CHAPTER 10
As the mission proceeded without any problems, content Jeremie took off his glasses for a moment to clean the lenses. But when he put them back on his nose, hell broke in front of his eyes. The Superscan beeped horribly and an alert about activated tower popped up on the screen. Jeremie felt shivers going down his spine and a cool wave went to his hands.
"Oh no, not now," he muttered to himself. He saw several red triangles on the map; it was a large group of Creepers, charging right at his friends. What Jeremie feared the most had just happened. XANA was against them!
"Watch out, Creepers!" he cried, pulling his microphone closer to his lips to make sure they heard him.
Right at this moment on Lyoko the group saw a lot of monsters crawling in their direction. Soon they were surrounded from all sides. Instincts of warriors woke up in them immediately; Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and William stood in four corners of a square around Aelita; they could not let her be devirtualized, what was almost unavoidable in a fight with that number of Creepers. Odd and Yumi did their best to eliminate as much monsters as they could from the distance and make it easier to Ulrich and William. Despite their efforts, the amount of Creepers would not drop, because new ones arrived in the places of the eliminated and the fight became really tough. And although she used to rather hide behind her friends, this time Aelita was very active in a fight; she surprised the other Lyoko warriors with her skillful use of Energy Fields and agility in avoiding enemy lasers thanks to her wings. Quickly after realizing her battling skills she was let in the middle of the fight and replaced Odd, who was eliminated by an unexpected shot in his shoulder blade.
Back on Earth Jeremie was thrilled like never before. He took a few deep breaths to remain cold-minded; he knew very well that panic would be the worst solution is such situation. It did not make him feel any better when Odd climbed up to the lab and stood near him to observe the battle.
Suddenly, Odd noticed movement on a small screen where the images from the cameras in the factory were displayed.
"Jeremie, we have visitors... something's moving around here," he said. Jeremie typed quickly on the keyboard to display the image on the big screen. Odd was right. Jim and Xanafied Sissi were approaching to the elevator.
"Block the elevator, quick!" Odd ordered. With some more typing, Einstein cut off the power and stopped the elevator up the shaft.
After jumping off the rope, Sissi walked towards the elevator's cabin.
"Sissi, why did you drag me to that old factory?" Jim dawdled. "What's gone into you?"
"Silence!" said Sissi sharply.
She stepped into the elevator and pushed the "down" button. She grew mad when the elevator did not move an inch. It eventually convinced Jim that their trip to the factory was pointless.
"I didn't walk so far through some sewers to wander around this scrap yard! It's dangerous. If Jeremie and his pals really are here, they'll be in big trouble!" Jim got angry. "Get out of this elevator, who knows if it won't fall or something-" he warned Sissi and took her by her arm to pull her out, but a moment later he was brutally pushed straight onto a nearby column.
On Lyoko the fierce battle went on. The group managed to the short path to the elevator hall and gat out of the trap, but it did not improve their state; there was still a lot of monsters and they had hardly any life points left. Ulrich invented plan B.
"Me and William distract them, you take Aelita and run to the elevator!" he shouted to Yumi. Unfortunately at this moment Yumi, who lacked both her fans, did not manage to cover from a series of lasers and turned into a cloud of pixels.
"Ulrich, we won't make it! We have to run or it's over for us!" cried Aelita, who was flying and attacking from above.
A second later she fell to the ground, as she was hit for the first time. They had no other choice than run to the elevator. They jumped on it and went up, avoiding monsters' lasers.
The elevator stopped at the entrance to the celestial dome. The wall moved away and the three of them ran to the platform. Aelita opened the interface while Ulrich and William were standing a few meters from her and with their swords drawn, they were looking for new nasty surprises.
"Jeremie, it was supposed to be a picnic, not a massacre!" said Yumi when she came closer to the screen, still sore from recent hit.
"I couldn't have known..." mumbled Jeremie.
Suddenly on the Lyoko view a big red dot appeared out of nowhere. Back on the platform, Ulrich and William faced the third boy, of Ulrich's height, who was wearing a black suit with long black cloak. In both of his hands he held a gigantic axe, ready to attack. His light blue eyes were blazing red with anger and hatred.
"Guys... watch out!... It's... XANA... himself..." muttered Jeremie.
Then, he turned to Aelita, "Launch the programme, fast! He's invincible, don't waste time-"
Aelita came back to work, but she became so stressed out that she confused commands and the programme would not launch. She did not give up, though. She shook her hands like she tried to get rid of something sticky and annoying on them, and corrected whatever she did wrong. However when she wanted to make the final move, the interface shook and stopped responding. Then, a large, shining XANA symbol appeared on it.
Jeremie could see the problem. Without working interface launching the programme was not possible; what's more, he himself could not do anything due to the interface on; he couldn't even bring his friends back on Earth. They were stuck.
