Jeremy woke up in the middle of the night to the super scan going off and began to contact all the others in person before calling Yumi. "Yumi, It's Jeremy, we are going to need you at the factory now, Xana is attacking. And this one looks like big trouble." Jeremy said typing to localize the towers. "Why?" Yumi asked tiredly. "Because believe it or not, there are five activated towers." Jeremy replied. "I will be over as quickly as I can." Yumi replied, hanging up.
On the floor of the factory the group was talking as they walked to the elevator. "I have got a bad feeling about this one." Jeremy said as they walked into the elevator. "Relax, Einstein. We'll take out your five towers in no time." Odd said to which Josh added "Especially since I should be able to deactivate towers again." Yumi quickly walked to the elevators having just arrived. "I got here as fast as I could." Yumi said as Jeremy operated the elevator, sending it down to the lab. When the door opened everyone looked in shock seeing someone sitting at the Super Computer's console. "Huh?" Jeremy murmured. sort of confused. "Ah. I have been expecting you." The person said, turning to face them before going back to the computer typing. "That Xana…. Locks the door, but leaves the window wide open." He said as the super scan showed the towers one by one deactivating before the windows disappeared. "Uh…uh…bu-but I mean…wha-wha…what are you doing here?!" Jeremy asked, baffled. "I am deactivating the towers." He replied. "Without going to Lyoko?" Jeremy asked, surprised. "Of course!" He answered.
"But uh… Who are you?" Aelita asked. "I'm…Franz…Hopper." He replied, smiling a bit. A look of surprise crossed everyone's face. "Im the one who created Lyoko! And XANA, too. But then I lost control of it… In the very beginning, it was a program that I designed to counter a military project, based on a multi-agent system." Franz said. "Well…what about me?" Aelita asked. "Eh? I created you…to be the guardian of Lyoko. But I never thought I'd see you one day in…flesh and blood." He replied.
"But then where have you been, for these last few years?" Ulrich asked. "Well, let's say I was a kind of prisoner who finally managed to escape." Franz answered. "Wait, if Xana was holding you prisoner I am sure I would have known something about it." Josh said. "Ah the creation of my creation. Very impressive in what Xana has managed here." Franz stated. "I am sure there are things that he kept hidden from you." Franz added.
"What now, then?" Yumi asked. "We've got to destroy Xana once and for all." Franz answered. "We'd love to, but XANA's given Aelita a virus. If we switch the Supercomputer off, then Aelita will die with Xana." Jeremy explained. "We'll find the antivirus. You'll see." Franz answered, smiling. "Sure. But how?" Jeremy asked considering he had been working for months on it. "Well, that, young man, is why I came. I'm here to help." Franz said, putting a hand on Jeremy's shoulder.
"Since it is so late and I already deactivated the towers, you should head back to bed and come back in the morning." Franz said. Before the group headed back onto the elevators and left the factory.
In Jeremy's room, Aelita, Jeremy and Josh were talking. "He's very fatherly. Actually, in a way, he is my father. He's the one who created me." Aelita said. "That's true. I adore my own dad, but…heh, he's sure no genius! But this Franz Hopper is a real live genius!" Jeremy stated, excited. "I don't know, but for some reason I had this weird uneasy feeling when I was near him." Josh said. "Like there was some sort of energetic property to him." He added. "Maybe being virtualized for so long leaves some sort of temporary electro-magnetic trace" Jeremy proposed as a reason. "Maybe." Josh said, shaking his head a bit. "Yeah. That's it for me. I'm going to go to bed." Aelita said, getting up. "I am going to go to bed as well." Josh said standing too. "Night!" Aelita said before leaving, Josh leaving soon after.
The next day Jeremy was working on his computer when his phone rang. He answered his phone. "Hello?" He asked. "Jeremie? It's me." Jeremy's father said. "Franz?" Jeremy asked. "No, Michel! Your father!" Michel replied. "Do you know why I'm calling? Happy birthday, big guy." He added just as the whole gang entered Jeremy's room causing Jeremy to be distracted from the phone looking towards the door. "Happy birthday, Einstein!" The whole group said at once. "I am sorry Dad but I have to go. My friends just came in." Jeremy said before hanging up. "Here! A present!" Odd said, handing Jeremy a wrap box. "What are you waiting for? Go on, open it!" Ulrich said watching Jeremy just sit there holding the box. Jeremy unwrapped the box and opened it, finding a picture frame with a drawing of the whole group together. "Wow! It's great!" Jeremy said smiling. "Yeah! And I drew it from memory!" Odd said excitedly. "So you can imagine how much effort it took!" Ulrich said, causing the whole group to laugh. "Thanks, everyone! Hey! How about going over to the factory now? I can't wait to see Franz again." Jeremy said. "Sounds good, I want to try and get a look at what he has been doing on the supercomputer." Josh said still concerned.
