Author's Note: I decided to get over being mopey and sad that my computer deleted all my files. And I also decided to take up the task of rewriting everything I had written that hadn't gotten uploaded on this site yet. It was a painful job, but I finally managed to write another chapter for you guys. And I'll continue trying to write the story. I'll also try to remember what was going to happen again. Hehe...I kind of forgot the plotline. I'll do my best, and meanwhile you would flatter me very much if you just read and reviewed. That's all I ask of you! (Wow, total "Phantom of the Opera" moment.) Read and enjoy! And thanks for all my reviewers that gave me good, positive, moral support by telling me this story is good.

At that precise moment, back in the scanner room, the newest scanner opened up, the airtight chamber seeming to sigh as the pressure was released. Out stepped a teenage boy, dressed in a black T-shirt, black cargo pants and two red belts that crossed around his waist. His sandals were black and flapped softly against the ground as he proceeded to walk to the elevator. As he walked, the yellowish light glinted on a pendant he had around his neck on a black leather cord. His hand reached up to rub it, almost like it was a comfort to him to touch it. A security blanket. However, he didn't look like he needed any sort of security or protection. With half a smirk on his face, he pressed the up button and went all the way up to the ground floor without anyone noticing.

So, first day on earth. What am I going to do? He knew exactly what as he stepped out of the elevator. He was going to be a normal teenager. And normal teenagers go to school.

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"Who's rebelled?" Yumi asked with skepticism. "So, you are like the new Aelita?"

Lexwas just about to open his mouth when his eyes widened and he whirled around. As if on cue, a slew of monsters appeared around rock formations or were seen approaching from the distance. "Oh no," he whispered under his breath, despairing at what he had drawn to the warriors. Aelita quickly counted at least twenty blocks, a few roachsters, and three crabs. This was a big tracking party, the biggest she had ever seen. Obviously, Xana was going to try and get rid of this Lex at no expense. All the more reason to protect him.

"Split up," she ordered, gesturing to the warriors around her. Yumi nodded and motioned for the four new teenagers to follow her. Ulrich and Odd bounded off to meet one of the incoming crabs. The roachsters scuttled off to meet up with Ulrich and Odd. Aelita grabbed Lex by the arm and started to run.

Yumi and her squad raced across the wide-open desert area. Yumi scanned desperately for something, anything that could be cover. She knew from experience that when under heavy odds, you needed to use anything to your advantage. She spotted a range of random rock protrusions just up ahead, ideal for hiding and for destroying monsters using something like the guerilla warfare tactic. Then she remembered she had first-timers in tow. She groaned inwardly. She had never trained anyone for Lyoko before, but it was not going to be fun, she could tell.

"See those rocks up ahead?" she shouted to the rest of the group. She didn't wait for them to give confirmation that they heard her. "That's what we are aiming for." She glanced behind her to see if they had heard only to find herself looking directly at two crabs coming straight for them. "Oh crap."

They were only a couple feet away when the fast moving crabs managed to sandwich the five of them. Yumi was the only one that crouched into a natural fighter's stance and calculated the crabs every move. The crabs towered over them, waiting and scheming.

"Okay, your first lesson as a Lyoko warrior," Yumi whispered to the four newcomers without taking her eyes away from the crabs. "You always destroy a monster by hitting it on its target, the Xana symbol. If you get it slightly to the side, the monster loses lifepoints but it's still alive. You hit it dead on, bang, its gone."

Suddenly, the crab nearest to Yumi started to charge up. She snapped open her fan and looked it up and down. The Xana symbol was still too high up. She decided to hit the crab in the leg. With the flick of the wrist, two of the crab's legs were cut off and the crab lurched precariously to one side, exposing the symbol clearly. Before Yumi's fan had even returned, an arrow was protruding from the symbol and the whole monster shattered. Yumi caught her fan and looked back to see Ian lowering his bow, a satisfied smile on his face. Yumi didn't go congratulate him though. She screamed.

