Yumi was in her room. "I can't do this..." She had a few things packed, some clothes, but started taking them out. "But I have to..." And with that, she started putting them back.
-( ( • ) )-
Aelita had her things packed already and was waiting with Jeremie in his dorm. "Are they back yet?" she asked as Jeremie glanced out of his window.
"Alex said he would call. I hope they'll be able to pack as soon as they get here." Jeremie already had his things packed. "How was he doing?" Jeremie asked, knowing Aelita had visited Alex and William the most of the group.
"He's doing better. They both were. But they aren't like they were before." Aelita shook her head. "We need to get to the other Super Computer and build Scanners as soon as we can."
"Well, thankfully, I already grabbed the cables from the originals, and I have Franz's plans that he sent before. It might take a while, but it's the best plan we have." Jeremie sighed. "It's a good thing Patrick already left. I really hope this works."
-( ( • ) )-
An hour later, a car pulled up to Kadic Academy. "You boys want any help?" a man asked as Alex and William stepped out of the car.
"No, I think we can handle it." William grabbed a small bag as did Alex.
"Thank you for the ride," Alex added.
"Just doing my job." The man drove away as Alex and William walked to their dorm rooms.
Aelita was waiting in the hall outside of Jeremie's room, and once Alex rounded the corner, she stood up to hug him. She was careful, as Alex was still hurt from the Scanner malfunction. His face still showed scarred tissue, and she knew it wasn't just there. "How fast can you packed and be ready?"
"I don't know, a couple hours. We're leaving today though, right?" Alex asked, to which Aelita nodded.
"We leave tonight."
"Well, I'll try to be ready as fast as I can."
-( ( • ) )-
Odd had some of his things packed. There were still some other things on his bed. "I need Kiwi's bowl and my hair gel." He grabbed them and put them in a suitcase. "No, I should leave Kiwi here. Put a note on him and let Milly and Tamiya look after him." Odd pulled the bowl out. "I don't really need my GamePad but who knows what we'll find in Germany. There might be a lot of downtime."
Sissi was in her room, packing her makeup and clothes into two large pink and black zebra-print suitcases while her father stood in the doorway.
"Enjoy your time in Canada, sweetheart." Mr. Delmas said as Sissi folded a dress and put it in a suitcase.
"Yes, thank you, Daddy," Sissi replied, glancing over her shoulder briefly as she began to put her makeup in the other bag.
"It's quite generous of Aelita's father to allow you and her friends to go on this trip. I'll need his number, though. Be sure to call." Mr. Delmas continued.
"Of course, Daddy. I couldn't ever leave for so long without calling." Sissi responded. "I'll miss you." In a moment of surprising vulnerability, she put her makeup bag down and hugged her father. Taken aback at first, he hugged her back after a moment.
"Stay safe, darling."
Sissi opened her eyes, a morose expression crossing her face. "...I'll do my best, Daddy."
-( ( • ) )-
William zipped up his own suitcase in his room, which was surprisingly bare now without his various posters. "I've done everything I can." He pulled his phone out to call Yumi.
"Hello?" Yumi was holding her favorite stuffed animal in her hands but set it down shortly after she answered.
"Yumi, I'm back." William was happy to hear Yumi's voice. She had seemed to avoid addressing him when she visited the hospital.
"Oh, um, so you're better?" Yumi picked the stuffed animal back up. "Are you packing?"
"Already done. You?"
"I...I don't know if I can do this. It's a good thing Jeremie called a while back when we were just going to live in the Factory and he already got my parents' approval. I hate leaving for all summer, but I'm needed to fight Xana." Yumi threw the stuffed animal at the wall as though she were seven rather than seventeen. It slumped to the floor, its glossy seeming to stare at her sadly. She scowled at it. "I hate this."
"I'm sorry, Yumi. But you're right, we need you. You're a great warrior. A lot better than I am, and probably ever will be."
"You're a good warrior, William. You're as needed as I am." She sighed, pinching between her eyebrows. Why couldn't this mess be over?
"And I'll need you. Yumi, we and Alex are the oldest. You're the more mature one. Odd can be..." William stalled a bit, trying to think of a word.
"Flakey? Narcissistic? Wild? Yeah. But he's upgraded."
"It doesn't make him better. And Jeremie is..." William stalled once more, again trying to think of the right word.
