Chapter 3: The Secret
Disclaimer: Digimon belongs to Bandai and Toe. Code Lyoko belongs to Moonscoop. I only own the plot.
"Who's X.A.N.A.?" Ken asked.
"Forget it! First we need to get out of here! Just stay away from the cloud of smoke or else everyone will be in trouble!" Jeremie said, looking for a way out.
The smoke swirled around, forming into a humanoid shape before flying into the closest person, which happened to be Sissi. Sissi suddenly looked pixilated, but only for a moment. Then she was back to normal, except for one difference. Instead of her pupils, she had what looked like targets with three lines on the bottom and one line on the top in her eyes!
"W-What's happening?" Ken screamed.
"She's possessed!" Aelita yelled. "Run, Ken!"
But before Ken could move, Sissi was charging him.
"Ken!" something in his bag yelled. Out came a green worm-like creature the size of a small dog. "I'll save you!" Something in Ken's pocket began to shine a light as the worm began to glow.
"Wormmon, digivolve to... Stingmon!"
"Whoa!" Odd said. "That's AWESOME!" In place of the small creature was a creature around twice as big as an average person with an insect-like head, a humanoid body, insect-like claws, green and black armor, insect wings, and spikes on it's shoulders. On it's wrists were gauntlets that seemed to contain large stingers.
"Don't hurt her, Stingmon!" Ken yelled at the newly formed creature, seeming to know it personally.
"Spiking Strike!" The spikes came out of the creature's gauntlets, glowing purple, and it stabbed the door, sending it off it's hinges.
"Quickly, everyone out!" Ken yelled. "Stingmon, don't let her out! Make sure she stays away from everyone else!"
"Right!" it nodded. After everyone was out, aside from Sissi, Stingmon pushed the door back in place, sealing her in with no way to escape.
"We need to get to the factory!" Yumi said.
"What factory?" Ken asked, hearing Yumi's statement.
"I'll explain on the way," Jeremie said. "The thing that possessed Sissi is after us, so you and that flying thing should come too while you explain where he came from."
"Okay, I'll try," Ken began to explain. "First off, this is my partner, Stingmon. He's what is known as a digimon, short for digital monster. I was chosen as his partner by a parallel world, known as the Digital World, home to all digimon. By using a Digivice, short for digital device, I can invoke my emotions and the power of my crest, the crest of kindness, to allow him to digivolve, or digitally evolve, from his rookie form to his champion form. Right now, he's in his champion form, Stingmon."
"Okay, I think I understand," Jeremie said. The group climbed into the sewer. Ken rode on Stingmon's shoulder and the two flew behind the others while they rode their scooters and skateboards to the factory. "I'll explain our story once we get to the lab."
They climbed out of the manhole and ran into an abandoned factory building. They went used some old ropes to get to the ground floor and went inside an old elevator. Stingmon de-digivolved to Wormmon so he wouldn't be too big to fit. The lift went down one level and opened to reveal a high-tech computer lab. Jeremie, Ken, and Wormmon walked in and the others went down another level. Jeremie sat in his chair and began typing.
"I'm sending you to the Mountain Sector," Jeremie spoke. "Transfer: Odd, Transfer: Ulrich, Transfer: Aelita. Scanner: Odd, Scanner: Ulrich, Scanner Aelita. Virtualization!"
"So, what's you guys' story?" Ken asked.
"Hold on a second, Ken." Jeremie said, glancing at him. "Guys! Three Tarantulas and a Mega-tank! I'm sending Yumi. Transfer: Yumi. Scanner: Yumi. Virtualization!" Jeremie typed a little more, then stopped and turned to Ken. "Alright. To summarize all this, I found the super computer while looking for robot parts in this factory. When I turned it on, I saw Aelita on a virtual world called Lyoko. I also accidentally woke an evil computer virus named X.A.N.A. We found out that, by activating the towers on Lyoko, X.A.N.A. can influence the real world around the super computer. Aelita is the only one who can de-activate the towers because of her connection with Lyoko. X.A.N.A. is trying to destroy the core of Lyoko so that Lyoko itself will disappear. If he succeeds, we won't be able to stop him in his plans. The only way to stop him is to use the computer to activate the scanners on the floor below to upload ourselves onto Lyoko." Jeremie turned back to the screen and opened a small chat window. "How's it going in there guys?"
'Not too good, Jeremie!' Ulrich replied. 'There are too many Hornets and Krabs and Yumi just got de-virtualized!'
