Sissi twirled around, the golden ribbon of energy forming an expanding spiral with her at the center and slicing into the set of 3 bloks that had her surrounded. It would have been an impressive move except for one small thing, most of Sissi's upper body was sparking from the five direct hits the bloks had scored on her. Forcing herself to smile as she helped Sissi up, Aelita watched the last pieces of the bloks flicker out of existence, "next time jump away from the monsters. Even if you don't kill them all, it's better than losing the fifty life points that victory would have cost you." She turned to Jeremy, "how about we work on her special power for a little while?"
Jeremy nodded and summoned a single blok, setting its laser power to the minimum, 1 point per hit. "Ok, there you go. It has no directives so it'll just sit there forever."
Sissi looked at Aelita, "so how does this work?"
Aelita shrugged and looked at Sissi's scepter. "Usually, you just know how to use your power. Try to envision yourself in control of that specific monster."
Closing her eyes, Sissi demanded access the blok standing in front of her and suddenly felt something strange. Jeremy and Aelita watched as the large diamond caged within the scepter began to glow with white light and a similar aura appeared around the blok. It stayed like that for a second and then the glow within the diamond faded, leaving an image of the blok imprisoned within it. Sissi opened her eyes, and stared out at Lyoko through two sets of eyes, one seeming to be the blok's and the other her own. The confusion evident in her expression concerned Aelita for a moment.
Sissi struggled to comprehend this new development, to gain some sort of perspective on her world. The double vision, overlapped yet not, from two different sources was starting to give her a headache. Staring at herself, her human form seeing the block and knowing it was her while the block form looked on her human form with the same knowledge. It didn't make sense, causing her to wonder where she really was and how the two views lined up with the world that was supposed to be there. Lost and beginning to panic as she attempted to move and got shifting perceptions of her motion from her vision and both bodies, something changed. The blok's vision was removed from her viewpoint and compressed into a small window that just seemed to float off to the side. Complete control of the blok's body was also removed from her and she found that it was simply waiting for instructions.
Jeremy and Aelita's concerned expressions faded as Sissi seemed to regain her composure. She had taken a few stumbling steps and looked completely out of it for a moment and now seemed fine. Frowning to each other, they took a step towards their new friend and stopped in their tracks when the block began to walk around and Sissi's lips curved into a smile. "I think she's got it."
Jeremy nodded in agreement and brought another blok into existence some distance away. "Why don't you practice your control over the blok." With that, Jeremy turned his attention back to his screens and looked at the stats from the rest of the group. Yumi had 40 lifepoints, Odd had 50, Ulrich and William were both down to 20. Frowning, he began to access some of Lyoko's controls and hit upon an idea. A simple one though it would take a few minutes to implement.
Aelita's head jerked up as she felt a familiar and usually fear inducing sensation. Around her Lyoko began to thrum with energy and she could feel the flow of data change. Ever since Jeremy had designed the superscan, she hadn't needed to visualize the pulsations created by an active tower, but that didn't mean she couldn't still feel them. Turning away from Sissi, who was now managing to direct the block and still mostly succeeding in blocking lasers, she shouted to Jeremy. "Did you activate a tower?"
"Yes." Jeremy called back calmly. He tapped one more button and a set of green beams lanced out from the top of the tower and hit everyone on Lyoko. Projecting his voice into the communication system, Jeremy spoke. "The beam is a program to access your forms and restore your life points. Once that's done, you can all escort Aelita to the tower and she'll deactivate it." Jeremy's voice took on a challenging tone, "unless my monsters de-virtualize her first."
Never one to allow such a challenge to go un-answered, the entire team walked over and formed a protective circle around a grinning Aelita. Speaking for her warriors, and adopting a mock royal tone, she said "my fair knights accept your challenge sir."
Odd laughed while the others nodded their agreement. But as he turned away to focus on the distant tower with the green haze surrounding it, he turned back towards Jeremy. "You know XANA and his monsters never managed to defeat us Einstein, what makes you think you can?"
Jeremy smiled and Yumi regarded her old friend for a moment before answering, "he's not XANA and he knows how we fight. Better not underestimate him Odd."
