Chapter 4 - Betrayl . . .
"15 minutes til interception," Jeremy's voice said from the little ball of light floating in Crystal's hand.
"Lets teach them a lesson," Sapphire said. "Boom Eggs," she called spreading her arms wide. 16 rainbow gernades appeared and circled around her.
Crystal's group climbed the last hill and stopped dead in their tracks.
A.X. stood tall and proud a stop watch in one hand. He stopped the watch and pretended to examine it. "You're early," he said, false enthusiasm saturating his voice. He spread his arms wide his cloak spreading out. "But we're ready."
"We're?," William asked.
Suddenly A.X. brought his arms down and the cloak disappeared revealing Olivia's group. Aelita, Ulrich and Yumi had A.X.'s symbols in their eyes and on their chest.
The group moved forward to proudly stand next to A.X. Olivia stood proudly next to A.X. She smiled a venehmous smile as she pulled out her swords. Ulrich pulled out his swords as Yumi opened her fans and Aelita moved into a defensive stance.
"I'd love to stay and watch your demise, but I believe that Xana needs me," A.X. said with an evil smile. "So long," he called as he jumped into the sky and disappearing in a cloud of smoke.
The teams lined up facing their opponent. William faced Ulrich, Odd faced Yumi, Sapphire faced Aelita, and Crystal faced Olivia.
Olivia let out a war cry and charged. The others nodded almost mechanically as they followed Olivia's command. Crystal let out her own cry as she and her team ran to meet their enemies.
A.X. soared over the ocean at an amazing speed. "I'll finish off the rest," he said satisfied that everything was going so well.
The battle went on and on. Jeremy was in his lab and he had hooked up his laptop and Olivia's laptop to the super computer. On his laptop he was keeping track of Crystal's team mate's life points and on Olivia's laptop he was keeping track of Olivia's team mate's life points.
Jeremy was almost biting his fingernails as he changed the angle at which he was looking at the battlefield on the super computer. William was almost out of life points, but every one else was faring pretty well.
"William be careful!" Jeremy said freaking out.
Crystal laughed as she swung her staff and hit Olivia's arm. A sickening crack resounded as Crystal broke Olivia's arm. Olivia let her arm hang limp as she attacked again.
The battle continued long and hard. Ulrich smiled as he finally saw an opening and attacked.
"No, William!!" Sapphire cried as William began to devirtualize. "Ring of DEATH!!" she screamed as 6 rings of fire encircled Ulrich. Each ring was a different color and tilted at a different angle. Ulrich looked around for an opening almost as if he didn't care that there wasn't one. Sapphire put her hand out and clenched her hand until it made a tight fist. The Rings shrunk and Ulrich gave a metallic cry before exploding into data fragments.
"Ulrich!" Yumi cried managing to sound a little worried, but the look on her face told everyone that she didn't care.
"Something's wrong with them," Odd whispered as he fired another arrow at Yumi.
Sapphire dodged another of Aelita's energy fields as William disappeared. "WILLIAM!" Sapphire called almost as if he would come back.
Back in the lab Jeremy was typing on the computer again. Suddenly Olivia's computer started beeping as if the battery was running out. "No!" he said hitting the monitor as if it would do something. "You can't die now."
The screen of Olivia's computer flashed for a second and then suddenly it started downloading a program and opening files on its own. Jeremy caught sight of Wililam's stats before they disappeared behind another screen.
"What is going on?" Jeremy asked watching the binary code and program jargon rush by on the several more screens.
"What's wrong Jeremy?" Crystal asked as she blocked another sword attack from Olivia.
"Olivia's computer is running a program and I don't know what it is or how to stop it," Jeremy explained.
"Just unplug the computer," Crystal called swinging her staff. Olivia ducked and tried to attack under Crystal's wild swing. A wall of sand came up and broke Olivia's sword. Olivia stood still for a second surveying the broken sword as if she didn't know what to do. Her head swiveled looking around when she saw her other sword lying on the ground. Quickly she ran for it.
