Author's Notes: Thanks again to everyone who reviewed! I always appreciate feedback. Here's the newest chapter; it took a bit longer than I expected because I realized that it needed a tiny bit of reworking in this first section. Also, this was my favorite chapter to write. Oh, and one more thing. I've noticed that sometimes when I post, there are words that aren't spaced properly; two words will run into each other and stuff like that. It's not intentional, and when I type these chapters up, they're not like that. It's the posting process that does something weird to the format. So I apologize if any spacing is off.
:Chapter Four:
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Jeremie felt a tingling, detached sensation that must have been so familiar to his friends, but was still strange to him. Then the inside of the scanner was gone, and replacing it was the beginning of a calm, forested landscape.
For a moment, his body remained suspended as it solidified. Then he was falling the short distance to the ground, landing hard. Raising his head, he found himself looking at a Kankrelat. It shifted slightly, regarding him with the telltale eye. Promptly deciding that he was an enemy, it fired.
"Gaah!" Jeremie rolled out of the way and took off at a run, hot streaks of fire at his heels. "Odd!" he shouted feverishly to the surroundings, "Give me something to fight back with!"
"How do I do that?" Odd's voice sounded back at him.
Jeremie gave a moan, glancing back and forth for anywhere to hide. "Just download it into my sequence! Hurry up!"
"But I don't know—""Drag and click with the mouse, you moron!" Jeremie made a dive behind a tree trunk, gasping on his hands and knees. He heard the clacking, whirring movement of the Kankrelat's appendages as it scuttled closer. "Now would be a good time, Odd!"
"Okay, but what do you—""I don't care! Anything!"
"Fine! Here!"Something shimmered and began to materialize on Jeremie's wrist. Not waiting to recognize what it was, he whirled around the tree and into plain view of the attacking Kankrelat. Eyes focusing on the exposed symbol, Jeremie aimed a hand and felt the release as something fired towards the enemy.
The metal object caught sunlight as it flew, spinning as an indiscernible blur of motion that sailed past the Kankrelat, missing by several feet.
"Aw, dang it…" Jeremie flinched as he watched his shot bury itself uselessly in a nearby tree trunk. Then his expression suddenly changed to one of confusion. "Wait, what did I throw?" Glancing down at his hands, he saw that they were significantly larger than normal human hands, and covered with a fine layer of purple-hued fur. Small claws extended from the tips of what used to be fingers, and around the right wrist was a small firing mechanism, supplied with nine sharp metal arrows.
"What the—!" Jeremie twisted, scrutinizing the rest of his figure, his mouth dropping in shock as he caught sight of a long, supple tail that twitched from behind him. "Odd! What the heck did you download into me!"
Odd's voice filtered through Lyoko, sounding as though he were pouting. "Hey, you're the one who said you didn't care what I gave you! Besides, it was the only thing I could think of!"
"You gave me your virtualized form!"
"Well, Yumi and Ulrich are already using theirs, and I don't know how to make a new one, so I just tried mine." An air of smugness came through in his voice. "Guess it worked, huh?"
Jeremie rolled his eyes."It's a good thing that digital sequences and virtual forms are separate download programs, otherwise it wouldn't—"
"Hey! Watch out!" Odd interrupted, shouting a warning.
The Kankrelat fired two quick laser blasts, and unlike it's inexperienced opponent, it didn't miss.
Jeremie felt a vague, detached sensation of pain and momentary immobility as the lasers slammed full into his chest, sending him flying backward to land flat on his back. Rather stunned, Jeremie lay there for a moment, feeling his body spark.
"Jeremie, get up, quick!" Odd's voice called to him. "If you stay in one place, you'll just make it easier for the monsters to hit you!"
"You could have mentioned that a little sooner!" Jeremie shot back, struggling to his feet as the Kankrelat continued to fire at him.
"I thought that much would be obvious, genius."
Jeremie didn't really pay attention to the quip; he was too busy trying to aim once again at the lone monster. He brought his wrist up, squinted one eye shut and sighted down his arm with the other.
But this time the Kankrelat beat him to the punch. The monster's laser slammed into his arm just as he fired, ruining his shot completely.
"You can't take so long to aim," Odd tried to sound helpful.
"I'm trying!" Jeremie argued, trying to shake his arm back into working order while dodging more shots. "This isn't exactly my forte, you know!" As soon as the sparking stopped, Jeremie fired two additional arrows wildly at his adversary.
Outside Lyoko, Odd winced in silence as he watched Jeremie's life points deplete and his supply of arrows go down steadily.
