Code Revenge chapter 16

"Hey guys." I said, sitting down at the cafeteria table.

"You look a lot better." Aelita smiled and handed me a cup of hot chocolate. I took it and drank about half the cup in one gulp.

"Yeah, I finally got a decent amount of sleep." It was the morning after I'd completed the Skid and I still hadn't told anyone about the dead girl. I buried her and said a prayer and all, but I was already on almost everyone's bad list. This would probably cause them to completely shun me which would sooner or later result in their own deaths, so this needed to stay a secret.

"Excuse me have any of you seen my daughter?" I turned around and saw principal Delmas coming towards us.

"No, why?" Aelita asked.

"She went out last night and didn't come back." he replied.

"She probably got lost in a coat rack!" Odd joked, but a glare for Delmas shut him up.

"Della Robbia this is a very serious matter and I won't have you making jokes about it, understood?"

"...Yes sir...."

"Attention students, I said attention! Quiet- Jim!" Mr. Delmas called over to Jim who was sitting to the side reading his Sumo magazine, he looked up.

"Huh...wha?"

"I want quiet!"

"Right. QUIET! ALL OF YOU BE QUIET RIGHT NOW OR YOU'LL BE SERVING DETENTION WITH ME!" That shut them up...

"Uh, thank you Jim. Now last night Elizabeth Delmas left the campus though many of you may know her as Sissi, anyways, she hasn't come back. If any of you see her or know of her whereabouts please contact me immediately. I'll post a poster with her picture here in case any of you may have forgotten what she looks like." Delmas announced. He then walked over to the wall and put up a poster. People were making comments about how interesting this was or how Sissi had it coming, one person who must have been in journalism or worked on the school paper said it was a great scoop. He stepped away from the poster and walked away. I could see the picture...and I recognized who it was...it was the girl I killed.

"...Whoops..." I muttered, trying to keep my expression calm. I stood up and started walking out. "We need to have a meeting. Now."

We went to the Factory. I ran ahead.

"So what's wrong, you think Morgan had something to do with Sissi's disappearance?" Ulrich asked. He was in a cast, the bullet had been taken out, but his nerves might be shot, nobody was sure yet, though. Only time would tell.

"Uh...no. I accidentally killed her last night..."

"...What?" William asked.

"It was really late and I was tired and...ya know what..." I sighed. "I'm done with the excuses. Do whatever you're going to do to me..."

"No no, this is too much. Who votes she gets kicked out." Yumi said, everyone raised their hand...Aelita hesitated but raised her hand as well. "It's unanimous. Taelia you caused us enough grief now we're in even more trouble than we started off with. Thanks for the Skid but we can handle the rest ourselves. Now get out and stay out of our business!"

Without a word, I walked into the elevator and back to the campus. I packed my few belongings into a backpack, and simply walked off. They didn't want me around, so I wouldn't be around. It's how I'd been living, stay until I needed to leave, then move on to another shelter. There were plenty of places to use as a temporary home if one were to look. I'd stay in France, in case they decided to forgive me, but far enough away that they didn't have to run into me anywhere.

I got to the train station. There were a few minutes to kill before the next train came, so I went to the bathroom. I was washing my hands when someone whispered.

"Where do you think you're going?" I instantly recognized the voice as Morgan. This was my chance. I reached for my emp gun, but she was too fast. Within an instant I was on the floor, and all was black.

When I came to I was on Lyoko. The desert sector to be exact. I tried to get up but something had me pinned down. I looked and saw a boot belonging to Morgan.

"Ok, I'm done playing with you. It ends now. You're going in the digital sea to be permanently virtualized like your little mentor." She said, a superior smirk on her face. She tossed me up and caught me by the collar, holding me over the ledge. I looked around frantically for a way out...in the distance...my eyes lit up, but I instantly dimmed them.

"So...you are to be the death of me..." I said, resigned.

"Hm...I gave you more credit than you deserve, you give up fast. I guess you're no more impressive than any of the rest of them." Morgan said.

"Oh...I'm not giving up. I'm just being aware of my surroundings." I replied. In the background we could hear a grunt and then something slicing through the air. I dropped as a fan made Morgan lose her grip on me, but I held onto the ledge. Another fan came slicing through the air and hit her in the back not a second later and she devirtualized. A few seconds later something like a giant hover scooter was underneath me. I dropped down onto it and we sped toward the edge of the sector.

"You'd think she'd have more lifepoints than that..." Yumi said to herself.

"Yumi...you came to rescue me?" I asked.

"Just because the others had already left. Morgan has it in for you doesn't she?"

