The Two Faces of Evil
Part II of The Search For Franz Hopper
6: Love and Peace or Else

Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko
It was midnight when the monitor of the computer linked to the supercomputer was turned off by Jeremie that day, but it turned back on showing the symbol of XANA. A specter began to leak out of the monitor and the bright light of the monitor turned off.

Jeremie woke up the next day at around 6:00 AM, but he realized it was the weekend and went tried to go back to sleep. Then his laptop began to beep repeatedly waking Jeremie and keeping him from going back to sleep.

"What? How?" Jeremie asked himself. "A tower?"

He called Aelita who was awake by that time ready to go take a shower.

"Jeremie?" asked Aelita.

"Yeah it's me", he replied. "Somehow there's an activated tower on Lyoko."

"What?" replied Aelita. "How's that possible?"

"I don't know but I don't like it. I'll call Odd and Ulrich. Can you call Yumi please."

"Okay."

Jeremie called the dynamic duo while Aelita called Yumi. They went to the Hermitage and told Franz about the activated tower and tagged along as well. The six reached the factory and Jeremie wanted to Franz in action. He immediately virtualized the four warriors onto Lyoko and pointed out the activated tower that the superscan picked up. Jeremie then showed him where the vehicles were on the supercomputer and had him virtualize them as well. He was stunned at how fast this man worked.

"Can someone give me a visual?" Franz asked.

"Okay", replied Aelita as a window opened on the screen showing a red-glowing tower.

"Ugh! XANA", said Jeremie. "But how could he activate a tower. He's in no way a part of the supercomputer anymore."

"Not sure", replied Franz. "But more importantly Aelita needs to deactivate that tower."

"Oh no", said Jeremie as he realized something. "If XANA can activate towers, then he should be able to send monsters. Guys watch out!"

Indeed there were monsters waiting for the group at the tower, an arsenal of 2 Tarantulas and 5 Hornets. Odd went ahead and began to strafe at the hornets on his Overboard and managed to kill two of them. The others left their vehicles while Aelita stayed behind out of harm's way. Yumi and Ulrich engaged the Tarantulas. Ulrich charged and triplicated. They opened fire as Ulrich approached. Yumi had a wide open shot and threw her fans at the beasts. Both fans hit the same monster and killed it. Ulrich lost one of his copies but one got its attention while the other struck its insignia. Three Hornets remained and Odd was having trouble getting an open shot only shielding the rapid fire lasers. One of the Hornets noticed Yumi getting ready to attack and fired a laser at her and hit her, but she only lost 20 life points. Odd then fired on that Hornet and got a bull's-eye on it but at the same time the other two Hornets hit Odd enough to devirtualize him. Ulrich got on his Overbike and floored it. He was about a few meters before the Hornets and jumped off his bike and managed to land a hit on the Hornet's insignia. Yumi finished off the last Hornet with a nice clean decapitation.

"Go for it Aelita", said Ulrich.

Aelita entered the tower and rose up to the second platform. She entered CODE: LYOKO and the tower was deactivated. But the superscan began to beep again. Another tower was activated.

"XANA you're really irritating me today!" exclaimed Jeremie.

"Calm down it's no big deal", replied Franz like a father.

Odd came up to the lab room but was holding his forehead with his right hand as if he had a headache.

"Are you okay Odd?" asked Jeremie.

"I'll be fine", replied Odd. "I just hit my head on the scanner door on the way out."
"The next tower's in the Mountain Sector", announced Franz.

The three went to the nearby passage tower on their vehicles that then took them to the Mountain Sector. They arrived only to find a trio of Blocks blockading the only path to the tower, which they could see straight ahead. This began to irritate Aelita so she rashly charged ahead and jumped over the Blocks. Ulrich followed and took out a Block in the process. Yumi stayed back and cleaned up and took out the other two with one flip of a wrist. A moment later the tower was deactivated.

"Is it over?" asked Aelita.

"Yes it is", her father replied. "I'll bring all of you guys back to Earth now."

They others were brought back to Earth and all met in the lab room.

"So how exactly did XANA pull off his trick with the towers?" asked Yumi.

"I don't have an answer", replied Jeremie. "But maybe he does."

"I have a hypothesis, but it's rather irrational", said Franz.

"Anything's good at this point", said Aelita.

