Fragments
By Cybra
Special Thanks: To Mika Ryoko San for providing a name for this series and for being patient with me for getting it out. Also to Son Neko who drew not just scenes from the original "Switch" but also provided a great model sheet for switch!Jeremy.
A/N: I admit that a lot of these episodes will be based upon episodes from Season 2. Those that are will be marked below the "episode title". However, I'll also try to give you some fresh storylines that weren't seen in Season 2. Also, there will be a few changes in continuity as time goes on.
Disclaimer: Code Lyoko belongs to the French.
Welcome
to Carthage
Based
Upon "New Order" and "Uncharted Territory"
A blond cheetah sped across the landscape of the Desert Region, fleeing the sounds of battle behind him.
"Aelita, I'm almost to the tower!"
"Good because we're one tarantula down, and Yumi's already been de-virtualized." A pause. "Hornets coming in at one o'clock high!"
Jeremy glanced in the specified direction. "I see them."
The cheetah picked up the pace, zigzagging as lasers struck the ground.
"The remaining tarantula has been destroyed, and Odd and Ulrich have been de-virtualized!"
"Don't worry. I can handle hornets."
He shifted to the slower but more nimble coyote, running towards a rock formation. Easily climbing it in leaps and bounds, he leapt off, shifting to falcon.
He zoomed away from the deactivated tower, pumping his thin wings for height. He heard the hornets pursue.
"Jeremy, what're you doing?!"
"Just trust me, okay?"
He wheeled about and brought his wings close to his sides. Gravity took hold, turning his height into speed as he aimed for the tower. He fisted his talons.
The middle hornet exploded as he struck the XANA symbol dead center. The hit threw off his trajectory a little, but he easily corrected it as he sped on his way.
"Nice shot! The other two hornets are turning to pursue."
'Too little too late,' Jeremy thought as he shifted to human in midair, allowing his momentum to hurl him through the side of the tower.
He landed in a crouch on the lower platform before standing and allowing a stream of data to carry him to the platform above. 'Just once I'd like to pull off that move and land up top.'
"I'm in position," he told Aelita.
"I'm bringing you in. Code: Earth."
The faint sensation of data streams interacting with his code. He leaned his head back and spread his arms as he hovered above the platform.
Then Lyoko vanished.
The four humans watched their virtual friend exit the elevator.
"Way to go, Jeremy!" Odd praised, walking over and slinging an arm around the other blond's neck. "That hornet didn't know what hit him!"
"Thanks, Odd."
"Where did you learn that trick?" Ulrich asked, impressed.
Jeremy shrugged modestly. "Practice. It rarely works if XANA's awake though. And I doubt the tarantulas would be fooled even while XANA's asleep."
Aelita nodded. XANA's latest monsters were a pain in the neck and scarily intelligent. At least XANA hadn't upgraded its old monsters.
Yet.
Mentally shaking the thought from her mind, she said, "Well, you won't have to worry about dodging tarantulas between attacks for much longer."
The virtual boy looked around at the grinning faces of his friends. He asked, "Why? What's going on?"
Aelita couldn't stop smiling. "Between working on the vehicles and the antivirus, I upgraded the tower scan. Much more accurate than the old one and able to alert us when a tower's been activated."
His blue eyes widened. The only reason he stayed on Lyoko was to keep an eye on XANA.
The pink-haired girl smiled a little wider as Yumi said, "We've registered you as a boarder at Kadic Academy. You're staying on Earth with us."
"That's fantastic!" Jeremy cheered. "You guys are the greatest!"
Odd smirked. "I've never seen anyone so excited about going to school before."
"And this is your room…?" Jim's voice trailed off, silently asking for a name.
"Jeremy Belpois," the new boy answered promptly, an eager smile on his face.
Jim returned that smile. "Well then. There are a couple of rules you should know. No one is allowed in the dorms during school hours. It's lights out at ten. And your friends della Robbia, Stern, and Stones can fill you in on the rest." The gym teacher scowled at where Jeremy knew his friends stood behind him. "That is if they can remember them!"
