Hello everyone! The eleventh chapter is now up! Read on to know what happened In Lyoko, Sero, and many more things plus a surprise or two! The first part is Lyoko-themed. Still Sero-based.
Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko in any way. I only own Sero.
As I landed on the ground of the mountain region, I took a look at myself. As far as I could tell, nothing about my Lyoko look changed besides the absence of my glowing green pattern. As I readied my scythe for a possible ambush, I noticed that the blade was deprived of its emerald shine and replaced with a dull gun-metal grey. "Hey Jeremie, can you hear me?" I asked Jeremie. I hope that I'm more than a spectre on Lyoko. "Loud and clear Sero! Aelita is about to join you in a second. Whatever happens, don't get devirtualized or you won't come back." Jeremie said from the supercomputer. As I looked around, I saw the activated tower to the west. "I'm in Jeremie." I heard Aelita say from behind me. "Do you two want your vehicles?" Jeremie asked us. "Did you forget that we can fly Jeremie? We're good for now." I said, activating my wings while Aelita did the same.
Flying around the skies of Lyoko, me and Aelita started to get closer to the tower. "Hold up Aelita, I see someone." I said, stopping mid-air. The mysterious figure guarding the tower looked like my Lyoko self but was different in several ways. The robes were midnight black with blood-red patterns like mine, but with the eye of XANA on the front of his body. The scythe's blade was twice as long and was ruby-red, complementing the gigantic ebony wings three times the size of mine's or Aelita's. It was as if XANA itself was directly controlling my body. "Jeremy, are you seeing this?" I said to Jeremie. "I wish I wasn't. Are you sure you still want to take him on by yourself?" He said to me.
"I'm sure. Now it's time for revenge." I replied. Holding a hand up for Aelita to stay back, I dashed forward to land right in front of my XANA-fied body. "Get out of my body XANA. Or else." I said, readying my scythe for battle. "If you want this husk of a body so bad, then fight me in the skies for it." XANA said, taking flight into the skies of Lyoko. Not allowing myself to be bested, I followed him into the air. I began trailing him through the sky with my scythe ready. taking a chance, I swung at XANA only for him to disperse into a dark cloud.
"Come on XANA! At least make this a fair fight." I shouted to the dark smoke, which suddenly moved in front of me and transformed back into my captured body. "I have watched you Sero. You show much potential and recklessness in yourself, I want you with me instead of against me." XANA said to me, inches away from my face. How does he dare to make me his pawn? "Sero! What are you doing? What's going on?" Jeremie said. In response, XANA surrounded me and him with his black fog. I heard Aelita trying to use her energy field attack, which was simply absorbed by the haze.
"I will give you two choices Sero: You can either join me, or you can die now. Make your choice or I will." XANA said to me while the foggy prison slowly grew smaller. I had to choose or else XANA would. "I choose neither, you horrible being." I said, quickly slicing XANA. Remembering what I had to do to rejoin my body for good, I quickly grabbed XANA when he started devirtualizing. "You chose... Poorly!" XANA said with a hidden grin. When he finished his sentence, I felt my mind and body becoming one again. But things went bad when my smoky prison suddenly shrunk down, engulfing me. I struggled as the smoke entered my body, disabling my wings. "AELITA!" I screamed as I fell through the sky, completely helpless. The moment I saw my reflection in the digital sea, Aelita grabbed my hands. "And you say you're lighter than Odd." Aelita said with a smile. "Could we refrain from jokes until I'm above solid ground?" I asked, fear present in my voice. Even though my body and mind were together again, I didn't feel myself when XANA's smoke invaded me.
As Aelita flew her way to the activated tower, I looked at myself. My vibrant green pattern was back, but my scythe had a blood-red crack in the blade, corrupting its natural emerald shine. Nearing the tower, Aelita landed on the ground and started walking to it. I pondered today's events: The Scyphozoa separating my mind, me accidentally taking control of Odd's, Ulrich's, and Kiwi's body, and almost betraying my friends' trust and loyalty for XANA. As I saw the tower's red glow turn back into blue, I heard Jeremie. "Good work you two, I'm bringing you back now." He said, before I was devirtualized by Jeremie's code.
When I found my consciousness, I was on the cold metal floor of the scanner room. Looking around, I saw Kiwi sitting on my chest, gaining some laughs from Jeremie and Odd. "Get off Kiwi, I need something to eat." I said to Odd's dog, who walked on me and licked my face. I grabbed him and put him on the ground, suddenly noticing that I didn't go into his body. "Umm just to clarify, you guys can see me right?" I asked the group as I stood up, with everyone nodding but Odd, who covered his eyes. "Oh no Jeremie, your boy-toy is still gone!" Odd said covering his eyes, trying not to laugh. "As if Odd, Jere-boy is my boy-toy." I said with a grin, lowering my voice when I said 'Jere-boy'. "Jere-what?" Everyone but me and Jeremie said. "He meant to say Jeremie guys, he just slurred it." My lover said, looking at me with some disappointment that I broke my promise.
"Jeremie, don't you remember that we should do a diagnosis on Sero due to the smoke entering him?" Aelita said, breaking the tension. "Oh yes, thanks Aelita. Sero, since we don't know what the smoke did to you, we need to do a scan to check it out." Jeremie said. "Just incase something did go wrong, so step back into the scanner." He added on with a lighter tone. "But Sero, what did XANA want with you?" Aelita asked the tough question. I wasn't sure if I wanted to answer but I had to tell them. "XANA wanted to-argh!" I said, interrupted by a sudden pain in my head, but I knew for sure that I took my medication. ""Don't you dare tell them the truth, if you value your life."" (AN: this voice will always be done with double quotation marks.) A foreign voice in my mind said, it wasn't anyone I knew, but I decided to comply. "He wanted me to surrender or die." I said, lying to the group to appease the voice in my head.
