Ok, I'm late for the update because I had a few disagreements about this episode: the attack of the original plot was fine, but the side story was kinda stupid, so I scratched it; though, I might still use the idea in the future. Anyway, four days of whining (for my stupid laziness) and twenty headaches (because of trying to come up with ideas) later, I thought, why not, let's put the episode that was inspired by Naruto Sakura Uzumaki's idea. Get ready for a bit of confusion!
Review answers:
Naruto Sakura Uzumaki: I listened to the whole Subdigitals album and I'll try to include "Planet Net" and "World with my eyes" in the episodes.
Josh Xana: I know, it was "Cruel Dilemma"; you wanna know a fun fact? I never saw the first season of Code Lyoko before my parents bought the discs, and "Lost and Found" was an idea I came up with a year before I had that episode on DVD! So, basically, you might say that idea came from "Cruel Dilemma" without me even knowing it; cool, huh?
SecretCodeLyokan: Odd, say the disclaimer.
Odd: SecretCodeLyokan will never own Code Lyoko not even if she prayed; she owns Layla and the story's misteries.
SecretCodeLyokan: *looks at the rest of the gang* see? It wasn't that hard!
Lyoko Gang: Humph!
SecretCodeLyokan: On with the story!
Code Lyoko: Case Of Delenda
*theme*
Episode 6: Doppëlclone
Layla and the others were waiting for Yumi and William on a bench near the Administration Building, since the two had to finish their school project before tomorrow.
Jeremy was talking to Aelita about some techno-babble (A/N: I love that word :-D) while Ulrich finished his history essay two days early: in the first few weeks of the second semester, he had managed to keep his 80-85 average that he had during the time X.A.N.A. was dead, but recently, mostly because of his nightmares of Yumi jumping in the Digital Sea, which left him with insomnia and a hard time concentrating on the real world, he was starting to slowly slip to 76. The best thing he could do was doing his homework two or three days before the deadline and nightfall, so he could keep up his grades.
"Odd, quit it with your DS beeps!" The brunette yelled at his roommate, who was playing Mario Kart with Layla at full volume.
"Layla's playing too!" Odd complained.
"But she's turned her volume down!"
Odd was about to protest, when another beeping sound came from his DS, announcing him that he had arrived 5th...again.
"Ouais! J'ai gagné!" (A/N: Yes! I won!) Yelled the orange-haired teen, dancing around in victory and waving her DS under her opponent's eyes, which showed the rankings with her name on top.
"It's not fair! You cheated!" the hybrid complained.
Layla tapped his nose with her index finger. "'Falling five times in the lava' isn't cheating, mon amour; it's bad coordination"
Odd blushed deep red: did she just called him 'my love'?
Layla went towards the dispenser machine to get a drink. Once she was out of earshot, Ulrich, who had noticed Odd's blush, winked.
"Looks like our hybrid's in love with the Tamer!"
"I'm not!" Odd snapped.
Aelita smriked. "Why don't you ask her out?"
"Because I don't love her! At least, not in that way..."
Jeremy and Aelita rolled their eyes. Here's another one...
The hybrid blushed again. "Am...am I that obvious?"
"Yep; as Ulrich is with Yumi"
"Hey!"
"Don't you dare deny it, my dear samurai!"
"Whatever"
Odd just lowered his head. "But she's got all the kids in school after her! I really doubt she'd choose me..."
Aelita rolled her eyes. "Odd, come on, I see the way she loooks at you, the way you two fight in perfect syinchronization, the way you hesitate every time she tries and fend off possessed people by X.A.N.A. with her bolts and tells you not to worry...come on, it's as clear as a crystal, even clearer that Ulrich and Yumi's relationship!" ("Stop using me and Yumi as a paragon! We're just friends, anyway!" "And Bloks might fly!")
Odd sighed and looked at the orange-haired beauty coming back towards them. "Alright" he said. "Here I go..."
"Hey!" William and Yumi walked towards them. "Anything new?"
"Yeah: Odd was about to ask Layla out just when you arrived and Jeremy had found out more about those missing kids and Layla's avatar" answered Ulrich.
Layla blushed and avoided eye contact with Odd, while he slumped on the bench in utter embarassment.
"So, what's the news?" Asked William. Jeremy pushed his glasses further up his nose.
"Well, to make things simple, I went on the Internet and searched for newspapers dated ten years ago; turns out, five kids did disappear on the 4th of June, 1994"
"Who are they?"