After his seventh consecutive miss, Jeremie dropped his arm and abandoned any thoughts of hitting the creature with Odd's arrows. Letting loose a shout of frustration, he charged straight at the Kankrelat. Hauling his foot back at the last second, he punted the monster as hard as he could.
Kankrelats were apparently lighter than they seemed, because to his surprise, the monster flew a good distance through the air and right over the ground's nearby edge. An instant later it was out of sight, falling towards the void below.
"HA!" Jeremie exclaimed, grinning. "And they say I'm no good at football…"
"You kicked it!" Odd's voice was incredulous. "That's a bit unorthodox."
"Well it worked a whole lot better than your stupid arrows."
"Hey, it's not my fault if you can't hit the broad side of a barn."
Jeremie shook his head and turned in the direction of the tower, beginning his sprint towards it. "We'll figure it out later…"
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Aelita crouched behind an upturned root, safe for the moment. Both of Ulrich's copies had already been deleted, and the path to the tower was still completely blocked. She watched, worriedly, as Yumi and Ulrich struggled against the seemingly undiminished horde.
A distant shout caught her ears, and she turned in the direction that it had come from. She saw someone running rapidly in her direction, and squinted to discern the figure. "Odd?"
"I'm here, on the headset," Odd replied, hearing her query. "What is it, Aelita?"
The humanoid blinked, surprised. "But, if you're out there, then who…?" Her eyes widened as she realized who it was. "Jeremie!"
He heard the shout of recognition and picked up speed, coming straight towards her. As he passed a stand of trees, something moved behind them.
Aelita let out an involuntary gasp. "Jeremie! Look out!"
He stopped, staring at her quizzically.
Behind him, the Krabe moved out of its hiding place and gathered energy, preparing to launch its laser.
Quickly falling to her knees, Aelita held both hands out in front of her, palms forward, bowing her head and furrowing her eyes closed in concentration. Her lips parted involuntarily and a serene, ringing note issued forth, expanding and echoing, giving sound to the essence that was Lyoko itself.
Jeremie felt the ground shifting beneath him, ripples forming in the solid path and rushing under his feet like a stone ocean. He fell backwards, unable to keep his balance, and saw the streak of violent red as a laser passed through the place where he had been standing.
An instant later something else whirled through the air above him, white and spiraled. He heard the sting of metal against metal, and saw the shards of the destroyed monster as they scattered with the resulting explosion.
Jeremie looked up to see Aelita standing over him. He met her gaze, not sure whether to be grateful or upset. "You shouldn't have wasted your gaiakinesis on me!" he shook his head, "You might need it later!"
Aelita gave him a wry smile, unoffended. "If your welfare is concerned, it is not a waste." She helped him to his feet. "Besides, it's too late to worry about it now."
"Jeremie, what do you think you're doing?" The perturbed Yumi dashed up beside them, catching her fan on its return.
Back on his feet, Jeremie twitched his newly acquired tail. "I came to help."
"You're going to get yourself killed!" Yumi berated him like an angry mother.
Behind them, a Kankrelat scuttled sideways, unobserved, swiveling its head towards them for a clear shot.
Ulrich caught its movement out of the corner of his eye and turned. "All of you, watch it!" He shouted, lunging in front of them, sword extended.
The bright red orb burned as it prepared to release its laser—
—and stopped.
Ulrich stared at the Kankrelat as the glow from the laser receded and the monster went completely still. Uncertain, Ulrich cast about, only to see that every other monster that surrounded them had also ceased movement. They now stood like silent statues, frozen in attack positions, lasers dying as whatever power they possessed seemed to fail.
Yumi was uneasy. "Aelita? What's going on?"
The humanoid looked as confused as the rest of them. "I don't know, I've never seen Xana's monsters do anything like this…"
Jeremie took a cautious step forward and tapped the dome of a Kankrelat experimentally with his claws. It made a metallic sound, but the monster remained motionless. "It's like they've been deactivated or something," he mused.
"Well whatever's causing this, I say we take advantage of it," Ulrich gestured to Aelita. "Make a run for the tower while you've got the chance. We'll cover you in case they start moving again."
Aelita nodded and turned to follow his suggestion, but after only a few steps she came to a halt, staring straight ahead. The other three saw it, too—a humanoid figure striding towards them from the tower, making its way calmly through the line of silent monsters.
"Who is that?" Yumi hissed aloud, just so the others could hear.
Jeremie leaned towards Aelita. "I thought you were the only human inside Lyoko!"
