Eyes of Kadic: The Carthage Files

A/N: Welcome! This is Cha-Cha-Cheesecake and MugiChanx here, with another one of our co-authored stories! :D Code Lyoko is so frigging epic, I cannot WAIT until the new live-action series comes out! x3 Anyway… Onto the real intro.

Eyes of Kadic (mah little nickname for it) will not only be focusing on our present Lyoko warriors, but also on our past Lyoko warriors, such as Franz Hopper and co :] It'll probably be quite a long fic, although I don't know how often we'll update, so be prepared for that! Aaaand… I don't have much else to say, except to watch CL if you haven't already and look at Code: Wiki if you want some more info on Project Carthage. Disclaimers: We don't own anything except this mega-duplo awesome fanfic!

Summary: When another one of Xana's tricks causes Kadic Academy to be destroyed, thus killing all but a few, the Lyoko warriors are left to fend for themselves. Only when picking apart the rubble do they realise survival isn't the only thing they'll be diving into…

"…and our main story tonight; freak explosion at a local high school kills hundreds. Kadic Academy, a boarding school run by famous scientist Jean-Pierre Delmas, was destroyed last night at 11:11pm. The explosion was believed to have been caused by a chemical bomb in the basement of the school. It is believed only a student or teacher at the school could have triggered the bomb. All teachers and students in the school at the time have been pronounced dead. Our correspondent reports-"

Jeremy Belpois closed the window on the luminous computer screen, hardly daring to believe what he already knew to be true. Only moments ago, Xana had finally succeeded in his plans, and now hundreds of their classmates and teachers were dead.

The bespectacled boy turned around in his chair, resting his head in his hands.

"You think Xana did this?"

Jeremy looked up into the questioning eyes of Ulrich Stern. He'd always found Ulrich hard to read, but now he knew exactly what was going through his mind. Everybody was thinking exactly the same thing; how could this have happened?

"I-I'm pretty sure this was Xana's doing, although how he did it I have no idea. There's no sign of an activated tower or anything. Anyway, I'm not going to do a return to the past. With this many people dead, who knows what the outcome would be? With hardly any students, the school would probably be shut down anyway, and then we'd be forced to different schools in the area. Odd may even have to leave the country!"

Odd Della Robbia clenched his fists but, surprisingly, said nothing.

"I've called Yumi." Aelita was climbing up the ladder leading to the scanner room, her cell phone in one hand. Her eyes were red and puffy, and Jeremy could tell she'd been crying.

"Oh Jeremy, she's so relieved. I think she believed we were all dead. Jeremy, if… if we hadn't gathered here to test that new program you created… We'd all be dead!"

Aelita burst into tears and fell to her knees, alarming Jeremy. Ulrich numbly put an arm around her as she sobbed, but nobody knew what to say.

After a few minutes of sobbing and sniffing, Aelita composed herself.

"Y-Yumi's getting some blankets and things from The Hermitage. Jeremy, what're we going to do?"

Jeremy closed his eyes in deep concentration. What were they going to do?

"Xana's gone too far this time. Its time we finish him off once and for all. And it will be easier to do that if we don't have things to worry about like school and homework, so-"

"Are you suggesting we pretend we're dead? And live here in the factory? Jeremy, that is the dumbest idea I've ever heard!"

Ulrich shook his head, dumbfounded, but nobody spoke up.

"Odd, Aelita? Are you okay with this?"

They both glanced at each other in silence.

"We… We could stay at the Hermitage. It's a house, and it's… Warm."

Ulrich stared, dumbfounded, then turned to Odd, as if asking for backup.

"Odd?"

Odd rolled over, leaning his face in his arms, but mumbled something about it being 'for the greater good'.

"Ulrich, if we get sent to different schools, it will make it ten times harder for us to defeat Xana and make sure nothing like this ever happens again. It would be for the best."

Ulrich sighed and nodded reluctantly in agreement.

"Fine, but what do we do about them?"

Ulrich pointed to the corner, to the shivering mass of silently snoring Milly and Tamiya. They'd followed the group to the factory a few hours ago, so sure they were about to unearth the biggest scoop of the century. Little had they known they had just escaped the biggest disaster in the country. Jeremy shrugged wearily.

"We've just got to make sure they don't tell anyone about the Supercomputer. And they need to promise to never tell anybody that we're still alive, otherwise my plan will be useless. We'll talk to them later."

Ulrich nodded, then sat down, cross-legged.

"So I guess the votes are all in favour, huh?" he moaned, crossing his arms. Odd nodded, petting Kiwi thoughtfully.

"You know, I'm so glad I bought Kiwi with me to the factory. If it weren't dorm inspection week, my little diggity dog would have been blasted to smithereens!"

