Confusion was rapidly spreading throughout the Pentagon. No one could really figure out how four fully armed jet fighters had been beaten by four transport helicopters, and the pilots, once rescued, issued a preposterous report about force fields and a laser-firing robotic spider. No one was quite ready to believe them, but they also knew that one of the creatures recovered at the military base in France matched the pilots' description.
"Sir." Said a very weary radar watcher.
"Yes?" Replied an equally weary officer.
"We've got three more objects entering Washington airspace."
"More helicopters?"
"No, sir. I cannot identify them, although they appear to be very small. I can't contact them, so they must not have onboard radios, if they're even aircraft at all."
The officer's face went white. That could only mean one thing. Incoming missiles!
"LAUNCH ANOTHER AIRCRAFT, NOW!"
The jet fighter screamed in from the south, on a direct intercept course with the missiles. The pilot armed the weapons, and drew up beside the targets. Only then did he get his first good look at them.
They were not missiles at all. Instead there were... he could hardly believe his eyes... Three kids, perhaps more like young teenagers, riding on a flying motorized unicycle, a flying mechanical surfboard, and another hovercraft that did not have any ground-bound technological parallel. He just stared at them dumbly.
The kid on the hover board, for that was the only thing it could be, a scrawny guy with blonde hair gelled up into a spike, waved at him. Before he knew what he was doing, he waved back. The kid smiled, and then said something to the others he couldn't hear through the glass of the cockpit. The pilots eyes, already opened wide, went even wider as the three of them instantly jumped from Mach 2 to Mach 5, leaving his plane in the dust.
"Commander..." The pilot said into the radio, "You are never going to believe this."
---------------------
Here were the current standings: Ulrich in first place, Yumi in second, and Odd in third, each of them passing the time before they reached Xana's forces by trying to outmaneuver each other in the race Odd had suggested. Yumi hadshouted atOdd for deliberately attracting the jet fighter's attention, but he had argued that they already had to return to the past anyway, seeing that Xana's monsters were already making headline news.
At the altitude they were, it would be difficult for a normal human to breathe, let alone hang onto his or her vehicle at the speed they were going, but the pixelization Jeremie had encoded into the chips on their necks got them around such petty obstacles. They were also very pleasantly surprised that the vehicles were much faster in the real world than they were in Lyoko.
"Ok, guys." Ulrich said, as Odd darted around him and Yumi to take first place. "We need a plan. Any ideas?"
"Don't we have to catch up with the helicopters first?" Yumi said.
"We want to keep our distance. If they actually see us, then we're in big trouble. If they shoot our vehicles out from under us, its a very long way down." Ulrich said, then grimaced at the thought.
"Well," Yumi said, darting around Ulrich to take second place, "Xana obviously must know where he's sending his minions, so we just follow them to where the Sword is buried. When they land, then we can battle them on the ground, where it's safer."
"Good idea." Odd said, as Ulrich darted around Yumi and Odd to take the lead once more.
Below them, clouds and the ground below them were zipping by at an alarming rate. They were trying not to look down.
"But we want to make sure that we can take them on before they get the hands on the Sword." Ulrich said. "If the two alien artifacts are reunited, then we don't stand a chance."
The two others nodded.
Far below, a farmer worked his fields. He never saw them, and they never saw him. But he had always had a sort of sixth sense about when things were flying overhead. His instincts told him to look up, but he saw nothing but blue sky.
"Good luck." He murmured. He didn't know if he was speaking to a bird, a plane, a plastic bag blown on the wind, or even a UFO, but something told him to wish it luck anyway.
"Go get 'em."
----------------------
Mr. Della Robia wiped sweat from his brow. If it had been hot in France, it was definitely much, much hotter here in the Nevada Desert.
He was here because a lost truck driving in this isolated sea of sand just happened to have a radar on board, and it had picked up a curious subterranean chamber. The driver reported it when he found his way back, and now he and his team had been here for five hours after receiving the call.
They had mainly been spent setting up camp, pitching tents and setting up equipment and the like, for it looked like they would be here a few days. Also, he had to explain some of the finer points of archeology to the team's newest member, a woman named Lexina, who he had hired to replace Hector after he sold the Grail to the military.
"Sir!" The call came out. It came from the dig site.
"Yes?" Mr. Della Robia said, coming over.
"We found something! You're not going to believe it! Take a look!" Said an enthusiastic archeologist.
Odd's dad entered the pit, to take a look at what they discovered, stopped, and stared. It was a flat stone, and he recognized the exact same warnings that had been placed on the covering stone for the Grail's chamber in France.
He could hardly believe his luck. Here he was, a single man with his team, to not only have discovered one, but two alien artifact chambers. He and the other archeologist in the pit heaved the stone out of the way, revealing a dark, square opening. He had lost the Grail, but he was filled with elation for he might have just uncovered the Sword.
He had good cause to be jubilant. But he was nowhere near as lucky as he thought.
"Hey, does anyone else hear helicopters?" He said, looking around.
