10-5: Bigger Problem
This one is dedicated to Lobo-Chan for her continued devotion and reviews. I would also like to extend this dedication to Dan, (Rose), Lyokolady, Kayrana, K1092000, Bringer of Good Cheer, Onono, Rycr and AgentTitanium. And this is mainly b/c I know some of you will raise heck w/ me if I don't give you a chapter.
Oh, and nobody tell me what happened in the last two new episodes! I want to watch them and find out myself. By the way, both Narnia and King Kong were AWESOME!
(((-5-)))
"Wait a sec! Why didn't Janika ever tell us she had a sibling who looks exactly like her?" Ulrich asked.
"Apparently she keeps a lot of secrets from us," Odd muttered crossly.
"Janika's always been sort of a secretive girl," Jira said as she looked down at the ninja stars on her belt. "I'm the popular one and she's…nonconformist."
"Great, whatever," Ulrich said matter-of-factly. "You can't stay here. Jeremy, get her back to Earth."
"It's not that easy," he replied, his voice worried. "Oh, this is not good…"
"Jeremy, how did this happen? No one except Janika should be able to access her profile and Lyoko, right?" the pink-haired girl wondered.
"I'm working on it, Aelita. Man, I really wish she had a cell phone more than ever right now!" His hands passed over the keyboard at light speed. "Jira has the same DNA as Janika, so that explains how she got to Lyoko, but the problem is that she's not Janika. According to my calculations, it will be impossible for her to get back to Earth if we use the return to the past sequence."
The Warriors looked at each other and then at the girl who was almost identical to their friend.
"Why exactly did you pretend to be Janika and sneak to Lyoko?"
She put her hands behind her and rocked back and forth on her heels like a little girl, batting her long lashes at them sweetly.
"Look, I just wanted to know what Nika's big secret was. She's been hinting at it for months and would never give me anything solid. I thought she was just playing with me, but look at this place! It's real! I never would have thought a loser like her would ever tumble into a rabbit hole like this, and—"
Ulrich closed his fist around her wrist and a flicker of pain crossed her face. "Look Jira, we can't let you get devirtualized or anything until Jeremy can figure out how to fix this problem, so stick close to us. If me or Odd can't protect you, then Aelita will do her best, but whatever happens don't try to help. You know nothing about Lyoko."
"Well, I'd be able to help if you explained. I can do this, you know!" she retorted, wrenching her arm away from him.
Odd laughed out loud. "It's hard to tell you apart from Janika."
Jira looked at him, confused. "Huh? You mean she actually interacts with people?" She snorted. "That's not the way she is at home. Nika's one of the most boring people ever, always playing around on her laptop or reading books."
"Who cares about that right now?" Aelita interrupted. "We have to reach the Tower and deactivate it!"
They began running, but Odd and Ulrich still talked back and forth low enough so that the girls couldn't hear them.
"When was the last time you saw Janika read anything other than a textbook?"
Ulrich shrugged. "She lent me one or two when she first joined the gang, but quit carrying them around after Sissy stole her bookbag. Remember the whole incident with her diary?"
"Yeah, but she didn't have anything in there about a twin sister. Hey wait a sec! She lent you books? Why didn't she ever offer them to me?"
"Maybe because she knew you'd never get around to reading them."
Odd snorted. "Must have been back when she was still in love with you."
"Hey, did anyone ever tell her the truth after she got amnesia? You know, that she liked me instead of you for the longest time?"
"Did you?" the blonde asked.
Ulrich didn't reply.
"Neither did I. Honestly, I like things the way they are right now. Well, not exactly right now. It would have been nice for her to tell us about Jira before her doppelganger decided to show up."
"What's a doppelganger?"
Odd rolled his eyes and didn't answer.
"Guys, I finally got Sissy to quiet down," Jeremy sighed heavily from overhead. "She's still a little frightened, but as long as she doesn't trigger her weapon she should be fine. Do you want me to send her your way?"
"Jeremy, I think we've got enough on our plate without Sissy to get in the way," Odd said with a glance toward Jira.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
"Okay. I'll have her stay put. I gotta work on decoding Janika's profile, so I won't be able to keep an eye out for monsters. You'll have to do that on your own. Think you can handle it without me?"
"We'll be fine."
It wasn't long before X.A.N.A. decided to send a little reception committee their way. Jira insisted that she could take care of herself, but Aelita grabbed her anyway and dragged her behind a sheltering mound of boulders.
Four Megatanks aimed directly at Odd as he ran straight toward them. He dodged one's beam and latched onto the shell of an unopened Tank, his catlike claws digging in. It rolled this way and that until another monster aiming at Odd attacked. The panther-Warrior leaped clear and the fiery beam pierced the other monster's body armor, blowing it up.
Instead of stopping the attack, the Megatank continued to use its wall of red energy, sweeping it after Odd as he ran. Unfortunately, the Megatank on the other side behind it couldn't move fast enough and exploded too.
The last robot also shot out its beam and tried to catch Odd in the crossfire. In a flash Ulrich was there, using his sword to block the advancing assault. He had noticed immediately that the first monster had used its weapon for a prolonged period of time and that the juice powering it was being sapped.
Odd raced past him to safety and shot a Laser Arrow behind at the bull's eye just as the Tank chasing him completely gave out. Ulrich's enemy backed down and he shoved his katana right into its weak spot.