Jeremy shook his head. "X.A.N.A. bugged the page; I couldn't find out anymore, apart from the fact that they were last seen with Franz Hopper's daughter and another girl"
"The funny thing" Aelita continued. "Is that I don't remember having six friends apart from all of you; I think that Daddy wanted me to forget some things from my past"
Layla nodded. "She told us she doesn't remember what happened on Lyoko or the real world on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th of June and X.A.N.A. probably doesn't want us to find out"
"This is getting weirder and weider" Yumi said, thoughtfully. "Five disappearing kids linked to Aelita, a misterious girl, something or someone named Delenda, Aelita's memory not fully restored as we thought it would be, something bad happening on Lyoko that made X.A.N.A. upset, Layla's nightmares about a woman and a girl...How can we find a connection to all of this?"
Jeremy was about to answer, when a girl with a bruised cheek came running towards William.
"How dare you slap me!" She said, slapping the startled boy back.
"Huh?" He looked at the others. "What was she talking about?"
"William, why are you slapping girls?" Aelita asked.
"I didn't! I was working with Yumi all this time! You know it too, Yumi, go and tell her"
"What about your 'bathroom break' that was five minutes long?" The Japanese girl asked him, suspiciously.
"I already told you, I blacked out!"
"Yeah, right; I'd rather believe that you had a serious disagreement with today's breakfast"
Layla looked behind William's shoulders. "Uh, William...if I was you, I'd probably run if I'd want to live!"
William looked behind him to see what the Tamer meant, and quickly rocketed towards the nearest boy bathroom before ten really cross girls could catch him. The others followed him, to keep on eye on him, but lost track of him every tem minutes.
"Why did you do those things, William?"
Layla was in William's room, where he had managed to hide from that angry crowd; she was questioning him, while the others were fending off his chasers.
"I swear, I didn't do anything!"
Wiliam sat on the bed, grasping his hair with both hands in utter desperation.
"Then how come you're chased by ten girls claiming you slapped them, three boys claiming you kissed their girlfriends-mind you, these girlfriends are angry with you, too-, Ulrich and Yumi because you tried to kiss her, and Ms. Meyer because you vandalized the blackboard?" Layla asked the scared boy.
"I told you, I haven't got any idea what they're talking about! I don't know what happened!"
Layla sighed and dug up from her bag a notebook. "Ok, I asked every single person who was chasing you what happened; here's what you sopposely did:"
Heidi and nine other girls:
I was minding my own buisness when I saw William coming towards me; we talked for a bit and then he said I was a very stupid and mean person and slapped me. It didn't hurt much, but I was very mad!
Theo:
Until recently, I was going out with Emily; she's a great girl, and helps me with school, too. I was walking with my friends towards the cafeteria when I saw William kissing her. Even though she swore he just came out of the blue and kissed her, I'm mad at both of them, especially him, because me and her quarreled and broke up.
Emily:
He walked towards me and kissed me. End of story. Thanks to him, I broke up with Theo; I'll never forgive William for that! He might be handsome, but he's such a dork sometimes!
"She said 'handsome'?" William asked with a smile. Layla hit him hard on the head with her pencil.
"Concentrate!" She said, and continued reading.
Christopher:
Me and Anaïs were talking, when William came and asked Anaïs out. She said no, but he insisted, and when she finally agreed to drive him away, he told her he was happy she was leaving me and kissed her! I tried to slap him, but I failed, so I chased him all over the school until I lost him; that's when I saw him running from a crowd of girls.
Anaïs:
What a weirdo! Though he is a good kisser, I must say.
William smirked. "I never kissed her, but I like the compliment"
Layla facepalmed. No wonder he got kicked out of his school...
She read the next POV. William was really surprised when she told him the name of the third angry boyfriend.
Odd:
Yesterday, I broke up with Geraldine because she never turned up early for our dates; when William was being chased, we lost suddenly track of him, so we split to search for him.
I was the first to find him: I saw him stroking my ex's cheek and kissing her, saying he was happy she had broken up with the 'scrawny guy'; that's when I understood everything. I can't believe she'd cheat me with William and he didn't even tell me! What kind of friend he is?
Geraldine:
Now everyone thinks I'm a cheater! Thanks William! Just wait 'till I get my hands on you...
William sighed: now he understood why Odd had joined the chase.
