William slowly approached the group as the sound of thunder above them. Ulrich and Yumi took fighting stances, telling Jeremy and Aelita to get behind them. Then Odd noticed something, telling everyone to calm down.

"William clone, what's up?"

"The sky of course. Odd, you might be the smart one next to Jeremy, but you ask a lot of dumb questions.

They all quickly lowered their guard, more confused than anyone else.

"What are you doing out here? You're supposed to be back at the dorm."

"You say you didn't want me to expose my home after the Goodwill incident with Milly and Tamiya, right? So I wanted to learn about keeping secrets. So I went to see this movie with some friends!"

Ulrich wasn't buying it. "What's the name of the movie?"

"The Dentristial Massacre."

Yumi followed up. "Who'd you see it with?"

"People from our class. Christophe, Anais, and Mathias. That was the guy who kissed a Polymorphic Spectre disguised in front of Ulrich and the real William to make you jealous, right?"

Odd laughed as Ulrich looked away and Yumi facepalmed to hide her cheeks.

"That can't be the clone William," she tried protesting and keeping her sanity from that event. "How can he even know about that? He wasn't even around!"

Jeremy reluctantly put his hand up to explain.

"What did you do?"

"I programmed him with some of the information of our adventures. His artificial intelligence has grown since the incident so he has to understand the weight of the situation now. XANA might not be affected by anymore of the Return to the Pasts, but as long as his tower is intact, it'll help us keep him around until we can free the real one."

"Did you have to include all the XANA's Kiss moments," Odd asked, concerned. Then Odd grinned. "Did he include your moment at the end?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Your first time with Ms. Einstein, brainiac."

Jeremy started slowly freezing up when Aelita offered to warm him, giggling. However, Odd asked for help carrying the Hinobi Console.

Aelita took control of the situation "William, you, Ulrich and Yumi help Odd out and take the stairs and the other entry, I'll set some things up with Jeremy before we head out to the mountain sector."

As C-William helped lift Odd's load, Yumi asked how he found his way back to the factory.

"Oh, the others said I should find my way back home, and I told them that I was born here, so they laughed and said to go there. I was confused but then they started to rain so they left before I could ask anymore questions. I don't think I'd survive an electric shock out there either."

Ulrich shrugged. "Well it was at least smart of you to come here."

"Wanna play Co-Op while we wait," Odd asked.

C-William said yes, while Yumi was a bit more apprehensive, looking at the sky of looming thunder.

"Call it a hunch, but William, I have a strange feeling we might be needing you."

Meanwhile, Jeremy and Aelita were in the elevator but as the door opened, Aelita pulled Jeremy close to her.

"Why'd you freeze up earlier? I thought you were getting more comfortable with us being, you know, what we are."

"I am, it's just that defeating XANA is just taking longer and longer. And even if we beat him," which she was quick to correct.

"When we beat him, you mean."

"I'm not sure we'll all still be friends. Even with Lyoko, you're all getting better at running the Super Computer. Outside of the Skid and the program, you can handle all that stuff in case something happens to me."

Aelita wasn't sure what was going through his mind, until she remembered the conversation from earlier.

"You're thinking about going on Lyoko yourself?"

"Not exac-well the thought has crossed my mind."

Aelita crossed her fingers behind her hands. "How about we take a weekend off and go there, together."

"Wait, really?" She nodded.

"Well, we could just have a normal day between the two of us. No Lyoko. We'd leave early, do some stuff around BB, then come to Lyoko and leave a note letting them know where we are in case something happens."

"And if XANA attacks?"

"Then we go through each of the Way Towers to get from Sector to Sector. Besides," taking his hand as they headed to his seat to the control console, "you're always watching my back here, and once before when we touched in between limbo. This time, we'll be on Lyoko together."

"You sure?"

Aelita nodded. "Because I'll protect you the same way you've also done for me," guiding him on the seat and climbing on top of his lap, wrapping her hands around the back of his head.

"When you put that way, if I say no, I'd be rejecting you."

"So it's a yes?!"

Jeremy nodded much to her glee, and she pulled him in for a soft kiss on the lips. It almost froze him again, but she thanked him again from the messages he sent her during the Guided Missile fiasco, and lightly lifted his glasses up on his forehead.

"Don't freeze anymore. My heart's always warm when I'm with you."

Jeremy relaxed, accepting his girlfriend's earnesty. "Okay," and returned the kiss.

Meanwhile, Odd was playing Boom Infinity and William, Yumi, and Ulrich were struggling to keep up against other players online, with the latter giving up.

"We're playing against people from around the globe?"

"No, I region locked it to be around Boulogne-Billancourt, though it seems like there's a glitch. I think I'm fighting a ranked player from America!"

"Who?"

"Says the name is..Me-Ko. Sounds like a challenge! Let's go C-William!"

"Yeah! Wait, where?"

They heard more lightning strikes, some of which sounded too close enarby, which got Jeremy and Aelita to quell their moment. They agreed it was too bizarre for a thunderstorm and turned on the news, who was in the cul-de-sac as the reporters were commenting on the weird nature of the storm while the banner was talking about the sales of Boom Infinity.