The virtual boy chewed the inside of his cheek in order to hold in his laughter.
"All right. I'll let you get settled in." The burly man left.
Jeremy turned back to his friends, hands still clutching the recently-bought suitcase. He asked, "Well…?"
"I don't think Jim suspects a thing. Nice going." Odd gave him a thumbs-up.
Aelita nodded. "I was a little afraid that he'd get suspicious since you showed up with so little stuff. What did you tell him, anyway?"
The blond grinned. "I told him that it was easier to get here with only the things I needed. Everything else I can buy in town or have mailed to me."
Despite the fact that Jeremy had no family and therefore no earthly possessions, there were a couple of boxes in the room containing some of the necessities of dorm life while running short on personal items.
Apparently, over the past few weeks, his four human friends had pooled their money in order to give him enough to look like a normal student. They'd even done a few odd jobs around the school for other students in order to augment their allowances. Jeremy felt humbled by how much they had worked just for him.
"Want some help getting set up?" Ulrich offered, obviously knowing that Lyoko's sole inhabitant had little idea about what he was doing.
"If you guys don't mind…" he said sheepishly.
"It's no problem. It's not like you have a lot of stuff."
His two male friends entered the room while Aelita gave a little wave and told them she'd wait with Yumi.
Jeremy gazed at Ulrich in confusion. "Is something wrong? Why'd she leave?"
Odd closed the door to his room as the brunette explained, "Considering that we're going to be explaining to you stuff that other people have known for years, we can't have anyone outside listening in."
"Okay…that explains the door. But why did she have to leave?"
He blinked as his friends gave each other these rather embarrassed looks.
Odd rubbed the back of his head. "Girls aren't allowed in guys' rooms with the door shut and visa versa."
Jeremy tilted his head to one side. "Why?"
The purple-clad boy coughed as the soccer star shifted his weight from foot to foot.
"Oh boy…" Odd muttered.
Ulrich stuttered, "Um…well…it's like this…"
"Any particular reason why those two are making tomatoes jealous?" Yumi asked the thoughtful Jeremy as the three boys walked up to the two girls.
"Huh?" he asked, clearly not understanding the idiom.
"She means why are Odd and Ulrich blushing," Aelita translated with a giggle.
"I was curious as to why you had to leave when they shut the door."
Yumi and Aelita exchanged knowing smirks before laughing hysterically.
Somehow Odd and Ulrich managed to blush brighter shades of red.
The purple-clad boy protested, "Hey, it was embarrassing enough to begin with!"
Yumi leaned against Aelita while the shorter girl did the same to her, both trying to use the other to maintain balance. The virtual boy's confused face only served to make them laugh harder.
"If you two are done…" Ulrich grumbled.
"Okay, okay," the Japanese girl gasped, still giggling a bit. "So is everything set up?"
Jeremy nodded. He then smiled gratefully. "Thanks a lot."
"It was worth it." Aelita gave him a hug which the blond returned.
"Yeah. We've been waiting a long time to have you here with us," the taller girl agreed with a grin.
Out of the corner of her eye, Yumi noted the irked look on Herve's face. She raised an eyebrow. While the black-haired nerd had always been obsessed with Sissi, he'd also maintained a crush on Aelita, possibly as shooting for the next best thing. Apparently, he didn't like the sudden competition that appeared from nowhere.
'Tough luck, Herve,' she thought in his direction. 'Jeremy had you beat long ago.'
"We better get to Chemistry. See you later, Yumi," the brunette boy said, cutting into her musings.
"Later."
"Now, who can tell me how many grams of carbon result from this chain reaction?" Mrs. Hertz glanced around the classroom.
Her best pupil Herve could do it, but the new boy Jeremy Belpois was untested. He looked like he might know something on the subject, too!
"Jeremy?"
Predictably, Herve looked annoyed but smug as the poor blond frowned at her equations. Perhaps she'd only embarrassed him on his first day.