"Ready for Yumi's POV?" The Tamer asked. He slowly nodded.
This, after all, couldn't get any worse...
Yumi:
Me and Ulrich were searching for William when we lost him; we founded him coming towards us, panting a bit.
"You ok?" Asked Ulrich
"I am when I see Yumi" he said, in a flirty kind of way.
And it didn't stop there; he kept flirting and Ulrich was pretty annoyed.
At first, his flirting was kinda, well, cute.
William smiled. "It was?"
Layla looked at him, suspiciously. "You're saying you did it?"
"No, but if she thought that, I'd like to thank my 'twin'"
Layla looked at the next line and smirked evilly. "Don't count your chikens before they hatch, William..."
Then, it turned into seducing and it was creepy and annoying.
William humphed several times.
"Wanna become a camel?"
"No..."
"Then quit sulking and listen!"
I was trying to push him away, when he grabbed my arms and pushed me closer to him: that creep was trying to kiss me! Had it not been for Ulrich, who punched him, he would have. We ran away, and he came back to us, running, out of breath. We took our chance and kicked him 'till he cried like a girl.
Ulrich:
I agree with Yumi's version; though the William we kicked looked pretty innocent.
Ms. Meyer:
I walked in and he was vandalizing the blackboard; then, he nearly ran into me while trying to escape. That's all; if you see him, tell him he has extra homework as punishment. ("Perfect!") Oh, and the principal wants to see him ("Super perfect!")
"But I didn't do anything of the sort!" He exclaimed. "What's going on?"
Just then, the rest of the gang burst into his room. "How could you!" Yelled Jeremy.
"What did I do now?" Mumbled the dark-haired boy.
Jeremy showed his his PC, a security camera showing him fiddling with the computer in the lab.
"You implanted a virus, that's what you did! You bugged up the vehicles, Layla's scan results and everything else!"
"Jeremy, I barely know how to turn a computer off! What makes you think I could put a virus in it?"
"You were fiddling with the keyboard!" Jeremy was red in the face. "You pressed all the buttons multiple times and it went crazy!"
"William, do you know the risks of pressing button without knowing their meaning?" Aelita asked, softly. "Why did you even came to the lab in the middle of the night in the first place?"
"Probably for some upgrade" snorted Ulrich. "Or his stupid curiosity"
"Or to send a lovey dovey message to Geraldine!" Odd spatted.
"Guys, I swear..."
"Why did we even let you back in the group in the first place?" Jeremy said. "You'd better change your attitude; until then, you're out!"
William sighed, as the five Lyoko Warriors shut the door behind them.
"What is wrong with them?" He asked Layla. She shook her head in response.
Yumi wasn't waiting for them in class and Layla, even though she sensed he was innocent, had stayed out of both of their way to avoid picking sides.
She looked at the camera photos from Lyoko.
It's weird she thought, looking in front of her: William was doodling, while Yumi was working on the Italian test the orange-haired girl had concluded ten minutes earlier.
Here, I've got footage of Taelia arriving in class, and in this photo, Aelita is trapped in a guardian at the same hour and no one noticed until it's too late. How on Earth could someone be enough stupid to confuse her for Aelita anyway? If Jeremy could've upgraded his Holomap, he would've seen both girls and figured it out that Taelia wasn't...
Suddenly, it hit her like a thunderbolt: it was so simple, how could her friends missed it?
How could William kiss Geraldine and flirt with Yumi at the same time? And how could he simply bug up the Superscan just like that? Unless...
She smirked and opened her PC.
X.A.N.A. bugged Jeremy's Superscan, but mine is linked to all the folders: the AI would never let his files get bugged up, even if they are in the wrong hands.
She dug up some files about the Supercomputer status and fixed a few programs, like the vehicles and the weapons. Then she opened another window with the Tower Records.
She frowned when it told her what the attack was.
She sent a message to Aelita and the others, and passed a note to Yumi.
The four younger Lyoko Warriors had Science on second period. Today, they were learning about acids and their properties. Aelita was taking notes, giggling when she saw Herb shaking like a leaf at the thought of being hit by the beakers holding the poweful chemical, Jeremy was basically writing every single thing Mrs. Hertz said, Ulrich was writing down every single word that could help him study, yawning every now and then because of his insomnia, and Odd was drawing Layla holding Kiwi.
