FRIDAY 4 OCTOBER, 17.15

RICHARD'S ROOM

From the day four guys started defending the earth from an artificial intelligence in a virtual world, just over a month had passed. And during that time XANA was hitting relentlessly, like a jackhammer: possessed people, extreme voltage overloads, virtualized monsters on earth; it was practically hell on earth.

And Richard, most of all, was terribly affected by it: every day he worked harder and harder to find information on how to anchor XANA to the supercomputer; by now he slept 3 hours a night the best, so coffee and energy drinks replaced water. And as if that wasn't enough, he had to keep his school average decent. He was in danger of going crazy.

Compared to that, university students are having a good time.

And then there was one last question (just to round off the mess): Syl.

Since she came out to him, he had never spoken about their relationship again: he was extremely conflicted, since he didn't know what to say; he was certainly not indifferent to her, but he couldn't say whether he reciprocated or not. And also, he didn't have time to think about these things, he had a lot to do.

Richard then continued to work on the computer; while he was feverishly typing on the keyboard, all his fixed nails and his troubles would not leave his brain...

RECREATION ROOM

Edward had finished studying a while ago, so he had remained in the recreation room distractedly zapping the TV. But his mind was elsewhere: to everything that had happened that month, Lyoko, XANA... And Jacket: he showed himself less and less and each time he seemed more and more a ghost of himself. Edward was constantly worried, but he didn't think it was right to barge into his room; after all, what he was doing was for the good of all.

In the meantime, the news was given the news about a mysterious fugitive in the Czech Republic: it seems that this person is connected to European-American terrorism. The authorities declare themselves on the front line for schooling the potentially dangerous subject.

MAYA'S ROOM

Meanwhile Maya was busy studying: from her father she had inherited not only her intelligence but also her perseverance in studying, even when they had little or nothing to do for the week. Every now and then, however, she would go and think about that turbulent month: she still couldn't believe that her parents had been the protagonists of an adventure that she was now experiencing first-hand.

Sometimes, however, she was worried about Jacket: as Edward had noticed, she seemed on the verge of collapsing due to the amount of work she was subjected to. Sooner or later it would have been better for the rest of the group to go and talk to him.

"And now back to biology."

COURTYARD, VENDING MACHINE, 17.35

While the machine was dispensing her hot chocolate (according to Odd, dirty water), Syl stood patiently: soon afterwards she would go to the library to pick up a book she had ordered (the library had recently allowed this). "At the mountains of madness" was the title.

The very moment she took her plastic cup and came out of the small box, outside of which there seemed to be no living soul, she heard footsteps behind her, only to see another person appear before her eyes. Regularly tiled blond hair, brand-name clothes and a bee-queen whore-like air of the entire boarding school. Her name was Jacqueline Auguste .

Jacqueline: "Looks like someone here wants to show off. What is it about books that you've been fed up with and now you're trying to become the school bitch by attracting everyone's attention? "

Syl had immediately understood what he was referring to: it was about a month ago that she, as a lone wolf of the boarding school, started having three friends out of the blue. And she was also beginning to enjoy a relative success within the male "public". She emptied her glass in one gulp, threw it away and her tongue struck with a sharp phrase.

Syl: "... Oh well, at least to be admired I don't have to stoop to certain levels. Isn't that right, Jacqueline?"

Blondie's face turned into a mask of pure hate: how dare he disrespect her, queen of the school, admired by everyone!?

Apparently she needs a little lesson about authority...

When she nodded, the girl behind him grabbed Syl, preventing her from making any attempt to move; Jacqueline instead punched him right in the stomach: the pain and lack of breath made Syl bend forward, at the moment impatient.

1 minute...3...5 minutes of pain after which they let her fall to the ground: in addition to the pain in her whole body, she had a bruise on her forehead. The two girls ran away, leaving Syl with her wounds and the surrounding silence.

The only pseudo-positive note was that the hat could hide the bruise on her head.

