Yumi and Odd sped down the streets. The panicking people rushing by paid no attention to them, as they continued bashing the car they were driving into the street lamps the specters were coming out of. When the car they were driving was too damaged to continue moving, they would simply get out and find another abandoned car, which were in plentiful supply.
But for every building they saved from virtualization, four more were being sucked up at once throughout the city, and they passed a large amount of empty lots.
"Jeremie." Said Yumi, calling him on her cell phone. "Things are getting worse around here. Are Ulrich and Aelita almost done or what?"
"They're about to-" Yumi heard Jeremie say, before the line went dead.
"Huh?" She said to herself, as Odd continued to drive like a maniac beside her. "What happened?"
The cell phone was registering "no service". Yumi guessed that the main communications dish for the city had been swept away into cyberspace along with the building it had been attached to.
Jereime was also puzzled by the sudden disconnection, but he decided he couldn't worry about it now.
"Ulrich. Aelita. Are you almost there?" He said into the computer.
On Lyoko, Ulrich and Aelita were speeding through the desert on the overbike, heading fast for the passage tower.
"Hold your horses, Einstein. We need to get to the ice region first. Don't worry, we'll make it"
"You'd better do it before Xana finishes virtualizing the city, because I'm certain that he will be moving on to the rest of the world from there."
The overbike and its two passengers drove right into the tower, off the edge of the platform, and into the cyberstream once more. They whizzed by the flashing numbers around them for a few seconds before coming up onto the platform of the ice region passage tower. They drove out, and Ulrich stopped the overbike. He scanned the horizon, then listened for a while.
"Pretty quiet out here, Jeremie." He said. "I almost want to say too quiet. Where's the tower?"
"Not too far. 35 degrees south, 18 degrees west."
Ulrich started the overbike up again and they sped off in the direction Jeremie indicated.
The two of them scanned their surroundings warily, looking for any sign of the monsters. They saw none.
"Jeremie, any sign of danger yet?" Aelita asked.
"Nope." He said in reply. "No.. wait! There's a kankrelat on the hill in front of you!"
They looked, and sure enough, the little monster was standing there, watching them. As soon as it saw them, though, it gave a little jump and then scuttled off.
"That's weird." Said Aelita. "Why do you think it ran away?"
"To find its buddies, I'll bet." Ulrich said in reply. "Lets follow it. Perhaps it will lead us to the tower."
They followed the kankrelat, which seemed to panic when it saw them coming and scuttle faster. It disappeared into a miniscule hole in an ice-covered rock. The two of them drove around the rock to see the kankrelat standing all on its own in a huge ice field.
"MUAHAHAHAHA!" Xana laughed to himself. "Now they will know my power!" He pressed a button on his keyboard, then sat back to watch.
On the ice field, Aelita and Ulrich were still scratching their heads when the wire frames started to appear over the field. They rapidly filled with color, and the monsters dropped solidly down to the ground. Aelita gasped as more and more started to appear, and the existing Krabes and kankrelats started to organize themselves. When they were done, on one side of the field stood Aelita and Ulrich on the overbike, while on the other end, standing in front of the activated tower, were four groups of a hundred Krabes each with fifteen rows of kankrelats in front of them. Hundreds and hundreds of evil mechanical eyes turned to look at Ulrich and Aelita, daring them to make a move.
"Two..." said Ulrich, stunned. "Versus two thousand. Not good odds."
"Has Xana ever materialized so many monsters?" Aelita asked, also stunned.
Ulrich was silent for a moment more. Then he pulled himself together and said, "Look. We can't possibly beat all of them, but this is just like the last tower we had to deactivate. We just have to find a way around them."
But in the middle of their musings, the monsters decided to stop waiting for them to make a move and instead started firing.
"Watch out!" Shouted Jeremie, as the lasers headed straight for them. Ulrich reved up the overbike and sped off, lasers thumping on the ground on all sides of them. They retreated to the relative safety behind the rock the first kankrelat had run through.
"Ok." Said Aelita. "I see what you're saying, and I think I have an idea. I used the same trick to escape from a trap before."
She knelt on the ground, and then started to sing to the land. On command, a long ramp appeared in front of the army Xana had materialized, leading from the rock they were hiding behind. Ulrich, seeing what she was doing, pulled her back up on the bike when she was done, and then sped onto the ramp.
The monsters, seeing them come back, started firing again. Ulrich's driving evaded all the lasers, though, and before the monsters could do anything else, the overbike shot off the edge of the ramp into space. The Krabes and Kankrelats turned to look upward as they flew through the air far above their heads. The ramp had shot them so high they were level with the top of the tower.
"Ha, see you later, guys!" Shouted Ulrich downwards. "See, Jeremie? Nothing to worry about!"
"WATCH OUT! THERE'S A TARANTULA ON TOP OF THE TOWER!" Jeremie shouted.
"Wha?" Ulrich said looking around. Indeed, a tarantula had somehow gotten on top of the tower, and its lasers were charged. It let out a shot from each of its forearms.
"NO!" Jeremie shouted.
Aelita and Ulrich screamed as the shots hit the overbike. It disapeared from underneath them, and they plummeted, screaming all the way. The Krabes in the back row turned around and started firing at Ulrich's falling form, and he disappeared, all life points gone, before he ever hit the ground. One of the scanners in the factory opened up, and he fell forward flat on his face, out cold.
Aelita fell, and did hit the ground, which hurt a lot, as you can imagine. She struggled to her feet, only to find herself completely surrounded by the monsters, cutting her off from the tower.
"No!" Shouted Jeremie. "This can't be! AELITA!"
The monsters parted, letting a very large and triumphant-looking jellyfish-like monster into the circle they held Aelita in. It hovered over her ominously, as she trembled in pure terror.
"No..." Jeremie said, holding his head in his hands. "All is lost."
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Heh heh. That should leave you hanging. Don't worry, things aren't as bad as they seem.