His phone vibrated in his pocket; taking care not to be seen, he fished for it and read the text: "X.A.N.A. Spectre. L. *heart*"
He slightly blushed when he saw the heart at the end. Maybe his friends were right: maybe Layla did like him, after all...
Ulrich tapped his shoulder, as if to ask: "X.A.N.A.?" Odd nodded.
Aelita and Jeremy reached for their phones when they vibrated, and looked at the message. The two Einsteins gave their friends a 'you-know-what-to-do' look.
"Plan 'Group Infirmary'?" Suggested Odd. Aelita winked at him, smirking, in response.
The pinkette then fell from her chair.
"Aelita?" Jeremy bent down.
"I'll take her to the..." Odd stood from his seat, before suddenly falling down in a dead faint.
"Ma'am, can we take them to the infirmary?" Jeremy and Ulrich asked.
"Alright, but be quick!"
The two boys grabbed their 'fainted' friends and left. As soon as they were out of the building, Aelita and Odd opened their eyes and laughed.
"Fainting is fun, if you fake it" Odd said.
"I sent a message to Layla; they're coming" Jeremy put his phone back in his pants pocket.
Yumi tried very hard to concentrate, but with thoughts spinning in her head, it was really hard.
William tried to kiss me. She thought. And Ulrich was jealous of his 'flirting'...wait, Ulrich was WHAT!
She looked back at the test. Concentrate, Yumi, concentrate!
Someone passed her a folded note. It had 'Yumi' written on it in a tidy calligraphy. She opened it, taking care to stay out of the teacher's sight.
The answer to question 8 is 'invariable'; and question 9 is 'Perché suo nipote era stato assassinato lo stesso giorno tre anni fa'; also, X.A.N.A.'s attacking.
Yumi sighed, wrote down the answers and gave the paper to the teacher, before asking to go to the bathroom. Five minutes later, when Layla had passed another note to William (being 80% of the Kadic boys' crush is useful sometimes), she asked to go to the infirmary, the black-haired boy volunteering to escort her.
"A polisomething Spectre?" Asked Odd, surprised.
Layla nodded. "X.A.N.A. knew that we still had some doubts about William; so he created a clone exactly like him to spread some more infidelity"
"Then why did he slapped the girls?" Yumi asked, looking at William with a suspicious look, no one knew why.
"The first thing he did was bad-mouth him to some people, slapping girls and kissing them in front if their boyfriends" Layla explained. "Probably to leave him alone when we all kicked him out of the group. When that worked, he decided to hit that thread of friendship which still linked us together: first, he killed two birds with a stone, kissing Odd's ex and making her look like a cheater and him like a bad friend; then, he acted like a flirty creep with Yumi in front of Ulrich, killing what little friendship thread they had"
Ulrich's eyes locked with the two older students, blushing with regret.
"The next thing he did, was prove his un-loyalty by..."
"Sending a virus to the Supercomputer and also screwing up the Superscan" Jeremy finished, half-relieved that Layla had manage to fix half of the programs.
"That was his first plan to break our friendship; he was probably planning something to make me turn his back on him, the only one who believed him truly" Layla smiled. "But X.A.N.A. forgot one thing: my Superscan's linked to all his files on my PC, so bugging it will mean bugging the files to, and there's YEARS of work in there; he'll never lose all that, not even if that'll mean we'll eventually learn everything he has and owns; so he didn't bug it"
Everyone cheered for Layla. "You're a cute girl, but you've got Aleita's brains!" Odd exclaimed.
Layla smiled at him. "Tu pense que je suis jolie?" She asked him.
Odd thought long about how he could answer. At first, he wanted to deny what he said, but there was no more turning back.
"Uh...Ouais" he smirked. "Très jolie".
She blushed slightly.
"Hey, guys, what are..." A familiar voice called them. They stared at that person, eyes widened.
"William?"
"No; it's the spectre!" The William next to them cried.
"Huh? What the heck, people!"
"Stand back!"
"Make me!"
The two started fighting.
"How do we know who's who?" Asked Ulrich, staring at them: they were exactly the same, no extra hair lock, no X.A.N.A. symbol in their eyes, same clothes, same nose...it was kinda creeepy.
Layla thought about it. Her brain started working at tremendous speed, and she didn't even noticed it was highly unnatural. She pondered, hard, then she came up with an idea.
"William!" She called. They both looked at her: one of them had a black eye, the other had a bruise on its arm.