HALF AN HOUR LATER

RICHARD'S ROOM

By now the day's search was going nowhere: he hadn't found anything really useful yet. At one point, as Jacket finished his third can of energy drink, his phone began to ring.

Syl was calling him...

...I got better things to do. Besides, I don't have the strength to talk or get up and walk to the door.

Coward.

He hung up the call and I'm going back to work. He was gonna take care of Syl later.

Maybe.

KADICK, CORRIDORS

Maya, at Edward's request, was walking to Syl's room: two hours had passed and Edward had not seen Syl around (while she was usually walking through the corridors and the courtyard); every time he tried to call her he did not answer. So he asked Maya, since he was in the women's dormitory, to go and have a look. What if XANA secretly attacked?

As she was about to knock on the door, Maya heard a disturbing sound: the sound of a person crying. She wasted no time and opened the door wide, and immediately closed it behind her, finding Syl curled up on the bed, crying her eyes out.

Maya: "Syl! What happened to you!?"; at that moment she could see the bruise on her head and the clothes worn out by the blows. She looked like she'd been hit by a car.

Maya: "My goodness! Who did this to you, Syl, answer me!"

Syl: "...i... i-i... nghh... okay..."

She managed to get back to her room without arousing suspicion or being seen. Once the door closed behind him, Syl threw herself on the bed, crying her eyes out: never in her life had something so sad, so painful happened to him... From a tremendously grey everyday life she had passed into a sea of overwhelming emotions. All in a single month.

At that moment he felt he needed someone: and who but Richard, to whom he had declared everything he felt for him last month? Easier said than done, since he hadn't talked about "that moment" anymore, and in general he was far away from the group. But it couldn't hurt to try, could it?

So he picked up his cell phone and dialed his number: after 10 seconds, the flow of which had been tremendously heavy, he felt the call close. He had hung up.

At that moment Syl started crying again, even sadder; if until a minute ago her body and spirit were broken, now her heart was broken too.

Maya:" ...I can't believe it. I'm sorry Syl, I'm really, really sorry..." and I hugged her for a couple of minutes; Syl was feeling better, even if only a little bit. At least there was someone who cared about her at that heartbreaking moment. Someone who, unlike a certain person, spoke to her and comforted her...

In the end, when he came out of the girls' dormitory, Edward immediately went to meet Syl, looking worried.

Edward: "So, how is she?"

Maya tells him all about the beating and his culprits, and about Richard, who had a lot to give a shit about her, reattaching them to her face. At that moment Edward was in a fit of rage: what kind of person was someone who didn't care about his few friends!?

With a furious step Edward, followed by a worried Maya, arrived in front of Richard's room, suddenly opening the door wide. Richard, jerking, had turned around and was about to pick up an object from the desk, and then retract it when he saw who had crossed the threshold (after closing the door so as not to be heard). On the desk was laying a metal object, never seen before...

Richard: "What, did knocking on the door become an optional extra or were you trying to give me a heart attack?"

Edward: "Congratulations Jacket, you're a really good friend! Not only you don't show your face around, you stay locked in your room like a rat, but if someone needs you, you tell them to go to hell!"

What the fuck is he talking abo- Oh, shite. Looks like someone made a house call on the patient...

Richard: "Oh well, excuse me for spending 90% of my time busting my ass trying to figure out a way to beat that fucking crazy artificial intelligence! For the record, I don't even sleep four hours a night anymore."

At that moment Edward saw us black: with one shot he grabbed Richard by the collar of his jacket and yelled at his face; the latter had never seen him so angry. Richard, because of the push, had slammed into the desk, making it even more messy.

Edward: "This is no excuse to bang a friend who has just been beaten up and who needed comforting! And I remind you that Syl cares about you very much! Right now you're only thinking about yourself!"

Richard was ready to settle the whole thing with one of his usual dark-humor jokes, but his subconscious took the momentary control: he gave a skull that threw Ed to the ground, while Maya remained scared to watch the scene, without saying or doing anything.

