Welcome to Gaia! ::

nice story so far. Id like to see how this one plays out.

Working on it. I'm about 1/4 the way through with Phase Six. I still can't put together a good title yet, and I'm trying to figure out how to have this one END on the cliffhanger I want it to, instead of having it halfway through. I don't want to make another two-parter yet, not for this portion of the story arc. I should (hopefully) have it finished sometime this week.

Okay, I really need to apologize. Between midterms and everything, I've had little to no time to write. However, I have been thinking, and I think I finally came up with a good attack and possibly a title. I will try to have it done as soon as I can, though I don't know when that will be.

Please forgive me,

-Azana Brown

Thanks...now, on to a semi-update~!

Project Xandra: Phase Six's title is...

Heart and Soul!

As Xandra begins to learn the mechanisms of Lyoko, she finds herself having trouble remembering her life in England. When XANA chooses a completely different mode of attack, the Lyoko team struggles against a decision no one should ever have to make, a choice between lives. Every heartbeat counts in a race against time; can the Lyoko warriors succeed in choosing both options?

(This should be posted by tomorrow night. ^_^ )

dun-dun-duuuuuun

biggrin couldnt resist

I was hoping to have time to finish it on Thursday, but I came down with food poisoning and couldn't leave my bed. I'm much better now, though, so I'll keep writing it and have it posted sometime early this week. smile

((Alright! I'm kind of proud of this one, and now that this part of the story arc has started, I can have all sorts of fun!))

Project Xandra
Phase Six: Heart and Soul

“I, Alexandra Thompson, do solemnly swear to fight against XANA with all my might, and I shall never divulge the secrets of Lyoko to another,” Xandra said, her right hand raised in the air as she stood in the scanner, “NOW can I start the lesson?”

“I’m sending you right now to the desert sector. Transfer, Xandra. Transfer, Ulrich. Scanner, Xandra. Scanner, Ulrich. Virtualization!” Jeremy keyed in the codes, keeping Xandra’s data information on hand; he had been studying it last night to see what kind of abilities she had. They weren’t quite as remarkable as Ulrich or Aelita, but she could definitely hold her own with them.

“I want to get you acquainted with the kind of enemies you’ll face on here,” he said, materializing three separate monsters on Lyoko, “The first one you see—“

“It’s a Kankrelot,” Xandra said, activating her goggles, “They appear in groups of five, shoot lasers, are low to the ground, but otherwise pretty easy to take on unless they swarm you.”

“That’s right,” Jeremy replied, a little annoyed that she didn’t let him finish, “the middle one is a Megatank. They’re impervious to our weapons when they’re closed, but they have to open to charge.”

“If you wait too long to fire,” Xandra continued, reading from the information she was given, “they fire a large, sheet-like ray from both ends that causes instant devirtualization. However, they are easy to knock off balance into the digital sea. Good to know, but I can figure all this out with these goggles, Jeremy. Isn’t there something else I can learn?”

“Well, how about the other things your Lyoko form can currently do?” Jeremy asked, only to hear Xandra’s excited giggling in response. “This is serious, Xandra!”

“Sorry,” she apologized quickly as her giddiness subsided, “so, what are my mad skills?”

“Well, as you found out during your first mission, you have amazing jumping capabilities, in a similar respect that Odd is agile, Yumi is acrobatic, or Ulrich is fast. Also, you have your goggles, which can not only give you information on various things in the digital plane, but it can also help you plan perfect attacks based on the monster’s attack patterns.”

“I noticed, but it takes a little bit of time, and a lot of focus. Best to do that when I’m not being fired on, right?”

“Exactly. Another interesting thing I found has to do with that large bracelet you wear. Try placing one of your kama handles in that socket and pulling it out again.” She followed his directions, finding a silver stream of energy attached to the handle. She pulled it out as far as her arms would let her reach with a grin and began to swing her kama around on the cable. “This allows you to make distance shots, which may come in handy considering you will likely end up above your enemies. The problem with this is that your cable can be cut by a couple laser shots, or something like Yumi’s fans.”

“I can handle that,” Xandra reassured Jeremy, throwing the cabled kama through the Kankelot, “Is that all for today’s lesson?”