"Alright then. I thought the towers were diversions but knowing XANA he's not that smart, just devious and cruel, plus it doesn't fit the case that XANA is independent of the supercomputer. Then I thought that XANA probably wasn't freed from the supercomputer or rather didn't leave for a reason. But I have no idea what that reason is. Thus your friend who turned out to be XANA must've been a polymorphing thing of some kind."

"Both are good scenarios", said Jeremie. "But I just thought of something else. What if XANA was able to split himself into two and sent one half to Earth while the other controlled Lyoko. But we can't be too sure about anything since we have no absolute evidence."

"Okay can we go now?" asked Odd. "My stomach and spine are about to touch cause I'm so hungry." His stomach growled loudly.

The others laughed and all decided to head back.

When they got back to school, it was noon. Yumi called home to tell her parents she was going to be with her friends for a while. They went to eat where Odd's appetite was really showing considering he got enough food to kill a pig. After watching Odd's bottomless pit do its work, the gang decided to go to the Hermitage to help Franz clean up the place. None of them complained even if it was work, there was nothing else to do.

"Wow!" said Jeremie as he looked at a spotless living room. "You really fixed the place up."

"I still haven't cleaned the basement or the second floor yet", said Franz.

They began cleaning the second floor sicced all the bedrooms were there and it looked like Franz needed a place to sleep. After a couple of hours they finished cleaning the master bedroom, Aelita's old room, and what looked like a guest room. The group took a break and got something to drink then headed for the basement. After a few hours the basement was finally clean. The gang went back to school only to find a few Krabs and a squad of Kankrelats ransacking the school causing all the students and faculty to panic.

"Ugh! XANA!" said Jeremie.

"To the factory then?" asked Odd.

"Let's go", Jeremie replied.

"I'll stay here to get everyone else to safety", said Ulrich.

"Okay good luck", said Yumi.

The other four then headed for the factory as Ulrich began to round everyone up into the cafeteria. They began to take trays, brooms, and anything else that would make a decent weapon, and locked the doors to the cafeteria. By that time Jeremie had already virtualized the others onto Lyoko.

"The superscan seems to be malfunctioning", said Jeremie. "So you guys will have to search for a tower on foot."

Then out of the roof came a specter.

"Hey what the? Ah...aahhhhh!"

"Jeremie?" cried Aelita. "Jeremie!"

"We can't do anything let's go!" said Yumi.

They group began to search for the tower. Meanwhile back at school, Ulrich was having trouble moving the evacuees from building to building with the Kankrelats constantly chasing them and getting into their hiding areas as well as the Krabs being able to destroy the doors with their lasers. The cafeteria was a wreck as well as the gym. He finally took them to the science building and took them to the roof.

"Being up here should give us quite a bit of time up here", said Ulrich to the evacuees.

"What are those things?" asked a student.

"I don't know", Ulrich said. "But we can't keep hiding. They're bound to corner us."

Back in Lyoko, the group so far had no luck in finding the activated tower after half an hour of searching the world.

"Where could it be?" asked Odd.

"I don't know, but this is weird", said Yumi. "We've checked all four sectors and there's not a single tower activated."

"All four..." said Aelita. "Wait that's it! It's in Sector 5!"

"Holy crap you're right!" replied Odd awestruck.

"Jeremie, we know where the tower is", yelled Aelita. "Jeremie? Are you there?"

"He's not there", said Odd. "But how are we gonna get the transporter?"

"One of us is gonna have to be devirtualized and enter the code ourselves", said Aelita.

"Okay how?" asked Odd.

"You're armed aren't you?" said Yumi.

"I'll go back", said Odd. "Yumi will be more useful with her telekinesis."

"Okay then..." said Yumi as she threw her fan at Odd, devirtualizing him.

He was back on Earth and took the elevator to the lab room. When the doors opened, he noticed Jeremie on the floor unconscious.

"Jeremie!" cried Odd. "Jermeie wake up!"

Jeremie was out cold.

"So that's what that scream was about...sorry about this, please forgive me."

Odd carefully hit Jeremie's face and he woke up.
"What was that for?" he said.

"Hey you were out cold for a while!" Odd replied. "Anyways, we discovered the tower's in Sector 5. The girls are waiting for you to send the transporter."

"Okay", Jeremie said. "Aelita, Yumi I'm back."

"Thank goodness you're all right", Aelita said in relief.

