Well, here you go! Here's chapter eighteen! I'm really really REALLY sorry for the long wait, especially to those of you who were under the impression that I would update last Tuesday. Once again, I'm really sorry. First I had problems getting this chapter right (I rewrote it three times!) then I had problems with my internet connection, then FF . net wouldn't let me upload…

Sigh…

Anyway, on to the legal stuff.

Disclaimer: For the nth time, I DON'T own Code Lyoko! Got it? If I did, season 3 would have already started, and Odd would have a girlfriend for longer than a week or two!

Claimer: I own this story and all of my OCs.

Anyway, I have a little surprise for you at the end of the chapter. Trust me, you'll love it. If you don't, give me a valid reason why in a review, since I can't think of any offhand. Also, I did a new divider, which looked really neat, but backslashes and underscores don't show up...so it's just slashes.

So, get reading!

Chapter 18 –Water and Earth

Last Time:

A small patch of the tower started to shimmer as something came through it. It looked at Aelita, and she gasped. Amy ran up to her and saw it.

The figure was completely black. Its eyes were entirely red, with a black XANA symbol in the place of the pupil.

Amy gasped when she saw its outline, with a characteristic spike on top of its head.

"D…Dad?"

Odd glanced at Jeremie in the lab.

"Huh?" was all he could ask.

Jeremie's eyes widened as he realized what had happened.

"Of course! XANA stole DNA from the profiles! He must have used it to make clones!"

Amy nodded and glared at the silhouette of her father. The figure stood absolutely still for a few moments, studying its opponents, then leapt into action.

Three black streaks shot out of its fists. Amy threw up an ice shield and saw black arrows embed themselves in it. The silhouette seemed to smile for a moment, then flipped away as she shot a blast of ice at it. Then she had to dodge a couple more laser arrows.

In the lab, everybody was crowded around the computer screen. Even Nina, who had been hit by a stray laser arrow, was there.

Jeremie had called up a visual to watch events unfold. Amy was dodging and blocking arrows as fast as she could.

"I can't beat him," she muttered as she dodged more arrows and shot another ice blast. The silhouette crossed its arms and a pulsing dark circle appeared in front of it, blocking the ice. She groaned as she contemplated how to beat this new enemy.

With a sudden burst of inspiration, Rena jumped up and grabbed the headset from Jeremie, despite his protests. She put it on.

"Amy! Remember what I did before? Just let it all flow out!"

Back on Lyoko, Amy nodded, then jerked as she was hit. Her life points dropped to ten. She looked down and confirmed that her body was still glowing bright blue. She ran at the clone and let out a piercing scream. Her aura flashed such a bright blue that it was almost white.

"ICE VORTEX!" she yelled, between two bouts of screaming.

She rose up into the air, still screaming, and was surrounded by a whirling tornado of ice spikes. They ripped into the fake Odd tore its virtual body to pieces as it was devirtualizing. The desert sector shook as the ice spikes tore into it, bits and pieces of its texture blanking out, leaving just a wireframe.

Amy devirtualized, her last ten life points expended. Aelita watched as the sector slowly retextured itself. When the wireframes were completely covered with texture again, she ran for the tower.

Jeremie watched as the tower deactivated and let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. The elevator door opened and Amy stepped out, slowly shuffling over to the group crowded around the computer screen. She wobbled a bit, then fell into John's arms, fast asleep.

He lowered her down to the floor and smiled slightly as everybody else (except Jeremie, who was typing furiously) exchanged knowing glances.

Jeremie broke the silence. "We'll have to go back. I hate to strengthen XANA yet again, but we have no choice. There is no way that anyone will be able to explain away the freak avalanche, as well as the fact that it just disappeared after Amy got caught in it."

The others nodded as Jeremie hit the enter key and watched as the holomap was replaced by a column of white light, which expanded into a sphere and consumed the world.

Once again, they went snowboarding. Once again, Odd challenged Aelita to a race. She tried her trick again, but Odd was prepared this time. He swerved around the snowdrift instead of hitting it. Unfortunately for him, he lost his lead and the race ended up being a tie.

Everybody was cold and soaking wet by the end of the day, but they were far from miserable. They were tired and drained of almost all of their energy (especially Amy), but were still as happy as they could be.

Eric and Rena were sitting in the boys' dorm, talking.

"You know, we really have to set them up."

Rena looked at Eric, confused. "Set who up?" she asked.

Eric rolled his eyes. "That should be obvious! C'mon Rena, who do you think I'm talking about? Which two people are always looking at each other and blushing? Which two people are always thinking about each other?"

"…you and Nina?"

Eric glared at her. "No, you and Dan!"

"Haha…very funny. Never mind that. I do see your point though. They don't want to admit it to each other, but it's so obvious!"

Eric just smiled. "And I have the perfect idea. Let's commence 'Operation Set-Up'!"

Later that day, Eric challenged John to a game of soccer. John agreed, since the soccer season was going to start up soon and he wanted to get some practice in. Rena and Amy decided to be the goalies, with John and Eric doing their best to play all of the other positions.

Eric and John faced off at the center of the field. Between them, Nina was standing and holding the ball. She and Dan had decided to referee the game. She dropped the ball and jumped backwards, running off to the edge of the field as John took the ball, running down the field to the goal.

Ten minutes later, everybody was panting hard, even the goalies.

John was up by one, and Eric was taking the ball towards the goal. John ran up and stole it before Eric shot it at Rena, and took it back towards the other end of the field. He stopped in front of the goal and looked back to see that Eric had given up on chasing him and was watching from the other end of the field. He shrugged and kicked the ball straight up in the air.

As the ball started to come down, he jumped up. Amy watched in fascination as he flew up into the air as if in slow motion. He was facing away from the goal. He began to twist in the air, his right foot rising up above his head. When he was fully upside-down, his foot hit the ball and sent it towards the goal as time sped back up.

He landed on his back as the ball flew towards the goal. Amy dove forward to grab the ball, but missed and landed on top of John. The ball sailed into the goal, but neither of them noticed.

They were too busy looking at each other, blushing bright red.

Eric and Rena high-fived each other as they watched events unfold from the opposite end of the field. So what if "Operation Set-Up" never really started? They still ended up with the same result.

Unconsciously, Amy slowly leaned down as John's head tilted up. Their lips met in a brief, yet eternal kiss.

There you go. Happy? Now does the chapter title make sense? If you think that was it for fluff, you're VERY wrong. This story is long overdue for some fluff, so expect a lot in the coming chapters! In case you're wondering, this story will probably be longer than thirty chapters at the rate I'm going. I doubt it'll get up to forty, and I know for sure that I will not be breaking fifty!

Anyway, here's a random quote straight from one of my friends:

"Okay, so here's my plan of world domination. First, I'll get John into power, and have him rule for three years. During those three years, he will take away everybody's civil rights and become a ruthless dictator. Then, I'll boot him out and take over, and slowly give back a couple rights to them. Then they will all love me and do my bidding!" –Kirstin.

Strangely enough, John seems to like this plan.

Anyway, review, and I'll try to crank out another chapter before the end of Easter Break, but I doubt I'll be able to upload it until long afterward.

One more thing. Go check out the FanFiction Writers Den. It's a new forum for FanFiction writers to advertise their works or just talk about…pretty much anything! Anyway, the URL is Fanwritefic . conforums . com, but without the spaces. Note that there is no www or anything like that, okay? Since it's so new, there are practically no members, and we need more! It's Akito Shaoku Mizukouken's forum (for those of you who don't know him, go read Code : Kouken and its sequel).

…anyway…REVIEW!