"There we meet again. I always wanted to fight with you in person," XANA spoke to Ulrich and waved with his axe. Ulrich managed to block the blow and stop the blade centimeters above him. He stood like that for a while until he could not bear such weight any longer and swayed; the blade fell on him and Ulrich was devirtualized. The last obstacle between XANA and Aelita was William.
"William, I did not expect you to turn to the side of those worthless brats," he said to William. "You left me... you betrayed your master... you will not escape punishment!"
"You... never... were... my... master..." gasped William with anger.
"HOW... DARE... YOU?" XANA shouted and ran at him. The duel began.
Fighting her fear, Aelita turned her head, observing how William escaped powerful blows of gigantic axe in the corner of her eye. It was easier for William to fight than to Ulrich, as his sword was much more massive. He held on for quite long; he even hit his opponent once, only to observe as his wound healed immediately. XANA was at the top of his power and invincible.
William eventually gave up due to his lack of fighting skills; he did not block a swing from above and was back on Earth sooner than he thought. From Aelita's perspective, this hit was much too awful to watch; after a while she turned and saw the virtual body of William turning into digital waste. Horrified, she anticipated him, still in bow after slicing William in half. Then he raised his head and stared at her with his angry look. He stood up and moved towards her; he did not run to her like to an acquisition, but walked slowly, proudly, triumphantly.
The rest of the gang on Earth surrounded the screen and observed with horror on their faces as the distance between red dot and yellow triangle was shrinking second after second.
As he lost control over the situation, Jeremie also lost control over himself. The time slowed down for him; emotions overpowered his mind and thoughts were spinning inside his head. And when he, pale and desperate, lost all hope, and his friends seemed to have lost it together with him...
The activated tower alert disappeared from the screen.
"The tower deactivated itself?" it ran through Jeremie's mind, as he noticed. He felt like an amazing power suddenly filled him; the body calmed down and his shattered mind put itself together into one piece. "Now... is our only chance..."
He slowly reached for the microphone and pulled it closer to him. Then he said one sentence only, but so calmly that everybody around were impressed.
"Aelita, launch the programme. Now."
He somehow transferred his calmness to Aelita as well. She came back to reality, focused for a while and turned to the interface, from which XANA's eye disappeared in the meantime. She turned an auxiliary subsystem and to confirm what was about to happen, she lay her hand on the interface to do the authorization. The interface disappeared.
"AAELITAAA.!..." cried XANA happily all of a sudden, so loudly that he could be heard on Earth as well. The group in front of the supercomputer observed as all XANA's activity was dying out and Replikas were destroyed one by one.
The third key was doing its job.
XANA kept on walking, but with every step he was even weaker. When he was one step in front of Aelita, he swayed and fell to his knees. His eyes, which did not glow red anymore and turned back to their light blue colour, stared at her with pure admiration, the only way they could.
"Ae.. Aelita..." he mumbled with a weak voice, almost whispering, "thank you soo much... it was such a pleasure to meet you..."
She must have looked very proud as she stood over him if he tried to arouse mercy in such a way. In vain. Third key had been launched and there was no turning back. It was his end.
"I'd like to thank you for all, too... for those four wonderful afternoons... flowers... and most of all – for care," she said quietly. What an irony. She did not know whether she should thank him or not. Four days would not pay back years of suffering he caused. But these particular four afternoons were quite pleasant, so she felt she owed him thanks.
He was quiet, but he was not over yet. He stared at her for a moment with his eyes wide open, as if he was seeking light. Then he stood up and recited dryly, like a robot.
"A world without danger accomplished. It was a distinction to serve the family of Schaeffer."
He came closer to the edge of the platform. He closed his eyes and shut his mouth and fell down into the digital void.
"Your time is over," Aelita whispered. She looked down and observed as his virtual body disappeared into thin air as it was falling.
A few floors above, Jim eventually lost his patience.
"Whoever is there, show up!" he shouted and his voice echoed in the hall.
Then Sissy regained consciousness. She swayed a little and looked around.
"Where am I? What am I doing here?" she asked.
She realized that there was a black hole in her memory about what happened between the moment she was sitting in front of her mirror until now.
"Jim? What are we doing here?" she asked him.
Jim, noticing a change in Sissi's behaviour, immediately demanded explanations.
"I'd expect answers form you, dear. You led us here."
Sissi could not believe in what had happened. How was it possible that she did not remember anything?
"You were saying that Jeremie Belpois and his pals are here. Is it true?"
Sissi recalled something. She remembered herself spying on Aelita after classes. But how did she know that Aelita would be in the factory?
"Enough," said Jim as Sissi was silent, unable to answer him. "We're going back to school. I wasted enough time anyway. Your father won't be happy if he finds out I left the dorm without supervision for so long." He walked to the ropes to climb up.
"Wait. They're here. I'm sure of it," Sissi said.