Richard: "Get a couple of things straight in your head: it's my business if I hang up on someone while I'm working to save this fucking world. What's more important, finding a way to survive or wasting time with the cries of a girl who has suffered four bruises!? There are people who are going through much worse!"

He no longer knew what to say: in front of him there was no Jacket, his best friend, but an insensitive, sometimes cruel person. Perhaps, after all, his mother was right to abandon him; wasn't he clinically sociopathic after all?

As he got up, Ed said his last words, and then he left with Maya.

Edward: "All right, fine, I'll leave you alone, but remember one thing: if you push away the people who care about you, you'll end up alone at the worst time of your life."

As the door closed, Richard was clenching his fists violently, turning his knuckles white. Suddenly you hear a click and the sound of something being unlined. Seeing better, he realized he was holding his new gadget: a switchblade knife, whose blade was now exposed, ready to sink into a person's flesh.

From anger, Jacket's face became perplexed and confused; he also felt nausea coming from his stomach.

I'm working too hard and all those drinks are killing me, or at least I hope so...

At that moment he saw something out of the window: a middle-aged man with anonymous features and clothes who, after staring at him with a glassy gaze for a few seconds, walked to the Hermitage; Richard and the others had discovered it thanks to Waldo Schaeffer's diary.

I don't know why, but I think I'm going to follow him; no one would go to L'Hermitage without a good reason...that only we know. And then I know how to defend myself, in case there's a need.

In 5 minutes he got ready to go to Hermitage, when a notification arrived on his cell phone: XANA had taken control of a tower in the desert sector.

Bollocks... what if the attack is connected to that man?

All the more reason to follow him. Now I'm warning Jeremy and the others...

He sent the professor and his "friends" a message, and then went out and headed for his destination.

Xana attack: Tower 5 in the Desert Sector. Go to the factory. I'll be at the Hermitage, I have something important to do.

As Edward was leaving Richard's room, still steaming with rage, his phone vibrated: Richard had reported an active tower in the Desert Sector, asking the rest of the group and Professor Belpois to fix it, since he would be at the Hermitage doing important things.

Maya: "mhhh... I have a bad feeling... what if it's a trap for Richard?"

Edward: "Well, he can take care of himself. After all, he has important things to do, doesn't he?" Maya was silent, she didn't know what to say...

The duo, in silence, made their way to the manhole in the park.

In the end Syl closed that drawer for good, never to open it again. She had chosen the future. She had chosen life. But she was still heartbroken, with her heart reduced to dust.

And at that very moment, as if to twist her finger in the wound, the phone rang: a tower had been activated, and Richard had asked Jeremy and the others to go to the factory to sort it out; he, on the other hand, was at the Hermitage for things of great importance...

At that moment Syl was even tempted to tell them off, but reason, as usual, had prevailed: now fighting XANA was just a duty. Fight or no fight. Heartbroken or not.

He wiped away his tears and recomposed himself, so that the others wouldn't worry any more, and said to himself at the manhole in the park.

Jeremy had just finished correcting last week's checks: a general average positive trend. Oh well, if you have "Einstein" as a professor, it gets a lot easier.

At that moment the superscanner on the laptop signaled an active tower in the Desert Sector; it had also received a message from Richard: he had to go to the factory with the rest of the new group, since Richard had "important things to do at the Hermitage".

...Richard walking around on his own just when XANA launches an attack?... I'm not reassured, I'd better call someone to help him: I wouldn't want him to fall into a trap.

To avoid bothering Aelita, who was dealing with bureaucratic matters at the offices, and Odd being out of town for the day, he dialed Yumi and Ulrich's number, hoping they would answer as soon as possible. Meanwhile, he was already on his way to the park.

STERN-ISHYAMA HOUSE

At that moment Yumi was in the kitchen gathering all the ingredients for dinner; Ulrich had gone to the gym to order some new training dummies, as well as doing a couple of bureaucratic paperwork. Oh well, the hard life of a Pencak Silat school owner.

