Jeremie's eyes popped open as he heard the sound of beeping echo in his room. The previous night, he had promised Aelita that he would not torture himself for the sake of the team and went to bed at a reasonable hour. Though he was also a light sleeper, the sleepless nights ended up taking a greater toll on his body than he had thought, causing him to sleep heavily that night. While he did get some programming done with Aelita, she encouraged him once more to call it an early night. He sat up on his bed and rubbed his eyes before he took a few steps to his desk. Jeremie moved his mouse to wake the monitor up from sleep mode. As the screen shone to life, the scanner revealed that a tower had just gone active in the forest sector. He grabbed his phone and looked at the time. 3:00am. Gritting his teeth, he picked out a name at random from his speed dial list and made the call. He knew the person would hate him for this but in this situation, it had to be done.
Ulrich felt a vibration near the pillow on his bed. He had the habit of putting his phone on vibrate and placing it beside him before he went to sleep just in case something important were to ever happen. Without opening his eyes, he grabbed the phone and placed it on the side of his face. "Hello?" he said, his mind only half-awake.
"It's Jeremie," he said. "XANA just activated a tower in the forest sector. Get Odd and Yumi and meet up at the factory. I'll contact Aelita."
"Alright, we'll be there," he slurred. He put the phone down and lay in his bed for a minute. Going back to sleep sounded like a good idea and this is one of those times he wished XANA would be courteous enough to attack during the day. Ulrich muttered some curses under his breath before getting out of bed. He walked over to his roommate's bed and shook him violently.
"Stop that! What's wrong with you?" Odd asked as he still lay in bed.
"C'mon, Odd, we gotta get to the factory," he told him plainly.
Odd groaned. "How bad is it?" he asked.
"He didn't say," he answered.
"Can I just go there in the morning?" he asked.
"No," Ulrich answered as he continued shaking him violently. Odd groaned again before finally getting out of bed. With that task done, Ulrich took his phone and gave Yumi a call.
Yumi woke up after hearing a low ringing sound next to her head. She always made it a habit to lower her volume before she went to bed so that no one else would wake up in case the phone rang. In her still drowsy state, she looked at who was calling and answered the phone. "This better be good, Ulrich," she said, the sound of sleep still present in her voice.
"Jeremie just got a tower activation alert," he said. "We're all headed to the factory right now."
She yawned before providing a response. "I'll be there." With that she got ready to go to the factory, cursing under her breath about how XANA stopped her from having a great dream and a good night's sleep.
Aelita jumped out of bed once her phone started to ring. Like Yumi, she had a habit of turning down her volume before going to bed. She completely forgot to do that this time, however, and tried to grab the phone as quickly as possible before anyone outside of her dorms heard it. "Jeremie?" she whispered.
"Aelita, we got an activated tower," he answered. "Meet us at the factory."
"Understood." She hung up the phone and quickly got ready. Once she had everything on, she quietly left her dorm room and got out of the building. Aelita made her way to the park and found the sewer entrance that led straight to the bridge where the factory was. Once she made her way inside and down the freight elevator, she met up with the rest of the team. "What's the situation, Jeremie?" she asked.
Jeremie was already at the terminal typing away. "Looks like XANA activated a tower in the forest sector."
"First the arctic sector, now the forest sector. XANA sure works fast in getting Lyoko rebuilt," Yumi noted. "Any damage to our world yet?"
Jeremie hit a few more keys. "Nothing noted so far but with XANA you never know what'll happen."
"That's our cue," Ulrich said as he and the rest of the Lyoko warriors took the elevator and headed to the scanning room. With all of them in their scanning pods, Jeremie started the scanning process to take them to the virtual world. Once the procedure was complete, the heroes were rematerialized in Lyoko. They looked around and saw that the world around them had a red-orange hue to it. There were red rocks around them and the ground shared a similar color. Volcanoes were active and spewed forth smoke and lava every few seconds. The digital sea that surrounded them, normally a blue or deep green color, looked like a more fluid form of lava thanks to the orange color it sported. Ulrich made contact with Jeremie. "Are you sure the active tower is in the forest sector?"
"Yeah, why?" he asked.
"Either the whole forest burned down or this is a brand new sector," he responded.
Jeremie tapped a few keys in order to bring up a wireframe fly-by of the area. Sure enough, Ulrich was correct. "Looks like the map program is on the fritz. You still see an active tower about 350 yards from your current location, right?"
Aelita peered over the horizon and saw the active tower. "That's right," she responded.
"Alright, that part still works," he said with a sigh of relief. The group proceeded to run towards the tower to shut it off. About halfway to the tower, Jeremie made contact. "Heads up, everyone," he warned. "You got a big welcoming committee coming your way."
Ulrich put out his arm to stop the group once he saw what Jeremie was talking about. A large flock of kankrelats were making their way towards them. As Ulrich placed one hand on the sword handle behind him, Odd put out his own arm.
"Let me handle this," he said. "It gives me a good chance to test out Jeremie's upgrades."
