The Creepers turned to shoot at the arriving Lyoko Warriors, who went on to attack the monsters, but the two friends, one horrified, one Xanafied, stared at each other. An evil grin was on William's face, and the light of the sector flashed on the blade that the Xanafied boy kept steadily in air with only one hand.
"William... Is this what X.A.N.A. wants from you? Your power?" Cassandra asked weakly.
"Cass, what are you doing? Stop staring and fight!" Odd shouted, but the girl did not hear him. She only heard William, whose mouth X.A.N.A. used to tell, "Your replacement. A glorious general."
"You won't have him," Cassandra told with cold, yet weak voice. The nightmare played in the back of her mind.
"The tower is what Xanafied William in the first place, not the Scyphozoa! You must deactivate the tower to free him from X.A.N.A.'s clutches! Hurry!" Jeremy shouted. "Cassandra, you must act!"
"Cassandra!" Ulrich yelled. The others had destroyed the Creepers already, and they were closer to the two now.
"Go on without me," Cassandra said. "Just go. Leave us."
The others went around them from a distance. When Aelita was going, William turned towards her and ran to attack the girl. With an odd shriek Cassandra, broken from the spell of nightmarish fear, ran between them, her and Ulrich's swords meeting the Xanafied Lyoko Warrior's Zweihänder at the same time.
"Ruuun!" Cassandra yelled at the others as she pushed against the heavy sword. She and Ulrich stayed to battle while Odd, Aelita and Yumi ran towards the activated tower, guided by Jeremy.
"Supersprint!" Ulrich shouted, took some distance from William and then circled to his side to attack. William kicked Cassandra away and blocked the boy.
The kick did not hurt Cassandra, so she could have gotten up right away, but inside her psyche she was fighting a different William: a William with dark suit, a William who was the general of X.A.N.A.'s army. A William who was far stronger, far more skillful than the kind, though occasionally foolish and reckless, William she knew. While fighting that image from nightmares, she wanted to see a William similar to the version she dreaded. She wanted to see a William who was at least equally, if not superiorly, strong and skillful as the horrifying dark William, but also still the same, kind, William she knew. She wanted to see William grow into a glorious Lyoko Warrior in that white suit he had gotten during his first virtualization.
The determination broke past the fright. The dreaded dark William kept swinging his Zweihänder at her inside her mind, but in the physical world Cassandra got up, picked her sword up and rejoined Ulrich in combat against the William whom they could stop from turning into X.A.N.A.'s henchman. Being blocked and then retreating for another strike, the two sword-wielding Lyoko Warriors kept fighting a fight in which neither should win against their shared opponent. Their victory would be brought by the others in their own battle by Aelita deactivating the tower.
Trusting that Aelita would not fail, Cassandra allowed herself to be lost in the battle, the nightmare blurring at every strike blocked by William. After each strike the sword felt heavier in her hands, and the clashes became louder. Cassandra realized that in such a combat trance as the one she was in the surroundings became distorted. She only saw her opponent, his deadly blade, and her comrade, his yellow-colored outlines as he sprinted at and away from William.
The nightmare blurred into flashes of Zweihänder in the Desert, nothing else, as the X.A.N.A.-eyed boy kept hitting her physical sword, slowly draining away her body's strength at each hit the swords took.
Meanwhile Aelita, Odd and Yumi were fighting against ten Mantas with a fair amount of success; half of them had been destroyed already. Odd had run out of laser arrows, and in order to do something while waiting for the new arrows, he had decided to jump on a Manta to take control of it.
"Princess! Get aboard!" he shouted. Aelita threw an Energy field at another Manta, missing it, and checked Odd's position on the Manta.
"Get down! I can't jump that high!" she shouted back and dodged a laser.
"Alright, taxi is on its way!" Odd called out. "Woohoo!"
The Manta with the Lyoko Warrior on came closer to the surface of the platform, its comrades trying to shoot Odd off. Aelita jumped on and they kept going.
"Hurry up, Odd! I don't know how long Ulrich and Cassandra can fight William!" Jeremy said. "And your laser arrows are reloaded now!"
"Copy that, Einstein! We are on our way!" Odd said. "Laser arrows!"
Two Mantas shrieked as they were destroyed. Aelita jumped off as they passed by the tower and Odd and Yumi destroyed the last three Mantas, one of them after exhausting its usefulness as the cat-suited Lyoko Warrior's ride. Aelita reached the upper level of the tower and applied Code: Lyoko on the interface.
"Tower deactivated," she sighed. She was tired; it was very late.
William struck Ulrich so hard that the boy's katana broke into pieces and the samurai Lyoko Warrior fell to the ground. Cassandra used William's concentration on Ulrich, but she was easily whacked away by the blade, as William swung it at her; the girl was lucky to not be hit by the sharp edge, but the vast and heavy side of the Zweihänder. William, sure of that Cassandra would not retaliate for a moment, turned back to the dazed Ulrich, ready to devirtualize him.
