Okay, seriously, WHY AREN'T YOU GUYS REVIEWING?!?! I can see how many of you read the last chapter (32, the last time I checked), and I only got 1 review! Just ONE! Would it kill you to simply give your opinion? I accept anonymous reviews, so that's not an excuse. 8 of you have this story on your story alert, and 32 of you have me on your Author Alert! Please please PLEASE review! I'm sorry to say this, but I will not post the next story until I have at least a few reviews, or maybe more! So please review!

After this chapter, there may be a bit of a wait before I get the new story up anyway. I'll try to do it this month, though it isn't likely, no matter how many of you review. Anyway, I'll stop holding you up here and let you read!

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Chapter 11 – From Alpha to Omega

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"Well, this is…different…"

Odd had to agree with Ulrich's assessment. They were in a place that looked almost like Carthage, but also completely different. For one thing, they were underwater. Everything was a darker blue than the light blue of Carthage and glowing white lines connected the blocks scattered around the empty sea.

Aelita looked up at Lyoko…or what was left of it. She saw an immense bubble floating in the water that had once contained an entire virtual world. Now, the world was gone, replaced only by a platform a few feet from the edge of the bubble.

"Connecting Holosphere system," Jeremie announced. "There, I can see you now. Congratulations guys! You're surfing the net!"

"We're actually swimming the net," Odd muttered, showing a trace of his old humor, "but you're close enough. How exactly do we find Kirsten?"

"Easy," Jeremie replied. "You see, virtual entities leave behind a distinct trail of virtual DNA when they move about in the Digital Sea. So, all we have to do is lock on to her trail and follow it right back to where she is right now! As for freeing her…well…I still have to work on that."

"Go ahead then," Yumi said. "Work your magic, Einstein. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say I have no idea what you were trying to tell us and I don't particularly care."

They drifted for a while, waiting for Jeremie to do…whatever he was doing. Odd was the first to discover that he could move himself just by thinking of the direction he needed to go. When he thought forward, he moved forward, jets of bubbles shooting out of his boots to propel him. Eventually, all four of them were doing somersaults and flips in the virtual water.

"Got it," Jeremie announced. "I'm uploading the trajectory. Just follow the glowing green line."

Aelita smiled as a line appeared on her helmet visor, stretching off into the distance. "I see it, Jeremie," she replied. "Let's go!"

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Jeremie smiled as he watched his friends' progress on the Holosphere. They were speeding through a huge ocean that stretched off into infinity in all directions. He typed a few commands on the terminal and watched as the view changed, showing what looked like Lyoko before its destruction.

"Hmm," he said. "That's odd."

It was then that he noticed a few subtle differences. He hit a few more keys and a window popped up. It contained just a few words:

Lyoko – Omega Server

"No way…" he mumbled.

Then the computer started beeping.

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"What was that, Jeremie?" Yumi asked.

"Never mind that!" Jeremie exclaimed. "You have mantas headed towards you! There are…five of them!"

"Oh, wonderful," Ulrich said. "Anyway, Aelita, you get back and try not to get hit. Come on guys!"

"No," Aelita said. She shot past them despite the exclamations of the others. A moment later, they saw why. She had pulled what looked like a long dagger from somewhere and sliced open a manta. Just like that, there were only four left.

"How…" Odd trailed off.

"I asked Jeremie to give me some kind of weapon," Aelita explained. "I have a pair of daggers now, so I'm not completely defenseless any more."

Odd grinned and shot off towards another manta. It shot at him, but he dodged each shot and aimed at the manta. All five of his arrows missed, and he was forced to veer off to avoid more lasers.

Meanwhile, Ulrich and another manta were engaged in a complicated dance of attacks and dodges. He didn't have the advantage of firing at a distance that the manta had, and the mantas seemed to maneuver better than usual. It was probably because of the water. Altogether, it resulted in a stalemate.