Ulrich took his hand away from his weapon and stepped back as Odd took point. With both arms outstretched, Odd began shooting at the enemy. With shots alternating between his left and right wrists, he began to hit kankrelat after kankrelat, whittling down the flock slowly. Odd paced himself so that the creatures would have little to no chance of dodging the projectiles in between shots while Jeremie monitored his hit points, noting that the temperature of the guns was at a low enough level to do no harm. As Odd took down the final kankrelat, he was rewarded with a polite round of clapping from the rest of the group. "Thank you, thank you," he said as he took a bow to his audience.
Jeremie noticed something on the radar. "Don't celebrate just yet, Odd," he relayed. "It looks like…" He stopped himself as he took another look at what was coming. "It can't be."
"What is it, Einstein?" Odd asked.
"You won't believe it, but…" Jeremie's transmission was cut short as a large lava rock came crashing down near the group. Everyone scattered to avoid the falling debris while the area struck by the rock burst into flames.
"You have to repeat that, Jeremie," Odd said. "I didn't…" He stopped talking as he and the rest of the Lyoko warriors saw a figure emerge from the flames. The man was wearing a black suit with the XANA emblem on it. He was also brandishing a rather large sword that also carried the emblem.
"No way!" Ulrich exclaimed.
"Impossible." Aelita said.
"William?" Yumi questioned, believing that her eyes had deceived her.
"It has to be a polymorph," Odd stated as he extended both arms and started firing laser arrows rapidly at the foe. As the arrows came speeding by, William extended his hand and with the help of a black cloud of smoke, stopped the projectiles from hitting his body. Odd stopped firing once he realized that there was no chance in hitting him now. William gathered all of the arrows together and, with the flick of a wrist, flung the massive ball of energy back at Odd. Stunned by the events happening before him, Odd had no time to react and was struck by his own weaponry, the hit instantly de-virtualizing him back into the real world.
"Now what?" Yumi asked.
"Only one thing left to do," Ulrich said as he brandished both of his katanas. "We fight back." Before he could make a move, however, William had used his smoke to bind Ulrich's arms to his body. Unable to move on his own accord, Ulrich was helpless as he was thrown violently against a nearby flaming rock, causing him to both drop his weapons and get knocked out for a brief moment.
Yumi pulled out her fans and stood in front of Aelita. "Make a run for the tower," she said. "I'll take care of this."
Aelita began to make a break for the tower when William spotted her. Before she could put up any type of defense, she too was captured in the binding smoke. He lifted her into the air, knocked away a fan that was thrown by Yumi, and threw Schaeffer's daughter through the flames of the fallen rock, causing her to get knocked out near the tower itself.
Yumi threw her other fan in hopes of getting at least one lucky hit in. Her plan failed as she saw William knock the fan away towards the other fan that was rebounding towards Yumi. Weaponless, Yumi clenched her fists and got into a fighting position, ready to take him on in hand-to-hand combat. William, however, had other plans. He threw out black smoke in her direction. Before she could react, her arms and legs were bound to her body, preventing her from moving. William walked towards her slowly as she struggled to escape her bindings. He stood right next to her and leaned forward a bit. "One day, Yumi, you will grow to love me," he said as he forced his lips onto hers.
Yumi's eyes expressed a look of disgust and anger. She was not only put in a helpless position, she also had her first kiss stolen by a boy who, in his current state, she despised more than anything else in the world. As she struggled further to both escape his kiss and the black smoke prison, her eyes widened as she felt a large blade puncture her body. William backed off from the kiss and produced a devilish grin. Yumi looked down to see that he had stabbed her with this sword, the blade halfway through her body. As she faded away into the digital ether, she looked at the smile on William's face, still in shock at what had just happened.
Ulrich regained consciousness just in time to see William both kiss the woman he loved and stab her afterwards. His blood boiled with rage and he picked up his weapons and stood up, ready to fight William to the death for his transgressions.
Once the last bits of Yumi's body disappeared, William gripped his sword and let the tip of the blade fall on the ground. He looked at Ulrich and continued smiling. With his free hand, he extended his arm and motioned for Ulrich to come forward. "You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?" he asked.
Ulrich breathed deeply. Even though he was more than upset, he knew he needed to keep a calm mind if he were to ever stand a chance in fighting of his adversary. "You ever watch superhero movies?" he asked. "The bad guy always loses."
William produced a low laugh as he readied his sword for battle. Seeing that the opponent was ready to fight, Ulrich charged forward, yelling as both of his swords were ready to strike. William stood motionless as Ulrich charged forward. As he came closer, the raven-haired boy stood his ground. Once Ulrich was within striking range, William jumped backwards, avoiding the sword strike Ulrich unleashed. He then ran off while the samurai continued to give chase. Ulrich stopped once he reached a cliff as William jumped off, retreating to the safety of the digital sea.
Aelita regained consciousness in time to see both William jump off and Ulrich stand at the edge of the cliff, upset that he was not able to extract revenge in Yumi's name. With no time to waste, she got up and entered the tower. A few moments later, the tower in the volcano sector was freed from XANA's control.