A World Without Danger
By JadeKatana3
Rating: T
Description: A tribute to the heroes who saved all of earth, the saviors of the world. The ones who created a world without danger.
Disclaimer: Once upon a time, I owned Code Lyoko…… :sigh: Don't you wish life was a fairy tale?
Author's Note: Ooo, more angst and depression/another end of the world BWAHAHAHAHA! story from Jade…bummer…please don't hurt me…or throw my cookies from my last story back at me…0o I'll probably end up regretting putting this story up, but humor me anyways. Hmm…anyhow, as always, even if it sucked beyond all belief, PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE read and review!
Arigato!
((jAdE))
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It's a shining metropolis.
Golden light dances off the reflection of countless buildings. Cars streak by, everyone on their way to do something, using their energy-efficient and environment-friendly fuel. People walk on the streets, striding with purpose and focus and resolve. Crime is down 97 percent, and it seems that the lesson from twenty years ago has stuck in everyone's hearts and minds, shaping them into better souls.
It's all beautiful. So beautiful. And most importantly, it's safe. It's almost perfect.
A little girl is on a field trip. Her classmates are all happy, screaming and giggling and cheering as the bus pulls up to the Site, but she is silent and quiet. For she understand what she is about to see.
Chloe Forbes- that is her name- gazes up at the huge, beautiful building with wonder in her blue eyes. She pulls her backpack onto her shoulders and follows her classmates off the bus and into the Site, into the Tribute.
"Odd, run! Hurry, Odd, we've got to make it across!" Aelita's panic-stricken voice catches his ears, and he runs. The monsters are behind him, the ones that X.A.N.A. has materialized to be his army. Ulrich, Yumi, and Jeremie are up ahead, across the bridge. Aelita has stopped to wait for him. She's risking so much for him, for in just under a minute, the bridge will be destroyed, sealing thousands of monsters on an island that is about to self-destruct.
A Krabe's leg swings before him, and Odd jumps over it, firing his semi-automatics. It burst into metal fragments which fly everywhere.
"I've got to make it," is the only thought that runs through his head. "I've got to make it to her."
Aelita's shot zings right past his head, hitting the tarantula neatly on the X.A.N.A. symbol on its head. It shrieks before it explodes. Odd leaps, and debris is hurled past him. He's still alive.
But not for long.
Up ahead, the bridge explodes. Odd can faintly hear his friends that are safely across screaming. He feels the uselessness of it all fall heavily onto his shoulders, the weight pressing onto him until he feel he could scream and never stop. Despair. This is it, he's finished.
And then a hand catches his own. Odd looks up into stunning green orbs that are calm and steady and…loving.
She smiles at him. "Odd…it's all going to be okay."
And suddenly, the weight is lifted off him. Odd has never been more free. He yanks Aelita up against his chest and holds her tightly as the world explodes all around him.
It's so very beautiful inside. Polished white marble covers the floor, which is covered with expensive rugs that are worth more than Chloe's parents will see in fifty years. There are touches of every country around the world evident, as they all had wanted to show their gratitude to the great heroes.
Chloe's parents had been very somber when she'd handed them the permission slip.
"Don't treat this lightly, Chloe," her mother Rachel had said, her eyes serious. "This is very special. More special than perhaps you'll understand, but you still must be very reverent and polite and on your best behavior."
Then her father, Caleb, had told her the story of the Five. It'd stuck in her head ever since. And as the rest of her class laughs, she stays respectfully silent.
Polymorphs are everywhere. There's no stopping them. Because of their unique ability to shift and change, they're nearly unstoppable. Leading them is William, who had become X.A.N.A.'s embodiment. The X.A.N.A. symbol burns in his eyes like a pair of coals as he searches for what he used to call his friends.
It all looks hopeless. They're huddled together, hiding in the remains of destroyed New York City. They have a detonator in their hands, it's supposed to be thrown into the Nucleus, which is X.A.N.A.'s hold on the east coast, his detector for all organic life as well as control over the polymorphs. The guerilla fighters were so close, but now it looks like their chances are gone.
"They're going to find us."
It is a statement, not derived from any kind of wild fear or desperation. It slips coolly from Jeremie's lips like a drop of water sliding off an icicle. For they were all still all hardened and grim about the deaths of their two friends only three months ago. They'd been given no time to feel sad or grieve. There's no time for healing in a war.
In their heads, they are all thinking the same thing. Any second now.
It really is a pity, since they are but a few yards away from the Nucleus.
