Once upon a time, a boy stayed in a boarding school. He found a supercomputer connected to a virtual world and met a girl trapped in that world. Decided to help her, the computer nerd and the virtual girl was getting closer and learn many things from their friendship, included how to make a sweet fairy tale from a bad occurrence.
No one knows, however, whether there would be an ending similar to happily ever after.
Once Upon A Time
Warning and Disclaimer:
Code Lyoko © Moonscoop, France 3, and Canal J
All the words flow—all my OCs—and nearly the whole idea © Hikari Tenshiro
OOC, one-shot, English, third-person-POV, modified canon season 1, Jeremie-centric, bad grammar, typo, Jeremie/Aelita, fluff failed, Drama/Friendship/Hurt/Comfort/Romance/Sci-fi RnR, also DON'T LIKE DON'T READ
A fic from Hikari Tenshirofor Xana's Lair July: Fairy tale
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"It's Snow White, I guess," Odd opened the door and walked into Jeremie's room with Ulrich by his side. "You know, she knocked out after bit the apple."
"No, it must be Sleeping Beauty!" Ulrich claimed. "She also fell asleep after hurt her finger with a needle. She is cursed, too!"
The biggest waster of hair gel threw his body down to bed. "They both fell asleep after got cursed, and awake by a kiss from their prince. The difference is, Sleeping Beauty has been cursed from her birth, while Snow White is chased because of her beauty."
After caught all the explanation, the German guy sat down beside his roommate. "Then I think there's no match fairy tale. They both fell asleep for a long time, and it's matched, but the causes not."
"Guys, what are you talking about?" Yumi turned her head from the computer in Jeremie's room and looked at her friends whom just arrived. In the screen, Aelita was listening to their conversation too. "You're talking about Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. Are you going to make something based on that fairy tale?"
"Oh, no, Yumi," Ulrich is the one who answer her, "we have a little discussion about fairy tale, just that. So, Jeremie, why do you call us?"
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Hours later, after Yumi checked her watch and thought she had to go home, with Ulrich accompany her, while Odd wanted to play with his unfunny dog, Kiwi, a virtual girl asked her human friend about what she heard when the boys coming.
/ "Jeremie, do you know the story of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White?" /
The asked one suddenly winked his eyes twice. No doubt, every person who never fell asleep for ten years in a virtual world knew the story of those beautiful princesses—at least the storyteller pictured them as pretty women—so there's no logic reason for Jeremie to say the opposite of the phrase 'of course'.
"Of course I knew all of them, Aelita, but that doesn't mean I'm a fan of fairy tales like that. Little girls who dreamed to be princesses do."
/ "Little girls? Do you think if Yumi is still a kid, she'd love fairy tales too? Why people called them fairy tales, Jeremie?" /
"I guess so. I don't know where the word 'fairy tale' comes from, but I think it's because fairy is a magical creature and do some magic. Those storied which people called as fairy tale usually contained magic, too."
/ "Hmm, so you know the story, huh? Would you tell me the story? I want to hear them! Is there any fairy tales beside Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, Jeremie?" /
Those eyes behind the glasses looked shocked a little bit. "I'm not a good storyteller, you know! I know the stories, but I don't think you will like it if I'm the one who tell you."
As a virtual girl who would become completely human someday over the rainbow, Aelita wanted to know what a human should know, included fairy tales. / "Come on, just tell me! Maybe I could imagine the story myself." /
After some seconds of silence, the computer geek decided to have a shot. He could never refuse a request like this, after all. "Alright, I will tell you the tale of Snow White first. Once upon a time ..."
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"And finally, Thumbelina and the prince lived happily ever after. The end."
It's already 11 at night, and after told Aelita some fairy tales more than just Snow White and Sleeping Beauty—and a little bit interrupted by dinner, too—Jeremie started to feel tired. "Ehm, Aelita, I think it's enough for today. I need some sleep."
There was a ray of disappointment showed on her virtual emerald eyes, her next words is just like little children asking for more bedtime stories. / "Just one more story, okay? Tomorrow is Sunday, right? You have a very long time to sleep." /
"You already asked me for one more story since some stories ago. The fairy tales for today is enough. Give me a chance to sleep!"