As Ulrich saw it, that devirtualization never came. As William lifted his sword, he suddenly collapsed to the ground, the sword missing him.
"Ulrich, Cassandra! The tower has been deactivated!" Jeremy told.
"Yeah, I can see that. Just in time!" Ulrich noted as he sat up. He looked from William to Cassandra, who was trying to get up after the hard blow she had taken. "Hey, Cassandra! Are you ok?"
"What hit me anyways?" Cassandra groaned. She shook her head and tried to lift herself up. For a moment her mind had blacked out, erasing the nightmare she had been fighting in her head. She could not stand up and hence settled for just sitting. She looked at the two boys, now remembering what had happened.
"William's sword whacked you real bad, I guess," Ulrich noted.
The hit still dizzied the green-haired girl, but she nodded anyway. The combat trance had worn out and left nothing in its wake. It had been refreshing, but Cassandra believed that her blanked mind would soon be filled with the same things as it used to be.
"How's William?" Jeremy asked.
"Unconscious," Ulrich told. He watched as Cassandra nonchalantly took her sword and inspected it. The countless blows had taken their toll on the blade; it was full of scratches and dents, and Cassandra could see a crack near the handle. The battle had been hard, and the girl's fear had not evaporated. She had somehow conquered the fear once, but she knew that a combat trance could beat it again.
She put her sword into its sheath to wait for repairs. Careful with her balance, the girl got up and walked to William, then sat down next to him. The other Lyoko Warriors returned to the silent room to see how their fellows were doing. William moaned something as he was resuscitating.
"William? Do you hear me?" Odd asked and carefully poked his friend as he crouched next to him. An unintelligible mutter was the answer he got.
"Careful, you were just Xanafied," Jeremy told. "Resuscitating is easier on Lyoko, but don't get up too fast."
"I... can... handle it," William gasped as he lifted himself up. Cassandra supported him carefully, expressionless but serious. The fear had not returned to her blank mind, and therefore she could be nice and caring more easily. She wanted to mask it in her seriousness, but she knew that she cared. Why would she not? William had become the most important person to her, and even though she no longer was sure of the boy's feelings, she now knew that deep under all the hurt, fear and anger she still loved him.
"Are you ok?" Aelita asked.
"Yes... No need to... worry," William said. He looked at the hand that had a firm hold on his left shoulder and recognized the green half-glove. He turned his head to look at the pale Cassandra. She did not seem to be angry. Instead, there was worry and caring in her eyes, masked by the serious expressionlessness. She started to unnoticeably take distance as he looked at her, but they both knew he had seen it.
"So... I was Xanafied or something? What happened?" he asked, turning his head to look at everyone else. He could not help noticing how funny Odd looked, but he was too tired to laugh.
"X.A.N.A. activated a tower, Xanafied you through it and got you on Lyoko. As far as I understood, a Scyphozoa took you and you were once again rescued by Cass," Odd told.
"Don't use that name," Cassandra snapped. Her blankness was not so blank anymore. As the irritation came, it brought her fear back, and now she certainly did not dare to hug William in front of everyone.
"But you did not protest it earlier," Odd noted.
"When did you use it?" Cassandra frowned.
"When we arrived. You and William were staring at each other," Odd explained.
"I must not have heard or noticed," Cassandra said with her usual cold voice. "I had more important things to think about at that moment." William watched how Cassandra reverted from worried and serious to cold and irritable. He placed his hand on hers, hoping to get her attention. Cassandra first looked at his hand, then into his eyes. The mixture of returning feelings washed away the real Cassandra William had seen after going past her shield.
Suddenly William knew why Cassandra had been so unkind towards him.
She was afraid.
"Cass, what are you afraid of?" he asked. The girl's eyes narrowed in irritation of the question. Even though she answered, "Nothing that is here", the way she squeezed his shoulder before letting go was closer to "Everything".
The girl got up and walked away.
"I'll see you later. Now please excuse me," she said. "And William, tell me when you are willing to have the next lesson on handling that massive sword of yours. You need more visits to Lyoko to prevent Xanafication on Earth."
She was gone before William could say anything. He knew that he needed privacy to talk with Cassandra in peace.
But how could he get that peace?
"Materialize," Jeremy's voice gave the command. William found himself from the scanner before finishing his thoughts.
"Time to go back to sleep," Odd said.
"Yeah," William said. He felt very exhausted, even though he had been alert when he had arrived to the lab.
"Xanafication really ate your strength, didn't it?" Ulrich asked.
"Yeah," William admitted.
"Don't worry, buddy, that happens. And soon you will be immune to Xanafication anyways! Just a little bit more time on Lyoko and you are as immune as we all!" Odd tried to cheer him up.
"Sure", William just shrugged. He wanted to go to sleep now and think about everything later. Cassandra would wait, he was sure of it.
/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Cassandra Delorien, Riverain and the rest of its original characters (c) Me/