Her brain pondered again. She knew who the real one was just by looking at his bruises, but decided to stick up with her plan.
"What do you think of Ulrich?" She asked.
Everyone stared at her, as though she was crazy.
The William with the bruise on his arm opened his mouth to answer, while the other pondered, and Layla immediately struck him with a lightning bolt.
The Clone dissolved as soon as the spark hit it.
"How did you know it was me?" The real William asked.
"Three signs: your black eye, intuition and the clone'sanswer: these days,the real William would hesitate before speaking, since the answer would probably enrage a samurai we all know too well, who's still against trusting you; plus, your eye is slightly blacker than normal, and we all know that Spectres can really punch"
Everyone nodded in agreement, and ran towards the factory.
"So, does anyone volunteer to stay in case the clone attacks?" Jeremy asked, as he sat in the chair.
William raised his hand. "I volunteer: me and him have a few things to discuss about"
"Alright..." Jeremy stopped in mid-sentence, as a black cloud of smoke swirled towards the ground, shaping into a dark-haired person they all knew well.
"You guys go!" William exclaimed, as the elvator closed behind his back and Jeremy typed in the virtualization program
"So, X.A.N.A., first you turn into me to separate me from everyone" he looked in the clone's dark eyes. "And now you've turned into Yumi? (A/N: fooled ya!) Next time, turn into Ulrich so I might enjoy punching you a bit more!"
"I heard you!" The brunette yelled from the scanner room.
"Don't sulk, Ulrich, William was joking" Layla said, getting inside the scanner. "Well, partly..."
Ulrich frowned even more.
"Ok: Layla, Aelita, Odd, get ready to enter the scanner; I've located the tower in the Forest Sector thanks to Layla's PC" he typed some keys, as Odd and Aelita entered the scanners.
"Transfer Layla; Transfer Aelita; Transfer Odd; Scanner Layla; Scanner Aelita; Scanner Odd; Virtualization!"
Layla landed in the Forest Secotr with a thump. She looked at her brown gloves and her green dress.
"Jeremy, how did I do that thing you said?"
Aelita answered for her. "It's based on your instict: when you want to, you do it"
"What are talking about?" The hybrid asked them.
"You'll see"
"Ok, guys" Jeremy called over his microphone. "I'm sending Yumi and Ulrich now; meanwhile, the tower is right ahead of you; watch out for monsters!"
He was about to start the virtualization process, when Odd stopped him.
"Jeremy, are you forgetting something?"
"Huh?"
Odd rolled his eyes. "VEHICLES, PLEASE!"
"Right; sorry" Jeremy typed some more. "One Overboard and Krabe coming right up!"
Odd's Overboard materailized in front of him, along with an Overbike and an Overwing for Yumi and Ulrich when they arrived. Last of all, a Krabe dropped from the sky, landing near the orange-haired teen.
She stroked on of its legs. "Hi, Krabe"
She closed her eyes and levitated and top of it.
Odd's eyes widened. "How on Earth did you..."
She shrugged. "Since I'm somehow linked to the Supercomputer, I have everyone's powers"
As Aelita used her star bracelet to make her wings appear, she noticed the Tamer's belt glowing.
Another mistery...
"Get ready, guys!" Jeremy called to Yumi and Ulrich, already in the scanner.
"Transfer Ulrich; Transfer Yumi; Scanner Ulrich; Scanner Yumi; Virtualization"
The two landed in front of their vehicles and jumped on them.
"Wanna race?" Ulrich asked the ninja girl. "First one to arrive to the others wins"
He hadn't even finished that Yumi was already ahead of him.
"Hey!" He started his Overbike and, in a few seconds, he had caught up with the Overwing.
"Cheater!" He protested, half-joking.
"Sorry; you didn't say that we had to start after your explanation" she said, smiling.
Ulrich shrugged: how could he be mad at Yumi for something that was, technically, his fault?
They continued their race, and Ulrich was about to win...
"Watch out for the Krabe!" Yumi yelled. Ulrich turned around to see where the Krabe was, but got distracted, and slowed down a bit, letting the Japanese girl win.
Aelita, Layla and Odd greeted her.
"That's not fair!" Ulrich protested, when his Overbike caught up with her Overwing. "There was no Krabe! You cheated!"
"I didn't" she chuckled. "There was a Krabe: what do you think Layla's riding, a Megatank?"
Ulrich humphed, but smiled to himself.
