Author's Note:
A big shout-out and thank you to Star-The-Writer. This person was a huge help in making this story when it comes to all of the character's spiritual parts-
Am I saying too much? Whoops! Hope you enjoy the story!
On With the Story!
"Wait, am I hearing this right? Is this actually real?" Ulrich couldn't believe what he was hearing from Jeremie. "So you don't want to actually work on the anti-virus?"
"You guessed it! I had a full night of sleep!" Jeremie yawns slightly after finishing his sentence, spinning his chair back to the computer and smiling. "There's this new zoo near the school that I wanted to go to for a little while, so I worked all-nighters for three days straight so I could be on schedule by the time we get back."
"Whoa! I've heard they had a ton of restaurants in there as well!" Odd said in excitement. "C'mon guys! Let's go!" He runs out of Jeremie's room.
"We better catch up to him before he spends all of his money on hamburgers." Yumi joked, the rest of them walking out of Jeremie's room. Jeremie stops though, and looks back at his computer. Then he gets out his phone.
"I'll just transfer the data I found on my phone before I go..." He mutters to himself.
"Jeremie! Hurry up!" Aelita called out.
Jeremie puts the phone back in his pocket. "Coming!" And he runs out of the room, closing the door behind him.
"Are we really taking a bus Jeremie?" Odd asks impatiently.
"Oh grow up Odd, this is a once in a lifetime sort of thing that Jeremie never does." Ulrich said. "See? The bus is right on time." Ulrich checks his watch as it reads 12:05pm.
"To the zoo we go!" Aelita exclaims, being the first one on the bus, followed by Odd, Yumi, Ulrich and Jeremie, all of them taking seats at the back of the bus.
"So..." Jeremie starts off. "What do you guys want to see over there?"
"Definitely the tigers and lions!" Ulrich said. "I always loved how they attack." He claws out into the air for a reference, but the other's laughed at his lousy attempt.
"For me it's going to be the little rabbits." Aelita smiled. "It's one of the few things that I haven't seen yet, and they're so cute!" She couldn't help but continue. "The white fur, and how they can also be treated as pets, the cuteness of it just never ends!"
"I agree." Yumi said. "But I've always wanted to see snakes, they're so... mysterious. They can move around so easily, and they're so intimidating to others, something about snakes just makes me want one in a fight."
During all of this, Jeremie was looking out the window and listening slightly to their conversation. It took Aelita three times for him to look at her.
"Hey, you haven't said what you want to see yet." Aelita whispered in his ear.
"Well..." Jeremie scratched his head. "I don't know what I want to see yet."
"Then why did you want to go to the zoo in the first place...?" Ulrich asked.
"Because I just wanted to repay you guys; XANA's been attacking non-stop, so I wanted you all to relax." He smiles. "Which clearly is working."
"But you work even harder, Einstein." Yumi said. "There has to be at least one animal you want to see..."
"Hmmm...I know what I want to see, but I won't tell you until we leave the zoo." Jeremie smirks, seeing that the bus stops at the zoo. "But you guys can wonder, I don't really care what you do as long as we know where we are."
"You got it!" Odd and Aelita say in unison, being again the first people out of the bus.
"I really want to see that tiger Yumes..." Ulrich runs out of the bus.
"You coming, Jeremie?" Yumi gets out of her seat, walking out of the bus.
"I'm coming." He gets out as well, making sure that his phone is in his pocket.
The five teens try to run into the zoo, but security stops Odd and Aelita from advancing any farther. Jeremie Ulrich and Yumi laughed at this.
"What?!" Odd pouted, crossing his arms. "It's not free?"
"Why would it be?" Jeremie chuckled saying it. "But don't worry. I have the tickets in my pocket." His right hand goes to the back of his pocket, fishing out the five tickets and giving them to the man in the check-in place.
"Now we can go." Ulrich says, Odd running.