Both of them detonated and Jira cheered from her perch on top of the rock she was supposed to be hiding behind. "Man, this is one awesome game! I can't believe Nika never told me about it!"
"I thought she hated that name," Ulrich said.
"You know how family is. My parents still call me by my real name."
"Odd isn't your real name?"
He glared at the samurai. "Does 'Odd' sound like anything a sane person would name their kid?" The other shook his head. "My point exactly. And no, I will not tell you my real name."
"Hey, why not?"
"Because I said so!"
The pink-haired girl came running up just then. "Are you guys done yet? I saw about seven more Megatanks on the move."
"We'd better get out of here before they arrive."
"It's not us they're after. They're attacking Sissy."
(V)
"Jeremy, this place is really freaking me out!"
"I know, Sissy. That's the seventeenth time you've told me. Could I please concentrate on what I'm doing without anymore interruptions?"
"Well excuuuuuse me! I'm just trapped in this whole parallel universe thing and bored out of my skull with no one to talk to except a brainiac who doesn't even like me. Sor-reee! I'll just sit in my corner and sulk while those weird little round thingies over there keep on coming."
"Round thingies?"
"Oh, now you want to listen? Some of them opened up and are looking at me strangely. Jeremy, I'm getting a little nervous here!"
"Sissy, get out of the way!" he ordered, bringing up the correct frame on his monitor. Seven Megatanks had all opened up and were beginning to fire together on Sissy. Their combined strength could seriously maim or even destroy her! "Close your shell! Move! Do something!"
(V)
Maybe he shouldn't have said that last. Sissy let loose a humongous energy beam that cleaned up the attacking Megatanks in one fell swoop. But her weapon had rested too long in the same spot. The platform split neatly in half and everywhere her beam had passed was burnt an uncheery crispy color.
Only by sheer luck were the others out of range. A dozen meters closer and they would have been painfully devirtualized. As it was, they ducked for cover during the explosion and decided that they didn't need to help Sissy. She could take care of herself just fine.
Jira found herself buried beneath the others when they piled on to protect her. Odd's purple tail wagged in front of her nose and the hilt of Ulrich's katana was poking her in the side.
"Okay!" she wheezed. "I'm safe, so you guys can get up. I'm suffocating under here!"
"Technically it's impossible to suffocate here on Lyoko," Aelita said as she stood up. "We're not far from the Tower at all. Let's make a run for it."
Another four Megatanks showed up to make trouble, but Odd and Ulrich took care of them without a hitch. They were just high-fiving when a hidden one attacked from the shadow of a boulder. Both boys were caught in the flare and laid on the Desert earth, groaning.
"Take this, you stupid bouncy-ball!"
Jira took a flying leap from where she had been concealed with Aelita and three ninja stars zipped through the air toward it. One ricocheted off the shell and two made it inside, both striking their mark dead-center.
The Warriors stood up as the Tank imploded, rubbing the limbs that had been damaged. They glared at Jira as she gave a victory hoot.
"You were supposed to stay put!" Ulrich chastised. "If you can't follow orders, I'll have to tie you up and carry you over my shoulder the whole time. Do you understand?"
Janika's twin pouted. "Whatever."
Odd gave the A.I. a nudge. "Aelita, go. I hope we're not too late to keep Yumi from getting the snot kicked out of her. I'd like to see who would win: Telekinetic Geisha or Upgraded Sissy with fire-power. What was she like anyway?"
Ulrich massaged his neck tiredly with one hand as Aelita entered the Tower. "Don't get me started. Personally, it was hard to tell Mekri from Sissy, the main difference being the powers."
(V)
Yumi wasn't having a good time with Mekri. They seemed to be at a stalemate. The Pawn couldn't attack her as long as she still had her Telekinesis to block anything she threw.
Strangely enough, her headaches seemed to lend her strength to fight. Even though they dulled her wits a little every now and again, Yumi began jabbing fingers into her temples to induce pain. But she was losing the potency of her barriers.
She could no longer push Mekri back, but was forced to move permanently to a defensive position. They had left the coffee shop long ago and were now against the side of a business building. Police sirens and firetruck alarms were so loud she could hardly hear, but the Japanese girl refused to let herself get distracted by trivial things.
Mekri was now completely on the offensive, sending attack after attack at Yumi, edging her up against the brick wall until there was no escape. She was tired and the Pawn was not.
A victorious smirk plastered Mekri's face as she formed a fireball larger than all the others. The Japanese girl stared at it in horror. She was too exhausted. There was no mind behind her headaches anymore. There was no way she'd ever be able to deflect that one! She stood up straight to face death like a Warrior.
At that moment Aelita deactivated the Tower.
Both Yumi and Mekri fell to the ground. The Pawn writhed there, squirming like an eel pierced by a stake. Her wavering squeal made everyone cover their ears until it died away. At long last she lay still, unmoving and seemingly dead.
The other girl had felt something wrench inside her, as if half her intestines were being yanked out. Her stomach roiled and she tasted bile, knowing immediately that her Telekinesis was gone.
Well, I'll try to get more typed up later, but you know how things are during the holidays. Speaking of which, the whole Happy Holidays bit people are doing now instead of Merry Christmas is actually kind of funny, b/c the definition of holiday is Holy Day. Lol! You just gotta love those idiots who think they're so smart.
Poll! What is an interesting gift you guys could ask for Christmas? (Me? Oh, thanks for asking! I want a supercomputer and maybe a nice pair of kitten-mittens) Merry Christmas!