"What tha..." Ulrich gazed in astonishment at the arm that had just broken its way through his door. It only took the figure behind his door mere seconds to rip the rest of the door off its hinges.

Standing in front of Ulrich was a man dressed in a black suit and sunglasses, resembling a special agent of sorts. The symbol of X.A.N.A. was clearly present in the mans eyes, confirming Ulrich's fear.

The specter charged at Ulrich with an exceptional speed and strength. Ulrich dodged the initial attack by jumping over to his bed. He swiftly grabbed his sword that was hanging on his bedroom wall and got into a defensive stance. The specter ran at him again only to be hit by Ulrich's sword, causing it to phase in and out of shape. Ulrich took this opportunity to run out of his room and head down the hallway.

As he made his way down the hall outside his room, he saw Odd running towards him.

"Ulrich, Jeremy said..."

"X.A.N.A.'s back and has activated a tower, I know. I just fought the specter in our room."

"Then let's move before he comes back." Odd said, Ulrich already beginning to run down the hall.

"Odd, how did this happen? We killed X.A.N.A. months ago, how did he survive?" Ulrich asked as they dashed down the dormitory stairs to the building exit.

"I don't know, Jeremy said he thinks X.A.N.A. could have survived on a non-internet source, like a LAN line or something."

Ulrich and Odd burst out of the doors, the specter having jumped down the stairway in one leap just behind them.

"Odd, run. I'll hold him off." Ulrich once again got into a defensive stance.

"Good luck man." Odd said as he ran towards the forest.

"Come on Mr. Specter, let's see what you got!" Ulrich yelled this with a nice helping of sarcasm, but just a hint of seriousness. He was well prepared to protect himself with his sword. He had taken lessons a few years ago on certain techniques and movements, giving him a sense of security in using it.

The specter ran at Ulrich so fast he could hardly see its movements. With one swift movement it knocked the sword clean out of Ulrich's hands and across the ground.

"Wow X.A.N.A., you've gotten pretty tough." Ulrich said this with a certain swagger in his voice, some would call it cockiness, but Ulrich knew that inside, he was greatly afraid.

—

Odd exited the elevator to see Jeremy on the supercomputer, just finishing materializing Aelita. Jeremy had been mostly relaxed since they defeated X.A.N.A., taking time to do things he enjoined and hanging out with Aelita. Odd figured they were dating but that Einstein was to nervous to tell the others yet.

"Ok Odd, go ahead and go down, I think X.A.N.A. sent a specter out directly though the supercomputer."

"I know, Ulrich's holding it off back at campus right now."

"Then we have no time to lose."

Odd hit the large red button sending the elevator down one more level. When the doors opened he walked into the middle scanner, the one on his left already having been taken by Aelita.

"Never thought I would be doing this again." Odd said, thinking of old times.

The doors to his scanner closed as Jeremy began his usual 'countdown'.

"Scanner Odd."
"Transfer Odd."
"Virtualization."

Odd's mind was sent through the scanners usual process until he was deposited in the Ice Sector, finding Aelita there waiting for him.

"It feels like it's been forever since we've been to Lyoko!" Odd stated, "It feels great!"

"Ok guys," Jeremy said through his microphone, his voice could be heard throughout the sector as though he was God in Heaven speaking to his people below, "the tower is just up ahead of you. I haven't seen any monsters on my monitor, but I doubt X.A.N.A. will let us off that easy."

Jeremy looked at the time on the monitor, noticing that Yumi would be finished with her finals. He pulled up her number that he had programmed into the supercomputer and dialed it.

*Ring* *Ring*

"Come on Yumi, pick up. Pick up."

*Ring* *Ring*

"Hello?" Yumi answered, just now exiting the Science Building.

"Yumi, we have a situation. X.A.N.A. is back and has activated a tower. There's a specter somewhere on campus that Ulrich's dealing with. Odd and Aelita are already on Lyoko and are headed towards the tower."

"Ok Jeremy, " Yumi said, still in shock that the thing that had plagued their young lives for so long was back again, "I'll hurry to the factory."

"No, I think it would be best if you tried to help Ulrich. He may be having trouble with the specter somewhere on campus."

"Ok Jeremy, I'll try to find him."

Jeremy hit a button on the right side of his keyboard that ended the call. Immediately after he ended the call the computer began beeping. Jeremy looked at his monitor only to find that three blocks had appeared around the tower.

"Guys, I can see three blocks guarding the tower, keep an eye out."

—

Ulrich hid behind a bush small bush in the forest. It was just big enough to conceal his body, but no bigger. His body was depleted as he had to sprint for what felt like forever to escape from X.A.N.A.'s specter.

Ulrich felt around in his pockets for his phone, but no luck. 'Dang,' Ulrich thought, 'I just had to forget my phone back in my room.'

Ulrich's thoughts were interrupted by a rustling noise coming from in front of him. He moved his head up just enough to allow him to see what was ahead of him. Nothing out of the ordinary appeared in his vision. 'I wonder what made that noise...' Ulrich thought, considering that it may have just been a bird or something.

He began to lower his head when he was hit with a sharp pain in his side and slid across the ground. His body cringed and he felt like some of his ribs may be broken. As he turned his head to see what had happened, he was hit with another burst of pain as the specter flung him into a nearby tree.

Ulrich was now in a great amount of pain. All he was able to do was sit up agains the tree he had just been violently volleyed into. His vision was blurry and unclear due to the amount of pain surging though him. As he looked up he say the specter with its fist ready to pound into his head. Ulrich closed his eyes, accepting his defeat as he no longer had the strength to fight back.

