11-7: Enemy or Friend?
Man! This story is just getting weirder and weirder! I thought it would be a straight shot to victory, but my characters don't want an easy time. Idiots. This one jumps around a lot between scenes, so don't get upset.
(((-7-)))
Janika saw Odd raise the stick to jab her in the X.A.N.A.-symbol on her head. If she'd been able to close her eyes she would have, but Hornets didn't have eyelids. She would be forced to watch him murder her!
"Stop! Odd, don't touch it!" came a voice from across campus.
They all stopped as Yumi sprinted toward the gang and their prisoners, panting heavily. She pointed at Ulrich, motioning for him to get off the Hornet as she labored to get her breath back. He hesitated for a moment, but trusted his girlfriend's instincts and released the monster.
Janika didn't make any sudden moves. She kept still in case they were still a bit jumpy.
"I saw everything from the street! That one attacked the other. It's the same one that saved me, I'm sure. We can't kill it."
Unfortunately Jeremy was less inclined to listen to reason. "Get rid of them! It's probably just one of X.A.N.A.'s tricks so that we let down our guard."
"No, she's right." To everyone's surprise it was Sissy who spoke. "I looked up in time to see those two big bugs staring down at us. One flew over and smashed into the one that hurt Aelita. I'm pretty sure this is the good guy. See? He's not trying to hurt us."
Jeremy and the others grudgingly admitted she was right. Yumi and Odd seemed a bit confused that no one was making up sappy excuses to get her to leave them alone. Ulrich cleared up their puzzlement by saying, "Let's just get the 'Fire-Maiden' to the factory so we can fix Janika. C'mon Sissy."
The Hornet suddenly buzzed, jabbing its mouth toward them. The frantic noise made them all step back wondering if it would attack, but abruptly Odd caught on. He spun about to face the second Hornet that they had dismissed. It curled its stinger around to point at Aelita again, but before it could fire he threw the broken branch at its weak spot. An instant explosion threw the teenager back, but he wasn't injured too badly. He stared at the robot that had warned them, almost as though trying to figure out something.
By this time many of the schoolkids had begun coming out to discover what had happened, Millie and Tamiya among them. The gang groaned together and Jeremy voiced their thoughts. "We'll never be able to get away if we get dragged down by a bunch of spectators!"
"What are we going to do about this thing?" Ulrich wondered. He was getting a tad nervous because Odd was kneeling right in front of it now. If it wanted to kill him, he would be dead in less than a second. "Get away from it!"
The short boy looked up at him. "What's wrong? Does this bug you? Heh heh!"
The others glared at him. "Not funny, Odd."
"But we can't just leave it here alone or kill it! It saved our lives! Remember Horthe? She turned good even though she nearly suffocated Aeli—how are you, Princess?"
"I'll live," the pink-haired girl murmured in her soft cadence as she sat up. Jeremy was at her side in less than a second. "No, I'm fine, really. But we have to get to Lyoko. I'd rather not get interviewed right now."
She motioned to the dozen or so curious students heading toward them. They all cringed and helped her up, Yumi tying a quick bandage around her middle to keep the wound there from bleeding too much. Sissy followed them dutifully as they quickly made their way to the park.
Odd started after his friends and then returned to the Hornet. "I don't know why you decided to saved Aelita and the rest of us, but thanks. Too bad you'll go back to Lyoko when we return to the past."
He looked back just in time to see the poor thing get swarmed by students.
They gave Sissy the minimum amount of information they could to get her to come along. She kept asking questions that were too complicated to answer without having attended a seminar on the time-space continuum.
They exited the sewers and began running across the bridge together when Yumi gave a cry and ducked. The others followed her example, though it was hard for Jeremy and Ulrich who were supporting a wounded Aelita, but they fell down just in time.
A lone Hornet zoomed over their heads, firing once, then turned back and dove down with the intent to drive them over the side of the bridge! Amazingly Sissy stood straight and tall, eyes flaming with a courage no one (not even herself) knew she had. The robot banked right as though afraid to hurt her and she leaped, latching onto its tail while flames spread all over her body once again.
