Beyond The Digital Sea

by Vector Z

Come away to a slightly different universe, where a young, virtual girl is about to be adopted by an aging computer genius from another world. The dangers she and her friends will face are many, but if they persevere, they may just succeed.

Hello. I should probably note here that this story was written before the critical revelations of the end of season 2, making it somewhat AU. It is only now that I got around to posting it here. Please enjoy, and all reviews are welcome.

Prologue: An author's tale

You probably have a spot on the planet that you have always wanted to visit, right? Paris, Sydney, Tokyo, New York, London... the list could go on and on. But you don't want to go to Kanatopolis. You have never heard of the city, right? You are asking what makes me so sure that you wouldn't want to visit it, right? Well, I'll tell you.

First off, the reason you have never heard of Kanatopolis is that it isn't real. It is a virtual city, one of many virtual places that exist in cyberspace, totally cut off from the so called "real" world. We denizens of cyberspace don't like that term, because it suggests that we don't really exist, but we most certainly do. I've lived my whole life in Kanatopolis, and haven't enjoyed it very much .

But I'm getting off track. There are many places to visit in cyberspace, many of them as nice or nicer than your earthly cities; Aryoka, Telleursia, even little-known Lyoko, but Kanatopolis is not a nice place. Crime runs rampant. Pollution obscures the virtual sun all the time. The insanely massive megatowers, casting their huge shadows over the smaller buildings around them, provide homes and work for millions of people at a time. They will all live and die without a name. Even me, who has a job as a writer, whose books will not sell well enough. Yet in this extraordinarily impersonal and polluted city, something happened, over two hundred years ago, that I now have the privilege to write about. A hero who would save both worlds from certain destruction was born.

For most people these days, the one called Xana is a myth, a story that mothers tell their children to make them behave. "Don't wander the streets alone, or Xana will get you and suck all your memories out!" Is something my mother used to say in order to scare me. But after much research, questioning, and sneaking illegally around government facilities, I have found out the truth about this "Xana" and the hero born and given to the Kanatopolis orphanage #2012, as well as her friends. The plot was hushed up by the cyberspace governments, but now I will write about it and present it as a work of fiction. I am quite sure it will sell well.

And maybe I can make a name for myself in this god-forsaken city.

Chapter 1: The Orphanage's strange Visitor

It was a dark and stormy night in Kanatopolis, and virtual rain is just as wet as real rain. Crying could be heard outside the orphanage. An old woman opened the door and looked down on the baby nestled inside the cardboard box at her feet. She judged that the baby couldn't be more than three days old. Scared that the baby wouldn't last much longer outside in the cold, she brought the baby in.

Orphanage #1064 is the best orphanage in Kanatopolis. It is high in one of the megatowers, and the children who live there enjoy warm beds, three meals a day, and kind caretakers. But you may recall that this is not the orphanage in question. Kanatopolis Orphanage #2012 is a squalid place, in the back alleys of the larger buildings. The windows are long gone, laser holes riddle the walls, the beds are dirty and sheet less, and the food is often infested with the repulsive larvae of Kankrelats. Nevertheless, this is the orphanage that the baby was abandoned outside of.

The sisters who ran the orphanage decided to name her Aelita. Aelita had an unremarkable childhood in the orphanage , until one day, when she was seven, and a strange visitor came to the orphanage. He was a man who called himself Franz Hopper.

Franz had been wandering the city for some time, taking notes on everything he saw. Kanatopolis was unlike anything he had ever seen on earth. Working with the "Carthage Project", he had been studying cyberspace for many years, until he and his colleagues stumbled upon virtual space. Naturally, the discovery excited them a great deal, and so they built a machine capable of sending people from earth to cyberspace. Franz had gone in to explore.

But the sisters knew nothing about this, not even the existence of earth. To them, he was a strange man who wandered into the orphanage one day, seemingly awed at everything he saw. Yet it was at the orphanage he met Aelita. He began talking to the children about their lives, and was very surprised and angry at what they heard.

"The grubs in the food look gross, but they taste worse."

"Sure, we get cold at night, but what are we going to do about it?"

"The worst part is those two kids who live in the room down the hall. They're bullies."

Franz questioned the sisters about how they could make the children live under such bad conditions. They simply said that they hadn't received much funding from the city, while calculating how they could throw him out.

"Don't worry, mister. It's not too bad here."

Franz was surprised by this last comment. It came from a little girl standing behind him, tugging on the lapel on his jacket. Franz looked down at her. Aelita was smiling up at him, her short hair falling around her head. She was the most adorable girl he had ever laid eyes on.

"What is your name, young one?"

"Aelita. What's yours?"

The conversation lasted a long time.

Franz Hopper stayed in the city for several weeks, continuing his research. But he found time at the end of every day to visit Aelita. His heart melted for the little girl, and it wasn't long before they were the best of friends. However, the sisters did not like him very much.

"If you like her so much, why don't you adopt her?" They said to him hostilely one day. "We could always use one fewer mouth to feed."

"Sure, why not?" He replied, as though it were the most natural thing to say in the world. The sisters were astonished.

So on the last day of his trip to Kanatopolis, Franz led Aelita away from the orphanage, and then from the city. Aelita was ecstatic, unbelievably joyful with her new foster father. Franz was convinced that she would love Earth. He had no idea how wrong he was.

Chapter 2: Materialization

Aelita and Franz Hopper rode the hypertubes to the city's edge. In the outskirts, there were mainly small houses, vastly different from the giant megatowers near the city center. Finally, they stepped out the gate of the city's walls. Out here, there was nothing to be seen but the strange looking, plant like passage towers to the cyberstream, a virtual river that connected all the virtual realms to one another. There was not a soul to be seen besides the two of them.

Aelita assumed that they were going to enter one of the towers. Instead, Franz took out what looked like a little radio with headphones and a microphone. Aelita could only hear Franz's end of the conversation that ensued.

"Hi."

"Yes."

"Yes, I'm ready to come back. Can you bring the girl too?"

"Yeah, the one standing next to me. The one I e-mailed you about."

"OK, good. We're ready then."

He turned to Aelita, with a smile on his face. "We're going home, Aelita. Our method of transport may be a little... unorthodox, but don't panic, okay?" Aelita nodded. "OK, then."

At first Aelita didn't see anything wrong. Then she noticed that her feet were turning a transparent blue and then disappearing entirely. As she watched, the effect spread to her legs, and then her arms and torso. A look of astonishment, and then terror crossed her face as she tried to comprehend what was happening to her. She looked over at Franz, only to discover that not only was he also disappearing, but he was whistling a cheery tune. Soon they had disappeared completely. No one saw a thing.

The next thing she knew, Aelita was staring at the inside of a large, brightly lit hollow metal tube. The door of the scanner opened and she stumbled out. Franz came out of one of the other scanners.

"Where are we?" She stammered.

"Heh heh. Welcome to Earth, Aelita." He said in reply.

Have you ever been taken away from the only home you ever knew to an alien planet in another galaxy? No, probably not. But this is how Aelita felt on Earth. To say she "had trouble adjusting" is like saying that the guy who went around cutting people to bits with a chainsaw in that horror film "had anger management problems." Aelita had not liked Kanatopolis, but to her, Earth was the definition of fear and danger. She couldn't understand why cars had to go along the ground, where they could easily kill someone in their way, while the vehicles in Kanatopolis flied safely through the air. She couldn't understand why people on earth were always having endless wars, while the virtual realms had not fought since their creation, which was over seven thousand years ago, with the invention of electricity and computers by the ancient Atlanteans. (sadly, all of Atlantis' technology was lost with its fall, but the virtual world which had been created was, for reasons unknown, not lost with the computers which supported them.) She did not like Franz Hopper's co-workers on the Carthage Project, who questioned her incessantly about her old life, and shouted at her when her answers were not to her liking.

But above all, she feared the deep, dark forest which surrounded Franz's house, the Hermitage.

It was one day, when she had been on Earth for about two weeks, walking home from school through the forest when it happened. Aelita suddenly heard a rustle in the leaves off the path, and a big black wolf stepped onto the path in front of her. Two more soon followed it. The virtual worlds had many creatures that would be considered strange and bizarre by Earthly standards, but those creatures, obviously hungry and staring at her as though she was a double cheese pepperoni pizza, simply put her out of her wits.

She ran, screaming, through the woods toward the hermitage, with the wolves in hot pursuit. Franz opened the door when he heard the screams, and was horrified to see what was happening. He ran back into the house, grabbed a big baseball bat, and ran back out.

"Aelita!" He shouted. "Get inside! I'll hold them off!"

Aelita did not hesitate to obey. She ran inside the door. Franz swung his bat at the nearest one, and it splintered on the wolf's skull. The wolf shook off the pain and advanced along with its buddies. Franz turned and ran into the house, barricading the door with the piano.

The wolves waited outside the house a long time, but eventually wandered off in search of other prey. Franz watched his foster daughter toss and turn in bed long after they had gone, having nightmares, an experience that was very new to the sleepless residents of cyberspace.

She clutched Mr. Puck tight, the one possession she had brought from the orphanage and a constant source of reassurance. But that only served to have her dream Mr. Puck was also being chased by the wolves as well as herself. Franz looked at her with sorrow, trying to think of a solution. But none came.

Chapter 3: How to Make a New World

Franz sat at his desk, absentmindedly filling his diary with the day's events. He could think of nothing to help Aelita, and feared that she would soon go insane. Aelita really wanted to stay with him, and hated the thought of going back to Kanatopolis. On the other hand, Earth was filled with dangers, both real and imaginary, that she couldn't stand to face.

"What we need," Thought Franz, "is a place without danger that Aelita can stay, somewhere in virtual reality that she can feel comfortable, and where she and I can stay constantly in touch. So she can't just go to another one of the virtual worlds. There is no place that she can truly fit!" He slammed his fist on the table in anger.

"No real place, no virtual place,"

"no virtual place..."

"virtual..."

The answer hit him so hard that he thought he would keel over.

Making sure that Aelita was safely in bed, he hurried through the sewers to the factory, excited by his idea. He seated himself at the computer, and began to type. He worked late into the night, programming, staring intently at little streams of code, going through the notes he and his colleagues had made on the nature of virtual space, and drinking lots of coffee to keep himself awake. It was easier than he expected. All he had to do was artificially stimulate the creation process that had created the other virtual worlds purely by accident, and then mold the world that formed to his will.

As dawn broke outside, Franz let out a sigh and observed what he had created on the holosphere. It was perfect. He hurried back home to rouse Aelita.

"Wake up, little one. It's time to go."

"Huh? go where?" She said sleepily.

"To the factory. I've got a little surprise to show you."

When they arrived at the factory, they found the other members of the Carthage Project already there, marveling at his creation. They immediately started bombarding him with questions when they saw him enter. Franz yelled for quiet. They all stopped shouting. Then the leader of the project stepped forward.

"Mr. Hopper... Did you create this?" He said.

