Here is a late Christmas present for you all. Hope you all enjoy reading it and leave a review.
In Odd and Ulrich's room, Odd's alarm went off and Break Away by the SubDigitals began to play loudly, waking Ulrich, who pulled his pillow over his head to deafen the sound. "Odd! Will you turn that thing off?" He yelled over the alarm. With no reply and the alarm still going off Ulrich sat up and said loudly again "Odd!" Before looking over at Odd's bed and seeing that only Kiwi was there somehow still fast asleep with the loud alarm.
Meanwhile Odd was in the Secretary's office. Miss Weber handed Odd a pile of papers. " Here are the photocopies you asked me for, Odd. You wanted thirty-one, is that right?" She asked. "That's right! Thirty-one, thank you." Odd said, pleased as he was looking over the copies before walking out the door towards the entrance to the dorms to start handing them out.
Shortly after Ulrich had turned off his alarm he got dressed and went to make sure Jeremy was up. He knocked on the door before opening it, Jeremy was once again fast asleep in front of his computer, his face on his keyboard. " Rise and shine, Einstein! The birds are chirping away!" Ulrich said, trying to wake up Jeremy. Seeing little to no response he then said "Jeremy… Odd and Aelita are going out with each other!" Which did just the trick to startle Jeremy awake. "What?!" Jeremy said as he woke up, looking around realized it was just Ulrich waking him up. "Oh. It's you, Ulrich… Awful joke. Anyway, what's the time?" Jeremy asked, standing up from his chair, stretching. "So what had you up all night this time?" Ulrich asked, knowing Jeremy only stayed up to work on stuff for Lyoko. "Well, I was trying to find a way to send you guys into the network so you can track Xana." Jeremy said. "So did you figure anything out?" Ulrich asked. "No". Jeremy replied."Maybe Josh will have an idea." Ulrich said as he walked out of Jeremy's room so he could change.
Josh and Aelita had already walked down to the dorm entrance where Odd was handing out his papers. As Jeremy and Ulrich exited Odd handed them papers as well. "Hm, you're running for class rep Odd?" Josh asked, reading it. "Why didn't you say anything?" Jeremy asked, since he was also running for class rep. "Because surprise is the secret weapon of my election campaign!" Odd replied, jumping up a bit. "And his second is poetry! `If you all want to have your say, why not give the nod, to good old Odd!`" Aelita said in a singing-like tune. "Hey! That's great. I love lines that rhyme with `Odd!`" Odd replied as the group began to walk to class.
On their way to class Josh began to discuss his work on freeing himself from Lyoko. "I have made some progress, I have found that part of why my multi-agent even exists on Lyoko when I am materialized is due to both it having integrated itself into the core and also due to some sort of complexity error within the materialization program.." Josh said. "Okay, so I guess the first steps will be separating your program from the core." Jeremy said before adding, "That other issue makes sense as well, if your program is anywhere as complex as Xana's then it makes sense that the materialization program wasn't designed to handle that much data." He finished as they were about to walk into the classroom.
As class started for them, Yumi was getting onto a bus with her classmates, Jim and Mrs. Hertz to go on a class trip. "I am warning you all, if you try and pull anything, it's detention and you can join that smart aleck William Dunbar, in the study hall!" Jim said, sternly standing at the front of the bus. "Thank you, Jim. I think you've made yourself clear." Mrs. Hertz said, motioning for Jim to sit down so the bus could get on its way. "Roger, Suzanne." Jim said before correcting himself. "Uh…I'm sorry, I mean Mrs. Hertz." He said.
"Let's not forget what we're going to be looking for! The purpose of our field trip today is to witness the early effects of pollution on our ecosystem, and especially in the forest. Effects that might someday mean the end of our forests, and all animal and plant life, of course." Mrs. Hertz said making sure all the students actually remembered what this trip was all about. "Uh. Are you saying there won't be any more…bunny rabbits, or little birds, or trees or mushrooms? They'll all disappear?" Jim asked quietly, leaning in a bit towards Mrs. Hertz before getting distracted by her perfume. "…Oh, wow. I love that perfume." He said to himself as the bus finally got on its way.