Nothing we can do…
They are all thinking that very thought; that is, except for Yumi. There is something she could do, she knows. In fact, all three of them know it, but they are all too ashamed to admit it.
Their little group needs Jeremie to set the detonator encoding. It is not just any bomb, it is a data bomb meant to destroy all technological life within a 50,000 mile radius. There was no way that Ulrich or Yumi would be able to do it without being instructed or trained for weeks.
Ulrich is out of the question, as well. His leg is bleeding too badly for him to keep up for as long as they need. Plus, he is a sort of general, in charge of the resistance everywhere, a public underground figure. If he does what is needed, morale would drop, spirits would be crushed, and the hope for the war would be depleted.
It's all on her.
She nudges Ulrich, who's sitting next to her. He looks at her, his brown eyes filled with pain and worry and sickness of heart. They're a child's eyes, wide and vulnerable. Yumi's eyes search his face, just one last time. Then she leans forward and kisses him on the lips. It's a passionate kiss, a desperate kiss, a kiss sealing her fate. It's her first one, her last one, a bittersweet one.
Once she breaks away, she looks at him steadily in the eyes. "First chance you get, run for it. Don't do anything stupid, understand?"
His eyes, clouded over with love and sudden ardor and confusion, blink at her, not comprehending. She smiles at him, trying to fight the tears that rise to her eyes treacherously.
"Stop X.A.N.A., whatever it takes. For Aelita, for Odd, and for me."
Then his eyes widen, because suddenly, he knows.
"No, Yumi, what are you going to…you can't, you've got to-"
She cuts him off with three words. Because since when has she ever listened to Ulrich?
"I love you, Ulrich."
She leaps forward with a yell, swinging out her guns. She fires with everything she has, screaming wildly. She can hear Ulrich matching her screams with his own, but she doesn't have time to think about that. Because she's caught the polymorphs' attention.
Jeremie doesn't give himself time to think, he just grabs Ulrich by the arms and yanks him towards the Nucleus. For Jeremie has gotten stronger in the last year since X.A.N.A. destroyed Sector 5. The scrawny, awkward geek is gone, replaced with strength and endurance and never-ending pain. He knows the extent of what Yumi has done, and he knows he needs to take the opportunity she's thrust at him. He starts working furiously, his fingers nimbly moving all over the detonator's interface surface.
The first few polymorphs Yumi hits only have time to look at her and screech before they go down. She's rushing forward blindly, hitting whatever moves. Her mind is blank, not thinking about the suicide she had just committed, save for the scattered thoughts running through her head.
My family…
The rest of the polymorphs are more intelligent. They disperse out of their search formation and go into battle stances and groups. They shrink into the growing darkness, fleeing into the shadows for cover. Yumi fires all around her, bullets hitting the ground with rapid clinks. She can feel them circling, scheming, calculating. Most of all, she can feel William's presence. It burns into her consciousness, scalding her.
My friends…
They come out of the shadows, and the ones that Yumi hits fall, only to be replaced by new ones. They all shiver and slosh around in unison to become men who could be in the Secret Service.
The rest of humanity…
They raise their weapons all together, and Yumi stares William down levelly, never stopping her shots. He returns her gaze, and for a moment, Yumi thinks she sees a flash of alien emotion flick across his face. It's pity. She closes her eyes.
Ulrich…
And then they fire.
I love you all.
The first couple of shots are off. But the sheer number of them makes up for the total lack of aim. There's a ripping, tearing, excruciating searing feeling in her shin, her arm, her shoulder, her stomach. Then there's nothing but pain anywhere left on her body. And then suddenly, her knees buckle, and Yumi is on the ground.
Ulrich's leg wound has bled too much, leaving him on the verge of consciousness, and he can only watch as she falls. No, please…spare her, let her life, let me die in her place, just leave her be…
"Yumi Ishiyama."
William approaches Yumi, this time made of stone once more. His eyes are unreadable, but he smiles at her grimly, almost reverently.
"You fought well."
She feels no sadness, no longer in any pain, and Yumi feels hardly any regret as the cool muzzle is pressed against her.
But hardly any is still more than none at all.
Then William fires the final shot, and Yumi feels nothing at all.
Jeremie is still not done writing the code. The clones turn to him and a weak and helpless Ulrich, who can barely stay alert, and yet still fires on them. They advance, ignoring their own fallen, with one goal in mind.