"Yep...She likes to toy with her prey....won't let us escape that easily...I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. You thought you were done with Lyoko...but it has a way of always dragging you back in. If I'm stuck here...might as well help you fight, right? I'm not asking you to forgive me or like me, that can come later if at all....but I'd very much like to be able to work with you..."

"We...don't really have a choice in the matter do we?" Yumi asked.

"You could let Morgan catch and kill me but I don't think Aelita would be too happy about it." I replied.

"...Right..."

"Hurry it up ladies, the rest are already almost there!" Jeremie interrupted. We went to the edge of the sector and got transported to Carthage. We got on the elevator and went up to the Skid garage. Though it was a bit different than it had been. Instead of one support system to hold the Skid, there were separate ones for each NavSkid. In fact, there was no main Skid, to save time and energy I'd only made NavSkids, or rather, I'd made one NavSkid, then copy pasted. That's how I got them up and running so fast. We energized onto our NavSkids and took off. Once we were in the Network Jeremie's voice came in over the intercom.

"Ok, I'll send the coordinates to your navigation systems. Get there as fast as you can and be ready to fight some new monsters."

The entire time we didn't say one word to each other. New monsters, of course there would be new monsters. Surely Morgan couldn't watch her father's creatures battle  with the Lyoko Warriors without getting a few ideas. What kinda would they be though, hopefully they wouldn't be too difficult to handle. We approached a giant sphere.

"That's the Replika, right?" I asked.

"Yeah." Yumi said. "And we need a key to get in, Jeremie?"

"That'll take too long." I said. I put my staff in a special port that connected to a shooter. Electricity surged from my staff into the port, shot out to the lock. It was overloaded and opened. "There, open."

We went inside, the digital sea led right up to land like a beach. The inlet of digital sea created a lake that ended at the far wall of the Replika. In the distance I could hear the sounds of lasers being shot and every so ofter the ground would shake.

"Well that doesn't sound good..." I muttered to myself.

"Where are these monsters?" Yumi asked as we started walking through a maze of dark blue platforms that looked like Carthage's. I felt vibrations, and the noise...it seemed to be coming from...

The floor fell out from under us.

"Like this place? It's called NegaCarthage." This voice was Morgan, she was broadcasting her voice to all of us like Jeremie did.

"Morgan? Wait, that's impossible, I devirtualized you!" Yumi exclaimed.

"This is where I get devirtualized to you idiot! Why should I fight you again, though. Here, meet my new creations, the Predators, and that one over there is the Megadoomer!" She laughed. What lay before us was a huge open room with some floating platforms high above, some moved. The room stretched out for what seemed like forever, like it could have been the entire lower portion of NegaCarthage.

"What do you think? I thought some of my father's designs could use an upgrade."

In front of us there were two of those Predator things she was talking about. The Megadoomer was farther away along with the other warriors including William. All grudges aside, William could fight. Morgan was a serious threat, and team Lyoko needed as much backup as possible...Oh wait, William just got devirtualized by the Megadoomer. It was a huge spherical monster with a black shell and four robot claw legs. A head poked out. It was tromping around shooting lasers and turning to fire a laser cannon on it's head and freeze things from the underside. However the Predators were more important at the moment.

"One for each of us?" I said.

"That'll work." Yumi replied.

I took out my staff and shot electricity at one of the Predator's arms. It shook it off, swung one of it's arms from the side and sent me flying into a wall. I slammed into it hard and slid down. I opened my eyes and saw Yumi fighting her Predator, she was dodging the blows nicely. I needed to find it's weak point, all of Xana's creatures had one, just needed to- Yumi jumped in the air and threw a fan at it's arm. It hit and took off a chunk of the arm, the Predator reached for Yumi and...There it was, Xana's symbol, on the stomach protected by the arms.

I got up, pushed off the wall, and ran up to Yumi.

"Aim for the stomach." I said to her, then I ran over to the Predator I was fighting. It sent an arm crashing down on me but I sidestepped last second then held on. It bucked and flung me all the way up to the platforms above. I grabbed the edge of one, flipped over, and landed on the platform. I formed the electricity at the end of my staff into a spear and jumped off the platform directly onto the Predator. Electricity surged through it and I had just enough time to do a back flip off of it before it exploded. I looked over at Yumi.

"One down, one to- wait, where'd ya go?" I exclaimed, Yumi had disappeared. She hadn't been devirtualized, I could tell, but she wasn't....Oh, she'd gone to help with the Megadoomer, only Ulrich was left fighting it now.