The group headed to the factory and down into the lab. Once there Franz started a discussion with Jeremy about how he was deactivating the towers if he didn't know how to do so from the interface. "You used the scanners to virtualize human beings?" He asked in a concerned voice. "Well…yes! It was the only way we could find to deactivate towers on Lyoko" Jeremy explained. "The virtualisation process was not ready for that yet. It's a very dangerous procedure, with serious side effects." Franz explained. "What kind of side effects?" Yumi asked, worried. "Cellular degeneration." Franz said, grimly. "I can use them to scan if any of you are affected." Franz added. "But wait… if they are so dangerous why did you use them?" Josh asked. "I had to get to Sector Five, there were some core programs that can only be accessed from there, and that was when I was captured." Franz replied.
Ulrich, Odd and Yumi headed down to the scanners and stepped in then Franz started to process. "Ulrich seems fine, Odd too, but Yumi." Franz said watching the processing's status on the screen, a red error flashing on Yumi's profile. "No.. It can't be." Jeremy said in dismay. "Should Aelita and I go down next?" Josh asked, still not trusting this "Franz Hopper" guy.
"Yes, go down and I will scan you both as well." Franz said. Franz then scanned Josh and Aelita both seemed fine but Franz didn't look happy about something in Josh's results. Once the whole group got back to the lab from the scanner room Franz began to speak again. "Josh, I have some bad news, it appears as if you are tied to Lyoko's Core Programming including Xana." He said. "Tell me something I didn't know." Josh said, slightly annoyed. "Xana has direct access to you… You can't be trusted." Franz said bluntly. "You all should go back to the school." He added.
In the quad the group was talking a bit with Ulrich, Odd and Yumi sitting on a bench and Josh,Jeremy and Aelita standing. "I can't believe it. What a nightmare…!" Yumi said. "Nice one, Einstein. Doctor Schrank transplants animal limbs onto human beings, but compared to you, he's small time." Odd said. "I… I-I couldn't have known…! I'm sorry…" Jeremy said. "You're sorry?! Well that's not gonna help cure Yumi." Ulrich said standing up. "Wow Back off. You all got a right to be mad but stop taking this out on Jeremy, there was no way he could have known." Josh said sort of getting between Jeremy and Ulrich. "Just leave me alone. I need to be away from you. You coming, Ulrich?" Yumi asked, getting up. "Jeremy and Aelita, I need to talk with you two." Josh said, walking towards the dorms. "I don't trust this Franz Hopper guy. I am still getting that weird feeling around him. I plan on tapping into the supercomputer to double check what he has been up to." Josh said. "If I find anything I will let you two know." He added before walking to his dorm room.
Later the day, Jeremy, Aelita, Odd and Ulrich were eating dinner in the cafeteria. "I'm sure there's a way to cure Yumi." Jeremy said, picking up a meat ball on his fork. "We don't even know exactly what's wrong with her!" Odd said. "I'll work it out. I promise I will." Jeremy replied. "I think you have done enough damage as it is." Urlich snapped back. "What do you mean by that?! That everything's been my fault right from the start?!" Jeremy said getting physically upset. "Your the brains of this outfit… Einstein" Ulrich said ,causing Jeremy to grab his food and get up and leave. "You know, Ulrich. If it wasn't for the scanners neither I nor Josh would be here." Aelita said, getting up to follow Jeremy. "Where is Josh anyways, its not normal for him to skip dinner." Odd said noting that while Jeremy regularly skips dinner Josh rarely does. "He's probably still busy working on a project he told me and Jeremy about." Aeltia said walking off.
Shortly after leaving Jeremy and Aelita, Josh went to his room and sat down at his computer and turned it on. He pressed his hand to the keyboard and began to connect into the super computer using his spector codes. While he wasn't able to fully access the system as if he was at the main console he was able to access a few sub-systems including the scanners and their logs. Before suddenly a burning sensation began slowly making its way across from his hand, causing him to jerk away from his computer in pain. "That is definitely not normal." He said to himself.
