After closing down the connection, Aelita crept over to the door and peered into the empty hall. Seeing that it was still safe, she stepped out into the hall and walked as quietly as she could into Ulrich's room. She opened the door, and cringed as it creaked, but she couldn't delay. She hurried into the room to get the disc that could free her friends.
Aelita's attention suddenly shot from Ulrich's drawer to Ulrich's mattress. Sitting calmly on the bed was Ulrich.
"What took you so long?" he asked. His voice sounded perfectly normal, though the tone was patronizing and a bit bored. Hearing the voice brought Aelita back to her senses.
"XANA," she said, taking a step back.
"Well," the Ulrich clone said. "I never accused you of being stupid." It stood up and took a step towards Aelita. Aelita took another step back. "Wanna see something really cool I just learned how to do?" it asked.
Without waiting for an answer, its skin started to bend and flex, and there was a faint green glow at every place that the skin tugged against itself. It closed its eyes and gritted its teeth, and it slowly grew another foot taller. It opened its eyes and the eye of XANA was plainly visible. The face then aged rapidly, until the copy of Ulrich standing in front of Aelita appeared to be almost thirty. It then looked down at its clothes, disapproving of the way they were now far too tight for the new, larger body. A green line appeared at the collar of the shirt and rapidly moved down all the way to the bottom of the shoes; as the line passed over the fabric and other materials, the clothing changed and became larger.
"I'd say my work was already paying off, wouldn't you?" it asked in a new, deeper voice. Satisfied with its stronger body, the clone lunged at Aelita. Aelita screamed and dodged to the side, then herself lunged for the drawer. She threw it open and tore through the items inside it, quickly finding the disc. With the disc firmly in her hand, Aelita lifted her head to look forward and prepared to stand, but quickly found her throat in the clone's hands and felt herself being lifted off the ground.
Freeing herself with a kick to the clone's stomach, Aelita screamed again and ran out the door, dashing wildly for Jeremie's room with the clone not far behind her.
In the center room, Jeremie paced. Something wasn't right; Aelita was taking too long, and that black sphere was frantic with activity, and had even seemed to develop a dull sheen. Jeremie stopped pacing, and looked at the sphere again. Thoughtfully, he unsheathed his sword and stepped towards it. If it really was a representation of…
Jeremie's thoughts were cut off by a surge of network activity on Lyoko. As soon as the transmission ended, a tiny white orb forced its way out of the black sphere, despite much resistance It floated up to the exact center of the room, which was about ten feet above the black sphere, and hovered there. Jeremie could feel it analyzing the room.
The white orb hummed with activity. Its analysis complete, it split into three identical orbs, and they each floated down in front of a different guardian, hovering about two feet in front of it.
Jeremie smiled. The program was working, and hopefully he could find a way out of there as soon as his friends were freed. Still, he was also worried. Why hadn't Aelita contacted him? He resolved to keep his mind on helping his friends, but he couldn't help but worry about her.
The orbs started flying in circles. The circles slowly enlarged, then turned into ovals as the orbs flew faster and faster. Then with a flash of white light, the orbs were gone, replaced with perfect images of Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi.
Seeing these new targets, the red guardians reached out tendrils towards the images. The tendrils poked and prodded at the images, but did not absorb them.
Something had gone wrong. Frustrated, Jeremie clenched his fist and closed his eyes. How could-
With his eyes closed though, he could feel it. In his mind he could see the room perfectly. His friends, inside the guardians being thoroughly scanned and the information fed to the black sphere; the guardians encasing them, their coding oddly different from the coding of the normal guardians that Jeremie was somehow able to recall; and the black sphere in the center, seething with activity and throwing up numerous firewalls to conceal and encase access to its coding.
The coding… Jeremie wondered. Opening his eyes, he looked at the guardian encasing Yumi. Aware of it now, Jeremie mentally dug into Lyoko's code structure and reached towards the line of code responsible for this guardian's existence, destroying it with a thought.
The effect as instantaneous. It was like holding a water bottle upside down and unscrewing the cap: one piece was removed and the rest of the code disintegrated. The guardian vanished, leaving Yumi standing in a daze.
Holding her hand to her head, she asked "ugh, what happened?" She turned to her left and saw Jeremie standing there. "Jeremie? Is that-" She then looked around and saw the rest of the room. "What is going on here?" she asked, bewildered.