While Herb, Jeremy and Odd were giving their speeches to try and get people to vote for them for class rep, in the network a red sphere entered Lyoko moving thru the digital sea emerging in the forest sector before entering a tower, which then activated, with Xana's signature red aura.
On Yumi's bus, part way to its destination, the electrical system on it began to malfunction causing the bus to suddenly stop, startling everyone as Xana's spectors began to slowly move through the bus possessing everyone. "What's the matter? Are we already there?" Yumi asked, looking up, seeing everyone looking at her, the sign of Xana in their eyes. "Uh no…" Yumi muttered to herself as Jim raised his hand, lightning forming on it shooting a bolt out towards Yumi, who ducked out of the way before jumping out of the hole that was shattered in the bus's back window. Once she got to her feet, she started running, hoping to get some distance from them. She took out her phone in a panic calling Jeremy.
Jeremy took out his phone when he felt it going off in his pocket, turning so the teacher wouldn't see him answer. "Hello? Yumi?" Jeremy asked. "Jeremy! I'm in real big trouble! My whole bus…has been xanafied!" Yumi said running, out of breath. Just then the teacher spoke up telling Jeremy it was his turn to speak. "Yumi, I have got to go now. But don't worry, we will get the tower deactivated." Jeremy said before hanging up. "I left some notes up in my room." Jeremy said as an excuse. "I will go get them." He said, before whispering to Odd. "A tower was just activated." He said. "And I will go with him, to keep an eye on the competition." Odd said following Jeremy out the door. Ulrich and Aelita got up knowing something was up, "And we will go to separate them if they start fighting." Ulrich said, grabbing Jeremy's computer bag as they left.
Once the group had left the classroom, they began planning on who would go help Yumi and who would go to Lyoko. "Okay Ulrich, if you go help Yumi, then Odd, Josh and Aelita can get to the tower and deactivate it." Jeremy said as they headed towards the woods. "Sounds like a plan." Ulrich said before splitting off to go find Yum, taking out his phone to call her and find out where she was. "Yumi! Where are you?". He asked. "At the Red Trail Crossroads! You'd better hurry! I can't hold out much longer!" She answered, breathing heavily as she continued to run.
From the study hall where William was serving detention, he overheard the commotion and saw Ulrich heading off in the direction his class had gone on their trip. Looking up he saw the teacher that was supposed to be watching him was asleep, so he quietly left the room and ran after Ulrich.
As Yumi ram she managed to get far enough ahead to stop behind a try and catch her breath, she closed her eyes for a moment trying to calm herself, but when she opened them, Jim was standing in front of her holding out his hand, electricity flowing readily thru it. Yumi managed to jump sideways out of the way at the last second as the electricity flew off his hand and struck the tree, blowing the bark off of it.
At the factory, Odd, Aelita and Josh headed down to the scanner room. "I have located the tower in the forest sector. I will try my best to get you as close as possible." Jeremy said starting the virtualization process. A short moments later the three were virtualized into the forest sector. "You should see the tower due North of your location." Jeremy said, "We can see it." Odd said pointing toward it. "Here are some Taxis" Jeremy added virtualizing the Overboard and the Overwing.
After traveling a short distance, four monsters began to virtualize in front of them. "Xana is sending you some monsters. How original can you get?" Jeremy said, commenting on the monsters. "He hates it when we're bored!" Odd replied as the four tarantulas began to march towards the three. Odd lined up a shot on one of the tarantulas and fired a laser arrow, hitting its mark and destroying it. At the same moment two of the remaining tarantulas began firing at Odd and Aelita, while the last one focused on Josh. Odd flew back and forward avoiding the laser shots before heading straight for a tree, causing both him and Aelita to have to jump off of the Overboard. Josh managed to get over the tarantula that was targeting him and jumped off the Overwing landing his sword directly into the tarantula's head destroying it. "Two down, just two more to go." Josh said, before he took a laser to the back from one of the remaining ones, and decided it was best to run back behind a tree for cover.