"Whoa, wait!" Jeremie calls out. "We can go wherever we want, we just need to meet back at the entrance by 6. Okay?"
Everyone nodded in response, each of them separating to the different sections, their minds wandering to the many animals.
12:31pm, Ulrich's Point of View
"Hmm..." I try to find where the tigers are in the zoo, completely forgetting at the time that there was a map right next to me. I didn't even think about it until I saw a crowd of people near a board. As I walk towards it, the big map showing the zoo literally slapped me in the face.
I squint and manage to see where the tigers are, straight to where I'm standing, starting to walk down the straight path full of birds and monkeys. I knew I was in the right place when a low growl got my attention.
"Finally found you." I mutter to myself, four tigers in a boxed out area. I smile when one looks at me.
"Hey..." I say, pressing my hands to the glass. I notice now that the way I'm looking at the tiger resembles a little kid in a pet shop. I go wide eyed then, seeing the same tiger walk towards me and growls again, the heat of its mouth fogging up the glass. This time, I press only my forehead and my hand.
Then I notice that the tiger starts to purr and lay down on the grass. One of its paws touches the glass, and I try to put my other hand to that paw.
"Wha-"I saw a light green aura coming from the paw to my hand, but I was so in shock that I couldn't move my hands. Before I knew it, the green aura coming from the tiger was on my hand, soon disappearing. I slowly lift my hands off of the glass, then looking at the tiger. The tiger looked at me with its orange-black eyes, and for the rest of the time, I stood there and smiled.
"Friends?" I question to myself, never getting the answer.
12:45pm, Yumi's Point of View
I already knew where all of the snakes were; they were in the darker spots of the zoo, with the bats and lizards. I shudder from the thought of a lizard. I never, ever told anyone that I was a little afraid of them, I thought it was too babyish to have in a personality. But as I go into this closed off section, I first notice that there's not a lot a people in the room. I see the bats boxed off, as well as the lizards...
And then I see all of the snakes in this big glass box. I walk towards the snakes, the mix of colors making me grow with interest. There's one snake in particular that I want to see; The Cobra. Probably why I fight with smoother moves than the others on Lyoko. I just mix the way that a cobra attacks. I start looking around for its black and brown stripes. When I see it, my mind almost makes my mouth squeal in excitement. It hisses at me, and this time I actually squeal when it slithers its way towards me.
Something about this snake makes me lose my smile. There's something about it, it keeps staring at me and hissing. What does it want? I don't have any food on me, and if I couldn't give it anyway because of the glass, and I'm not in the mood for breaking glass.
Its head presses onto the glass, and the first thought that crossed through my mind was that it was trying to show me show something. I immediately press my forehead as well to the glass, and I couldn't move. I tried pulling away, but I went wide eyed, seeing that black line connected me and the reptile. After a few minutes, the black aura disappeared, and I was left dumbfounded... and hungry.
1:49pm, Odd Point of View
I honestly have no idea what I want to see, I'm just so excited because it's the first time I have ever been to the zoo. I'm looking at this big board of the map for about twenty minutes, and I finally give up a wonder around the zoo to look at every single animal.
"Boring..." I skip past the monkeys...
"Meh..." I skip past the birds as well... Is there nothing at the zoo?
"This is so boring! To think that this was fun!" I shout in my head, but see an orange little blur running away. I run after it, but I stopped, seeing that it was a cat. A normal, lazy looking, but a cute orange cat. I slowly head towards it.
"Nice kitty..." I say, it stays there, stretching its legs. I'm finally about a foot away from it, offering my hand.
"C'mon, you're probably the most interesting thing here." It somehow listened, placing one of its paws in my hand. I smile, and gently pick it up, the cat making a purring sound and finding its way to my neck.
"That's adorable..." I mutter, but I now look at myself and see this purple aura all over me for just a few seconds, before it goes away.
"Was that you?" I ask, shocked as a voice invaded my mind.