They're almost on top of them when Jeremie drops the detonator into the Nucleus, and then there's a huge blast that slams into all of them. Jeremie and Ulrich are thrown, but not as far as the technological life. All the clones are wiped out, tossed into the air like chaff and exploding into fiery bits. All, that is, except for X.A.N.A., who stays rooted on the ground, looking at the two humans.
He smiles at them with William's mouth, leers at them with his stolen eyes.
"You will never outsmart me," he promises, and then he's gone. William, who's only partly techno-life, bursts apart in a gory rainbow of crimson. The detonator has done its job, even on X.A.N.A., but X.A.N.A.'s essence is still alive, though his embodiment is gone.
Somehow, he has escaped.
"This way, children," Mrs. Dionne tells them. She moves them into the Grand, a special room that is covered with pictures of the Five. Chloe blinks at them. They don't look like great heroes. They appear only to be a little older than Chloe's fifteen-year-old sister, Haley. Chloe doesn't understand how these teenagers managed to become such great people.
They all shuffle forward. Even the rowdy ones have fallen quiet now, silenced by teachers and chaperons and the heavy air of respect.
Chloe comes upon a picture of the Five, all seated on a bench. Her hand reaches up to touch the picture, but a look from a security guard stops her, so she settles for just looking at it carefully. They're smiling and hugging each other. They look so happy.
"Chloe?" Mrs. Dionne calls her name softly. She looks up, and the teacher gestures. "Come on, now, hon, don't fall behind."
Chloe nods and follows the group who has gone into the Biography Room.
"Ulrich?"
Jeremie's voice breaks through Ulrich's dream. He'd been dreaming of her. Of Yumi. For a few precious minutes, Ulrich had been happy.
"What is it?"
His voice is cold and toneless. His heart is frayed and haggard, and he's just barely hanging on. It's the voice of a man who watched his love die, who held her lifeless, bleeding body in his arms and stared into her empty eyes, screamed her name over and over, willing for them to answer him. It's the voice of a dead man.
Jeremie himself is in the same state. They'd lost so much. But they couldn't dwell on it. They had to press on, for the sake and memory of their friends.
"I've found it. The way to destroy X.A.N.A. for good," he says softly. After losing his embodiment, X.A.N.A. turned to new ways to annihilate resistance. He discovered that if he could construct a unique form, a hybrid of computer and human, he could shape it to be invulnerable to bullets, blades, and computer viruses with his power. It was something that the Lyoko resistance could never afford to happen.
His friend looks up at him with steely eyes. There's blood to be paid.
"Then let's go."
Inside the Biography Room is all sorts of information about the Five. Their lives, their lifestyle, who they were.
Once again, Chloe was shocked by how normal they were. One of them had been a soccer freak, and a very good one at that. Another failed all his classes, and slept in most of them. Two of them had even been in love.
Chloe smiled at the picture of those particular two. They were smiling at each other, blushing, with a mutual awkward stance between them. It was rather sad to Chloe that they had never gotten together. Even though she was only ten, she appreciated a happy ending. It was so obvious that they had liked each other!
"Hey, Chlo'!"
Brian came up to her, grinning. "We're about to go see the statue! Come on!"
It's the hardest scheme Jeremie had ever come up with. They're sneaking around X.A.N.A.'s personal complex wearing body suits of inch-thick metal alloy that trick all sensors into believing that they're techno life. It's not an easy thing to do, the metal was heavy and every monster that came by forces them into hiding. Because even though the sensors are fooled, monsters are only slightly smarter and would figure out their trick instantly.
Many of Ulrich's soldiers had wanted to come along with them. However, it was too risky with many. Besides, it feels right that the last of the original group should finish it.
Ulrich has an uneasy feeling in his stomach. There's something he should be aware of, something he should realize, but he can't figure out what. Jeremie appears to be all right, however. Ever calm and in control.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, dozens of monsters surround Ulrich. They do it suddenly and without warning, without any time for him to react. Ulrich stares at them, especially as they group around him, but ignore Jeremie.
He cocks his head at Jeremie as they all cock their heads at him.
"Something you want to tell me, Jeremie?" he asks lightly, though inside rage is building up in him.
Jeremie blinks at him, and then closes his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Ulrich. But it's for the good of the mission, I promise. I needed a diversion to make it to X.A.N.A.'s chamber room. Everything that happens will succeed in destroying X.A.N.A., I promise."
Ulrich's rage subsides, his head bows. Then he looks up and grins spitefully at Jeremie. "Very well. But I just have to do this first." He fires at "Jeremie", and the robot fell over, a hole blown through its head.
With that, all the monsters fire. Ulrich just closes his eyes and accepts it all.
