Chapter 4

"HELP!" Aelita screamed, hoping the others would hear her. She saw them running up the hill.

"Don't worry, Princess! We're coming!" Odd yelled to her. He shot a laser arrow when he was a little bit closer and just missed the oversized jellyfish. He tried to shoot again, but couldn't. "Yo, Einstein! Reload me!" He yelled to Jeremie.

"On it." He heard Jeremie reply.

The schyphozoa now had Aelita in its grasp. It had already begun stealing her memory when Yumi reached it, but Yumi quickly threw one of her metal fans, cutting two of its tentacles off. Aelita fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Aelita!" Everyone screamed. She didn't respond.

"Are we too late?" Odd asked quietly, almost to himself.

"No," Jeremie said, making everyone jump. "You made it just in time. Five more seconds and she would've been…" He couldn't finish the sentence. "Just get her to the tower so she can regain her strength and stop X.A.N.A."

Ulrich picked Aelita up and carried her over to the tower. He lay her down in the center and walked away.

"AHHHHH!" Ulrich heard a scream from outside the tower. He ran out to find Yumi trapped inside what looked like a bigger, more equipped version of a guardian, and Odd looking more confused than ever.

"Yumi!" Ulrich screamed. He ran over to the guardian and attacked it with his swords. They had no effect whatsoever. The guardian shot an orange beam at Ulrich that immediately made his life points decrease. When he was completely out of life points, Ulrich disappeared as usual, but instead of being sent back to Earth, he was revirtualized inside the guardian.

It was Odd's turn now. He ran up to the "Guardian numero dos," as he called it (we all knew it was only a matter of time before Odd came up with a stupid name for this monster, too), and held his fist out. "LASER ARROW!" He yelled, causing small silver arrows to fly out of his fist. The Guardian numero dos (I'm just gonna call it GND) wasn't damaged at all. It shot Odd with the same orange beam that it shot Ulrich with, and Odd's life points decreased from 50 to 0. He was revirtualized inside GND alongside Ulrich and Yumi.

"No!" Jeremie cried. Aelita was inside the tower, still unconscious, the rest of the warriors were trapped inside a knew monster that we might of only gotten a taste of what it's capable of, and that ghost was still out on the prowl. "Aelita might die, and the others might die, and then the world's gonna die, and OMG it's all up to me now! The fate of the world is on my shoulders! Yea… we don't stand a chance." Just then, a little voice popped into Jeremie's head.

"Hola, Jeremie." It said (with a Spanish accent). Jeremie looked around the room, but saw no one.

"What the hell?" Jeremie wondered to himself.

"Dumbass, I am your conscience. I'm in your head, so quit looking around the room like a retard." Jeremie was very confused. His conscience continued, "Okay, I realize you are just a scrawny kid with no athletic ability who can't kick a soccer ball to save his life and never shows up at P.E. because you're afraid of making a fool of yourself, which no doubt you will-" Jeremie cut him off.

"Get on with it!" He yelled, extremely P.O.'d at his conscience.

"Alright, alright. Although everything I just said is true, and your chances of succeeding are slim to none, you need to go to Lyoko and deactivate that tower."

"OH, HELL NO!" Jeremie said out loud.

"Oh, hell yes if you want your friends and the rest of the world to survive." This actually made Jeremie consider going. He didn't want to lose his friends (or the rest of the world, for that matter).

"So, are you gonna go?" Jeremie's conscience snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Yes, I'll go. But ONLY because my friends are in danger. NEVER try to talk me into doing this EVER again!" Jeremie got in the elevator and headed down to the scanner room.