"No time to explain," Jeremie said hurriedly. Without any time to waste, Jeremie mentally reached out and deleted the other two guardians.
Odd looked around and quickly took stock of the situation. "I'm figuring we weren't supposed to show up here," he observed.
Also confused, Ulrich looked around the room and saw Jeremie, and was somewhat surprised to see him on Lyoko. "Jeremie, what happened? Where are we? How did you get here?"
"I don't know where we are," Jeremie replied. "But I know that we need to get out of here. Come on, we can push through that wall," he said, pointing towards another permeable wall on the opposite end of the room. He didn't know where it led, but he knew that the wall he came in from led to a dead end.
Yumi pulled out her fans and opened them, ready to strike anything that got in their way. "Fine by me, let's go!" She started running towards the wall.
"Yeah," Odd and Ulrich said in unison, readying their weapons as well. They began running after Yumi.
Getting ready to follow, Jeremie looked at the sphere again. It was strangely calm now, with only a single vein worming its way across the surface. Jeremie shook his head. He didn't have time to deal with it; he had to get himself and the others out of there. Breaking into a run, he moved towards his friends who had almost reached the wall.
Without warning Jeremie felt another pulse of data from the sphere, a strange pulse he had never felt before but felt familiar all the same. He didn't have any time to think, he just reacted. A translucent green wall sprang up behind his friends. The pulse impacted it and dissipated into a puff of steam.
Jeremie turned around to see the surface of the black sphere boiling with activity. He drew his sword again and held it at ready, but then he felt the voiceless words in his head.
You were always too skilled with computers for your own good. I have often spent time wondering why you refuse to leave well enough alone, refuse to submit, refuse to save yourself, but it is of no consequence to me. You may be strong enough to save your friends, but protecting them means you now lack the strength to save yourself.
Jeremie glanced back at the others. They were pounding against the wall, and their mouths were moving but he could not hear them. He turned back to the sphere just in time to dodge a black tendril shooting from the sphere towards him. Rushing forward and to the left, Jeremie dove towards the sphere and slashed at it with his sword.
As soon as it hit the sphere, the point of impact sizzled with energy but the attack did nothing otherwise. Confused, Jeremie tried to pull the sword back for another swing, only to find that the sword was stuck to the sphere, as if held there by a powerful magnet. Suddenly, the impact site flashed with energy again, and the sword flew from Jeremie's hands and embedded itself high up in one of the walls.
Unfortunately for you, I have already taken the time to shield myself from attacks by your digital manifestation.
Unshaken, Jeremie leapt back, dodging another tendril from the sphere. He closed his eyes and concentrated, felt the path of data leading from him to the sphere, which he was certain was XANA. There had to be a-
There, a gap in XANA's firewall. Breathing deeply to concentrate, Jeremie moved his mind in, looking for the piece of code to snip to pull the plug on XANA for good.
Just as he sighted the correct line, a virtual wall popped up in front of it and Jeremie lost access. His attention suddenly returning to the room he was standing in, Jeremie opened his eyes just in time to see a tendril from the sphere slam into his chest. As soon as it hit him, it fused with his virtual skin, hardened, and began to lift him off of the ground. How? How had he not sensed it?
You are bewildered, confused at how I can hide from you even with you right in front of me.
Two more tendrils shot out of the sphere. Jeremie tried to put up a shield to block them, tried to delete them, tried to do something, but it was no use. They embedded into his shoulders, and again fused and hardened.
You should have just saved yourself. Now that I have tampered with the circuits, I have all of the computer's processing power at my disposal. On even grounds perhaps you could pose a threat to me, but now you are nothing.
Another tendril slithered out of XANA's sphere, but this one was different. Thicker than the others, it slowly snaked towards Jeremie, approaching his forehead.
You have taught me much Jeremie. Resilience, adaptability, and tenacity. But now it is time for you to teach me more. From your mind I shall extract the data I need to finally take complete control of the computer. Your friends shall trouble me no longer, and there will be no one to continue in their place.
The tendril stopped its slow advance about a foot away from Jeremie's forehead. Jeremie could feel it eyeing him hungrily: it was searching for the most ideal point from which to begin extracting information from him. Jeremie again tried to reach out with his mind, but the tendrils already lodged within him were dampening his abilities somehow.
With no one to protect her, the capture of Aelita will be a simple feat. I will escape this computer Jeremie, and you are powerless to stop me. I have won.