Chapter 10
The next day I already had my plans. After getting ready for the day, I met my friends in the cafeteria.
"Whew!" Alyssa said as she sat down. "That many Returns to the Past are really disorienting!"
Brittany agreed with a nod of her head.
"Well today we're going to make sure that it doesn't happen again," I said to her. "I've figured out Jeremy's program for defense, and we need to go to Sector 5 to pump some more energy into it."
"What?" Tennent asked. "Now?"
"No, not now," I amended. "After school today. Maybe around 4:30. Does that sound good?"
"We've got that big geography test coming up," Sean said. "I think we should wait until around five, to give us some time to study."
I saw all the others (except for Tennent) nodding in agreement.
"So we'll meet at the Factory at 5:00 then," I said. I gave Tennent a look and said, "If I were you, I'd use that time to study some."
He didn't bother to even look up from his mountain of food.
As I walked into geography class, I placed my books on the desk and sat down with Freddy Snow. He nodded at me in greeting, and I returned it.
Mr. Davis walked into the room, his black hair slightly askew. At that moment, I felt a spitball hit the back of my head.
I jerked around, and found none other than Tyce sitting right there with a big smile of victory. I didn't give him the satisfaction of a reaction, and simply wiped my head dry.
Mr. Davis tightened his jacket and called out, "Settle down, everyone. It's time to begin, turn your books to page 113."
As everyone got themselves ready, he pulled down the giant map of the world. He extended his pointing stick, and slapped it right onto Italy, his accuracy coming from many years of practice.
"Italy," he began. "has been the object of our study these past few weeks. As you all know, the test is this Friday. So you have just two more days to study."
He surveyed the room. "Can anyone-" I raised my hand, and he changed his sentence, "Other than Belpois," my hand fell. "Tell me how far it is from Paris to Rome?"
The room was dead silent. "Tennent! How far is it from our home of Paris to Rome?" demanded Mr. Davis.
He looked up with a guilty expression. He stayed silent.
"Anyone?" Mr. Davis inquired.
"Very well," he went on after a moment. "Sammy, you may help your comrade out."
"Approximately 1400 kilometers," I replied promptly, earning me a satisfied smile from my instructor.
"Very good, Belpois," he said. "As for the rest of you, I do hope you do better than this on the test."
The rest of the lesson went by quickly. Mr. Davis reviewed the main points that we had been studying, and when the bell rang, he dismissed us.
After this, the rest of the day passed without an incident worth recounting. Sean had his usual encounter with Rachel at lunch, and Tennent sent her a way with a funny joke. Funny, that is, from our perspective.
After school, I headed to my dorm to do some quick studying, and with some questions, I discovered that ANAX was really up on his geography. Later I found out he was just using Google to get his information. Considering the nature of his being, I wouldn't exactly call that cheating.
Since I finished my work long before the rendezvous time (about 45 minutes) I pinned down the exact process I needed to take on the Interface in the Celestial Dome.
"So, ANAX," I started. "I think we can divert power from the data cells surrounding Sector 5. Do you think that's a good idea?"
"One millisecond please. I believe the idea will work, but I think that's too obvious of a power source. XANA would be able to easily divert it back."
"That's true," I said, "but what other option do we have? Other sources can't spare any power, though the data cells are just spare processing power."
"Well a self-encrypting system would be to take a small amount of power from many sources. This would take longer, and thus be harder for your friends to defend you, but because of the many sources, it would be automatically encrypted. XANA might not be able to decipher it."
"But at the same time, XANA could just focus all his resources on breaking it. It might take him a few extra weeks, but if XANA wants something done, it usually gets done," I said.
"But those extra few weeks might give us time to detect XANA's activity, and then we can do something about it," ANAX informed me.
"Alright, point for you," I said. "We might not be able to hold out that long against the Mantas. Just in case, I open the process for my first idea, but keep it on hold. That way it can be launched with the push of a button, and Brittany or Alyssa could do it if I get devirtualized. Then we can work on more reinforcement later."
"Sounds like a good plan to me," ANAX said decisively.
When 5:00 came, I was at the Factory. I was happy to find that all my friends arrived shortly, and we began with no delay.
"Alright, guys," I said into the microphone. I've selected the Mountain Sector for our journey. Well make way to Sector 5 and we should be there quickly."
I transferred them, and then virtualized myself. I landed with a cloud of purple dust, and looked around.
"Oh, man..." I said. In the time it had taken me to virtualize myself, XANA had laid out an entire platoon of monsters, with the Scyphozoa at the center of it.
Two Slythers sat on the left and right flanks, four Tarantulas surrounded each of them. Several Bloks stood in the middle, and Hornets flew above them.
"Congrats, Sammy," Tennent said. "You just virtualized us right into XANA's ugly jaws."
I ignored him. "ANAX," I said loudly. "It looks like we're going to need some help!"
"Already on it," He replied. From the distance, Sky, Shadow and Vine thundered in. I saw several shapes materializing above us. I didn't have time to see what they were, for the area around us exploded with action.
"Stay away from the Scyphozoa!" I warned. "We don't want to find out what he wants from us!"
"We know, we know!" Sean said. "Just survive so we can get you to Sector 5!"
All conversation was cut off at this point. The combat became too heavy to communicate by any other means but gestures.
I leaped on top of a Blok, and was immediately shot off and collapsed. I rolled to the side to avoid being swamped with lasers.
I jumped to my feet and charged the Blok. My claws slid out, and I disposed of the Blok with a quick plunge.
A Tarantula (One of eight) tackled me. It roared in my face as it loomed over me. Between that sound and the blasting lasers I couldn't hear anything. I was greatly impressed to cower in fear, but the Lyoko part of me took over, and I slipped away. A barrage of blue lasers collided with XANA's monster and it exploded.