"Short-sighted? Narrow-minded? A little too focused?"
"But it can be a good thing. Sissi is very..."
"Self-centered? Ditzy? Overly vain?"
"Yeah, but she's been nice lately. Alex is pretty..."
"Competitive? Blunt? Stubborn?" Yumi supplied, letting a genuine smirk show at the repetitive sentence structure, and William laughed a little. "What?"
"Are you sure you aren't describing you and me there?" he laughed.
"Well, what do you think of Aelita?" Yumi inquired.
"A little distracted by the wild one and the focused one." This time, Yumi laughed. "Am I right?"
"Exactly what I was thinking." Yumi agreed. They both laughed, and she looked up at the stuffed animal again, leaning forward to pick it up once more.
"If you don't want to go, Yumi, I don't think we can make you. But we will need you. I will need you."
She looked down at the stuffed animal's glossy eyes, searching for guidance. She remembered how things began, back when it was all so simple. Fighting in that first class with the only other person there, being whisked away to a strange world, risking her life to save that of a strange elf girl who may not even be human. She recalled how when people were going to die, she was the first to demand to alert the authorities. She could have been lost forever when Xana decided to spend almost a month targeting her exclusively, one time involving her visit to the Digital Sea. But then things got more complicated. Aelita came to Earth but it wasn't over, and Xana's attacks grew more intense, more life threatening. Even when a comet was ready to plummet into the planet, killing millions on impact and billions in its fallout, she told her own brother nothing and waited to either be saved by her friends, or die with the rest of humanity instead. Now, thankfully, the attacks from Xana were weak, and mostly only targeted the Warriors. And now, that boy from years ago was in the enemy's clutches. Could she really just let something like this go?
"I have to go. I was there in the beginning and I'll be there for the end. I'll see you and the others soon."
"Okay, Yumi, see you soon." The two hung up and Yumi got to packing.
-( ( • ) )-
The Lyoko Warriors finally had their bags packed, and were just exiting a pair of taxis outside of a train station in Paris, the sky painted in stunning hues of orange, red and purple. William and Alex helped Jeremie with an extra case packed with wires and cables from a Scanner as the group slowly coalesced into a line, looking up tentatively at the simply-lettered Gare de L'est sign.
"We take the night train to Berlin, a 13-hour trip, and head to our next destination. Once we get on, there's no going back. We can't be constantly hacking into secure servers to give us tickets and money, even if it's for the good of the world. Are we all in this?" Jeremie announced, looking down the line at his companions. One by one, each Lyoko Warrior nodded, and once he was satisfied, Jeremie nodded as well, and the group filed into the train station.
-( ( • ) )-
On the train that night, the Warriors were mostly quiet, mostly uncomfortable, and some trying to catch sleep.
"Aelita, you know that if we fail to take the Super Computer, Xana might kill us," Jeremie warned, looking to Aelita in the seat next to him while Sissi slept lightly in the seat in front of them.
"I know, but it's the only chance we have. We have to stop Xana and save Ulrich." Aelita took his hand.
"I know we have to, but can we? We did it before with a lot of help from Franz. But he's on the run and who knows if he'll ever be able to help us again." Jeremie took his glasses off with his free hand and set them on his lap. "I'm getting a headache just thinking about it." He pulled his other hand from Aelita and rubbed his temples.
"I'm sorry, Jeremie."
"No, it's..." Jeremie sighed. "I don't want to lie to you, Aelita. If you hadn't turned the Super Computer back on, life would be so much easier. If you hadn't screwed up, we'd be free from this. But if I hadn't been so stubborn, I would have helped you, and we wouldn't have let Xana free."
"Yes, life would be easier if I hadn't turned the Super Computer on." Aelita slumped in the seat and turned away.
"Aelita, I didn't mean...I wasn't blaming you." Jeremie tried to hold her hand, but she pulled it away. "I'm sorry." Aelita didn't respond. He sighed and looked away.
Across the aisle, Alex and Yumi sat in the row across from Aelita and Jeremie, while William and Odd were across from Sissi.
"What do you think we'll find there?" Odd blurted, with his GamePad out, swiveling in his seat to stare at Yumi and Alex.