True, she could be cruel to slackers, but alert and attentive students who honestly tried she gave what help she could. That was, after all, what teaching was all about.
"Did you want me to balance the equations first?" the boy with the strange target-like symbol on his sweater asked curiously.
The science teacher blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"Did you want me to balance the equations first?"
She stared for a moment before a laugh escaped her.
Jeremy slid down in his seat while Aelita reached out to pat him on the shoulder.
"No, no, you didn't do anything wrong!" she forced out, sliding off her glasses to clean them as she calmed herself down. "You simply jumped ahead of my lesson."
This was going to be a refreshing change of pace.
Looking up as he finished packing up, Jeremy blinked as Herve pointed in what he interpreted as a threatening manner at him. "Hi?"
"Just who do you think you are, huh? Waltzin' in here and actin' like you're the smartest kid around!"
'What did I do? I just answered Mrs. Hertz's question!' he mentally wailed. Aloud, he said, "I didn't mean to look like I thought that way…"
"Just shut up and play dumb then."
The blond's own temper suddenly flared. "I'm not gonna act stupid just so you can look good. I'm here to learn everything I can." He shut his mouth with an audible click of teeth on the "about your world" that threatened to escape.
Herve didn't seem to notice. "Fine then. Welcome to Hell." And then he stormed off.
The materialized boy growled low in his throat, fervently wishing Shapeshift did work here. Wouldn't Herve have been surprised if a lion suddenly appeared behind him and started to chase him around?
"Jeremy, c'mon! We're gonna be late to—What's wrong?"
The blond blinked and stared at the pink-haired girl he called his best friend before a sheepish smile crossed his face. "I…got in a fight with Herve."
The worried look left her face as she placed her hands on her hips and smiled at him. "Why am I not surprised? He was sending you death glares all through Chemistry."
"Death…glares…?"
"Death glares are…what we're gonna get if we don't get to History within the next thirty seconds! C'mon!"
He barely had the time to snatch up his book bag as she grabbed his wrist and quite literally dragged him behind her as she sprinted.
Fortunately, they made it to class with ten seconds to spare, reaching their seats just as the bell rang.
"Everyone, open your books to page 158. We'll be covering Hannibal and the Punic Wars."
Jeremy flipped open the book to a brightly-colored illustration of an elephant and an ancient warrior.
'I've seen this picture before.'
Suddenly, he was back at the Hermitage, back when it was still inhabited. He was sitting on the couch with a book in his hands, reading. There was the picture along with lots of text that he couldn't clearly see. Some of it had been printed in the book. Quite a bit more had been added later with red pen, circling passages and adding notes.
Someone called his name, and he looked up to see the bearded man with the glasses.
"Jeremy!"
He snapped to attention to realize he'd been hyperventilating in the middle of class. The teacher stood right next to him and was shaking his shoulder.
"Are you all right?" the man kindly asked.
The virtual boy nodded.
"Do you want to see the nurse?"
He vehemently shook his head. Not yet. He wasn't sure about whether or not there was something that would give the game away.
"All right then." And the teacher continued the lesson.
He glanced up at Aelita who gave him a look that clearly queried "What happened?"
"Later," he mouthed before returning to mechanically taking notes.
What had that strange vision been? A trick by XANA, sent through the virus that connected them? Or could it have been something long forgotten?
But he'd never lived on Earth. He'd never been to that house before the incident a little over a month ago.
Right?
"I'm going to the Hermitage. Something's weird about that house."
Ulrich and Odd glanced at each other before looking at the pink-haired girl.
Odd asked, "Aren't you supposed to meet Jeremy for lunch?"
She sighed. "Yes, and I already feel rotten enough for skipping out, but that attack Jeremy had might've been one of his visions. Remember that one time by the grocery store?"
It had been during a free day when they'd been out walking around. Jeremy had frozen and started to hyperventilate. After snapping him out of it, he told them of walking with bags from that store towards the Hermitage with that strange man.