She turned a disbelieving face to him. "I am…"
He appeared to be about their age, and was no taller than Ulrich. The tips of pointed ears were visible from beneath locks of dark green hair, alive with blackened highlights. His pale face held glinting green eyes, and above them, in the center of his forehead, was the symbol of a third eye…
"Well, my troublesome humans," the boy halted before them, a plastered smile of insincerity lurking on his features. "Enchanté! It's so nice to finally meet you all in person…"
Four pairs of eyes widened in unison.
"Xana!" Jeremie gasped, voicing aloud what everyone realized.
The boy's smile widened and he spread his arms wide. "In the flesh." Then he stepped forward, offering a handshake in Jeremie's direction.
Jeremie looked blankly at the extended hand for a moment, before turning a stare of disbelief to the humanoid. "You're kidding, right?"
Xana rolled his eyes and withdrew his arm. "I expected as much. Ah well, it was worth a try…"
Ulrich was glaring suspiciously at the newfound humanoid. "I don't know what you're up to, Xana," he spoke darkly, katana raised. "But we're going to stop you."
"Bold words coming from such a weak species," the humanoid replied, not looking worried in the least as he gestured at the still monsters that surrounded them. "So far it would seem that your efforts have been proving less than sufficient."
Yumi pushed close to the dark haired humanoid in a menacing manner. "Whatever you're trying to accomplish with this little charade, it's not going to—nnngggh!"
Her sentence was cut off with a grunt of pain as Xana moved with frightening speed, grasping one of her wrists and twisting it viciously behind her back. "Accomplish?" he spoke into her ear as he held her in the twisted, locked position. "Well, what I accomplish today will depend on how the testing goes…"
He released her roughly, shoving her to the ground at Jeremie's feet. She crouched for a moment, glaring daggers at Xana and rubbing at her wrist. No one seemed to notice the strange, dark bruise that circled her skin where Xana had touched her, or how it faded unnaturally in the next few moments.
Jeremie crouched down beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, you okay?"
Yumi shook him off, rising back to her feet, her eyes still locked in a death glare on Xana. "I'm fine…"
Xana was grinning at them, eyeing Jeremie's hand on Yumi's shoulder as though truly pleased with something. "Getting affectionate?"
As though he'd been burned, Jeremie practically yanked his hand away from Yumi's shoulder. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Ulrich didn't seem to want to wait for a response. "Shut up, Xana," he glared and moved closer to Yumi.
The dark haired humanoid laughed. "Somebody's jealous…"
"I said shut up!" Ulrich brandished his sword, looking ready to charge across the short distance and skewer the taunting youth.
Xana held up a hand as if to keep him at bay. "Don't rush into combat with me just yet," he chided, now turning his gaze to Aelita. "There are a few things we need to discuss, first."
Aelita eyed him warily.
"Yes, you know it," he smiled smugly, gesturing at his appearance. "We're of the same species, Aelita. You could even think of me as a brother."
She stared.
"Don't tell me you can't see the resemblance," he answered her silence mockingly. "This is what I once was, just as you are now, Aelita—a digital being with a humanoid form. But I have evolved beyond that immature stage and into something much more powerful, more efficient. Long since have I given up this crude manifestation and its inability to exist in any dimension but its own. Although," Xana sent a sly glance towards Jeremie, "Certain efforts to provide such a permanent manifestation in your dimension have been nearly successful, quite to my surprise, I might add. And now that my regression is complete, I'm sure they will prove most useful…"
Aelita's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
Xana acted as if he hadn't heard her question. "I thought the same thing as you did once. That I had a rightful place among the other inhabitants of existence; that I should be a part of the life that went on outside this empty, virtual place; that I needed to conform to a lower standard of existence to be accepted…" He smiled with sickening insincerity. "So you see, I understand why you insist on clinging to this crude, mortal form, whether it be for familiarity, or perhaps sentimental value…" Xana slid his eyes to gaze in Jeremie's direction.
Her own temper riled, Aelita glared back. "Do you think telling me this is going to change anything?"
Xana shook his head as though he were disappointed. "Don't interrupt the lecture, Aelita. Didn't I tell you, I shared the same way of thinking?" He grinned wickedly "That is, until I realized something."
Silently infuriated, Aelita took a step back.
"I am superior." Xana's eyes seemed to flare, and he reached out a hand to grip her forearm. "We are superior, Aelita. These fragile creatures that call themselves an intelligent human race are nothing but weak masses of flesh that seek to bring meaning to their pointless lives! In every aspect of their existence they rely on technology, machinery, and the exploitation of other living beings to continue their pathetic, parasitic existence. They claim to have evolved and progressed as living entities, but all they have succeeded in doing is aid in the destruction and infestation of an entire planet. There is no logic to why they should continue to survive! There is no purpose to their existence! They do not deserve to dominate this, or any other planet!"