“Probably; we need to get back for dinner, or Odd will start to complain.”

“Hey! I haven’t said anything yet, and I’ve been hungry for an hour!!” He retorted, only to realize the folly of his statement. Jeremy materialized Xandra and Ulrich, and the group of six returned to the school, Yumi splitting off to get back to her house before her parents got too angry at her being out late. On the way back to the cafeteria, Xandra split off from the group, running to the mailbox just in time to hand her new letter to the mailman responsible for the final collection. She had added some postage to the new letter and requested forwarding service; hopefully her parents left one when they left for their vacation.

“Whew! Just in time,” she said, putting down her tray and sitting at the table, “the mailman was just about to leave.”

“You think you’ll hear back from your parents this time?” Aelita asked, remembering her mentioning the returned letter at an earlier point.

“I asked them to forward it, so if they left an address, it should get to them,” Xandra replied with a smile, “They’ll be so happy to know I’ve found a group here.”

“Isn’t it a little odd,” Jeremy asked, “that they left in the first place, without even telling you?” Aelita shot him a glare, but Xandra merely hung her head.

“They’ve always been a little secretive about their trips. It’s almost always been for business, though, so maybe it’s just habit that they didn’t really tell me. Then again, now that I don’t live with them anymore, they really don’t have a need to.” She stood up from the table, her dinner only half-eaten. She pushed the tray over to Odd and began to walk for the door.

Maybe, she thought to herself as she left the cafeteria, they just wanted to get away from everything, including me.

“Her family’s as messed up as mine,” Ulrich commented, watching her leave, “but I’d prefer hers. Dad’s never let up since I walked out on his lecture about my grades. I’d almost rather have them completely ignore me.” Aelita grew silent and distant, and Ulrich quickly quieted himself. He knew what a sensitive subject family was around Aelita. With her mother nowhere to be found, and her father stuck on the network running from XANA, she felt alone on Earth, even with Jeremy and the rest of the group around to comfort her.

Xandra flopped down on the bed in her room, her framed picture of her parents in her hands. She looked it over, running a finger over her mother’s gentle smile and sliding her other hand down the side of the smooth frame. She gave a sigh, standing up to put the photo back in its place; she hadn’t heard from them in a while, and it was starting to get to a point where she was forgetting about them entirely. The sound of their voices, the warmth of their embraces, the home-cooked meals...all of them seemed to be fading into oblivion. Even her friends in her photo album were falling victim to it; she couldn’t even remember half their names by now. Her eyes drifted to the computer, and an idea suddenly popped into her head. She walked over, taking a seat and bringing up her instant messenger.

MythMistress347: Guardian, you there?
[Error: User is not currently logged on]

So much for that, she thought to herself, minimizing the window. She stood up and grabbed her jacket, leaving the room and making her way for the door. On her way out, she came across the Lyoko group, just coming back from dinner.

“Where are you heading?” Aelita asked, noticing the jacket.

“Just out for a walk. I need to think about some things,” Xandra replied, donning the jacket as she answered them.

“I can understand that,” Jeremy chimed in, “just be back in time for curfew. We can’t give you lessons when you’re in detention—“

“And that seems to happen a lot!” Odd added with a smile which only met Xandra’s death-glare, which simply made him smile wider as he passed by with Ulrich. She continued onward out the dorm, starting to head towards the school’s gate. Within a few feet of her destination, she glanced over at the window to the principal’s office, finding Delmas still sitting in there, working on papers. With a sigh, she took a detour, walking into the building and heading for that room. The secretary was almost done with her day of work, packing up with a grin on her face, and let Xandra through to him, not accustomed to seeing anyone, especially a student, in at this hour.

“Who the—Oh! Miss Thompson, I’m surprised to see you here,” Delmas commented, organizing a stack of papers, “usually a visit is reserved for people in trouble.” Xandra had originally come to apologize for all the trouble she had caused, but she completely forgot for a moment that every infraction was followed by a return to the past. In his mind, she had done nothing wrong! What else could she say, to justify her standing there?

