Hello, everyone! Sorry for the slight delay, but a few unexpected issues came out and that made it hard to update, but as you can see, here's Chapter 10!
This chapter is mostly dedicated to the Skidbladnir (the ship the Lyoko warriors use to explore replicas built by XANA) because the Skid doesn't get that much action in later chapters.
But, anyway, without further ado. . .on with the story!
"And then make another right, and you'll be in the Skid's docking room," Jeremy said. The five triangles that symbolized the Lyoko warriors came nearer and nearer to the desired room and it was only one right turn until they arrived at the Skid.
"Wow!," exclaimed MegaMan's voice. "It's amazing!"
"You like the Skid?," asked Jeremy.
"Yeah, you did an awesome job designing it, Jeremy," answered the netnavi.
"Thank you," said Jeremy proudly, clearly flattered that someone appreciated his talent at programming.
"Is there any way for me to see it?," demanded Lan. Jeremy, upon hearing Lan's request, complied by pressing a button and causing a visual of the Skid to appear on the computer screen. Upon seeing the Skid's image, Lan let out a gasp of awe and also complimented Jeremy for his work.
Indeed, the Skid, also called the Skidbladnir, was an impressive sight to behold.
Its function was to serve as a virtual ship for navigation through the network, but its appearance was not of a boat; rather, it looked like a hovercraft straight out of Star Wars. The Skid's head-like part served as the cockpit for directing its actions. The lower portion of its body consisted of four torpedo-shaped pods that were attached on all sides to the Skid's form. Finally, two thin, scythe-like wings arched on either side of the Skid's frame.
The virtual ship stood tall and straight, surrounded by five port-like mechanisms. Encircling the Skid's ports were flimsy platforms consisting of a series of loose planks. At the end of the unstable-looking stage was five round platforms, each with a circular, striped pattern of navy and white. The circle in the middle was the largest, four smaller circles branching around it.
"How do we get in?," asked MegaMan.
"Like this," said Odd, stepping onto one of the smaller, branching circles. The other Lyoko warriors followed his lead, each choosing to stand on a smaller circle.
The exception was Aelita, who stepped onto the largest shape, the circle in the middle. MegaMan, not wanting to be somehow left behind, mimicked his friends' actions and ran towards the final, unoccupied circle.
"Energize!," announced Jeremy's voice.
Static appeared around the bodies of all five warriors. Their forms faded from sight and reappeared in the Skid, Aelita in the cockpit and the others in the torpedo pods.
Aelita, sitting in what resembled a pilot's chair, grabbed the levers on either side of her and pulled them.
The port-like mechanisms surrounding the Skid retracted back, giving it the space it required to take off. The virtual ship ascended upward until it reached the top of Sector Five's celestial dome and flew away from it, gliding into a blue passageway of zeros and ones.
Once arriving at the end of the data tunnel, the Skid exited into the Desert Region and flung itself into the Digital Sea. Such an action in normal circumstances would have been suicidal, but the Skidbladnir did that regularly, for it was built to survive what was beyond Lyoko's boundaries.
And indeed, beyond Lyoko was their destination. Upon reaching the edge of the sacred virtual world, the Skid exited Lyoko's sphere, its doors (which looked like a series of gray splinters arching in a circular shape) opening with a sickening creak.
Now, they were no longer in Lyoko; they were in the Network.
But a totally different network than MegaMan was used to. It had jumbles of wires and cords (all in gigantic size in comparison to the puny Skid) connecting and attaching in every which way and direction. It looked like a strange mixture of rods and sticks, all in blue color, stabled onto a dull, navy background.
"I'm entering the coordinates of the replica's location," said Jeremy.
"Take the hub that is northwest of your position."
"I see it, Jeremy," responded Aelita. The Skidbladnir switched to a horizontal position and made a 90-degree turn. It glided, almost gracefully, to a strange-looking contraption and converted back to a straight position.
The contraption was kept afloat in the air by many grotesquely-shaped cords and was circular, a rotating pool of orange and pink energy swirling at its core.
"Obtaining hyper-speed at three. . .two. . .," Aelita said, and, after pressing several buttons, announced, "one!"
The Skid thrust itself into the swirling energy and became coated with blue static as it did so. MegaMan, not used to the sensation of moving faster than the speed of light, had to fight the urge of vomiting though he had no digestive system to combat. However, the ordeal ended as soon as it began and the Skid soon emerged, in a different area than before.
Ahead of the virtual ship was a large sphere, with a long, bulky piece attached to the bottom. At the end of the piece was a door-like mechanism composed of a series of arched splinters. In the middle of the splinters was an item that appeared to be a lock, but the emblem etched onto it was a giveaway who owned the entire sphere.
The eye-like symbol of XANA made it obvious that the sphere was the replica the Lyoko warriors were targeting and the Skid made haste to reach the copy.
However, XANA wasn't willing to allow his enemies free access to his private replica and sent some guards to prevent them from entering. The guard battalion consisted of several eel and shark viruses, which was appropriate for combat in the Digital Sea.
The once blue background now reverted to an eerie red as the creatures made haste for the Skid.
"Releasing Nav Skids," said Aelita. She pulled several small levers and the Skid's torpedo-pods flung themselves away from the ship's frame. "Yeah, let's do this!," yelled Odd, clearly excited for combat.