Aelita and Yumi had teamed up on the last two mantas. They had managed to defeat one, but the other was still giving them trouble. Finally, Yumi caught one of the fins with her fan, slowing it down long enough for Aelita to come up and stab it right in the center of the XANA symbol. They turned to watch the boys just as Ulrich managed to defeat his own manta. Odd lost a few life points, but he took care of his as well.

"Well, that was exciting," Aelita breathed, after being involved in her first actual fight. "But let's not get distracted."

The rest agreed and turned around to continue. However, they froze in place and stared at the massive object in front of them. It was another silvery, translucent bubble. The line lead right to it.

"Jeremie?" they all asked.

"Yeah, I know," Jeremie said. "It seems to be another Lyoko. To be exact, it's an instance of Lyoko on another supercomputer. It's different though. None of the five sectors are like the ones on the Lyoko we knew."

"Well, let's not waste time debating!" Odd shouted as he shot towards the bubble at top speed. The others shrugged and followed him.

Odd broke through the bubble and started to fall. He eventually landed on the ground. He tapped the white circle on his glove and the helmet disappeared. He looked around and his eyes grew wide.

"Where…are we?" he murmured.

"Welcome to the Volcanic sector of Omega Lyoko," Jeremie announced. It was a fitting name too. Like the sectors of their own Lyoko before its destruction, it was a web of interconnected platforms. However, they were black and most of them had black volcanoes spewing lava and smoke. The lava ran off the platforms, but faded out of existence before reaching the Digital Sea. The sky was filled with smoke and the air was hazy.

They could see a few towers in the distance, glowing their usual blue-white color. They were dimmed though, since there was a ton of smoke between the towers and the Lyoko Warriors.

Odd scanned the landscape and concluded that there was nothing of interest within sight. "So, what now?" he asked.

Suddenly, he noticed a dark silhouette appear in the smoke. He watched in confusion as it approached. It seemed to be a girl dressed in a black jumpsuit similar to the ones he and his friends were wearing. Her hair was brown and pulled back into a ponytail. A red XANA symbol was visible across her chest. Finally, he noticed that she had a long pole with a blade attached to her back. He realized who she was before she looked up. When she did, his suspicions were confirmed.

"Kirsten!" he shouted. "Kirsten! Fight it! Fight XANA!"

He ran towards her. The others gasped.

"No!" Ulrich shouted as he followed his best friend. "Odd! It's a trap!"

"Odd…" Kirsten whispered blearily as Odd stopped in front of her. Ulrich stood only a few feet behind him. "Odd…save me…"

"I'm here," Odd said, his voice shaking. "Kirsten, I'm here and I won't leave!"

He pulled her into a hug and she hugged him back, holding her naginata in one hand.

Wait, when did she grab her— Ulrich thought, though he cut off his own musing when Kirsten's expression twisted into a malicious grimace and Odd was devirtualized. She hefted her weapon and spun towards Ulrich, who was too surprised to defend himself and was also devirtualized. Kirsten smirked.

"Aelita, Yumi, be careful!" Jeremie warned, sounding horrified. "Ulrich and Odd haven't come out of the scanners on this side! I…I don't know where they are! I have to find them! What if they…"

Kirsten's smirk grew into a twisted grin as Jeremie trailed off, afraid that his unspoken guess would be right. "Two down," she growled, her voice full of malice.

Aelita and Yumi pulled out their weapons and glared at their most hated enemy, who wore the look of one of their greatest friends.

"Two to go…"

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I know… I'm sorry to end it here. I hate reading something that ends with a cliffhanger just as much as you do, but I had to do it. Rest assured that the next story will start some time in early January, or maybe even late December. I plan to start it before my exams in mid-January.

So, please review and tell me how it was! I haven't written a battle scene in a while, so hopefully it was good, even if it was incredibly short. I haven't done any fluff for a while either, so I suppose I should put some in during the first few chapters of Code:Omega, the sequel to this. Anyway, please please PLEASE review!!!