in the middle, would probably desert himself. Next, using my wits I would drive Jeremy into a state of lunacy by outwitting him at every corner of life in general. Finally, I would trick Aelita into going into Lyoko to throw her into the digital sea. Franz would come rescue her. Then… we would kill him, and probably Aelita as well, so X.A.N.A. could use the replicas to destroy humanity."
Yumi's eyes widened. "Replicas of what?"
"Lyoko. Dozens of supercomputers buried around the world are under X.A.N.A.'s control. Each produces some piece of the puzzle that is X.A.N.A.'s ultimate plan after me. All we have to do to stop him is to get me close to him in Lyoko, then I can kill him."
"Shouldn't you be worried about where you're going to live for now on?" Yumi said. Odd covered his other ear and walked off.
Stephan answered with, "That's not important right now. I'm going to talk to Delmas, grab Emily, and get down to the factory so we can finish this before he gets too strong or leaves Lyoko."
"Ok," Yumi said with her eyes closed. When she opened them back up, Stephan was gone. "I guess I'll head over to the factory." She walked back over to Odd, who had just ended his call with Sam.
"She's headed for the factory. We should get going too." Odd said as he turned towards the woods.
"Right." Yumi said as she ran off ahead of Odd. As he caught back up, she said, "I hope Stephan shows up soon. He's also been acting really weird too."
"I've noticed that. As if he has something planned. Something he doesn't want us knowing." Odd said as he opened the manhole. "Ladies first after all."
Meanwhile… Stephan walked out of Delmas' office. He had told him about the 'tragedy' and nearly put Delmas in tears. He was really good at acting when he gave a shit. "Now to grab Emily." He said as he raced into the dorms. He heard footsteps on the stairs. Running at full speed, he caught up to a pair of girls just before they entered the hallway. They smiled and cooed. In an effort to attract him, one even went behind him and start rubbing his back.
"So, how's life treated ya, Stephan? I hear even Sissy is all over you. But you don't go for the shallow like that do ya?" She pinched his shoulder very hard. She clearly did not have any training.
"No, I don't, and if you don't mind, I need to find Emily." The girl behind him huffed and walked through the doors.
The other looked at him and said, "Last time I saw her, she was sitting on the bench outside the dorms."
"Thanks." He said as he turned around.
"Anything for you, Stephan-do." She said as he ran back down the ivory colored steps. Going back down the plain colored stairwell, he realized how plain and dull the whole place was. He wouldn't mind torching it later. But right now, he had other things on his mind.
Reaching the bottom, he saw her sitting on the bench, her hands on her chin. He sat down next to her and asked, "What's wrong?"
"I don't know. Everything seems so monotonous. Every day is more or less the same anymore. The days I spend with you are great, but the rest are just drab. You know what I mean? The weirdest part is I keep having dreams of the city being attacked. The school in specifically. Everything from ghosts to zombies, to bee swarms, and even a giant teddy bear ruining the prom."
Stephan put his hand on her shoulder. "Weird dreams, but maybe it's just your mind telling you something. Images in dreams often have a real world meaning."
She looked at him. "Like last night, I dreamed of this giant monster attacking the school, then a mysterious figure saving all our lives. Then another monster that looked kinda like Odd appeared. The figure got on his shoulder and together they charged off towards the horizon."
Stephan grabbed her hands. "Emily, there's something I need to tell you about your dreams. No, show you would be better." He got up and started jogging into the woods. "Come on." He called back. "I got something to show you." Emily got up and sprinted after him.
"Wait up for me!" She called into the distance.
Outside the factory… Odd and Yumi waited on the bridge. They had been standing there for about ten minutes when the manhole lifted up and both Stephan and Emily got out of the hole. "That was nasty." Emily said as Stephan helped her out.
"It wasn't all bad." Stephan said as he smiled warmly.
Emily blushed as she returned with, "No, not all of it was bad."
A car zoomed down the street and stopped across from them. A figure got out and waved goodbye. A man in the car said something, then drove off. The figure crossed the street and looked at Odd. "Sam!" he said, giving her a hug. She was taller than Odd-not that big of a feat, mind you-but not taller than Yumi. Her mocha colored skin was completed with black hair. Red highlights existed throughout the front of her hair. She wore a grey shirt, red miniskirt, and black boots.