"Watch out!" she yelled. The other crab had charged up fully and had a full beam ready to shoot. The four others scattered as she stayed and braced herself, opening her fan. The beam blasted down on her and she deflected it with her open fan. The blast ricocheted back to the crab, grazing its top. It stumbled back and shook itself a couple of times, trying to regain its senses. Yumi looked at the other warriors. "Someone attack it while it's off guard!"

Lori instinctively reached for her whip. She lashed out and the whip coiled tightly around one of the crab's legs. She pulled it down with all her strength, buckling it and revealing the Xana symbol. She didn't need to keep it there long, because with one decisive swish, one of Angela's blue fans made a glowing gash right through the target. The crab shuddered its last and exploded in a burst of red parts. Then it shimmered out of view. Yumi breathed a sigh of relief.

"Let's go. We'll wait behind the rocks until the coast is clear again." They made their way over and finally stopped to rest behind the various rocks, panting and leaning over. Yumi wiped her eyebrows and surveyed the new crew. "I must say you guys work well as a team. But lesson number two is to be aware of all sides and all directions around you. If I hadn't yelled at you, that first crab that charged up would have been destroyed, all right, but the second crab would have annihilated least one of you. So, be alert."

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The alert Ulrich whipped his head from side to side. These roachsters where getting more annoying by the second. This was the second encounter he had with them and he didn't like them any better. What happened to the easy roachsters back in the day? The monsters that hadn't developed any battle tactics, the ones that didn't know what "teamwork" and "working together" meant. At this rate, he might as well just stand still and wait for either the roachsters to shoot him dry of lifepoints or wait for the crab to roast him to pixels. It was going to happen eventually.

Odd voiced his concern, his tone of voice starting to grow weary. "These roachsters are like they got upgraded in hell by the Devil or something. At this rate, we'll never even get a chance to get at the crab that's burning things with its laser beam left and right. OW!" Odd lurched back, his shoulder being grazed by a shot from a roachster. Ulrich covered for him immediately as he recovered. They walked in a slowly revolving circle, back-to-back and always alert for that crab.

"Odd, be careful. You're losing them too fast," Jeremie said to them from the air. "Conserve energy."

"And how are we supposed to conserve energy, Jeremie?" Ulrich snapped, just a little ticked off. He growled and exploded two roachsters with one sword slash.

"Go for the crab. That one is the more imminent threat."

"Oh, so now you're going to start telling me which one of the monsters attacking me is the more dangerous when you aren't even here."

"Hey, Ulrich, you're already fighting enough. You don't need to pick a fight with me. I'm just suggesting it. You take the suggestion or you leave it. That's how it works."

"I'll keep that in mind," Ulrich muttered through clenched teeth as he blocked off more shots with his sword. "Meanwhile I'll concern myself with not getting killed."

"Jeremie's right, though, Ulrich," Odd said breathlessly. One roachster exploded from a laser arrow but another laser arrow missed its target, which dodged the weapon. Odd looked around quickly and spotted a large boulder nearby. Odd quickly traced the air back to where the crab was charging up again. It would be iffy, but he would have to risk it. Suddenly, he doubled back when a roachster hit him in the chest.

"That's another ten, Odd. Pay attention."

Odd ignored Jeremie. "Listen, Ulrich, you're going to have to distract the roachsters for me to get there."

"Get where?"

"Use Triplicate, use Triangulate. Use anything. Just buy me some time."

"Where? What are you doing? Odd? ODD, GET BACK HERE."

Too late. Odd had done intricate flips and jumps to get himself out of the tight little circle the roachsters had created around him and Ulrich. He continued to move and accelerated into the fastest sprint of his life. He raced toward the sandy colored boulder.

Ulrich cursed and blocked five shots coming at him from the front only to get hit three times from the back. Finally, he couldn't take it. "Triplicate!" he roared and two more versions of himself sprang from him. The original Ulrich smiled, almost a bit evilly, as his clones pulled out their swords. "Now, roachsters. Now there'll be hell to pay."

