Chapter 11

It was a late Sunday morning and it was a hot day. Everyone was overjoyed at the lack of classes, allowing them to spend the day indoors where it was cool. Only one person was outside; Shawn Davidson. At the moment, he was running along the academy rooftops, jumping from one building to the next. After doing this for a while, he grappled down using the window sills and ran to the front of the academy, where he jumped onto a bench, giving him extra height to reach a small tree, thus allowing him to reach a low hanging roof.

From a distance, out of view, two young girls were taking pictures of Shawn and capturing him on video. It was Milly and Tamiya, who have taken great interest in Shawn's parkour exercises weeks ago. They plastered him on every one of their newspapers and their videos have been on the Kadic News channel that the school ran every day on their personal televisions around the place. In the past, Shawn has sunk to pleading them to stop, but they refused. He got over it eventually, especially when some students come to him to learn parkour as well. He taught them a little, satisfied at spreading the sport.

Shawn dashed to the end of the roof, where he jumped off and rolled to absorb the impact. He made his way back his room while vaulting and jumping over any obstacles he encountered. He closed the door behind him slowly so he would not disturb Jeremy.

Jeremy spun in his chair and waved to Shawn, which he returned. Shawn changed in his usual attire: blue jeans, black and white sneakers, a t-shirt, and a light spring jacket over it. He sat on his bed and pulled out his laptop and started playing a game. Jeremy, on the other hand, was struggling with his computer where he was trying to decipher Franz Hopper's program. He gave another attempt, but it failed. Jeremy pounded on the desk and cursed; why couldn't he figure this out? Shawn looked at him with a worried look.

"Jeremy, I think the program is too difficult for you," Shawn commented. "Maybe you need someone smarter to decipher it."

"Just who do you think can do that? I've tried everything I can; I've asked Aelita and even she has no idea and I thought she might know something we don't." Jeremy was angry with himself.

Shawn rubbed his chin, which he does when he's thinking. "What if we need someone as smart as Hopper? They might be able to decode the program."

"You're not thinking about Tyron, are you?"

"No, I'm talking about Aelita's mother, Anthea. If we can contact her somehow, she might be able to help."

Jeremy let out a hum, meaning it sounded like a good idea. But then he shook his head. "We can't do it; we have no idea if Anthea is working with Tyron against her will or not. If we give her the deletion program, she could destroy it."

Shawn slumped over in disappointment. "I hope you have other ideas, cause that was my only one."

Jeremy rubbed his temples. He sighed, for he knew this may be their only option. "Okay, I'll figure out some way to do this; you call the others and let them know. We'll head to the factory tonight after dinner. Shawn nodded and proceeded to make the calls.

After a wondrous meal of ground beef and mashed potatoes mixed with gravy, the gang headed for the manhole to the factory. The six warriors grabbed their skateboards and sped off, leaving dust of decades past in their tracks. It was when they were ascending the sewer ladder that Yumi appeared from the city. They traveled down to the lab together and prepped for transfer.

After arriving in Sector Five, the warriors boarded the Skidbladnir and set course for the Cortex. They met absolutely no resistance along the trip, which only worried some of them. After docking the Skid, they jumped into the MegaPod, only this time Shawn decided to drive.

"Do you know how to drive?" asked a nervous William.

Shawn gave him a kind of insane grin. "Nope, but I've played enough racing games so it can't be hard."

"I've got a really bad feeling about this," muttered Yumi.

Shawn scoffed at her and kicked the vehicle into high gear. The MegaPod raced off like a race car. Shawn felt a rush of excitement as he swerved to dodge the incoming traps consisting of moving platforms. Some of the others were gripping onto their seats in fear. After a while, the warriors began to speculate that they were lost.

"Shawn, do you know where you're going?" asked Odd. "I don't see the core anywhere."

"It's around here, trust me." Frankly, Shawn wasn't sure either.

"Try taking a right up here." William pointed to an opening coming up, but Shawn ignored it and continued straight.

"Hey, you missed it!" He spotted another opening. "Turn here. Wait, what the hell?!" Shawn skipped that one as well.

"Shut up and stop backseat driving! I know where we're going!" Shawn yelled. After a few turns and near misses, they arrived in front of the core. "See, told you I knew the way."

They all exited the MegaPod, breathing sighs of relief that they survived. "You are never driving again," barked Odd. "I'm the best driver here anyway."

Shawn scratched his head as he nodded in agreement. He figured he should stick to being a soldier on Lyoko instead, as it's what he's good at. The gang rushed into the core and were transported inside. They descended down to the lowest platform where Aelita went to work on the computer interface. The others formed a defensive circle around her. Jeremy prepped the virus program for transfer as fast as he could.

A video feed projected onto the core walls detailing Tyron's lab, which contained only Anthea there. Aelita got overexcited and tried to establish contact with her mother.

"Mother! Mother! Please answer; we need your help!" she cried into the interface.

"Aelita, we don't know who her allegiance to is," Jeremy warned.

