Chapter 1:
XANA 2.0
A year had passed since XANA's defeat, and although the gang's life was much less complicated, there were still many matters to be settled.
A new school year was beginning, and the Kadic Academy was buzzing with activity. In the hallway leading to the library, Jim was showing off his sergeant's skills, urging the platoon of 10th graders into the library.
"Hurry up, you maggots, use those muscles. It's still PE class here!"
Odd, who was following a few feet behind, couldn't help but be tempted to bullshit him.
"Then why are we going to the library, sir?"
Jim smiled proudly.
"Ah, you're curious, Della Robia, we're going to do some cybersport today!" Odd looked at his friends with a What's this guy talking about? look on his face. "We have to get down to your level, we're not students anymore, we're... freaks! And I found something that will make you do sports with a computer!"
"That's great sir" Said Odd wryly. "But don't you realize how dangerous it is? We could sprain our fingers typing on the keyboard!"
"Very funny" He replied bitingly, and waved him inside.
Jeremy, who was with Aelita, said thoughtfully:
"Cybersports? Maybe it works with motion sensors..."
Aelita held back a smile. Her best friend and, by the way, the boy she liked, was very good in many subjects, but in sports he was a complete disaster.
"Look, Einstein" Odd shouted between laughs. "You're finally going to get an A in PE!"
Aelita laughed, as did Jeremy. Only Ulrich didn't laugh, deep in thought.
With fifteen computers and about forty students, there was no choice but to divide into groups of two or three so that everyone could participate in the class. The students were standing around waiting for the teacher's explanations. All except Ulrich, who was daydreaming in a corner. Odd, puzzled, tugged at his sleeve.
"Ulrich, are you all right?" He looked more closely at his friend and understood. "Oh, no, don't tell me it's Yumi again..."
Judging by the way the brunette tensed up, Odd knew he had hit the nail on the head.
"Come on, man, go talk to her!"
"What do I tell her?" He put on a child's voice. "Yumi, I love you. You're the love of my life... Yeah, great"
"Not like that. It's got to be more manly, like..." His voice became like that of a film noir beau, with a Bogart look included. "Hey Yumi, I have something to tell you. I love you... See? It's not that hard!"
"Great. Do you have any more stupid ideas?"
While they were talking, Jim had declared war on the main computer, to which all the others were connected.
"For God's sake, where's the hole there, the one that swallows the CD?"
The whole class burst out laughing, slyly, mind you. Jim, who had heard the snickering, raised his head and stood up:
"What?! If anyone is smarter than me, let them come here and do it"
A girl got up from her seat and approached the professor. Odd knew her name: Selina Levesque. She had just arrived at Kadic and had been introduced in Mrs. Hertz's class. She was very pretty, but after her telling him where to go, he had given up any chance of hitting on her. It was better to flirt with his old classmates than with sharp-tongued new students.
She gently pushed the teacher aside and opened the CD player. But just as she inserted the CD, sparks flew from the computer and the screen began to flicker like disco lights. If that wasn't disturbing enough, there was a crackle of electricity and the PC fan running at full power, as if the computer was about to explode.
Selina frowned in bewilderment, unlike the rest of the students, who screamed in surprise and fear. Even Jim threw himself to the floor and put his hands on his head. The entire class held its breath. And then... Nothing. All the computers in the class shut down and a funny whiff of burning plastic came from Jim's PC.
"This was the cyberwar, sir!" Odd shouted, amused.
The class exploded in a noisy chorus of laughter, but Selina and Aelita didn't think it was the least bit funny. The latter was staring intrigued at a computer that was still on. Lines of code scrolled across the screen as if it were loading something.
"What the...? Jeremy, look at this!"
The screen turned off, and with it the lines of code disappeared. Jeremy walked over to the computer, now turned off.
"What?"
Aelita shook her head, disappointed.
"On the screen, there was like..."
Jeremy glanced at it. There was nothing, the computer was off like the others. The screen was just an empty black surface. What did Aelita mean?
It was recess, and many took the opportunity to catch up with their friends and tell them how their summer holidays had been. William and Yumi seemed to be no exception, chatting animatedly with their classmates. Ulrich watched them from a distance, witnessing the umpteenth execution of his chances of having a chance with Yumi.
Odd, who was next to him, nudged him.
"Come on, count to three and go!" He mimicked Ulrich. "Hey Yumi, what do you say we watch a movie in my room? Hey, Yumi..."
