At the factory, while Jeremie battled Yumi at Kadic, Ulrich and Odd reached an impasse. Since Jeremie was busy fighting, someone must operate the supercomputer, and someone else must go to Lyoko, but Aelita was resting inside the core thereof, so it was nearly impossible to deactivate the two towers.

After a bit of debating, Ulrich and Odd eventually settled the deadlock: the former would take the controls and virtualize the latter into Lyoko. Their only beacon was a thick technical book Franz Hopper wrote, detailing almost every formula, code, and program in the supercomputer. Yumi had used the book once to virtualize Jeremie, although the result was rather unsuccessful. The book proved rewarding to Ulrich, though, who knew how to activate returns to the past thanks to the information in it.

In order to keep the book in sight at all times, Ulrich placed it just below the keyboard, as Yumi had done ahead of him.

"I'm in the scanner," Odd declared. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"No," Ulrich said quite truthfully, "and chances are you're gonna end up miles away from the towers."

"I'll deal with it. I'm ready to go now."

"Alright. Transfer Odd, scanner Odd." He pressed the Enter key after a slight hesitation. "Virtualization!" Please, please, please get Odd to Lyoko out of harm's way...come on...

Odd landed and got to his feet. He was in one piece, and the Mountain region around him was no different than it was in his last virtualization. Cool! I like muffins! he thought randomly. "You did it, buddy! I'm on Lyoko safe and sound."

Ulrich threw a triumphant fist in the air and shouted victoriously, "Yes! One point for our team!"

"I heard that! Now, business time. How do we deactivate the towers?"

- - -

Jeremie was running on the bridge to the factory, with Yumi close behind. He was almost at the entrance.

But before he could reach it, Yumi leaped over him and slammed down directly in front of the factory. As if his luck hadn't yet reached rock bottom, a powerful dust storm appeared, swirling towards them. Jeremie tried to charge past Yumi, but she thrust him backwards with a forceful energy blast.

The dust storm was getting closer, but Yumi was determined to stay in place.

- - -

On Lyoko, Odd was sitting on the ground, waiting for Ulrich to come up with a solution to deactivation.

Ulrich flipped through Franz Hopper's magical book until he came to a section on DNA. He read everything there. "Odd, do you read me?"

"Like a book, my friend." Odd stood up and kicked a rock. "I hope you have good news."

"Better believe it. You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna put Aelita's DNA into you. It's easy. You gotta go into a tower, and I can give you her DNA."

"Sounds cool, but why do I need it?"

Ulrich checked the book again. "Hopper made it so that the towers need only Aelita's DNA to carry out any tasks, like entering the Lyoko code. Well, the towers hold DNA for anyone who's ever been on Lyoko. You go into a tower, float to the upper platform, put your hand on the screen, and we're ready to go."

"There's a tower right by me." He ran inside and stood in the dead center. Odd floated up to the top, where he was presented with a blank window. Once he pressed his hand against it, it flashed with the words, "Invalid DNA. Perform DNA transaction?" There were two buttons: yes and no. He pushed yes. Then another window popped up: "Perform transaction between whom?" He typed in Aelita - Odd and the window disappeared. A light spiraled down through the top of the tower and swallowed Odd.

Ulrich shrieked with excitement. "Cool! The transfer's working!"

"How long will this take?" Odd asked, jabbing the light.

"All done."

The light dissolved into thin air, and Odd chanted, "Wow, that was super quick. I'm Aelita! I'm Aelita! Aelita-lita-lita! I'm Aelita-lita-lita-lita--"

He was cut off by Ulrich. "Would you just go for that tower already?"

- - -

Jeremie moved toward Yumi slowly. For a few seconds he didn't move. Abruptly he ran past her, and he slid down the rope before she could catch him. Yumi slid down as well, and, leaving no stones unturned, pulled the rope out of the ceiling. Then she shocked Jeremie again.

As he lay still on the ground, she concentrated a massive amount of energy and completely demolished the elevator. When that was done, she focused on Jeremie again, but he was gone, running through the factory.

She tore after him, with the dust storm following her.

- - -

Odd could see the tower now. It was coming closer and closer...he ran inside, stood in the middle, started soaring up to the platform above.

- - -

Yumi caught up with Jeremie in no time. She backed him against a wall, and brought up a sphere of pure voltage and fired. It knocked Jeremie to the ground. He was beneath Yumi, and he shuddered as she formed another sphere.

The dust storm was all around them, blowing everything around.

- - -

The window in front of Odd flickered once or twice. Words appeared onscreen.

Aelita

Code

He typed in the rest, and the window flickered again in recognition.

Code Lyoko

- - -

Jeremie winced, afraid Yumi was going to kill him, but Ulrich and Odd came through. The Xana sign was wiped away from Yumi's eyes, and she slipped to the ground, on top of Jeremie.

After a moment, she regained consciousness. When she noticed where she was, she instantly scrambled off of Jeremie. "What happened?"

"I'll fill you in later. For now, we're in a little crisis." He pointed to the dust storm flurrying around them. It was becoming progressively violent, and he put in, "The elevator's down. Only Ulrich and Odd are going to save us."

Yumi said, "We have to find shelter from this horrible storm. What are we going to do?"