Images from somewhere. All weak. Like scenes from a long-ago silent movie.
And it had all started at that house.
"Yumi and I managed to get into the school archives. Hopper the deed owner and Hopper the teacher are one and the same."
"That explains the school passageways," Ulrich noted. "You think you'll find something at the house?"
"Hopefully. Jeremy seems to know it."
"Then we'll go with you," the cat warrior of Lyoko decided. "We'll be able to search three times as fast and get back before anyone misses us."
"Right," Aelita and Ulrich agreed just before the trio sprinted towards the woods.
They weren't coming.
Jeremy tried to force himself not to feel disappointed. It wasn't the first time he'd awaited the arrival of someone and they didn't show. Only last time, he'd had no idea whom he'd been waiting for.
A Japanese girl entered the lunchroom.
'Yumi!' He opened his mouth to call her name.
However, William was quicker, and the pair walked through the line, chatting.
No. No, he wasn't going to intrude.
In fact, he suddenly didn't feel hungry anymore.
He exited the lunchroom to see a grinning Herve, the other boy's arms crossed across his chest.
"Enjoying your first day?"
Jeremy wasn't in the mood to rise to the bait; he just walked on by.
"Why don't you just go home? It's easier than trying to be something you're not."
The virtual boy stopped. Herve may not have realized it, but he'd hit a real sore spot. "Something…I'm not…"
"What?" the human demanded.
Jeremy ignored him. 'I'm a collection of computer data attempting to be human. My primary functions are to learn and interact with humans, not be one.' He closed his eyes. 'I am not and cannot be human.'
With that bit of logical reasoning, there was no reason for him to stay at Kadic.
He turned his head towards Herve. "You're right. I'm going home." At the other boy's look of surprise, he turned towards the woods. "Besides, I'm even more alone here than I was there."
And he walked away, ignoring Herve's sputtered "Fine! Uh, good riddance!"
Unaware of Jeremy's decision, Aelita entered the Hermitage with Odd and Ulrich just behind her. She paused in the doorway, one hand on her hip as she studied the house from this perspective.
"The lock's been broken," Ulrich said, reaching around her to point. "Looks like it was done a while ago, too."
"Who'd go to all that trouble to get into this old place?" Odd muttered, rolling his eyes. "It's creepy without the XANA-fication."
"Franz Hopper could've had enemies," the pink-haired girl reasoned. She stepped inside. "C'mon. Let's take a closer look."
The kitchen area proved useless. Not that they'd really expected to find anything there.
The family room was equally useless. Any electronics Hopper had owned were gone, either stolen or taken with him wherever he'd gone. However, their search did uncover a few broken, empty picture frames. All that remained of the photos they once held was a small corner that showed part of a child's arm. (Aelita left it as it was since there was no way to remove it without tearing it to pieces.)
The den was a treasure trove of books. Looters, apparently, cared little for the hardback volumes of computer reference and science. There were also a few textbooks and teacher's editions mixed in as well.
However, the jackpot was the book that didn't fit.
"A book all about the Punic Wars?" Aelita pulled it out.
"Weren't we covering that in class today?" Ulrich asked.
"How should I know? I was taking a nap," the feline warrior of Lyoko replied.
"Would it kill you to pay attention in History every once in a while?"
"Yes. Because of the boredom."
The pink-haired girl snorted, ignoring the banter in favor of the book. The number of red notes on the pages was astounding. 'The man was obsessed.'
Then she ran across something familiar. "This picture's in our textbook."
The boys stopped bickering and leaned over to see the illustration she pointed at.
"Hey, cool! I remember that before I fell asleep!"
"So?" Ulrich asked, covering Odd's mouth so Aelita could get to the point uninterrupted. (He jerked his hand away with a squall of surprise and shot his best friend a dirty look not a moment later, which earned him an innocently evil smile.)
"It was after opening the book Jeremy started to have that fit. He might've remembered this book somehow."
