"Emma?" I heard Odd call frantically after what felt like a few hours. I stood up in the tower.
"Odd, I'm still in the tower. What happened?" I asked him.
"The return trip worked but it didn't bring you back like it usually would have," Jeremie answered, taking over the mic. "How are things there?"
"Quiet. I checked outside and all of the monsters are gone," I told him. "Why didn't I come back?" I asked him.
"Stay in the center of the tower, I'll scan you. I'm sending Ulrich in," Jeremie told me.
"Jeremie, I've been here so long… could X.A.N.A. have stolen back his codes in this time?" I asked him.
"I'm afraid it's possible. I'm checking to see the power level of the virus now," he told me.
Ulrich entered the tower a minute or so later and watched as Jeremie scanned me. I touched back down on the platform and he approached me.
"How did your fight go with the spectre me?" I asked him.
"She was tough, it was basically the same as fighting the real you," he told me.
"Guess I'm a tough opponent. So why is it so easy for X.A.N.A. to outsmart me?" I asked incredulously.
"It's not you, it's the system; the rematerialization is buggy. It looks like you could come back if you devirtualize each other," Jeremie told Ulrich and I.
Ulrich drew one of his sabers and I pressed my hand into his arm. "One, two, three!" I counted and we both attacked. I found myself in the scanner room a moment later. "Jeremie, please tell me we're almost done with this," I asked him as I stepped into the room. I dropped down to the floor and sat Indian style on the ground. Odd came and sat in front of me, sitting the same way, touching his knees to mine.
"Emma, my multi-agent program is almost done, I found two other locations where X.A.N.A. is still infecting computers, and we should be able to take the virus out as soon as we destroy the two replikas."
"Emma, what percentage are you at?" Aelita asked me.
I looked, "I'm at 20%, Jeremie, we're not doing very well keeping X.A.N.A. down."
"I still have 2%, Aelita's out, and you have 20%. So… we have 22% of the codes and X.A.N.A. has 78% of his power," Odd stated. "We're doomed."
Well next weekend we'll set out the anti-virus. In the mean time we'll take out those replikas," Jeremie stated. "Hopefully we won't need to send you two in," Jeremie said, crossing his fingers. "Let's just go try to take our minds off of this situation and focus on school. I will announce when we can go in for the first replika."
Aelita, Ulrich, Odd, Jeremie, and I went back to Kadic. Ulrich called Yumi to let her know how things were going. I unpacked again and spent the remainder of the day in my dorm room relaxing with Aelita.
"Jeremie, Odd, and Ulrich are having a three way man date. Yumi's helping her brother with something, so why don't we do something?" Aelita asked me at around 6 P.M..
I looked at her curiously and asked, "What are you thinking?"
"Want to go to the art building and work on a song together?" Aelita asked me. "I want to put some original samples in my mix for the party next weekend and you can help me."
"What do you want to sample from me?" I asked her.
"What songs are you listening to right now?" she asked me.
"Um…" I thought about that. "There is a song I learned on the internet in my free time in America. It's called Titanium. I forget who sings it originally."
"I think that's David Guetta ft. Sia. You need a partner for that."
"Should I pull Odd out of his three way?" I asked her.
"We can find someone else in the art building, probably," she told me. "I think we should let them do their thing for tonight."
She and I walked over to the art department and set up a mic and a soundboard.
"Should I have background music?" I asked her.
"Nope. I guess I was wrong, too; No one else is here. Just go solo," she told me and I did so.
When I finished she was satisfied. "Any other songs?" She asked eagerly. "I think I can make a cool remix. Of course I'll mix a beat and all that jazz later."
I did a few more songs and then declared defeat. "I don't know that many songs! Unless you want me to start spewing out Russian. I'm pretty sure people aren't going to want to hear that though."
"It would be interesting, though," I heard from the door. Odd was standing there with Jeremie.
"Please tell me there's not a X.A.N.A. attack," I pleaded.
"There's not a X.A.N.A. attack," Odd repeated, mimicking my voice.
"What a dork," I teased. "So how was your man date?" I asked him.
"It was fabulous," he said, mocking flamboyance.
"Don't do that, you're worrying me," I told him and he rolled his eyes.
"As if, you done here?" he asked, taking my hand.
"We are unless you want to add any more samples for me to play with for the party next weekend," Aelita told him. "I have a lot of generic songs people will like, old stuff, new stuff, Emma gave me her voice, and I'm trying to figure out how to mix that."
"If you get stuck let me see what I can do," Odd suggested to her. "It sounds like you're handling it."
"Sorry to interrupt," Jeremie cut in. "But we can go in and destroy the first replika tomorrow. Who's in?"
"Sounds good, Jeremie," Aelita announced. "Tomorrow before dinner? We have exams after lunch so we can't skip those classes."
"Ask Yumi and Ulrich. Emma and I can't help in Lyoko anyway, right?" Odd asked. "Unless it's not a big deal that X.A.N.A. gets 2% more of his power, then I'm in!"
"It matters. We are keeping you two off Lyoko indefinitely," Jeremie told us.
"Fine with me, Lyoko sucks now. It used to be fun, now it just hurts," I replied. "Anyway, I'm exhausted –."
"What else is new?" Odd interrupted.
"So I'm going to bed. You know how to reach me if something happens," I finished and pecked Odd on the cheek. I went back to my room and thought about Lyoko. I recalled the first few times I went and actually had fun fighting monsters and helping Aelita deactivate the towers. Now it just seemed like I was being scanned into a suicide mission whenever I went there. Plus whenever I return to the real world after being devirtualized I feel like death because of those new monsters whose attacks transcend worlds.
"I'm strong enough, I can stick this out until the end," I assured myself before falling asleep.