William looked up and brandished his oversized sword, "Oh come on Yumi, it won't be that difficult."
"I don't know William," Ulrich started off, "Jeremy's a good tactician and with monsters fighting his battle for him, it'll be more difficult than you think."
"I guess we'll see." William answered back derisively.
"And you'll probably be the first to be de-virtualized and-"
"Enough!" Aelita yelled, not wanting William to be reminded of what happened the first time he was sent to Lyoko. "We should make our way to the tower before Jeremy surrounds us." She waved at Jeremy and took off in the direction of the tower.
Odd looked back over his shoulder, "catch us if you can Einstein."
"I'm not going to go easy on you guys just because you're my friends," Jeremy retorted.
"I'd be disappointed if you did." Aelita called over her shoulder.
"No cheating Jeremy," William yelled out. "Monsters only but none of your Lyoko powers."
Jeremy laughed and turned away to spread out his tactical displays. He set up a trap near the tower using three tarantulas positioned such that they could offer overlapping fields of fire on the tower approach path. Next he created a set of four krabes and two megatanks to delay them. He focused on the battle as it started to unfold, deciding to forego airpower since Odd hadn't taken the overboard Aelita requested for him when he was finished with his homework.
Having watched his friends battle XANA over the years, Jeremy realized that XANA had made a critical mistake in only rarely taking direct control of his forces. Usually, based on the way he had observed the monsters fight today, XANA just gave them simple directives and let them do their own thing. But robots couldn't quite match human intelligence and if he wanted to win, he needed to rectify that shortcoming. So he decided to use a manageable number of monsters and focus on directing them, tweaking their directives to prevent them from being led away or confused.
[[]]
Yumi growled in frustration as the Megatank slammed its shell closed and her fans once again bounced off without harming the machine. She spared a glance as Odd as he scaled a boulder to take a few shots at a krabe while Sissi tried to keep it busy by swiping her scepter at it and forcing it to dodge the waves of energy it created. Ulrich was on her right side, attempting his triangulation on one Krabe while William faced off with the other mega tank. Two krabes stood off to the side, frustrating the warriors efforts by providing cover fire.
William was jolted by a shot to his back and he saw the two krabes that were providing suppressive fire converge on him. He smirked and started blocking fire as he approached the new opponents. Using his supersmoke ability he zoomed around behind the farthest krabe and up until he was over it. Then he came out of the effect and his sword crashed down on the red monster.
Jeremy snickered as he watched the monitors, he hadn't really given William much choice but to face the two krabes. Unfortunately for Ulrich, that left the megatank William had been keeping busy free and he sent it towards the samurai.
The megatank ignored the battle as it rolled towards Ulrich before shifting itself to the 'side', placing its laser lens parallel with the ground. On the command, it opened its shell and charged the elliptical laser emitter that made it such a feared opponent.
Sissi watched the krabe that she and Odd had been fighting explode into a shower of purple light and took a moment to bask in Odd's praise. She was, quite frankly, amazed that she had been able to help out at all. She turned around to see where the next battle was and shouted at Ulrich.
Ulrich heard the shout and turned towards Sissi, catching sight of the megatank and its charged laser at the very edge of his vision. The krabe he was fighting shot and one of the clones flew away, fading into a wireframe. The other clone jumped up to attack the krabe while the real Ulrich dropped to the ground. The red circle of death expanded outwards, barely grazing his head but the arrows fired by Odd at the creature moved it and the beam swept across the other clone, destroying both it and the krabe.
Sissi ran towards Ulrich as William flew there and together with Odd the four of them surrounded the megatank that had intended to kill Ulrich. But there was a major problem, the giant ball was pretty much invulnerable to everything except...
"Energy field" Aelita called out as the pink sphere of plasma flew from her hand.
Jeremy frowned as the team moved on, now free of his initial attack. But that wasn't all he could do and he set about preparing the next attack.
"See, that wasn't so bad" William declared.
"Yeah, there was no need to hide princess, you could have fought." Odd added.
"I figured it might be a good idea to hold back and watch. I doubt that was all Jeremy could come up with after all."
"And Ulrich can't use his triangulation or triplication now and we're a long ways from the tower yet." Yumi added.
