| “ | Destroy it! That thing is taking away Aelita's memory! | „ |
| ~ Jeremie about the Scyphozoa in Uncharted Territory. |
The Scyphozoa is a recurring monster in the Code Lyoko series. It was programmed by XANA to access and manipulate digital memory. It serves a great number of purposes for XANA personally: the predominant two of its tasks are to drain a victim's/object's digital memory/energy, or plant viruses in the Lyoko Warriors to put them under X.A.N.A.'s control.
History
Season Two
The Scyphozoa makes its debut in Uncharted Territory, where it captures Aelita for the first time in Sector Five. It uses its tentacles to steal Aelita's memory from her. XANA always used Scyphozoa to steal Aelita's memory throughout the second season whenever she was alone or had a perfect chance to do this.
In the last episode of season two The Key, the Lyoko Warriors learned that XANA did not inject a virus in Aelita, as it actually stole a memory fragment from her, which he then hidden deep in Sector Five so the heroes launched an attack to get it. Odd, Yumi, Ulrich, and Aelita made it to the memory's location with Franz Hopper's help, but they found out that the memory fragment they found was actually a trap made by XANA, who caused the room's to collapse and devirtualized everyone except for Aelita. The Scyphozoa then appeared and stole all of Aelita's memories from her which killed her, shut down Lyoko and allowed XANA to finally escape from Lyoko to the Internet. Luckily, she was saved by her father Franz Hopper who gave her memories and brought Lyoko back to life.
Season Three
XANA again started using the Scyphozoa to attack Aelita. It reappears in Lyoko Minus One, where it successfully attacks Aelita, but instead of stealing her memories, it inputs a virus into her head to possess her and then forces her to go to a way tower in the Forest Sector and to enter Code XANA, which completely destroys the Forest Sector. Then XANA repeats this tactic to possess Aelita and force her to delete three remaining surface sectors (the Desert Sector in The Pretender, the Ice Sector in The Secret which was saved but only temporarily as Aelita had to delete it to save the supercomputer later on in Sabotage and the Mountain Sector in Double Trouble).
In Final Round, it attacks an inexperienced William Dunbar, and takes complete control of him during his first trip to Lyoko. Possessed William devirtualizes other Warriors without any trouble, goes to the Core of Lyoko and destroys it along with Sector Five and is forced to become XANA's slave to fight the warriors from that point onward until his release in Down to Earth in season 4.
Season Four
With William under XANA's control, the Scyphozoa is not used as much as before. It finally reappears in the episode The Lake, where it tried to steal information about the Skid, which would destroy it. However, Aelita was able to activate multiple towers on Lyoko and was able to fire a blast that overloaded and destroyed the Scyphozoa for the first and only time in the original series.
The Scyphozoa makes its final appearance in the original series in the episode Wrong Exposure, where it possesses Aelita so that she would throw herself into the Digital Sea in order to lure Franz Hopper out of hiding.
Code Lyoko: Evolution
The Scyphozoa makes its first and only return in the episode Mutiny in order to regain possession of William once again as XANA's loyal minion and ally.
While on the Cortex, William accidentally runs into the Scyphozoa. He tries to escape by devirtualizing himself but he is captured and possessed again before he has the chance. However, the Scyphozoa has not managed a full possession, William is being held up above the ground by its tentacles, surrounded by a black aura. Yumi, Aelita, and Ulrich decide that talking to William and trying to wake him up is the best course of action, acting as a distraction so someone else can get closer to the Scyphozoa and sever the mental connection between it and William. Ulrich fights William, constantly goading him to try and remind him of his life on Earth. It seems to work, as William slowly becomes more and more human-like again, eventually allowing Yumi to cut off its connection. With the plan having failed, XANA has the Scyphozoa and the squadron of Krabs self-destruct in retreat.
Powers and Strengths
The Scyphozoa is arguably one of X.A.N.A.'s most powerful monsters, and the hardest to defeat. The Scyphozoa has the ability to use its tentacles to grab anyone near it. It can use them to steal a person's memory, or DNA sequence, force them to do a task, or plant viruses inside them. However, this task requires time, leaving the Scyphozoa unprotected. While the Scyphozoa has no laser weapons, it has been shown to be able to use its tentacles to push weapons out of the Lyoko warrior's hands and knock them to the ground. It is shown that the Scyphozoa can also use its tentacles to steal data from the Skid, as shown in The Lake.
Strengths
Regardless of lacking any offensive ability, the Scyphozoa can survive any attack thrown at it by the Lyoko warriors. Its Eye is located on a diameter of its head; though only its tentacles and head are ever hit. The tentacles are the only part of the Scyphozoa to ever take any physical damage. The tentacles can regenerate over time and are strong enough to knock away melee weapons like a Zweihänder or stun long-range based weapons like Energy Fields.
Weaknesses
As stated above, the Scyphozoa does not have many offensive abilities. While its tentacles are capable of knocking away powerful weapons like still-forming Energy Fields and a Zweihänder, fast enough movement can counter this disarmament attack. Its tentacles are also very weak, and can easily be destroyed. In addition, the Scyphozoa needs time to accomplish a task, which varies based on what XANA needs to obtain or accomplish. Draining the Keys to Lyoko and the Life Points of the Skidbladnir for instance, take a relatively long time to do so, while virus implantation or DNA extraction take about a minute at most. This is when the Scyphozoa is at its most vulnerable, as it must stay still as it completes this function. Finally, as the monster takes care to dodge Energy Fields, an action which it has never done for the weapons of the other Lyoko Warriors, it can be presumed that even the Scyphozoa can be harmed by them.
Movement
Though, it may look slow at first, Scyphozoa is actually able to easily evade attacks, such as Aelita's Energy Fields, by quickly dodging from side to side. It is also XANA's only monster that constantly levitates in order to get around; its movements are similar to that of a real jellyfish when floating using its tentacles.