The other tarantula that wasn't shooting at Josh slowly approached Aelita's location shooting towards her, before Odd drew its attention away by shooting a laser arrow past its head. "Come on you overgrown spider, this way!" Odd said, beginning to run away from the direction of the tower. Aelita began to run towards the tower using Odd and Josh as a distraction for the monsters.
Back in the woods Ulrich was almost to where Yumi was but then he heard someone behind him in the distance and decided to hide behind a tree to confront them. As he waited William soon walked up the path before stopping looking for Ulrich. "What are you doing here? Why are you following me?" Ulrich asked. "Well, I saw you and your group up to something and overheard something about Yumi, so I came to try and help." William said. "Okay, well. Thanks I guess. Just don't ask any questions and do what I say, got it?" Ulrich said, remembering his past experience working together with William during a previous Xana attack. Suddenly they heard Yumi cry out in pain as her Xana controlled class cornered her. They both ran in that direction, with Ulrich leading, looking over a ledge to see Yumi encircled by head class lighting forming in their hands, Jim shooting lighting out at Yumi. "Hey, that's Jim shooting lightning out of his fingers! Is this a nightmare or what?" William stated. "Told you not to ask any question." Ulrich said, trying to come up with a plan. Just then his phone rang, "Ulrich?" Jeremy asked. "Quick, Jeremy." Ulrich said ,keeping an eye on Yumi. "Aelita is heading for the tower, She should be deactivating it in about a minute or two." Jeremy said. "Good. Because I'm getting readying to do something risky with William" Ulrich replied. "William?! What are you and William doing together? Are you guys buddies now?" Jeremy asked, surprised. "No, he's giving me a hand. I'll explain later" Ulrich said. "Yeah, Well .." Jeremy started saying before being cut off by Aelita. "Jeremy! I've got a big problem!" Aelita said worriedly, as the Scyphozoa emerged from behind the tower. "The Scyphozoa…" Jeremy said, seeing it on his map. "But why? It's already got everything Xana needed from me. What could it want now?!" Aelita said slowly backing up. "I don't know, Aelita, but please don't stick around trying to find out." Jeremy told her before going back to Ulrich on the phone. "Ulrich! Change of the program. The tower's not gonna get deactivated right away." Jeremy said, sounding nervous. "I guess we can't count on you guys.." Ulrich said before hanging up and jumping down to get the class's attention. "How're you doing, zombies?" He yelled, causing them all to look at him. "Oh, I know I'm not welcome, but I love strolling in the woods." He said before he began to run. "After him!" Jim said, pointing at him. Jim looked back at Yumi before following the others going after Ulrich. William jumped down off the ledge to check on Yumi. "Yumi, wake up." He said, gently trying to shake her awake.
On Lyoko, Aelita tried to run from the Scyphozoa back toward where Josh and Odd were fighting the tarantulas, but stopped in her tracks when one of the tarantulas turned and blocked her path before it began to shoot at her to drive her back towards the Scyphozoa. She then ran towards the only other direction she could, toward an edge of the sector, turning around now and then to throw an energy field towards the following Scyphozoa, which easily moved out of the way of the slow moving fields.
Odd was climbing a tree dodging laser fire from a tarantula, before jumping off the tree backwards towards the tarantula shooting down towards it, hitting it directly in the head, destroying it. "Odd and Josh, head towards the tower, Aelita is in trouble." Jeremy told him. As he ran that direction the tarantula that was blocking Aelita's path began to shoot at him now.
Josh was still hiding behind a tree as the tarantula he was facing kept firing, not giving him any sort of opening to turn and fight it as if it was just trying to stop him from helping Aelita. "Jeremy I would love to, but this tarantula won't give me a break." Josh said.
Aelita stopped running, having run out of room to go anywhere, allowing the Scyphozoa to reach out and capture her. "Hurry up guys! The Scyphozoa has Aelita." Jeremy said audibly, freaking out. "I would, but like Josh my new playmate doesn't seem to agree." Odd said jumping around to dodge the tarantula that was blocking the path. "I have to do something… I can't let that happen again." Josh thought to himself before taking in a heavy breath. He reached out his hand in the direction of the tarantula and concentrated hard, in his mind he could hear pulsing beat of the core of Lyoko itself as if it was speaking to him, and slowly a wire mesh frame of a large rock began to slowly appear over the tarantula, flicking in and out of existence, before becoming solid, falling on top of the tarantula smashing it. After this Josh collapsed, feeling drained of energy, before using his sword as help to get back to his feet.