He stopped when he noticed the funeral face of his friend, who, unlike other times, wasn't in the mood for Odd's jokes.
"I'd rather do nothing than listen to..."
"But that's my method, to cheer you up!" His voice lost its usual playfulness and became serious and understanding. "Come on Ulrich, go ahead"
Ulrich took a deep breath and got up from the bench. But there was still another student and William near her. They looked like an impenetrable wall. Odd, seeing his friend's hesitation, gave him a thumbs up, trying to encourage him. Chin up, dude, after having put your neck on the line almost every day fighting XANA, it can't be that hard for you to put together a few words to tell Yumi how you feel about her.
While Ulrich was trying to work up the courage to talk to Yumi, on the other side of the courtyard Jeremy and Aelita were arguing animatedly about what had happened in the library.
"Jeremy, I know what I saw!" She shouted, worried almost out of his mind. "I know what I saw!"
"Yeah, but you have to admit that's impossible. We destroyed it!"
"What if it had survived?" She insisted.
Jeremy shook his head, frightened, but refusing to believe it.
Back to Ulrich, he couldn't wait for William to leave so he could finally talk to Yumi alone. At last, the dark-haired boy left, but not before rubbing salt in the wound by giving Yumi a compliment.
"See you later Yumi!" He gave her one of those smiles that seemed to be specifically designed to make girls melt. "By the way, I love your new haircut"
Ulrich shot a murderous glance at William, who didn't realize how eager a certain German boy was to wring his neck like a chicken. Oblivious to the cold war that was about to explode, Yumi smiled at William, blushing.
"Thank you..."
The boy winked at her and finally walked away through the crowd of students. Ulrich looked at William, amazed. How the hell was it possible that William could flirt with Yumi like it was nothing while Ulrich could barely remember how to form complete sentences?
"Ulrich? Did you want to tell me something? Ulrich? Ulrich!"
Yumi's voice brought him out of his thoughts. Ulrich stared at the girl with a flatfish face. From so much worrying about he hadn't realized she was standing in front of him.
"Er... yes... I wanted to tell you that... this... you know..."
Yumi smiled. Was this really the moment when he was going to clarify their relationship once and for all?
"Yes! I mean... you see, when we were..." He lowered his voice "the Lyoko Warriors..." His voice returned to normal, but not his ability to speak without becoming tongue-tied. Before, we couldn't... we had a mission, that was the important thing. But now... I can confess to you..." Yumi's eyes widened. Please, please, let him really say it, she thought. "We are no longer Lyoko Warriors, so we don't have a mission!"
Really Ulrich? thought Yumi, disappointed. But she didn't have time to get upset at his crush's inability to say things because the doorbell rang, changing in less than a second from the usual eardrum-busting chime to what sounded like the sound clip of someone scratching a chalkboard with their fingernails.
All the students covered their ears, but the surprises had only just begun. One of the speakers exploded in a burst of sparks and fell to the floor, almost beating Aelita and Jeremy's brains out. But as if the act of the show was ending, the doorbell stopped ringing.
"Jeremy, look!" Aelita shouted.
The boy turned and was stunned to see a strange reddish light coming out of the speaker and creeping up like a snake the wire attached to the wall.
"Tell me you saw it!"
Jeremy and his friends gulped, frightened. What the hell was going on?
When XANA was alive and bent on murdering the Lyoko Warriors and by the way all of humanity, Jeremy's bedroom had become the place of choice for the gang when they had to talk about anything related to XANA or Lyoko, and although in the last few months his friends did not pass through there except for trivial matters, at these moments it looked like a headquarters in which they were about to decide if their old enemy had returned from the dead.
"What exactly did you see?" Yumi asked Aelita, concern written all over her face.
"A bright light that was definitely not normal" The pinkette replied. "And before that, in the library, those lines of code on the computer screen... I've seen them too many times"
The whole room held its breath as it understood what Aelita was implying.
"XANA?" Ulrich whispered, dumbfounded. "But didn't we destroy it?"
Jeremy shrugged.
"We can check it out, turn the Supercomputer back on"
"Check what?" Yumi repeated, between annoyed and skeptical. "That the school is a ruin, that our PE teacher is nuts? We already know that!"
"Yeah, the Supercomputer, the Lyoko Warriors... It's all over!" Said Ulrich.
Aelita glared at him.