The phone rang; looking at the screen, Yumi saw that Jeremy was calling her... that it was a new attack?

Yumi: "Hello, Jeremy. Please don't tell me XANA launched an attack..."

Jeremy: "Unfortunately, yes: nothing unusual has happened yet, at least on a large scale; Richard was the first to receive notification of an active tower and asked me and the others to fix it. Now he says he's at the Hermitage to do something important."

Yumi: "Let me guess, you think it's a trap aimed at him?"

Jeremy: "Precisely. So I need you to go to the Hermitage and take a look."

Yumi: "Of course Jeremy, I'll be right there."

Yumi got ready quickly and got out of the house and into the car. Dinner would be postponed until tomorrow. That is, tonight of the past-future.

HERMITAGE ENTRANCE

It had taken him quite a while; following someone without being discovered was definitely tiring, as well as stressful (as if he didn't already have enough anxiety in his head). Now Richard was in front of the entrance to the old house; despite the time that had passed, it had remained as worn out as it was in 2004.

Richard was tempted to give it all up; it could have been a trap for XANA to set him up for good; he could have gone back to his "friends", maybe even made a couple of excuses on the fly. But it was also true that he was too curious to back out. But he was also cowardly enough to back out of seeing the rest of the group, Syl in particular. Running away from trouble, something he had seen in someone he knew very well...

While the switchblade knife seemed to shake in his pocket, almost as if it wanted to be unlined and used to tear flesh, Richard decided to cross the threshold. A damp, dirty, dimly lit corridor led to the various rooms. It was time to explore a potential house of horrors.

MANHOLE IN THE PARK

Jeremy, Edward and Maya were in front of the old manhole while waiting for Syl's arrival; the professor had noticed Edward's furious and betrayed air and his daughter's melancholy air; what could have happened? Did Richard have something to do with it?

As Jeremy went on in his thoughts, Syl had just arrived: clothes in disarray, signs of tears, and a broken air was what characterized her at that moment.

Jeremy: "Sylviane! What have you reduced yourself to? Guys, can you tell me what the hell happened?"

Edward: "Ask Mr. "I have important things to do. " His words were bloody poisonous.

As curious as Jeremy was, now was not the time to think about personal matters; one by one, the group descended the manhole, and then closed it with a slight thud. Now the park was quiet and peaceful again.

STREETS OF PARIS

I need a couple of days off, or I'm gonna pass out driving.

That was what the truck driver thought at the time, after a long journey from Lyon, where he had delivered a large load of goods.

The GPS signaled only 15 minutes from the gas station, where he could rest, when the screen began to crackle and glitch.

Stupid technological gadget...

Suddenly black smoke seemed to come out of the sides; at first it looked like something was burning, but those dull wires immediately attacked the driver, entering his ears with extreme violence.

The pupils were replaced by the symbol of an eye, and the navigator marked the position of a Renault a block away.

XANA wanted to drive recklessly; the possessed man accelerated the pedal, running a red light at full speed towards Yumi Ishiyama's car.

ABANDONED FACTORY, LABORATORY

Jeremy: "Guys, ready to go?"

Edward: "Roger!"

May: "Okay, Dad."

Syl:"... All right."

TRANSFER!

SCANNER!

VIRTUALIZATION!

LYOKO, DESERT SECTOR

Once virtualized, without suffering a bump on the back, their eyes saw the immense desert expanse, crossed by white cables that connected the towers: funny how, despite the strong light, you could not feel any temperature.

The three boys were back, as usual, in their usual virtual clothes.

Jeremy: "Very well, the active tower is located south of your location! Hurry, because we don't know about XANA's attack yet, and I'm afraid it's something big."

Edward:"Yess, sir!"

The trio said to the active tower in a hurry; Syl had remained in the queue, sad as she was, she didn't even have the strength to speak or to fight at her best. She only hoped it would end quickly.