"But he's never seen it before. How could he remember it?"
"That is the million-dollar question."
Jeremy typed in the final commands for the automatic transfer. Swiftly striking the Enter key, he walked to the elevator, entered, and traveled down to the scanner room.
It was when he stepped into the scanner that he realized his timing was off. He had a few extra seconds to stare out at the world he'd tried to be a part of but could never hope to actually accomplish.
'It'd be like a kankrelot trying to be a hornet. Face it, Jeremy: Your program was never designed to function in that manner. You've already pushed it to its limits. Stop trying to go beyond its preset parameters.'
At last, virtualization. He landed in the Polar Region. The lack of wind blowing through his hair and across his skin didn't disturb him in the least. Neither did the all-consuming silence. On Earth, there was blessed constant sensation. On Lyoko, everything was dead.
He bowed his head and started to walk. However, he stopped after the first step. He held his hands out in front of him.
Human hands. He knew that he looked exactly like a human in his base form. Aelita had even flattered him by subconsciously mimicking his clothing (substituting his blue for her own pink) for her avatar though she had chosen elfin form. But he was, for all intents and purposes, human.
Only he was merely the image of human, one person's vision of human, not actually human.
And suddenly, Jeremy couldn't stand his human form.
That quick, instead of a human slowly walking across the ice, lost in thought, a fox trudged its way across the frozen landscape.
"Does anyone know where Jeremy Belpois is?"
Aelita whirled and swept her eyes over the desks. She'd thought Jeremy had ended up sitting with someone else if another student had sat down next to him, attempting to be friendly.
She turned to Ulrich and Odd who were equally flummoxed. Though Odd held up his hands in a "Not our fault!" gesture…probably in reference to the incident with Emily and her friends kidnapping the virtual boy.
"He said he was going home," Herve said smugly before smiling at Aelita. (She made a mental note to crush his dreams later.) "Said something about being more alone here than there."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the pink-haired girl sagged as if struck by sudden illness. "Mrs. Mayer, may I go to the infirmary?"
"We'll take her!" the other two Lyoko warriors in the classroom chimed in.
"Oh, uh, yes. Of course."
Once outside the door, the trio broke into a run towards the boiler room.
"Call Yumi and tell her to head to the factory!"
"You sure he went there?" Odd asked as Ulrich started dialing.
"Jeremy said he was going home. The only other place he can call home is Lyoko!"
After an eternity of silence, the quiet whirring of gears sounded obscenely loud.
The blond fox's ears twitched upward, and his head slowly raised to see three kankrelots headed his way.
He sighed. "Oh, c'mon, guys. I'm not in the mood."
Maybe they heard and understood, for they stopped. Yet they didn't retreat.
Jeremy took a cautious step forward.
Their lasers warmed up, humming. Then fired, just missing his feet.
The sole occupant of Lyoko leaped back, turning away. Those shots had deliberately missed. Perhaps the attacks the kankrelots prepared now would go awry as well, but he didn't want to find out.
So he ran, leaping from ice burg to ice burg, racing along ice bridges, all the while knowing he was being guided by lasers as each time he evaded one set of monsters, more appeared.
And he was helpless to do anything but obey.
Aelita literally leaped into the command chair and started typing the second she landed. "You're going to the Polar Region," she announced only to have to repeat it when she realized she'd forgotten to put on her headset in her haste.
"Transfer Ulrich…Transfer Yumi…Transfer Odd…"
She typed a precise series of keys, glancing briefly at her dear friend's character card. It currently displayed a blond-furred blue-eyed fox.
"Scanner Ulrich…Scanner Yumi…Scanner Odd…Virtualization!"
Yumi's voice reported a moment later, "We're good, Aelita, but no sign of Jeremy."
"He's moving northwest of you with two krabes on his tail," she said, still typing. "I'm sending your vehicles."
"We're on our way."
Satisfied with her three human friends, Aelita turned her attention to her currently in distress friend. "Jeremy, we're here! The others are on the way!"
