Chapter 4:
A Surprise for Xana
Carl landed in the forest sector in a crouch. Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd stood in a loose circle and looked him over. His Lyoko form wore a solid black ninja judo. He also had two swords. One hung on his left hip like Ulrich's, and the other was perpendicular across his rear. Carl also scanned the others. Ulrich glanced at the swords. "Copycat."
Carl drew one sword and held it forward. It was smaller than Ulrich's with only about two-thirds the reach.
Jeremy did a weapons check. "Two longblades. Not as long or powerful as yours, Ulrich. Having two compensates for that, though."
Carl sheathed his sword and looked around. "Where are we?"
"This is Lyoko, silly," Odd said with a laugh.
"Lyoko? But where's Regalis?"
"What are you talking about?" Ulrich asked.
"Regalis? The virtual world?"
"This is very interesting," Jeremy mused. "Two factories with two different virtual worlds?" He thought for a moment. "We'll have to look into that, but for now, I'd like to test you Carl, just to see how good you are."
He entered in the command and a block appeared in front of Carl. He smirked. "Oh, man." He reached over with his right hand and back with his left and drew both swords. "It's been a while since I faced off against one of these."
A bolt came from behind and blasted Carl's back. He fell to the ground and twisted his head to see a second block. It charged for another shot. Carl flicked his foot, which just happened to be underneath one of his swords, and kicked it into the air. The rising sword caught the shot as Carl executed a back flip; something popped on his right wrist. As his feet touched the ground, Carl swung his arm in an arc, releasing some kind of large disk attached to a wire. In a flash, he grabbed the sword still in midair and held it over his back in time to catch another shot from the other block. The large disk impacted with the first block's eye, causing it to explode. Carl twisted around to face the second block. It launched several more bolts which he easily deflected. Suddenly he crouched and jumped into a back flip. The same large disk flew past, inches under his inverted head. Carl landed on one knee as the disk sliced through the second block. He yanked his wrist back, which seamed to pull the disk right back to his wrist. It vanished as it hit his outstretched arm.
He slowly stood up and looked at the others. They all had their arms and chins hanging in stunned amazement. "Cool," Odd said. It was the only response he got out of them.
"Hold on," Jeremy said. "Let me see that disk thing again."
Carl held his arm straight out. It popped again and some sort of blade jumped into the air. Carl caught it by a ring at the end. It was like a very thick curved sword, but black and with only one edge sharpened. It also had a handheld built in halfway down the dull side. Ulrich looked skeptical. "That's what killed two blocks?"
"No," Carl said with a smirk. He gripped the second handgrip and pulled sideways. In a whirr, three identical blades swung out and around the hoop and locked into a windmill shape. "THIS is what killed two blocks."
"THAT'S A DEMON-WIND SHURIKAN!" Jeremy screamed.
"Calm down, Einstein," Odd said. "What's a demon-wind shukihan?"
"A demon-wind shurikan. It's a weapon mentioned in old Japanese legends. But none were ever found."
Carl placed the weapon on his wrist and it spun back into his arm. He looked up, down a path. Two crabs turned a corner and started walking towards them. "Giving me some more, eh?"
"Those aren't mine," Jeremy answered. "You've also got two megatanks coming from the other direction."
Carl drew both swords again. "You guys take the tanks. I can handle the crabs. They're still red level."
"What do you mean by that?" Yumi asked. But the two tanks caught her attention. One stopped, opened, and began charging while the other continued toward them.
The gang sidestepped as the death ray ran toward them. Odd launched several arrows, but was too far to get a hit. Suddenly, he vanished as the second tank got a direct hit.
Yumi charged forward and avenged her friend by slicing the megatank's eye with her fan. She raised her hand to catch her weapon, but never got a chance. The first megatank flattened her under a ton of metal and muscle. As her body vanished, it turned and opened, it's eye glowing as it glared at Aelita. Ulrich swooped in and buried his sword into the yellow eye. He jumped away as it exploded.
Carl continued blocking shots from both crabs. When he finally reached a small break, he sheathed his right sword and hurled his shurikan yet again. It missed majorly to one side. Carl kept blocking the crabs' shots with one sword. When it looked like he may lose, he held up his arm and caught the deadly disk…from the opposite direction. With a yank, he pulled the wire tight around the crab's legs like a StarWars snowspeeder. The crab's heads bashed together in a metallic clang. Carl jumped high and buried both swords into their waiting skulls.
He leapt to safety, and Ulrich ran up to him. "Nice work."
"Thanks. Where's Yumi and Odd?"
"We're ok, guys," Yumi called through the computer. "The tanks got us."