Shawn jumped down next to her to see the video feed. He watched as Anthea typed on the supercomputer keyboard with no response. "Jeremy, is there something we can do to reach her?" he asked.

"Let me see if I can send a beacon into Tyron's supercomputer. That could do something." Jeremy typed in some codes and pressed enter. On Lyoko, a purple colored key card appeared in Aelita's hand, which she slid into the interface. At once, Anthea's attention turned to the computer screen where a beeping sound rang. She investigated it and a video feed of the core appeared showing Aelita and Shawn. Anthea covered her mouth in shock at sight of her daughter; she has not seen her in many years, yet she is so young. She knew right away Franz must have put her in Lyoko for years.

"Mother, is that you?" Aelita whimpered. If only she could cry in this virtual world.

"Yes it is. Oh Aelita, I can't believe this is happening." Tears fell from her mother's eyes.

"Sorry to interrupt this reunion, but we came for a reason." Shawn was being rude, but he's right.

Aelita nodded. "Mother, we may have a way to destroy XANA forever, but the virus program is encrypted and we thought you could help."

"I'll see what I can do with it, but it will take time as I'll have to keep it hidden from Tyron. Send it over." Jeremy made the transfer which appeared as another key card. Anthea opened it on the supercomputer and then transferred it to her laptop for safety. "Where did you get this? It seems familiar."

Shawn noticed that Aelita was silent about this. "We received it from Franz Hopper shortly before he was killed by XANA. He took a big risk to give this to us."

Anthea lowered her head. "I was afraid of that. Now, get out of here quickly, and I'll contact you when I'm done deciphering the program."

The video feed ended. Aelita activated her wings and ascended to the entrance with the others except for Shawn, who was enthralled by the blue glowing orb in the center of the core. Aelita flew down to his side and tried to wake him from his trance.

Shawn shook his head and stared at Aelita. He took one more look back at the blue orb before Ninjas appeared around them. Aelita grabbed him and flew into the air with the Ninjas following them. Shawn fired onto them with his revolvers, taking out three of them. One grabbed hold of his foot, dragging the three of them down to a platform.

The three drew their swords and engaged in combat. Shawn almost empowered his adversary until it surprised him with a duck and face kick. The Ninja turned to Aelita next. She blocked several strikes from it but it looked her battle will end in defeat. Instead, she surprised the Ninja by grabbing both it's wrists and kicked it in the face, knocking it off balance. She ended it with a stab through its face.

"Nice moves there," Shawn remarked. "Where'd you learn that?"

Aelita smiled as she sheathed her blade. "Oh, this guy I know taught me since he's always jumping on rooftops." She grabbed him and they flew back to the entrance while he shot down any Ninjas that got close while spitting out one liners like he was some 1980's action hero.

When they exited the core, they found the others waiting for them. "What took you two so long?" whined Odd.

"Sorry, we got a little sidetracked." Shawn admitted.

"Well, let's get the hell out of dodge here and go home." They all climbed into the MegaPod with Odd as their driver and went back to the Skid.

When they all arrived back in the lab, Jeremy reflected on the mission's results, calling it a success. "Now we just need to wait and see if Anthea can decode the virus program, and hope she isn't discovered by Tyron."

"We still don't know if she is with Tyron or not," Yumi commented. "She could've been putting on a show in the core there."

"Perhaps, but we didn't have much of a choice then. We could be stuck with the program or take a risk." William was right for sure.

"What I'm wondering is what took you two so long to get out of the core." Ulrich gazed at Aelita and Shawn.

"Well, we ran into a few Ninjas on our way out," assured Aelita. That was sort if a lie; there were Ninjas, but Shawn lagging behind was the truth.

"The truth is," Shawn answered. "I was watching the blue orb in the core's center and Aelita had to wake me from my trance with it."

They were all puzzled by this. Jeremy rubbed his chin. "What do you mean by that?"

Shawn tried his best to describe it, but he was confused as much as them. "I thought I heard a...a voice coming from that orb; though I think it's the very core of Tyron's supercomputer. I felt like I fell into a trance and I just wanted to stare at it. Aelita snapped me out of it and we had to fight our way through some Ninjas to escape."

"It makes sense now. If that is the core of the supercomputer, then XANA must be inside that orb, it has to be."

Shawn folded his arms behind his head. "Glad to know I wasn't going crazy then." He grinned at his slight joke.

They all went home for the night. Yumi ducked through an alley for a shortcut home while the others walked back to Kadic through the slumbering, dead city. The reached the front gates in complete secrecy. Shawn helped them all over the wall one by one while watching Jim or anyone on patrol. They all sneaked back to their rooms like quick little mice and bedded down for the night.

In their rooms, the children were questioning Anthea's allegiance. Ulrich, Shawn, Aelita, and William thought she was with them, while Yumi and Odd thought otherwise. Jeremy was on neither side; he knew they could give her the program and have a chance or be stuck at square one for who knows how long. He was willing to do anything if it meant XANA's destruction.

All they could do now was wait, and pray for the best.

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