Challenge #112 - Describe your worst failure
There is a large, black, ominous-looking cloud that has been covering the city for the past several months. Meteorologists can't make heads or tales of it; it just appeared on their radar screens one day in spring and hasn't moved on since.
That black cloud is my biggest failure.
That black cloud is XANA.
At least, it's one manifestation of XANA. That's what Jeremie believes and what he's told us on more than a few occasions. For all we know the cloud could just be a ruse, a decoy to throw us off of our guard until XANA launches his first attack.
But I know what that cloud really is. It's a reminder, XANA's reminder to myself and my teammates, that he is still around. That he is free of the supercomputer.
And that it's all my fault.
My friends have told me countless times not to blame myself. After all, how were we to know that when we took what we hoped was our final mission, we were walking into a trap? We had all underestimated XANA and just how strong he had truly become. XANA's escape from the supercomputer was everyone's fault (Ulrich's reasoning) or no one's (Yumi and Odd's point of view).
But I was the one with the keys to Lyoko, the keys to XANA's chance at freedom. My father stated in his video journal that he and I were to be the masters of Lyoko. We had a responsibility to guard that virtual world and all of its secrets. With my father XANA's prisoner, that responsibility fell to me. It's why I was able to sense XANA's actions while in Lyoko, and why I was able to deactivate his towers. It's why XANA pursued me so doggedly with his Skipzoa, trying to steal my memory.
He did it, too. And I shouldn't even be here. When XANA stole my memory to gain the keys, he also stole all of my lifepoints. I was, for all intents and purposes, dead. It was only through my father's intervention - how he accomplished it from his prison, we still don't know - that I was saved and my memory fully restored.
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. We were supposed to go in, retrieve my fragment and break my link to XANA, get back out and shut the supercomputer down. XANA was supposed to die, and we would be free to live our lives without constant worry.
But it didn't. We can't.
I failed.
That black cloud is my biggest failure.
That black cloud is XANA.
At least, it's one manifestation of XANA. That's what Jeremie believes and what he's told us on more than a few occasions. For all we know the cloud could just be a ruse, a decoy to throw us off of our guard until XANA launches his first attack.
But I know what that cloud really is. It's a reminder, XANA's reminder to myself and my teammates, that he is still around. That he is free of the supercomputer.
And that it's all my fault.
My friends have told me countless times not to blame myself. After all, how were we to know that when we took what we hoped was our final mission, we were walking into a trap? We had all underestimated XANA and just how strong he had truly become. XANA's escape from the supercomputer was everyone's fault (Ulrich's reasoning) or no one's (Yumi and Odd's point of view).
But I was the one with the keys to Lyoko, the keys to XANA's chance at freedom. My father stated in his video journal that he and I were to be the masters of Lyoko. We had a responsibility to guard that virtual world and all of its secrets. With my father XANA's prisoner, that responsibility fell to me. It's why I was able to sense XANA's actions while in Lyoko, and why I was able to deactivate his towers. It's why XANA pursued me so doggedly with his Skipzoa, trying to steal my memory.
He did it, too. And I shouldn't even be here. When XANA stole my memory to gain the keys, he also stole all of my lifepoints. I was, for all intents and purposes, dead. It was only through my father's intervention - how he accomplished it from his prison, we still don't know - that I was saved and my memory fully restored.
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. We were supposed to go in, retrieve my fragment and break my link to XANA, get back out and shut the supercomputer down. XANA was supposed to die, and we would be free to live our lives without constant worry.
But it didn't. We can't.
I failed.