"But Jeremy can only send a limited number of monsters and we took out six of them, right?" Sissi asked as she tried to figure out the new rules.
"No." Aelita answered as she noticed bloks and hornets ahead. "He can pretty much spawn as many monsters as he wants. There's a limit to how many can be around at once but Jeremy could replace the ones we destroy indefinitely."
"Oh..." Sissi answered with a note of hopelessness, "so then how do we win?"
"Jeremy wants to prove he doesn't need to overwhelm us. We just need to outdo his ability to multitask," Yumi answered in a confident voice.
"Easier said than done Yumi," Aelita responded.
"Don't be so negative." William yelled. "We'll win because that's what we do."
Ulrich bristled slightly at the thought of being we with William but found it wasn't as bad a feeling as he may have thought it would be. Sissi meanwhile, ran with the group and hoped that it didn't get too rough. Unlike everyone else, she wasn't really finding this all that much fun.
[[]]
William sat down in the big chair and watched the progress on the monitor, having been the first to be de-virtualized. As embarrassing as it was to go out first, it had to happen. His sacrifice had saved Yumi and drawn a grateful smile from the raven-haired beauty. And seeing as such small tokens were all he would be getting, he had burned the image into his mind. Not that it was all that pleasant a thought but it was all he had. Sighing, he spoke into the microphone, telling them that he was heading back to school because he was hungry. It was a lie, but it was better than being left here to consider his life while the others continued playing their game.
On Lyoko, Jeremy's voice called down everyone's stats: Aelita having 70 lifepoints, Odd having 50, Ulrich at 60, Sissi at 40 and Yumi at 30. He also advised them that they were nearing the tower but remained silent on what to expect when they got there. Yumi frowned, though her telekinesis trick had helped make short work of the bloks, she had been coated in the acid that a hornet sprayed while she was too busy concentrating. William then threw himself at her, breaking her concentration and preventing her de-virtualization but taking the brunt of the fire meant for her. By the time Sissi had managed to take control of the attacking hornet and collide it with the last blok it was too late for William.
"I see the tower!" Aelita exclaimed as she suddenly dove for the ground under the barrage of laser from the tarantulas Jeremy had hidden. "Jeremy-"
She was cut off by Odd as he smashed into her, forcing her back to the ground and narrowly avoiding the megatanks that came crashing through the group from behind.
"As much as Jeremy hates those things, he's certainly using them a lot," Ulrich grumbled while he deflected laser bolts to cover Odd and Aelita.
"They're some of the most powerful monsters," Yumi answered. "Even if they do cheat!" She yelled up to the sky on the assumption that Jeremy could hear her.
Sissi looked at the tower, "just run to it and get inside." She stepped out unto the path that lead to the plateau the tower was on and got pulled back by Odd just in time to avoid getting hit with the barrage of laser fire the three tarantulas put out. She flashed a grateful smile to Odd and he smiled back.
Aelita looked over the situation, they were on a plateau with several large boulders and would need to cross a narrow bridge to reach the platform the tower was on. The three megatanks rolling towards them came from the top of the mountain that the warriors had cut through via a tunnel. So there was really nowhere to go since the outlet of the tunnel they had come from was above them.
"Sissi," Ulrich snapped, "take control of one the megatanks and we'll use it for cover as we cross the bridge."
"And get shredded by the overgrown spiders when we hit the tower platform?" Aelita disagreed. Looking around, she felt the familiar sensation of Lyoko diverting resources to her. Time slowed to a standstill from her perspective and she envisioned the grid of triangles that made up the landscape. Carefully she drew out the new geology of the landscape, adding a curtain of rock to block the tarantulas line of fire to the platform they were on. Her singing voice rang across Lyoko as time returned to normal. The effect of time un-stretching was unsettling but she shook it off with ease as she got up and watched her wall form.
"Ok Sissi," Yumi called out to issue orders while she backed away from the megatanks. "You need to keep control of one tank at all times so we can use it for cover. Aelita fly away and don't get shot down, you need to stay safe regardless of what happens. Ulrich, Odd, you two need to take down the tanks. We need to protect me." She choked out that last sentence, hating to make herself sound weak but knowing that her telekinesis would be necessary since they could no longer count on Aelita's creativity. "While destroying the tanks."