"Yes. I did. I have managed to create a new virtual world from scratch. I call it... Lyoko." He said proudly in reply.

"This is the most amazing achievement the project has ever had, Hopper. But tell me... what in the world did you create it for?"

"I created it to be a home for Aelita."

"What!" They all exclaimed at once, including Aelita.

"It is very simple my friends. Aelita does not like it here on Earth, as I'm sure you all know, and she also did not like Kanatopolis. So I created a new world for her to live in."

"You're mad, Hopper."

"No, really. She'll be safe there. I even programmed a guardian program for the world, which I call Xana. It has control over many crippling viruses, to ward off against programming attacks, and very powerful mechanical versions of some virtual animals, to ward off physical attacks in the world. And I can visit her every day to keep her company. She won't even need to eat or sleep while she is there."

While the other scientists continued to stare at Franz incredulously, Aelita was standing in the corner. But her expression wasn't one of disbelief. She hadn't been so happy since Franz had adopted her. One of the scientists turned to her.

"Surely you aren't going to go along with this, Aelita." He said, almost pleadingly. Aelita just stepped forward to stand beside Franz.

"I will go there." She said, turning to look at all of Franz's co-workers in turn, as if daring them to disagree.

Franz and Aelita stood in the scanner room. "We're ready. Transfer us now." Franz called out. "Are you absolutely sure you want to go through with this, you two?" "Absolutely. Do it now." Franz and Aelita got into the scanners.

Aelita looked down at her body, which was undergoing a reverse of the process she had encountered on her first ay on earth. Where there had once just been empty space, a blue, 3-d outline of her body came into being, which then filled with solid matter. She dropped down awkwardly to the ground. Franz landed beside her.

"Welcome to Lyoko, Aelita."

Chapter 4: The first Attack

Aelita loved Lyoko. There, finally, was a place where she could live at peace. Franz's world provided a safe haven for her, with the city of Kanatopolis far off beyond the digital sea, and the real world just a place that existed in another way altogether.

Five years passed very well for Aelita and Franz. Unfortunately for them, not everything was as safe as it appeared to be.

When you program a virtual world in a single night, kept awake by coffee, you are bound to make some mistakes, no matter how much of a genius you are. Franz made just one: a single mistyped letter deep in Xana's programming. At first it had no effect, but as the months passed, the error in the data became more and more severe. Franz checked Xana regularly to make sure he was working properly. But, like a tree that appears strong on the outside but is secretly rotting away inside, Franz could find nothing wrong.

Xana's logic became flawed and corrupt. He lost all sense of virtual sanity, and became increasingly obsessed with his ever-present objectives. They were:

1. Protect Aelita and Lyoko from all threats from the real world.

2. Protect Aelita and Lyoko from all threats from the virtual world.

Xana watched Lyoko from one of his many strangely shaped eyes. He looked down on Aelita and Franz, talking and playing together in the virtual realm he was the guardian of. With extraordinary speed, he analyzed the data before him. He checked and rechecked his routines and subroutines, and, finally, drew a conclusion. It took less than a nanosecond. But Xana knew with cold, calculating certainty what he must do about the threat on Lyoko at that very moment. Franz must be destroyed.

Scattered around Lyoko were strange-looking cylinders, the towers, as Franz called them. They were identical to the passage towers located throughout cyberspace that led to the virtual superhighway, but these provided a valuable second purpose: They acted as data warehouses for when Xana needed to act. So far, Xana had never activated one, but now, one of the towers in the Ice Region started to glow bright red. Franz and Aelita, blissfully enjoying their time together in the Desert Region, had no idea something was wrong.

Back in the lab on earth, though, Franz's co-workers did notice something. One of the scientists, seated at the computer, saw a little window appear on one of the screens. The message was simple: "A threat to Lyoko has been identified. The Xana guardian program will now eliminate the problem."

The scientist contacted Franz on Lyoko.

"Hopper!" He shouted. "Xana has activated the Lyoko defense mechanisms. There seems to be a problem."

"Don't worry, my friend. Xana will handle it. But Aelita and I had better get to a tower. You never know."

"Understood. We'll monitor the situation from our- wait! No! Stop, Xana! This is- ARRGH! (gag) (choke) (koff koff) (wheeeeessseeee...)"

Franz was startled at the sounds coming down to them. "Hello? Are you there?" He said cautiously in reply. There was no answer.

Back in the real world, one of Xana's ghosts emerged from its victim, who was sprawled out on the floor, choked to death. The other scientists stared at it in pure horror. They fled into the elevator and went up to the ground floor. But Xana's ghosts know no physical barrier. It followed them up the elevator shaft.

Xana had his objectives. First, he had to kill Franz. This could be achieved by devirtualizing him with his monsters, so his ghost could choke him. Second, he had to take out the other scientists. His ghost was achieving that already, as he received a signal saying that another one of them had fallen. Third came the threat from the virtual world: Aelita's own memories of the place. Xana decided to call upon a very special monster.

On Lyoko, Franz stared at the sky apprehensively, but the orange dome above them revealed nothing. Aelita clutched Franz's side, worried to tears.

"I don't like the looks of this, Aelita." He said, trying to sound calm. "Lets go hide in a tower. Maybe there we can figure out what's going on." They turned around, and stopped dead.

Ten Kankrelats surrounded them. They advanced slowly, pushing Aelita and Franz back towards the edge of the plateau. Aelita had seen the Kankrelats once before, when Franz had introduced her to the creatures at the beginning of her stay on Lyoko. But this was the first time that she had seen them since then.

"What are they doing, Franz? Are they protecting us?" She didn't seem to convince herself that this was the case.

"No, Aelita. Xana isn't fighting the problem. Xana is the problem." Franz seemed strangely calm given the circumstances.

One of the Kankrelats abruptly fired. The laser shot through the air and slammed into Franz's leg. He fell down, clutching it in pain. The Kankrelats advanced further. Aelita was reminded of the way the wolves had attacked her in this very manner. These creatures were far more lethal.

But the worst was yet to come. Seemingly out of nowhere, a living nightmare appeared. It was a Scipizoa. Aelita had seen one once, in a aquarium in Kanatopolis. They were known as "thought-eaters," because of their peculiar diet of their prey's memories. Aelita had learned that if one kept their thoughts suppressed in its presence, the Scipizoa may not notice you, as they are blind and sense their prey by the presence of brain waves. But Aelita could see that Xana had added an eye to this one, and there was absolutely no escaping it.

The Scipizoa picked her up in its deadly embrace, and started downloading.

"NOOO!" Shouted Franz, horrified.

The kankrelat fired again. This time it hit Franz square in the chest. But the blast wasn't powerful enough to make him lose all his life points. If it had, maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe Franz could have gotten to the computer and deactivated the tower using the special emergency Code: Lyoko. But instead, Franz toppled over, and over the edge.

"DAD!" Aelita screamed.

But it was too late. Franz Hopper fell, and fell, and fell, and then landed with a splash in the digital sea. A second later there was a brilliant column of light, which quickly subsided. The brilliant scientist was lost forever. And Aelita was left with the Scipizoa, feeling her life flashing before her eyes, and then feeling the same memories get sucked down the drain, into the Scipizoa's head. It released her with a triumphant flourish.

The leader of the Carthage Project was still trying to save himself from Xana's ghost. All the others had already been choked to death. He knew he had only one chance left. He fled back to the elevator, and went down, past the lab, past the scanner room, to the very bottom floor: The supercalculator storage room.

As he entered, the computer rose out of the ground. The solution it was contained in dripped off, and the circuits glowed brilliantly and, in a way, malevolently. He walked purposely toward the computer, and reached for the off switch. But just before he reached it, Xana's ghost emerged from the ceiling. With super-human speed, it sped down and flowed into his ears, and settled in his throat. He fell to the floor, convulsing and choking.

With his final moment of lucidity, he realized that if the world was to be safe, then Xana must be deactivated. He could spare no feelings for Franz and Aelita now. He struggled to his feet, and with his dying breath, he flipped the switch.

Aelita, Xana, the monsters, and all of Lyoko were suddenly thrust into the darkest, coldest oblivion imaginable.

Chapter 5: The 246th attack

EXACTLY 2 YEARS, 5 MONTHS AND 27 DAYS LATER

It was very quiet in the Desert Region, as there is little on Lyoko which makes noise, in stark contrast to your own world. Little, but not nothing. Lyoko's calm was suddenly smashed by the roar of engines.

The Overboard, Overbike, and Overwing sped across the landscape, their young riders looking backwards, and maneuvering their vehicles to avoid the laser fire from three Krabes, slowly but steadily gaining on them.

"Odd!" Shouted Yumi. "The one on the left is yours! Ulrich! Go on! take Aelita to the tower!"

Ulrich and Aelita sped away on the Overbike. Odd took aim.

"Take that!" He shouted at the Krabe, while a laser arrow shot straight from his glove. The Krabe dodged swiftly, but not swiftly enough to escape the second arrow going straight toward where Odd predicted the Krabe would go. The ugly creature blew into a thousand pieces. Yumi threw her fans, and each of them slammed into another one of the Krabes. They also blew up, and Odd and Yumi flew quickly toward the tower.

At the tower, Ulrich had to deal with three more Krabes alone. Well, not really alone. Each of the two clones jumped into the air and landed on the backs of the left and right Krabes. They stuck their swords in, and two more Krabes bit the dirt. Ulrich fused to deal with the center Krabe. It fired over and over again, But Ulrich just deflected the blasts as though he was a Jedi and his sword a light saber. He ran under the Krabe and sliced it in half from beneath. For a moment white light shone out of the crack, and then the Krabe blew apart in a shower of sparks.

"Its okay Aelita." He said, as she emerged from behind a rock. "You can go in."

Aelita ran inside just as Yumi and Odd got to the tower.

"Where's Aelita?" asked Yumi.

"She's in the tower already." Ulrich said in reply.

"Boy Jeremie, you say that Xana keeps getting stronger, but it seems that he just gets more and more pathetic every time we face him.", Odd said mockingly. Jeremie smiled at the joke.

In the tower, Aelita floated up to the top platform and entered the code. As the screens in the tower dropped down into blackness, she counted the number of times she had done this before, and was mildly shocked at the result. She thought back to when she had regained consciousness, when Jeremie and his friends had turned the supercomputer back on. All she had been able to remember was her name, the name of where she was, the name of the evil entity who now had all to himself the place she had once called home, and a good deal about how computers, particularly the one she was in, worked. She had begged for their help to defeat Xana, and they had readily agreed. And they were still fighting him.

Aelita was no longer in blackness, as the tower had begun to refill itself with the data that came with a normal, inactivated tower.

"Okay, Aelita, I'm bringing you in." Said Jeremie. He entered in Code Earth. And Aelita returned to the world she thought was so much better than the place she thought was her original home. Aelita had remembered nothing about her previous hatred of Earth, and came to love it instead. At first it had been a little strange to her, but Jeremie had told her many stories of how great Earth was before her materialization, so she was naturally more accepting the second time around.