"Ken! You've got to go in and help them. Odd can give you a crash course on fighting in Lyoko. Just make sure Aelita makes it to the tower!"
"Alright. Can you virtualize Wormmon too?"
"Who's Wormmon?"
"That's his name in the form he's in now," Ken motioned to the digimon on the floor.
"Oh. Probably. After-all, he is made of data, right?"
"Technically, yes, but it's more complicated than that."
"Well, either way, we need you in Lyoko now! Go down one floor and each of you get in a scanner."
Ken and Wormmon went downstairs and went into opposite scanners. The doors closed and Jeremie's voice could be heard from a speaker somewhere.
'Transfer: Ken, Transfer: Wormmon. Scanner: Ken, Scanner: Wormmon. Virtualization!'
There was a rush of wind and light as Ken was suddenly hanging in mid-air before making a sudden drop to the ground. Purple rocks were everywhere, suspended in the midst of many clouds by seemingly nothing. In front of him was a person on a hover-board that looked like Odd, but he had a cat tail and cat ears as well as gauntlets on his hands shaped like paws and a purple outfit with a dog on the front. Ken looked down at himself to see he was dressed in an outfit that reminded him of an archaeologist who's name he couldn't quite put his finger on. At his side was a whip. Next to him was a confused Wormmon wearing a headband similar to the one that Hawkmon always wears, but with two green feathers instead of just one.
"Looking nice, Ken!" Odd said. "Show me what you can do with your whip there!"
Ken grabbed his whip and flicked it at a rock, slicing it clean in half.
"Cool!" Odd yelled. "I assume Wormmon already knows how to fight, right?" Wormmon nodded. "Alright! Let's see how you do against some Kankrelats! Hop on," Odd said, jumping on his hover-board as Ken grabbed Wormmon and followed suit. They shot off towards the fighting and Odd let Ken off. "Aim for the symbols that look like targets with eye-lashes and dodge the lasers. And whatever you do, don't fall off the cliffs. If you fall into the Digital Sea, your gone forever. Stay away from the giant jellyfish and cut off it's tentacles. And watch out for a person carrying a sword almost as big as him!" Odd flew off to help Aelita and Ken ran to help out Ulrich.
Ken threw his whip at a potato-looking thing (Kankrelat) that was trying to sneak up on Ulrich, grabbing it and throwing it strait into a crab-like monster (Krab). The monster landed right on the Krab's symbol and the two blew up. Ken heard Aelita scream as she flew overhead with several wasps (Hornets) on her tail. She threw a pink orb at them, but they dodged and started shooting lasers at her from their stingers.
Ken was about to help her out, but he got hit in the back by a laser. He turned around to see a spider with a white mask (Tarantula) kneeling and shooting lasers from it's front legs like a machine gun. 'Careful, Ken!'Jeremie spoke from seemingly nowhere. 'You just lost 40 life-points.' Wormmon got behind it and unleashed his Silk thread attack at it, destroying it instantly. While Wormmon destroyed the other monster, Ken turned back to Aelita and slice a Hornet in half, right through it's symbol. Ken was instantly surrounded by more Hornets. Not able to block all of them with his whip, he got hit twice in the back. 'Ken! You've only got 20 life-points left! One more hit and you'll be de-virtualized!' Jeremie informed him.
Ken managed to hide behind a rock and tried to think of a plan. Ken suddenly knew what to do and jumped out from behind the rock. He faced the Hornets and called out "Flame Whip!" as his whip caught fire and he threw it at all the Hornets in one quick motion.
Ulrich rode up to him on a one wheeled motorcycle and said, "Great job, Ken. Your a natural. Aelita's in the tower and we're about to make the jump."
"What jump?" Ken asked as a white bubble engulfed them.
"So I said, 'What do you mean there's no meatloaf? It's right there on your head!'" Odd said, laughing.
"Still not funny, Odd," Ulrich said glaring at him.
"What just happened?" Ken asked, sitting down.
"A Return To The Past," Jeremie said. "It allows us to rewind time up to twenty-four hours to make the damage X.A.N.A. caused with his attack disappear. Only people who have been to Lyoko remember what happened before the Return To The Past was activated."
"It's like a way to make it seem like nothing happened." Odd said, dumbing it down a little.
"So, only us and Wormmon remember?"
"Yup!"
"Okay, but since you know about Wormmon, you have to promise not to tell anyone."
"Promise!" they all said at once.
Announcer: Looks like Ken wasn't the only one who had a secret. But, what about the other Digi-destined? How will they feel knowing that someone else knows their secret? Find out next time on The Lyoko-Destined!