The days passed by fast, and Mary noticed that there was only a week to the summer holiday.

"It's just a week till the summer holiday! Time has passed so fast when it hasn't been necessary to worry so much about the supercomputer!" she noted at breakfast.

"Yes, but we have to destroy X.A.N.A. It has proved that it still has the Keys to Lyoko and can escape the supercomputer," Jeremy remarked. "I just can't get how it has been able to keep the Keys despite of being destroyed."

That was when Mary remembered what X.A.N.A. had said to her long ago, "Even though I'd be destroyed but I'd have the Keys to Lyoko, upon returning I'd still have them."

"X.A.N.A. told me a long time ago that if it gets the Keys to Lyoko and even gets destroyed, it'd still have those Keys when returning. That's why X.A.N.A. got out of the supercomputer back when... well, you know," Mary told.

After a while, Sissi came and asked the group, "What are you losers going to do on the holiday? I'm going to my grandparents' place in Scotland. I believe you'll stay here, since you don't know about your relatives, right, Wales's Dragon?"

Mary turned her gaze to Sissi, eyes flaring out of sheer rage. Sissi took it as a sign of that she had succeeded to hit a nerve and left, satisfied with herself.

"You're an even more authentic blond now that you heeded my advice and dyed your hair blond!" Odd shouted after her.

"If she still calls me that, then you bet I will..." Mary growled with a low voice.

"Hey, watch out with that voice of yours! You sound just like a Xanafied person!" Odd joked and Mary turned her eyes to her. No one said anything as everyone waited for what would happen next in the charged silence. Then they all started to laugh as if by a common command. Mary slumped onto the table out of laughter.

"That... was the best... X.A.N.A... joke... ever since my duplication... joke," Mary said as she tried to stop laughing. Jeremy's laptop started to beep when the Superscanner alarmed.

"Let me guess: X.A.N.A. attacks," Ulrich said. Jeremy nodded, and they left fast without saying anything else. Eating was left unfinished.

"The tower is in the Forest!" Jeremy said when Yumi, Ulrich and Odd went to the scanners. Jeremy virtualized them and then it was Mary, William and Aelita's turn. They got to the Forest safely and went to the tower.

"Oh metal ball!" Mary exclaimed when they stopped. There was an actual army of monsters at the tower.

"We need a true miracle to get Aelita to the tower!" William said.

"We have to attack. Come rain or shine!" Ulrich said, biting his lip. They went towards the monsters, preparing themselves for a quick attack.

Then the ground shook, and the Lyoko Warriors stopped to look around themselves.

"What was that? An earthquake?" William asked.

"It can only be one thing," Mary said with a grave voice.

"The Kolossus?" Yumi suggested.

"The Kolossus?" William repeated.

Then the ground shook again, and they did see the Kolossus. William saw from the others' faces that no one believed their eyes. Neither did he as he saw that giant for the first time in his life with his own eyes.

"It's bigger than I remembered!" Ulrich cried out.

"It IS bigger than before!" Mary exclaimed.

"What do we do now?" Odd asked.

Mary looked at the other monsters: twenty monsters for each monster species except the Scyphozoa, the Kolossus and the Creeper.

"We have to group. Some of us try to destroy the Kolossus, the rest destroy the other monsters," Mary said.

"All right, who will go to attack the Kolossus?" Aelita asked.

"We can't send many or we won't have enough people to destroy the other monsters!" Yumi remarked.

"True. I'll try alone first. With good luck, I'll get high enough to destroy it but if I fail, Ulrich can try; he did destroy the Kolossus once," Mary answered and got up into the air with her wings.

"Be careful, Mary!" Jeremy said.

Mary did not listen. A few Mantas looked at her and she looked at them, whereupon they attacked her. Mary dealt with them quickly and flew towards the Kolossus again.

She started to cannon the Kolossus with fireballs and when they did not seem to be effective, she turned into a dragon and started to spew fire with quite a blaze. She managed to scorch the Kolossus's head and started to scorch its sword hand then. Having become desperate while spewing fire, Mary scorched the whole Kolossus so well that upon falling it turned into virtual ash.

"You're nothing, just an insignificant bunch of digital dust", Mary said after turning into a human and laughed a bit. She felt like she was the bad guy while quoting a certain X.A.N.A.'s general she knew all too well. She turned and tossed a fireball at a Hornet who tried to hit her with a poor aim.

After that, Mary left to the center of the battle, cannoning the monsters from above. She had a vantage over the Crabs from the air as well as to Mantas, Hornets and Tarantulas. These monsters she did cannon until she had to go lower to hit the Kankrelats and Megatanks. Then she had to land to destroy the Bloks.

There she saw that in addition to her only William had escaped devirtualization and he was also fighting against the Bloks; therefore, Aelita had been devirtualized and the tower could not be deactivated, but at least they could clear the area and wait for the girl's return.

One could not argue that William had not improved a lot as a Lyoko Warrior during these weeks. Without staying to ponder her friend's progression, Mary decided to make the battle a bit more amusing and started to jump on the Bloks. As a result, a total of five Bloks walked into the Digital Sea in confusion. Then Mary heard Jeremy shouting to her, "Mary! The Scyphozoa caught William!"

Mary abandoned the Bloks immediately and ran towards William and the Scyphozoa, but she arrived too late: the Scyphozoa already let go of William.

"Oh no," Mary breathed. She ran closer and asked, "Are you okay, William?"

William turned, and Mary saw what she had expected with dread: William was Xanafied once again.

One of the Bloks left undestroyed shot Mary with an ice beam and the Lyoko Warrior girl got stuck to the ground from her feet. She threw a fireball behind her, hitting her target, but William took off with Super Smoke towards the end of the sector. Mary knew what he was going to do and started to destroy the ice with everything she had in use: her hands and fireballs. When they proved insufficient, she turned her hands into dragon's paws and pummeled the ice as much as she just could. The ice broke just when Jeremy cried out, "William's destroying the Heart of Lyoko! The shield layers are already gone! I'll bring you back, Mary!"

Right after that, Lyoko disappeared from around the girl and Mary fell towards the surface of the Digital Sea.

"NOOOO! I WILL AVENGE THIS, X.A.N. !" Mary screamed and disappeared into the Digital Sea before the materialization command managed to do its job. Only a light-blue pillar that lasted for merely seconds was a sign of her having been there, but even that disappeared fast.

/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Lyokostar story series and its original characters (c) Me/