Soon, Odd, Ulrich and Yumi joined her in the scanner room, and they all went back up to the lab.

"Well, Jeremie, what happened?" Asked Ulrich.

"Everything's fine. The possessed statues never made it to the city. No one will suspect a thing, so there's no need to launch a return trip to the past. Com'on, lets get back to school."

While the kids sat in class, Xana plotted. He had not been able to get all of Aelita's memories the day Franz Hopper had disappeared. Deep in Aelita's subconscious was the key to eliminating the threat to Lyoko from cyberspace once and for all. And he started thinking again how he would take it. So far the Scipizoa's efforts had been in vain. But maybe the key to victory was not lying in wait for her on Lyoko, but instead going on the offensive once more with the monsters. Xana congratulated himself on his new plan. It had barely been three hours since Aelita had deactivated his last tower, but there was no point in waiting. One of the Forest Region's towers began to glow bright red.

One of the scanners opened up. A long transparent tentacle snaked out of it, and a low hiss could be heard from within. The Scipizoa left the factory, in search of its prey.

Chapter 6: Blast from the Past

The school bell rang, and the kids in Mrs. Hertz's class started filing into the room, chatting only as school kids can. But the words exchanged between Jeremie, Aelita, Odd and Ulrich were not like those of the other kids.

"I have been meaning to ask, Jeremie," said Odd, "But do you have any idea when you will be done with the antivirus for Aelita?"

"Nope. Not a clue."

"Dang. Jeremie could you hurry up? I mean, fighting on Lyoko used to be a thrill. But these days I'm getting bored. It would be better if something new happened, like when we found sector 5, but I really feel like I would be liking to just put all this behind us and get on with our lives."

"I know, Odd, but it is going really slowly. I have no idea what to try next."

"Hey, don't worry, Jeremie. You'll get it someday." Said Ulrich reassuringly.

"Maybe one of these days we may even receive some help out of the blue. You never know."

"Sure, right, like that will ever happen." Said Jeremie sarcastically.

While the three boys continued to talk, Mrs. Hertz walked into the room, followed a moment later by a kid with short black hair and a familiar object under his arm. Aelita was the only one watching him; everyone was still occupied with their own conversations. She gasped at what he was carrying, but her recognition was immediately pushed out of her brain by an all too familiar feeling.

Aelita was having visions again. This time it was new. She saw herself as a young girl in a really run down room. There were other children playing around her, but her attention was turned to a little boy who walked up and sat down beside her. He was much younger, but still obviously the same boy who now stood in front of the class, oblivious to her presence.

The vision ended abruptly. Aelita took a moment to recover, and then hastily turned to the boys.

"Guys, I think you'd better take a look at this." She said, quietly.

The three of them turned to look, and then stopped and stared. The boy standing at Mrs. Hertz's side was unfamiliar, but the large object he held under his arm was clearly an Overboard. It was painted black, with flames near the rear end, but the design was unmistakable.

The class had quieted down, so Mrs. Hertz started to speak.

"Class," She said, "We have a new student here today. This is Mattimeo." She turned to him. "Or would you rather be called Matt?"

"No, Ma'm, Mattimeo is fine."

"Very well, then, would you tell the class a little about yourself."

"Sure. The orphanage I was living in wouldn't keep boys my age, so I was sent to this boarding school from my old home in Kanatopolis."

Kanatopolis, thought Aelita. That city seems oddly familiar...

"Kanatopolis?" Asked Mrs. Hertz. "Where is that?"

"Oh, its very far away. You've probably never heard of it." Mattimeo answered evasively.

"Very well then. Please sit down. Oh, and find some place to put your surfboard, please."

"Sure thing."

Mattimeo took a small silver capsule out of his pocket. He pressed the red button on the top and a tiny red laser was emitted from a hole in the capsule. The laser point became a line, and Mattimeo scanned the Overboard with it from top to bottom. To everyone's astonishment, the Overboard began to dematerialize, just the way it would have on Lyoko. He strode toward the empty seat at the desk next to Jeremie and Aelita and sat down as though there was nothing the least bit strange about what he did. He turned to Aelita, and it was his turn to be astonished. But then he smiled warmly.

"Hey Aelita!" He said pleasantly. "Remember me?" Aelita just gaped at him. He turned to face the teacher. "Small world, err, worlds, isn't it?" He was still smiling.

Jim was patrolling the school grounds. He paused when he heard a low hiss, and the Scipizoa emerged from behind a tree.

"WHOA!" Shouted Jim. "WHAT IS THAT THING!"

Jim turned to run. The Scipizoa, sensing that its covert operation was about to be compromised, used an ability it rarely had to use: It arranged its tentacles in a circle, and the long tubes filled with yellow light, which came out of the tentacles, met in the middle of the circle, and became a powerful laser that shot out of the circle and slammed into the back of the fleeing Jim. He fell to the ground, knocked unconscious. The Scipizoa drifted over its victim toward the science building. Its master was getting impatient for it to deliver what he so dearly wanted.

Chapter 7: The Jellyfish's Sting

Jeremie, Aelita, Odd, and Ulrich had told Yumi about what had happened in class, and now they all stood outside the lunch room, questioning Mattimeo, who apparently was unbothered by the interrogation. Jeremie, however, was not talking with them, but instead sat on the steps, looking at his computer, deep in thought.

"So wait," said Yumi. "You know Aelita how?"

"We used to live at an orphanage together, when we were little kids." He replied cheerfully.

"But where is that orphanage?"

"In Kanatopolis."

"Where is Kanatopolis?"

"Calm down, Yumi." Said Ulrich.

"Its not like he did anything illegal or something, by knowing Aelita."

"Sorry, Mattimeo." Said Yumi, calming down. "But still, could you please tell us where this city is?"

"Certainly." Said Mattimeo. "It's a virtual city in Cyberspace Node 31."

They all just blinked at him disbelievingly.

"C'mon, Aelita!" Mattimeo said. "Your friends don't believe me. Can't you back me up a little here?"

"I'm sorry, Mattimeo," Aelita said sadly. "But aside from my vision and the strange sense of Deja Vu I get from you, I have no memory of ever meeting you."

Mattimeo stopped cold. "Left only with dreams and unknown familiarity..." He whispered, trailing off.

"What's the matter?" Said Odd, concerned.

"It's just... It's just..." He cut into his own sentence abruptly. "Aelita! Don't tell me a Scipizoa got you!" They all jumped at the name of the familiar monster.

Odd turned to Jeremie. "Jeremie," He said, "Do you think this guy's for real?"

"Oh, yes. He's telling the truth." Jeremie said, his expression unreadable.

"What?"

"I didn't get a chance to tell you." He continued. "I finally cracked the code to the encryption for Franz Hopper's diary last night. I read the whole thing. Franz and his fellow scientists proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that virtual worlds exist. They built the scanners to be able to go there, and they wound up in Kanatopolis. It would seem that Franz became friends with Aelita there, and eventually adopted her. He talks about how much Aelita hated both worlds, so he created Lyoko as a home for her, and Xana as her guardian. Can you confirm that, Mattimeo?"

"Oh yes." He said, obviously glad to have a little backup. "A guy named Franz Hopper visited the orphanage for three weeks, and in the end adopted Aelita. We were all sad to see her go, except those mean sisters who ran the orphanage."

There was a long silence.

"But how did Xana turn evil, then?" Asked Yumi."And how did Aelita lose her memory? Was it really a Scipizoa?"

Jeremie sighed. "The journal doesn't say. And I don't think Mattimeo knows either. We've just had a startling revelation, friends, but we still don't have all the answers." They all looked at each other dejectedly.

"One more thing." Said Ulrich. "How did you get here, if you are really from a virtual city?"

"Well, about two months ago, virtual scientists discovered the real world, and needless to say that was very exciting. Some equipment in an abandoned petroleum plant outside this city was, err... annexed, and it was used to build some scanners, and now they're sending kids from overcrowded orphanages to this world's boarding schools. I was sent here."

"Now may I ask a question?" Said Mattimeo. They all nodded. "Who is this evil Xana person you keep talking about?"

"Well, put simply," said Odd, he's this demonic artificial intelligence..."

"That is launching an attack!" Shouted Jeremie from behind them. All of a sudden, they were crowded around his laptop. Sure enough, the superscan indicated an activated tower.

"Uh... Is something bad happening?" Said Mattimeo, looking worriedly at their expressions.

"You had better believe it." Said Jeremie. "Follow us. I'll explain on the way."

Jeremie folded up his laptop. All of a sudden screams could be heard from the schoolyard. They turned the corner, and gasped.

The Scipizoa was drifting over the ground, brushing the fleeing kids around it away like flies. It turned, and there was the prey it had been sent to catch. It sped toward them, hissing angrily.

"Run!" Shouted Ulrich. "I'll deal with it!"

Yumi and the rest of them ran off toward the park. The Scipizoa, recognizing Ulrich, fired a laser. He jumped aside, surprised at the Scipizoa's new ability. He ran for the garden shed, in search of something to fight the monster with. But when he returned, wielding a big axe, the Scipizoa was nowhere to be found. It had gone in search of Aelita.

"I didn't know you had Scipizoas in your world too!" Exclaimed Mattimeo to Odd beside him.

"Well, normally, no." Odd said, "but Xana materialized this one. It's here to take her memory."

"Oh, no, I don't believe it!" interjected Jeremie.

They had reached the bridge to the factory, but it was being guarded by two tarantulas. As soon as the two monsters noticed them, they started firing madly. The kids ducked behind a pillar to avoid the blasts.

"We've got company, Einstein!" Said Odd. "Got any ideas?" Jeremie did not have any ideas, but Yumi did.

"Look." She said, pointing to a group of trash cans and long metal poles. They all understood instantly.

"Stay here, you three." Odd said to Mattimeo, Jeremie, and Aelita. Odd and Yumi took the trashcan lids and poles and rushed at the tarantulas, blocking the blasts with their improvised shields and prepared to run the monsters through.

But while the two of them were fighting on the bridge, the third monster decided to make its appearance. It picked up Jeremie and Mattimeo and threw them into the river before they realized what was happening. Jeremie surfaced first, in time to see the Scipizoa pick up Aelita and put its tentacles to her head.

"AELITA!" He screamed.

The distraction made Odd and Yumi turn to see what was happening, which was enough time for the tarantulas to sweep their legs into the two and knock them into the river. Jeremie started to swim toward shore. He only hoped that it was not too late.

Chapter 8: The Delivery

Aelita was suspended in midair, totally paralyzed by the Scipizoa. She felt the familiar feeling of the Scipizoa intruding into her mind, but there was something different about what it was doing this time. It was not sucking her memory out as much as it was probing it, looking for something specific. Xana had wanted the removal to go quickly, and the Scipizoa decided that doing this was faster than what it had been doing so far.