The sudden weight made a big difference and they dropped right off the side of the bridge! Sissy's fire widened to include the robot and it crazily tried to shake her loose, but it was too late. They landed in the water below with a splash at the same moment that it exploded. Sissy didn't seem harmed by the flying fragments of debris so much as the water. She started screaming and hopping through the waist-deep water toward the factory. The others rushed ahead and pulled her out.
She sputtered and coughed, muttering something about "Good help indeed!" then ran into the factory without bothering to explain anything along the way despite her questions. They piled into the elevator (a tight squeeze) and went down a level.
"Stay with the others, Sissy," Jeremy told their guest as he stepped out. He went over to the computer and immediately began trying to locate the Tower. He heard the others on his headphones reassuring Sissy downstairs.
"The activated Tower is in the Forest Region and—oh my gosh! There are at least twenty different monsters running around there!"
"Then transfer us already so we can get to work, Einstein! We can't kill 'em if we aren't on Lyoko," Odd chastised. "What's Janika doing, anyway?"
The computer genius checked the Tower in the Polar Region where they'd left her, but it was vacant. He started scanning all the Regions, but her virtual character wasn't showing up!
"She's not there," he said quietly. "There's no trace of her anywhere."
The silence in the scanner room was almost deafening. Only Sissy's questioning voice broke the mood. "What the heck is going on?"
"Janika's dead, that's what!" Ulrich lashed out. "X.A.N.A. decided to kill her when he realized we wouldn't give you to him."
Aelita's calm voice spoke to them all gently while Jeremy continued working. A minute later he transferred them to Lyoko and they were staring at the parade of mechanical monsters scouring the Forest. He inspected the Tower more closely and rubbed his eyes to figure out if he was seeing things. Several of the Towers around it were slightly active even though they hadn't been activated.
"Something really weird is going on down there, guys. It looks like X.A.N.A. isn't controlling the Tower. Somehow it's like the thing is…controlling itself! It's draining energy from all the surrounding Towers in the Forest."
"Ok…" Yumi paused. "So who's our enemy?"
(V)
Students were everywhere, all trying to stroke her wings or at least lay a hand on her. Gee whiz! Had she ever been this curious? It was really beginning to bother her, especially since the gang had abandoned her to this! With a shake, she began trying to flap all five pairs of wings together for the third time since she'd been stuck there. This time she managed to slip out of their grip and the children tried to seize her again.
Yack! Let go of my tail! she yelled futilely at Millie. The girl was attempting to get a good picture with the big buggy, but Janika was, by this time, too unsettled and upset to try being nice, especially when they'd be going back in time anyway. Hopefully.
Ah, this was freedom! She tried to tally up her victims so she could rub all their faces in it later. One at the factory, then at Yumi's, and she'd attacked the one at school (even though Odd technically killed it, but she'd let him have the credit just this once), plus Sissy had gone to work on that other one.
That meant there were still two Hornets running—er—flying around!
(V)
Jeremy stared at the monitor in disbelief. X.A.N.A.'s robots weren't attacking! What was he playing at? A new box appeared on his screen. He opened it and realized that their enemy had sent another message. Still suspicious, he began to decode the lines. It was easier now because he'd worked on it before, so that most of it was legible in less than two minutes.
"Your Warrior has escaped to Earth. Her presence in my Tower changed the activation and I am not in control. I will not harm your Warriors. I will protect them if I can. The glitch wants the Fire-Maiden more than I do, and your other Warrior is the key."
The blonde went slack-jawed. "Not on Lyoko? Then why didn't she let us know about the activated Tower or help fight the Horne—uh oh…"
(V)
The monsters were all around them, but none seemed to be quite interested in the group of Warriors. Ulrich poised, ready to attack in case this was some kind of ruse. The others had taken up defensive positions as well, but there were so many robots that if the teenagers attracted their attention, it was certain to lead to instantaneous devirtualization.
They stood still instead, with Aelita between them. A Roachster approached, its tiny cannon inactive. It merely stared at them and then scuttled away, waiting some meters off.
"Jeremy, there's a critter that looks like it's trying to get us to follow. Should we trust it?"