"Hey X.A.N.A.!" Yelled a female voice. Ulrich instantly recognized that voice. As he peered over towards where he heard her voice, he witnessed Yumi jump kick the specter square in the face. It fell to the ground, temporarily paralyzed.

"Ulrich, are you ok?" Yumi asked, her voice filled with concern.

"I'm fine, but we need to get to the factory to help Odd and Aelita."

"Come on, I'll help you walk." Yumi helped Ulrich up. She pulled up just a bit to hard causing there faces to be just inches apart. They both stared into each others eyes for a couple of seconds before they both blushed and began walking towards the factory.

—

Aelita and Odd had been making their way closer and closer to the activated tower for the last few minutes. The monsters seemed to be much smarter and stronger than before, making them difficult to destroy. Odd had already destroyed one of the three cubes while doing a stylish Aileron Role in mid air. The other two cubes were protecting the tower with a strange yet very tactical formation, one behind the other as they moved left to right and both fired at the same time, making a consistent amount of firepower while always having a moving target.

"Odd!" Aelita yelled, "use your claws to climb under them and surprise them from behind while I fly above to destruct them."

"Good plan Princess!" Odd began to do his part while Aelita activated her wings and flew above the two blocks. Both blocks instantly notice of Aelita, showing just how much better their reflexes had become. The air was then filled with laser fire from the duo of blocks. Aelita had many close calls, hardly finding time to fire back at them with her signature pink balls of energy that her hands so gracefully generated.

Odd was having trouble on his end as well. Due to him not having been to Lyoko in a while, he had lost some of his agile movement skills. One of his two hands would often slip as he clawed his way across the bottom of the flat sheet of floating ice. When he finally reached the end of the sheet he jumped up and took aim, destroying one block with just one arrow from his wrist. At that same moment, the other cube hit Aelita, causing her to lose control and begin falling.

"Aelita!" Odd yelled as he ran to catch her. He reached out his arms from the edge of the platform hovering over the digital sea, catching Aelita who fell just short of the ice sheet.

"Princess, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine Odd. Thank you." Aelita said this with a slight smile.

"Ok, now go deactivate the tower, I'll take out the cube."

Aelita ran towards the activated tower just as Ulrich and Yumi made their way out of the elevator to where Jeremy was watching everything on his monitor. The specter called the elevator back up and shocked the code pad causing the elevator to descend.

Odd jumped over the cube and took aim for it's top eye. Odd was taken aback when he saw the cube shoot a continuous beam of energy out of its top eye, headed straight for him. He took the shot, destroying the cube at the very moment he was devirtualized by the cube's strangely powerful beam.

The specter walked out of the elevator when it stopped at the lab. It began to charge up the electricity in its hands, aiming it at Ulrich and Yumi. They both clung to each other in fear for their lives.

Aelita walked into the tower with a slight gasp on impact with the tangible entrance. As she walked into the center of the tower she was levitated up to the second platform in the tower. A flat holographic terminal appeared in front of her. She pressed her hand on the terminal, something she hoped she would never have to do again after they "killed" X.A.N.A. the first time.

"Aelita" displayed on the terminal after she released her hand. "Code Lyoko".

The specter screamed in a low pitched voice as its shape faded into a ghost like state. It then appeared to almost dissolve in the air. Jeremy then typed a code into his keyboard.

"Return to the past now!"

—

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

Ulrich instantly slammed down on the snooze button and got out of bed.

"Get up Odd, you don't want to be late for finals again, do you?"

"Fine." Odd said, still reluctant to get up.

The two teens both got dressed, took showers and got some last minute studying in before they rushed off to class.

"I can't believe you made me miss breakfast to help you study, they were having chocolate chip pancakes today!" Odd complained.

"Get over it Odd, you can eat after the test."

Both of them walked into class with minutes to spare. They proceeded to take their tests, Odd asking Jeremy for answers more than once, but never getting him to budge. After all of the gang finished their tests they met at the factory to discuss X.A.N.A.

—

"How did he survive?" Yumi asked. "I thought we completely got rid of him a couple months ago."

"Well, so did I," Jeremy answered, "but somehow he survived. And from what everyone has said, he seems stronger than ever before."

"This is gonna be a major challenge, dealing with X.A.N.A. again." Aelita stated. You could feel the worry in her voice as though it was right in front of you. And for the Lyoko warriors, it was. They were all at least a little afraid of what might happen now, a stronger X.A.N.A., no way to kill him at the moment.

"This will be a challenge," Ulrich said, breaking an almost minute long silence, "but we have dealt with this before. We have all had to give our all in the past to fight against X.A.N.A., nothing has changed. We will continue to give our all, to fight harder than ever before, because out there are the people we care about. We do this for them, never forget that. We are all that stands between the ones we love and destruction, and we will stand against our enemy through it all. Nothing has changed, and I know we can do this."

The room was silent, almost caught off guard by what had just been said. They all felt better after that, as though Ulrich had directly injected a heavy dose of motivation into their bodies.

Everyone looked at each other, and after a moment of pause, they all came in for a group hug. The Lyoko Warriors were back in action and ready to face whatever X.A.N.A. Had to throw at them in the coming days.

Thank you all for reading, I really appreciate it. I had to work all night to get this just right, and it's more than twice as long as any other chapter! (I felt like you guys deserved something special for supporting my by reading my work (: ) So, this is where you, the reader come in. This series will consist of multiple episodes, almost like it is the TV series. So I want your opinion, would you rather I put out parts of an episode out at a time, maybe one every other day, or would you rather I write the whole episode and post it whole? Please answer with a review, thanks!