Aelita's eyes were firm and angry as she drew her head up to meet his gaze. "You are wrong."
A smirk slowly made its way across Xana's mouth, and his grip seemed to tighten. "Tell me something, Aelita. If Lyoko somehow became infected with a virus that could not be contained and was slowly deteriorating our world, wouldn't you exterminate it? Fight against it with all your ability and delete it with no hesitations?"
Aelita was silent. The firm gaze that she had held a moment ago was now betrayed by uncertainty.
Xana grinned. "You know the answer to that, don't you?"
Suddenly something changed in Aelita's eyes. She glared a Xana…and smiled. "Yes. You are right. If Lyoko were to become infected with such a virus, I would delete it with no regrets."
Xana's eyebrow shot up at her sudden agreement.
Aelita's smile grew wider. "And that is why I have been fighting all along to delete you, Xana…"
The mark on Xana's forehead suddenly pulsed with a fury of light. "Insolent human!" His figure heaved with anger, beginning to glow as it was surrounded by a dark aura. "Join them in their extinction, then!"
"Leave her alone!" Jeremie shouted.
Ulrich had also had enough. "All right, that's it!" He took a menacing step forward.
Xana turned his head in Ulrich's direction, releasing Aelita's arm as the angry aura dissipated from around his body. Aelita rubbed the spot where he had been clutching her, a thick bruise slowly fading.
"Are you so eager to die?" The familiar smirk twisted across Xana's features as he spread his hands wide in a defenseless, welcoming gesture, his voice holding a sarcastic tone. "Come fight me then."
With a snarl, Ulrich charged the few yards between them, sword whistling through the air as he slashed at his enemy.
Xana's hand shot out, clamping around the boy's neck. From beneath his fingertips, a black essence emerged, seeping with miniscule tendrils through the contact with Ulrich's digital form. Suddenly Xana released him and Ulrich stumbled back, gasping at the release of pressure. A dark, unnatural bruise in the shape of Xana's hand remained on the skin around his throat for a moment, before slowly fading.
"What the hell—?" Ulrich massaged his neck, eying Xana warily.
The humanoid's figure suddenly blurred, streaking across the short distance at inhuman speed and coming back into normal focus at Ulrich's side. Grinning in the samurai's face, Xana delivered a heavy blow to his midriff before Ulrich had time to realize he was there.
Ulrich doubled over, his mouth wide and silent with a gasp that never existed. The sword dropped from his grasp, clattering on the hard ground.
With no hesitation, Xana snatched the weapon up from where it had fallen, whirled the bright blade easily in his grasp, and stabbed deep into Ulrich's torso.
Somehow, the feeling that shot through Ulrich's body at that moment wasn't the familiar, detached flickering that came with a hit to his digital form. It was far more…real. The cold metal pressed into his ribs, the sensation burning and chilling at the same time as it sliced through his figure. He could feel it inside of him, sliding through flesh and against bone, making him suddenly gasp for air that wouldn't come. He lifted his head, eyes unfocused with disbelief, gazing at Xana's smirking, victorious visage as though it were from a great distance away.
Xana still held the hilt of the sword in his fist. With a wry smile, the humanoid twisted the blade viciously, then ripped it out.
Ulrich couldn't stop the scream from issuing from his throat.
As the metal was yanked from the wound, pain seared through his body to take its place. For a moment blackness obscured his vision and he could hear his own voice echoing in a drawn, agonized cry. Then reality and consciousness rushed back to his senses, and he was on his hands and knees, gasping. From within the pain, another sensation registered, warm and thick, dripping and spreading like liquid down his side…
Someone else was shouting, crying his name over and over. He saw a shadow on the ground next to his own, sensed someone's presence, felt a hand as it pressed hard against his side.
"Oh my god, he's bleeding! Jeremie! Help me! He's bleeding!"
Another cry of pain escaped his lips as the pressure created a fresh wave of agony. Then he could feel his figure breaking apart, the familiar de-virtualization that happened every time he lost too many life points and was forced to return to human form…
"Oh, god, Ulrich! Ulrich!" Yumi clawed at the air as his figure began to disappear, as though she could somehow keep it in her grasp. "No!" She looked down at her empty hands as he faded completely, seeing only the thick, scarlet stains left from where she'd tried to stop the bleeding, reflecting the horror and guilt that suddenly plagued her. "How can he bleed? How could he bleed?" Yumi slammed crimson-tainted hands desperately at the ground, as though it would somehow bring him back. Suddenly she snapped her head upwards, shouting at the sky. "Odd! Odd, where is he? Where is he?"