Odd and Yumi clambered back up onto the bridge near where it met the door to the factory, and rushed to help Aelita, but the two tarantulas blocked their path. They were forced to duck behind the factory's wall to avoid the laser blasts. Meanwhile, Jeremie and Mattimeo had swam to the other side, and now were running toward the Scipizoa at the beginning of the bridge.

But the Scipizoa had found the small bit of code that it had been sent to acquire. Aelita felt it spiral away out of her mind, unable to identify what it was. But she knew that she was in trouble. Now that the Scipizoa had what Xana wanted, he had no more use for her.

The Scipizoa prepared to inject a deadly poison straight into her brain, but it had no clue as to what would happen next. Ulrich jumped out of the nearest tree, yelling like Tarzan. The rusty axe he was wielding chopped through one tentacle after another, and all the Scipizoa could do in its surprise was look at the severed tentacles in as much dismay as a faceless monster can show.

Odd and Yumi had emerged from behind the factory wall, to see what was going on, and saw Ulrich swinging his axe. Luckily, he noticed them before the tarantulas did.

"Odd! Yours!" he yelled, and threw the axe. It cut right through one of the tarantula's heads, making it explode, and landed at Odd's feet. Before the other tarantula realized what was happening, Odd picked up the axe, and sent it crashing into the last tarantula's head.

The Scipizoa hissed angrily, and then drifted over them all to the door of the factory, where it disappeared into the darkness within. Jeremie reached Aelita, who was lying on the ground, still reeling from the monster's attack.

"Aelita! Are you OK?" He said, shaking her into consciousness.

"Yes, Jeremie. I'm fine."

"We have to get to Lyoko and deactivate the tower."

"Right! Let's go."

They all ran into the factory, boarded the elevator, and it lowered them to the floor where the lab was.

"Wow. This place is awesome." Said Mattimeo, clearly impressed with their computer equipment. Jeremie launched the scan again to check where the tower was. The search turned up nothing.

"What?" Said Jeremie in disbelief. "This is insane! What happened? When we were at the school the scan showed it clear as day!"

"Could Xana have corrupted the superscan again?" Asked Yumi.

"We'll know in a minute." Jeremie did some quick tests. "Nope. Its working fine."

"Then the only explanation is that Xana deactivated the tower himself."

"I guess so. The tarantulas were destroyed, and the Scipizoa failed. It's probably back in Lyoko by now."

"Uh... About that, Jeremie..." Said Aelita hesitatingly.

They all turned to look at her. "Jeremie, the Scipizoa wasn't sucking out my memory. It was looking for something in particular this time. And it found it and took it too." Jeremie looked at her in sheer disbelieving horror.

Before the tower had been deactivated, the Scipizoa had gotten back into the scanner, and Xana had virtualized it. It made its way over the landscape of the forest, its tentacles regenerating on the way, and got into the transporter to Sector 5.

The white sphere flew rapidly through the air, eventually making its way into the heart of the giant blue sphere. The transporter dropped the monster in the arena. Then something happened that had never happened to the kids; as the Scipizoa stood in the very center of the eye on the floor, the center dot dropped away like an elevator, with the Scipizoa riding.

The elevator made its way with its grisly passenger down, down into the bowels of Sector 5, into areas the kids didn't know even existed. The Scipizoa drifted off the platform and through the door in front of it, into an enormous room with an extraordinary sight.

Hanging from the ceiling were hundreds of hives, with hundreds, thousands of monsters swarming over them and through them, actively engaged in the daily workings of an insect colony. Every monster the Scipizoa passed bowed deeply in respect, but the Scipizoa ignored them, and instead passed to the great red door at the other end of the room, with Xana's eye imprinted on it. As it approached, the doors creaked open, and the Scipizoa went in unhesitatingly.

The room on the other side was not nearly as vast as the one the Scipizoa had just left, but it was very important compared to the common monster quarters it had just left. The two creepers posted as guards bowed deeply, and then one began to make an odd series of whistles and clicks. No human could understand them, but this was the monster's common language, often used for communication in their battles without their opponents noticing, and a special gift from their master that their wild counterparts in cyberspace did not share.

Roughly translated, the creeper said, "The master will be here shortly, general. If it would suit your desires, please wait for him here."

"Yes. Now go." Said the Scipizoa. "I will talk to Lord Xana alone." The two Creepers left the room via a small side door on the left.

The Scipizoa only had to wait a moment. A secret door behind the throne at the end of the room opened up, and Xana himself walked into the room.

He was tall and slightly muscular, but his physical strength was nothing compared to the powerful electrical attacks he could unleash with the large metal rod he held, complete with a small glass sphere at the end to focus energy with. He was dressed in long black robes and a helmet that obscured his eyes with its visor, and through a glass plate on the helmet could be seen many mechanical elements that were hardwired directly to his brain. He was frowning heavily.

"Well?" He said, in the strange language his monsters used. "Do not tell me you have failed yet again in your mission."

"Oh, no, sire. I have exactly what you need. It is merely a pity that I was not able to kill the girl."

"Ah! Well done, then. Give it here, quick."

The Scipizoa opened a small slot in its front, and a small piece of paper was printed out. Xana took it and read the four small words printed on it in neat letters. "Are you sure this is the correct password?" Asked Xana.

"Oh, yes, sire. The girl was the only one who Franz Hopper told it to. She still held it in a back corner of her mind where I found it."

Xana started to chuckle. Then he burst out laughing, an evil maniacal triumphant laugh. The paper's message was simple. It said, merely:

REBIRTH OF THE PHEONIX

Chapter 9: Back Where They Belong

"Scanner, Aelita." Said Jeremie, as he typed on the computer.

"Uh, Jeremie, what exactly are you doing again?" Asked Ulrich.

"I'm scanning Aelita's memory. I want to see if I can figure out just what it was that the Scipizoa stole. Ok, Aelita! You can come back now!"

As Jeremie began to analyze the data, Aelita came out of the elevator back into the Lab, and joined the other kids at the computer. "Well, Jeremie?" She asked.

"This is insane!" Jeremie said, apparently not paying attention to what Aelita had just said.

"According to the data, there is a small piece of code missing from your subconscious memories, that doesn't seem to have any effect on your abilities or your personality, but there is also this great big hole there. Its like a part of your mind was torn out. And it looks like it happened a long time ago, too."

Yumi gasped and put a hand to her mouth. "But that means... that means that Mattimeo was right! The Scipizoa did steal her memory once before."

Jeremie nodded. "Well, there's only one thing to do."

"And, what exactly is that?" Asked Odd.

"You have to go to Sector 5 and get those missing memories back. Xana wanted whatever that small piece of code was, and we have to get it back before Xana does anything with it."

"Well, then, we're ready, Jeremie." Said Mattimeo.

"Huh? You too?"

"Hey, when I got to Earth I wasn't expecting to meet Aelita here, let alone get involved in all of this. I'm in the thick of it now, and there's no turning back. Besides, back when they decided it would be a good idea to draft older orphans into the military to get them out of the orphanages, I got some really good training. Eventually they decided that drafting kids was not such a good idea, because of all the opposition from the public, but I still know how to fight."

"OK, then, I'll transfer all of you. Good luck everyone."

Before long, they were in the scanners, and then in Lyoko's forest region. Jeremie, when trying to get a "look" for Mattimeo on Lyoko, eventually decided on his old army uniform; a red shirt with a black X printed on it, white pants, shoes, and gloves, and helmet with a visor, and also a rather large plasma ray gun.

"You look perfect." Said Yumi.

"Thanks."

"Alright, guys, I'm materializing your rides." Said Jeremie. The three vehicles materialized at their feet, and Mattimeo took his own overboard out of the capsule.

"Get to the edge of the sector. I'll bring up the transporter." They all hopped on, and zoomed off. Unluckily for them, Xana guessed what they were up to, and before long, twelve Frelions swooped down from the sky, firing madly.

"It's four on twelve!" Said Odd. "Can we take them?"

"Watch us." Replied Mattimeo.

He immediately flew upwards and then behind three of the flying monsters. The ray gun fired, not a small blast like the lasers, but a continuous beam, that hit one Frelions and then cut through the two others.

"Whoohoo! Awesome!" Cheered Odd.

He turned his attention to the three monsters flying directly above him, aimed upwards, and shot all three of them down with a single arrow that went right through the first two before finally coming to rest in the body of the third. All three Frelions exploded in a shower of sparks.

Ulrich couldn't get high enough. Whenever he brought his overbike into the air, the three Frelions above him just kept getting higher also. Suddenly, he hit on a great solution. Quickly he triplicate, but the three Ulriches standing on one another's shoulders weren't tall enough either. But the top one was able to jump off, and spinning through the air, he was able to cut through one, two, three of the Frelions.

Now only three monsters stood between the kids and the edge of the sector. They looked at one another uncertainly, as Yumi bore down on them at 50 miles per hour.

"Uhh.. RETREAT!" Clicked the lead Frelions to the others, but before the command could be carried out, Yumi had thrown her fans and struck them.

The five of them screeched to a stop at the edge of the ground. "Whew! That was far too easy." Said Odd. "They didn't land a single shot on us."

"Don't start celebrating yet, Odd." Said Ulrich. "The hard part is yet to come."

"Hold on, guys, I'm entering the code." The spherical white transporter appeared out of the digital sea, engulfed them, and flew off.

It flew through the trees at a speed no real vehicle could match, and then it was flying into the white horizon, and then in the sea of digital screens. The transporter flew into the great blue sphere, and before long they were in the arena. The wall opened up in front of them, and then they were dashing through the oddly shaped passageways of Sector 5.

"Three minutes to stop the countdown, everybody!" Jeremie called out. The room they emerged in had hundreds of platforms moving around over a bottomless pit. The wall opened up at the other end of the room, and a large platform full of creepers came in. They immediately started swarming all over the room.

"Uh oh." Said Yumi. "That's a lot of creepers!"

"Wait!" Said Aelita. "Look!" Underneath every platform was a small generator keeping the platform in the air.

"Ha!" Said Mattimeo, instantly grasping the situation. He aimed his gun at the generator on the nearest platform full of creepers. A plasma blast hit it square on, and the platform plummeted into the abyss, complete with its passengers, roaring in anger.

"Ulrich!" Said Yumi. "Get the key!" She pointed to the mechanism on the wall. Ulrich jumped from platform to platform, slicing through the creepers in his way. One of the creeper infested platforms got in his way, and they started firing. Ulrich deflected most of them, but one of the lasers hit him in the shoulder. Odd, seeing what was happening, aimed an arrow from afar. It struck the generator, and another platform of creepers fell.

"You've got 60 life points and 15 seconds left, Ulrich!" Said Jeremie.

"That's plenty. No need to worry yet." He jumped to the final platform and hit the key. A door in the opposite wall opened up, and some of the platforms lined up to make a path. The others dropped into oblivion, along with the rest of the creepers.

The next room had the elevator in it. They rode it to the interface, on the outer surface of the sphere. Aelita began to search Xana's data.

"Hurry, Aelita. The mantas will probably show up any second." Said Jeremie.