"I just got a message from X.A.N.A.. He said he's not the one controlling the Tower; something else is, and he doesn't like it. He won't have his minions attack if you guys leave them alone. Oh, and Janika isn't dead. I'm pretty sure she's the really helpful Hornet that saved our lives."
"What?" the rest of the gang cried out in chorus. "How?"
"According to our enemy, she did something to the activated Tower and now some kind of glitch has taken it over."
"Glitch?" Aelita repeated. "That's a program gone wild, kind of like cancer. I haven't seen one of those since you guys found me. And they certainly didn't command Towers."
"Well this one has. It wants both Sissy and Janika."
Yumi shook her head. "Where is Janika right now, anyway?"
(V)
Jeremy sat in his chair considering where the dark-haired girl would go if she had the body of a Hornet. How could they have missed it before? She had seemed so…maybe human wasn't the word, but definitely sympathetic. At least it explained why she'd defended them. If Yumi hadn't come along when she had, Janika would have been dead…
On one of the cameras around the factory, he noticed a lone monster flying around. It was corkscrewing in spirals and doing very un-Hornetlike things. It had to be their long lost friend! He used the mike for the lower room and spoke slowly to the girl waiting there.
"Sissy, I need you to get back into the elevator and go up to the top floor. The good bug is there and you need to bring her back down to the place you're in now. Think you can do that?"
The silence in the scanner room was almost sarcastic. "I don't know. I'm not sure if I can figure out which way is up or down."
Make that definitely sarcastic. Good thing she wouldn't remember anything once they went back in time.
(V)
Sissy stepped into the lift and rolled her eyes. Did they really think she was that dense? All Jeremy had to say was, "There's one of those Hornets upstairs. Could you go get it?" accented with a few pleases and maybe a hint of groveling since she'd saved their scrawny little necks from that one on the bridge. Without her they wouldn't have even made it here!
It was amazing that once she had been attacked by that Hornet at Kadic, all of a sudden the Flame obeyed her! It was like this was what it had come to her for: to destroy these buglike robots.
She pressed the button and felt slightly heavier as she rose to the top level. A little more than halfway there the lift came to a jerky halt. It tried to keep moving, but the rope seemed to have knots or something in it that prevented it from going any higher, so it sat there, stalled. Belatedly, Sissy realized she should have gotten Jeremy's number so that she could call and demand that he help her out.
A strange hissing noise distracted her from the irate thoughts clouding her mind. Something gooey dripped down from the ceiling onto her arm. She yelped and brushed it off. There was a small red mark on her skin that stung, and as she raised her eyes to see where it had come from Sissy couldn't keep from gasping. The ceiling above her was writhing!
A hole appeared in the very center and widened out, the liquid eating away the top of the elevator. The only thing she could think of that would affect metal like that was some sort of hydrochloric acid (hey, she might be dumb, but not even Sissy could avoid absorbing information occasionally).
More acid was falling, blistering her skin. The girl became frightened and reached out to embrace the Flame at once. It came willingly at her call, and began to burn everything around her. The elevator turned red-hot in seconds and exploded like a bomb!
Sissy found herself propelled upward and caught hold of the first thing she could when she came out into open air. She gripped the framework that had always lowered the lift and felt it melting in her hands. Slipping to the cement floor beyond it, she suddenly felt as though someone had rammed a dagger-like icicle through her leg!
The Flame diminished to nothing and she stared helplessly at the last materialized Hornet hovering over her victoriously.
Guess how she's gonna deal w/ it. Okay, I'm just venting here b/c this really happened to me, but what if you had your heart set on a camping trip w/ a bunch of friends, only your ex was one of them (this person has not been able to get over you even though you've moved on). You help plan the trip w/ everyone else anyway for a few hours. When you get back home to pack up, suddenly the group calls to inform you that b/c of your broken relationship w/ the ex, you have been unceremoniously kicked out, and besides, there wasn't enough room for you anyway.
What would you do? (I slammed the phone down after yelling at them and cried. I'm over it now. I just hope they can't air up their tires ever again)