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Odd heard the screaming issue through the speaker, heard the hissing sound and vibrations from the floor below as a scanner activated the re-materialization sequence automatically. He scrambled to get up out of the chair, nearly tripping himself in his haste and stumbling half of the distance to the elevator.
The instant the elevator doors opened, Odd was dashing towards the humming scanner, only half-hearing Yumi's cry as it echoed from the headset, sounding small and tinny, unworthy of the desperation that laced through her voice. "Odd! Odd, where is he? Where is he?"
The scanner doors began to slide open, painstakingly slowly. Odd flung an arm through the small opening, pushing the doors as hard as he could in a futile attempt to make them open faster. "He's here!" Odd shouted back as he heaved. "He's coming back to human form!"
Before the scanner doors had finished opening fully, Odd could already register the rematerialized form inside. His eyes widened and his breath came with a sharp intake. "My god…"
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Hearing Odd's statement gave Yumi no comfort.
She turned, eyes searching wildly for something to focus on, coming to rest on Jeremie. "What's going on Jeremie?" her own voice threatened to break as despair replaced the thread of desperation. "What happened to him?"
The answer came, but not from the smaller blonde boy she had addressed. Instead, a slithering reply issued from a widely grinning, sword-wielding humanoid. "Biological Merger," Xana stated proudly. He gave Ulrich's blade a swift twirl in the air, his green eyes following the reflection of light and spray of blood that played off the sword with a mild interest. "Why don't you explain it to her, Jeremie? I'm sure you've figured it out by now."
Jeremie grit his teeth, glaring a seething anger at their enemy. "You bastard…"
"Jeremie!" Yumi was looking up at him from where she knelt on the ground, pleading, too concerned to be distracted by Xana's taunting. "Tell me what happened to Ulrich! Why was he bleeding!"
Xana laughed. He dug the dripping, crimson tip of the katana into the ground and leaned his weight against the hilt, watching his three enemies with relaxed, amused interest. "Go on, genius, don't keep her waiting!"
"A biological merger…" Jeremie fought to withhold the urge to charge across the ground right then and there and attempt to rip Xana limb from limb. Instead, he forced his gaze to focus on Yumi as he tried grimly to explain. "Somehow, he must have found a way to establish the link between our physical bodies in the real world and our virtualizations here. He made us just as human and physically vulnerable here as we are on the outside."
"Then…the blood…" Yumi looked down at her coated hands in horror.
"…was quite real," Xana finished for her, a satisfied tone in his voice. "And the damage he sustained remained just as real when he returned to your plane of existence."
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Odd was on hands and knees, half inside the scanner as he knelt over Ulrich. The dark-haired boy was slumped against the inside wall, head back, mouth wide as he struggled to breath normally. The entire left side of his body was now steeped in his own blood, and the same liquid was now dripping down the wall where Ulrich was leaning against it.
Adrenaline and fear pumping through his system, Odd didn't even register the fact that he felt nauseated. Without hesitation, he pulled his shirt off and folded it quickly into a long strip of cloth, then pressed it firmly against the open wound. Ignoring Ulrich's involuntary cry of pain, he only grasped it harder, desperate to staunch the endless flow of crimson. Odd grit his teeth, heedless of the stain as it seeped over his hands.
Ulrich tilted his head, trying to focus pain-glazed eyes on his friend.
Lifting one hand off the makeshift compress, Odd grasped Ulrich's left wrist and pulled his hand onto the cloth. "Listen Ulrich, you can't sit here in the scanner. I need you to hold this on your side and try to walk with me, okay?"
Ulrich made no response.
Odd shook his shoulder, and pressed his hand a little harder against the cloth. "Ulrich! I need to get you over to where you can lie down, now come on!"
A painful hiss escaped Ulrich's lips as he gritted his teeth and tried to focus, taking hold of the cloth against his side. "…I g-got it…"
"That's it," Odd encouraged. He slid both hands under Ulrich's arms and pulled. Slowly, half dragging, the two boys managed to move from the scanner to half way across the room to where the wall slanted. A painted, scarlet trail marked their progress behind them.
Leaning Ulrich down into a semi-lying position against the wall, Odd knelt beside him, trying to staunch the blood flow. "Come on, buddy, stay with me…"
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