"XANA may still be alive and you find it funny? Back then, having the quarter of a doubt, you have rushed at it"
Everyone fell silent, and Jeremy sighed. Although perhaps Aelita was just being paranoid, he agreed with her that such suspicions were no joke.
"Aelita is right" He admitted, looking worriedly at his friends.
After lunch they sneaked off to the park. For them, going to the park used to mean a XANA attack. But now it meant proving that everything they had been through the previous year had really been worth it. Jeremy pulled out a pocket flashlight, and turned it on, illuminating the tunnel.
"Let's go" It was curious how a simple light could turn a frightening scene into something familiar and almost cozy.
Thanks to the light of the flashlight, they had no trouble reaching the factory, going down some stairs that were still in place thanks to some still unknown laws of physics and reaching the elevator, which despite its rusty appearance, still worked like a charm.
"This place gives me the creeps" Yumi commented as they aproached the elevator.
Jeremy removed the cover that concealed the keypad and typed in the password, 1506. A whirring sound later, the elevator door opened and they stepped inside.
As they reached the lab, they felt as if they were entering a refrigerator. The clothes they were wearing were appropriate for an early September afternoon, but certainly not for a place that looked like the refrigerator where the cook kept the yogurts and other dairy products.
"I'm freezing in here" Odd said as he rubbed his arms.
"It's the Supercomputer that produces heat" Jeremy explained. "But now that it's off..."
Jeremy pulled some kind of USB out of his pocket and made an attempt to insert it into the slot in the desk, but Ulrich stopped him.
"Wait! Are we sure about what we're doing? Just on a hunch from Aelita, are we going to turn this thing back on?"
"But I saw the XANA codes!" The pinkette exclaimed, determined. "Do it Jeremy, or I'll do it myself"
"Yeah" Said Odd shivering. "Turn on the heat, quick!"
Looking sideways at his friends, Jeremy inserted the ignition key into the Supercomputer's core. And with it, Lyoko was reborn.
"Everything is in order" Said Jeremy as he examined the results of the Supercomputer. "Lyoko has been reborn once again. Hey!"
"What's wrong?" Asked Aelita anxiously. "Is it XANA?"
"No, but two sectors are gone. I think some data was lost because the Supercomputer was left off for so long. I'm going to run a Superscan to see if XANA came back" He typed on the keyboard. "Nothing is in the data flux, nothing on the sensors... Well, let's check the towers" The Superscan gave him the same results. "Nothing, no towers activated, no trace of XANA!"
Still Aelita wasn't convinced.
"XANA is not the type to leave a note saying I'm back! In another virtual world, maybe?"
Jeremy shook his head.
"We destroyed all the Replikas. There is no other virtual world as complex as Lyoko. If the Superscan didn't see anything it's because XANA isn't there anymore, we destroyed it!"
"I want to go to Lyoko" Aelita suddenly blurted out.
"Good idea!" Said Odd, standing up enthusiastically. Without the threat of XANA, Lyoko was now a skate park, video game and theme park all at once.
"Why?" Asked Jeremy.
"I want to go to the Core of Lyoko, to be close to my father, before you shut it down again... Please"
Jeremy smiled, understanding.
"Fine"
Aelita and Odd looked at each other with a small smile and entered the scanners.
"Transfer Aelita; Transfer Odd"
The girl smiled as she felt the familiar tingling sensation all over her body.
"Scanner Aelita; Scanner Odd. Virtualization!"
The next thing she knew they were in Sector 5, she in her pink battle angel avatar and he in the guise of a state-of-the-art purple cat.
"Wow, that looks amazing!" Odd shouted excitedly as he fired a few laser arrows. "I'm almost disappointed by the lack of monsters" He looked at Aelita, who was running to the Labyrinth acess. "Hey, where are you going? You're heading to the Labyrinth. Aren't we supposed to go to the Core? Hey, I'm talking to you!
"Well, once they finish their walk" In the lab, sitting in a corner, Yumi looked like a mother waiting to pick up her children from the amusement park. "You'll turn off the Supercomputer, right?"
"Yeah" He answered without taking his eyes off the screen. "What's that?" He questioned as she saw a reddish halo around Aelita and Odd's avatars. "Hey, come here, you have to see this... Ulrich, Yumi?"
He interrupted himself as he saw them both enter the elevator with serious faces. They looked like two little kids who wanted to escape from lessons that were a pain in the ass. Jeremy shook his head and went back to work on the computer, and Jeremy was the model student who wanted to continue working with his Supercomputer.
