Chapter 46: The End of the Project

Yes, its the final part concerning the project. Its not exactly how I imagined it, but I think its still pretty good. And remember, the story isn't over just yet. I got something else in store for Carter.


"Carter, Devlin, we're in trouble," Jeremy yelled over the headphones. The two former test subjects turned away from the dead bodies and looked up. "What's going on Jeremy?" Devlin inquired.

"Someone's on Lyoko, and… she looks kind of like Carter."

Carter sucked in a breath. So the time had come. But why was her grandmother on Lyoko, now of all times?

"What do you want to do?" Devlin asked her. "Do you want to be the one who gets rid of Vivian, or do you want me to do it?"

Carter understood what Devlin was saying. If she killed Vivian, she would be killing her own family in cold blood. Devlin wouldn't have that label on him if he did it. But Carter had to do it; Devlin had already killed two people today, he didn't need any more blood on his hands.

"I'll defeat Vivian," Carter said finally. "You destroy the supercomputer. You know this place better than I do anyway." Devlin looked at her before finally agreeing. "Jeremy, teleport Carter out of here," he ordered the boy genius. "I'll stay here to finish the mission."

"Are you sure?" came Jeremy's tentative voice.

"I'm sure," said Carter.


When Carter virtualized back onto the Skid, she saw Vivian in front of the Skid with the Lyoko Warriors trying to land a hit on her. But Vivian was too powerful, her hands glowing red, and her long blonde hair wild and free. She was dressed in a simple black armor with a bronze breastplate and a knight's sword strapped to her waist.

The irony wasn't lost on anyone.

Jeremy put Carter on the ground in time to see William on his personal tarantula with two others flanking him, along with a few krabs trailing behind. "Oh, come on!" Ulrich groaned loudly just as the tarantulas stood still and began to shoot at Vivian.

And then William launched himself at Vivian while she was distracted, but Vivian knocked back Zweihander with a flick of her sword, sending him back to the tarantulas.

"Why is she so strong?" Odd cried out rhetorically while shooting laser arrows from his overboard. Aelita was also airborne, her pretty pink wings flapping rapidly as she sent pink balls of energy Vivian's way. Vivian jumped back just as the attacks were about to hit her. The energies hit the ground instead, leaving a dark scorch mark.

Vivian held her hand out, a ball of red energy in the palm of it. She sent an energy blast in Aelita's direction, making her try to fly away in a panic. But the energy ball followed her, even behind a tree and towards the tower the Skid was docked at, finally hitting her. Red electricity sizzled around Aelita and she fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Aelita!" Carter yelled out, alerting her presence to the others. Vivian smirked as she sent another red energy Odd's way. He jumped off his overboard before he was hit. He then shot a few laser arrows at Vivian, only to have her copy William's super smoke ability and quickly come over to Odd. He was devirtualized with two swings of her blade.

Ulrich ran up to her with both of sabers in hand, slashing at Vivian without hesitation. With a swift kick into his stomach he was sent back reeling. In the meantime, Vivian slashed at the fans sent her way, destroying them. She threw an energy blast at Yumi, who was devirtualized instantly.

Ulrich ran after Vivian, screaming bloody murder, only to get devirtualized in his blind rage. That left Carter and William and XANA's monsters to deal with Vivian.


Devlin shot at the last scientist, watching as the slumped person died. He was breathing hard, and he was almost out of energy bullets. "Jeremy, fill me up!" he called out to his friend. "And tell me what's going on over on your side!"

"Coming right up!" called out Jeremy. "Okay, it's not looking so good. Yumi, Ulrich, and Odd have been devirtualized, and Aelita's unconscious on Lyoko. Carter, William, and some of XANA's monsters are left. Apparently, XANA thinks Vivian's a bigger threat than we are."

"Of course she is, but she soon won't be," Devlin said happily. "I'm almost done here. I just have to destroy all the machines here and I'll be over there to help."

"That's great!" Jeremy said, relieved. "Your guns are charged at maximum. Hurry back!"

"Roger that, J-man!" Devlin turned to the supercomputer and was about to destroy it with his weapons when a voice rang out. "Don't you want to turn the hard drive to dust?" Devlin whirled around, blue eyes wide.

"Scott?" The young scientist smiled, his blue eyes lit with joy. "But…why? You hated us!" Devlin glared at one of past tormentors, who used to smile with sadistic glee before they did the surgeries on all of the original test subjects.

"I never hated you, I just didn't like you," Scott said, holding up a flash drive. "Admittedly, I was all for the project at first, but then I realized that they were experimenting on children. Then I was against the project. I had to pretend that I was okay with the testing to make them all trust me." He slowly walked up to Devlin.

"I'm not asking you to believe me, just that you'll let me destroy this thing once and for all." Devlin nodded curtly, hands on his weapons, eyes glaring daggers. "How do you know it'll work?" he asked.

"I've been secretly studying the computer and the machines. I then created a special virus just for this. All the machines are connected to the supercomputer. If the computer goes, everything gets destroyed along with it," Scott explained, even though Devlin pretty much knew that already. Scott then began to download the virus into the supercomputer.

"What will you do once you've destroyed it?" Devlin inquired.

"Well, the US government will probably be after me because I'm the only scientist left, so I'm scheduled to leave the country in a few hours. Even if you hadn't come, I would have found a way to destroy the project. That's why there are no guards coming after us."

"I didn't kill everyone?"

Scott scoffed. "Hardly; I took care of everyone else for you." He added one last flourish to the program, and then removed the flash drive from the computer. "That should do it."