Then, the Einsteins watched as a creature broke out of a window, made up of electricity and landed on the ground. The reporter freaked out and tried to get it on camera, only for them to flee as the creature was approaching them. The two could see the camera drop and as they saw her running through the cameras, more soldier like creatures joined the first one, and heard the panicking screams of several people around.

"This isn't good."

Ulrich and Yumi had climbed up the hatch. "What's going on," and witnessed the horrors on their screen. "Oh no. Wait, those look like the demons from the game Odd and William are playing."

Odd's voice echoed from below. "Something happened?"

"Your game's mooks are out in the world attacking everywhere outside of Kadic," as Jeremy changed the channels to spot the different local channels interrupting their programs to broadcast this bizarre event.

"Wait, for real? William, take me up!"

A second later, C-William arrived, holding Odd up on his shoulders. "Whoa, and I thought we had enough crazy XANA attacks. So this is his new plan?"

"That's what I thought," opening up different screens, including one for the Superscan, "but the Superscan hasn't spotted an activated tower on any of the five sectors on Lyoko."

He started pulling up more sightings of these creatures emerging under the thunderstorms and heavy lightning have mostly emerged in the northwestern United States. He came to a conclusion.

"The only thing strong enough to cause something like this has to be XANA using a Supercomputer to generate enough storms to cause this."

"The Replika," Aelita chimes in. "He's using that as a power source. But how are they affecting us here in France if they're so far from the Time Zone?"

"An electric current. XANA's either ampilfying it towards the televisions and screens, or there's a secondary Supercomputer where they're originating from that XANA is also pulling power from. Either way, we need to get to the Replika fast and deactivate the tower, fast!"

"But Jer," Odd pointed out, "there's a lot of those freaks out there in Boulogne-Bilancourt right now. We can't just leave the people defenseless!"

Ulrich had a suggestion. "Wait, why don't we don't we just go to Lyoko and materalize ourselves in our Lyoko forms and fight off those freaks?"

Jeremy shook his head. "We can't. When I materalize you from the Replikas, we're using the Super Computer's energy that's XANA's control so you can operate in the vaccinity. If we do it with the Factory's, it might cause too much of a drain in energy, and I'd rather not deal with a criminal again to get some more Uranium rods."

"I elect half of us to stay and fight, while the other half deal with the Replika," Yumi said, pointing out they have their classmates alongside her family that were in serious danger. "We have to do something!"

C-William immediately pointed out that touching beings made of pure electricity would only do more harm than good. Ulrich wasn't amused; he was developing a brain.

"You know, the real you would've taken a wooden stick and beat a whole army of those things."

Jeremy lit up. "That's it! Ulrich, you're a genius!"

"Thanks, could you call my dad and tell him that? What's the plan Einstein?"

"William Clone! You can fight these things off while the others head off to Lyoko."

"On it. But wait, won't the electricity harm me?"

"I'll have to add some more resistance to your physical You're strong enough to disrupt them, but if I can add XANA's electrical presence, you might stand a chance. All of you give some time to finish programming this, and stand by the Scanners. First," hacking the town's monitors to give them access, "let's install you with the city schematics so you can see where others need help. At the first sign of near death, I'll Return to the Past, but we need to hurry."

Everyone got to their positions while Jeremy tried to finish upgrading Clone William. Impatient, Odd continued to play Boom Infinity, now on his own, not knowing that one of the bosses of the game was slowly descending from the heavens above their city.

Bailley, Northwest United States

Five was going through the Tutorial for Boom Infinity, surprisingly finding the game to be user friendly. Bergy was also curious too, letting Miko take the wheel and wanting to give it a try. However, lightning bolts caused Miko to go into extreme kart racing mode, serving their vehicle so often, Five and Bergy ended up bouncing from one side to the other, clearly uncomfortable. The lightning quickly stopped.

"That's odd. It's almost like once we stopped playing, it faded."

Five jumped out of his seats. "That's why they're spawning so quickly as Mapper Glitches! Miko, stop the car, we have to disconnect and stop people from playing the game!"

Miko didn't respond, pumping the pettle to the mettle, almost as if she didn't care about what he said in the slightest.

"Miko, we're serious, we have to stop the spread! Take a look around!"

The other Glitch Techs from the Dabey branch were fighting their socks off. Haneesh formed a shield, parrying a rock demon so Zahra could finish it off and biscest it into two with her pink laser sword. Mitch surpisingly went off on his own to a large wooden house Five was curious about, but was certain that would never be important later. Mitch was probably going to lone wolf it...and it almost felt like Miko was doing the same.

"Miko, please don't tell me what you're planning on doing what I think you're doing?"

Bergy panicked. "Wait, what are we about to do? It's super dangerous, isn't it."

Miko flicked her hair. "Relax boys, we're going to the source of all of this! We're taking down the Big Bad himself!"

Five gulped. This probably wasn't going to end well.