Prologue: Finding a New Home

Damon Hawke

We all ran through the smoke and dust, trying to get away from the large robotic minions of XANA. He had finally done it; He had taken over the World. He killed most of the Humans, only taking some to be used as slaves. He had attacked at the worst time. The defenses we had set up to monitor Lyoko had bugged up, and Jeremie had been working on fixing them for a few days. Thats when he struck. Knowing that we didn't have any way of tracking his movements. It was as if he had planned things perfectly. Too perfectly.

The robots' metallic footsteps echoed through the city, the only other sounds were the sounds of us running, and the flaming buildings. We had been running for a few hours, and we were exhausted. We needed to find a safe-haven now, or else we wouldn't last long. Me, Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd were doing fine, due to our adventures in the virtual world, we were in good shape. Jeremie wasn't doing so good, and Aelita didn't look much better.

"I...I can't. I can't keep running like this." Jeremie panted as he slowed down and finally stopped. He looked ready to just die. "Come on, Jeremie. This is no time to be complaining. Now either you get your tech-savvy butt moving, or you stay here, and get killed by the big robotic minions that are coming for us! Your choice." I yelled at him.

Aelita gave me a stare, as if she were saying; "Please, Damon. Help him!" I couldn't help but feel bad. Aelita seemed to have that effect on me. Look at me the right way, and I would do anything she wanted.

I rolled my eyes, sighed, and ran over to him. I hoisted him up over my shoulder, and continued on. I ran a bit slower than I had before, due to Jeremie's added weight. He slept almost the entire time I lugged him around.

"Perfect, I'm this guy's personal mobile bed." I mumbled softly as I continued to run. After a few more hours, we had finally lost the robots, and gotten out of the city. We stopped running, and tried to catch our breath again. I set Jeremie down, and nearly collapsed.

Ulrich pulled out a map that he had taken from a news stand on the way out of the city. He opened it up, and looked at it.

"We're about 5 miles out of the next town." He said, and folded the map up. Odd looked at him. "5 Miles? Do you know how long that would take?" I came up behind him, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Listen, whether its 5 miles or 50 miles, the important thing is that we stay together, alright?" Odd gave an exhausted nod, and shook my hand off. He walked over to a tree, and sat underneath it. Ulrich and Yumi followed, and sat on the other side of it from him. They eventually fell asleep. I looked over at Aelita, who was on her knees. I walked over to her, and saw that she was crying.

"Aelita?" I said worriedly as I knelt down beside her, and put an arm around her. She put her head on my shoulder.

"Aelita, whats wrong?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"Aelita, talk to me. Whats on your mind?" I asked again, and she stopped crying for a minute. She looked up at me, and she still had tears in her eyes. I wiped them away.

"Damon, we've lost everything. The Factory, Lyoko, all of it" She said.

I nodded, and gave a saddened sigh. "Aelita, I know we have. But we're going to find somewhere to live, and start over. The past is the past, lets leave it there." I said, and she almost started to cry again, but I stopped her. "I know that this is hard on you. It's hard on all of us. Lyoko was the only life we had." She nodded.

"But now, we have to push through. We've lived our life with Lyoko, and now, its time to live it without it." She nodded again, but I could tell there was still something else on her mind. I closed my eyes when I found out what is was.

"Your father." I said silently, then she started crying into me again. I held her as she sobbed, and didn't say anything, trying not to emotionally hurt her anymore than she already was.

She stopped after a few minutes, and wiped her eyes. I kept holding her in my arms, and she didn't try to get out of them. She seemed almost..comfortable in them.

"Aelita, go to sleep. You need it. I'll be right here." I said softly, and she shook her head. "Aelita, you'll feel better if you go to sleep. Its late. I'll be right here with you all night." I tried to convince her again, and that seemed to work. She nodded her head, and finally dosed off into a deep sleep.

A few hours had passed, and everyone was asleep except for me. I was the one that watched over the group at night. Especially Aelita. I didn't dare to fall asleep when she was like this. The thoughts of what might happen frightened me enough to make me stay awake. I sat there, Aelita fast asleep on me, and the entire group sleeping as well. The night was silent. The smoke and flames rising out of the city which we escaped from earlier. I felt something was amiss, so I took out a blanket, and rolled it into a ball. I set it on the ground, and put Aelita on it, careful not to wake her up. I grabbed my Souvenier Sword that I had gotten on a trip, and went to look around.

I heard clanking, and went to check it out. When I found the source of the sound, my eyes widened. A giant robot, much bigger than the robots, was heading straight for us. It had 4 legs, and was black. A single light shined out from what appeared to be it's "eye."

XANA had upped his search for us. The behemoth did not know where we were, and judging by the looks of it, it couldn't go far from the Super Computer in the Factory. But if it got to us, things would go from bad, to worse. Quickly.

I ran back to our "camp" and woke the others. I told them of the impending doom we were going to meet if we did not get to the next town soon. We started running when we heard a loud "BOOM!" Thanks to the rest we had, we all ran much faster, and got to the town after about 2 hours. It was completely destroyed. Other than a small Stop-and-Shop place, and a medium sized town house.

The shop was in disarray, but still had tons of food and water there ripe for the picking. And the town house was still moderately untouched. Despite the occasional burn and scorch mark. It still had Power, Water, Plumbing, and all the other utilities that it would normally have. It only had three Bedrooms, though. I snagged one, and shared it with Aelita, Ulrich and Yumi got another, and Jeremie and Odd got the last one. We were pleased with everything.

After getting the house how we liked it, we decided to go look around the town. There was still enough wreckage to live off of. We managed to make a solid wall around the house and store. All the other stuff we found could be re purposed into something new.

Once it was all said and done, we all looked back at our work. While we did, I could tell we were all thinking the exact same thing; We had found a new home.