The Two Faces of Evil
Part II of The Search For Franz Hopper
9: Strike Two

Disclamier: I do not own Code Lyoko or the pilot Garage Kids
The next day came and another school day. Jeremie woke up early and took a shower before anyone else did. By the time he was done it was still 6:30 AM with nothing in mind to do. He decided to turn on his computer (not laptop). When the OS loaded and the desktop appeared, a specter jumped straight out of the monitor at him and knocked him across the room into the door. He blanked for a second and came to, but when he did the thing was gone. He called the others, Aelita first.

"Aelita?" said Jeremie.

"Hello? Jeremie?" she replied.

"Yeah XANA's in my computer! That's what the virus was."

"Oh no! But wait, cant you just delete him?"
"If I find him then yes, otherwise no. If our theory was right then deleting him from my computer will get rid of him for good."

"Okay I'll call Yumi. Get Ulrich and Odd. We should meet at the cafeteria."

They both called the others and all of them met at the cafeteria, making sure no one was there. When they got there, no one was there since it was too early.

"So XANA's on your computer?" asked Odd.

"Yeah", Jeremie replied. "And there are two way to kill him. One is to wipe my hard drive. The other is search and destroy. But I don't want to sacrifice my computer and the files on it to kill XANA."

"Can't you just back it up onto your laptop?" Aelita asked.

"No, too much memory", Jeremie replied.

"Either way XANA will grow and make more room for himself by eating away at your computer's memory", Aelita said.

"The task is simple", said Jeremie. "I find him, isolate him, and delete him."

"That doesn't sound too hard", Ulrich said.

"The problem is he's hid himself somewhere on my computer", replied Jeremie. "And running a complete search of my computer would take days since I run on a huge hard drive."

"Another problem is how do we fight him?" asked Yumi. "Remember Hunter?"

"Yeah, but I can make a short program to pick up his presence like the superscan", replied Jeremie. "Say where's Odd?"

Odd was already in line waiting for Rosa to serve breakfast. The others noticed him there and began to laugh.

"What! I'm hungry", said Odd. "And I doubt he stands a shadow of a chance against us."

When the clock hit seven, it was time for breakfast. And after that it was class. During the entire day they were on the lookout for strange or unusual things. By the time it was lunch they hadn't noticed anything strange.

"I just realized something", said Yumi. "How do we exactly fight XANA? How do we kill something that's not really there?"

"For now all we have is the electromagnetic bomb", replied Jeremie. "That worked pretty well last time. And shouldn't we tell Franz about this?"

"Yes", said Aelita. "He should be able to solve this problem."

"We don't want another imposter to..." said Jeremie right when the lights in the cafeteria went off. Then the power went out across the city again.

"What? Again?" said Yumi. "Could this be XANA?"
"What's left for him to destroy?" asked Ulrich. "Himself?"

"Yeah I wish, but I wonder", said Jeremie. "So much for those programs. Wait I can write them right here."

Jeremie turned the power on his computer and opened a text editor and began to write the two programs that will be used to track XANA if and when he's on the move. The group went to Jeremie's room where it was quieter and a safe place to talk about Lyoko. While Jeremie kept on writing, the others tried to think of a plan if XANA was attacking and where.

"If XANA's taken the electricity to do his little pylon trick then we've got to find the place he's charging all the energy", said Aelita.

"I'll go check the pylon outside the gates", said Odd.

"I'll go to the science building", said Ulrich.
"Aelita and I'll go to her dad's place to tell him about what's going on", said Yumi.

"Okay I'll stay here and keep writing", said Jermeie.

The gang split up and went to their assigned places. Odd was the first to come back and said he found nothing. Aelita called to tell Jermeie that they did their task. Ulrich then called Odd to say he found a fuse box on the roof of the science building smoking and sparking. Odd told Jermeie and Jermeie called the girls stay where they were. The boys met on the roof.

"Any ideas?" asked Ulrich.

"We need an axe from the tool shed to cut the hard line", said Jermeie. "Then the power can't be routed into the capacitor. And some gloves so whoever's going to cut it won't get shocked."

"Then I'll be right back", said Odd.

A few minutes later he came back with some gloves and an axe like Jermeie said. Ulrich put on the gloves and picked up the axe. He swung the axe back and swung at the cable next to the box. The blade went straight through and Ulrich let go after receiving a minor buzz.

"That's done then", said Ulrich. "Call the girls and tell them we're safe now."

Jermeie took his cell out of his pocket. Just when he was about to press the first key a specter flew out of the box and hit Jermeie causing him to trip over the ledge of the roof. He was falling to his doom until he caught a third story windowsill and hung on for dear life.

"Hang on Jermeie!" cried Odd.

Odd and Ulrich dashed down the stairs until they reached the third floor. They go to the window Jermeie was at, but when they opened the window to grab Jeremie's arm, Jermeie slipped off the ledge and fell. The two heard a loud thump and ran down to the ground floor. They found Jermeie alive but he was crying in pain.

"Owww! My arm! My leg!" cried Jermeie.

"Hold still we'll get you to the infirmary", said Ulrich.

When the two got Jermeie to the infirmary, the nurse told him his right arm and left leg were broken. The two went outside to find the girls waiting. They told them about what just happened, and Aelita was shocked to hear this. She ran for the infirmary to find Jermeie in the exact state mentioned by the boys.

"Jermeie what happened?" asked Aelita as she shed a few tears.

"I fell", Jermeie replied in a small voice.

"Don't be stupid! I was worried sick about you!" cried Aelita. "I can't possibly lose someone I love. At least you're here."

"There's a specter loose", said Jermeie. "You need to stop it with the bomb. There's one in my room, but it's pretty small."

Aelita nodded her head and went to Jeremie's room and got the bomb. She then went outside to find Odd, Ulrich and Yumi fighting the specter Jermeie was talking about. Apparently ir was a polymorphing clone so it was constantly changing forms into people the gang knew making it harder to fight it. Aelita arrived and activated the bomb as she ran towards the monster. She came to about 5 meters from the monster and threw the bomb at it. It created a flash right before it hit the monster and erased it off the face of the Earth.

"Don't mess with my boy XANA!" yelled Aelita into the sky.

Hope you enjoyed it. R&R. I'll be working on chapter 10 of the continuing saga. Part II is almost coming to a close so get ready for the next section!