"You mean like all those students!" Aelita snapped, crossing her arms and furrowing her brow. Odd fell silent, his small smile vanishing just as quickly as it had appeared.

An hour passed before the gang heard the hopeful whirring of machinery and the elevator doors slide open to reveal a walking mass of blankets and pillows.

"Is everyone okay?" came an anxious voice from behind the duvets.

"Yumi!"

Sheets and pillows cascaded around them as Aelita flung herself at Yumi, hugging her tightly. The two girls stood and sobbed for a while, and when they disentangled from their embrace, both had red-rimmed eyes and tear trails on their cheeks. Yumi glanced around at her friends, her amazing friends, all here, living, breathing…

"Ulrich!" Yumi ran forward and pulled him into a tight hug, then turning to Jeremy and Odd and giving each a small hug in turn.

"Calm down, drama queen," Odd gave Yumi a tiny smile and wiped away a tear that had escaped her dark eyes, "Everything's okay now."

"Well, not really, Odd," Jeremy cut in, turning to the Supercomputer, "I'm going to do an all nighter, but you guys go ahead and get some rest. We'll move out to the Hermitage tomorrow."

"I have blankets and things here. I took as many as I could carry," Yumi murmured breathlessly, handing out pillows, then spreading out duvets to cushion the floor with the help of Odd and Ulrich. Aelita threw a blanket over Milly and Tamiya, careful not to disturb them from their slumber.

"This may not be appropriate, but… well, isn't this a little fun? I mean, it feels kind of like a sleepover!" Aelita pulled a blanket around her and lay down beside Yumi. Nobody answered Aelita, but none of them could help thinking that, despite the terrible situation, it was a tiny bit fun.

"Do your parents know where you are, Yumi?" Ulrich asked, buttoning up his jacket. She shook her head.

"They think I'm asleep in my room. I left them a note saying I was sleeping at a friends house. I don't care anyway, they can ground me or whatever, but I want to be here tonight."

Yumi pulled her red backpack she usually used for school towards her and handed out crisps, biscuits, cans of coke…

"Stolen from my cupboards, of course," she shrugged, mouthful of chocolate chip cookie, "my parents are going to kill me! Plus, considering I was supposed to be going to a sleepover, it would look too suspicious if I took anything other than junk food. Sorry guys. I'll go shopping tomorrow."

Ulrich took a sip of his soda, thinking deeply.

"Hey you know what? This reminds me of that show we used to watch in the wreck room, you know, that one where all those guys are stuck on a desert island. They all assigned each other roles in the group - some cooked, some collected food and so on. I think we need a structure kind of like that if we're going to live out here by ourselves."

Aelita chewed on a strawberry cable and pulled a piece of note paper from her school bag, beginning to jot something down.

"Okay, so… Jeremy will be working on the Supercomputer all the time, so that'll be his job. Yumi?"

Yumi shrugged.

"I'll do all the outside work, I guess. I'll bring you guys food, get a job, you know. It'll be hard for you guys to shop and stuff without people recognising you."

Aelita nodded and scribbled down everything Yumi had said.

"I'll be the teacher, then."

Odd stared at Aelita, confused.

"Why would we need a teacher?"

Aelita gave a half hearted laugh.

"Odd, if you want to have any chance of passing your exams when you go back to school, you'll need me to tutor you! We don't know how long we'll be living like this, but what we do know is that we're not going back to school anytime soon and we'll be miles behind everyone else."

Odd scowled and rolled over, pulling the covers around himself.

"And I thought no school meant no homework!"

The gang laughed, and for a while they almost forgot their troubles, talking in excited whispers about what they were going to do and how exciting it would be to sneak around. It was one in the morning before they finally calmed down and realised they had to be serious about this arrangement if it had any chance of working.

"Ulrich, set the alarm on your watch for five thirty," Yumi whispered into the darkness, "we'll have to move out to the Hermitage while it's still dark."

As Ulrich set the alarm, all that could be heard was Kiwi's soft snores and the sound of Jeremy typing at lightning speed. But all was not quiet in the minds of the Lyoko Warriors. Ulrich scrunched up his eyes, Odd quietly stroked Kiwi's back, Aelita hugged her pillow tightly, Jeremy tried to concentrate on his work and Yumi curled up into a little ball beneath the covers. But one question hung in the air in the little room of the factory, one question that rang in everyone's ears, echoed in everybody's head and escaped from all their sad, solemn mouths.

Why?

A/N: So, this was a short intro to Eyes of Kadic. Hopefully future chapters will be a lot longer :D And a lot more plot will take place! And if ya think Jezza's spending a bit too much time on his lovely little supercomputer… well, you obviously aren't familiar with the other-worldly prodigy that is Jeremy Belpois.

Now, please review, for the sake of our Lyoko warriors! :D

~Mugi and Cha-Cha x