Aelita cowered under her energy field as it began to crack. Sapphire was in a rage and was beating the shield and slamming it with grenades as she let all of her rage out on Aelita. Aelita's A.X. eyes looked quickly looked around looking for some opening or something.
"Download Complete," Olivia's computer said aloud. "Commence Program in 3 . . ." the computer said starting the countdown. Jeremy was on the floor behind the computer trying to unplug it. Electricity raced through the computer as he tried and gave Jeremy a little shock. "2 . . . 1 . . . Initialization."
Jeremy ran to the front of the computer and slammed his hand down on the power button. Nothing happened. Downstairs Jeremy heard a scanner open.
"Great," Jeremy muttered.
"What is it Jeremy?" Crystal asked. She was trying to spear Olivia through with sharpened chunks of rock as she zig zagged at an amazing speed towards her sword.
"The program ran on its own and a scanner downstairs opened. I'm shutting the power to the elevator off."
"Go ahead," Crystal said nearly screaming as she saw the torn shirt piece on the end of one of the rocks. She had just barely missed Olivia.
Jeremy shut down the power to the elevator and turned the newly installed surveillance cameras and other equipment in the lab on. Jeremy smiled as he heard the noise coming from near the scanner.
It was a slamming and cursing as William banged on the elevator door. "Jeremy you better get this thing working!" he called. Jeremy laughed as he restored power to the elevator.
"William's here and alive," Jeremy reported.
"He's what?" Sapphire asked her deathblow missing. Aelita took her chance and launched an energy field into Sapphire. Sapphire flew stunned through the air for a second. Aelita smiled a wicked smile as she prepared her next energy field and threw it at her easy target. Sapphire shook her head to clear it before whispering "Reflect." The head of her staff shimmered and turned into a blue, metallic, reflective, star-shaped surface. Sapphire swung her staff and smashed the head of it into the energy field. There was a loud crack as the energy field stopped in its path and changed directions.
Aelita knew the end was near and didn't cower. Instead she stood and put her arms back as if she was giving herself up. Aelita exploded into data fragments.
"Aelita!" Jeremy called as William ran into the lab.
"What happened?" he half asked, half demanded.
"Aelita's dead," Jeremy nearly wailed as he watched her picture twist and explode. "Maybe I can run the program again," he desperately whispered as he turned to Olivia's computer, but the only thing besides the life points was a little message board.
"Revitalization may only occur once a week because it takes a long time to recharge and the player revitalized cannot go into their Lyoko form for a day," William read aloud.
"I guess there's nothing we can do now," Odd said. Between him and Sapphire Yumi hadn't stood a chance. She to, had given up in the end just like Aelita had.
Olivia had retrieved her sword and thrown it at Crystal. Crystal brought her staff down sending all her sharpened rocks into Olivia as the sword grazed her side. Olivia gave a laugh as her now bloody and scrapped body exploded into black data fragments.
Crystal fell to her knees holding her side. She cringed as another wave of pain went through her body. "Poison," she whispered before passing out.
"Crystal? Crystal? Come in Crystal?" Jeremy said.
"Jeremy we have a problem," Sapphire said. Odd had Crystal on his back and he was running along the desert sands at a fairly fast rate.
"It says Crystal is unconscious."
"She's been poisoned and it looks like she only has about an hour to live," Sapphire whispered.
"But it'll take us all day to get back to the lab," Odd whispered. Everyone fell silent for a moment.
"Xana left an untested program before she left," Jeremy whispered. "Should we give it a try?"
"NO," Sapphire said immediately
"But Sapphire!" Odd exclaimed. "It may be the only way to save Crystal!"
"It may be the only way to transfer all of Crystal's power to A.X. also. In that case it is better if she died," Sapphire said the tears streaming down her face.
"Too late," William whispered.
"What do you mean?" she asked through the blinding tears.
"The program's already activated itself," Jeremy said as he watched the bar as it accelerated towards 100.