Aelita was not even sure what she was looking for. She searched folder after folder, hoping she would find something. Incredibly, she did.

She was staring at a folder labeled "Aelita memory archive" She opened it, and there was all the data she had lost, both her early childhood memories and the bit of code that had been stolen recently. "Jeremie, I found them!"

"OK, upload them to me. Quickly!" Jeremie said in reply. Aelita started up the data transfer procedure, but was greeted by a big flashing red exclamation mark.

"What's wrong, Aelita?" Said Ulrich. "The mantas are starting to hatch!"

"Xana is preventing the transfer of the data."

"Well, do something, quickly!" Aelita tried everything to get around the data block, but nothing would work.

"Nothing's working, Jeremie!"

"Wait! I have an idea! Copy the data in the folder. Xana is guarding the data, but he shouldn't be guarding the copy once it's made."

Aelita did what Jeremie told her. First she copied the small data file. But no sooner had the copy been made of the large memory file, that the totally unexpected happened.

Aelita's memories, like so many iron fillings attracted to a magnet, flew back into her head and settled in place with such force that Aelita was physically knocked backwards. She struggled to bring under control the rush of images, but faded into unconsciousness. Odd, who was firing at the mantas, turned to hear her scream, and saw her lying there. He started to shout something, but he was hit by three lasers in a row from one of the mantas and devirtualized.

"I'm bringing your vehicles back, guys. Get Aelita and get out of there!"

Ulrich draped Aelita over the back of the overbike, and he, Mattimeo, and Yumi took off.

"I've opened the left tunnel." Said Jeremie.

The three of them flew towards the opening. But the three mantas flew above them and started dropping their mines. One exploded on the overwing, and she was forced to jump to safety on Mattimeo's overboard. He aimed upwards and fired, clearing a path through the mines and taking out one of the mantas. Yumi threw her fans and took out the other two. The four kids and two vehicles flew through the tunnel to safety.

Through a window inside his secret chamber, Xana watched them go. He was not angry, but rather amused. At one time he had seen Aelita's memories as a threat, but now he knew that nothing could go wrong by her retrieving them. As for the pass code, he still had the original copy, and the kids wouldn't be able to figure out what it was for.

There was a knock at the door. Xana came out of his room, to see the Scipizoa floating in midair in front of him. "The ship is complete, sire. Shall we begin preparations?"

"Yes. It is time."

Chapter 10: Lyoko's Edge

Aelita was still battling with her mind, still tying to get under control the enormous rush of images and emotions. It was like having a tape of every moment of your life put in your head, set to fast forward, reminded, and fast forwarded again. Too much happening too fast. But Aelita was winning. Slowly at first, and then rapidly, her mind began to file the memories away to their proper places, and everything was falling into position. She woke with a start.

She was staring up at the ceiling of her dorm room. Sunlight was pouring through the window. She heard whispers from somewhere over to the left.

"Uhnnnn..." She groaned.

"Aelita? Was that you?" Jeremie's familiar voice. She felt like it had been an eternity since she had last heard him. "I think she's coming around, guys!"

Her field of vision was suddenly filled with the faces of her friends. For a second, she thought she was still dreaming. Then everything clicked into place.

"Jeremie!" She shouted joyfully. She sat upright, threw her arms around him, and kissed him full on the lips. He stumbled back giddily. "Jeremie! It worked! I have my memories back!"

"Huh? What? Really?" Jeremie said, shaken out of his sudden delirium by this startling statement.

She looked around herself. "Uhhh... uh oh. How long have I been out?"

"The whole night." Said Mattimeo. "It was late afternoon when the Scipizoa attacked, and midnight when we finally got out of the factory with you. Don't worry. Jeremie said you'll be fine."

"Are you sure you're all right, Aelita?" Asked Jeremie.

"Yes. I'm fine. But if it's morning now, shouldn't we be getting to class?"

"Oh, shoot!" Exclaimed Odd. "You're right!" He barged out of the room. "C'mon, guys, lets goooo!" They all rushed out of the room.

"Let's meet at the factory after school!" Jeremie called out. "I want to examine that other piece of data we found."

The day passed uneventfully, unless you count the enormous buzz caused by the Scipizoa. There were theories everywhere, from the idea that it was an elaborate prank pulled by Sissi and her group, to the explanation that it was in fact an alien from outer space, to the thought that maybe it was a mechanized jellyfish sent by an evil computer to steal the memory of one of the students. (The last one was thrown out later by the authorities as the most absurd story they had ever heard.) An animal control team was even dispatched to the school, but of course they couldn't find the creature.

They met at the factory after school just as they had planned. "So what did you find, Jeremie?" Asked Ulrich.

"To be honest, I don't know." He replied.

"What do you mean?"

"This is all I found." Jeremie pointed to a small window on the screen. There were four words in it.

"Rebirth of the Phonics?" Said Ulrich incredulously.

"Phoenix, not Phonics. You know, a bird made all out of flames, that would always be miraculously reborn from its own ashes?"

"No."

"Study a little more Egyptian mythology, then."

"The question is, what does it mean?" Said Yumi. "It looks like some sort of password."

"It is a password, Yumi." Said Aelita.

"Huh? How do you know that?" Asked Jeremie.

"When I was little and living on Lyoko, Franz told me that if I ever wished to return to Kanatopolis, that he would take me to the edge of Lyoko, and we could enter that password to make a passage through the barrier."

"Barrier? What Barrier?"

"Franz originally designed Lyoko to be a safe haven for me. He set up a very powerful security program to protect it."

"Xana, you mean. Franz talked about it in his diary."

"Not just Xana. Franz put up a very powerful firewall security system as the first line of defense for Lyoko. Because of it, nothing can get in or out. Xana gets around it by using the towers to infect computers in the real world. But as long as it is in place, nothing from cyberspace can get in." She pointed to the transparent yellow globe surrounding Lyoko on the holosphere map.

"But wait..." Said Jeremie. "Xana still has the password. But what could he hope to achieve with it? Using it would just open Lyoko to attack. But Xana wants to protect Lyoko."

"Well, then, Xana has a weird way of being a guardian." Said Odd. "I mean, in order to protect Lyoko, he is trying to destroy the real world? That's nuts!"

"Yeah. I wonder, though, why can't Xana try something equally or more drastic in cyberspace?" Asked Mattimeo.

"Because the firewall prevents him, I guess." Said Yumi.

They all froze at the sudden idea they had just put together. For a split second, they all imagined an army of Xana's monsters on the rampage. And suddenly they all realized what Xana must be planning.

An invasion.

Chapter 11: "So How do we Stop That Thing?"

The transporter whistled through the air, moving quickly toward Sector 5. Before long it was in the arena, and it let Odd, Ulrich, Mattimeo, Yumi, and Aelita out.

"Jeremie, mind telling us what we're doing here again?" Said Ulrich.

"We have to find a way to stop Xana before he does something dangerous. The superscan didn't pick up a tower, but that figures since Xana's attack isn't on the real world. So I hope that in sector 5 you all can find a way to stop him." Jeremie said.

"That's great, Einstein," Said Odd, "But we've got a little problem."

Odd was right. Instead of spinning around, the way the arena usually did, the place was completely still. The wall did not open up, no matter how long they waited.

"Jeremie, why isn't anything happening?" Asked Aelita.

"Ummm..." Jeremie stared at the computer screen, looking at the streams of coding. "It looks like Xana has locked down sector 5! None of the elements which usually move are doing so. I didn't know he could do that!"

"Well, then, Einstein, You'd better pull us out." Said Yumi. "There's nothing we can do here."

"Okay. I'll type in the code again." Jeremie never did. He was interrupted by a sudden unexpected event on Lyoko.

The ground rumbled a little beneath their feet. They jumped out of the way just as the center dot platform of the Xana eye on the floor raised up about 10 feet off the ground. It was connected by a glass tube to another platform. The tube had a door in it which opened up, and a very surprised looking Blok stepped out. It was going to be sent to the outer regions to scout for and regroup any remaining monsters and bring them back to the hives. But it never got that far. Odd blasted it with an arrow.

"Was that a Blok?" Asked Jeremie.

"Yup." Said Odd, picking up and examining one of the pieces before it disappeared.

"It came from that tube." Said Aelita.

"Looks like another elevator." Odd hopped on. "all aboard!"

They all got on, and then the elevator descended into the inner depths of Sector 5. It let them off in a long hallway. Curious, they all walked cautiously along it, until they came to a gigantic door. They opened it, and stopped short at the sight that greeted them.

"Ugh!" Said Yumi, looking around at the enormous hives. "What are those things?"

"They look like monster colony nests." Said Mattimeo.

"nests?"

"Uh huh. When I saw the tarantulas and the Frelions, and also the Blok, I started to guess that your freind Xana would have something like this around. The class of creatures you call monsters all live in colonies of their own kind in the wild. So I don't see why they should live any differently under Xana."

"Okkk, then..." Said Odd. "Then where are the monsters?"

Odd was right. There was not a single monster in sight. The hives were as deserted as the rest of Lyoko. There were obvious signs that they had been there, though. The monster's footprints were left imprinted in the slime-covered ground, and as they looked, they realized that they were all converging in one direction. They followed the footprints to another large door in the wall, pushed it open, and went through. On the other side, there was no more slime, so they could only guess as to where the monsters went. To their left was a staircase. Straight in front of them was another corridor. They decided to take the staircase.

They followed it upwards for a long time, until finally they came to a much smaller door at the top, they went in. It looked like a type of balcony. They went over to see over the edge, and for the second time that day they were stunned by the sight they saw.

Thousands and thousands of monsters of every type swarmed about beneath them. Well, "swarmed" isn't exactly the right term, although that was their first impression. They were rather marching about in orderly formation, and as they followed one group of rolling Megatanks, they saw the embodiment of what they had guessed what was going to happen.

The Megatanks rolled onto a ramp leading to an opening in a spaceship so massive it blew everything out of proportion. To the monsters, it was like a car parked in the midst of a horde of ants. Its long, sleek white body had two jet-black wings, a giant engine exhaust near the tail, and, incongruously, 6 insect like legs. It looked like someone had grown the space shuttle to ten thousand times its original size and stuck some metal legs on it to make it walk. Xana's eye was imprinted 100 stories high near the ship's bow. And all the monsters were marching into it.

"How in the world do we stop that thing?" Exclaimed Ulrich.

"You don't."

The new voice made them all spin around. Behind them was a tall man wearing long black robes, a black helmet with lots of computerized gizmos in it, and a long staff with a glass bulb on the end. Behind him were monsters they had never seen before. They looked like a cross between stone robots and people made out of vines. Xana's eye was imprinted on their chests, and their heads had one mechanized real eye in it. Unlike Xana's other monsters, these ones were very human shaped, right down to the opposable thumbs.

"Who are you?" Said Ulrich, clearly astonished at the new arrivals.