/ "I guess I'm addicted to them, Jeremie. Hey, could we make our own fairy tale?" /
An eyebrow raised behind the glasses. "Making our fairy tale? Lyoko is a digital world, Aelita, not a magical one. There's no princesses and princes—but I have to admit it, your ears are looked like an elf. That's the only thing closed enough to fairy tales."
/ "But make it magical! Like this. Once upon a time, a beautiful princess lived happily in her kingdom. But one day, she was captured by an evil witch who cursed her into an elf. The witch took her away from her home to another dimension named Lyoko and wiped away all her memories, make her fell asleep for a very long time." /
Jeremie smiled a bit to hear the story opening, his sleepy eyes seems became bright again. "That's closed enough and nice. You can be a good writer someday, maybe. But why X.A.N.A has to be a witch? Witches are females, and I think X.A.N.A is male."
/ "I wanted to make X.A.N.A seems weak, and in fairy tales, females usually are the weak one. This is our fairy tale, after all, and you have to help me." /
"Okay, okay. I'll help you, but I don't think a handsome prince would match to this tale. How if there was a sorcerer apprentice who practice his lesson to get a view from another dimension?"
/ "That sounds good, Jeremie, but I think he can't be just an apprentice. He is a great sorcerer, but he's just graduated from his lesson." / The blonde blushed a little bit to hear the praise, while the pinkette seems didn't care. / "So, a couple years later, there was a young sorcerer from the same dimension as the princess. He practiced one of his ability, to get a view from the dimension. Accidentally, he was viewing Lyoko, right at the place where the elf left asleep, and somehow he made her awoken from her long sleep, too." /
Aelita let Jeremie continue the story "The elf and the young sorcerer introduced each other and became good friends. They both didn't know that the elf was once to be a princess in the kingdom where he lived, but he said he would try to free her. Suddenly, the evil witch realized that the elf had been awoken, so she started to annoy the sorcerer's kingdom by using the similar ability the sorcerer had. The elf was able to stop the attack, but she couldn't handle the witch's horrible creatures which always tried to stop her, so she needed help from another world, as the witch and the elf lived in such a remote place."
/ "The sorcerer had best friends, they were three courageous warriors. He could transfer them to Lyoko, but he had to be in his dimension to do magic he couldn't do if he went to Lyoko, too. So the warriors and the sorcerer help the elf to stop those attacks and save their kingdom, while the sorcerer also tried to free the elf." /
Because of this late night fairy tale making, the boy canceled his sleeping time until 1.30 in the morning, and nearly skipped breakfast if Odd didn't hammered his door.
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Jeremie always knew that deep down in his heart, he really wanted Aelita to live happily ever after in his world, just like an ending of most fairy tales. So does her. But sometimes, working hard to create the program to materialize the pinkette would make him stress and sensible that his rage could explode like a timed bomb.
"Aelita, do you think the sorcerer ever wanted to surrender?"
For the sake of anything passed in mind, the virtual elf was shocked to hear a question like that. / "What do you mean with this surrender, Jeremie?" /
Those eyes were looking very tired, as if he needed something to escape from his dull life for a while. "It's been a year, Aelita, and I haven't been success to make the program. Sometimes, I also wanted to surrender, like this time!"
The emerald beads looked disappointed, and suddenly she scolded the guy in front of her virtual screen of being weak like what he showed to her. / "The elf won't let him down! No matter what happens to the sorcerer, the elf would never let him down, because she wanted to be free from the witch so badly, and he's the only one who could help her now! Do you understand, Jeremie?" /
"But the sorcerer was still young! He had no experience, he had nothing to help him, and he wasn't as brave as the elf thinking about! Sometimes, people do want to surrender, Aelita, they've been stressed so badly!"
