Note: I do not own Code Lyoko or any characters regarding it. I simply modify and add my own characters to the story. All original ideas regarding Code Lyoko thus belong to Moonscoop, Taffy Entertainment, France 3, and Canal J.

Chapter 10

Code: HADES

The following day was better than the previous few; the robot competition started again, the performing arts program started accepting scripts for plays, and, as a plus for all of them, Ulysses made Sissi shut up and leave them alone by giving her a paradox question to solve, knowing that she would attempt to work on it for hours, even though paradoxes have no answers except for "There is no correct answer to this question".

Jeremie helped Ulysses create a humanoid robot for the contest, controlled remotely by the movements of the human body itself. With Ulysses' movements controlling the robot, they won the robot basketball game, even with Herb's cheating with shooting projectiles. For performing arts, the whole group supported an idea Ulysses had when writing a story. The script was one of his stories called Qiang Zheng – Legend of China, a story about a Chinese prince whose family was eliminated by Mongols and on his quest to restore his family he makes friends with Yun Chan, Zheng Kwan, and Huang Liao to fight off the mercenaries. Everyone liked the idea and it was accepted.

Things were going great up to when they started acting out Ulysses' play, Ulysses himself being Qiang Zheng, Xana volunteering to be Yun Chan, Ulrich as Zheng Kwan, Jim as Huang Liao, Jeremie, Odd, Aelita, Yumi, and Carly being side characters that are on Qiang's side, and Sissi (who wanted to act for Ulrich, obviously) and her gang, let's just say Ulysses made them the Mongol mercenaries who are defeated in the end. Sissi hated her part and threatened to have her father expel Ulysses for giving her such a horrible part.

"I'm sorry, what?" said Ulysses, "I can't understand you over your constant gibberish talk."

"A round of applause everyone!" Carly said loudly, "It's the one and only Sissi the drama queen!"

Everyone laughed loudly at Ulysses' and Carly's remarks.

Sissi lost her temper and shouted, "Shut the hell up you communist Chinese slut!" but she wished she hadn't said anything. Everyone stopped laughing and stared completely wide-eyed at both Carly and Sissi.

Carly gave her a death stare as she growled, "WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!"

Sissi made a whimpering sound that sounded like she said, "Oh, my God, holy shit, she's really pissed now!" before she broke into a run.

They didn't know how it happened, but when they blinked, Carly somehow managed to appear in front of Sissi and she punched her hard in the face, knocking her to the floor. "NEVER CALL ME THAT AGAIN!" yelled Carly, "Or I will hit you so hard you'll need your make-up to make you look normal again!" After Sissi ran off crying, Herb scolded Carly angrily, but Carly told him, "Uh, Herb, right? Could you please just stop talking?"

Herb badmouthed her again, even though she was ignoring him. Ulysses stepped forward. "Hey! If you have a problem with my friends, you have a problem with me!" said Ulysses angrily.

"Bring it on!" said Herb. Herb started swinging his arms and legs everywhere as he said, "With my fierce energy I'll.. I'll.. Don't just stand still or I'll slap you silly!" Ulysses just rolled his eyes and everyone stared as he beat Herb to the ground, broke his glasses (by accident) and wrapped his shirt around him like a straight jacket without any effort.

"Anyone else want some?" Ulysses asked Nicholas, who was also staring at Ulysses' fierce energy. Nicholas backed away. "That's what I thought," said Ulysses.

After Ulysses came back to the group, they all started acting out the following scene. And that's when it happened, Ulysses suddenly suffered a terrible surge in his head and groaned in pain. The group rushed over to him and Jeremie asked, "Ulysses, what's wrong?"

"HADES!" he exclaimed.

"If it's this bad, we have to get..." began Carly, but suddenly she began shuddering and shaking as a dark cloud entered her body. When she stopped and opened her eyes, her pupils and irises were replaced by the symbol of HADES. "One hour Ulysses," she said in a distorted voice, like two people speaking in unison, before she ran and jumped through the north window of the gym.

Ulysses knew instantly what had happened. "So the final battle begins," he said, "He has activated all of the obelisks on Wakusei."

"That would explain Carly?" asked Aelita.

"Yes," said Ulysses, "HADES has possessed Carly, but for what purpose? Aelita, Ulrich, and Yumi. You guys go follow her and find out what she intends to do. Jeremie, Xana, Odd, and I will head for the warehouse to delete the sectors."

"Alright, let's go!" said Ulrich as he, Yumi, and Aelita left and followed the HADES possessed Carly.

Jeremie alerted Franz that HADES had possessed Carly and that the others were trying to find out what she intended to do. Franz said that he would go with them, and Anthea said that she would go with Franz, after all Carly was her niece and she needed to protect her ever since Carly's birth mother had disappeared.