HERMITAGE, CORRIDOR.

The tension could well be in place of the enormous amount of dust present, being so strong in the air.

Richard was extremely cautious in every step he took, hand always ready to grasp the knife; if it had not been for his steps, a grave silence would have reigned.

Jesus Christ, he must be here, there was nowhere else to go but this hovel...

He heard a creak near the stairs at the end of the corridor, leading to the basement; Richard was in a state of alarm at the time. Slowly he arrived at that point and descended every step, thus finding himself in the basement of the house. Here the humidity and dust were practically omnipresent, along with the complete mess; it looked as if SWAT had raided the house...

The sound of a step made Richard snap, putting him face to face with him: the man he was really looking for. The latter was visibly dilapidated, his clothes washed out and he looked shabby; either he was a madman, or a junkie, or a mix of both. This man, with superhuman speed, beat Richard's reflexes, and managed to grab him by the neck, and plunge him against the wall, squeezing him in a deadly grip.

In a panic and adrenaline rush, Richard quickly pulled out the knife, snapped it and the blade penetrated the entire face of the attacker, who let go of his grip and fell to the ground, his hands on the wounded face. Too bad that instead of blood there was some kind of black liquid coming out, which seemed to have interference, like a monitor.

Richard: "...I'm sorry XANA, but I wasn't dumb enough to follow you disarm-"

Suddenly a strange energy threw him into what used to be a heating cell, which Richard only realized after XANA's ghost closed the security door and disappeared into thin air.

Ow! Holy foockin shite... perfect, it was all a trap, i'm a moron and now I'm stuck in here! I gotta find a way out!

The room had, in addition to the pipes, a scrambled bench. Next to the door there was a temperature gauge, which had a very small problem: at that moment it was dangerously exceeding the room temperature limit, but in reverse: XANA wanted to freeze Richard to death alive!

Okay, correction: I have to get out of here FAST!

First thing: find the point in the room where there is a minimum field and call Jeremy! Despite the lack of windows, at the end of the room there was a little bit of field to call. Richard zipped up his jacket and quickly dialled the IT teacher's number.

ABANDONED FACTORY, LABORATORY/LYOKO DESERT SECTOR

As the group made its way to the tower, Richard's call notification appeared on the monitor display. Jeremy answered immediately; either he was in danger or he had found out what XANA's attack was. Or both.

Jeremy: "Richard! Are you all right?"

Richard: "Taking away the fact that I'm stuck in the Hermitage's heating cell and that I'm in danger of freezing to death with frozen bones, I'm fi-! ". The signal had been lost and the call had been disconnected.

Jeremy: "Oh no! Richard, can you hear me!? Richard!"

Maya: "Daddy! What happened?"

Jeremy: "You must deactivate the tower as soon as possible! As I suspected, XANA set a trap for Richard at the Hermitage, and now he's in danger of freezing to death!"

Edward: "...shit! I'm an idiot, why didn't I follow him!?" The guilt started to fill his head; he was regretting the sentence he said to Richard before leaving him alone after the terrible fight. Other than Protector...

Maya: "There's no time to lose, let's move!"

The new state of things made Syl even more conflicted and upset, her mind divided into 3: one side said to stay and help fight the monsters and then deactivate the tower. Another, though tiny, suggested not to think about Richard...

But the third part won in her: she could have ignored and hurt him without any consideration, deserving a thousand punches in the face; but she couldn't help it, she couldn't hate him and, on the contrary, she was still attracted to him: after all she knew, deep down, that Richard wasn't cruel; he cared about them. He cared about her, that day last month when their whole lives changed. It wasn't just a crush, it wasn't just a tease: it was a deeper feeling...

Syl:"...I'm sorry about what I'm going to do, guys, but I can't stay here..."

Edward. "What are you saying-" he said, turning around just to see Syl smack her chest with the blade of his cane, making her disappear in a whirlwind of pixels.