"Jeremy" Exclaimed Odd from the Arena. "Could you send me my board?"
Said and done. A few keystrokes later, the Overboard materialized, ready to be dusted.
"Waaahhhooo!" Odd pulled off a stunt worthy of a cross between an Olympic-level skateboarder and a motocross champion before shooting off to the Labyrinth.
While Odd was having the time of his life in Sector 5, Ulrich was having a hard time.
"I love Aelita, but..." Yumi sighed. "She's the only one who wants to do this back to Lyoko thing" Yumi commented to Ulrich, as they both walked through the sewers.
"I don't understand her" He echoed. "And what happened with XANA being destroyed and everything being over? Didn't it gone?
"Of course. And about this... Can you tell me what you wanted to tell me before?"
"Uhh, yeah, yeah, yeah..." He got back to have a flatfish face and thought of a good excuse as she positioned herself to go upstairs. "How about some training in the gym?" He proposed, getting out of trouble for the moment.
"Okay" She agreed, climbing up the stairs, the boy waiting his turn like a child waiting to climb the climbing wall in the park.
In Lyoko, specifically in Sector 5, Odd with the help of his board took almost no time to reach Aelita at the end of one of the Labyrinth, where the only tower in the sector was located.
"I wonder. Now that XANA is no more, I mean. It would be a shame not to use this again" Odd commented, laughing as he flew over with his board.
Aelita didn't seem to pay attention to him, she was enraptured looking at the prism-shaped tower surrounded by a whitish blue halo, inactive.
"We could make this into a theme park" He proposed, firing a pair of laser arrows at a bluish column. "Welcome to this revolutionary new theme park!" He jumped from his board onto a column. "Three incredible worlds await you, welcome to Lyokoland!" Joked the boy, taking another leap to land squarely on his board that would make a professional skateboarder green with envy.
Aelita got closer to the tower, touched it with one of her hands and there was no reaction from her, she couldn't even enter it. How weird.
On Earth, in the gymnasium of the Kadic academy, Ulrich and Yumi were in their kimonos practicing pencak silat. The Japanese girl was the first to knock him backwards, getting on top of him.
"And what were you going to tell me?" She asked impatiently.
The boy held her hands and moved her body to change position, now he was on top of her.
"I'll tell you when I want to"
They stared at each other's eyes, with the excitement of the moment buzzing around them like electricity. In the afternoon light, Yumi's eyes looked like two obsidian gems, equally sharp and beautiful. Mesmerized, Ulrich wanted to say what he was feeling, say something, but before he could open his mouth was interrupted by Jim entering the gym.
"Ah, great. Finally someone who plays sports outside of school hours. I mean... Bravo!" He commented finishing entering, both teens looked at him without removing that half-committing position that the teacher seemed to ignore. "As you can see, cybersport is something superior to... it is too virtual. We need contact, reality, sweat, and to be hand to hand" Continued the teacher, giving the lecture. "Look at you, you're young. Anyway, I have to change some fuses" He finished, leaving the gymnasium somewhat resigned, leaving the two teenagers alone again.
Despite their moment interrupted by Jim, Yumi and Ulrich couldn't help but look each other in the eye and burst out laughing. Jim, with his ability to interrupt awkward situations, was a crack.
In Lyoko, Odd was training to be a circus performer, doing a handstand with his left hand while shooting random laser arrows with the other hand.
"We could create a ghost Overboard" He did a maneuver where he positioned himself with both feet firmly on the purple board. "Something awesome and scary with skeletons all over the place. He imagined a beautiful client frightened at the immensity of Lyokoland."Hey you blondie, you're shaking aren't you? I know it's normal but don't worry. I'll be with you" He finished in a gallant tone.
"Odd!" Jeremy growled, exasperated. "You're not using Lyoko in order to flirt!"
"Oh come on Jeremy, please, they are going to fall for me here. Come on!"
"Odd, Aelita, I've a signal! A tower is activated on Lyoko!" Jeremy interrupted, dumbfounded, detecting something so familiar and yet so ominous. How could it be possible? XANA had been destroyed, hadn't it?
"Could you repeat that, please?" Odd questioned incredulously, off his board next to Aelita.
"There's an activated tower in Sector 5"
"But there's only one tower here, it's in front of us and it's deactivated" Odd pointed out, with one of his cat-like claws.
"It's another tower..." He reported crestfallen. It was very strange, since as far as he remembered, there was only one tower in all of Sector 5.