Sissi concentrated and pulled one of the four tanks from Jeremy's grasp, sending it to act as a shield for Yumi. Then she watched Aelita reluctantly take off and lob an energy field at one tank before being driven off by a squadron of mantas. Jeremy seemed to be pulling out all the stops and yet they had made it this far. She grit her teeth, as much as it was possible on Lyoko anyway, and tried to keep one of the three remaining megatanks occupied. She was actually doing a decent job and even if she never managed to defeat her opponent, she was distracting it enough to allow Ulrich and Odd to fight their own monsters without worrying about hers.
Sissi waved her scepter and saw the golden ribbon of energy spark harmlessly against the metal ball and groaned in frustration. Apparently the things weren't being allowed to open and fire their main weapon because all they tried to do was run the warriors over. Jumping to the side as the tank thundered past and bumped into the rock walls on either side of the bridge, she noticed that Yumi had been backed into a corner by Odd's tank. It opened up, the eye of XANA in the wrong position for Odd to hit easily and Sissi immediately focused on taking over its controls.
Jeremy never even had a chance to stop what happened next really. He had forgotten about the megatank that Sissi was controlling as he managed the other two and the areal battle with Aelita. The automated alarm caught his attention and he did a double take as he watched Ulrich plummet towards the digital sea. Thinking fast, he linked the idle but active tower's processing power to the scanner and de-virtualization program, ran it on Ulrich and stopped the attack routines for the monsters he controlled. The result being the nearly instant recovery of Ulrich and a pause in the two battles being fought near his tower. A check of the lab's security cameras confirmed that Ulrich had returned to earth safe and sound.
Yumi caught her fans as they returned after sailing through the place that Ulrich would have been had Jeremy not brought him back. The megatanks and the 1 remaining manta stood still and Aelita blasted all four as she flew back to her friends. Yumi turned and glared at Sissi, her eyes forming ice cold lasers that drilled into the girl and caused her to raise her scepter defensively. "You could have killed him." She snarled as she launched her fans.
"Yumi-"
"Shut up Odd." Yumi yelled to stop the boy from getting into trouble by defending Sissi.
Sissi raised her scepter and batted Yumi's fans away from herself then ran to take cover behind a boulder.
"Get back here you little coward." Yumi called out angrily.
"Yumi, Ulrich's ok and in the lab." Jeremy announced over the communication system as he also pulled up Aelita's board so that he could get to the tower more quickly. When he stepped onto it however, he wished he'd chosen the overwing instead. Still he took off, though at a more sedate pace than Aelita would have, and hoped he had learned well enough to manage on his own. The daunting drop didn't make him feel better and he settled on taking an overland path, telling himself that even though it wasn't the most efficient course it was still faster than if he'd tried to run.
"Yumi, Ulrich's ok." Aelita echoed Jeremy, "you don't need to do this."
In the lab Ulrich took pity on Sissi and managed to direct a communication to her alone. "Fight her, even if you lose it'll help you earn Yumi's respect and that'll go a long ways."
Sissi gulped and hesitated, wondering again if she really wanted this. Noticing Yumi round the corner, she ran for another area of cover, but stumbled as one of the fans grazed her arms. Seeing Yumi approach, Sissi acted on survival instinct and slashed at her. Yumi back flipped away from the stream of energy and smiled very slightly. She threw her fans at the retreating girl's form and caught them after they sailed over Sissi's prone from. Sissi scrambled up, grateful for the shouted warning from Odd and ran away again. Yumi continued to advance. Ulrich's voice from the sky told her to stand her ground instead of running.
But she still wasn't sure about whether or not that was a wise idea. There was no way she really stood a chance against Yumi. Herve and Nicholas didn't really deserve to be hanging around her and yet she let them bask in her presence and enjoy her elevated social status without earning it. Why now, after being invited in, was she being challenged? She had earned her entrance by saving Odd that night and the way everyone wanted to calm Yumi down, it seemed they all believed that too. Granted she had accidently sent Ulrich plunging towards his potential death, but that was an accident.
"We let you into the group without having done any of the work or taking any of the risks we all lived with for years." Yumi ground out. "And now you come here and nearly kill one of us."