Maya: "Syl!"

A synthesized sound and the crash of a laser beam on the ground alerted the remaining duo: they had arrived in front of the tower, and between them and the tower there were three giant red crabs; the dear old Krab of XANA.

Edward: "Maya, take cover! I'll take care of them!" On high guard, he threw himself at one of the three monsters and with a quick blow, he amputated one of his legs, preventing him from moving; all this was followed by a lunge upwards, which also crossed the symbol of XANA on the back of his body.

There were still two left.

Meanwhile, Syl came out of the scanner, and for a couple of seconds he had to get back on his feet and stop his dizziness, and then climbed the stairs to the lab at the speed of light, and then took the elevator before Jeremy could say 'a'.

Jeremy: "Sylviane, where are you going!"

By now the elevator had already left.

STREETS OF PARIS

Yumi: "Luckily there's little traffic today; I should get there quickly."

As he was driving at 40 mph, he heard a squeal of tires coming from the road to the right of the intersection where he was now: the cars were dreaming away as a transport truck was speeding towards his car!

With a quick and risky manoeuvre, Yumi managed to brake and make a 180° turn on herself, barely managing to avoid the truck, which collided violently against the wall of a building; people were panicking, the cars were running away at high speed, chaos was spreading; you could see a thin black smoke coming out of the broken window, and then it slipped into a manhole cover. You didn't even have to go 2+2.

In defiance of the traffic laws, Yumi, assured that she was unharmed, set off at very high speed towards the Kadick: time was running out.

HERMITAGE

The situation was definitely drifting: the cell phone field had suddenly blown, the temperature was dizzily dropping, making the jacket less useful, and there was no way to open the fucking security door directly.

Great-uncle Adolf would be proud of XANA...

The only thing Richard could do was look for an electric panel or something like that: even though the house was old, that cold room (and especially the security door) certainly worked through an electric control panel; fiddling around with it could have solved the problem. Not that there were any other options...

Five minutes of freezing hell finally allowed Richard to find the object of his research: a small panel embedded in the wall, at first glance difficult to spot because of the paint covering it. Without wasting time, with trembling hands, Richard grabbed his knife and, blade pulled out, began to force the panel: it seemed that the cold had stiffened it much. With a strong tug, the panel snapped open, followed by a worrying jingle: the blade of the knife snapped off...

Shite. We're good...

The open door revealed a skein of tangled and discoloured wires, from which hung an electric panel whose levers were worn and unusable. Richard was not a technician, so he would never know which wire to unplug; he was already giving some signs of failure in the cold.

Well, either I try this, or I'll surely freeze to death...

Richard grabbed the wires with his bare hands and ripped them all off with a lot of energy: a high-voltage electrical discharge hit his hand, causing unimaginable pain.

"AARRGHHHH!"

Richard fell to the ground in spasms of pain, while a burning stench was spreading through the air: his hand had burned, and now he was bleeding profusely.

"HOLY FUCKING SHITE!"

He slammed his crippled hand against the freezing wall, heedless of the further pain caused by this: he was now trapped...

LYOKO, DESERT SECTOR

Jeremy: "Edward! Now you're left alone and with few life points: get Maya into the tower as soon as possible!"

Edward: "Copy that!" In the meantime, his arms were starting to get heavy as boulders, by dint of grinding his sword: XANA meanwhile had sent a large amount of reinforcements. He couldn't hold out much longer. Meanwhile, Maya had remained hidden, unnoticed by the monsters.

Jeremie: "Damn Yumi, where are you?" She called her friend on the phone, hoping that nothing had happened to her. Her help was essential.

KADICK, PARK

It seemed that at that moment her lungs had dilated enormously, allowing him to run for a damn long time; Syl was snapping towards the Hermitage, so that she could save Richard; she could not afford to walk around, the more she hesitated, the closer her beloved was to death.

