Chapter 9:
New Threat
Jeremy stood in front of the scanner that would take him to Lyoko. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Aelita called down from the computer room.
"No," Jeremy answered. He had once sworn that he would never go back into Lyoko. "But we can't let Xana destroy our only connection to Hopper." With that, he stepped in. "Go ahead."
"Alright. Transfer Jeremy." The computer brought up his file from the one time he had been through. "Scanner Jeremy." Jeremy wasn't used to the tingling sensation of being scanned, so he felt a bit uncomfortable. "Virtualization." This was what Jeremy hated. For a split second, when his atoms were being deconstructed and downloaded, he felt a surge, as if his body was being thrown from zero to 500 mph in one second. But seconds later, it was over, and Jeremy fell onto forest floor.
He stood up slowly, his stomach churning. "I'm never going to get used to that." He set off towards the tower.
Evan ducked and dodged quickly, neatly flying around the blue crab's sporadic fire. With a flick of his wrist, one of his Ukemis struck the crab's head and destroyed it.
Kreilin and Sarah were having their own little sparing match. Sarah was hurling rocks while Kreilin was firing small pinkish energy balls that formed in his hands. Kreilin was able to get several hits, but Sarah wasn't faltering. "You're going to have to do better."
"How about this?" Evan called before blasting her in the back.
Sarah was thrown several yards away. She glared at him as he landed next to Kreilin. "Don't think this is the end." Her body slowly melted into the ground. In her place, about twenty roachsters materialized. Both of them took a step back.
"This doesn't look too good," Kreilin commented.
Jeremy suddenly appeared between Carl and Kreilin, right out of thin air. He was in a black body-glove type suit with neon green lines zigzagging across Tron-style. Instead of glasses, he was wearing a pair of black goggles. He had a large tube protruding from his wrist, and he had it leveled with the roaches. It flashed and a large energy pulse incinerated about four roaches. "Sorry I'm late."
"No problem." The all backed up to the tower. Suddenly, more roaches appeared down both side branches. They were completely surrounded. "I may have spoken too soon." He turned to Kreilin and held out his Ukemis. "Hey, Kreilin. Give me some heat." Kreilin held his hands forward and mumbled a few words. The Ukemis flared into fireballs. "Thanks. Each of us takes one branch. Kill everything." Evan turned to the left and started wind-milling his arms.
Jeremy turned back to Kreilin. "Can you do that for me, too?"
"Sure." Jeremy listened harder this time. "Krakeno. Use that well. It cost me 20 life points." He turned around and held up a hand. A pink energy orb formed in his palm, which he fired at a roach.
Jeremy turned to the right branch and fired his cannon. Instead of an energy pulse, a large gout of flames scorched several roaches. "Nice," he said to himself. He started to lay waist to the approaching roaches. Several roaches fired off shots through the flames, striking Jeremy twice. He clenched his teeth against the pain and kept going.
Evan finished flailing his arms. The four Ukemis were now spinning, creating a large, flaming wheel. He then pulled his arms close to his side and swung them wide. The Ukemis flew forward, close to the ground. They literally plowed through more than half of the roaches. Evan then got to work on cleaning up the rest.
Jeremy paused for a moment to risk checking on the others. Evan was doing well. He was just finishing off the last four roaches on his branch. Kreilin was having a bit more trouble. He was killing several roaches, but they would soon overcome him. "Kreilin. Switch."
Kreilin took one glance at him before he ran over to take Jeremy's place and started blasting roaches. Jeremy stepped toward the center branch and crouched onto one knee. "Let's see how you like my Digital Virus." A single tight beam shot from Jeremy's cannon, hitting one roach. It froze for a moment and started to vibrate. After several seconds, it erupted into a plume off green smoke. Several nearby roaches were caught by the smoke. They suddenly vibrated and quickly exploded into the same smoke. The cloud quickly expanded onto the entire pathway as more roaches where infected by the smoke and killed. Jeremy stood. "I don't have many life points left." Just then, several bolts ripped through the cloud. One shot Jeremy's chest. Jeremy let out a small scream. Just as his body began to vanish, his mind surged again, just like the virtualization. For a split second, Jeremy wanted to throw up, but his body wouldn't let him.
Everyone was waiting outside the scanner. As the door opened, they all gathered in, congratulating Jeremy. "You did great!" "Way to go, Einstein!" "Nice work!"
"Thanks, guys. But I need to check something out."
As soon as they got upstairs, Jeremy sat down and started typing away. "I need to see how Xana was able to create another entity. And how he got Sarah, of all people."
Since it was a Saturday, the kids didn't need to go to class. To pass the time, Yumi pulled out her Go board ad started a game against Aelita. Aelita was getting pretty good, considering that she had only been playing for a few months. Ulrich and Odd went back to school to get some lunch. Carl sat in a corner of the room reading The Guide to Surviving a Zombie Attack.
"I think I've found something." Everyone gathered around the interface. "Ok, before the fusion, we each had to fight an entity known as Xana."
"Right."
"My guess is that when we fused the two worlds together, both Xanas were fused as well into one super-powered being."
"That can't be good," Aelita commented.
"How do you explain Xana controlling Sarah?"
"I don't think he is. That probably was Sarah, completely, free of Xana's control, but under his influence. Best guess right now is that during the return to the past the night she was killed, Xana was able to absorb her life force."
"And now that he has double the power, he was able to bring her back?" Carl finished.
"Exactly."
Evan's face came up on the screen. "You might want to take a look at this." His face disappeared and a news station came up in its place. A woman was standing next to an older man.
"Just half an hour ago, astrologist Nick Durum discovered that a comet commonly known as Huron was suddenly veered off course." The reporter turned to the man. "Could you please explain what this means in more detail?"
"Well, the comet normally doesn't come anywhere near our system. But we noticed that the comet has turned inward, with no apparent reason. If it continues on its new path, then the comet will either strike the earth or come dangerously close."
"And how long will that be?"
"If our calculations are correct, 3 days."
"You heard it here, folks. Three days before a comet strikes the planet. Now this will have catastrophic effects if it does hit, but until we know, we can only hope."
Carl tapped Jeremy's shoulder. "If Xana has all of this new power, would he be able to do something like that?"
"Probably not, but I'll do a scan." The computer started flipping through towers, but stopped after one second. "Huh?" Jeremy typed something else. "No way!"
"What?"
"The towers are gone! Almost every one! I'm only finding one tower in each sector." Just then, a warning came up. "And they're ALL active."
Sorry about this chapter being so short, but this is the best place to stop. Did you all like the suit I gave Jeremy? Tell me in your review.