The two friends looked at each other in confusion for a few seconds, then heard a strange noise behind them. They turned, Odd took a few steps forward and Aelita summoned her energy fields in both hands in attack position.
Three Megatanks in single file suddenly appeared in that corridor, the striker broke through to fire that that laser wall that left you fried in a matter of seconds. Aelita dodged the first beam, falling sideways and Odd dodged it by getting on his Overboard. Just as the second beam was about to hit her, Odd came to the rescue like a knight and grabbed her hand, rising up and dodging the attack.
"Are you all right?" He asked worriedly.
"Yes" She was still scared out of her wits.
"Jeremy, didn't you say XANA had disappeared?"
"I don't understand, Odd. The Superscan was sure, there was nothing, and now a new tower has appeared in Sector 5!"
"Thanks for your precious analysis" He commented sarcastically, maneuvering on the Overboard. He released Aelita and she activated her angel wings to descend the two of them and escape from the Megatanks that kept firing at them.
They entered a passageway, with the Megatanks at their heels.
"I will lead the way. Turn to the right. There" He commanded. They runned like hell towards the end of the corridor, which split in two. Hopefully that cliché of splitting up to distract the bad guys would work.
Meanwhile in Kadic, Jim was trying to fix some fuses in the school's electrical room. With a small flashlight, he was trying to fix that jumble of wires and buttons without a clue as to how to proceed.
"Why don't they use a simple button? One that says Here. No, you need a lot of buttons" He snorted, between annoyed and resigned. "What does it say here? Volts, Amps, Watts" For him, these were names he had to handle with care if he didn't want to end up roasting more than a Thanksgiving turkey.
An electric current passed through those wires, hitting the gym teacher's face. Jim put his hand to his cheek, groaning in pain. It hurt as if a red-hot iron had been put on his his face and groaned in pain. But the worst was yet to come. Startled, he watched as an exact double of him appeared in front of him, appearing out of nowhere.
The double's eyes glowed and in them appeared a strange symbol. Without giving him time to reply, or at least flee, Jim's doppelganger launched a shock of electrical energy that knocked Jim unconscious on the spot, falling falling like a sack of electrocuted potatoes.
In the abandoned factory, things were going from bad to worse.
"Yumi, Ulrich, where are you? Aelita was right, XANA is attacking us!" Jeremy spoke, his alarm practically vibrating the headphones of the concern. "Come as quickly as possible and be careful!"
Back in Kadic, Yumi and Ulrich, now in their normal clothes, were still in the gym, face to face. And ignoring the way Ulrich's phone was vibrating in the corner and a not at all friendly presence stalking them, about to attack.
The boy gulped, nervously, looking for the strength to confess to Yumi how he felt about her.
"Well, what did you have to tell me? Come on, let it out" The Japanese girl demanded with a small smile.
"Okay, I'll tell you. It's very simple" He began, slowly but surely. She looked at him attentively. "What I feel for you is I..." He interrupted himself as Jim approached them. "No, it's good, Sir, we're done"
Slowly he approached the boy without saying a word, grabbing Ulrich by the shoulders in surprise.
"What are you doing to me? Let me go, I don't feel well" He said, unexpectedly dizzy. He was beginning to stagger from the lack of energy that had suddenly left his body out of nowhere.
"Stop it, you're hurting him!" Yumi interjected, giving "Jim" a hard shove. He let go of Ulrich and threw him several foot away.
"Yumi, it's all a blur..." He muttered, putting his hand on the girl's shoulder to keep his balance. She held him and held him around the waist to strengthen her grip. "I'll follow you"
As best they could, they left the gym.
"I'll take you to the infirmary, this looks serious" She proposed with concern. Her phone rang. She pulled it out and answered the call. "Jeremy? What? XANA? A specter?"
"What?" He asked, but there was no immediate response because the girl saw the polymorphic Jim-shaped specter come out of the gym ready to chase them.
"Don't think about it and run, it's not Jim, it's a specter!"
They turned and ran as fast as their legs would carry them. So much for saying that XANA wasn't back! thought Yumi, trying to give the specter the slip.
Thanks to Jeremy's directions Aelita and Odd managed to find the activated tower, which glowed a deep shade of blood red.
"The tower!" Odd shouted.
They both broke away to dodge another laser from the Megatanks.