"Aelita…help me!"
She hadn't heard such desperation in his voice for quite some time, and it scared her. "Help is coming! I promise!"
"You don't understand! I'm almost out of ice!"
'Please tell me he didn't say what I think he said…' She looked helplessly at her holomap.
The map never lied: Jeremy was fast approaching the end of the Polar Region.
He was running out of room to run.
She opened a channel to her friends. "Pick up the pace! We have a problem!"
"What is it?" Yumi asked.
"If Jeremy reaches the end of the sector, he's cornered."
"And XANA wins," Ulrich added.
"Exactly."
"We'll put on the afterburners, boss," Odd chirped, somehow sounding serious despite his tone.
Aelita refocused on Jeremy just as he came to a halt at the end of an ice bridge to nowhere. "Use all of your creativity, Jeremy! We need time!"
Creativity? He had none for this situation. Switching to tortoise would only delay the inevitable. It was game over.
'You win, XANA.' He closed his eyes and braced himself.
But the krabes never moved. Their lasers remained silent.
Cautiously, he cracked open an eye before lifting his head to gaze curiously. "They're just…standing there."
"I have a bad feeling about this." A pause. "The others are almost there."
The krabes turned to face the new threat. The blond fox slunk forward, but one of the mechanical monstrosities turned around and started warming up its laser. He hastily backed up.
"Whatever's going on, they want me right here for it."
He didn't know why, but he glanced up and over his shoulder to see something large and spherical approaching.
"Aelita, what's—"
He never got to finish his sentence.
"Jeremy? Jeremy! Jeremy, where are you?!"
Aelita scanned and rescanned the Polar Region, desperate to find the virtual boy.
His signal had disappeared.
"The krabes are taken care of," Ulrich reported. "Is Jeremy…?"
"He's not in the Polar Region…" She widened her search. "He's nowhere on Lyoko, and he's not here."
"Does that mean he's…?" Odd asked shakily.
"No! There has to be something else! His character card would've recorded deletion!"
So she cast her net even wider.
This time, she got a hit.
"According to the scan, he's in…a fifth sector," she reported, finishing with awe.
"A fifth? How do we get there?" Yumi asked.
"Well, I need a password. My hint is 'Welcome to Carthage.'"
"Carthage?"
"Like the Romans versus the Carthaginians."
"You mean that Tunic Wars book you picked up?" Odd asked, the sound of laser fire coming through the link along with his voice.
"Punic," she corrected automatically as she reached for her knapsack.
She'd stuffed the book into her bag to show Jeremy after class to make amends for ditching lunch. Perhaps it would prove useful now.
Perhaps Hopper's obsession had more of a purpose behind it after all.
"Think you guys can buy me some time while I figure out the password?"
"Just give us a heads-up when more monsters are coming," the samurai warrior requested.
"Right."
Jeremy had instinctively curled up as small as possible as the white flying orb bearing the blue eye of XANA floated down to him and encircled him. Then there was the sensation of incredible speed, but for how long he traveled, he didn't know.
'Aelita, I'm sorry!'
At last, the sphere released him in a spinning domed room, lit from the floor. It was mostly blue except for the white XANA eye that glowed vaguely menacingly from the ground.
He crouched low on all four paws, tail curled about himself and ears flattened. What was this strange place?
And why did it seem so…familiar?
Finally, the spinning stopped, and the wall opened to reveal a hallway. He straightened up and considered switching back to human.
No. Let him keep the small and nimble fox. Its senses were better, and it had better teeth.
"Aelita? Can you hear me?"
Silence.
"No, of course not," he sighed. "That would be too easy."
The sensible thing would be to stay put until Aelita could contact him.
However, there might be a way out through that hallway.
Taking a deep breath and gathering his courage, Jeremy started to slowly slink down the dark blue corridor.
Ulrich could just hear Aelita muttering passwords to herself, her voice barely loud enough to be picked up by her microphone. Each time, a wordless cry of frustration.