"It was an accident." Sissi shouted as she circled the boulder to get away from Yumi.
"It was selfish, careless behavior. Maybe an attempt to impress Ulrich by saving me," Yumi said as she continued to calmly walk around the boulder and towards Sissi.
Aelita and Odd both sighed with frustration but knew that pleading with Yumi wasn't a good solution since it wasn't going to work. Sissi had acted to save Yumi and it was perfectly understandable to the two of them and probably to Ulrich. Jeremy landed shakily beside Aelita and watched with a worried expression He tapped his watch to send Sissi back to earth but was stopped by Aelita.
"Is that what you think?" Sissi said, growing angry at the accusation. Stepping away from the boulder, she readied her scepter and looked at Yumi. "I am a girl of my word. I tried to save you because that was the first thing I thought of when I saw you in danger. I'm-"
Yumi threw one fan and waited a second before throwing the second one.
Sissi cut herself off as she blocked the first fan and narrowly dodged the second one. Forcing her usual cowardliness to the side for a moment, she swung her weapon at Yumi, forcing the older girl to jump to the side. Twirling, she slashed again and watched Yumi slip under the wave of energy.
Yumi Jumped up as soon as the wave passed over her head and lunged at the girl, forcing her to use her scepter to block the fans. Dropping, she swept her leg across the floor but had to leap back when Sissi's flailing arms created a knot of waves that she had to get away from.
Sissi scrambled to her feet while Yumi rose gracefully. Hoping to catch the girl off guard, Sissi rushed towards her and yelped as Yumi grabbed and threw her in the direction of her lunge, causing her to fall and then skid along the ground. Luckily she tumbled once and managed to end up on her back so she was just barely able to catch Yumi's fans on the handle of her weapon and deflect them away.
Yumi caught her fans just as Sissi collided with her, sending them both to the ground. The struggle was one sided and despite Sissi pressing all her weight into Yumi with handle of her scepter, she was thrown off. Yumi rolled once, snatched one of her fans from where it had fallen after being knocked out of her hand, and threw it before getting up.
Sissi picked herself up and ran at Yumi, side stepping the fan she threw and hoping to catch the older girl off guard. But if the energy waves Sissi threw at the black-haired girl worried her, she didn't show it. Seeing Yumi dive at the other fan from a standing position, she altered her course to make sure she didn't miss when she sprang on the dark clothed teen.
Yumi grabbed her fan and used the momentum from her dive along with the strength of her arms to push herself into the air and land standing up. She raised her fan and swept it across Sissi's chest. Watching Sissi de-virtualize, she casually reached up and caught the returning fan then turned her attention to the sky. Surprising everyone except Ulrich, she said "Ulrich, tell Sissi that for her first real fight, she did a passable job."
Jeremy's jaw dropped, from Yumi to Sissi that was high praise.
Sissi tumbled from the scanner tube gasping for breath and instinctively running her hands over her chest and stomach, terrified at the prospect of feeling the cut Yumi had inflicted with her weapon yet needing to know for certain that she wasn't about to die. Strong hands grabbed at her and she considered fighting back then realized that it was Ulrich, the soothing sound of his voice assuring her that she was ok calming her instantly. She leaned on him a moment longer than necessary after he helped her up, and she could only partially regret it. But it had to end and she stood unassisted on her own two feet for a few seconds then walked with him over to the elevator. "Ulrich, I'm not-"
Ulrich shushed her and said, "Yumi had a message for-"
"I don't need to hear it. I messed up and it's her excuse to get rid of me." Sissi said angrily despite her earlier doubts. "I-"
"Sissi." Ulrich's voice cut her off, "Yumi said that for your first actual fight, you did well." He looked away, that was an exaggeration of what she had said but it was what she meant. Still, he didn't want to know what would happen if Yumi found out that he hadn't related exactly what she had said. "Actually, she said you did a passable job. but," he added quickly, "what I said is what she really meant and you can confirm that with Jeremy or Aelita if you want."
Whatever Sissi would have replied with was lost as the scanners operation filled the room with sound and steam. Odd and Yumi emerged from the large metal cylinders first, followed shortly by Jeremy and Aelita.
