Aelita heard the cries of the Mantas and turned to look at them, noticing William riding the other one of them. She automatically raised an Energy Field to throw it at him but changed her mind when Odd advanced closer to the ground, shouting a battle cry.
"Jeremy, what are those block-shaped monsters?" William asked.
"Bloks," Jeremy answered.
"Okay. Mantas, attack the Bloks, don't shoot Lyoko Warriors," William commanded. To his amazement, they obeyed and started to shoot at the Bloks, watching out for the Lyoko Warriors. Reciprocally the Bloks, however, started to aim at him and the Mantas as well, and suddenly William noticed he was flying towards the ground as the manta under him exploded with ice chunks. However, he did not wait for a meeting with the surface but proceeded into Super Smoke right away, stopped his flight and lunged towards the Blok with his sword upright. To his dismay, he noticed that the other Manta had been destroyed too, but at least he could avenge their deaths by destroying the Blok which had shot his own Manta.
Next, he turned to look where the next target would be. A Blok shot Ulrich down with some red circle, so William moved to fight that Blok before it would manage to devirtualize Ulrich.
At the same time, hidden a short distance away, a foursome watched the Lyoko Warriors' fight and especially him, even though none of them knew about it.
"Are you totally sure that that black-haired guy is an amateur?" Lyra asked. "He is very competent for one."
"He is powerful," Serafina noted. "He already was when he came here, and then X.A.N.A. gave him Super Smoke, which clearly gives him an advantage. Without it, he would've already gotten devirtualized a while ago."
"If he only recently became a Lyoko Warrior with that gear, then he's still strangely competent. He's learned terribly fast," Lyra remarked.
"May be. Or the time of X.A.N.A.'s possession had left him some knowhow even though he wouldn't necessarily be aware of it," Serafina pondered. "Controlling that Manta is probably one of the more subconscious skills."
"Surely, those Mantas did listen to him out of the custom left by their master anyway," Alicia noted and groomed her feathers. Serafina would watch for her as well.
"Some of the amateurishness does show. Look at him now, so terribly excited of the action while the others are more serious, even that Odd," Dan commented. "He may be strong and surprisingly competent physically, but mentally he's totally an amateur."
"True," Lyra said. "Now is a good time to strike."
"I say that we wait," Serafina said. "Not yet."
"Why not?" Lyra asked.
"I just have that kind of a feeling. It's not the time yet," Serafina answered, solemn.
"But he's getting stronger all the time. And his alliance with the group is getting stronger too. Alex has clearly taken care of that William won't be left by himself," Dan noted.
"That's exactly why," Serafina stated. "That's exactly why we have to wait. If we strike now, we might accidentally harm him and his development as a Lyoko Warrior." She looked at her comrades. "It's absolutely important that nothing happens to him at this phase, when he's still at the amateur level. If something in our plan goes wrong, our effort will go to waste and we'd better just pack our things and leave."
Lyra looked Serafina in the eye, seeing the seriousness in them. From that, she knew that she was serious about this matter. There was no space for contention.
"I trust your judgement," she said. "You know his situation better than I do."
"Thank you," Serafina said genuinely. Aelita entered the tower. "It seems that the show is over. Let's return to the base and analyze what we know now."
Alex sighed in relief when Aelita entered the tower and looked to the direction where Serafina and the others had been. At that point, however, the foursome had already disappeared and even Jeremy did not know that they had been there. Aelita rose to the upper level of the tower and entered the Lyoko code. The tower was deactivated and the power returned. Jeremy could materialize the remaining Lyoko Warriors.
The news told about a peculiar temporary blackout, the reason or cause of which had not been able to locate. No one had been hurt. Therefore, the Return to the Past was not needed.
On the way back to school, Odd told with zest about how William had saved him from falling to the Digital Sea.
"And then William just appeared out of Super Smoke, caught me and remained hanging from his sword in the air! And the Mantas that remained, they obeyed him when he asked them to help us!" Odd explained.
"Very impressive," Aelita said, amazed. She also remembered how she had been about to shoot William, who had been riding a Manta, out of habit.
"How did you even do it? Like, how did you control those Mantas?" Alex asked, equally amazed.
"I don't know, I just gave them orders and they obeyed," William answered. "I didn't expect that they'd obey, but I decided to try."
"And you managed to use your Super Smoke to control the Manta you used as a ride," Odd added. "Cool!"
"You mean cool now," William said, slightly baffled from the attention he got. Commanding the monsters, which had worked by chance for some reason, was not that miraculous in his opinion. "I guess it wasn't before, right?"
"Admittedly, not back when you were under X.A.N.A.'s possession, but now it is," Ulrich noted. "Now that it's used to aid us and not against us, it's very cool."
"And the way you managed to save Odd did sound awesome," Jeremy stated. He knew that he could never do to the same.
William scratched his head. He was delighted of the attention he had gotten, but on the other hand it bewildered him. He had not saved Odd to get praise but just because he was a comrade and a friend. After all, Alex had said that they had to be a unified group and cooperate so that they could defeat Serafina. He just did his own part of it.
"It wasn't that amazing," he said, modest. "I think each of you would've saved Odd if you'd been in my place."
"Of course, but you're an amateur and you still succeeded," Ulrich remarked. "And you even got the Mantas on your side. I doubt they'd listen to us."
William shrugged. He could not say whether Ulrich was right or not.
"Well, how has a proper beginning as a Lyoko Warrior felt?" Ulrich changed the topic, smiling. "At least you've seemed excited."
"That I've been!" William answered. "Lyoko is a very cool place. It feels like the reasons for surprise just won't end!"
"If Serafina has imagination with traps, they probably won't end!" Odd shouted. "Or you'll always be surprised when a monster shoots you in the back. That never stops surprising!"
"I bet it won't," William smiled shortly. "It's been awesome to get into action! It feels like I learn something on Lyoko all the time."
"Well, I bet you do," Ulrich noted. "You haven't been on Lyoko that many times, so you have a lot to learn."
"Yeah, and you haven't even seen all the sectors, places and monsters!" Aelita remarked. "There are enough things to see on Lyoko!"
"That I believe!" William said excitedly. He remembered seeing the Holomap with just one ball in the middle when he had joined the group, and after being freed he had noticed that four more areas had come to it; the sectors that had been destroyed before his involvement.
"Hopefully next time we'll get to go on that walk around the sectors! It's gonna be fun!" Odd said. "I can show you so many places and remains of the monsters that you won't be able to believe it!"
"Are there remains of the monsters too?" William asked, puzzled. All the monsters he had seen had exploded to smithereens and disappeared.
"Not at all, Odd's just kidding," Ulrich noted, shaking his head cheerfully. "You shouldn't believe everything he tells you."
"Alright, I'll keep that in mind," William gave a laugh. Odd laughed as well, and Jeremy, Aelita and Alex could not help joining the laughter. In the end, it was quite easy to take William with them when no one held a grudge on the past, even though the events of X.A.N.A.'s time were in the remarkably nearby past. The new enemy had made them leave X.A.N.A. behind even though the same had not happened to Lyoko.
/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/