While this was happening Odd had managed to get over the tarantula he was facing and ran towards Aelita, but by then it was too late and the Scyphozoa had already released her, laying her down on the ground. "I don't get it. It looks as if the Scyphozoa has implanted something into Aelita's memory." Jeremy said, looking at the memory transfer window, frantically typing. Odd quickly ran toward Aelita, who was still out cold on the ground, just as he got near her, the eye of Xana appeared on the memory transfer screen. "Aelita? You got to wake up." Odd crouching down, gently shaking her. She sits up starting to stand her back toward Odd. "Aelita Everything okay?" Odd asked, butting a hand on her shoulder. Aelita quickly turned around, with her arm out tossing Odd backwards with a weak energy field. Odd landed halfway across the platform with a thud. Josh, who finally recovered, made his way towards Odd and Aelita. "Jeremy! We have got a problem here. Something's wrong with Aelita." Odd said, sitting up slowly. "Aelita? Say something." Jeremy said worried and in a bit of a panic as on his screen he was her approaching the last remaining tarantula before their markers overlapped and began to head away. "Jeremy? What's going on? Aelita just got on that tarantula." Josh said. "I wish I knew… Odd you get your overboard and follow Aelita. Josh, you deactivate the tower." Jeremy said, still typing trying to find out what happened to Aelita.
Meanwhile in the forest, Ulrich was cornered by Yumi's xanaifed class. "Fifthteen against one huh? I have been through worse." Ulrich said getting into a fighting stance. Yumi watched with William getting ready to make the next move. First she called Jeremy. "Jeremy, what's going on with the tower? They have Ulrich cornered and I am in rough shape to try and help." Yumi said. "Josh, should be deactivating the tower in a couple of seconds.." Jeremy said, watching on his screen as Josh phased into the tower.
On Lyoko, Josh floated up to the top of the tower, and activated the interface,placed his hand on the terminal to authenticate himself,before entering the "Code Lyoko", control override command, deactivating the tower, ending Xana's attack.
Back in the woods, Yumi, Ulrich and William watched as Jim was charging up lightning to shoot at Ulrich, just for the lightning to quickly fade and Yumi's class all fell to the ground out cold. "Close timing there. We are probably going to need a return to the past tho." Yumi said. "I will launch one as soon as we manage to figure out what's wrong with Aelita." Jeremy said. "What happened to Aelita?" Yumi asked, concerned. "We aren't sure, the Scyphozoa attacked her then she got up and hopped onto a tarantula." Jeremy said, giving Yumi a quick recap. "What!?" Yumi gasped.
Back on Lyoko, Aelita and the tarantula were quickly approaching a way tower. "Ah, Jeremy, Aelita is heading for a way tower. What should I do?" Odd asked worriedly. "I don't know, I would say try and devirtualize her, but I don't know what would happen with her this way." Jeremy said as he saw Aelita enter the way tower on his screen, leaving the tarantula outside to stand guard. In the way tower Aelita floated up to the top platform placing her hand on the terminal before entering "Code Xana" into the control interface, granting Xana full access to every aspect of the forest sector.
Outside the tower the tarantula, which was standing guard, stood up to shoot at Odd but suddenly began to fall part into red light as if it was devirtualizing. "Jeremy? What going on?" Odd asked, confused, just as the tower began to lose color, losing its solid form and turning into a wire mesh frame before disappearing, dropping Aelita to the sector's ground.
In the lab, Jeremy was startled by multiple system alerts appearing on his screen and the stability of the core of Lyoko fluctuating on the side display of the console. "What is all this about?" He said to himself, starting to type to investigate what was going on..