"My parents dropped me off here and told me to call when I was ready to leave." She looked at the factory behind the group. "Nice hangout." She began to walk across the bridge. Odd went ahead of her and told her that he wanted to show her something. "Sure." They walked over the bridge and down to the elevator. Emily and Sam looked at each other, like Are we really going to do this? They then followed the Warriors into the elevator. It jolted at first, then smoothly rode down to the monitor room.
As the doors slid open, Emily and Sam both were speechless as they entered the room. Emily looked at Stephan. "What does this have to do with my dreams?"
"Go down into the scanners, and all will become clear." He said as he sat in the chair. Whipping out his laptop, he opened a hacking application and plugged into the monitor. Typing in a few commands, he then pressed enter. Opening a coding program, he then typed out more commands, linked them to the hack command, and saved. "Done. Everyone get down and I'll scan you in."
Odd looked at him… well oddly. "How do you know you can do that?"
"I'm a self-learning AI. I came from this thing, I know how it works." Odd shrugged and went down with the rest. "First, the two newbies will get in so we can take a digital profile. Also, go ahead and tell them everything. They've gone this far with very little information, but that won't help much longer."
Waiting a few minutes, he heard the sound of the machines taking the scan. Data quickly appeared on the screens. "Interesting." He said. "Now I will scan them in along with Odd." He began that process and turned to his laptop. "Now to give them a boost." He began to pull up old files. He had already begun working on programs for melee weapons for both Odd and Yumi. Why not try them now? As well as a secret weapon for Odd. Pressing enter, their digital files were updated. Then, he set an countdown to auto virtualization.
Using his specter powers, he jumped into the air over the ladder, pulled a backflip, and dropped down. Slamming into the ground on one knee, he looked up at Yumi, who stood in a scanner. He got up and sprinted for the one on his left. Stepping in, he watched the hatch close around him. Light enveloped him as he imagined his plan unfolding gloriously in his mind. All he had to do was 'murder' X.A.N.A. and convince them to stay by his side.
Dropping into the desert region, he could see the entrance to Carthage in the distance. Then he took a look at Emily and Sam. Sam wore a black suit with deep red highlights on the shoulders. Lines of red led down her arms and made splotches on her elbows and palms. A thin line shot out on each finger. Another red splotch covered her chest, with a line running down each leg, creating smaller splotches on her knees and the tops of her feet. She had a bald flail in her hands. The deep burgundy chain was wrapped around one hand, and the black flail head was in the other.
Emily had a fire orange suit. It had red highlights in similar positions to Sam, but they were more elaborate with more of them. She had a staff that had a sling on the end. Also, a bag full of assorted ammo types was in a messenger bag that hung from her left shoulder and dangled on the right.
Odd looked at his wrists. Around them were two silver gauntlets. Each one had a motion sensor on it. He looked at them curiously, then stretched. Flinging his arms out, he jumped back as two short, purple blades sprouted from the module on top of each wrist. "Cool! How did you do this?"
Stephan smiled. "Just a little bit of time tinkering on my laptop." He looked over at Emily and Sam, who were amazed at the look of everything. "No time to gander at nature. Your outfits are based on your like/dislikes and also have to do with your appearance at the time of entrance to Lyoko for the first time." Looking at Yumi, he said, "How do you like your Mongolian Fire Spear?"
"My what?" She said. That was when she realized there was a stick across her back. Pulling it off and twirling it in her hand, she smiled swiftly. A golden colored tip shone in the 'light'. A bright, red shaft stood about 3 feet tall with a 6'' spear head. The bottom could actually open up as well. She spun it around, opened the back, and pointed it at a rock. A fireball shot out of the spear and exploded on impact. "Awesome!"
"What is this place?" Emily asked Stephan.
"This is Lyoko. A virtual world that was had an evil menace called X.A.N.A. sealed from the world. However, he recently breached protocols and escaped into the net. This place became the only place we could attack him from. Now he has returned to accept me back and start the final march."
He then heard thundering in the distance. "Get back behind those rocks. Hurry!" The rest of the group sprinted back and dove behind a pair of rocks. Behind the rocks, Odd accidentally nudged against something cool and metallic.
"What the?" He said as he looked to his right. A black case with the word 'Odd' plastered in big purple letters along one of the faces sat on the ground next to him. "I wonder." He said as he opened it up. Inside it was attaché, which held four pieces. A long barrel, a bipod, a firing mechanism with a scope, and the rear of a gun. Piecing it together, he found it was a high power, bolt-action, sniper rifle with both a normal 6x scope, and a thermal 4x scope. "Sweet." He whispered as he stared down the 6x scope.
