Whew. Last chapter. I hope you enjoyed reading, and thank you to everyone who reviewed.
Chapter 15: The Valiant Ones
Beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep.
Odd put his hand on the alarm clock and pressed the button to make it stop ringing. He rolled out of bed groggily, and decided to go to the bathroom to splash some water on his face, to wake himself up.
He walked to the bathroom, went inside, and turned on the water. He held his hands under the water and splashed some on his face, and after that he felt refreshed. It was then that it all came rushing back to him. He looked around, but the bathroom looked like it always did, without a trace of digital animation. He looked down, and he was discovered he had awoken in his pajamas, not his Lyoko outfit. And there was no trace of his tail.
He rushed back to his dorm, where Ulrich was still sleeping.
"Ulrich, wake up!" Odd shouted, shaking him.
Ulrich woke with a start, instinctively reached under the covers, and whipped out a big stick of nothing in Odd's face.
"Huh?" He said, looking puzzledly at his empty hand. As always though when they woke up, it took a few seconds to remember what had happened before the return trip to the past. It all came back to him in an instant.
The two of them walked over to the window and looked out. The sun was just rising over the horizon into the sky. The real sky, not the endless emptiness of the digital void. There were a few clouds in it. They saw in the distance a road, the same road that had always been there, and beyond that the buildings of the city.
"Looks like we made it back safe and sound." Said Ulrich.
"Oh, c'mon. You've never doubted that a return to the past will make everything intact again before." Said Odd.
"Still..." Ulrich said, "We'd better do a head count, just in case."
"Understood."
The two of them changed quickly and rushed out into the hallway, splitting up. They poked their heads into every dorm room, where the kids of Kadic slept peacefully. They went from room to room, checking, and then met back up at their room.
"Looks like we don't have any unexplained disappearances." Said Odd.
Yumi, Aelita, Jeremie, Ulrich, and Odd stood together by the vending machines later that day, chatting and watching the other students walk about, enjoying their daily lives.
"Are you sure no one remembers anything?" Said Yumi. "Because a good deal of them set foot on Lyoko. Does that change anything?"
"Nope. No need to worry guys." Said Jeremie. "And there were no unexplained disappearances reported on the news, either."
"That's good." Said Odd.
"It's kind of strange." Said Aelita, watching the kids walk by. "The way they acted during this attack... It seemed different, somehow, from the way they used to act. They seemed so much braver. I wonder if the experiences they've been through are rubbing off on them, even if they can't remember them."
"Well Aelita, if you're right," Said Jeremie, "It means that the next time Xana attacks, we need not necessarily fight him alone. I am sure that in times of danger, we can count on their help."
"Yeah." Said Ulrich. "In the meantime, can we just be grateful things are back to normal?"
But before any of them could respond, there was a crash, and out of the trees stomped a gigantic robot, with Xana's eye printed on its chest. It shot lasers from its eyes, which caused flames to leap up from the ground they struck. But the kids in the school yard, rather than running away and screaming in all different directions, ran towards the garden shed, pulled out a long rope, ran back to the robot, and tied its feet together. The robot, seemingly unaware of this, stepped forward and tripped. It landed face flat on the ground and smashed to pieces.
Jeremie and the others just stared at the other kids.
"Well, what do you know..." Said Odd.
"Guess you can't be grateful things are back to normal yet, Ulrich." Yumi said with a laugh. "We've got work to do."
"Why bother?" Said Aelita. "Why not send them? I'm sure they could handle it."
They all got a good laugh out of that, before taking off for the factory.
THE END