Aelita got up, rubbing her head a bit. "Odd? What happened?" She asked, obviously confused. "I don't know but I think we better run!" Odd said noticing the sector starting to disappear in the same way as the tower. "JEREMY! THE SECTOR IS DISAPPEARING REMATERIALIZE US!" Odd yelled running with Aelita.
Jeremy quickly went back to the main interface in the console, and began materializing Odd, Aelita and Josh as soon as Odd said that. Errors flashing on his screen as the sector was rapidly disappearing. Odd and Aelita, ran past Josh who was just exiting the tower Xana had activated. Seeing Odd and Aelita running, he looked in the direction they were running from and noticed the sector vanishing, joining them in running away from it. Soon they ran out of sector to run on, and began to fall towards the Digital Sea, before the color faded from them leaving wireframes that then fell apart into pixels as they were devirtualized.
In the scanner room, Aelita and Odd walked out of their scanners, while Josh fell forward gripping onto the scanner's wall hard for support. "Josh you okay?" Odd asked, noticing this. "No." Josh managed to answer before falling into the group. Aelita and Odd both rushed to Odd's side. "Josh, what's wrong?" Odd asked, trying to help him up. "I don't know… My head hurts,and I feel nauseous and weak." Josh replied. "It has to be from the Forest sector disappearing." Aelita said, looking down guiltily. Around the same time, Jeremy called down to the scanner room over the intercom, "I am launching a return to the past, otherwise Yumi is going to have a lot of explaining to do." Jeremy said as he typed out the command and hit enter. A white dome, expanding out from the supercomputer, reverting the day back to this morning when the group was standing outside the dorms getting ready to walk to class.
As they started walking Josh fell to the ground holding his head in pain, causing everyone around to gasp and look towards him. One of the students that saw him fall ran and got Jim. Aelita and Jeremy were right next to Josh kneeling down. "Josh, is there anything we can do?" Jeremy asked, knowing this had to be related to Lyoko. "No.. I don't even know what's wrong." Josh replied, barely able to speak, trying his best to stand up. By the time Jim arrived Josh was standing leaning on the vending machine on hand still on his head. "Is everything all right here?" Jim asked, walking over toward Josh. "Anderson, you alright, someone informed me that you randomly fell to the ground." Jim said (A.N Who else almost forgot what last name Josh has registered….. I had to go check chapter 5 to figure it out..) "Honestly…. No." Josh said before he fell to the ground again trying to walk away from the vending machines. "You're going to the infirmary." Jim said, helping him up, walking him to the infirmary.
Jeremy looked towards Aelita. "I am going to head over to the factory, make up a story for the teacher." Jeremy said, worried about what was going on with Josh.
At the factory, Jeremy noticed that the forest sector was totally gone, seeing this he began running some tests on the supercomputer and Lyoko. He noticed some errors flashing about the core of Lyoko, as if it was reorganizing itself due to the loss of the forest sector. "That has got to be it." Jeremy said to himself. After a short while the errors stopped and everything seemed to stabilize.
In the infirmary, Josh's head had begun to hurt less and less until it stopped hurting and he got up, feeling much better then when Jim took him there hours earlier. While he was getting ready to leave, Jeremy called and told him about a meeting they were going to have at the factory in a bit.
Later in the factory the group was standing around the console where Jeremy was sitting, Josh was leaning against the wall still feeling slightly off. "Okay, so I have some bad news. The forest sector is gone, totally gone." Jeremy said bringing up a dialog showing the Sector Five and the three remaining sectors around it. "But why would Xana destroy the forest sector?" Ulrich asked, a bit confused. "Well, if all the surface sectors get destroyed then there will be no way to reach Sector Five." Aelita answered, seeing what Xana was doing. "Which means no way to stop him from destroying the Core of Lyoko." Josh said. "Exactly. Also Josh I found out that the Core fo Lyoko was reorganizing itself earlier today to stabilize Lyoko after the loss of the first sector as well, which probably explains what was happening to you." Jeremy said before adding. "Looks like I am going to have to start work on finding a way to get you to Sector Five directly." "Well, then it's a good thing I got student rep since you were absent from class and no one but Sissi voted for Herb." Odd said laughing a bit.
Hope you all enjoyed!