Things weren't going well on Lyoko either. XANA seemed determined to delay them as long as possible. Who knew what was happening to Jeremy in the meantime?
"Tarantula's down!" Ulrich announced as the creature exploded.
"Hornets, too!" Yumi added.
"Blocks comin'!" Odd shouted from the Overboard.
The samurai groaned. "How many?"
"Looks like four square!" the cat quipped.
The groan was in stereo this time before the brunette shouted, "Aelita, how much longer?"
"You try figuring out a computer genius's password!" she snapped.
'Bite my head off…'
"Wait! I got it! We have to get into Carthage! Scipio! It's so easy!"
"Say what?" Yumi asked, readying her fans.
"Never mind! Just get into position!"
Ulrich ran with Yumi beside him to where Jeremy had disappeared. Odd swooped down and jumped, landing next to Yumi.
"Here we go!" the one at the keyboard announced.
The samurai turned as the geisha pointed and asked, "What's that?"
And the white ball with the blue XANA eye swept them up and away.
Yumi hadn't found the transporter pleasant but it wasn't anywhere near Odd's reaction.
"Ugh. I think I'm gonna hurl."
"Is it possible to hurl on Lyoko?" Ulrich asked philosophically.
"Hmm…excellent question. This might be a good time to test that."
"Hey, Aelita, since you're not here…" Yumi began, allowing her voice to trail off.
"Please do. I still have to listen to it."
The Japanese girl unfurled her fans and struck each boy squarely in the back of the head with the side of a fan, causing the feline and the samurai to cry out in pain.
"Thanks, Yumi." A pause. "I've located Jeremy! He's in a large room connected by a hallway to you."
"What hallway?" Ulrich asked, rubbing the sore spot.
"The wall in front of you should be opening…now."
On cue, the wall did in fact open. Yumi narrowed her eyes intently and ran forward, ending up just behind Ulrich and Odd. While not as fast a runner, she would be more useful in the fight in other ways.
"Be careful; there are monsters I can't identify surrounding Jeremy."
"How's he doin'?" Odd asked.
"He's in tiger form and at seventy life points. Not too bad but not great."
"We're on it!" Ulrich told Aelita, sprinting ahead.
The creatures of this fifth sector had swiftly learned to be cautious of the blond tiger. Especially since Jeremy was now in a Very Bad Mood.
He was upset that he couldn't be human no matter what. He was depressed that all of the preparation and trouble his friends had gone to was a waste. And he was downright pissed that XANA couldn't leave him alone for one freaking day!
His lips pulled back from his currently very impressive teeth in a snarl. His claws were out, lightly tapping the floor with soft clicks as he adjusted his stance ever so slightly. His tail swished slowly behind him.
The slithering creature to the left and before him reared back its head, mouth open. With a roar, Jeremy leapt to the right before pouncing, slicing into gooey flesh and watching it explode with a squelch. Two more met similar fates though a laser shot the tiger's right flank.
"Jeremy!"
The tiger's ears pricked. "Aelita?"
"Jeremy, I was so worried!"
He backed away from the slithering creatures. "You were…worried?"
"Of course I was! And your life points are really low. The others are on the way."
"No!" His tail lashed in alarm.
"What's wrong?"
"We don't have the de-virtualization codes for here. If their life points reach zero, they could be lost."
No response from Aelita.
The tiger took the time to bite the arm of a creature that got too close, hanging on long enough to create enough damage to destroy it. "Aelita?"
"The others said that they don't care. They're coming back with you or not at all."
"Why?" he asked, unable to understand. "I'm not human. I don't belong there."
"You're human to us" was the soft response. "You belong with us."
He still didn't understand but didn't have time to ask as the creatures scattered. A sudden presence, powerful and evil, approached from behind.
"Aelita…there's something here…"
He'd been surrounded by XANA's presence during that disastrous jump to Earth that had implanted the virus. It had been strong then yet somehow distant. Here, it was focused, intense. This wasn't XANA itself, but it was close.