He could see a Titan running straight at Stephan. However, he just stood there, without fear. Or at least not on the outside. But upon closer inspection, he could see a sickly old man with long dark grey hair riding on top of it. Red reins went down into its mouth like it would on a horse. That was X.A.N.A. riding it. William was on a Manta in the background. The old man's trench coat had azure along the edges and on the entire inside. Black armor covered the rest of his body. He was so sick, his skin was pale like a ghost's and red rings of death circled each eye. On his left arm was a steel cannon barrel. It was painted red and adorned with gold studs on the midsection. On the end was a short sword built from gold.
Stephan looked directly into X.A.N.A.'s eyes, but saw nothing except bitter hatred. And to think it all started with Aelita and Franz getting onto Lyoko and disturbing X.A.N.A.'s existence. "Heel!" X.A.N.A. called out as the beast came within footsteps of Stephan. The old man jumped off and impacted the ground, casting dust into the air. Standing straight, he was about 5'10" maybe 5'11".
"Hello, father." Stephan said as X.A.N.A looked him over.
"It's good to see you." He put his hand up to his chin and rubbed it. "Just one question."
"Fire away." He said with a straight face. Inside though, he was sweating bullets. He better not see through this plan. I hope he doesn't. For me and my friends' sake.
"Where have you been?" Stephan opened his mouth to answer, but X.A.N.A. cut him off. "It's alright I know where you've been." He paused to cough a little bit. "You've been in the pipeline filling in time." He said this, referencing his time fighting with the Lyoko Warriors. "Got a girlfriend to feel good. You didn't like school, and you know you're nobody's fool. So welcome." He had a terrible coughing fit, then spat onto the sand. "Welcome, to the machine."
"I got a question for you. Why choose that form?" Stephan said, pointing at the old man with an eyebrow raised. He was also trying to shrug off that bit that he recognized, but couldn't quite place.
"While I do despise humanity, I don't have much choice but to study them as a culture. What else am I going to do in my spare time? This is a depiction of Guo Huai. He was old man that aided the Sima clan in dominating the Shu and eventually rising to form the Jin empire after the Three Kingdoms period. He was sickly most his life, but could always put up a fight. Once, in a campaign against Shu, he was ambushed by dozens of soldiers. They laughed at him and claimed it would be an easy kill. Instead, every single soldier lay bleeding out on the ground by this old, dying man, single handedly. A remarkable man, but still human."
"I'm happy to be coming home to you." Stephan lied. "Let's make it official with a handshake. Do it like the humans." Stephan stuck out his left hand.
X.A.N.A. stuck his out as well. "Let this signify the beginning of the end of humanity." As their hands connected, the pre-entered command triggered a chain of events that would devastate everything. The city experienced a power flash as all the electricity was drawn to the factory. It then all struck the super computer. If it went right, X.A.N.A. would be crippled enough that Stephan could absorb his data like a sponge and instantly free William. Instead, the super computer was so heavily damaged, it retreated into a power save mode.
X.A.N.A. stepped back, still severely shocked. Three mega tanks surrounded him and used their lasers like a shield for him. Walking back, it cursed under its breath and started heading for Sector 5. William grimaced and followed. However, dozens of Krabs, Kankrelats, and Hornets darted out from behind rocks and towers. Stephan looked around, realizing X.A.N.A. had activated every tower he could see except for way towers and some that weren't glowing at all.
A laser whizzed by his head as he came back to his senses. "Shit!" he yelled as he ducked under a flying fan. Sprinting for the nearest cover, he crouched next to Sam, who was twirling her flail in hand.
"I can't wait to get out there and start whacking some robots."
"I wouldn't get too excited. There's way too many of them and I'm not sure what'll happen if you get de-virtualized."
"Why not?" Odd called from his rock. He was picking off creatures rather quickly. Several Crabs were already struck down.
"Well, I meant to cripple X.A.N.A., but instead, I accidentally damaged the computer, forcing it into power save mode. There is energy to get one into Lyoko, but not out. We also have to supply our own energy to live. Meaning we have to eat and drink because the supercomputer doesn't have enough power to feed us. Way towers also can't take you across Lyoko. You can go from here to Forest or Mountain, but not Ice."