The marathon was stopped by a kind of fleeting vision: a shadow seemed to move through the trees, at a lightning speed, inhuman.

Syl: "Who are you!? Show yourself!" she said as, with circumspection, she picked up a long, thin, but strong, branch from the ground; a good thing about Lyoko was that she had learned to handle any pole like a fighting stick.

In front of her appeared her challenger: a man in his fifties, far too much like many ordinary people; remove the irises that had overprinted the symbol of XANA. Usually the awareness of whether an opponent with superhuman strength would make most people run away or surrender; Syl was not among them.

"Now I don't care what he did to me anymore: if I have to fight you to save Richard and break my bones in the process..."

She took the attack position.

"SO BE IT!"

With a long leap forward, he charged up.

KADICK, GATE

Aelita was certainly better in the parking lot: Yumi, in the abrupt braking of supplies to the boarding school, had ripped a mirror off another car, as well as having scratched the whole right door. Oh well, the owner won't remember his poor Chevrolet anyway.

Despite the thwarted accident and the tension, Yumi still had enough breath to get out of the car and take a long shot at the Hermitage. In the meantime, the phone was ringing again: she replied, being careful not to drop it as she drove through the forest.

Yumi: "Hello?"

Jeremie: "Yumi, you have very little time to reach Richard! I was right, XANA has locked him in the Hermitage heating cell, and he's in danger of freezing to death!"

Oh, Yumi surely knew that place: some time ago she was locked up there with Ulrich, always thanks to XANA.

Yumi: "Alright Jeremy, I'm almost there!"

She gave a last knock of the kidneys, coming to see the abandoned house in the distance; perhaps there was still hope.

LYOKO, DESERT SECTOR

Edward: "Maya! Get in the tower now! I can't hold on much longer!"

He didn't say it twice, so he sprang towards the black base of the active tower, also taking a laser shot of XANA's monsters right on his back. Luckily, she was able to get inside and reach the center of the platform, which was about to go up.

While Edward, destroyed as he was, was trying to avoid as many hits as he could and annihilate as many monsters as he could. His feat was interrupted by a last flurry of blows that caught him off guard, causing him to be instantly devirtualized. XANA's monsters began bombarding the tower with laser strikes.

HERMITAGE

By now he could no longer do anything effective, he was injured, he was beginning to lose his strength, and mentally he had gone completely: his mind was confused, hallucinated, a mixture of abstinence and lucid thoughts. As he tried, with what little energy remained, to forcefully open the security door, knowing that he would not make it, he seemed to see something moving on the other side, through the foggy window. Someone had come to help him? Was it just an illusion? Who knew? His vision was getting blurry.

The guilt was beginning to creep into Richard's head, like needles stuck in his ears: Edward, with that phrase as heavy as a boulder, was right; he could have asked them for help instead of going crazy in front of a fucking monitor; he could have given himself a day off to meet them.

He could have answered that fucking call and talked to the person who needed him most of all; ironic as that day, during the first battle in that world made of polygons and numbers, he had gone out of his way to prevent Syl from dying in a virtual sea. And now, instead, he had abandoned her, thinking only not to face the problems of those who were next to him, and to put a strain on himself.

"By pushing away the people who care about you, you end up alone at the worst time of your life."

They are almost right... abandoning friends or family must be family; like mother like son, in this case.

Richard raised his head as he prepared to exhale one last cry of despair.

KADICK, PARK

Ironically, Syl was also succumbing: although she had managed to assess a couple of shots to XANA's spectre (including one in the head, which had just dropped him), the being was definitely stronger than she was, especially against conventional weapons. Now the one on the ground was Syl, agonizing while XANA, with that branch that had been useless against him, was hitting her repeatedly on the back: at this rate she could have broken her spine.

No...I couldn't reach him and save him...why!? Why did I fall in love with him!? Why didn't I follow him before!? WHY !?

The only thing she could do was scream: of pain, of sadness. Of everything.

