Yumi, Odd and Ulrich were virtualised in the Ice sector.
"So much ice…" Odd said wistfully. "So cold… so barren…"
"Odd, stop babbling!" Yumi reprimanded. "We don't have much time to get to the edge of the sector"
"Yumi, please don't get stressed", Ulrich said, looking very forlorn and frightened. "I… I can't stand it when you- "
"Go!" The three of them ran towards the edge of the sector. Yumi was frantic, but the other two seemed completely apathetic towards their dire situation. Eventually, they were standing at the edge, but for a while nothing appeared.
"I hope we weren't too late", Yumi said. Suddenly, the transport orb appeared, and carried the three of them towards sector 5.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Jeremie had managed to find Aelita, who was crouched behind a tree, playing the music box repeatedly. Jeremie felt a strange fog clouding his thoughts as the tune played incessantly. He knew that there was no way to get Aelita to stop listening to the music box. With this knowledge in mind, he formulated a plan.
'I never was much good in gym class', Jeremie thought to himself. 'But it's the only solution I can think of…'
Still feeling disorientated from the tune, Jeremie crept behind Aelita, and swiftly snatched the music box out of Aelita's hands.
"Hey!" Aelita rose and faced Jeremie, livid. "Give me that music box back right now or I'll scratch your eyes out!"
"You'll have to catch me first!" Jeremie sprinted towards the manhole cover, with Aelita following in close pursuit.
"Come on Jeremie", he said to himself, wheezing slightly. "Come on – you can do this. You can do it"
Back in sector 5, Odd, Ulrich and Yumi had been ambushed by several Creepers. Ulrich and Odd seemed completely disinterested, barely even bothering to dodge the lasers that were being fired at them. Yumi destroyed two of them at once, but was hit in the back by a third. She turned around, exasperated.
"Guys, I wouldn't mind if you helped me out a little here. We don't have much time to find the key and stop the countdown"
"Oh, the key?" Odd said wearily. "It's up there" He pointed at a corner to their right.
"Odd, if you knew the key was there when why didn't you activate it yourself?!"
"You never asked" Yumi groaned, and sprinted towards the key. Ulrich destroyed one Creeper with his sword, but did not bother to block the hit fired at him from another, even though he knew it was coming. Odd destroyed the offending Creeper, but not before it fired another shot that devirtualised Ulrich. Yumi activated the key, and the platforms began to even into a smooth terrain, and the wall opened. She destroyed the last two Creepers effortlessly.
"OK… one man down. We can still do this. Come on Odd" The two of them ran towards the Celestial Dome, and then into the outer chamber. As per Jeremie's instructions, Yumi had pre-programmed the vehicles, and she and Odd swiftly made their way towards the Core of Lyoko. However, Odd was still in a state of apathy, and thus did not carefully watch where he was going. Yumi went through the hole at the bottom of the core, but Odd failed to timed his entrance correctly, and ended up being crushed by the closing door, devirtualising him. Yumi looked behind her.
"Oh come on, this is ridiculous! How am I meant to save the day when everyone around me has started acting like a bunch of idiots?!" She activated the key, and upon entering the core room, she saw that the Heart of Lyoko had already taken some considerable damage. The first shield had broken already, and the second didn't look like it would last much longer. There were six creepers in total – Yumi immediately threw her fans and took out the closest one. She knew that if they were going to win against XANA, she was going to have to fight harder than she ever had before.
Jeremie had finally reached the elevator, with Aelita close behind. He knew that he had to get into the elevator quickly in order for his plan to work. He entered, but Aelita was just swinging down from the ropes. He pressed the stop button, and the door closed just as she was about to reach it. She started pressing on the button repeatedly in frustration.
When Jeremie reached the scanner room, he was shocked to find Odd and Ulrich lying against the wall, completely nonchalant to the world around them.
"You two got devirtualised?!"
"Well yeah, isn't that obvious?" Odd said, without his usual witty charm.
"So Yumi's all alone on Lyoko?"
"I guess so, yeah" Ulrich said.
Jeremie became panicked, but was able to repress these emotions. "OK, change of plan. Aelita will be coming down here any minute – when you do, I want you to get her into one of the scanners through any means necessary."
"Wait, what do you mean by that?" Odd asked.
"This box", Jeremie said, showing the music box to Odd and Ulrich. "This is XANA's attack. Every time you listen to its tune your mental health becomes worse and worse. He specifically crafted it so that Aelita would listen to the tune repeatedly and be unable to tear herself away from it. And then while we were all distracted, he could destroy Lyoko without interference from us."
As he finished his explanation, a shrill voice emerged from the floor above them.
"Jeremie, where the hell are you?! I'll rip your skin off if you don't give me that music box RIGHT NOW!"
"So basically you want us to use physical force on a homicidal maniac?" Odd was very unhappy. "Gee, that should be a piece of cake"
"Sorry guys, but you're much stronger than I am. Besides, I have to be in the computer lab to virtualise her"
"But if she's so hysterical how is she supposed to deactivate the tower?" Ulrich asked.
"I don't know. Look, we just can't let XANA beat us this easily, OK?"
"THERE YOU ARE!" Aelita had walked down from the computer lab into the scanner room. "HAND ME THAT MUSIC BOX NOW!"
Jeremie threw the box at Ulrich. "Good luck!" He ran towards the elevator and closed it before Aelita could get to him. Instantly, she turned around to face Odd and Ulrich, her face inhuman with rage and frenzy. She pounced at them, but Ulrich, with his martial arts training, pinned her to the ground. She struggled to free herself, but combined with Odd pushing down on her, she was unable to resist. Suddenly, Jeremie's voice emerged from upstairs. "OK guys, now get her into one of the scanners, quickly!"
Ulrich looked down at Aelita, who shivered pathetically as she lay on the ground. "I'm sorry Aelita" He picked her up and slung her into the scanner. "Now!" Jeremie closed the scanner door before Aelita could recover.
As Jeremie started up the virtualisation process, Jeremie said, "Yumi, how are you doing?"
"Horribly", Yumi replied. On Lyoko, she had destroyed three of the Creepers, but the other three were being surprisingly nimble, and two Mantas had also appeared. The core was continuing to take relentless damage. "There are too many monsters for me to handle alone, and I've lost a lot of life points"
"I'm virtualising Aelita now. She's in a bad state, but I'm sure she can help you somehow"
"Let's hope so", Yumi said. "If we fail this time, then we've failed all of humanity"