That train of thought had me distracted, the Predator was about to crush me before I noticed it and I had no choice but to run. Despite it's awkward appearance that thing was fast and soon it was right on top of me, not literally of course but you know what I mean. The only way to be faster-

"Oh, duh..." I muttered, facepalming. I used SuperSurge, and when the Predator was on top of me, I sprung back into human form and electrocuted the symbol. It exploded on impact, though my lifepoints took a good amount of damage in the explosion.

Well then, on to the Megadoomer....I turned towards it just in time to see Ulrich get frozen and then disintegrate. Yumi threw her fans and made good use of her telekinetic abilities to make them come around again and again. The Megadoomer wasn't making things easy for her though, shooting left and right with a laser attached to it's head. I ran over to Yumi.

"So where's the weak spot on this one?" I asked.

"Same place it usually is on a Megatank, between the armor plates. It's pretty well protected." She replied.

"Ooo, I like a challenge." I jumped up onto it's head. It used one of it's claws to try to force me off but I dodged and held on tight...then it swiveled on it's side and I fell flat on my butt. It had swiveled so that it's head was aimed at Yumi. Her eyes went wide, but she didn't have time to react other than that because the Megadoomer fired this huge laser cannon thing and she instantly disappeared.

"Looks like it's up to you, Taelia." Jeremie said.

"And the thing doesn't look like it's sustained any damage either." I said as it looked straight at me. I tried electrocuting one of the arms, they looked to be made of metal so should conduct electricity, but not necessarily, Earth rules and Lyoko rules are totally different. It didn't do anything than pause it for a second, this tactic might have come in handy if there was someone else to attack it, but alone, it was pretty useless. It pushed me aside with a claw and started shooting at me. It didn't seem to be trying to hit me, but to lead me somewhere. Every time I would try to jump on it it would swivel and continue to lead me.

Soon I was backed up in a corner. One of the monster's claws came down on me and pinned me to the floor. I was about to use SuperSurge, but Morgan's voice cut over the intercom again and I was frozen.

"You brought this upon yourself, you know, and now you'll suffer the consequences..."

The claw crushed me with unbelievable pressure, and I found myself falling out of a scanner, gasping for air. I knew I'd taken a lot of hits over the years but that REALLY hurt! I looked up and saw Yumi holding out her hand. I took it and leaned on her as we walked to the elevator.

"Does this mean...you forgive me?" I asked.

"No." She said. "But it does mean I'm willing to work with you." Yumi looked away. "I saw you fighting out there, and I think you really do have Aelita's best interest at heart. It's just you're..."

"Slightly insane?"

"Yeah..."

The elevator doors opened.

"It's not fair. I'm the one that gets to name the monsters, not her!" Odd exclaimed.

"Then what would you rather name them, Odd?" Jeremie asked.

"Well....actually I like the names she picked."

"Then what's the problem?" Aelita asked.

"It's the principal of the thing!"

"The diagnostic is done. To answer your question, Ulrich, the pixels falling out of your arm was due to improper casing due to the injury to your arm being read as an error by the scanners." Jeremie explained as Yumi and I walked over to them.

"I can fix it, make it so the scanners give him a normal arm. I created the scanners in the first place." I offered.

"No...you've done enough programming..." Ulrich said.

"The NavSkids work, don't they?"

"I'VE GOT IT! The Incredibles! And the name is from Invader Zim." Odd exclaimed.

"Wha.....?" was pretty much our collective response.

"The Megadoomer...I knew it looked familiar. It's the giant robot the bad guy controls in The Incredibles, it's an excellent film, and the Megadoomer was a giant robot Zim got once." Odd explained, a triumphant grin on his face.

"....So she gets her ideas from television?" Aelita asked.

"There's no way of knowing if that's a coincidence or not." Yumi said. "Anyways, what do you guys think? Can Taelia stay?"

"Morgan's after me. I feel like I have to help in some way, ya know? If it isn't with you I'll fight solo, but I'd rather be with you guys. I promise I'll get enough sleep this time so I don't shoot anyone else." I said. They all looked at each other and slowly nodded.

"Wait...how are we going to break the news to the Principal that his daughter's dead?" William asked.

"We aren't." Jeremie replied.

"Then what are we going to do?"

"Same thing we did for you, we make a Sissi clone."

"You made a Sissi clone for me....?" William asked. Jeremie pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"You know what I mean." He said. "I'll work on it through tonight and it should be up and ready to go by tomorrow."

"I always love your clones Frankenstein, they're so funny!" Odd exclaimed.

We went back to our dorms. I took out a picture from my backpack...a picture of me back when I was Morgan Stones....Franz back when he was Waldo...Aelita...and Anthea...The picture had been taken Christmas morning of 1987...I sighed...It was my fault...it really really was...