Aelita ever heard about people crying and already knew about that, theoretically. There were times when she wanted to feel what is crying. / "If you wanted to surrender that bad, at least create a program to let a virtual creature like me have ability to cry." / She stood up and closed the screen in the tower. / "Good night, Jeremie, have a nice dream." /
All of sudden, those desires to surrender faded away, changed by guilty feelings that wouldn't let Jeremie fell asleep easily. Grabbed the edge of his bed, his mind told him that saying sorry in front of computer wouldn't be enough,
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so that he attempted to go to Lyoko the next afternoon.
But the young sorcerer never transferred himself to the dimension where the elf lived—at least Aelita never told so—that Jeremie also scared. What if something bad happened to him while the virtualization process is running? Well, it already happened now.
He was neither in the factory operating the supercomputer, nor at Lyoko apologizing to Aelita directly. As his eyes looked around, the only color surrounding his body was radiant white—where did exactly he arrive to?
And that was the time when Jeremie saw her directly in front of him, tried to reach his place and smiling brightly only for him. The blonde walked towards the pinkette, felt thrilled to touch each other hands. Real human and virtual human, making a direct contact ... the four-eyes boy never imagine this could happened to him.
"I'm sorry for everything I've told you last night, Aelita," there was a guilty look behind those plastic lenses. "I think you're very disappointed of me, and it would be hard to ask your apologize after those bad feelings, so I tried to come to you."
"I'm not that disappointed!" and somebody was touched to hear that honest words, then remembered something. "Jeremie, I think finally the sorcerer and the elf had ever met."
"Yeah, even it was hard at first, finally they had ever touched hands directly."
As his legs led him returned to Kadic's dormitory room, Jeremie promised to himself never wanted to surrender anymore, and make the fairy tale have a sweet ending, just like Cinderella's tale.
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BEEP. BEEP.
Jeremie wondered why this kind of simple sound and mark shown in front of his computer's screen never showed before, and why did it could make his heart beating faster than usual. It was a big green plus sign, beep him with a big cheerful sound.
His entire hard attempt for more than a year finally paid off—he's successfully create a program to materialize Aelita from Lyoko.
That night, when Aelita was successfully materialized to Earth, she and Jeremie holding hands and leaned on the bridge's fences, talked about their fairy tale making.
"Jeremie, do you think it's already the time to ended the tale?"
"I think so, Aelita," he smiled brightly. Those feelings of being standing in front of the girl he only seen virtually in front of his computer screen before, they're all thrilled him. "So, finally, after his searching for a very long time, the young sorcerer found the right spell to release the elf from Lyoko. And once again, with help from the courageous warriors, the little elf finally able to live in the sorcerer's dimension."
"And they lived happily ever after," she added. "Never forget it."
*THE END ...?*
A/N: Really need to thank to SeeMeInTheShadows for explanations in PM. I'm still afraid, actually, that my grammar is still bad, I even couldn't understand anything from the reading text in TOEFL test! I need a beta reader, I know, but sometimes I wish Office's language pack could help me. And for everyone who give me review-concrit, especially-send my smile into your heart! :) Here goes the epilogue, as we all knew what happened in 'False Start'
Dream out Loud! =)
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Epilogue
Realized that Aelita was collapsed after he pulled the switch off, Jeremie suddenly knew their fairy tale wasn't ended happily ever after. At least, haven't ended.
"Hey, Aelita," the blonde guy walked side by side with her to Yumi's house and trying to start a conversation, "I think we shouldn't end the fairy tale."
"I think so," she replied with a melancholic voice. "Besides, we forgot that the elf was once to be a princess. When she came back to her world with the young sorcerer, she's still an elf, not a human. How if the sorcerer realized that the elf is actually a princess and attempted to break the curse?"
"That would be a nice choice," he smiled back. "So here came the new task for the sorcerer to find the way to break the curse, and this time, he won't do it alone. The elf would always stand beside him to help herself. Do you think this is what would happen to them?"
"Exactly," the girl beside him patted his shoulder and held his left hand warmly. "She would always stand beside him. They would live happily ever after, someday, but not in the present time. Jeremie, how do you call this situation?"
"I call it as a cliffhanger."
*THE END!*