Chapter 5

Lyoko . . . the Old and the New

It took an hour for Jeremie to finish erasing everything . . . down to the last byte. "Well, what's done is done . . . and in this case, that's getting rid of Lyoko. When should I start on the new Lyoko program?" Jeremie asked.

"Why not start tomorrow . . . but don't obsess over it, just work on it during your free time, like a hobby." Aelilta said, patting her fellow genius on the shoulder. "We'd better get back to the school . . . do you think those police officers have left yet?"

"I doubt it." Yumi sighed. "How will we get out of here without being seen?" Everyone instinctively turned to face Kiko, expecting an answer . . . and they got one.

"I'll go up through the boiler room while you guys take the elevator up, but be sure to keep the door closed. The cops'll go to check who's in there, and then I'll blast them with a couple of freeze rays." Kiko said. As usual, Kiko's idea was accepted by everyone.

"I hope Kiko doesn't get hurt out there." Od said out-loud to himself in the elevator.

"I doubt that those cops would even be able to get close enough to hurt her, if they even tried to get close to her . . . they'd be in for much more than they bargained for." Ulrich said to his worried friend. The elevator came to a stop. Now, it was Kiko's turn.

Ulrich didn't know how right he had been. Kiko had taken longer to get into position than she had expected, and the cops had dismissed the moving elevator as an electrical glitch. When Kiko poked her head around the door frame, one of the officers saw her. "Who's there?" Cop number one called.

"Your worst nightmare!" Kiko shouted, jumped into view, and then let several ice beams loose. One officer was hit and frozen, but the other two dodged the silvery missiles.

"Lary, are you all right?" The woman officer asked as she and her partner stared at their frozen comrade. This was their mistake . . . when they stopped, Kiko blasted the two of them.

Kiko sighed, walked over to the elevator, and then pushed the "open door" button. "Hey guys, let's get going. I don't know if these guys will stay put for long."

"What was all of that noise?" Aelita asked.

"I had to be a little more confrontational than I wanted to be. Those three lost interest in the elevator too soon." Kiko said, motioning for her companions to hurry.

Od paled. "You aren't hurt are you?"

"Don't worry, I didn't give them much time to draw their guns." Now they were hiding by the factory door, three to a side. Kiko was about to freeze the guard, when she noticed the crowd gathered around him, trying to force their way across the bridge.

"I told you all, we don't know why that tower appeared, and then disappeared just a short while ago, but I can assure you that it wasn't an alien object." The old officer informed the growing mob.

"No, you're wrong! The world is coming to an end! Those horses were the riders of the Apocalypse!" A wild haired woman, who appeared to be the leader of the group, cried indignantly from the front of the massive assembly.

"We'll never get out of here without being spotted." Yumi groaned, and leaned on Ulrich's shoulder.

"Yes we will. You've forgotten who's right here . . . the Ice Mistress. I just hope I can freeze all of them at once . . ." Kiko closed her eyes for about a minute, and then opened them. Kiko's eyes were the deepest, iciest blue possible. She peeked around the door, just long enough to ice the crowd over with a long, cold, blast from her eyes.

"Great job, but we'd better get moving." Jeremie said, while hurrying out the door with Aelita, the others followed across the bridge, and jumped down into the sewer tunnels.

"Ewww! Is this the way you always came to the factory? This is disgusting, how did you manage to stand this?" Aelita asked, and then shrieked as a rat ran across her path.

"I guess it was because we needed to hurry all of the time, and then we got taken back into the past after the tower was deactivated, so we didn't spend much time down here." Ulrich suggested.

"Well, now that I've taken the time to look at everything down here . . . I don't like it either. Let's get out of here!" Od cried.

"Last one out's a destroyed roachster!" Kiko called with a giggle as she ran ahead.

"Hey, no fair! You'd better not freeze us!" Yumi shouted to the orange clad girl about six feet ahead of her.

"I won't need to!" Kiko replied, and she was right. The others got to the ladder a good thirty seconds after Kiko. "Told ya I wouldn't need to freeze you!"

A month passed, and Jeremie diligently spent a decent amount of his free time making the new Lyoko. There were a few major changes a) the "antibody" system that protected the program from viruses and b) three new regions to join the original four. The new regions were the tropical, urban, and plains regions.

Each region was also home to a type of virtual creature, all of them were herbivores (plant eaters), so that none of the animals would be too dangerous. The new inhabitants were mustangs (desert), deer (plains), dolphins (tropical), pigeons (urban), mountain goats (mountains), squirrel (forest), and penguins (polar/glacier).

Also among the new items created by Jeremie were two more scanners and a virtual card for himself.

Jeremie told his friends all of this information, and Od cheered. "Okay guys, let's go!"

"Wait, before we go, I have a question. How will we get back from Lyoko with everyone there?" Kiko spoke up.

"For once I'm a step ahead of you. You see, my 'weapon' is a computer that is directly connected to the mainframe, so I can access the materialization program." Cheers erupted from every person as the left the quiet school (it was a Sunday).