Chapter 20
"You know something?" April said as they walked over to Jérémie's dorm room.
"What?" Odd asked.
"Xana has not attached yet."
"Shush! He still has time." Ulrich said.
"Sorry."
"Come on, we're almost done with the cartoon." Odd said, opening the door to Jérémie's room. "I want to finish it today."
"Alright, alright. We know." Yumi said, smiling.
They walked in, only to find Jérémie working on a Lyoko program.
"What's up, Einstein?" Odd asked, seeing his face full of worry.
"Something's happening on Lyoko and I can't get a hold of Aélita." Jérémie said. He turned to his friends and asked, "Was Aélita at the presentation?"
"No, she wasn't." Ulrich said. "We just thought she was with you."
"I can't localize her cell signal." Jérémie said, panic creeping into his voice.
"Could she be on Lyoko?" April asked.
"Yes, but why would she be?" Jérémie asked, checking something.
"There! Is not that her?" April asked, pointing to the yellow triangle appearing in his screen.
"Yes, but something's happening to her program." Jérémie said, reading the window that had popped up. "She's being deleted!"
"We have to go and stop it." Odd said, turning around to head out of the room.
"But there's no activated tower." Jérémie said. "How Xana is doing this, I don't know."
"Could he be using a tower from Xanadu?" Yumi asked.
"Maybe." Jérémie said, typing away as Odd turned back to be behind his friend.
"I wonder if Joro has noticed." April said, thinking out loud.
"I found it. There is an activated tower, the power's just being used to delete Aélita." Jérémie said. "But we're going to need help with where it is."
-.-.-.-
"Hey Jérémie, it's Joro." Joro said as the camera came online. "Everyone that's going has the best powers for where this tower is on Lyoko."
"Ya, but we don't have much time." Jérémie said, using the supercomputer to translate their speech. "Aélita's getting deleted by Xana right now and we need your help to get to the activated tower in Lyoko's mountain sector."
"Got it." Joro said. He moved the chair over to another screen and started to type in the commands.
"Scanner Antea, Scanner Cat, Scanner Mack. Transfer. Virtualization!" Joro called, typing in the information.
His three friends appeared on the forest sector of Xanadu and waited for his signal. Cat's hair crept upward as if it had changed into a grape vine of sorts.
"Here's your transport." Joro said, typing to get the access panel. "L-Y-O-K-O!"
The black transporter appeared, taking the three to Lyoko.
-.-.-.-
Ulrich stopped sideways on his Overbike as he saw three figures being virtualized in the mountain sky. Beside him was Odd and Yumi with April on her overwing.
"Uf!" Cat cried, landing hard on her feet. She stood up and looked around. "Whoa."
"I know, different, huh?" April said, smiling at her friends from the US.
"A little." Mack said, smiling at the girl.
"Come on, we don't have much time." Jérémie said, typing in some codes. "Aélita's just west of your position."
"Got it, Einstein!" Odd said.
"I'll go on ahead and see what needs to be done." April said, closing her eyes and teleporting out of sight.
"Cat, get on with me." Yumi ordered as she noticed Mack morphing his body to have skate-like feet and Antea jumping onto the back of Ulrich's Overbike.
Cat jumped onto the Overwing and grabbed Yumi's waist. "Let's go save Aleta!"
"It's Aélita." Yumi corrected.
"Sorry." Cat said as she held on tighter to Yumi as they speed through the mountain sector of Lyoko.
"How you like the look?" Ulrich asked as they headed towards the tower.
"It looks so much like a cartoon it's not funny." Mack said.
"There! I thing I see Aélita!" Yumi called out, straining to see something ahead of them.
"The pink haired girl?" Mack asked.
"Yap." Odd said.
"She's attached to a tower!" Antea said, surprised.
As they got closer they saw that red lights were holding her to the tower, her digital form deterriating.
"Aélita!" Ulrich cried, seeing what Xana was doing to her.
April had climbed up to her and was working at putting her bo in-between Aélita and the lights, only to find that it was dissolving her bo.
April looked down and saw that they had arrived. And behind them, figures started to be virtualized.
"Look out!" Jérémie said. "Xana's sending you some Krabes."