"Duh! Why wouldn't it be?" it said. I almost threw the cat off of my neck, but I spent the rest of the day in the food court, trying to know more about this... this thing.
2:30pm, Aelita's Point of View
I find it just a little bit embarrassing that I like to squeal at cute things, but I figure it's just a bad habit of mine as I look at all of the exotic birds, the ducks swimming with their offspring, the way that the deer jump over logs and look curiously at the people behind the glass. This is way more fun than I expected.
Yet I still couldn't find any of the rabbits. If anything, there should be a map somewhere. As I'm looking for it, I pass by Odd and wave at him, but the look he gave me was a mix of confusion and worry. I tilt my head at him, but continue on to my mission of finding the cutest bunny there is.
I guess I didn't need the map, because I saw ten to twenty rabbits in this glass box. I squealed yet again, not even caring about the stares as I press my face against the glass.
I think I like white rabbits the best, because of the way you know when they are looking at you. I squint at this big fluffy one, green eyes looking back at mine, but my eyes are a little brighter. I keep my gaze on it, smiling even wider as it hops toward the glass.
"Hi..." I whisper, the glass fogging up a little bit as the bunny wiggles its nose in front of me. "Aren't you the cute one?" Its nose pressed onto the glass, fogging it up a little more as I already have my nose on the glass.
But it's weird, seeing the pink little nose get bigger and bigger; no wait, that's not how the world works...
I try to pull my face away, but ended up looking at the rabbit dead in the eyes, the pink aura pouring out from the rabbit. After a few seconds (But I swore it felt like hours), I pull away and shake my head...What just happened?
I have to tell Jeremie about this...
3:00pm, Jeremie's Point of View
I've been here for about three hours, and still haven't found anything that I could look at for an hour like everyone else. I put my mind to the test, questioning myself what I really want to see in the zoo. There can be many things for me to look at for an hour, but what would entertain me the most? A bat? An elephant...? No, something more mysterious...
My mind starts to unfold all of the possibilities, but it stops as I see this one animal in particular; The Owl. It turns its head around, wide eyes staring into my own. I finally figured it out; the owl is the one animal that so mysterious, the animal I could try to figure out for hours. I walk into the darker places in the zoo, where I see Yumi getting up from the floor.
"Did you trip...?" I tell her, walking towards her.
"Jeremie, you wouldn't believe what just happened..." She said, her face in awe.
"Tell me later, I found what I want to see." I look and smile at the mysterious brown owl, the eyes telling another mystery that people have yet to figure out. I already saw Yumi go back to the snakes, my mind telling me to find out more about the owl, but the animal flew to the branch closest to the glass separating us. My hand goes to the glass, but I go wide eyed, seeing a stripe of blue connecting us together.
"What the-"I'm so confused, the owl looks at me again, and a theory forms into my head. Is this blue aura-like thing connecting me and the owl? No, is that possible?
The owl finally lets me pull away, Yumi noticing the shock in my face.
"The same thing happened to me, but with a Cobra."
"So weird-"
"Jeremie!" Aelita, Odd, and Ulrich show up, running up to me. Ulrich starts off first.
"There was this weird green aura thing-"
"No, mine was pink!" Aelita cut off.
"Guys!" I shout, getting their attention. Thank God that it was just the five of us in here, we would've gotten some weird stares. "Look, I know what you're going to say, somewhere along the lines of,'Aura connecting me and the animal.' Same thing happened to me, but I don't know how to explain it."
I felt just a little bit guilty about not knowing how to tell them how this whole thing works, so I rub my chin and say,
"Let's get back to Kadic, we'll figure out if it has something to do with XANA or if it's just a theory."
Everyone nodded in agreement, the five of us walking out of the zoo, yet I can't stop thinking about that...
That Unknown Connection.
(FIN)
Woo! I loved writing this with the help of Star-The-Writer. If you have anything to say, review or favorite! It means a lot!
Well...
Peace, my peoples~