After Dinner time was over Josh headed over to Jeremy's room and knocked. "Jeremy, I need to talk to you now.' Josh said, his hand and arm still slightly numb from hours earlier. "Okay, come in." Jeremy said. "I have some interesting news. Firstly I managed to get a hold of the scanner devirtualization logs before I was forced to disconnect from the super computer." Josh said, holding his arm. "So anything interesting? And what do you mean forced?" Jeremy asked, wondering. "Well there doesn't seem to have been anyone devirtualized since our last mission on Lyoko." Josh said. "And as for being forced to disconnect while I was poking around Franz must have activated some sort of firewall, since I began to have a burning sensation across my hand and arm, which are still sort of numb." He added. "That is very concerning." Jeremy said "The firewall part could be explained by him not trusting you, but the scanner logs… that doesn't make sense. Did you happen to find anything on those scans he did earlier?" He asked. "No, I was about to but that's when the firewall appeared to be activated." Josh replied. "I am going to go get some rest." Josh added before leaving.
That night Jeremy wasn't able to fall asleep at all worrying about Yumi. Meanwhile Yumi's phone rang. "Hello?" Yumi asked, answering the phone. "Yumi, it's Franz. I have some good news. Tell the others and meet me in the factory in the morning." He said "Okay, We'll be there." Yumi replied then Franz hung up.
The next day the group met up at the factory and headed down to the lab. "I now know how to program the antivirus which will free Aelita." Franz said, turning towards them. "All I need now is the data from Sector Five." He added. "Great. We will go and get it." Aelita said, smiling. "Hold up. I thought you said the scanners were too dangerous to use?" Jeremy stated. "If we want to get to Sector 5, then we have no choice." Franz replied. "It'll be our final mission!" Odd said before Josh began to speak. "Hey Franz, I have got an important question. If you did finally get free from being trapped by Xana, why have the scanners had no devirtualizations logged since our last mission and why would you setup a firewall with the intent on harming me when I tried to double check your scans from yesterday?!" Josh said , sort of ticked off as his hand and arm were still feeling off. "What are you talking about?" Franz said, trying to sound concerned. "There has been no remote access to the supercomputer since 2 days ago." He added. "Josh you should sit this mission out, it's obvious that Xana has been manipulating you to try and prevent us from destroying him once and for all." He continued.
"Well then what am I supposed to do?" Jeremy asked. "If I were you, I'd stay out of the way." Franz said. "It's not fair! Everyone blames me for everything! And after all, we all turned the Supercomputer back on together!" Jeremy yelled angrily. "Perhaps, but you were the one who played the sorcerer's apprentice. You're the one who put your friends' lives at risk." Franz said "And you're the one who let Xana destroy my diary." He added angrily. "Fine… I get it. Josh you coming, It's obvious that we aren't wanted here." Jeremy said, walking toward the elevator. Josh nodded slightly following him out. "Jeremy! Josh! Wait, don't leav…" Aelita said but was cut off as the elevator door closed behind the other two. "RIght. Shall we?" Franz said setting up virtualizations for Odd, Ulrich and Yumi.
One their way back to campus Jeremy was thinking about what Franz had said softly repeating the last part to himself. "And your the one who let Xana destroy my diary…. But how could he know when it's in my room…" Jeremy said thinking. "If you have it then unless you said something there is only one other person outside the group that would know." Josh said realizing his dis-trust was correct. "Xana…" Jeremy said as they reached the campus. "We have to go back there and stop him." Jeremy said. "Wait, we need a plan. We know he is going to want to get Aelita alone on Lyoko." Josh said. "Yeah… wait, are you thinking what I think your thinking?" Jeremy said, starting to run towards the dorms to get his laptop. "I sure am. Let's beat my father at his own game." Josh said following him. "I can easily rig up an interface to let Aelita control a virtual avatar from my laptop, although your going to have to figure out how to bypass the scanner's checks and keep the supercomputer happy about this." Jeremy said. "I have the perfect idea, while it will probably affect my mutli-agent again but its is going to be worth it." Josh said as they both began working.
Back at the factory Franz had virtualized Odd, Ulrich and Yumi directly into Sector 5. "Hey! We have arrived directly in Sector 5!" Ulrich said, surprised. "Of course, there is a direct access. The transporter is a bit… outdated." Franz said typing. "Cool." Odd said as the large passageway in Sector 5 opened. "The countdown has begun. Clean up, and I'll send Aelita over." Franz said, still typing as the group ran down the now open corridor.