The group reached the warehouse and got into the computer lab in a few minutes. Ulysses was right, all of the obelisks on Wakusei's seven sectors had been activated. "HADES only gave me an hour to delete the sectors and get onto Virtual Earth for the fight to begin," he said, "There's still the question of what he wants with Carly though."

They got their answer when Yumi called and said, "Jeremie! Carly is heading for the factory! HADES is going to make her bypass the firewall that's blocking Wakusei to Lyoko's towers!"

"He's making her activate a single tower," said Xana.

"Let's not find out what he intends to do with that tower," said Odd, "We have to delete the sectors right away!"

"You're right Odd," said Jeremie, "I'll send you guys to the mountains to start your mission, and we'll go sector by sector until you've deleted all of them."

"Alright Jeremie," said Ulysses, "Send us in!"

Ulysses, Xana, and Odd got into the synchronizers and Jeremie sent them in. There were no monsters in sight. "Jeremie, send us the coordinates of the obelisk we have to implement Code: HADES in," said Ulysses.

"I'm bringing it up," said Jeremie, "Obelisk #03, west by south west of you."

They darted in the direction of the obelisk. When they saw it, they expected to see a few monsters guarding it, but there was nothing there.

"That's too easy," said Odd as he readied his laser.

"HADES is purposely making this easy for us," said Ulysses, "He wants me to delete the sectors."

Ulysses darted for the obelisk and jumped inside. When it asked him for the code, he entered Code: HADES and suddenly the obelisk interior turned blue. The obelisk disappeared and the sector started disappearing as well. When it completely vanished, the group desynched to the digital void.

"The mountain sector has been completely deleted!" said Jeremie, "Next stop, the wetlands! Be prepared for anything!"

Aelita contacted Jeremie through the factory supercomputer and said, "Bad news! Carly activated a tower for HADES!"

"We'll get her out of his control soon!" said Jeremie, "We just have to delete the sector that has the obelisk controlling her!"

Jeremie sent Ulysses, Xana, and Odd from the digital void into the wetland sector. "Obelisk #10 due east," he said.

Ulysses headed into the obelisk and entered Code: HADES again. The sector disappeared and sent them to the digital void once more. Again and again they deleted the sectors continuing with the jungles (obelisk #07), the volcanoes (obelisk #01), the oceans (obelisk #05), and the desert (obelisk #08).

"The last sector that needs to be deleted is the cave sector," said Jeremie.

"Damn it!" said Ulysses, "I hate that sector. All those maze-like tunnels and pits. It's at times like this, I wish I had never made that sector. But unfortunately we have no choice. Carly's obelisk is on that sector."

"Let's go then," said Xana.

"Alright," said Jeremie, "Synchronizing!"

They entered the cave sector, but they couldn't see anything. Xana clutched Ulysses' hand because she still hadn't gotten over her fear of the dark. "Hang on Xana," said Ulysses, "I happened to program magnesium in the walls of the sector allowing me to light the walls on fire. Pyrokinesis, solar flare." A beam of fire spread across the walls and illuminated the entire tunnel, only to reveal a maze before them.

"Obelisk #09 is just beyond that maze," said Jeremie, "I'll guide you Ulysses."

"Thanks Jeremie," said Ulysses.

Franz got on the communication system. "Jeremie," said Franz, "Aelita, Ulrich, and Yumi can't hold out much longer against Carly! Have you found the obelisk?"

"Yes we have," said Jeremie, "I just have to guide Ulysses to the obelisk because it's in the cave sector's maze. You'll know when she's out of HADES' control. When she is, head straight over here."

Jeremie guided Ulysses through the maze and Ulysses jumped into the obelisk when he got there. "Here we go!" said Ulysses as he entered Code: HADES and the sector started to disappear, "Obelisk shutdown and sector deleted!"

As the sector was deleted and they were desynched from Wakusei, the obelisk possessing Carly was destroyed as well, and on Lyoko she stopped attacking Aelita, Yumi, and Ulrich.

"What's going on?" she asked, "Why are we on Lyoko?"

"HADES possessed you so you could activate this tower for him," said Yumi.

"Aelita, now is the time to deactivate the tower," said Ulrich.

Aelita nodded and ran into the tower. She entered Code: LYOKO and Franz ejected them from Lyoko. After they got out of the lab and scanner room, they headed for the warehouse.

When they got there, Ulysses said to them, "Wakusei's seven sectors have been completely deleted. I have only half an hour to get to Virtual Earth to face HADES."

"And this is the final fight," said Xana, "So you will have to give all you got to beat this guy."

"That's right," said Ulysses as he wrote some kind of program and connected it to his Wakusei profile.

"And we need to know what the final condition was on the message HADES sent you when he challenged you," said Carly.

Ulysses said simply, "When you synchronize me, activate the Fight to the Death program."

That was the final condition?! To activate the FTD program? Ulysses is taking a huge risk by activating this program. If he dies, he will die physically. What is going to happen next? Find out later on...