"Why, I'm Xana, of course!" Xana said, opening his arms wide in a gesture that clearly indicated; "Here I am, after always hiding myself from you. Are you impressed? You should be." Alarmed, the kids raised their weapons. Xana extended his hand, and Ulrich's sword, Yumi's fans, Mattimeo's gun, and Odd's gloves flew into it.

"Now, now, none of that, now." Xana said with a sneer.

He walked over and stood next to them, looking over the balcony that overlooked the army below them. He gestured to it.

"Do you like it?" He asked. "I am finally about to fulfill my duty, children. In order to protect Lyoko, and you, Aelita," He ruffled her hair. She shrank away from him in anger. "I must destroy both the real world and the rest of cyberspace. With my army, I can easily achieve the latter. The virtual realms have not fought for thousands of years, and they have grown soft with peace. They won't stand a chance."

"You're a madman!" Exclaimed Odd. He punched Xana in the face.

Xana stepped back in pain at first, but then regained his composure and smiled evilly. He stepped back behind his humanoid monsters.

"Naturally," He continued, "I have to make sure that you children will not interfere with my plans." The smile was suddenly gone from his face as though it had never been there. "Automatons! Take these five and tie them up somewhere. Oh, and place their weapons somewhere in sight of them, but where they still can't be reached, to frustrate them. I'll send some guardians over to make a more permanent prison for them."

The automatons stepped forward and grabbed them roughly, carrying them off kicking and screaming. Jeremie stared in disbelief at his computer, not able to believe all that he had just seen and heard. There was nothing he could do to help them.

Chapter 12: Flametail the Phoenix

The automatons, though humanoid in shape, are by no means the most intelligent of Xana's monsters.

Xana told them to tie up the kids somewhere safe. So they took that to mean the most secure and most powerful place in Sector 5, which was the ship itself. As the five of them were marched toward the massive bulk, they saw the words "SSS Doom" printed high up on the starboard side.

"Real original name, huh, guys." Said Odd sarcastically.

"SILENCE!" Shouted the automaton carrying him in the monster language, apparently unaware that Odd had no idea what it was saying.

They were led up through one of the openings on the side of the ship, through an endless maze of corridors until they stopped at a room marked "Storage S207". They were thrust in and then tied up against the wall with some coils of rope on the floor. One of the Automatons went up to the computer on one of the side walls and notified the guardians of their location. Then they left the room.

There was a short silence. Then Aelita spoke. "Jeremie! Jeremie! Can you hear us?"

"I read you loud and clear, Aelita."

"Well, then, can you get us out of this mess, then?"

"Uh..." Jeremie quickly scanned the data in front of him. He rescanned it. "Those Automatons are not as smart as they look. I'll just delete the ropes." Jeremie typed something, then hit the delete key. The ropes vanished.

"Thanks, Jeremie!" Said Aelita with a wink, even though he couldn't see her. They grabbed their weapons, which had been left near them, just as Xana ordered.

It was that moment that the doors burst open, and five big glowing orange spheres filed into the room and moved towards their intended victims. Odd fired an arrow, but the guardian it hit just absorbed the blow without damage. Yumi whispered to the others.

"When I give the signal, dash forward and slide between them. Aelita, when they're behind us, create a wall trapping them in the other half of the room." They all nodded.

"NOW!" She shouted. They dashed forward and slipped through the gaps in the enclosing guardians. Before the guardians could turn around, Aelita created the wall, trapping them inside.

"Nice work, guys." Said Jeremie.

They dashed out of the room and ran down the corridor on their left, an the lookout for monsters.

"Xana must be somewhere on this ship. You have to stop him before he and his army leave for Lyoko!"

"Great, Jeremie. But how do we do that?" Asked Odd.

"I'll think of something. In the meantime, I've figured out how to program the advanced weapons the fake Franz made for you. I don't think it will be enough to destroy every last monster, though, so don't even try. Find Xana."

They ran down the hallway. Peeking through most of the doors, they saw monsters standing inside, and wisely decided not to go in. "It would help if we had a map, Jeremie." Said Ulrich.

"I've got one." Said Jeremie. He brought up a map of the ship on the holosphere map. "I'll guide you. Xana is in the master control room on level 884. There is an elevator at the end of the hall. And don't let the monsters see you, or else they will be all over you."

"Too late for that, Jeremie." Said Ulrich. There was a single kankrelat in the hall in front of them. It looked at them uncertainly. Then it sent a message to Xana about what it had seen.

In the control room, Xana received the message. "Curses! The children have escaped! Sound the alarm!" He said to the Scipizoa. It pulled a lever, and suddenly the alarm was everywhere. The monsters, getting the signal, instantly were on the move.

Ulrich stabbed the kankrelat, and it blew up. "Rats! Our cover has been blown. We'll just have to fight our way there." He said. They raced down the hallway, as though the monsters were already pursuing them.

"Sire, shall we get the children off the ship before we take off?" Asked the Scipizoa.

"No. If we are already in the digital void, then they will have no way to escape. Begin the takeoff. All the monsters are already inside." He turned to the control panel, and initiated the takeoff. "It is time."

One of the walls of the room the ship was stored in opened up with a loud screech, revealing the outside of sector 5. The ship's engines gunned, and then it flew out of the room. Finding themselves in a room with a window, the kids saw the entire thing. For a moment, they saw the blue curve of the sphere. Then the ship was off, going at an incredible speed unmatched by any real or virtual vehicle. They flew high over the mountains in the Mountain Region, and then they were in the sea of floating screens.

"That was fast." Said Mattimeo. "Looks like we're in the digital void, and fast approaching Lyoko's edge."

"No kidding. Look at that!" Said Yumi.

A wall of flame spread higher than the eye could see right in front of the ship. It curved upwards, downwards, and in all directions, surrounding Lyoko, which was still visible behind them, in a giant flaming bubble. It was the ship's turn to seem like an ant, staring at the inside of a big balloon.

Xana and the Scipizoa left the control room, and climbed the stairs up to the deck on the ship's top. They waited, staring intently at the wall.

"Boy, Aelita, I know you said that there was a firewall, but I had no idea you meant that so literally!" Said Odd.

"This is no time to be sightseeing, guys! Find the elevator!"

They stepped back into the hallway, but the path to the elevator was blocked by at least 400 Krabes, standing in rows.

"Uh oh." Said Yumi, worriedly.

"No problem. We've faced this many Krabes before, and that was without Franz's weapons. And we just have to get through them, not destroy all of them." Said Odd confidently.

"Then let's get this party started." Said Ulrich, drawing his sword.

They leapt into battle.

Outside on the top deck, Xana and the Scipizoa could see that something weird was happening to the wall. "General. Go oversee the destruction of those children. I will deal with this alone."

"As you wish, Sire." The Scipizoa drifted back down below decks.

As Xana watched the wall, a portion of the flames seemed to extend outward, and slowly, horribly, they began to form themselves into a head, a body, talons, and wings, all flaming. With a sudden lurch, the flaming bird broke free of the wall. It was easily twice the size of the ship. The eye of Lyoko burned bright blue on its forehead.

"WHO DARES TO COME TO THIS PLACE?" Boomed the bird.

"I, Lord Xana of Lyoko, call upon Flametail, guardian Phoenix of the firewall! I have come with my army to rid cyberspace of the virtual realms, and I say to you, let us pass! The password is REBIRTH OF THE PHEONIX!"

The eye on Flametail's head turned from blue to red. "Very well. You may pass." Said Flametail.

The flames in the wall parted, revealing more dark blue space filled with floating screens on the other side.

"And you, phoenix, are going to help me achieve my goal." Said Xana with a slight smile. His staff glowed with energy, and a beam of black light flew out and engulfed the Phoenix.

"I will help you, sire." Said the controlled Flametail.

The ship and the phoenix flew through the wall of flames, and the wall closed up behind them. They flew off into the void, ready to cause destruction.

Chapter 13: Surrounded by your Enemies

Odd, Yumi, Aelita, Mattimeo and the Ulrich triplets were making swift progress that sent the heads spinning of the monsters they spared. As they advanced down the hallway, the Three Ulriches shot shockwave after shockwave at the Krabes directly in front of them out of their swords, clearing the path ahead of them. The monsters were still firing madly, and they would have been deep fried already if Aelita had not generated some shields, which were kept whirling around them by Yumi's telekinetic powers. Finally, Odd and Mattimeo brought up the rear, continually blasting the monsters that closed the gap behind them with homing arrows and plasma rays, and as their little band moved forward, the Krabe's ranks were left in tatters.

The Scipizoa watched angrily from the control room over one of the screens. It pressed a button with the end of one of its tentacles.

"Release the second wave!" It hissed.

Ulrich blasted another Krabe, and then there was open hallway ahead of them. But not for long. Two large doors in the wall opened up, and a horde of bloks even larger than the Krabes' horde poured out in front of them, and the remaining Krabes were fast coming up behind them.

"Oh no, not more monsters!" Shouted Yumi over the din of laser fire bouncing off the shields.

"We'll never make it in time at this rate!" Shouted Mattimeo.

"I've got you covered!" Said Jeremie.

Their vehicles materialized in front of them, and soon they were flying over the monsters instead of barging through them, and the unfortunate bloks could not fire upwards in retaliation as Odd and Mattimeo blasted them from above.

"Hey, look! I see the elevator at the end of the corridor!" Shouted Aelita.

"We're not there yet." Said Ulrich.

The way was still blocked by three rows of Megatanks, carefully arranged so they wouldn't hit each other. One of them fired, and the elliptical laser shattered one of Yumi's shields. It prepared to fire again, but as they flew overhead, Ulrich gave it a swift kick to turn it in the wrong direction, and it took out the entire first row. They reached the elevator and got in, eager to get away from the hordes behind them.

The wall of the elevator was full of buttons. Odd searched them quickly.

"Ahh. Here we go. Level 884." Odd pressed the button. They stood there, waiting patiently, while some generic elevator music Xana had stolen played.

The Scipizoa watched the progress of the elevator up to the top floor. At that moment, Xana entered from the top deck. "General! I thought I told you to oversee the battle!"

"I am!" Said the Scipizoa in alarm, indicating the screen.

"Go oversee it in person, I mean." He sensed a little fear from his monster. "What's the matter? You should know by now that those kids can't destroy you! Now go! Before I lose my patience! I will oversee the flying of this ship."

The Scipizoa drifted out of the room, reassured, ready to get its revenge on the children.

The elevator door opened up and they stepped out. They were immediately greeted by hordes of Kankrelats and Frelions. Yumi barely raised the shields in time to stop the barrage of lasers. They started making their way through the masses, and would have gotten through this attack force just like the others if the Scipizoa did not have a little surprise for them. They had come to a place where the hall made a sudden right turn as well as continuing forward. Just as they reached it, the Scipizoa pressed a button, and a wall of steel dropped down, with Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi on one side and Mattimeo and Aelita on the other.

"Oh no!" Said Aelita, banging on the wall.