"Go, I'll take care of them!" Said Odd to Aelita, jumping off his Overboard and aiming his claws and firing multiple laser arrows, hitting one of them right on target. "Ha, one down!" He landed behind, jumping back on his Overboard and dodging another deadly beam.
One of them hit his board, sending Odd tumbling to all fours on the bluish ground.
"Damn! I forgot what this looked like"
He looked back and leapt forward, dodging another orange bolt. Just as he landed, he jumped and spun around dodging another beam. As he spun, he positioned both fists and fired laser arrows at the second Megatank, destroying it and landing afterwards.
Aelita flew towards the tower and landed, she was about to enter it when she heard Odd's scream. The remaining Megatank was giving him no respite. He managed to dodge several beams, but the last one hit him directly, devirtualizing him.
"I think we're done with the theme park idea" He snorted sarcastically, coming out of the scanner.
In the forest, the two teenagers made their way as best they could to the manhole. Yumi broke away from Ulrich to remove the cover; the German boy was the first to position himself to climb down.
"I think something happened when he touched me" He said quietly, Yumi held him by the shoulder to help him in. "It may be why I can't see well and feel so weak"
"I' ll guide you. OK?" Whispered the girl, pressing her forehead affectionately to his. Despite the fact that it was quite cool in the sewers, Ulrich felt as if a coal furnace was burning in his chest.
"OK"
While Ulrich and Yumi were trudging through the sewers, a few yards behind them, hidden behind some leafy trees, stalked the specter of Jim.
The last Megatank was destroyed by Aelita through an energy field as she flew into the air and expertly dodged his attacks. She landed and removed her wings by means of a pass on the bracelet on her wrist.
Behind her back two Krabs virtualized, startling her. First Megatanks and now Krabs. What the hell was going on in Sector 5?
Yumi and Ulrich were able to walk down the stairs together supporting each other, even walking through the tunnels for a few minutes.
"There, sit down here" She indicated, Ulrich leaned against the tunnel wall and slowly slid down to sit, breathing heavily.
The girl knelt down to his level where seconds later her phone began to ring, she took the call.
"Yes Jeremy? Yes. OK" She looked at Ulrich closing her phone and putting it in her pocket. "I need to go, Aelita is alone on Lyoko and we need to deactivate the tower to destroy the specter. Odd is going to come, OK? You'll be okay" Said the girl, caressing his cheek.
She got up and ran out. Ulrich watched her walk away through those sewer tunnels, his head spinning like the lights on a Ferris wheel, both from the specter's attack and Yumi's caress on his cheek.
A few tunnels behind, the manhole cover was opened, and Jim's spectre began to descend the ladder.
"Jeremy, I need help. I can't do it by myself" She ran in a zigzag pattern, dodging the Krab shots, jumped around a corner where she could hide at the end of the road. Where are Yumi and Ulrich?
"Hide Aelita, Yumi is on the way"
The girl stood still, feeling the Krabs above her stand in the corner, searching for her to no avail. But how long could it last?
Yumi had run as fast as she could, choking but not giving up, she reached the factory almost jumping the stairs, then ran to the elevator, put the password on the panel and entered the elevator directly to the scanners. There was no time to waste.
"Jeremy, I'm here!" She announced, already at the scanner. "Tell Odd to hurry! I'm worried about Ulrich"
"OK" He muttered. Odd nodded, running straight to the elevator to help his best friend, "Transfer Yumi" He stopped intrigued by what he saw on the screen, again that reddish halo surrounded the avatar of one of his friends as a bug. "What is this? I don't like it at all. Odd, look at this!" But the boy was no longer in the lab, he assumed he had already left with Ulrich. He sighed and continued with the virtualization process. "Scanner Yumi. Virtualization!"
The girl virtualized in Sector 5, dropping gracefully to one knee like a trained ninja; she stood up quickly and saw beside her Overwing. With a leap she jumped on it and shot off into the Labyrinth. She had to help Aelita.
A bead of cold sweat trickled down Ulrich's forehead, who was breathing heavily. The walls of the tunnel around him were becoming more and more blurred; he was about to faint.
He heard rapid footsteps approaching his position, he was startled but calmed down when he recognized that cheerful voice so familiar to him.
"Ulrich, it's okay, it's me" He knelt down and put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Jeremy explained it to me. Jim isn't Jim, he's a specter, isn't he?"
"Y-Yes" He answered with bated breath.
"Follow me. Hurry up" Putting his hand around his neck, the boy put his arm on his friend's shoulder who helped him stand up.