"Guys! Hornets, twelve o'clock!"
Sure enough, the wasp-like X.A.N.A.'s monsters appeared and started shooting lasers at them. One hit the Overwing, sending Yumi crashing near a tree.
"That crash was fifteen life points, Yumi" Jeremy said.
The ninja groaned, and stood up, reaching for her fans and throwing one of them to the Hornet who shot her. It exploded, but there were still many left. Layla and her Krabe were working on it, while Odd was escorting Aelita to the tower.
"Need a ride?" Ulrich asked Yumi, stopping his Overbike in front of her.
"Sure, why not?" She jumped on the back seat and held on him tight with one hand, while throwing one of her fans over and over with the other.
Secretly, Ulrich couldn't help but blush (if avatars could blush, that is) when she clinged tightly on his waist, holding for...dear life? Avoiding from falling off? Just for the heck of it? That he didn't know.
Yumi threw her fan one last time, before she pointed at a gap in front of the Overbike and screamed.
Layla, tossing her whip yet again at another Hornet, looked at both of them. She let the Krab shoot at the rest of the monsters, while she used Creativity to fill in the gap.
The Overbike went over the unstable virtual ground and stopped as soon as the two had arrived safely at the other end; Layla collapsed on her knees forcthe struggle, and the grass that had replaced the gap disappeared.
"Thanks, Layla" the samurai and the ninja yelled.
The orange-haired girl didn't say anything, but cringed when her and her friends' status rang in her mind:
Aelita: 80
Krabe: 65
Layla: 53
Odd: 30
Ulrich: 95
Yumi: 40
She made a note to ask Jeremy if she could learn how to use her powers without draining her life points so quickly.
The Clone's hands sparkled, as he fired another lightning bolt that William avoided.
"Tsk tsk, X.A.N.A., you should know better: I was the best in my old Dodgeball team"
The Clone just fired anothe light bolt.
"Besides" William continued. "Yumi's cute and athletic, but months of avoiding her fans on Lyoko helped me avoiding her pencil case at school; it's the same with those bolts"
Jeremy looked at him. "Her pencil case?"
William blushed. "Uh, long story"
"Guys, William's a good dodger and all, but he won't hold up for long"
"Yeah; well, unfortunately Einstein, collecting honey from the beehive didn't go well today" Odd complained. "Laser Arrow!" Three Laser Arrows were shot; two missed, but the third hit the target.
Aelita was hiding behind a rock, shooting Energy Fields at any Hornet who came about ten feet close to her.
Yumi's fans hit a Hornet which was a about to fire a laser in Odd's direction.
"Thanks, Yumi" the hybrid smiled.
"No problem..." A laser hit her from behind.
"Yumi!" Ulrich screamed, as the ninja devirtualized. He supersprinted towards the Tarantula who had shot his beloved, and sank both katanas on the Eye before the monster had hardly had any time to realize what the heck was going on.
"That'll teach you" the samurai muttered, as the Tarantula exploded.
Another Tarantula approached.
"Leave that to me" Odd said, running towards the monster. (The Overboard had been devirtualized before)
Before Ulrich could protest, Odd had fired a Laser Arrow, but got shot in the process, and fell over the edge.
"Help!" He cried, as the monster exploded.
"Odd!" It was time to use her new ability: Layla jumped over the edge.
Ulrich ran to stop her, but Aelita held him back.
"She knows what she's doing, Ulrich" she told him, as she fire and Energy Field to another Hornet.
William was slammed on the opposite wall, the hit knocking the air in his lungs out.
"Aelita!" Jeremy looked at the now-William Clone (he had shifted after William had said that thing about the pencil case). "Run towards the tower now! Things are getting a bit hot in here!"
Aelita heard the genius's voice and ran to the tower, while Ulrich fended off the rest of the Hornets. Layla's Krabe got devirtualized the second Ulrich hit one of them.
"Odd!"
Layla reached for the blonde's paw and concentrated.
Instinct. Aelita said to use instinct. She thought. But...what if i didn't work like the other time?
"What if it doesn't work?" A worried Layla looked down: the Digital Sea was a deep blue, with lines of light blue code running through it like waves.
"That's why we're practising on the ice" Aelita told her. "Now, he said to use your instinct; do it"
Layla closed her eyes. I want to fly. I want to fly.
Nothing happened.
"It's not working!"