The onslaught of lasers slowed to halt in the background temporarily, Stephan took the opportunity. Grabbing Sam's arm, he ran from cover and over to a boulder. The rest joined him as the lasers started. "What happens if we run out of AP?" Yumi asked.
"I don't know. But we do have a safe haven. It's in the ice sector. It was the only tower that hadn't already fallen under X.A.N.A.'s control. In power save, to save power, all towers except 5 and two way towers in each region completely shut off. If we can get there, you're health points auto-regenerate once you enter it."
"Then let's get going." Emily said, holding her stick frightfully.
Emily started to run, but Stephan grabbed her shoulder. "Give me a second. By drawing reserve power in the tower, I can create my own monsters to help. Summoning a digital menu, he slapped through the options until he located what he wanted. A wireframe spawned up that stood about as tall as Odd's Titan. It was thin and lanky. From head to toe, the color came in on the beast. It was brown and had gnarled fingers that twisted about like that of a tree branch. Its feet came to dead stop like a tree stump. It began to step towards the enemies. "Let's go. That should distract them for a while."
"What is it?" Yumi asked as they sprinted for the way tower behind them.
It creaked with every foot step. It began ruthlessly stomping on the other monsters. Slowly, its leg lifted into the air, then swept through the lines, launching exploding monsters high in the air. It then started grabbing fistfuls of monsters. The group had already reached the way tower. Looking back, they were all amazed at what the new monster did. It opened its mouth and a gas came out. The gas poured onto the monsters before it dropped them. They all stood up and started firing at the other beasts. "Awesome." Odd and Sam said in unison.
"Come on. This will take us to the Mountain sector." The group entered and jumped down. Coming back up to another tower platform, they exited the blue pillar.
"So cool." Emily said under her breath. The purple mountains stretched high into the air around them.
"According to the map, the tower to the ice sector is on the bottom of the three layers here."
"Don't tell me…" Yumi started.
"We have to jump."
Yumi sighed heavily. "Never mind." Emily and Sam approached the edge and looked down.
"I can't see anything through the clouds." Sam said.
"Neither can I." Emily said in agreement.
Stephan ran by and leapt over the edge. "Follow me!" He yelled back up at them. Odd grabbed Sam's hand. He gave a little smile. She returned it and they jumped. Emily stood there shivering.
"I don't have time for this." Yumi said as she heard the wing beats of Hornets. She wrapped her arm around Emily's waist and jumped. Together, they plummeted through the clouds and passed by the middle layer. They saw Stephan use his specter powers to slam into the ground. He stood on a thin path that winded around the outside of the rest of the layer. He caught Odd and Sam. Putting them on the ground, he stuck his arms out again.
Yumi started to spread the both of them out, but got hit in the side by a hornet laser. She let go and grabbed her left side. "Ah that hurts." She began to tumble as Stephan grabbed Emily. Stephan jumped into the air and swept his left arm to the right. Three dragonflies appeared in the air. Their long tail was silver in color. Their main body was a medium black, arms were a dull gray, and their eyes were a luminescent red-orange. The insignia of Los Illuminados from RE 4 was painted on the underside of its thorax in dark red. They flew up and used their legs to grab Yumi. Moving quickly, they zoomed down onto the ground and let her go.
"Now go!" He yelled, pointing north. They began to run as the dragonflies gave them cover. With the tower in site, they continued to run for their lives.
"Ahh," Odd yelped as he was struck in the leg. He was stumbling behind the group until he tripped.
"Gotcha!" Sam said as she carried him into the tower. The dragonflies followed them in and out into the ice sector. As the group stepped out, Everyone shielded their eyes.
"I thought it was supposed to be dark here." Odd said as his eyes adjusted to the bright light. It reflected off the ice that surrounded them.
Stephan's eyes were unsurprisingly the first ones to adjust. "In power-save mode, the computer simulates day and night to show the passage of time."
Sam rubbed her eyes until the sunspots in her eyes disappeared. "Look!" She yelled.
Directly in front of them was an ice bridge that stretched over to an island. A cave was the only thing on the island, along with a waterfall and lake. A Titan also stood, trying to break something that was inside.
"We have to stop that Titan!" Stephan said as he started to charge across the bridge.
"Why?" Emily asked. Then, they could all see a hint of black smoke inside. That was Stephan's only tower.