"We'll have to find another way around." Mattimeo said. He turned around to see the horde advancing. "We can't fight them. Follow me!" He grabbed Aelita by the arm and pulled her down the side passage, the monsters following them.

"Oh no!" Said Yumi, banging on the wall.

"Yumi! We still have to get through these other monsters. Mattimeo and Aelita will find another way around." Ulrich said. He saw the worried look on her face. "I promise." He said, laying his hand on her shoulder. For a moment more, Yumi's face stayed that way. Then her expression was resolute.

"You're right, Ulrich. We have to teach these creatures a lesson."

Xana watched them with concern. He turned over in his mind what was happening, and he determined that the monsters were obsolete for this purpose, and no amount of them could hope to stop the kids. He left the control room for a large room behind it. He went to a secret door in the wall and opened it. "It is nearly time, my friends. Time to destroy your predecessors. Come out and fight for me."

Three pairs of glowing red eyes opened up in the darkness in front of him.

Chapter 14: Seeing Double

"This Way!" Mattimeo shouted to Aelita.

She followed him down a narrow side passage. The horde of Kankrelats and Frelions charged down the main corridor that they had just left, unaware that their quarry had gotten away from them. Safe for the moment, they walked cautiously down the corridor. There was a small door at the end, and it was a back door to a very large room. They stared up at the large objects they saw in front of them, and big grins grew on their faces.

"Want to take these babies for a joyride, Aelita?"

Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi had faced a total of 500 Krabes, 1000 bloks, 100 Megatanks, 5000 Kankrelats and Frelions, and now they were beginning to get very tired.

"I... Don't know... how long... I can keep... this up." Said Yumi.

The constant use of her telekinetic powers were really beginning to drain her energy. Ulrich shot another energy wave out of his sword, but the Kankrelats he destroyed were instantly replaced by new ones. He was hit by a laser, and dropped to one knee.

"uh oh." he said. "They're beginning to wear us down."

"You have to get away from them! now that you're away from Lyoko, I can't rematerialize you!" Shouted Jeremie in dismay.

"What? Couldn't you have told us that a little earlier?" Shouted Odd in frustration as he shot anther arrow. He was beginning to wonder if he was running out.

It was then, though, that the monsters stopped firing. They scuttled and buzzed away down the corridor away from them. Xana had called them off.

"Careful, guys. It could be a trap." Said Yumi. They headed down the corridor.

"The control room is just beyond a large room at the end of this hallway." Said Jeremie. "Keep an eye out for trouble."

They went through the door at the end of the hallway and abruptly stepped into total darkness. The door behind them shut and locked of its own accord.

"Huh? What's going on?" Exclaimed Odd.

A long rectangular light appeared in the darkness in front of them, and it took them a moment to realize they were staring at a window to a lighted room high on the wall in front of them. For a moment, all they saw nothing on the other side. Then Xana stepped up to the window.

"Xana!" Shouted Ulrich. "Come down and fight us, you coward!"

"Well, well, well. I should have known better than to let the automatons take care of you. You've certainly caused a lot of trouble, haven't you? But you haven't even destroyed one percent of my army."

The kids had trouble swallowing this fact.

"HAHAHAHAHA! You still think you can stop me, don't you? Well, fighting you is beneath me. Lights!"

The room suddenly lit up.

"Life is full of surprises, isn't it?" Said Odd.

In the middle of the room in front of them stood... themselves. The three clones were dressed and shaped exactly like them. Their skin was an Eire metallic blue, and their eyes glowed red malevolently. Odd could see tiny lines in their skin, and on either side small dots that, upon closer inspection, were tiny rivets. They were clearly very finely crafted robots.

"Children, meet Mecha-Odd, Mecha-Ulrich, and Mecha-Yumi." Said Xana with a sneer.

The three robots struck a fighting posture.

"Can't you come up with anything more original, Xana?" Said Ulrich mockingly. "Do you really think these cheap knockoffs can beat us?"

"Well, why don't you play a little with your new friends and find out?" Said Xana. "You may be surprised. ATTACK!"

Mecha-Ulrich dashed forward, perfectly mimicking Ulrich's enhanced speed. He grabbed Odd and threw him into Yumi, and the two of them tumbled in a heap on the floor to the side of the room, where their clones advanced on them.

"QUADRANGULATE!" Shouted Mecha-Ulrich in a grating metallic voice, and Ulrich suddenly found himself in a square of yellow light, with a Mecha-Ulrich at every corner.

"What the...!" Exclaimed Ulrich.

"Oh." Said Xana, casually inspecting his fingernails. "You must understand that these are not exact clones. They're more of an... improvement, on the originals. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a city to destroy. Ta ta!"

He left the window, and while Ulrich was still staring at the window in shock, Mecha-Ulrich took that moment to attack. The square abruptly broke off, and he leapt into the air. Ulrich quickly raised his sword to block his clone's blow. He was knocked backwards by the impact.

Mecha-Yumi was spinning around on one foot, deftly catching one fan and throwing it back and catching the other in one fluid movement. Yumi dodged one fan after another, and barely dodging them on the rebound. Yumi threw one of her own fans, but Mecha-Yumi just caught it and added it to the cycle, while Mecha-Odd fired a steady stream of arrows at the retreating Odd as though there was no limit to the number he had, which was in fact exactly the case.

"How can we possibly defeat them?" Muttered an astonished Ulrich to himself.

Chapter 15: My Krabe, the Bowling Pin

Odd was running around the room. A steady stream of arrows thwacked into the wall just behind him, as Mecha-Odd popped them off like machine gun bullets. Odd fired his own volley, but Mecha-Odd just leapt aside with cat-like grace that Odd had never matched. He started firing again, and before Odd could get out of the way, one hit him in the shoulder.

"Ow! That hurt!" He said.

"It should." Said Mecha-Odd. "I intend to cause as much pain as possible for you before you die."

With a frustrated yell, Odd fired again. But it was not entirely without purpose as it whizzed by Mecha-Odd. It flew straight into one of the fans that Mecha-Yumi was throwing at Yumi, and it clattered to the floor, where Yumi picked it up. She threw her fans again, just as Mecha-Yumi threw hers, and the four fans collided in midair and went back to their original owners. But no sooner had Mecha-Yumi caught her fans that she threw one again, and it whizzed through the air and struck Yumi in the chest. She collapsed on the ground.

"YUMI!" Shouted Ulrich. But he could do nothing to help her, as Mecha-Ulrich was dueling him furiously, their swords clashing in bursts of energy. Ulrich was hard pressed to block the oncoming blows, and couldn't do anything to advance.

Odd was hit by another arrow from his adversary, and he stumbled, hitting the ground hard. He struggled to one knee, gasping. Mecha-Odd bent over him, grinning evilly. "A little worn out from battle, are you?" He cackled mockingly. "Aelita... and Mattimeo... will stop you..." Said Odd. "Those two? They're probably long dead from the monster's attacks by now!"

"YAHOOOOOOOOO!" Shouted Mattimeo.

He and Aelita were each piloting a very large metal robot. The automatons had built them for themselves to use in the invasion, but with the two kids at the wheel, there was seemingly no stopping them. They smashed through blockade after blockade of monsters, sending them flying into each other and exploding. Aelita picked up a megatank and sent it rolling uncontrollably into a bunch of Krabes. They went down like bowling pins.

"Strike!" Shouted Mattimeo over the din of lasers bouncing harmlessly off the armor of the robots, and gave her a thumbs up with one of the robot's fists. The fist then turned into a laser cannon and blasted another line of advancing creatures.

The Scipizoa watched all this from a security camera screen.

"Did you lock up the robot parking garage?" It hissed angrily to the automaton beside it. It shook its head nervously. Without warning the Scipizoa grabbed it and broke it in half with its tentacles. The other automatons looked around nervously at each other.

"What do we do to stop them, General?" One of them dared to ask.

"Simple. We set an ambush."

Xana looked out one of the windows of the control room. Ahead of the ship in front of him was this small faraway gray sphere. Inside it, Xana knew, was the city of Kanatopolis. He pushed on the throttle. "Full speed ahead."

"Alright, guys." Said Jeremie. "You have to get to the control room fast. Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi are in big trouble."

"No sweat." Said Mattimeo. They charged ahead into a big room, with a bridge spanning a vast chasm beneath them, and two overhead walkways. It seemed totally empty. Confident of their robot's abilities to stop any surprises, they charged forward. Suddenly, two rows of tarantulas appeared on overhead walkways above them, and started firing downward.

"Ha! Fire all you like, monsters!" You'll never stop- huh?" Said Mattimeo. The robot's view screen was indicating that a laser had flown directly into the robot's exhaust port and hit the internal engine, which was now on "Extreme Danger Overload."

"Uh oh."

There was an explosion, and then his robot tumbled awkwardly off the bridge. It fell a long way before landing in a heap on a walkway below the main bridge that they hadn't noticed earlier. A few seconds later, he saw Aelita's robot falling down and landing on another bridge below his.

Aelita clambered out of the smoking wreck, and was immediately surrounded by tarantulas. She stepped back fearfully. It was then that the Scipizoa pushed its way through the other monsters. It spoke to Aelita in English, but that somehow didn't seem to surprise her.

"This is the end of the line for you, Aelita." It laughed triumphantly. "you and your friends will all fall and die along with your pathetic world! So. Do you have any last words?"

Aelita looked up, and saw Mattimeo's robot. He was still inside it, and it was obvious by the way he was grinning that he had a plan. He indicated via sign language that the robot's laser gun was still working. Aelita quickly calculated their position in the ship, and instantly saw what he was planning. "Yeah." She said. "I have a question. Do you like the digital void, Scipizoa?"

"What? What's that supposed to-" It never got a chance to finish the sentence. Mattimeo blasted a hole in the wall, and then the blue screens of the void could be seen beyond.

"NOOOOOOOO! YOU FOOLS!" Screamed the Scipizoa.

But if you know something about physics, you will know that since the air pressure outside the ship was far less than what was inside, the pressure must be equalized, which meant that the hole suddenly turned into the vacuum cleaner of doom, and all the monsters were sucked out into the void, screeching angrily.

"I... Will... get... you... for... this!" Shouted the Scipizoa before it disappeared off into the distance.

Aelita's wrecked robot flew into and plugged the hole, stopping the vacuum effect, before Aelita herself could be sucked out into open space. "Quickly! I don't think that robot will hold fast for very long!" Mattimeo shouted to Aelita. They dashed to the opposite doorway.

Taking directions from Jeremie to find their way, they dashed through hallways, up stairs, down corridors, until they were led to a small, nondescript door in the wall.

"In there!" Said Jeremie. They went in.

Ulrich, Yumi and Odd were backed into a corner, their clones closing in on them, grinning malevolently. The three heroes were exhausted, battered, and on the verge of defeat.

"Yumi..." Said Ulrich.

"Uh huh?" She said wearily in reply.

"I just want you to know, that, if we don't make it out of here alive..."

"I know. I love you too, Ulrich."