Scott turned to face Devlin, his expression serious. "Once you get out of here, try to destroy Vivian in the Digital Sea. She shouldn't know what happened on this side, but once she has an inkling of it, she'll go insane. Once that happens, destroy her. I know you can do it."

"Damn right I can do it." Scott threw back his head and laughed. "Glad to hear it. I'll never see you again." And then he walked briskly out of the room without turning back. "Thanks for everything!" Devlin called out to him.

And then he heard the supercomputer short circuiting. Lights began to flash repeatedly, and the floor began to tremble. "Jeremy, get me out of here!" Devlin cried out in panic. "On it!" Jeremy said, teleporting him out of there.


William was kneeling on the ground, hands over his stomach, red electricity buzzing around him. Carter was breathing hard, daggers in hand, glaring at Vivian, who was smiling triumphantly with her sword in her scabbard. All of XANA's backup monsters were gone.

After most of the Lyoko Warriors got devirtualized, it was up to William and Carter to defeat Vivian. Only, the crazy scientist was insanely strong, and the opposing team had lost half of their life points within a few short minutes of fighting.

Vivian tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder and sneered. "Give up already. You're just a team made up of a faulty computer program who doesn't want to die and a rebellious test subject who wants freedom she can never have."

"Like hell I'll give up!" Carter snarled as she advanced, seeing violet. Her grandmother smiled gleefully as she dodged her granddaughter's attacks without getting out her sword. Without a moment's hesitation Vivian whipped her fist into Carter's face, making her skid and fall onto the ground.

As Vivian was about to throw the young girl into the Digital Sea, she got shot in the back by a pink energy blast. Princess Aelita had finally decided to rejoin the party, and she looked pissed.

"Leave her alone!" she cried as she shot two more energy blasts at Vivian. She finally got out her sword and swiped the attacks in half, creating a small explosion. Vivian closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as the blast made her step back.

In the confusion, William attacked, swinging Zweihander over his shoulder and actually getting a hit. With a cry Vivian dropped her sword as electricity sizzled around her hand. With her other hand she punched William in the face, sending him reeling.

With her foot Vivian lifted her sword into her good hand and was about to do William in when Carter stabbed her in the back. She grunted and tried to turn around only to get two pink energy blasts to the chest.

"It's over Vivian! You're down to your last life points! You lose!" William announced triumphantly until Vivian started to smile.

"It's not over until I put my toys away," she said, becoming black smoke again. Without any warning she materialized behind Carter and stabbed her in the back, relishing in the irony as the tip of the sword went through her body. Vivian flung the girl aside and advanced towards William and Aelita.

The two of them looked at each other right before William ran up to Vivian, his oversized sword in the air. Aelita waved a hand over her star-shaped watch and materialized her wings. She flew up into the air, hands glowing pink. When Vivian knocked William aside, Aelita fused two energy balls together and threw it at Vivian, who couldn't dodge it in time.

As Vivian shuddered from the attack, William got up from the ground and grabbed Zweihander, which was about a foot away from him. He saw a pair of black high-heeled boots next to his weapon, and he looked up to see Carter standing over it, daggers in their scabbard. The look on her face said, I got this.

Vivian, who was still recovering from the shock Aelita gave her, did not expect the punch to the face from her granddaughter. She fell to the ground, kneeling in front of Carter.

Carter grabbed Vivian by the throat and dragged her over to the edge, where there was a twenty foot drop into the Digital Sea.

"Carter!" she heard Devlin yell. She didn't have to turn around to see him stand next to her. "It's over; the project's been destroyed. Scott helped us."

Vivian's eyes widened and she gave a blood curling scream, having to express her feelings with sounds instead of words. Her mind raced with Why did Scott betray us? and Where did I go wrong? and a bunch of other things that a mad woman thought on the brink of death.

Oh well. If Vivian was going to go down without achieving her plans for world domination, she would go down messing with a few heads. Vivian smiled at the former test subjects.

"You two will always be my greatest creations."

Carter snarled and threw Vivian into the Digital Sea, hating her for smiling as she fell into the water. Anger bubbled inside Carter as she clenched her fists and glared at the ground. She only looked up when Devlin put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked into purple eyes. "It's over," he said. "It's finally over."

"Ahem," coughed an all-too familiar voice. They both turned to see an annoyed William in front of them, crossing his arms. Devlin and Carter had to stifle a laugh at how he looked.

When the smile left her face, Carter held out a hand. "It was nice working with you, William." He eyed her suspiciously before tentatively returning the shake. "This means nothing," he snarled at her. "It's back to normal from now on."

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Carter said truthfully, honestly glad that things were back to normal, or as normal as they ever would be.

William turned into black smoke and ran away, right past Aelita, who had given up her angel wings. The three of them looked at each other before turning to the sky.

"Hey, Einstein, do you think you can get us out of here?" Devlin asked his genius friend.


Nikola looked at the remains of the project. He had been the only one to escape as the building slowly collapsed. The city officials would say that a bomb had been planted there by terrorists or something along those lines, and they would praise good fortune that the bank had been closed for the day, so there wouldn't be a death toll.

If only they knew that the supercomputer had been connected to the building's internal structure and that once it had been destroyed, the building came down with it. The bank part was a simple cover that had worked like a charm. Only know everything was destroyed.

Or so young Devlin and Carter thought. It had never occurred to them that there were other facilities concerning the super soldier project. They may had been the original testers, but there were dozens of other children with the same abilities as them. The data had been lost in the rubble, but given enough time, the others would produce the same results.

It was only a matter of time.


Oh, look, a cliffhanger. But I won't touch on it; I'm planning a sequel for this story. It won't be a while, but I'm thinking about it.