When they got to a large open room that contained over eight creepers. Odd looked around a bit. "Franz, I-I don't mind cleaning up, but…we're going to need some industrial-strength detergent." Odd said. "No problem. While yous were a wait I upgraded your weapons." Franz said. "How so?" Odd asked before shooting at a single creeper, his laser arrow destroying it then continuing on to kill two more. " WAAAAHOO! Homing darts!" Odd shouted excitedly. Ulrich ran towards a creeper and went to slice it with his katana when it suddenly unleashes an energy wave the slices thru multiple creepers destroying them. Yumi threw her fan and they seemed to home in on the creepers and destroy them before returning to her hands.
"There's the key! Leave it to me." Ulrich said, running towards the key using his super sprint, destroying creepers along the way. " Ulrich! How you doing?" Yumi asked. "It's a done deal." Urlich replied, destroying two more creepers before hitting the key. "Well done Ulrich" Franz said. Odd destroyed the last of the creepers and sighed. "This is almost too easy." He said. "Don't worry, Odd. It's not over yet. I've got more surprises in store for you." Franz said to himself typing.
Meanwhile Josh and Jeremy had run over to the factory and were just getting in the elevator, heading straight down to the scanner room. "Aelita, are you read for virtualization?" Franz asked over the intercom. "Yes" She replied walking towards the scanner just as the elevator was opening. Jeremy hurried to her side and shshed her before quietly explaining the situation to her while Josh was working on connecting Jeremy's laptop into the scanner hardware before sitting down and touching both the scanner and the laptop.. "Here we go. Transfer Aelita. Scanner. Virtualisation." Franz said, virtualizing who he thought was Aelita. In the scanner room Josh grit his teeth as he was quickly emulating the scanner hardware using his multi-agent.
The supercomputer seems to believe it was talking to a scanner and virtualized 'Aelita' to the Mountain Sector. "Ulrich? Odd? Yumi? Franz I am not in Sector 5, what's going on?" Aelita asked, physically looking at the screen on Jeremy's computer, getting a view from her virtual envelope's eyes.
Jeremy walked into the elevator and headed up to the lab to confront "Franz". "Everything's under control!" Franz said before turning around at the sound of the elevator. "Jeremy? What are you doing here?" He asked. "I just came to see how you were managing… Xana" Jeremy said, taking a fighting sort of stance. The eye of Xana appeared briefly on Franz gasses, his voice becoming staticy. "Very clever Jeremy, but you're too late." He said before sending an arc of purple electricity at Jeremy knocking him backwards into a wall before going back to typing.
On Lyoko the group was slowly fighting more creepers, quickly destroying them. "Hey! Want to make this a contest? Whoever gets the most wins." Odd said going to shoot but nothing happened as if he was out of arrows. Yumi pulled out her fans and the devirtualized into pixels along with Ulrich's katana. "W WHat's going on here? Franz?" Yumi said concerned before a creeper shot a laser at Ulrich hitting him, causing him to gasp in pain. "Somethings wrong, lets get out of here." Odd said, jumping down to a lower platform, Yumi and Ulrich not far behind. "I get the feeling…we've been double-crossed." Yumi stated. Then soon reached the end of the walkway in an open room.
Franz stopped typing and looked over at Jeremy who had managed to pick himself up. "Your friends are in a little trouble! I fixed things so that they can never rematerialize! No more life points, and it's…bye-bye! And now, for the grand finale." He said with an evil sounding laugh, before going back to typing as the Skipazhoa approached Aelita on Lyoko. She backed away from it till she reached the edge of the platform. "Help?!" She gasped before it picked her up and began to drain her memory.
In the scanner room Josh gasped as he transferred some of his multi-agent thru the scanner interface allowing the Skipazhoa to take it. Aelita looked over worried. "Josh are you okay?" She asked worriedly. He simply nodded, still struggling to keep the supercomputer happy with the interface they had set up.
In Sector Five Odd was looking down, noticing the platform end. "What now?" Ulrich said, turning around waiting for the creepers to follow. "Well.. There's only one thing to do… FRANZ WE NEED HELP!" Odd yelled, throwing his hands in the air. "No, not Franz… Xana!" Yumi said, turning toward the open room, pointing at an activated tower. Odd began fighting on of the creepers as if he was in a boxing match.