“Well, I’m not in trouble, but I’ve been having a little trouble. I haven’t heard much from my family, and I’m starting to get a little homesick,” she replied. It was the truth that she was missing her family and friends, but she didn’t want to concern him with the fact that it was getting harder and harder to remember them at all. As far as her adjustment to the school, that was easy enough...it was adjusting to suddenly fighting to save the world that threw her for a loop.

“That is perfectly understandable, especially if this is your first boarding school. We’ve had a few like you, Xandra, though I must admit they were usually younger.”

“I’ve always been close with my parents,” she claimed without thinking; she wasn’t even sure she was telling the truth about her own relation with them, and it was starting to frighten her. As Delmas lectured on in an attempt to comfort her, Xandra could swear that she saw Delmas’ shadow move...

Jeremy typed away in his room, studying Xandra’s virtual form for any sort of anomalies. He knew she hadn’t come to him about any more nightmares, but he wanted to have a ready explanation for such a phenomenon, if that was even possible. As he delved further and further into the data, his eyes widened in surprise.

“Th-this can’t be right...!” He muttered, going back to the other sets of data and running an overlap diagnostic. The same result was across all three scans, and he frowned at the screen. He had to tell Aelita and the others his findings, though part of him wanted to analyze things further, to find how deep it really went and what it all really meant. As he stood up to visit Aelita just before curfew, the SuperScan began to beep at him.

“XANA, your timing really sucks, you know that?” Jeremy muttered sarcastically, whipping out his phone and sending the text signal to the others...

Xandra looked down at her phone, seeing XANA’s sigil on her text message display. Before she could warn Delmas of anything, he clutched his chest, wincing in pain. “Principal Delmas! Are you okay?!” She asked, standing up quickly and rushing over to him.

“M-my heart,” he said weakly. The secretary came through the door after hearing the noise and stared wide-eyed at the scene.

“Call an ambulance! And get Elizabeth!” Xandra commanded before pulling out a mobile of her own.

“Jeremy!”
“Xandra?! Where are you??”
“Principal’s Office! I think XANA is attacking Delmas; he’s gone into cardiac arrest!”
“But how could he do that?!”
“I’m hoping Sissy can tell me that when she arrives. Please hurry!”

Jeremy hung up and continued to the factory as quickly as he could, running into Ulrich, Aelita, and Yumi along the way. He explained the situation as best as he could while running to the factory, specifically urging the time crunch on this one considering they had a life at stake besides their own. The virtualization was quick and accurate, dropping the threesome about half a kilometer from the tower, which was in the Mountain Region this time around. Jeremy couldn’t help but be slightly suspicious of this attack; for once XANA was not after either the group or the supercomputer. Why would he randomly attack someone like Delmas?

Sissy ran into the office as the ambulance arrived at the gates, throwing her arms around her father with tears streaming down her face.

“Daddy!! Please tell me you’re okay!!”
“Does he LOOK okay to you??” Xandra asked angrily, pulling her away for a moment, “I need you to tell me what might cause this to happen. Does he have any electronics in him?” Sissy looked at her, her eyes red and puffy from the tears. Delmas’ daughter tried her best to remember and came up with it as she calmed down.
“He had a heart condition a couple years ago,” she explained between sniffles; the paramedics had made their way into the building, and the secretary pointed them in the right direction, “They put in something to make his rhythm more natural.” Xandra nodded as she fully grasped the situation; XANA had possessed the device and was causing it to malfunction...but why Delmas? As the paramedics rushed in, the two girls followed behind, climbing into the ambulance to ride with them to the hospital...

“What’s the menu for today?” Ulrich asked as he, Yumi, and Aelita ran towards the tower. It was around the curve, and they could never be sure what waited around the bend.

“Let’s see...looks like the bug special today; I’m seeing a pair of tarantulas, a set of kankrelots, and a swarm of hornets sweeping in as reinforcements behind you!” Jeremy replied, seeing the red triangles appear on the screen.

“We can handle these, Jeremy! Make sure Delmas is still okay!” Aelita answered, focusing herself on the hornets. Yumi took her least favorite, the kankrelots, while Ulrich went head to head to head to head with the pair of tarantulas. Jeremy called up Xandra’s cell phone, which she reluctantly answered in the ambulance.

