I see people are surprised about the helpful side of XANA you never thought existed... (smiles) Read some more here! Lots of good stuff! Enjoy!

Chapter 10-Is It Really Carthage?

Aelita found herself in Carthage, on the huge blue and white platform spinning madly. Ulrich and Yumi stood next to her, and Odd staggered near her too. Then the spinning and the thin door opened. The Schipozoa emerged.

"Helo!" yelled Aelita.

"You NAMED it?" screamed Ulrich.

"A dumb name too!" added Odd.

Yumi elbowed him in the stomach. "You're a big encouragement."

"What? It is a dumb name. Hey, why don't you put it on a leash and go show it to everyone at school?"

"I like it," Aelita said. "It just came to me, anywho."

The Schi- er, Helo led them to the blue corridor of opening and closing walls. "Is this a trap?" Ulrich whispered to Aelita. "No, it can't be. I can feel it."

"Ulrich may be right," Yumi whispered. "With the distraction of WND, XANA could be using you and making you believe he's not an enemy."

"Let me ask Helo some questions," told her.

"Helo!" The Schipozoa stopped and turned to her.

"Why are you helping all the sudden?"

Helo flashed her a message. "XANA wants to stop White Noise Day too. But why? You've tried to destroy the world too."

Everything was still and silent for a minute. Then Helo showed Aelita another message.

"XANA wanted to destroy Earth... PEACEFULLY?"

"What!" screamed Ulrich. "Your attacks weren't PEACEFUL! For all we know, WND is created by XANA!"

Helo flashed another message. Aelita translated again. "XANA would never create White Noise Day! XANA, believe it or not, always wanted to help! White Noise Day is as bad as all of XANA's attacks put together and worse! Compared to that, XANA's way of destroying Earth was peaceful! White Noise Day will be much worse! Communicating with Aelita, we may stop White Noise Day! Now, come."

Aelita looked at them. They all looked ashen and flustered. Helo kept creeping along. The group walked after it, with a doubtful and confused gait. "This is so..." Yumi mumbled. "ULRICH! Kill me now, please!"

"Yumi, don't even joke like that," Aelita said as she walked along. "And look."

In front of them was the tallest tower they'd ever seen, rising high above them. They all gaped at it. Helo gave Aelita another message. "This is XANA's own tower he uses to do everything including launching attacks and activating towers. Helo is telling me to go in."

Aelita walked up to the tower's base. She looked behind her at her friend's frustrated faces. "Be careful Aelita," Yumi said. "I don't know what's in there, but be careful."

Aelita nodded. She stepped slowly up to the tower's base, then even more slowly stepped in, blue ripples being emitted through the black-brown material. Inside it looked like a normal tower. Aelita stepped across the blue rings. At the center she rose up, did a slow mid-air flip like she always did, then landed softly on the upper platform. There she pulled up a data screen and started to investigate. First, she entered in a search for Irene.

Outside, Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi stood uneasily by Helo. They were silent and didn't say a word, or in Helo's case, didn't make a single hiss.

"Hey, Jeremie," Odd finally said, "if we asked Helo questions, can you translate the code?"

"Remember the White Noise Day code?" Jeremie asked. "And it took me an hour to translate it? Not gonna happen, Odd. Wait for Aelita."

Inside the tower Aelita had found something. She looked at the screen for a minute, then gasped. "Jeremie!" she yelled. "What? Did you find something?" Jeremie asked excitedly.

"Yes! Irene has the same DNA code as me!"

There was silence. Just as Aelita was about to find more, she found herself outside the tower, sitting on the blue ground in front of Yumi and others. Helo hissed and waved his tentacles madly, stalking up to the tower. It stopped at the base and looked up at it.

"What's going on?" Aelita looked at Yumi. "Don't look at me!" Yumi said.

Then something very strange happened. The waves of blue gas around the tower billowed into a green color.

"Helo!" yelled Aelita. "What happened to the tower?"

Helo whipped around. It went up to her and showed her a message.

"Get out of Lyoko... it's not safe anymore...?"

Cliffy! Ha ha! Next chapter: Aelita and the group rush out of Lyoko. They question what has happened, but Helo only tells them to stay away from the virtual world.

Days are dragging by... White Noise Day gets closer... Chapter 11-The Dusk Passes Too Quickly.