So, what would you do if you were being chased through an abandoned city by a minotaur, a centaur, a chimera, a snake with a human head, a giant bat, a monstrous green blob, a monstrous blue blob, a masked guy with a chainsaw, a flaming hawk, a pie man, a kitty with a giant spiked barb on its tail, and some sort of pink thing made up entirely of long tentacles?
Run? Fight? Hide? Scream? Hope to wake up from the nightmare before its too late?
For Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi, there was going to be no awakening, because although they were being chased by Nightmares, they were not asleep.
"What do we do what do we do what do we do!" Yumiyelled frantically, as the war cries of the Nightmares echoed behind them.
Odd turned around and fired an arrow straight into the head of the masked chainsaw wielding man. His head simply ceased to exist, and the body fell to the ground, twitching madly.
"They're scary, but they're not invincible!" He said.
Yumi, somewhat heartened by his statement, hurled one of her fans backwards. It pierced the membrane of the blue blob, came out the other side, and then returned to her. The blob started leaking fluid, until it was just a floppy skin lying on the ground.
The centaur responded to the attacks by notching an arrow to its bow and letting it fly, narrowly missing Ulrich's head. Another one flew past his left side, then one nicked the top of the hair bun on Yumi's head. Odd fired his own arrow back at the centaur, and the effects were similar to what had happened to the chainsaw man.
"But this will get us nowhere!" Ulrich shouted. "We have to find Aelita, find the pulsations, and get out of here! But where in the world is she?"
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At present, Aelita and Mr. Puck were walking down a wide street. They had just passed what seemed to be a very large hill, ringed by a high wall and with several buildings on top of it. Several roads led up the hill to the complex on top. The sides of the hill aside from the sloping roads were sheer rock.
"The citadel." Mr. Puck had said, simply, when Aelita asked about it. "It contained the main government buildings of the city, and was also a fortress that the people could retreat to if the outer wall of the city was ever breached."
They stopped at a large but low building on the side of the street.
"We can take a shortcut through this building. While we're inside, I want to show you something."
They went through the doors, and the first room they were in was a lobby, with one big double door on the far end and another small door over to the left. There were signs that there had been a lot more in the room at one point, but it was all gone now. They took the small door to the left, and found themselves in a small hallway, with another door on the other end. A big padlock lay on the floor next to the door. Mr. Puck pushed the door open.
The room they entered was bare except for a large chest on the other end.
"Mr. Puck, there's no exit to this room."
"I know. We'll make one. First though, I want to show you something."
He Lifted the lid, and Aelita nearly had to shield her eyes from the light of what was inside. The chest was filled to the brim with gold coins and jewelry.
"Uh... wow." Aelita said.
"Yup. If I ever get out of here, I'll be a rich man." He said with a smile.
"Wait. What do you mean if you get out of here? I'm sure I can get Jeremie to materialize you." She said kindly.
"It's not that simple, Aelita." He said sadly, with a sigh. "You have to realize that I am basically a scrap of memory which has been given a digital form. I have no body to return to. No materialization program Jeremie can devise will work for me. I am not human, digital or otherwise."
Aelita realized this with certain understanding that chilled her to the bone. She looked at the ground with sadness in her eyes.
"But... there is a way." Mr. Puck said.
"What? What is it?"
"You hold the key, Aelita. The barrier between the real world and Lyoko is a locked door, and you and your friends have simply been coming under it. You have the power, Aelita, encrypted in your memory, to unlock that door, and then anything, human or otherwise, can come through. Only then will I be free."
Instead of being happy at this, for the first time Aelita became suspicious of her new friend. Xana had been wanting something encrypted in her memory for a long time, and what if this was it? She mentally smacked herself. Why had she not considered this? Mr. Puck could be one of Xana's traps, trying to trick her into giving up her memory voluntarily!
If that was the truth, she was in far more danger than it looked like. She had to act like she didn't suspect anything, because if Xana became suspicious that she had figured him out, he would resort to force. At the same time, she had to stall for time, not outright agreeing or refusing, but trying to put up the facade of trying to decide whether it was a good idea. And she had to find the others at any costs, because they were the only ones who could fight the false Puck. Any thoughts of what had happened earlier between them were long gone now.
"I think, Mr. Puck, that its not something to worry about right now. Xana is still on the loose, and I think right now the tower is more important."
"Very true, Aelita. We'll think about it later, when we can discuss it with your friends. Lets go."
He took out his key and jabbed it through the wall of the room. The wall collapsed, revealing the room beyond. They stepped through, but not before Mr. Puck, without Aelita noticing, picked up a tiara with a green jewel in the center from the chest and put it in his pocket.
"She seems suspicious." Mr. Puck thought to himself. "No matter. She has the right to be that way. After all, Xana has been trying to steal her memory for a long time. She will capitulate in time."
"Where in the world are they?" Aelita thought. "This is not good. I am completely at Xana's mercy!"