In the lab Franz turned around, "Admit your defeated Jeremy" He said. "Not this time." Jeremy said, grinning a bit as the supercomputer let out a beep indicating that a window had closed.
In the mountain sector the Skipazhoa dropped 'Aelita' to the ground before backing away, frailing its tentacles as red energy arced around within its head.
In the lab multiple errors suddenly appeared and Aelita's virtual envelope disappeared from the screens. "What is the meaning of this?!" Franz yelled, angrily.
In the scanner room, Josh had disconnected himself from the scanner and Jeremy's laptop after the transfer was done, which was the cause of the error. "I am going to head up and help Jeremy, I don't think my father will be too happy about getting fooled." Josh said climbing up the ladder to the lab.
"A decoy, plus a little present from Josh" Jeremy said with a smug look on his face. "NOOOOO!" Franz yelled getting ready to electrocute Jeremy while Josh slowly made his way behind Franz and touched the supercomputer, using his spector codes to tap into a fraction of its processing power before touching Franz's back. Using the supercomputer to quickly calculate an energy field to destabilize the spector that was Franz. "That was close" Josh said looking over at Jeremy as the spector slowly turned to smoke and floated into the ceiling. Jeremy rushed over to the computer and began typing, working on fixing the materialization codes.
In Sector 5, the group was cornered being backed against the edge of the platform. "I have always wondered how this would end… Now I know. This is it…" Yumi said ,waiting for the creepers to kill them all. The creepers shot at all three of them and hit them all, causing Urlich to fall backwards and turn into pixel, devirtualizing. "NO! Ulrich!" Yumi screamed. "It can't be…" Odd said. "Come on! Don't be so pessimistic, Odd!" Jeremy said typing to give them back their weapons. "Huh?" Odd looked up surprised. "Jeremy?" Yumi asked. "Yes! I'm back! Come on! Let's start over!" Jeremy said just as Yumi's fans re-appeared and Odd got his arrows back and they both destroyed the last two creepers. "Nothing like my trusty old gear!" Odd said, jumping up a bit. "What about Ulrich?" Yumi asked, worried. "All's well. I managed to reprogram the materialization just in time." Jeremy said, as Aelita was helping Ulrich out of a scanner. "Ready Aelita?" Jeremy asked preparing her virtualization. "Yes, Jeremy." Aelita said, stepping into a scanner.
Jeremy virtualized Aelita to the edge of the Ice Sector. "I have already entered the code, the transporter should be there shortly" Jeremy said to Aeltia as ran to where the transporter would appear. She stepped into the Transporter and was on her way to Sector 5.
In the lab Jeremy and Josh were still at the computer. "Josh, you're going to have to explain whatever you managed to do to that spector later." Jeremy said very interested. "Sure thing." Josh said as the spector began to move down towards both of them before it quickly lunged at them and tried to suffocate them both.
Meanwhile Urlich was just heading up from the scanner room and got to the lab to see Jeremy and Josh both gasping for breath. Ulrich ran over to the computer. "Aelita, you better hurry up. Xana is choking Jeremy and Josh!" He said quickly, worried.
On Lyoko, Aelita ran through the core zone towards the activated tower, as she approached Xana virtualized a manta that began to circle the tower, thinking he could delay Aelita just long enough to deal with his two worst enemies. Fortunately Aelita ran straight at the tower jumping towards it, using the manta to hop all the way to the tower, before floating up and deactivating it.
As the tower deactivated the spector began to dissolve leaving Jeremy and Josh's bodies allowing them to both breath.
Later that day in Jeremy's room the group was going over what happened. "Of course I'm not angry with you. What's more, I checked out your bio-schematic during the rematerialisation phase. There's no sign of alteration whatsoever!" Jeremy said "I also looked over Josh's scan as well." He added. "Oh, what a relief. He really had me scared… That Franz Hopper." Yumi said, relieved. "You mean false Franz Hopper, the real one is still somewhere on Lyoko." Jeremy replied.
Thanks for reading, if you can please leave a review. Also next chapter I plan on writing as Jeremy, Aeltia and Josh going over everything Josh knows about Lyoko sort of chapter.
I have been coming up with some lore to explain some of the stuff in the show that is inconsistent and I want to set it in stone for this story. Such as the time between devirtualizations and virtualization, why xana needs to try and take over some towers, yet for others he tries and attacks them physically., (this part will be important later.), how Josh was able to so quickly interface with the scanners and supercomputer in this chapter.