Emily's pov

"EMILY, WHAT THE HELL?!" Before I could properly defend myself, Odd's fist connected with my face. I brushed my nose with my finger and found a streak of blood on my finger. I couldn't tell if it was broken, but it sure...really hurt. Not that I could blame him for putting every ounce of fury he had into a punch. I did just liberate his best friend's head from his body. The blade of my new katana was brilliant crimson, shining with his blood. The katana had belonged to Ulrich. Morgan gave it to me as a memento.

She did strange things like that often, and I had no idea if she was trying to be nice to me or trying to be cruel or...what. She was trying to be nice to me, trying to be my friend...I think. It was just, she had no idea how to do it. Whatever, friend or foe, it didn't matter. The damage had been done. Besides, at this point I was probably as strange as she was...I looked at Jeremie's fresh corpse and felt nothing. I was punched directly in the face, and felt almost nothing. I was only slightly upset at myself that I wasn't able to block it.

Oh, seemed while I was distracted a little, thinking about the situation, Odd put his nail gun to my head, and he was yelling at me about something. That was stupid of me, to get distracted like that. Couldn't throw away everything now. It was ok, he wasn't going to kill me, I could see it in his eyes. He was just taking his anger out on me. I would do the same thing, if I had the choice. It was funny, I remembered slapping Odd on the face for suggesting I liked Jim, and now he had a nail gun to my head. How times had changed. I could almost weep for our loss of innocence.

"...Aren't you going to say anything?!" Odd's word's cut through my thoughts as he jostled the gun so that I could feel the tip of the nail scratch my forehead.

"Oh. Hm..." I looked up at the gun. I wanted to disarm him and kill him there, but that wasn't part of the plan. "You don't want to do that. It's a maze in there. You'll never find Stacey without me." I didn't want to die. Even if he had a gun to my head, as long as I was useful, he would not kill me.

Odd seemed to look between me and the shed door behind me, the entrance to Morgan's Underground fortress, which probably spanned the entirety of Paris. This thing was crazy huge. She had all sorts of monsters and possessed people and animals working on it. I didn't even know if it was done yet, or not. Maybe it wouldn't be done until it spanned the entire world, and then she could, I don't know, roast the surface of the Earth or something crazy like that? The girl was absolutely bonkers...But she had all the power...Isn't that how it always went?

"About face. You're taking me to Stacey. I swear to the gods, if there's any more tricks, and drop the weapon." His voice shook with an emotion I never could have imagined coming out of Odd. I thought it best not to provoke him further. The katana clattered as it hit the ground, and I turned around.

We slowly walked up to the shed door. There was a keypad next to it. I went ahead and tapped in the code: 9262. The buttons you needed to push to text 'Xana'. Morgan had told me a lot about her dad. She told me all of this was for him...I was glad I never met him. A creature with so much malice for humanity...She gave me the reasons, and they made some sense, but...that did not justify his actions. Hearing those stories made me realize just how much danger we had been in this entire time. Xana had nearly killed us all himself, many times. The stories she told were unbelievable, mostly because I didn't remember them happening. She insisted they did, though. And she didn't lie to me.

I just...I had to imagine what would have happened if Morgan had managed to revive Xana. The two of them...tag teaming? There wouldn't be anything left.

The door lifted, and we walked slowly into the fortress. Odd made sure the nail was right up close to my brain. I almost wondered if he wouldn't just murder me and throw away the body after I took him to Stacey. I didn't think he was that kind of guy, but then again...he was a guy wracked with grief...his buddies picked off one by one. Something like that can change a person.

We made our way, deeper into the belly of the beast. Turn after turn. I knew my way to Stacey's holding chamber, but that was mostly because I had just been there. For the rest of this fortress, I had a map. The hallway was surprisingly empty. Well, it would be surprising to him. I knew where the monsters were, off with Morgan, celebrating 'our' victory. Soon, all of the Lyoko warriors would be dead.

"How much further?" Odd asked, "This better not be some kind of trap." Of course it was. But what was he going to do about it?

"Not much further." I replied. And, what do you know, it was only a few more turns before we came to a prison-like door in the wall that needed a key. Odd attempted to kick down the door, holding onto me as a stabilizer and also to make sure I didn't do anything. To nobody's surprise, nothing happened.

"Where's the key?" Odd asked.

"Front right pocket."

"You're being awfully cooperative."

"You have a gun to my head. I want to live just as much as anyone else here."

"Touche." Odd replied, a tinge of bitterness to his voice. He reached into my pocket and snatched the key. This was kinda awkward because he did the same thing when we were dating for a hot minute. The fact that I dated him in and of itself was embarrassing. Sooner or later, every girl ended up with Odd. Nobody learned, every girl saw something in him...or thought he would be different...or thought they could change him. But it was always the same story. He came in hot and heavy, and made you feel like you were the center of his universe...and then left out of nowhere to do the same thing to the next girl. Sometimes he didn't even wait to get tired of one girl to move on to the next.

Anyways, anyways! He grabbed the key and used it to open the door, which swung open unceremoniously. It looked like the kind of door that should have made a really unpleasant creaking noise, but seeing as it was newly installed, it was silent. The inside of the room, however, was not.