Yumi ran straight to Ulrich, grabbed him, and hugged him tight, ignoring the volcanic heat of her face as she did so. The impulse wasn't exactly normal but the thought of losing him so soon after they'd finally put aside their troubles to become a couple was more painful than she had been prepared for.
Jeremy came up behind Aelita and pressed himself into her back, wrapping his arms around her waist and setting his chin on her shoulder. She grasped his hand and pulled his embrace just a little tighter before nodding her head to rub her cheek against his. She smiled as she watched Ulrich and Yumi separate, silently grateful that her face didn't look like it could light the room.
Sissi stood back and finally turned away from Ulrich and Yumi only to spy Jeremy and Aelita in a different but similar situation. Anything good she may have taken from Ulrich's words earlier was erased when thinking about the two couples. But she still felt something a little strange, on some level she was happy to see Ulrich enjoying Yumi's company. Still, she understood Williams desire to leave earlier and even shared it. As she considered that, she felt someone nudge her shoulder.
Odd nudged Sissi's shoulder right about the time Yumi and Ulrich separated. He held up his phone to her, the freshly taken pictures of both Yumi and Ulrich and Jeremy and Aelita a master piece of embarrassment. "Too bad I can't publish them," he said silently. "But look at Yumi blush." Sissi giggled in response then ran with Odd to the elevator and hit the button before any member of the two couples could react.
Only a few minutes later, the six friends were walking along the overland route back to school, talking about their adventure on Lyoko. Sissi stood about as far away from Yumi as it was possible to be while remaining within the group. She still felt apprehensive around the older girl despite how much her earlier hard feelings had seemed to mellow.
"So Jeremy, you should have tried using the mine field ability of the mantas you were directing." Aelita said. "That would have made things much more difficult on me."
"Please, princess," Odd answered, "you and I both know that mines wouldn't have made a difference and that you would have won anyway."
"That's not the point-" Aelita answered.
"Mines would have delayed her more and hopefully prevented her from destroying the megatanks from the air." Jeremy finished her sentence. Addressing Aelita he added, "and you're right." He paused as if feeling uncomfortable and finished sheepishly, "I um... forgot about that ability."
The entire group laughed and Aelita patted Jeremy on the shoulder. "It's ok."
"So what was with all the megatanks?" Yumi asked, sounding playfully upset.
Jeremy shrugged, "they were the hardest to defeat. And they had the least vulnerability in a sense."
"Well it's a good thing there weren't any around when Odd got frozen by that blok." Ulrich laughed, "though I would have paid to see Odd squashed by one of those things."
"Hey!" Odd called out. "What-"
"I'm with Ulrich on that," Yumi added. She was followed by a chorus of "me too" that even included Sissi and another round of loud laughter.
Odd grumbled something about not deserving such treatment.
"That reminds me." Yumi said, sounding much more serious. "Sissi, I'm sorry I went off on you like that but I'm glad you decided to fight me. Just because the odds aren't in your favor doesn't mean you shouldn't try and shouldn't stand up for yourself. Friends?"
Sissi cringed when Yumi addressed her and then turned and gaped in surprise. Walking slowly as she processed the statement, she finally turned towards Yumi and shook the older girl's outstretched hand. "Friends."
The sight of the campus gates made Jeremy sigh as he reluctantly pulled his hand out of Aelita's. Such gestures of affection were frowned upon here. "Back to the grind tomorrow," Jeremy told the group. "Midterms aren't too far away and there's still work to be done."
A/N: I think I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel...
To the anonymous reviewer Grumbles: Thank you for your review. Sorry about the updates but sometimes it takes me a long time to get a chapter typed up and other times I end up going through several drafts before settling on something I like. I agree with you on long chapters but I can understand the appeal of short ones as well.
To the Anonymous reviewer Whazzat: Thanks for your review. I was actually considering a chapter to deal with Herve and Nicholas but, to be honest I'm not very likely to do it. I'm not looking forward to writing it out and it seems that if it's not fun for me to write out, it ends up not being fun to read. You are correct about Ulrich's father and there will be a confrontation and a decision made regarding whether or not Ulrich gets to stay at Kadic.