Carl looked around. "Where's Aelita?"
Another red dot appeared on Jeremy's screen. "Oh no. It's the skithezoa!"
Carl and Ulrich turned simultaneously. The giant monster already had Aelita in its grasp. Carl sheathed his swords. "HEY, SQUIDFACE! WHY DON'T YOU PICK ON SOMEONE WHO CAN FIGHT BACK?" Suddenly, he vanished in a puff of black smoke. No sooner had he disappeared than he had reappeared in the same black smoke, midair only feet from the skithezoa, shurikan in hand. He threw it and vanished again. The massive blade sliced through most of the tentacles holding Aelita. Carl reappeared on the other side just in time to catch his weapon and through it again. He continued his teleporting and throwing until, only a few seconds later, none of the skithezoa's tentacles remained. Carl caught the blade again, but disappeared before throwing it. The monster began to retreat. Carl appeared overhead both swords extended. "TORNADO DIVE!" He pointed both swords straight down as began to spin as he quickly gained speed on his descent. He landed in a flash, swords hilt-deep in the skithezoa's translucent skull. It slowly began to crack and erupted in a massive explosion.
Everyone stared and gasped. Jeremy was the first to recover. "I don't believe it. You KILLED the skithezoa!"
Carl was panted lightly. "So? It was a monster, and monsters can be killed. What was it doing to Aelita, anyways?"
"It's trying to steal Aelita's memory," Ulrich explained. "I guess we won't have to worry about it now."
"No. Xana will probably just create another one," Jeremy said.
Carl butted in, "Well, I would like to see the rest of this world. If I'm going to help you, I should know where I'm fighting."
Everyone of earth nodded in agreement. "Alright then," Jeremy said as he pressed some buttons. "The forest realm's transport tower is 45 kliks south."
The next half-hour was spent exploring Lyoko. Surprisingly, Ulrich and Carl did not encounter any more monsters. Yumi, Odd, and Aelita decided to turn in, so they left after the second sector. The last sector they visited has the ice region. After traveling for a bit, Carl looked up. "Hey Jeremy, before we finish, I'd like to visit Carthage."
"Are you sure? It's really dangerous there."
"I think I'm familiar with it, as long as it's the same place."
"Alright, then. To your right is the launch point. Wait there." Jeremy proceeded to enter the code that gained them entrance. "Scipio." The large white orb descended and collected the waiting passengers, and flew them into the core of Lyoko.
Carl was instantly scanning as the orb deposited them into a large, spinning room. "Yep. This is definitely Carthage. I suppose you're still fighting creepers?"
"Yah, but what do you mean by 'still'?" Ulrich asked.
"Well, after a while, me and the rest of our squad got extremely good at defeating Xana's monsters. To keep up, he actually upgraded himself and created stronger ones."
"Get ready. The wall's about to open," Jeremy called down. The wall slowed to a stop and a gap opened directly in front of Carl and Ulrich. "You now have 5 minutes to find the trigger." The pair ran from one room to the next, scanning the walls. Eventually, "There it is. Up the wall to your right."
Ulrich looked up. There were almost no handholds. "How are we supposed to get up there?" Carl vanished in a puff and reappeared to press the button. He quickly jumped back over to Ulrich. "That was fast."
"What the… Hey guys, look behind you!" Ulrich twisted, hand reflexively on his sword hilt. What he saw made him gasp. In front of him were three…somethings. They looked like people, but were see-through, almost like ghosts. One was blonde in a white and blue basketball jersey and shorts. He was holding two large red balls, one in each hand. Another was in a brown robe, head shaven. The last was HUGE. He stood a head above the others and must have weighed more than both of them put together. He had a jaguar-skin Tarzan outfit and what looked like a large hammer across his back. But they seemed equally as startled as he was.
Carl seemed to jump at them. "Hey! How'd you guys get here?" The three stepped a little closer and seemed to relax. The big one mouthed some words, but Ulrich couldn't hear anything.
"Uh, Jeremy?" he called. "What's going on?"
"I'm not sure. Their patterns match the ghosts I found earlier. It must be Carl's team in the opposite Lyoko and their signal is sort of bleeding over to us."
Carl tried calling to them again, but got the same response: mouth with no words. Instead, he held up his hands and started making gestures. "What are you doing, now?" Ulrich asked.
"We made up a little hand language of our own. I'm explaining about this Lyoko." The blonde signed back. "'Is there some way to jump?'" Carl moved his hands again. "We don't know." Suddenly, bolts caught both Ulrich and Carl square in the back. They were on earth before they knew what had happened.