“Xandra, how is Delmas doing?”
“He’s still having problems, but Sissy and I are with the paramedics; we’re taking him to the hospital to see if they can’t help.”
“The hosp—“ Jeremy repeated before stopping mid-word. If XANA could make something like Delmas’ pacemaker malfunction, what could he do to a whole hospital. He wasn’t trying to destroy them; he was forcing an investigation to expose them! “Xandra! That’s XANA’s plan!”
“What??”
“Xandra, think how many machines are in your standard hospital. If XANA arrived there, he could infect them all!” Xandra turned away from the others, facing the door and lowering her voice.
“Then what do you suggest? We’re already en route! I can’t just tell them to turn around, not with Sissy in here!”
“You’ll have to; we can perform a return afterwards. They won’t remember a thing.”
“But I will, Jeremy! And what if Delmas dies while we’re stalling, huh? Will a return bring him back???”
“....No, it won’t.”
“Then you figure out things on Lyoko; I’ll see if there’s a way of getting XANA out of him,” she said, forcefully yet quietly, as she hung up and turned back to the others, who were too absorbed in keeping Delmas alive to really notice. Jeremy furrowed his brow in frustration, but she was right; they couldn’t abandon anyone to die...besides, if they could resolve this, it just might not require a return trip. He couldn’t help but grin slightly; he had to admit, that girl had a personality, a sort of soul about her that was completely unique. As he turned his attention back to the screen, he saw a new enemy appear; it showed up as purple, like XANA’s William clone, but didn’t show William’s signature at all.

“A Yumi clone?! You’ve GOT to be kidding me!” Jeremy said, exasperated as he alerted the others. If it had Yumi’s telekinetics and XANA’s energy, then they were in for a long battle, exactly what they didn’t need with their XANA-fied principal being led straight to a building full of high-tech machines. The real Yumi took out the last of her Kankrelots, leaving Ulrich and Aelita to finish their end of the work while she took on her duplicate.

“A copy of me? I’m flattered,” she said, walking towards it with her fans open before the battle ensued. The copy seemed more content to play a defensive game, deflecting Yumi’s fans with telekinesis as opposed to trying to strike. Yumi could see that the normal mode of attack wasn’t working on her clone, but what could she do unless someone could help her double-team it? “Come on, Ulrich,” she muttered to herself, standing her ground against the clone as she threw another fan. If she could just keep attacking and stall until someone could take her out...

Xandra watched as the paramedics tried to get him stable, Sissy too hysterical to help out. She felt useless, having no medical knowledge whatsoever to provide advice, though she did have some expertise where they did not. She knew exactly what was wrong with him, and it wasn’t exactly something they could fix with medications and monitors. XANA was a digital being, at least that was her understanding...could his hold on Delmas be short-circuited? She tried to get her idea in between the paramedics’ frantic commands to one another, but she couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

“What if we fry the device?” She said loudly out of the blue, causing the pair to stop and look at her like she had just grown three heads. She scooted next to them and surveyed the things on the ambulance walls, stopping at a defibrillator. Without even asking permission, her hands pulled out the paddles and rubbed them together like she had seen people do before. “If we short-circuit the device, then it should stop the problem, right?”
“Have you gone crazy?!” One of the paramedics asked angrily, “That thing is keeping his heart normal!”

“Right NOW it’s what’s making his heart go haywire!” She yelled in response, pushing the paddles on his chest before shouting “Clear!”, the shock causing him to jump, but otherwise make no change. One of the paramedics tried to reach for the paddles to rip them out of her hands, but she elbowed him hard in the stomach, giving it another try. “Clear!” She yelled, the paddles releasing a longer charge; she smiled as it had some effect on XANA in the device. Sissy was yelling at her while one paramedic attended to the other, and the ambulance driver started to call the police on the girl. She didn’t care; as Jeremy said, a return could fix everything, couldn’t it? She glanced up as she saw more flashing lights; they were arriving at the hospital, and there were two police cars waiting for her...