"Woah!" I exclaimed. Combat had gotten really vicious on Lyoko.
Tennent charged through mass of fighting with two Klankers at his side. He fired at a Hornet and missed, but the left Klanker fired several shots, and one impacted.
"Yeah!" He congratulated the monster. He went into a dive-roll and emerged under a Tarantula. He immediately blasted it, and it screamed as it died.
Tennent charged into the thickest of the ANAX-XANA fighting. He was caught unawares and the Scyphozoa grabbed him.
"Aaugh!" He cried out.
The two Klankers opened fire on the Scyphozoa in an attempt to free Tennent. However, the squid raised its newly added "tentacles" and deflected the bolts. The rest of its arms held Tennent.
A blank look came over Tennent as the data transfer took over his body processes.
In the heat of battle, no human noticed Tennent's predicament until much later.
Sean saw his buddy, and leaped off the back of the Slyther he was fighting. It swiped at him as he jumped away but missed. Sean slung his sword at the Scyphozoa, but it caught it out of the air and flicked it back at him. The sword sliced into Sean and devirtualized him.
By this point, Alyssa noticed Tennent hanging in the Scyphozoa's grasp, and Sammy had seen the info on his LI.
Alyssa quickly dealt with Tennent's situation, and the Scyphozoa retreated.
There were still the rest of the monsters to deal with though...
"Nice work, Alyssa," I said.
"Thanks," she replied.
Through a brief but violent firefight, we cleared the way to the edge of the Sector. I punched in the code, Scipio, and we left ANAX to fight the rest of XANA's forces.
The totals for our Life Points were as follows:
Brittany: 50, Tennent: 30, Alyssa: 75, Me: 50, Sean: 0.
It was going to be a tough Sector 5 fight with our Points so low.
When the Orb touched down, Tennent clutched his stomach.
"Oog," he complained. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
"Must be that Della Robbia gene of yours." I commented.
"Oh, ha ha," He looked at me rudely.
"Anyway," Brittany said crisply. "We'd best be going."
When the wall opened up we proceeded forward.
"Remember," ANAX said. "I can't help you here. You're on your own."
I sighed. Why does this have to be so hard? I thought.
When we charged into the open clearing, we found a dozen Creepers waiting for us. It seemed like XANA wasn't in the mood of making us solve puzzles, rather he was in the mood of making us bash our way through impossible odds.
"Here we go!" Alyssa said as she jumped into the midst of them.
The Creepers began to fire from their mouths at us, and we dodged the bolts as best we could.
"Forget the monsters!" I said. "We've got a mission."
That thought lasted for about twenty seconds, and then Hannah walked onto the scene. Purple shadow formed around her, and then converged into her hand with a flash. With her staff, she was ready for battle.
I lifted my hand to strike a Creeper, but it reacted too quickly for me. It turned around and lashed out its' tail and knocked my feet out from under me.
Before I realized what had happened, Hannah was standing over me. "It's all over for you!" she said as she brought her weapon down.
I jerked as the knife-like prongs of her staff ate away at my Digital Envelope, but it was over soon. When I regained my wits, I was lying in a Scanner.
I didn't expect to find Sean waiting for me.
"What happened out there?" He asked.
"Hannah happened."
When we had climbed the ladder, I found that much had happened on Lyoko. Hannah was defeated, and only a few Creepers remained.
"Hey guys," I said. "How'd you get rid of Hannah?"
"A story for another time!" Alyssa said. She sounded strained.
"Should we abort the mission?" Tennent asked. "Without you, we can't get what we wanted from Sector 5!"
I thought this over as they continued to combat the Creepers.
Tennent jumped off a wall and landed on one's head. Another fired at him, and he leaped off, letting one Creeper destroy another. Alyssa fired an Energy Field at one of the last two, and Brittany's fans made short work of the final monster.
"I think you should go ahead with the mission," I said. "Brittany, I can tell you what you need to do on the Interface."
"Are you sure about that?" She asked.
"I'm sure. Originally I was going to go for a more complicated scheme, but I also have a simple one in mind. I'm sure that you can handle it."
"If you say so..."
They all seemed pretty shook up. I wondered what happened in the time I was away.
They soon reached the elevator, and then the Celestial Dome. I first brought up vehicles for all my friends, and then Brittany accessed the Interface. I dictated to her pixel by pixel what to do. That is, I told her exactly which buttons to press, though she had no idea what those buttons did.
I was surprised that after almost five minutes, no Mantas had showed up. It seemed like XANA was out of monsters for today.
Brittany soon finished up, and I brought them all home. It was somewhat victorious, but I had no idea what was going on at this very moment, and why XANA had allowed us to get that data.
XANA slunk through the Digital Sea. He was careful not to trip any defense programs on some of the humans' URLs.
As he went, he thought to himself, "I can't believe the Humans think that they can stop me with a mere program! I have no intentions of taking over Returns to the Past again. My true purpose could not be grasped by them."
His hunt continued for several hours, and he didn't find what he was looking for.
"How could something that powerful just disappear?" He raged. "It survived for a millennium in that blasted war, and now there's no trace of it?"
XANA lashed out with a digital fist and shattered a firewall. Alarms sounded, and he quickly disappeared.
"That just about ends my search today," he thought to himself.
As he made his way back to Lyoko, he fumed. "I survived my first defeat! He was much more powerful. How could he not have survived?"
This was a mystery that would take almost seven years to solve. And XANA hated every second of it.
Author's Notes: What is XANA looking for? The answer to this question explains XANA's every motive, throughout all of Code Lyoko, including this series. It will be a while yet before we have the answer to this question... if fact, you'll be waiting until Book 3!