Behind them, the specter came out, determined to achieve his goal.
With Jeremy's help, Yumi managed to reach the activated tower and Aelita, as she shot out of the corridor, the Krabes changed their target. Yumi dodged the lasers maneuvering nimbly in her Overwing, took advantage of an opening and lost them in a quick movement, where she found Aelita hiding.
"Come on Aelita, I'll take you to the tower quickly" She demanded. Aelita walked towards her as she made sure it was safe to leave. "Ulrich isn't feeling well, the specter infected him with something"
Aelita nodded, Yumi went out of there in a frontal attack while the pinkette activated her wings to take advantage of the distraction.
The Krab shots were not long in coming, the ninja jumped backward summoning her fans in both hands. The Overwing hit the Krab on the right exploding it. She landed in attack position and threw both fans at the remaining Krabe, hitting it right in the middle of its huge head, making it explode, the fans returned to her as if it were a boomerang, ending that work.
Aelita took one last look at her friend and went into the tower. Thinking of Odd and Ulrich, she wished she had arrived on time.
Ulrich and Odd were still walking through the sewer, the German boy couldn't keep his balance anymore, as if he was feeling vertigo, he fell on one knee, but luckily Odd was fast enough to hold him tight and lift him up again.
"Can't you see at least a bit?"
"I'm sorry" He apologized, frustatred for having the vision of an old as dirt cat
Aelita already entered the tower, illuminating XANA's markings as she went, until she reached the round center, where a bluish light surrounded her, lifting her up.
"Watch out, I think he's coming" Ulrich warned when he heard footsteps behind him. They both turned to check their suspicions. Odd stuck to a nearby wall and carefully sat his friend down.
"So you like cybersport, huh?" He stood in front of the specter. "I'll give you plenty of it!" He raised both fists to punch him in the head, but the specter grabbed his hands.
Odd, unable to free himself from the specter's grip, fell to his knees, pain coursing through his body like an electric shock. It felt as if all the energy in his body had suddenly left him, along with something the specter was draining from him.
Ulrich could barely keep his eyes open, but judging by his friend's screams of pain, he knew that he had been caught by the specter and was doing the same thing to him, and that if it kept this up, he was going to meet a much worse fate...
Aelita reached the top of the tower. She took a few steps and a screen appeared.
Odd was about to lose consciousness, the specter kept snatching that something from the boy and Ulrich was helpless to help him.
She placed her hand on the interface. The word AELITA appeared. She quickly typed CODE LYOKO.
Just as Odd was about to faint, tendrils of greenish light shot through the specter.
"What the hell...?" He whispered. The specter disappeared in a burst of light and Odd landed on his butt on the concrete.
"Tower deactivated" Aelita announced, watching as the binary codes dragged themselves down.
Without knowing the harm that XANA could have done to Jim, Jeremy launched a Return To The Past. A bubble of bluish light engulfed the entire world, sending them back to class.
The morning repeated itself in Kadic, while the gang was once again in Jeremy's room.
"So, what does that mean? Did we destroy XANA or not?" Ulrich questioned, sitting on the couch.
"Yes and no" Jeremy replied, standing in the corner with his arms crossed. "When Aelita, Odd, and Yumi got virtualized, there were red halos around them. I have never seen this before!"
"We're not at your level to understand that" Odd replied in confusion, sitting next to Ulrich.
"Those were codes. Precisely, source codes that belong to XANA. And the moment we thought we destroyed him, he injected the codes into you"
"Into us?" Aelita repeated, astonished.
"Yeah, I know it's hard to believe. The computer is positive. It is certain for Aelita, Odd, and Yumi. There's no reason it would be different for Ulrich. XANA has injected its codes into you all, and I'm wondering if it's sending specters in order to get them back"
"But why?" Odd inquired, curious. "What's the use of those codes?"
"It probably survived this way" Deduced Aelita. "By injecting us its codes. And the moment it'll have them all, he'll have all its power back. And it'll be in control of the world network"
"We just have to turn the Supercomputer off, and we'll never hear about this again!" Suggested Yumi.
"No" Aelita denied, shaking her head. "XANA appeared before we turned it on again. So that means that it found itself another way than Lyoko to reach the real world. Turning it off would be running away from the problem. We need to fight again!"
They looked into each other's eyes, some hesitant and others determined to resume the adventure that had marked them for life. Jeremy looked at his friends and sentenced:
"The Lyoko Warriors are back!"