The terror that struck Jeremy made it impossible to face the threat in a timely manner. He could only turn slowly, trembling, Aelita screaming at him to answer her from somewhere very far away.
At the same time, he had a strange sensation of being in two places at once. One was the large room filled with various levels thanks to the random columns while the other was a large room that was completely empty with no floor save for the large square that he and the man from the Hermitage stood on. He was in tiger form and base human form. He was both turning around and looking up.
What drifted towards him (both from a "corridor" and from the ceiling) was a squid-like creature bearing the XANA eye. But as the double-image stopped—XANA-created or something else?—the creature reached out its tentacles for him.
"What is that thing?!" he shrieked, backing up.
"Jeremy, what is it?!" Aelita yelled, voice returning with sudden clarity.
"I don't know! You tell me!"
He slashed at the tentacles, but they just kept reaching. So he turned to run.
They wrapped around him.
He roared in fear and writhed in their grip, but they merely turned him towards the horrific monster. Then they glowed pink.
Jeremy found himself in human form against his will. "No! No no no no no!"
"Jeremy! Guys, hurry up! Jeremy's in trouble!"
He didn't hear the response as three tentacles hovered before his forehead.
He gasped at the sudden intrusion in his mind, but everything suddenly went numb. His body went limp as his thoughts grew hazy.
He didn't even try to fight back.
Ulrich was the first to reach the scene, allowing the other two to finish off what Odd had dubbed "creepers". The sight of his virtual pal dangling listlessly in the grip of a giant squid thing was certainly unwelcome.
"Uh, Aelita, there's this thing that has Jeremy…"
"Destroy it," she ordered ruthlessly. "It's stealing his memories!"
Using Super Sprint to pick up speed first he leaped into the air and used his blade to slice through the tentacles holding the monster's prey. Jeremy hovered unsupported for a moment before falling like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
A fan and a few arrows flew over Ulrich's head to strike the bulbous "head" solidly. It was now that the monster made its retreat, floating gracefully away.
"Jeremy. Jeremy," Ulrich called, shaking his shoulder.
The virtual boy mumbled unintelligibly before opening his eyes. He sat up and looked at his friends.
"Man, did you give us a scare," Odd said.
"I'm sorry." Jeremy stared at the floor.
"Don't worry about it. Let's just get out of here," Yumi said.
So it was back through the room, through the hallway, and back to the Polar Region via the transporter. At last, everyone was back on Earth, safe and sound.
Aelita couldn't stop hugging Jeremy as if letting go would allow the "Scyphozoa" (not the most creative name she'd ever come up with but whatever) to come out of a shadow and steal her friend's memories. It was a bit clingy and definitely gossip material—a wonder that Milly and Tamiya had yet to pick up on it—but she'd rather feed the rumor mill than watch him lose his memories.
"I'm really, really sorry, Aelita," he muttered into her hair. She didn't even have to look to see the look of abject misery and apology on his face.
"Everybody gets homesick when they go away to school, Jeremy. It's normal," she told him, rubbing his back. "And everybody has it rough being the new kid. I should've put off the trip to the Hermitage until I was sure you were settled in. I'm sorry."
She glanced up and over Jeremy's shoulder to see a shocked look on Herve's face.
'Oh yeah. I forgot about that.'
Grinning evilly to herself, she sighed dramatically and leaned her head against her friend's shoulder.
Herve sputtered and then made a great show of looking for Sissi all along.
"I don't know what that was for, but I know you did it on purpose."
"Just getting a little revenge on a certain jerk who made your day even worse."
Click! Whirr…
"Wow!" Milly chirped, appearing with Tamiya from seemingly nowhere. "Only one day and already a couple! Any tips on romance for our readers?"
The pair jerked apart.
Jeremy blinked at the news team. "A…couple…?"
Aelita clapped a hand over her virtual friend's mouth and yelped, "No comment!"