"I'm sending the transporter now", Jermeie replied as he hit the return key.

"I'm gonna go back to help Ulrich. Okay?" said Odd.

"Okay but be careful", said Jeremie. "Oh I forgot to tell you that a specter attacked me. It's at the school by now I'd say."

Odd nodded and headed back to school. When he arrived he saw the two Krabs outside firing at the doors in an attempt to make a big enough entrance for them to get into. He called Ulrich.

"Hey Ulrich?" asked Odd.

"Odd?" asked Ulrich. "Finally help has arrived."

"Where are you?"

"On top of the science building. Listen, we need weapons to fight the Kanakrelats that are already in the building. Try the toolshed, there should be a few power tools and makeshift polearms we can use from there."

"Be right there."

Odd headed for the toolshed. He found a wheel barrel and put as many things as he could into it. He took the wagon to about 100 feet from the doors to the building and then charged at the Krabs. The monsters didn't notice him as he ran down the doors with the wheel barrel. He called Ulrich again after finding a good spot to avoid the lasers from the Krabs.

"Ulrich are you there?"

"Yeah, did you get what we need?"

"Yeah but I can't take all of it up myself. I need help."

"Ok be right there."

Ulrich left the roof telling everyone to stay there. He ran down floor by floor but when he reached the thrived floor, he heard a noise and looked over the corner of the stairs to see the Kankrelat squad patrolling the hallway. He made a run for the stairs that were right in front of him. One of them noticed him and the monsters chased him down. He ran much faster than the monsters but they had lethal weapons on their side. Once he reached the ground floor, Odd was there holding off the Krabs with a shovel.

"What kept ya?" asked Odd.

"Kankrelats", replied Ulrich. "Let's get going."

They took most of the stuff from the wheel barrel and ran up the stairs. They were now out of the Krabs' fire but they ran into the Kankrelats. Ulrich apparently took a nail gun from the wagon and began to fire at the monsters. Odd charged at them with his shovel and slap shotted three of the monsters killing all three of them. Ulrich managed to kill one strafing side to side. The one he didn't kill fired at him and hit his leg. Ulrich was down.

"Ulrich!" cried Odd as he crushed the Kankrelat with his shovel from behind.

"Ulrich say something!" Odd yelled. But there was no answer.

He carried Ulrich up to the roof of the building. Everyone was stunned at what happened. Odd then heard the Krabs moving away from the building. It looked like they were heading for the factory. While Odd was looking over the edge, the specter Jeremie warned him about came out of the floor and pushed him over the ledge. He fell towards his fate but managed to grab onto a window sill on the second floor. He pulled himself up, broke the window and went inside again.

Back on Lyoko, the gang found the tower inside Sector 5.

"It's always this tower isn't it", said Yumi. "Well, no monsters. Whoops spoke too soon."

Three Creepers crawled up from the abyss the tower was floating over. Yumi immediately threw one of her fans at one of them and killed it. The others began to fire at her and hit her three times, which was enough to devirtualize her.

"Oh no!" cried Jeremie. "Aelita!"

Aelita began to worry. She stepped back a little and made a running start towards the tower. The Creepers were too slow to hit her while he jumped with all her might towards the tower. She was in. And a moment later.

"Tower deactivated", announced Aelita.

Yumi's cell began to ring. It was Odd.

"Yumi?" asked Odd.

"Yeah it's me...What happened?...Ulrich!...No it can't be. Jeremie I have to get back to school now!"

"It's Ulrich isn't it. Go get him...Aelita I'm going to devirtualize you now, get ready."

Back at school, things have calmed down now that the monsters were gone. Yumi arrived and found Ulrich in the infirmary with Odd.

"Is he?" asked Yumi.

"No he's just hurt and unconscious", replied Odd. "Don't worry, he's fine."

"How can he be fine if he's like this?" Yumi cried as she began to cry. "He's unconscious and I don't know what the hell's wrong with his leg!"

She kissed unconscious Ulrich.

"Okay, I better leave now I guess", said Odd as he left the room.

"Oh why didn't I tell you this before", said Yumi. "Why couldn't I tell you this? I love you Ulrich. I always have and always will."

I hope you enjoyed this. But it's only the tip of the iceberg and this story's plot will thicken. Too bad Odd's the loner now. The next chapter will be up soon.