"HAHAHAHAHA! Very touching." Said Mecha-Ulrich. "NOT! Prepare to die, fools!" He raised his sword and brought it down, whistling through the air towards Ulrich's head.

It would have been the end of them, too, if it weren't for a little something. The room Mattimeo and Aelita entered was the storage room for the three robo-clones. On one side stood three platforms with lots of wires hanging down over them. On the other stood a computer with a big lever on one side. They went over to the computer, and saw the three clones closing in on their friends on the screen.

"What the..? What are those?" Exclaimed Mattimeo.

"They're robot clones, made by Xana. And they've been wining their fight with the originals." Said Jeremie.

They saw Mecha-Ulrich raise his sword.

"Oh no!" Said Mattimeo. But Aelita, looking around, made the connection between the platforms and wires, the computer, the clones, and the red lever.

"I hope this works..." She said, and pulled the lever down.

In the other room, the glowing red eyes of the clones suddenly went dark.

"Huh?" Said Ulrich weakly. For a moment, the clones swayed on their feet. Then they toppled over with a metallic clank. Odd prodded the deactivated Mecha-Odd.

"Well, what do you know!" Said Odd. "Did they run out of batteries?"

It was then that Mattimeo and Aelita came through the doorway into the room.

"Odd! Ulrich! Yumi!" Aelita shouted. The two groups ran over to each other and embraced warmly.

"Is everyone alright?" Asked Jeremie.

"A little tired, but all in one piece." Said Odd.

"Right." Said Aelita. "We've beaten the Scipizoa, the clones, but... where's Xana!"

While the kids had been fighting, the small gray sphere had been getting closer and bigger, until it was far larger than the ship. It passed through the edge, and in the control room, Xana went from seeing all gray to seeing the outer plain of Kanatopolis, and the city itself in the distance, Its towering spires shining brightly on a rare clear day.

"It has begun." He said.

Chapter 16: Cry of the Phoenix

The five children burst into the control room, weapons drawn.

"Uh oh. Looks like we're here." Remarked Odd, looking at the approaching city. "Wow! It's even bigger than I imagined it."

"Right." Said Ulrich. "But where's Xana?"

The control room was empty. At least it seemed that way to the kids. Xana, after hearing their footsteps on the floor outside, had turned himself invisible, and was now looking at the kids, wondering what they would do next.

"Jeremie," Said Yumi. "Xana isn't here."

"He's there all right. He's right in front of you!" Jeremie said in reply.

"But we can't see him!"

Xana, deciding there was no point in remaining hidden, released a powerful bolt of lightning from his staff. It almost hit Yumi, but she jumped aside just in time. Xana faded back into visibility.

"So." He said. "I suppose you have come here to fight me."

"This plan of yours will never work, Xana." Said Ulrich.

"Oh, really? Look. Kanatopolis approaches."

When the Kanatopolis civilians saw the ship emerge from the edge of the bubble surrounding their city, they weren't very surprised. Large ships often came into the airspace above the city. Some of them pointed out the ship's rather strange name. But they weren't really scared until the second large flying thing came through the bubble's edge. The Phoenix gave a low screech, and all of a sudden there was pandemonium as people started running scared from the monster.

"When we fly over the city, Operation Endgame will begin. My armies will drop inside large pods to the ground, where they will proceed to destroy everything in sight. Meanwhile, my ship and the phoenix will attack from above. You're too late to stop me now, young ones."

Ulrich swung his sword at Xana. With lightning speed, he raised his staff to block it. "Still interested in fighting, hm? Very well."

The computerized workings inside Xana's helmet started to glow. A hole opened up in the side and four small yellow orbs with Xana's eye on them flew out and arranged themselves around Xana. A greenish sphere was generated around him. Ulrich swung his sword again, but it bounced uselessly off the shield.

"You always seem to be hiding behind your minions whenever we see you, Xana." He said angrily.

"Big deal." Xana unleashed a wave of blue energy from the staff. It fizzled a hole in the wall where Odd had been moments before.

"That shield doesn't scare me." Said Yumi.

She flung her fans, and they hit the orbs generating the shield. They exploded, and the shield shattered, which gave Odd the chance to fire an arrow into Xana's chest.

"Ooof!"

"Nice going guys. Xana has 80 life points left." Said Jeremie.

"You're monitoring this, you little weasel!" Exclaimed Xana. Angrily, he unleashed another blast of energy, sweeping green flames across the ground in front of him. They barely made it out of the way in time. Mattimeo humped onto one of the chairs in the control room and blasted Xana with his plasma gun. It hit Xana's helmet, shattering the glass front which protected the delicate inner workings inside. Electricity buzzed from inside.

"You've almost got him beat!" Shouted Jeremie joyfully.

"I always had the feeling that if you faced us in person you would be no match for us." Said Yumi.

Xana responded by shooting a white laser out of the staff, and it would have hit Yumi if Aelita had not called into existence a big block of metal to block the way. Odd fired another arrow into Xana. "One last shot ought to do it." He said, taking aim.

But Xana, lying on the floor in front of them, just started to laugh.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Odd! Have you forgotten the virus I gave Aelita? If you kill me, I take her with me!"

They all turned white. They had forgotten.

"Now die!" He unleashed another blast, and this time it hit Odd right on. He flew backwards into the wall and slumped there.

Ulrich advance on Xana, sword drawn.

"Oh no, you're not going to attack me, are you, Ulrich?" Xana said mockingly.

"Not in the way you think I am." He replied.

Without warning, he lunged forward and ripped the staff from Xana's hand. He then shattered one of the ship's windows with his sword, and hurled the staff out the window, where it broke into a thousand pieces on the ground far below, among the panicking virtual civilians.

Ulrich, Yumi, and Mattimeo backed the dismayed Xana into a corner.

"We're not going to kill you. But you lose anyway." Said Mattimeo.

"Not yet, I don't!" Shouted Xana, vaulting over them. He quickly typed something in into the guidance computer.

"I've set this ship on to a crash course with the city's power plant. When they collide, the entire city will be wiped out in the explosion!"

"You really are a madman!" Exclaimed Aelita. Xana replied by running out of the room, before Odd, who had gotten up, could get him.

Mattimeo got into the pilot's chair.

"Mattimeo, what are you doing?" Asked Jeremie.

"I've had some flight training. I'm going to try and stop the ship from crashing."

"But what about Xana?" Asked Jeremie. Mattimeo turned to the others.

"You guys go stop him. He's probably trying to make an escape from the ship." They nodded and quickly rushed out of the room.

"While those kids are trying to save the city," Said Xana, as he ran, "I can get back to Lyoko in my escape ship."

He had reached a small red pod-like vehicle that was anchored to the side of the ship on the outside wing. He got in and took off, just as the kids burst out the door to the outside.

"There he goes!" Said Aelita.

"Jeremie." Said Ulrich. "Materialize our vehicles and we can go after him before he goes too far."

"They're on the way." Said Jeremie, as the overboard, overwing, and overbike materialized in front of them. They hopped on and flew off in pursuit.

As the escape ship whizzed through the air back towards the bubble's edge, Xana spotted the kids flying towards him in the rear-view mirror. Odd fired an arrow, and the mirror shattered. Xana called to Flametail the Phoenix, who was flying nearby.

"Quickly! Don't just stand there! Attack them!"

Flametail obediently flew towards the kids, breathing fire. They quickly moved out of the way to avoid the flames.

"I've got a plan." Said Yumi.

She quickly told the others, and then they put it into action. Ulrich and Yumi flew on either side of the Phoenix, and then sliced the tips of its wings off with their weapons. Its wings clipped, Flametail plummeted with a screech. As it passed by him, Odd took aim. "LASER ARROW!" He shouted, and then fired all the rest of his arrows into the phoenix's massive head. It gave one anguished cry, and then exploded.

A piece of the debris hit the side of Xana's escape ship, knocking it open, and Xana was catapulted out. He flew through the air, bewildered at his sudden defeat, and then plummeted down, down, past the edge of the ground on which the city stood.

"GAHHHH!" He shouted, and then plummeted into the void, his angry cries fading out of hearing.

"Oh no!" Said Yumi. "If he dies, so does Aelita!"

"Not to worry." Said Jeremie. "A person who falls into the void does not really die. But it is unlikely that they will ever be found again."

The four kids looked around at each other. "

Well." Said Ulrich. "That's that, right?"

"Umm..." Said Aelita. "Oh no! We forgot about Mattimeo!" She pointed.

The ship was careening wildly about, as Mattimeo struggled to bring it under control. It made a sharp left turn, and one of the wings smashed into the side of one of the megatowers. The solidly built building was not damaged in the least, but with one of its wings smashed, the SSS Doom started spinning into a wild barrel roll, and as the engines started to malfunction, the ship was consumed in a giant fireball.

Inside the control room, flames burst through the door.

"Uh oh. Time to leave." Said Mattimeo.

He put on the parachute he had found, and jumped clear of the ship, landing on top of one of the smaller megatowers near the city walls. He watched the ship smash into the ground outside the city walls where it didn't hurt anyone. He saw hundreds of people starting to swarm out of the gates, trying to figure out what was happening as police vehicles started to appear to keep the peace after the pandemonium had subsided.

"Well," Said Mattimeo. "That's that."

Epilogue: An author's tale (continued)

The terrifying happenings over Kanatopolis 200 years ago are still never far from the people's memory. It's kind of strange how everything worked out. Perhaps you think that Aelita, Odd, Yumi, Ulrich, Mattimeo and Jeremie were instantly recognized as heroes. Perhaps you are a fool.

Sorry, sorry. I get angry sometimes when I think about what happened. The children came forward to the city police as "the ones responsible" and told their story. The police believed every word of it, and it was well documented, (which is how I was able to write this story) but they refused to tell the public the truth. They came up with a really pathetic substitute explanation and put that in the paper. The general gist of it was that a rather eccentric and rich animal lover named Xana was moving, and that he had loaded his entire collection into that ship. The Phoenix was just another one of the pets. Unfortunately, military soldiers, not knowing what was going on, shot the Phoenix down, and in the process caused the ship to malfunction badly and go spinning out of control, eventually landing outside the city limits. The kids names were not mentioned.

The city officials told the kids that if they told the truth, the knowledge that they just narrowly missed being invaded by an army of hostile creatures would terrify everybody, and the city would descend into anarchy. From what I know of the kids, they probably accepted this with good graces, and though there were exceptions, the city as a whole swallowed the bogus story. As I said, the whole aftermath of the crash angers me.

Oh well. It was probably for the best at the time. Aelita and the others probably wanted to go back home and lead normal lives anyway. But, as I said before, that happened 200 years ago, and with the kids long gone, the public deserves to know the truth. So I am going to take this story to the biggest publishing company in Kanatopolis to make what really happened known. And if I'm lucky, the government will accept that there is no longer any need to keep the truth secret. Otherwise I will be dragged out of my bed at night by masked men, and I will never be heard from again. Hey, life in this city sucks anyway.

THE END