"Regardless if you're in your body and safe from XANA, we still need to do a diagnosis." Jeremie said, worried about what happened on Lyoko. "Please step back into the scanner Sero, I need to go back to the supercomputer." He added on. Knowing that I can't argue with him, I simply complied and entered the scanner while everyone else went into the elevator. After a while, I heard Jeremie's voice from above. "Don't worry Sero, this will only take a minute." He said. "Maybe you should try being trapped in a closet-sized area for what seems like days." I said as the scanner doors closed. With my claustrophobia kicking in, I closed my eyes and thought of the large, open area of the school park, but my imagination couldn't stop my phobia from making my body scared. When the scanner finally opened, I felt extremely light-headed and nauseous. "Umm Sero? You may want to come see this." I heard Jeremie say from the supercomputer. After stumbling a few times, I managed to enter the elevator and press the button.
Exiting the elevator, I caught the looks of the group. "You called me up Jeremie, so what is it?" I said to him, trying my best to walk in a straight line. "From what the scan shows, XANA implanted something into your brain, specifically the Parietal lobe." Jeremie said, giving me the bad news. ""Your body is indirectly under my control from now on. You will be my slave."" The voice said. "XANA I assume?" I said in my mind to the voice. ""You are correct, but knowing my name won't make me spare you."" XANA replied.
"What can we do Jeremie?" I said to my boyfriend. "Actually, nothing needs to be done. The inserted area looks harmless for now." He replied, oblivious of the true danger inside my mind. "Then can we go to dinner now? I'm STARVING." Odd said, rubbing his belly to add for effect. "And I need to go home, my parents may be worried." Yumi said, checking her phone. With XANA constantly giving me a headache, I had to get back to my room. "Look guys, I got to go now. I need to take my afternoon medicine." I said, lying about the medicine part, my only medication was the Gabapentin in the morning. I ran out of the building before the group could ask questions.
After I ran back to my room, I locked the door and looked at myself in the mirror. Everything about me looked the same, yet so different. My green streak of hair had a dash of crimson in it, my eyes wore a tired expression, my irises were a mess of green, red, and black, and even my hair had lost its blonde and brown luster and was replaced with an unnatural tone of black. Did all of this happen as I ran here or did my friends not notice at all?
"XANA, if you are trying to hide yourself, then you are failing at it. I look like a mess because of you and everyone will notice." I said in my mind, hoping that I truly wasn't going crazy. ""I will reluctantly agree with you, I can't let your 'friends' know of my presence within you. Let your body rest while I... Revise your appearance."" XANA said to me. Having no other choice, I changed into my pajamas and tried to go to sleep but my mind was too focused with recent events to allow it.
"Hey XANA, do you think you can make me fall asleep or something?" I quietly said to myself. Half an hour ago, I seemingly killed XANA and now I'm asking him to help me with sleeping. ""What am I, some kind of hypnotist? Just count Kanklerats or something."" XANA replied with very little advice. "Never mind, I'll just keep my eyes closed. But I want to ask one thing; how will you not just go away from my mind once we deactivate your tower?" I asked XANA.
""Very simple. Instead of using a single Way Tower in one of the four sectors, I have multiple in a hidden area which are partially activated. That way, your scans can't detect them since they only look for completely activated towers."" XANA replied. ""But don't bother trying to tell anyone. I'm in your head and I can notice if you try telling them in any way."" He added, ruining my chance for freedom. Sighing in defeat, I pulled my bed sheets over my head and starting trying to go to sleep...
As I woke up, I looked at the time which said 6:20 AM, May 10th. Getting out of bed, I looked at my mirror and noticed that XANA actually did change my look. The crimson in my green streak reduced to half a dozen strands mixed within the green, my eyes still looked tired but probably because I just woke up. My eyes had its dominant shade of green back with barely noticeable splotches of red and black, and my blonde color was back but the black tone of hair was still there, except it was just strands hiding in the brown area. After inspecting myself, I took my Gabapentin right before I suddenly heard a cry of pain.
""What did you just do? Are you trying to poisoning me!?"" I heard XANA yell from my mind. "I'm not intentionally getting rid of you yet. I'm just taking medication to keep me seizure-free." I said to him. Was my medication hurting him? Regardless, I can't take too much of it or I'll most likely kill myself in the process. "And besides, don't you have towers to activate or something?" I asked XANA. ""Fortunately for you, no. Whenever your ragtag group deactivate a tower, I have to wait for another tower's defenses to fall, which can take from mere hours to days."" XANA said. Did he only answer my questions because he knew I couldn't tell anyone, or was there another reason?
"Well if you don't mind, I'm going to do my morning routine unless you already have a plan for using me in world domination." I jokingly said to XANA. ""Lucky for you, I need more power from my hidden towers for me to be able to use your full potential."" XANA said, oblivious of my sarcasm. Sighing to myself, I grabbed my clothes of the day and went to the showers. As I made my way to a quiet corner of the shower room, I quickly washed myself clean and got dressed before Odd, Ulrich or Jeremie could come in. After checking my phone for the time, I went to the park and took a nap under a familiar tree...
AN: Chapter eleven (AKA CHPT. 10 pt. 2) is now done! Expect XANA to stay around for a while.
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