“Impact!” Ulrich yelled, finishing off his second tarantula before sprinting to stand by Yumi in facing down the clone. “Sorry, but there’s only room for one Yumi,” he said, holding his swords at the ready. The clone smirked, throwing her fan straight upwards at Aelita, who was fleeing from one of her hornets. Yumi instinctively threw one of her fans to deflect the clone’s attack, but the clone used its telekinesis to direct the fan straight downwards at Ulrich, her own fan still in Aelita’s path. Aelita suddenly did a quick loop in midair, charging an energy field for the hornet only to see a purple fan slice it in two. Ulrich ran forward to avoid the fan, running both his swords through the dark clone and causing it to collapse in black smoke. Aelita ran into the tower, making her way to the center and beginning her ascent...

At the hospital, the doors flew open, bright lights flooding the interior of the ambulance. The paramedics hopped out, explaining the situation to the police...

Aelita landed at the top of the tower, placing her hand on the panel...

The police climbed into the back of the vehicle, reaching for Xandra. “No!” She yelled in protest, putting the paddles down one last time before they’d get to her...

CODE

“Clear!!”

LYOKO. The tower panels fell in all directions, and the shock went through the device just before XANA’s presence left it. As the pair of police officers wrestled Xandra out of the ambulance, the driver looked back in amazement at the monitors. “H-he’s back to normal!!” Sissy shoved past Xandra and the cops, looking down at her father as the paramedics pulled him out of the ambulance, and she began to cry uncontrollably once more. The cops looked down at her and shrugged, knowing they would never be able to prosecute her if her madcap attempt actually succeeded in saving the principal’s life. Before the paramedic could suggest they take her in for assault on him, she ran off down a side street, wanting to get away from the scene before the press arrived and began to ask questions, like how she knew what to do in the first place or what her parents would think of her.

Jeremy heaved a sigh of relief before materializing the group and calling Xandra. She stopped to catch her breath, leaning against a wall as her phone rang.

“Hey, Jeremy. Delmas is fine...your timing couldn’t have been better. RIGHT when we arrived at the hospital. Thanks to you guys, I narrowly avoided arrest, too!”
“Arrest? What were you doing...?”
“I’d...rather not talk about it,” she said with a roll of her eyes, “I’ll meet you guys back at school; I’m wiped.” With that, she hung up and took a leisurely stroll back towards the academy. Jeremy watched as the trio returned to the computer room and turned in his chair, obviously calmer than before.

“Just in time, you guys! They never got inside the hospital.”
“That’s wonderful, Jeremy!” Aelita replied happily, “So that means no return this time?”
“Thank goodness,” Yumi said with a stretch, “reliving every day twice completely throws me off.”
“Well, think about me! I have to go to every soccer practice twice!” Ulrich chimed in, “I already hated Coach, but spending twice as much time with him?” Everyone seemed happy, but Aelita couldn’t notice that Jeremy didn’t seem too jovial...something was on his mind.

“Is there something wrong, Jeremy?” She asked, wondering if something had happened while they were on Lyoko.
“Actually, there is,” he replied, turning to the computer and bringing up the data sets he was analyzing back in his room, “It’s about our newest member...I found an anomaly in her data field...”

The paramedics put Delmas into the doctors’ hands and strolled out of the hospital. They were both laughing a bit, happy to have the run over with and glad they could convince the police not to let the press blow the story out of proportion.
“Helluva night,” one said, patting the other on the shoulder.
“No kidding,” the other replied, “I never thought a girl could hit so hard.”
“You’re just gettin’ soft,” the first teased, climbing into the ambulance and looking down at the defibrillator, which had been pulled off the wall. As he picked it up to put it away he stopped dead in his tracks, staring wide-eyed at the machine.
“You okay, there?” The second asked, climbing in behind him.
“This thing gave three shocks, right? And no one messed with it until now?” He asked the other. His partner nodded, and he started to tremble. “It’s...switched off.”

“You see,” Jeremy said, overlaying the three scans, “all three show the same inconsistency in her composition data, so it’s definitely not a simple error.”
“Which means?” Ulrich asked, obviously lost in the technical jargon. Aelita grew pale and shook her head in mild disbelief, her hand clasped over her mouth, her voice hardly audible as she whispered the conclusion in the plainest terms possible.
“Xandra isn’t who she says she is...she isn’t even human...!!”

awesome irony! keep it up!

well, time for bed. 'night!