"Crabs?" Cat asked, turning around only to see the red monster land on its four legs behind them.
"Ya, advanced creators of Xana." April said, dropping down. "Mack, Cat, Antea, I need your help getting Aélita out. Odd, Ulrich, Yumi, hold back the Krabe."
"Will do!" Ulrich said as he jumped off his Overbike as the Krabe shot at him.
The laser hit the Overbike, sending it skidding off the edge of the platform.
"Cat, send a vine up towards Aélita with Mack at the top." April ordered, used to her friend's powers. "Mack, see if you can copy Xana's lights and deflect them away from Aélita to re-generate her. Antea, be ready to catch her when she falls off of the tower."
"And what about you?" Antea asked, still not used to April ordering.
"Xana surely will send more monsters. I'll help the Lyoko Warriors with keeping them away from you." April said as Cat fell down to her hands and knees, her hair going down to the ground and coming back up under Mack, picking him up. He went up towards Aélita and stopped right next to her, putting one hand in the lights. The other hand was trying to recreate the lights to help Aélita.
"Laser arrow!" Odd cried, shooting down into the eye of Xana on the Krabe's back, killing it.
"So where are the rest of Xana's monsters?" Yumi asked, looking around as she glided above on her overwing.
"Ya, this is way too easy." Ulrich said, sheathing his sword.
"Well, it's just about to get harder." Jérémie said as on his screen more red triangles where vitalizing. "Xana's sending you three mega-tanks and a tarantula."
"I'll take the spider, you three can take the balls." April said, her bo that was still trying to regenerate itself already in her hands.
"You know, what you just said, could be taken the wrong way." Antea said, looking away from Aélita and Mack.
"Shut up." April sang, knowing what the girl meant.
"Don't want to know." Jérémie said, looking at the screen with how much longer Aélita had. "Aélita's only got about two more minutes left. Hurry!"
"I'm almost done, Jérémie." Mack said as behind him and down on the ground, April had taken combat with the Tarantula and Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich each had a Mega-tank.
"Laser arrow!" Odd cried as he saw a chance with the mega-tank he had picked as it opened.
The laser made it inside the monster as it was closing and exploded quicker than anyone expected.
"Odd!" April cried as she used her bo to trip the tarantula, but couldn't get around to its eye of Xana.
Odd pointed his fist in the direction and shot at it, the arrow shooting it in the right spot.
"Odd, when did you get so good?" Ulrich asked as he avoided a wall of laser light from the mega-tank he was fighting.
"I guess I'm just good." Odd said as he saw Ulrich close in on the monster.
"One more minute." Jérémie said, giving Mack how long he had until Aélita was no more.
"Just a few more seconds." Mack said, working as fast as he could.
"Triplication!" Ulrich cried, creating a triangle around the monster.
The mega-tank swiveled around, not sure which was the real one. It shot at one of them, cutting the triangle.
The Ulrich on the mega-tank's left lunged forward, only to get shot.
The real Ulrich had traveled around and as he saw his other self get shot at, he stabbed the mega-tank in the eye of Xana, killing it.
"Mack!" Jérémie said, watching the clock tick down to the last seconds."
"There! That should do it!" Mack said as he took his arm away and Aélita fell downward.
"I got her." Antea said, concentrating on the girl so that she would land on the ground as a feather would.
Aélita laid on the ground as the remanding mega-tank was destroyed. Everyone gathered around her, worried if she had survived or not.
Aélita opened her eyes and saw everyone around her. "What's going on? What is everybody doing?" Aélita asked, getting up.
"It's a long story." Antea said as she helped her up. "Just deactivate the tower."
"Ok." Aélita said, not sure what had happened. She turned around and walked into the tower, deactivating it.
-.-.-.-
Aélita yawned as the six friends walked across the bridge, going away from the factory.
"Looks like someone needs to hit the hay early." April said, seeing Aélita's tired look.
"It might be a good idea." Jérémie said, worried for her.
"Alright." Aélita said, realizing how tired she was.
"I've got to get going home." Yumi said as she noticed how low the sun was in the sky, turning some of the sky pink.
"See you Yumi." Ulrich said as she continued to walk.
Odd moved the man hole cover and smiled at the look on Ulrich's face.