Amongst the smoke, Mary tried to move again. Despite of Jeremy's talk, no one had come to help and even the connection had been cut out. Had X.A.N.A. kept the connection open just to get the Lyoko Warriors there into a trap and then disconnected it when it had filled its mission?
A figure approached. Mary tried to see who it was through the smoke, yet she could not make it out. But she did make out something whiter as the figure approached. Something white which was around where a human's head would be. Nothing else could be made out. That was when Mary figured it out: It was William. The black suit got lost into the smoke so efficiently it was not visible.
Suddenly William was so close that Mary could make out his face clearly.
"What do you want from me?" Mary asked with a little choked voice. She was now even more helpless against that Xana Warrior than ever before. She could do absolutely nothing to defend herself from whatever X.A.N.A. had planned for her.
William smiled. It must have been supposed to be a calming, benevolent smile, but it was distorted into a malevolent one by either the poor visibility caused by the smoke or Mary's own mind which was paralyzed by fear. Mary tried to keep her breathing even but as the panic got stronger due to the presence of the dark boy, her breathing became increasingly shallow and intermittent. William stepped next to Mary and bent to whisper to her ear, "Why are you afraid, Mary? I'm not going to do you any harm."
Mary would have even believed that sentence for her own happiness but she felt how at the same time William put his hand on her shoulder and delicately found the edges of a deep and quite fresh scar. The scar was still quite sensitive and the touch sent strong sensations of pain from that area. Sensations of pain which Mary could not ignore.
"What? Did it hurt, huh?" XanaWilliam asked with the same silk-smooth voice and pressed the scar's area a lot harder. Mary could not help crying out in pain. "What do you think of this, then?"
Mary felt the tears of pain coming up to her eyes and she had to use all her strength to not shout the order to stop. It would have only provoked XanaWilliam to continue that torture.
"Do you want me to stop?" he asked. Mary barely managed to shake her head, wishing that the defiant expression – or what at least tried to be a defiant expression – would make X.A.N.A. stop. XanaWilliam laughed and retreated away, disappearing back into the smoke. Yet the laughter stayed to echo. Mary felt a bizarre urge to call that horrible Xana Warrior to come back, but she restrained herself from doing that and was silent, letting the shoulder's sensations of pain fade away slowly. She knew that XanaWilliam would return...
Aelita found the edge suddenly. She concentrated on Creativity immediately; after all, she had heard Mary's scream somewhere far behind her. She could only hope that Odd or Ulrich would find the girl and help her... Whatever X.A.N.A. was doing to her...
The wall broke on Aelita's will and the smoke cleared. What remained were XanaWilliam, who was surprisingly close to Mary, Odd and Ulrich, who were just as surprisingly close to each other, Aelita, who was in front of Yumi and Mary, who was still in the grasp of the black smoke.
"Could somebody please help me?" Mary asked weakly. She had been inside the smoke cloud for so long that her eyes needed some time to recover and adjust to the brightness of the Ice Sector.
Yumi had already thrown her fan at the unsuspecting William. The black smoke disappeared and Ulrich dashed to face the Xana Warrior. Odd helped Mary back on her feet.
"Look out, three Megatanks coming!" Jeremy warned.
"Copy that, Jer-" Odd started but got devirtualized and ended his sentence in the scanner room, "-emy."
Ulrich turned his attention to the Megatanks and gave William a chance to finish him off. However, Aelita managed to stop it with her Energy Field in time to save her fellow from devirtualization. Ulrich concentrated on the Xana Warrior again and left the Megatanks for the girls.
"Fireball!" Mary shouted and shot at a Megatank. It closed itself, though, and the fireball hit its metal shell uselessly. Yumi and Aelita tried to hit the monsters with their own weapons, too, but the efficient shooting of lasers forced them to concentrate on dodging more than aiming their attacks. William kept himself located so that he would not get hit by Megatanks but Ulrich was constantly in some degree of danger to get hit by a laser.
Yumi managed to destroy one Megatank and Mary and Aelita succeeded in destroying another one with teamwork. By this time, one had rolled aside and shot Ulrich, leaving William's hands and sword free for a new target. A Laser Air hit Aelita's back. The Megatank played it safe and shot at the girl even though she was already devirtualizing. Yumi managed to destroy the last Megatank but William was already on the move. Yumi did not have time to defend herself from the sudden threat despite of Mary's warning, and so Yumi returned to the factory as well.
Mary was alone against William once again. She took up her dragon paws and prepared to meet her opponent. The shoulder still protested and Mary could not help worrying if this would be her final battle. William approached, walking calmly. Mary raised her paws and prepared to hit him as soon as he came close enough.
"Come on. Attack," Mary challenged with a quiet voice. XanaWilliam smiled his familiar evil smile and raised his sword. Mary released the charge of the Light Claw in a shockwave much like that of Laser Air's, which XanaWilliam blocked, nonetheless.
"Mary, behind you!" Jeremy shouted as a familiar monster appeared on the Holomap. "The Scyphozoa!"
Mary turned to stop the approaching monster but as soon as she had turned, William had already caught her with his own hands. The Scyphozoa raised its tentacles to catch Mary, who screamed and tried to scratch William with her claws, hoping to deplete her captor's life points and escape. However, William was left with just a few life points and the Scyphozoa got Mary.
"No! Mary, no!" Odd cried out. Jeremy typed some program on the supercomputer with hopes of being able to stop the Scyphozoa with a new, though untested, creation. Yet the supercomputer found a bug from it and refused to execute it.
"What is the Scyphozoa even up to?" Ulrich asked.
"Is it going to... take her life? Like back when it got the Keys to Lyoko from me," Aelita whispered.
As if as an answer, the Scyphozoa let Mary go. She fell to the ground and did not get up anymore.
"Mary! Mary! Answer now! Please, say you aren't dead!" Odd shouted to the microphone. Nevertheless, the girl did not answer. XanaWilliam poked her with his sword, even hit the scar with the blunt side of the sword, but the girl did not react in any way.
"NO!" Odd shouted. "It's not true! It's not!"
"Victory!" William hissed. "Finally."
He turned to leave but looked Mary one more time. She had been resilient and given a rather good resistance despite of her cowardice which had guarded her life. She had fought in her own ways and terms until the end. But now it was over.
And now that it was over, XanaWilliam felt some kind of vexation somewhere inside. He had lost an opponent he had been able to torment. He had lost that joy forever.
"It had to be done," XanaWilliam remarked but those words had been put to his mouth by X.A.N.A. He could not control them. The vexation was wiped out when the AI master erased it all. New battles would come, it whispered to its general, and then you must be on full working order...
/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Lyokostar story series and its original characters (c) Me/