"Instinct!" Another somehow familiar voice told her."You need to really want to fly; deep in your heart"
Layla smiled at the owner of the voice. "That's coming from a girl who needs to learn what 'wanting from the deep of your heart' means'!"
The figure scratched her head, not knowing how to answer.
"C'mon, you can do it!" Another voice cried.
Layla closed her eyes and climbed up an iceberg. She then raised her hands to form a T-shape with her own body and jumped.
I want to fly. She thought. Fly, to save myself from falling...
She landed on her face.
"Ow!" She exclaimed. The Tamer stood up and kicked the ground. "I'm never going to learn how to fly"
Another figure approached her. "You're going to learn, Layla, I think I saw a small virtual feather when you jumped..."
She smiled back at the owner of the voice. "Thanks Wilfred; you always know how to cheer me up..."
"Where did THAT come from?" She asked loudly.
"What?" Odd asked.
"Nothing, nothing" they were holding on a small branch which Aelita had made appear
"This branch isn't going to last long, anyway" Odd pointed at a crack on it.
Layla tightened her grip on his paw. I want to fly... She thought. I want to save Odd, save myself, I want to see the real world again...
The branch suddenly gave away, but Layla could feel a weird feeling on her back and she knew it was happening...
Odd screamed, waiting for the splash...it never came. Instead, he was hovering in mid-air.
He looked at Layla, and his cat eyes widened: the Tamer was holding him, and big brown eagle-like wings had sprouted from her back, flapping every two seconds to keep them from falling.
"Layla!" He exclaimed, smiling. "You're my Guardian AngelM"
She blushed (if she could) "Odd..."
"Mh-hm?"
"I was wondering..." She looked in his eyes. "Was Ulrich serious when he said about you asking me out?"
Now, it was Odd's turn to 'blush'. "Oh, ehm..." No turning back, no turning back. "Yeah..."
"Great!" She smiled. "Saturday at 8 good for you?"
"Huh?" His eyes were now the size of plates.
"Well, for now, we could just go out as friends, then..."
"Sure" he said. "Saturday at 8's fine; movie marathon?"
"Great" she slowly made her way towards the Forest ground, her wings disappearing in a small burst of pixels as she touched the ground.
"So, now we have another Angel?" Ulrich joked.
"Yeah; now we just need Yumi to sprout wings and save you and you have your own Guardian Angel too; but I think it's better you sprout wings, since you're the one who always saves her" Layla said, giggling at Ulrich's embarrassed face.
"Well, Yumi's here, William's fine, tower's deactivated, Layla has learned to fly, and Odd has a 'friend date'; this day couldn't get any better" Jeremy smiled.
Layla sighed. "Would it get worse if I told you that I already tried to fly in the past?"
Everyone stared at her and gasped: what did she mean?
"Could it be possible, Jeremy?" Yumi asked the genius. They were sitting at the lunch table, and William had somehow managed to find an excuse for his horrible behaviour; that, though, he'd rather not talk about.
"That Layla knew Aelita and she was on Lyoko? Maybe, but it could also be a mixed-up memory; knowing how your memory is, it could be possible"
Layla poked at her spaghetti. "Well, I really hope it's a mixed-up memory: the fact that I'm linked to the Supercomputer is enough confusing; going to Lyoko nearly ten years ago is even crazier...and those disappearing kids...you think maybe it's a coincidence?"
No one dared to answer.
A shadow ran his hands through the screen in front of him: it showed a small blue sphere, with something pink inside it.
"As I suspected: it's broken and now they're trying to get back to her brain" he started pacing.
"I need to do something, quick! Something to repair the damage! I need time, too: they were so close last time..." He opened another screen and slided through some data, before he got the one he needed. He smiled and opened a few other screens, touching and transferring data, before one of them announced, much to his delight:
TRANSFER COMPLETED
TOWER ACTIVATING IN 8H
With that delay, he had enough time to work on repairing the Memory Bubble and the future attack.
"Using my new creation, I'll be able to work on the repairing system and eliminate my enemies once and for all"
He heard a roar as his new creation approached him.
X.A.N.A. smiled cruelly: it was, as Delenda had once told him, what humans called 'killing to birds with one stone'
Review review! This is the end of Episode 6, dedicated to Naruto Sakura Uzumaki, who gave me the X.A.N.A. attack idea. Next episode "In the clutches of the nightmares", inspired by another episode from the first season: you guess which.
'Till the next time, everyone!