Chapter 21

"Ready?" I asked over the microphone.

"Ready!" was the reply.

"Ok, I'm starting the procedure," I said as I began to type. "Transfer, Brittany ... Transfer, Alyssa." I configured the coordinates. I figured that we had the highest chance of getting an Info Orb from the Desert Sector.

"Scanner, Brittany ... Scanner, Alyssa." I activated the Scanners, and they began to scan the Lyoko Warriors. It recognized their DNA sequence code, and the window for such popped up.

When the Scanners had finished, I hit the enter key. "Virtualization!" I said.

"Ok guys, it's your turn," I said. Soon, Sean and Tennent joined Alyssa and Brittany on Lyoko.

"It sure is a good thing that you managed to get your retrieval program finished before ANAX wiped out the LI," Brittany said.

"Yeah," I told her. "We should consider ourselves lucky."

"So where's the Info Orb?" Tennent asked, ready to go.

"Due west from you current position. About 50 feet," I answered.

"Great," Sean said. "It looks like we'll be ducking and weaving!" He gestured west, where a mass of giant rocks were. They were tall and thin, like wide knives that were stabbed into Lyoko. The rocks formed a maze of sorts.

"Well it shouldn't be too hard," Tennent mentioned. "Especially not with my Lyoko Power!"

"He's right," I told them. "So don't waste time."

They set off. When they reached the cluster rocks, they found that they were a little late. A Klanker emerged from each side of a rock, followed by four Hornets.

They opened fire immediately.

"Yahoo!" Tennent cried, leaping onto one of the rocks, scaling it easily.

To his surprise, the Klankers followed him right up, lasers blasting all the way.

Rats, Tennent thought. I forgot that they could do that.

He lured them away from the rest of the Lyoko Warriors by jumping from rock to rock. The Klankers followed relentlessly. Soon, one of them scored a hit, sending Tennent flying down to the ground.

As he pulled himself up, he thought of his friends. He couldn't see their fight, but he could hear it.

As the Klankers advanced, Tennent fired a few Laser Arrows at one of them. They were all blocked, except for one that impacted on the monster's midsection. It tumbled to the ground.

Tennent quickly fired another Arrow, and destroyed it.

"Yes!" He exclaimed. His brief thought of victory was ruined by the second Klanker shooting him in the arm.

Alyssa charged up an Energy Field and released it at one of the Hornets. It dropped down to avoid the shot.

As she dodged a flurry of lasers from the monsters, she asked, "Can anyone see the Info Orb?"

"Yeah," Brittany said pointing up. "It's way up there!"

This was not going to be easy.

Sean threw a knife at a Hornet and missed. The Hornet blasted him in the leg in exchange.

Rather than lie on the ground and take more hits, Sean turned invisible. He leaped up, and sprang off a nearby rock. When the Hornet came within reach, Sean flashed out his whip, destroying the monster.

He landed, and turned visible again.

At the Factory, I was watching the radar closely. I had prepared the retrieval system to be ready to go at a second's notice.

As I watched, I saw how many Life Points Tennent was losing. "Tennent," I called. "Watch it! If you take one more hit, it'll be the end of your stay on Lyoko!"

"Thanks for the warning, Sammy," He said.

On the screen, the Info Orb dropped suddenly in altitude. If Tennent ran up the rock in front of him, he should be able to jump and snag the Orb!

"Tennent-" I started.

"I see it, I see it!" He replied.

Tennent dashed up the steep sloped rock in front of him. As he climbed, he jumped back and forth to avoid being hit by the Klanker.

He reached the top of the stone. The Orb was right there, begging to be captured it seemed. He jumped forward.

His fingers were inches away from the Info Orb when a laser impacted into his back, sending him spinning out of the way, and back to Earth.

When he woke up in the Scanner, he said, "Oh... That is so unfair, ANAX!"

"Bad news guys," I said. "Tennent was devirtualized just a millisecond away from getting the Orb."

"Oh that's just great," Sean said. "Now what do we do?"

"Finish taking care of the monsters," I said. "The Info Orb is headed your way now. With some luck you'll be able to get it."

"That's not much of a plan..." Alyssa said, destroying a Hornet.

On Lyoko, the Warriors had more to deal with. The Klanker that devirtualized Tennent had come back to them, and there were still two Hornets left.

The Klanker attacked Sean at close range. He was forced to draw his sword and engage the monster in hand-to-hand combat. He hated to admit it, but the Klanker was a pretty good swordsman.

The Klanker's arms swiveled and turned, weaving a deadly trap of virtual steel. Sean did his best to repel the attack, but he found himself being pushed backwards.

Suddenly, he missed a parry, and a blade flashed into his shoulder.

"Sean, one more hit like that and it's "game over" for you!" Sean heard Sammy say.

"I'm doing the best I can, Einstein!"

Sean dropped to his knees, and rolled off to the side. He sprang up and attacked the Klanker. The way Klankers are structured, it allows them to turn around without moving their legs. Despite this, Sean bought himself enough time to slam his sword into the eye of ANAX on the monster. The explosion sent him reeling backwards.

Sean looked up. The Info Orb was coming right to him! He started running, and looked over his shoulder. Alyssa and Brittany seemed to be able to handle the last Hornet.

He was closing in on the Info Orb. He looked back again, and saw that Brittany had been devirtualized.

Focusing his thoughts ahead, he gained ground. He dove forward, and grabbed the Orb.

"Sammy! Run the program!" He yelled.

At the Factory, I hit the enter key. It sure was nice to have the program on standby like that.

"Watch it Sean, ANAX is materializing a Tarantula right on top of you!"

He rolled out of the way. The pinpricks of light that heralded the retrieval program had already begun to swirl. Sean looked, and saw the digital structure of a Tarantula appear. Soon, it gained color, and dropped down.

"You have lost!" It roared. It fired a laser at Sean. He tried to dodge, but with the Info Orb in his hands, it was too hard. The blast hit him full on, and he devirtualized.

"No!" I exclaimed. I had no idea what would happen if Sean was devirtualized while the retrieval program was running. I hadn't considered that when I made it.

Thankfully, the data finished downloading before the devirtualization process reached his hands.

*Whew!*

Afterwards, I materialized Alyssa. When we had all gathered in the Lab, I opened the file.

"Well," Brittany prompted after a few seconds.

"It's the fifth Key to Lyoko!" I said triumphantly.

We celebrated with various high-fives and the like.

It was 5:00 now, so we headed back to Kadic to brush up on our Science test. Even I hadn't studied much.

"So, I'm not understanding this third law of gravity here," Tennent complained.

"What does it mean, 'varies inversely as the square of the distance'?" He asked.

"Let me explain," I began.

Thus the night wore on. As I went to bed that night, I was cautiously optimistic about our progress. We were halfway there!