Yumi ran as fast as possible to the factory. Jeremie was typing away at the supercomputer in the lab. He looked up when Yumi arrived. "There you are. Everyone else just got to the scanner room, so go ahead and catch up with them."
She nodded and pressed the button on the elevator. Once in the scanner room, she stepped into one of the three scanners, as did Aelita and Ulrich, and the doors closed.
"Transfer Yumi, transfer Aelita, transfer Ulrich. Scanner Yumi, scanner Aelita, scanner Ulrich. Virtualization!"
A chill wind cut through the scanners. The three teenagers disappeared into thin air; they flew through the warm, pulsing wires and dropped to the stony ground of Lyoko's Mountain region. Odd soon followed.
"I think the core of Lyoko is in danger," Jeremie called from above. "Go to the edge of the region and I'll program the transporter. I've already programmed your vehicles at the dome."
"Good thinking, Einstein," Ulrich said, but then he added bitterly, "What exactly do you mean 'I think'?"
"Well...it looks like it's in danger, but I'm not certain."
Odd scoffed and shouted, "You brought us here for nothing?"
They set off for the edge anyway. After the transporter took them to Sector 5 and departed, the arena whirled around until it slowed to a gentle halt. The Lyoko Warriors flashed away.
They ran the path that opened up to them, and accordingly found themselves in a room with nothing but an exceptionally narrow walkway leading to the key.
"You have two minutes left to trip the mechanism," Jeremie told them.
They glanced at one another, silently disputing on who would trip it until Yumi began to carefully pace the walkway. The three on the mainland held their breath.
Suddenly, Yumi fell off the walkway, disintegrating into sheets and grid. Her companions turned to face her attacker, one of three Mantas. The Mantas flew towards the team and fired their lasers.
"Laser arrows!" Odd jumped into the air and gunned down the monsters, eliminating two. Aelita tried to shoot at the remaining one but missed, and its fiery beam smacked her as a result.
Meanwhile, Yumi joined Jeremie in the lab as he informed the band on Lyoko, "Your life points are all clean, but Aelita lost 30 from that Manta. You have to trip that mechanism now."
"No one's going for the key," Odd protested. "Yumi died and she's five times more flexible than us."
But Aelita solved this problem. She concentrated and brought up an energy field, aimed for the key, and released the field. It worked; the key pressed into the wall and spread throughout the room.
Odd gave her a thumbs-up. "Nice one, princess."
A ladder showed up before them, guiding from their spot up to a path in the sky. The troupe climbed the ladder quickly, then hurried down the path, which eventually led to the dome, where their vehicles were waiting. They mounted them and began to fly towards the chamber of the core of Lyoko. Odd said, "Hey, it's weird there are no monsters to stop us out here in the open."
"Yes," Aelita agreed, "but there will be plenty in the chamber."
They reached it soon enough. Ulrich tripped this mechanism, the stairs materialized. Aelita was mistaken; there was only one monster here, a monster that Ulrich, Odd, and Aelita recognized on sight, and that brought them to a standstill.
On Earth, Yumi pointed to the computer screen. "Look, Jeremie!" she cried. The Scyphozoa, dreaded enemy of Aelita's memory, hovered on the bridge leading to the core. It appeared on the screen as a red dot in front of a larger blue one. What was more, the Scyphozoa was motionless. It touched neither the core nor anything else. It was the only monster in the room.
"What does it want? What are we going to do?" Odd shook his head mournfully.
Aelita ignored him. "Come on!" She was the first to bound up the stairs, with the others closely behind.
The Scyphozoa was facing the core. The Lyoko group reached the bridge in no time. Odd shot a laser arrow at it to get its attention and yelled, "Yoo-hoo, jellyfish cup, over here! Aren't you going to hit us? You don't have a weapon?" The arrow didn't affect the Scyphozoa. As for Odd's taunt, the Scyphozoa just squealed.
Out of the blue, it began to glow, but it still didn't move.
"Something's wrong, Jeremie," said Ulrich forebodingly. "The Scyphozoa...it's glowing. What does that mean?"
Jeremie exploded into panic. "You have to stop it! It's charging a weapon and it's going to destroy the core!"
The Lyoko group fired and hit the Scyphozoa with all their might, but it was no use. Suddenly it stopped glowing. The Xana sign on its head glowed instead, with a bright green color. It created an enormous green energy field similar to Aelita's, and fired at the core.
"The core's lost both shield layers," Yumi pointed out, "and it looks like the Scyphozoa is charging again!" Sure enough, its head glowed for another attack.
Aelita suddenly hugged Odd. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Without warning, she ran across the bridge, under the Scyphozoa, and dived into the core of Lyoko.
The chamber of the core of Lyoko was quaking, and a bright light blasted throughout the room. Before either one knew what hit them, Ulrich and Odd appeared in the scanner room, shaken and a bit scared.
- - -
As Jeremie tapped the computer screen, he explained quietly, "Aelita is embedded in the core of Lyoko. Unfortunately, she's tied to Lyoko again, just like old times. But she's protecting it. With her inside of it, the core is invincible." He looked at each of his friends, who were crowded around the supercomputer.
"Can you get her out?" Odd questioned dejectedly, afraid to hear the answer.
"I don't know. I've never seen a case like this before. I'm not sure if I have the resources to get her out of there, but I'm going to try."
Ulrich said optimistically, "I think the Scyphozoa's gone for good. Me and Odd were devirtualized when Aelita jumped in, so I bet that jelly-monster went with us."
Yumi shrugged. "See? That's one point for us."
But Odd turned around and headed for the elevator without a word.
"You guys go on," Jeremie suggested. He started typing. "I have a lot of work to do."
- - -
Nightfall was covering the city, and in Ulrich and Odd's room, the latter couldn't stop sulking. "I can't believe this is happening. This was supposed to be a special day," he moaned, laying face-down on his bed.
Ulrich sat beside his friend and tried to cheer him up. "Jeremie said he'll try to free her. I know this is bad, Odd, but it'll get better. You'll see."
Odd lifted up his head and drilled Ulrich into the wall with his eyes. The pillow beneath him was soaked with tears. "It won't get better!" He went back to the pillow.
Ulrich tried to pay no attention to his friend's gloomy remark, but as he gazed out the window at the dusky sky splashed with purple and pink, he wondered if Odd was right.
- - -
- - -
Hmm...hints of Odd/Aelita...interesting...