"I'm coming, Yumi."
It's more than death to Ulrich. It's a release…and an upholding of a promise.
The courtyard where the Statue was located was beautiful, as well. Sakura, or cherry tree blossoms swirled in the breeze, a salute to the Japanese member of the Five. There was a soccer trophy encased in one corner. Kiwi's ashes were commemorated in a silver box that stood in another corner. And, amazingly, held in a clear plasteel box, was the starting handle of the original supercomputer.
"Wow, cool!" Brian said enthusiastically, running to the case. He laughs and points. "Can you believe they used to start up computers with handles?"
Chloe nods and smiles slightly, but her mind is still on other things. Other people.
The class comes to the base of the twenty-foot tall statue. And the little girl can't help but stare.
Jeremie sits in X.A.N.A.'s inner chamber, typing furiously into the long-awaited control console, and leans over to the side to hack out a raspy cough. As a shadow slips behind him, looming over him, he smiles darkly.
"We're face-to-face at last, X.A.N.A.," he says quietly. "It's just you and me now. I discovered you, I restarted you. It's only fitting that it all comes to this moment."
-You've resisted with amazing force.-
X.A.N.A.'s voice isn't verbal or even physical. It's more of a computer pulse broadcasted into Jeremie's head. It gives the man shivers, and he coughs again.
"Yes, I suppose I have," says Jeremie bitterly. He keeps tying even as he speaks. "I suppose anyone would. You took away my home, my parents, my friends, and, indirectly, my love. But more than that, you took my soul." The founding member of the Lyoko warriors turns and faces the monstrosity at last.
Surprisingly, X.A.N.A.'s essence form is gentle-looking, with intelligent, cat-like eyes and a soft form, like the smudge of a black pastel in the vague shape of a man. But Jeremie isn't fooled.
-Human irony. I've come to enjoy it,- X.A.N.A. tells him, and though he doesn't have a mouth, he smirks. –In ways, you gave me my life back. And now I will take yours, your life and your humanity. Or perhaps I already have. You've sacrificed your friends, every single one of them, in your futile plot to kill me.-
"No, X.A.N.A.," Jeremie says, shaking his head. He begins to cough, but speaks through it. "That's where you're wrong. My friends aren't gone, I know it for a fact. Because they're with me now, I can feel them."
Aelita's gentle wisdom. Odd's wild bravado. Ulrich's silent determination. Yumi's untamed passion. All with him, all beating in his heart as sure as his own blood.
Thank you. Thank you.
Perhaps it's not fitting for Jeremie to be crying at this moment, but he can't seem to help it. He can feel the ghosts of their hands on his shoulders, lifting him up and supporting him like always, whispering encouragement to banish his fears and giving him strength.
-The words of a man going mad,- X.A.N.A. mocks, and then pieces of metal debris start to hover. They float in the air gracefully in a sick sort of dance, and edge closer and closer to Jeremie. X.A.N.A. can feel his dream coming closer and closer. After Jeremie is dead, he'll finally have nothing stopping him from becoming a hybrid man. Once it is his, he'll no longer have to fear attacks from computer programs, or even bullets or blades. Guaranteed immortality.
"I'm not afraid to die, X.A.N.A.," Jeremie says steadily, "So long as you come with me."
-Pitiful human, whatever you've entered into the computer, I can overwrite,- growls X.A.N.A. arrogantly, unruffled. –I am the master of this earth, the undeniable ruler, the perfect computer; I'm becoming more and more human by the moment, currently at 96 percent completion. Soon I will be flesh and blood, and there won't be anything to stop me.-
"No, I suppose not," Jeremie says, but there's a smile in his voice, a confidence that X.A.N.A. found infuriating. "But even computers have been known to be wrong. There's things in the programming that are lacking. Things that humans have."
-Perhaps your mortal ears are failing. Your mission is over. You will die, and I will live to drink your blood at my table tonight.-
"Again, you're so very incorrect," Jeremie says, and hacks violently again. "You always have been…idiot."
X.A.N.A., livid, can't take in anymore. The metal flies into Jeremie, their sharp, jagged edges slamming into him with the force of X.A.N.A.'s fury. Jeremie inhales sharply, gasping, and his glasses are knocked from his face at the impact. He looks down at himself and it's a grim sight. Blood streams from the pieces of metal jutting out of various places on his body.
Jeremie feels pain, but also joy. And he keeps smiling triumphantly.
"Imprudent as you always have been, X.A.N.A.," Jeremie hisses out.
