Chapter 2

Musa felt herself hesitate as the elevator opened and revealed three huge towers that stood before her. Her hands grazed the elevator door and her nails dug into its grooves. "What even are these things?" She looked over at Riven hoping for an answer. However, she saw the same uncertainty mirrored on his face. Helia was the only one who did not seem phased by these giant metal beasts.

"Are we really going to let our fear of the unknown stop us? I mean, we journey into the huge forbidden forest everyday and we are not afraid of it. We aren't even afraid of Faragonda's or Saladin's punishments. We are brave enough to go into these...things."

Riven stared at Helia. "Oh wow, what a poet."

Helia cleared his throat, "In other words, don't be a scaredy cat and just get in the tower."

"What if we get stuck in the computer like the other girl?" Musa questioned, shivering at the thought.

"Then we have to trust Timmy to get us out. We have to save that girl."

With that, Musa moved towards the right hand scanner. She pressed her balmy palm on the cold metal and it opened with a whoosh. "Well...here goes nothing." She stood facing the open room and watched as Helia entered the left tower and Riven entered the middle one. She gave a small smile to Riven before the golden doors slid shut.

She felt her lungs contract and the blood rushing to her head. As the lights flickered in the scanner, Musa pressed her back against the metal wall. "Please let this be over soon..." she whispered. Suddenly, Timmy's voice came on over the speaker.

"Transfer Helia."

The lights flickered again. Musa hoped he made it into the computer okay.

"Transfer Riven."

Musa's heartbeat quickened as she realized she was next. The lights went out for a few more seconds than usual and Musa swore she could hear a pin drop with the silence. "This better work, Timmy."

"Transfer Musa."

Suddenly, a rush of light over came her and blinded her for the moment. She felt her body become static and then everything went dark.

Musa opened her eyes and she was in a forest. It wasn't like the one she and her friends had been in just a hour ago. No, this forest was all too calculated and...perfect. It was not made in nature, she concluded. This was the work of human hands.

She looked down at herself and gasped. She was wearing a red, shimmering two piece with pink, sparkling gloves. Two pieces of red silk wound up her legs and her long hair was put up into two pigtails. She also realized she was flying. The wings on her back were purple, yellow, and red. They sparkled from the various jewels that adorned them.

While she admired the beautiful outfit that had materialized on her, the boys suddenly ran past her and shouted. "Come with us!" They yelled and Helia grabbed her arm.

"what's going on?" she inquired, fluttering her wings to keep up with their speed.

"The monsters are on the edge of the forest. Timmy transferred us too far away." Riven muttered as he ran. She studied their outfits; blue and white one piece uniforms with a blue cape held on by a gem of random colors. Helia's gem was orange while Riven's was red.

As the trio ran as quickly as they could, they soon came upon Tecna cowering behind a tree. Musa gaped at her outfit: a purple and green two piece, purple silk winding up her legs, two sparkling wings on her back. In this place, she seemed almost like a real person.

The girl made eye contact with Musa and gestured for them to stay back.

"What are we going to do?" Musa asked. Helia and Riven pulled out their weapons; two sets of golden strings for Helia and a purple sword for Riven.

"We are going to defeat those damn monsters." Riven said as he ran towards Tecna and bolted over the rock. He was suddenly face to face with two tiny monsters. He swung the sword on them and gasped as they continued to fire at him. He deflected the fire with his sword and looked back at the others. "How did that not work?"

Musa shrugged and decided to focus all her energy on that monster. "Disco Shell!" She exclaimed and felt a burst of energy ripple off her like a wave. One of the monsters was suddenly encased in a floating pink orb. "Try it again now, Riven!"

He nodded and jumped into the air, his sword behind him. As he fell upon the incapacitated enemy, he swung his sword and the entire monster burst into little bits of code and disappeared.

"Good team work, guys!" Helia exclaimed, "But now it's my turn!" The monster began to shoot at him and he ducked behind a tree. He looked over his shoulder and saw the monster continue to fire at him. He let his strings fly out and wrap up the monster. As the thing struggled, Musa gathered her energy again and fired a sound wave attack that instantly blew up the monster.

"You did it Musa!" Helia gathered Musa up in a hug and she laughed, "How did I even do it?"

She looked over at Riven and saw a shadow pass on his face. "Let's just get out of here."

Tecna came out of her hiding spot and walked over to the trio. "He's right, the longer you all linger here, the less of a chance you have of getting out of here."

"What does that mean?" Helia asked.

"If you stay here too long, you automatically become virtualized. I don't know how I remembered that, but I just did." she looked around her surroundings as if seeing it clearly for the first time. "Timmy, can you get them out of here?"

Musa felt like it had been a lifetime since she had heard Timmy's voice. "I need you to deactivate the tower? Do you know what that means?"

Tecna turned around and pointed to the giant tower at the end of the path. "I'm on my way."

The trio protected her all the way until the tower. "You guys can't enter this. I think I'm the only one who can." She entered the tower filled to the brim with blue computer text and code. The floor was filled with three circles that lit up when she walked on it.

As her foot hit the center circle, a screen appeared in front of her. All that was written on it was "CODE?" prompting her for a password. Tecna thought for a moment, 'what could this code be?' She heard her friends outside scream as more monsters appeared. "What is this code?!" She ran her fingers through her hair and suddenly had a flashback to something she had completely forgot.

"Tecna, can you look over this piece of code? I want to make sure it's working correctly."

"Of course." Tecna grabbed the laptop out of her professors hand and began reading the code. "It all looks good, Professor Valtor. Have you decided on a name for the program?"

Valtor smiled and his dark eyes lit up. "Yes, I have decided to call it Zenith after your home planet. After all, you were the biggest help on this project."

"The code is Zenith!" Tecna's fingers quickly typed out each letter and pressed enter. She felt a flash of light envelop her and heard Timmy's voice saying: "Return to the past!"

Her last thought was 'who was Professor Valtor and why were we creating some program together?'