Odd took a deep breath and forced himself to keep his eyes open as he hit the base of the boulder and used his momentum to carry him up the side of it for a while. He ran as fast and as hard as he could for as high up as he could before he yelled all his effort out and back flipped, pushing off with his last remaining energy from the boulder and twisting around couple of times in the air. He maneuvered himself to face the Xana symbol on the top of the crab and bellowed, "LASER ARROW!" as he shot his last five toward the crab, hoping at least one of them made it. Three of the five did and the crab exploded before Odd landed on the ground on his feet, skidding a couple of feet from his extreme acrobatic trick and finally toppling over, breathing hard. After a few minutes, Odd could hear Ulrich's footsteps as he ran over.

"Dude!" Ulrich said, crouching beside Odd, obviously satisfied with the job he did on exterminating all the roachsters. "That was freaking crazy! I think that's the best thing you've done in Lyoko so far!" Then Ulrich punched Odd on the shoulder, not too gently either.

"Hey," Odd protested, rubbing the spot, "what was that for? I just saved your life…almost!"

Ulrich scowled playfully. "You idiot. You could have gotten killed. Next time you go around saving lives, at least give me a general idea what the hell you are going to try."

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Aelita didn't even think of trying to use her mind powers on the blocks. The only thing she could use in her fighting book was the tactic of running, especially with this boy who was still practically a stranger to her. She dodged lasers left and right, running and crouching from cover to cover. She knew she had to do something. She was wasting her energy.

Suddenly she tripped over something and landed with a hard thump on her back, her breathing harsh and shallow. She vaguely heard the boy yell something nearby as she struggled to breathe through the dust she had flared up with her fall. In the middle of her coughing, she saw the blocks and her eyes widened. Reaching out and grabbing the boy instinctively while still coughing, she closed her eyes and concentrated. Her eyebrows knotted up as she created a stone dome around them. As soon as she had finished, the walls around them rattled with the shots from the blocks.

Little pieces of rock broken off fell around them as Aelita glanced at the boy who had eyes that darted around with fear and lips pressed together firmly. She coughed a couple more times before saying, "Can't you do anything? Don't you have any powers?"

Lex looked down at his hands clutched tightly together in his lap. He shook his head shamefully. "I…I can't. The only thing I have is this dagger." He held up the guardian-cracking dagger and then put it back in one of his pockets. "The other thing I can do is heal. That's it."

"You can't do anything else?" Aelita asked again, more desperately than before. The stone dome around them was starting to break down and crack with the pelting lasers. We aren't going to make it, she thought as she closed her eyes. I'm going to go back to earth and we're going to lose Lex forever, our only hope and help in Lyoko. It'll be my fault…

"Lay down." Aelita opened her eyes, startled to find Lex had moved to a kneeling position beside her.

"What?"

"Just do what I say."

Aelita obeyed immediately. Another resounding crack sounded as the stone dome became weaker and weaker. A shower of pebbles and broken rock rained down on them, causing Aelita to close her eyes.

"Keep your eyes closed," Lex instructed. Aelita felt his fingers on either side of her temples and then she heard his peculiar humming. Lex closed his eyes as well as he slowed his own breathing. Aelita's breathing slowed to match his.

Suddenly Aelita felt energy she didn't know she had left running through her, coursing through every limb. She marveled in the fact that she felt just like she did when she just got into Lyoko, like she had just had a very good night's sleep. She practically felt her lifepoints increasing, all the way back up to almost full. Then suddenly, as if he was part of her, Aelita felt Lex go almost limp beside her. Then she realized what was happening.

He was giving her his own energy.

Aelia's eyes immediately flew open and she jerked away from him. Lex didn't bother protesting that she had disobeyed him. He slumped down against Aelita who looked down at him with half wonder and half amazement.

It was that time that the stone dome decided to shatter into hundreds of broken rock of all different sizes. Aelita, however, was ready for anything. She closed her eyes and screamed. The rocks suddenly rushed outward like an invisible wall was moving them. The blocks had no time to take cover.

Each piece of jagged rock hit its mark and the only sound left was explosions.