-Jeremie Belpois, you're finally finished. I hereby pronounce you as no threat to me any longer.-
"Do you?" Jeremie barks out a harsh laugh, and liquid falls out as the air passes through his failing lungs.
Elation passes through the computer program. 100 percent completion. X.A.N.A. reaches out and attaches a cable to his ghostly body. His form flickers, and then solidifies completely, taking on the body of an unclothed man. The computer wires attached to him add to his cyborg-like appearance. The perfect form. The immunity to computer attacks, and imperviousness to physical weapons.
"You see?" X.A.N.A. says, speaking aloud, smirking with his new half-human features. "It's over for you. The human chapter has closed at last."
And that's when the miracle happens. Jeremie reaches out, and places his bleeding hand on the console he'd been working on. "Irony, X.A.N.A. I've also come to enjoy it."
X.A.N.A. looks puzzled, but then its gentle eyes widen in shock as the computer begins to short circuit, overloading with the new information Jeremie had inputted with his blood. X.A.N.A. turns on Jeremie, all benevolence gone, as his specter-like essence begins to flicker.
"What have you done?" X.A.N.A. cries.
"It's a sort of…organic…technology…" Jeremie says, laughing. "It's called a virus, but nothing you've encountered before. Because you're now human, you're susceptible to infections. Specifically, the one that was in my blood. An original disease I created. Still certain I'm no threat, X.A.N.A.?"
"Impossible!" X.A.N.A. roars, but it's undeniable. He begins to choke and hack as the fast-acting virus eats away at him. He's dying, he can feel it. No! It wasn't what he'd wanted! He'd worked to hard to attain his power and might, and now he could feel it flowing away as if he was a water-filled plastic bag with a hole punched in it.
"Human…you'll pay with your life for this!" X.A.N.A. shrieks, and flies upon Jeremie with demigod fists, landing the fatal blow. Jeremie's addled body can't take any more. He sighs softly as death closes his eyes, but the last thing he sees, satisfyingly enough, is X.A.N.A.'s chest caving in and his cyborg body collapsing.
Then Jeremie is free. He'd never expected this kind of freedom. Death…it was a liberation, not a curse. Not restrained by pain and suffering any longer, or the haunts of his misdeeds. And then Jeremie is in a warm embrace, filled with the love and laughter and joy of everyone dear to him.
And suddenly, dying isn't so bad.
They're all together, on one big pedestal. They're so huge, larger than life with hero's poses and solemn looks on their faces. The magnificent bronze, striking as it is, hardly does the saviors of the world justice, but it doesn't matter. It's beautiful, anyways, and does the best job those left behind can manage.
It was done, amazingly enough, by Elizabeth Delmas, world-renowned artist. Many little pieces of the Lyoko warriors caught the public's attention with their beauty and strong feeling. It was decided that Elizabeth was the perfect one to construct the tribute to the Lyoko Warriors. She'd known them, and eventually loved each and every one of them in her days as a renegade rebel.
The piece took years to construct, and its unveiling had more than two and a half billion people watching, on TV and those who could afford to buy tickets for the ceremony. Not a one was disappointed. Its beauty and amazing ability to embody the spirits of the Five boosted Elizabeth to stardom. She told the media that the statue was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, emotionally and physically.
Here it is at last, Chloe thinks. The two women are beautiful and stunning, the men handsome and heroic. They look brave and strong, but there's something so very sad about all of them.
The Japanese woman has her hand intertwined with the handsome German man's, and they take their places in the very back. She has a tessen fan in one hand; he, a deadly katana. In front of the Japanese woman, kneeling, is a short-haired woman with amazing eyes. Though there's no color in the statue, Chloe has no trouble picturing them as they were when the woman was alive; full of sparkles and peace. Crouching, cat-like, beside the short-haired woman is an attractive man with a cocky smile. One eyebrow is arched up, the other furrowed sardonically, as if asking the world what they were looking at.
Finally…
It's the spectacled man that holds Chloe's attention the longest. He sits in the middle of them, on top of a box that has a handle identical to the one in the glass case a few feet away. The handle's position is the most important part: it's turned down in the off position. There's a serene, calm smile on the man's face, as if he knows something the world doesn't.
"Chloe, you've been standing there for ten minutes," Mrs. Dionne says, kneeling in front of the little girl. "Is everything all right?"
"Yes, ma'am," Chloe replies automatically. "Everything's all right. More than all right, actually. And it's all thanks to them."
Life is going on. It always has, and it always will.