Lyoko Warriors of Love

The Shutdown

AN 

This is an emotional roller-coaster, but it has a happy ending.

XANA had been quiet for a while and the five Warriors were just happy to have a break. Not having to run out of classes, wake up at random hours, and just be together without the weight of the world being on their shoulders. Jim injured himself that morning while demonstrating an exercise for Yumi's gym class and wouldn't be able to walk for at least a day. The polyqule took that as an opportunity to have a cuddle session in Jeremie's room. Despite the size of the bed, everyone was comfortable in the limbs of their partners as they talked and laughed. They randomly kiss whoever they could reach. It was perfect. Then the computer lit up with bright red warning signs as it started to beep. A silence fell across the group, one thought crossed all of their minds: "XANA."

They untangled themselves and Jeremie ran to his computer, the rest stood behind him as he typed in a few lines of code to see what was going on. Even though only Aelita, who let out a horrified gasp, could make sense of what was on the screen, the other three could tell it was not good by the look of dread they could see on Jeremie's face, reflected on the screen. "We need to get to Lyoko, NOW!" he spun the chair around and ran out of the room.

If what he said wasn't enough to convince them how important this was, Jeremie running did. That was enough to put all of them in high gear as they ran out of the dorms and to the sewer entrance.

"Ok, Einstein What's going on?" Odd asked as the main programmer stopped to breathe in the elevator.

"XANA hasn't been quiet, he's been busy amassing an army of monsters...and their all attacking the core of Lyoko, the third layer was already a quarter of the way... gone by the time we left my room, it won't take XANA long to finish... that one before destroying the other two, and you know what happens if that's destroyed." He explained as he caught his breath.

"No more Lyoko, so there would be no way to stop XANA from doing whatever he wants to do on the web, satellites, power plants, nuclear weapons, XANA could use any of them and no one would be able to do a thing about it?" Ulrich whispered it as a question hoping that he was wrong.

The silence was all of the answers, not even Odd tried to make light of it.

They reached the room containing The Core and it was lined with monsters, Jeremie wasn't kidding when he said that XANA had made an army. "The second shield is almost gone!" they heard the disembodied's voice laced with urgency and anxiety. They tried to take out as many monsters as they could but there were just too many. Ulrich had gotten devertualized, but there were still way too many monsters. "The second shield is gone there is only one more! And it's going fast" they heard the blond cry out, but they were too busy fighting to process his words. "They're doing the best that they can Jeremie!" Ulrich snaped.

"the last shield is gone!" he cried, furiously typing, as the core got destroyed. It was over. He finished the command for Code Earth to bring the three of them in, but the terminal had shut down. "I can't bring them back!" he sobbed into the mic, the display was going in and out and he could only hear bits of what Aelita, Yumi, and Odd were saying. "If my terminal doesn't work chances are the scanners won't either..." his voice was small, and the boys just stared at the blank screen. Then they heard the hiss of the scanners. Their partners were alive! It didn't matter that XANA won, their partners were alive! They practically slid down the latter to the scanner room. But, only two of the scanners were opening.

In Lyoko, The Core disintegrated, and the platforms they were on were disappearing as well. Everything was devirtualizing around them. It was over. They heard Jeremie start to speak, but got cut off. They were on their own and were falling, and they were not even close to each other.