At that exact moment, in the cold immensity of the universe, death was claiming two souls, and these, as if they were in symbiosis, were emitting a last, roaring, cry. The exclamation point of all that had happened.

CODE LYOKO

The armoured door snapped open, allowing Richard to get out, slumped to the ground, on the floor of a now much warmer place. His nose, due to the enormous change in temperature, began to bleed.

I'm still alive...I'M FUCKING STILL ALIVE!

At one point he felt himself standing up, supported by a person whose female voice thundered in his ears.

Yumi: "Come on, try to stand up. That was close, are you okay!? What happened to your hand?"

The Japanese woman... I wasn't dreaming at the time, someone had come to try to free me...

Richard didn't have the strength to answer: he only thought about what he would do when we got back. Something very important.

The barrage of hit was over: the clone had vanished, disappearing into a cloud of smoke; this meant that the tower had been deactivated, and so Richard (besides her) was definitely alive. She was certain of it.

She couldn't get back on her feet and walk, so she crawled slowly and painfully towards the Hermitage, clinging firmly to the ground. She wanted to see Richard again, to be near him. Because deep down she couldn't stop loving him: it's not a feeling that can be taken away at will; there was something about him, something that drove her not to give up on him. She was saved by him that day, wasn't she?

Jeremie: "Hello, Yumi!? What, he's still alive? Phiuu, thank goodness..."

Edward was beside him at the time, since he had stayed in the lab after being devirtualized. He was heartened to know that Richard was not dead, and still sorry for the sentence he had said to him a few hours ago.

Jeremie: "Maya, Edward, good work, everyone. Now we can go back and enjoy this Friday."

RETURN TO THE PAST

FRIDAY 4 OCTOBER, 17.15

It's a good thing to travel back in time, isn't it? You can make up for all your past mistakes and change the future; Richard now knew this as he turned off the PC and left his room; he had finished his work, so as not to overdo it again.

Direction: vending machines. He had something important to do.

17.35 HOURS

This time no coffee, she went straight to the library: Syl knew that if she stayed there she would get more bruises; painful memories, if possible, she wanted to avoid them, after all "history repeats itself".

Jacqueline: "Apparently someone here wants to show off. What is it about books that have bored you and now you're trying to become the school bitch by attracting everyone's attention? "

When he heard that voice his eyes were darkened: why did it have to happen again?

Syl: "Look, I don't want to talk about it. Leave me alone."

And again, before she could lift her heels, she was caught on her back, ready to be used as a punching bag again. But history is not always the same: the winners rewrite it. And so it was in this case.

"Take one! Anti-bullying documentary part 1, action!"

Jacqueline, even more angry at having been interrupted, turned towards the source of the voice: she saw Richard coming out of the box of the machine, pointing his mobile phone at him, in order to film them in their criminal act.

Richard: "Now, I'm going to delete this video, but there must be a couple of things that are clear:

"Mo ve ne andate, e non provate a toccare Syl, che sennò so' cazzi vostri. In short, fuck off and do not ever touch Syl again." Learning the Roman dialect, in addition to the Scottish dialect, has its advantages.

Jacqueline and her "henchman" left, angry that they could not give a lesson in superiority. In the meantime, Richard was putting his cell phone back in place, since he wasn't actually filming anything; his eyes crossed with those of Syl, who was looking at him, smiling.

I wasn't wrong about him...

Both of them approached each other, and the first to utter the word was Richard...

Richard: "As uncommon as it is for me, I have to tell you: ...I'm sorry, I could have answered-"; his apology was interrupted by Syl's embrace.

Syl: "Don't apologize, I'm sure you didn't do it on purpose. I know how much you're doing for us, but please don't work yourself to death, okay? So apology accepted." She released him from his grip, then headed back to the library.

Richard instead headed towards the park; he needed to walk.

I'm still not sure what to think of Syl... but one thing's for sure: I'll avoid doing the same shit again, especially with her.

One learns from history from one's mistakes, right?