"Odd, look out!," came MegaMan's warning. A shark virus had rounded on Odd's Nav Skid, but luckily it was in the range of MegaMan, who fired a torpedo at it. The attack landed with success and the shark disintegrated into dust.
"Hey, you pretty good at this Hub," commented Odd.
"I learn fast," said the netnavi as his Nav Skid glided away to do further combat.
Odd joined his lead, though he drove in the opposite direction.
Yumi and Ulrich were firing torpedoes in fast succession, striking one enemy a piece.
However, Ulrich didn't look where he was shooting and one torpedo nearly hit Odd, who dodged at the last moment.
"Hey, I'm on your side, genius!," he shouted.
"It was an accident!," Ulrich retorted.
"Guys, two sharks at four o'clock!," came Jeremy's warning.
"Leave this to the experts!," proclaimed Odd as he fired two torpedoes at the viruses. Both shots missed their mark, which would have been a bad thing had not Ulrich followed up with torpedoes of his own. The attack hit with the best of precision, successfully striking both sharks.
"Experts, huh?," he teased.
Fortunately for the Lyoko warriors, that mob of sharks was the last of XANA's fish fleet and they could now access the replica itself. The former red background reverted back to blue and the Nav Skids reattached themselves to the Skidbladnir.
The Skidbladnir glided towards the replica's sphere and stood in front of the XANA symbol on the replica's door-like structure. The ship shifted to a vertical position and its cockpit was now eye-to-eye level with XANA's insignia.
"Digital key, activated," Aelita said as she placed her hand onto the pad directly in front of her. On the outside of the Skid, the tiny hole right under the cockpit's glass visor glowed a pale blue, arranged itself into a beam of light, and fired at the XANA mark.
The effect was immediate; the emblem glowed a bright blue before the lock slid down and allowed the splinters around it to open. The Skidbaldnir seized its chance and flew through the newly-opened entrance.
The ship emerged in the replica's Digital Sea and ascended to the upper platforms. It was obvious in every which way that this was a copy of Lyoko's Ice Sector, for everything was in blue. Plus, the frozen surfaces, icy plateaus, and the overall arctic atmosphere were also a hint.
"Whoa, this looks just like Lyoko!," marveled MegaMan. "You guys don't call it a 'replica' for nothing!"
"Yeah, I guess XANA just loves Lyoko so much, he can't get away from it," said Odd. "Of course except for the time he tried to destroy it, but that's beside the point."
"Odd!," shouted the entire group at once.
"Sorry, guys," snickered the cat warrior. "I was just kidding."
"Wait, did XANA really try destroying Lyoko or was Odd also kidding about that?," asked Lan, clearly confused.
"Never mind that," groaned Jeremy. "Guys, there's a Tower not far from you. Dock the Skid there."
"Right. I see it, Jeremy," said Aelita.
She pressed several switches and the Skid made haste for Tower.
It was pretty easy to chose which Tower to dock at since there was only one in the vicinity, enveloped by a white hue. The Skid rotated around the Tower until it finally found a comfortable place to settle and stood still.
"Docking Skid," announced Aelita, jabbing the pad next to her seat.
A light pink force beam fired from the Skid's cockpit and latched onto the Tower's structure. Tiny pink comets of energy enveloped both the Skid and the Tower, acting almost like an anchor.
"Good job, Aelita," commended Jeremy. "Now let me activate the Tower for our own use."
The computer genius's fingers flew across the computer keyboard as he inputted the necessary commands, and soon his goal was achieved; the white aura of the Tower was replaced with a green hue, signifying Jeremy's control over it.
"You can activate Towers?," asked MegaMan.
"Of course I can," replied Jeremy. "I told you I could, remember?"
"Oh...yeah," said the netnavi, recalling what Jeremy had said during the mission briefing about the Skid and the replicas.
"So does that mean you can send us to the real world now?," he asked.
"It does," confirmed Jeremy.
At this point, Lan would have protested he hadn't been paying attention to Jeremy's entire lecture, but to his credit, he had listened to some of it. Fortunately, that part included the exciting portion covering the process of sending the Lyoko warriors to the place in the real world where XANA hid the replica's server via the Skid.
"Can you send MegaMan to the real world with the Skid?," Lan asked. Jeremy frowned.
"Well, hypothetically yes, but I—"
"But what?," said MegaMan's voice.
"Well, it could be risky. I'm not even sure what would happen if you lost all of your life points. Theoretically, because of your human genes, you should come back to the Skid, but I'm not completely sure about that. The best thing for now would be to protect the Skid. I'll send Yumi and Odd to the replica's super-computer."
"Right," said Yumi.
The arrangement appeared to be random, but the Lyoko warriors knew the cause behind it; they had been targeting this very replica and had decided to send Odd and Yumi to destroy its super-computer.
However, as they went into Sector Five to board the Skid, a new symbol appeared on the holomap, thus forcing the Lyoko warriors to check it out. Yumi and Aelita decided to scan XANA's data in the Carthage Region for information on the new monster while Odd and Ulrich were sent to combat it. But it turned out to be Lan and MegaMan, attacked by William. . .
"Get ready, guys," came Jeremy's voice. "I'm launching the procedure. Energize Yumi! Energize Odd!"