"YOU THINK I'M GONNA GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT?!" Stacey...yelling from her prison, accompanied by the jangling of chains. Stacey was restrained to a dirt wall, hung up by her wrists and ankles. And she...she was sure going for it, trying to get free. It didn't work, of course. She wasn't going anywhere. There was no key to open these chains, you just had to brute force them, and I was pretty sure nobody in the room had anything strong enough to do that without it being dangerous to Stacey.

"Stace, it's me." Odd said.

"Odd...they got you too?" Stacey said, she sounded so bummed.

"Strike that, reverse it." Odd said, chuckling a bit. He prodded the back of my head with the nail so that I had to walk forward, into Staey's view. Odd seemed to be in a much...uh, lighter mood now that Stacey was around. He was even feeling good enough to make a movie reference. "I'm...so glad to see you're ok. I'll get you out of those chains."

"When you get Odd and Stacey together, let him think he's rescued his girl. Let him bask in it for a moment, make him think he's done it. Then, get him with what's in this vial. It's a slow acting poison that will paralyze him immediately, so you won't need to worry about him after that. Then kill Stacey nice and slow...and let him watch."

Morgan's words from earlier today echoed in my mind. I sighed internally. When did it come to this...why did it come to this? This wasn't me, Emily LeDuc was not the blade of a guillotine...This wasn't me, and it would never be me. I didn't want this. Please believe me, I didn't want this. I was trapped.

I ducked underneath the gun, swiveled, and thrust my arm between his head and shoulder in a controlling move. Then I ran my other arm down his arm and forced the nail gun out of his hands and across the floor. The vial was in my left pocket. While he was still distracted I took it out and plunged the needle into his arm. He punched my shoulder that was doing the arm bar. It really hurt, and the arm bar fell to my side...but the damage was already done. Odd's body went limp. I let go of his wrist, and he fell to the floor with an unceremonious thud.

"What...did you do...?" Odd managed to get out. I could tell it was a struggle for him to even move his jaw.

"Slow acting poison. I'm sorry about that." I said, and propped him up into a sitting position across from Stacey.

"Odd! Odd! You monster! You fucking monster! How could you turn on your own species?!" Stacey yelled at me. She was foaming out the mouth...But, I wasn't finished. I picked up the nail gun. This...was not going to be easy, for any of us. I walked towards Stacey, the gun in hand. As she realized what was about to happen, her tone changed. "Emily...you don't have to do this."

"That's where you're wrong, Stacey. I have to."

"Odd! I love you!" Stacey called out. I really didn't want to do it, now, but I had to...I had to. I put the gun up to her gut and pulled the trigger. The screaming started, incoherent, primal screaming. I put four more holes in her, one in each of her limbs. She was writhing in pain. I was numb. I had to make myself numb. Survival over everything...over friends, over morals...over humanity. I couldn't die...even if that meant she had to. I set about pulling the nails back out. Blood gushed from the wounds. There was no saving her now.

"Stop it. Get away from her. Now."

I froze. That voice...shouldn't have been possible. I whipped around to see Odd...standing.

"That's impossible...you're supposed to be paralyzed..." I was slack jawed...what the hell was happening...

"Looks like I wasn't as scrawny and weak as everyone thought I was. Now get away from her." I stepped aside, unable to comprehend what was going on. I saw him cringe as he walked, but he kept walking. He was still in pain...but still up? I just...I didn't understand. It shouldn't have been possible. He walked up to Stacey, and said some words...but she had already passed out from shock. She wasn't going to be waking up...

She was dead by my hands...and so was Jeremie...and others, directly and indirectly. I was so afraid to die...and there was no going against Morgan. I couldn't beat her...NOBODY could beat her! It was impossible!

And yet...

And yet...

There Odd stood, overcoming a paralyzing poison. Not only that, but he evaded her execution once before, too. The poison burger, those were supposed to be his killer. He...he was able to do the...impossible...wasn't he?

Everything I did...everything I gave up to survive this far...was because defeating Morgan was impossible. But maybe...for Odd...maybe he could make the impossible, possible. Oh god...if that were true. I did all of this...for nothing. Guilt washed over me like a tsunami...came crashing down...drowning. Everything I did...everything I became, for nothing. There was only one thing to do.

"Odd..." I muttered. He turned towards me, his face stained with tears. I produced the holster around my waist, a box of bullets, and a small electronic map that I had on me. I put them on the ground and slid them over to him. "Morgan's in these tunnels...that will show you where...take the EMP gun...and kill her."

Odd looked down at the items, then at me. He seemed to understand, and took them. Good...he could do it. He was...the last one who could. There wasn't anybody else left...Odd started to leave, but I had to stop him. There was one more thing.

"Wait. Morgan is only expecting one living being to make it out of this room and head back to her. There's no doubt in her mind it will be me, so she has her guard down. This place doesn't have inside surveillance...so take that gun...and kill me first."

"No." Odd said, he didn't even hesitate. After all I did to him...even in the last five minutes?

"Please." I pleaded.

"No, Emily. I can't do that." Odd said. I laughed a little, despite myself.

"Haha...I knew you weren't that kind of guy." But the facts remained. The only way to give the impossible a shot.

I ran over to the nail gun and pressed it firmly on the base of the back of my head, right at the medulla oblongata. Everything I did...this wouldn't set it right...but...at least it wouldn't be for nothing.

"EMILY, NO!"

I pulled the trigger. It was up to him, now.

The final stage is set.