Yumi's shoulders twitched, and she jolted up, tearing her earbuds out and harshly glaring at Odd as she furiously whispered a response. "Damn it, Odd, keep it down! I was almost asleep."
"Okay, but what do you think will be there?"
"I don't know. A lab, Super Computer, stuff." Yumi looked out the window, her glare still painted across her features.
"Guards," Alex added as he took an earbud out.
"Scientists possessed by Xana. Are we going to be able to beat them?" William looked over at Yumi, then looked away.
"Al and I might. But then again, I still can't get past level thirteen on this." Odd whined, continuing to play his game.
"Don't be a narcissist. Yumi has some serious martial arts skills. She could probably take you or me down any day, upgrades or not. And also, don't call me Al." Alex chided, putting his own earbud back in.
"Uh, does anyone here know German?" William interrupted, looking at Yumi again, then out his window. "I sure don't."
"Ja, tue ich. Ich habe gelernt, ein wenig Deutsch." Odd answered, at which all three of the other passengers turned and stared at him. "Was?"
"You can speak German?" William asked, incredulous.
"Ja, wenig." Odd replied. Yumi, Alex, and William all looked among one another, then looked back at Odd.
"What?" William finally asked.
"Yes, not much. Why is that so amazing? We knew we were going to Germany for a few weeks now. I got a book on it from the library. The only book I've ever gotten that wasn't a comic." Odd stated, moving his hands around as though it were the plainest thing ever. The other three glanced at each other again.
"Um, yeah, good idea," Alex said, rubbing his neck as he looked straight forward.
"Really good," Yumi added, her cheeks flushing an embarrassed red as she returned her earbuds to her ears.
-( ( • ) )-
In the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the Warriors were making their way out of the large station and out into the open.
"Oooh!" Sissi suddenly cried. "They have Starbucks here? In the train station?"
"Yes, Sissi, they have Starbucks in the train station," Jeremie answered, suspiciously eying the lines in the coffee shop and hoping Sissi didn't decide to impose a detour.
"I love Starbucks!" Odd burst, causing Jeremie to turn to him with shock. Before he could protest, the Warriors were taking a place in line, and he sighed, joining them.
"Uhh, würde jemand von euch Französisch sprechen?" Odd asked tentatively once he was at the front of the line.
"Oui." answered the barista, a short, young woman with bright red lipstick and matching red hair. "What would you like?"
"Let me have an extra large vanilla frappuccino, please," Odd said with a smile. The barista rolled her eyes, clearly not wanting to bother to ask any more questions or correct his improper terminology. She smiled as Alex came to the front of the line. "Ah, ein nettes, kompetentes Deutsch! Was möchtest du von mir, Liebling?"
"Hey!" Odd interjected with a frown. "He's not even German."
"Uh, what?" Alex answered. "I actually am part German, Odd. Don't assume just because I don't speak much of the language..."
"I knew it, with blonde hair and blue eyes and a chiseled jaw like that!" the barista laughed, making a point to show her white teeth. "Why don't you let me give you my number, and I can be your tour guide when I get off in an hour?"
"You can be my tour guide!" Odd said with a smile. She glared at him, uninterested, and looked back to Alex.
"Whatcha say, big boy?"
"Uh, no offense, but I'm really not interested. You aren't exactly my...type."
The barista pouted. "What, you're into girls, aren't you?"
Alex blushed. "Obviously. But uh, please back off. I just want a venti vanilla bean frappuccino, white mocha sauce, blended java chips, whipped cream and mocha drizzle."
"You sure? A nice order like that proves to me you've got a good head too..." the barista trailed off.
"And I'll have a decaf grande non-fat vanilla bean and raspberry frappuccino with extra mocha syrup, extra mocha chips, double blended, topped with extra whipped cream, three scoops protein, three scoops berries, salted caramel topping, and a caramel drizzle." Sissi piped up, then leaning over the counter with a slightly threatening tone, "And don't screw me on the drizzle, or I will have it all remade."
"Sure." the barista answered, unimpressed. She tried to look past Sissi at Alex, but he was already seated with Odd.
"You okay, man?" Odd asked Alex, who was staring at the floor. "Why didn't you agree? We need a tour guide."
"I'm fine, and I doubt she'd actually be showing us much of anything worth seeing." Alex quipped. "No, the thing she said got to me."
"What, the into girls thing? Well, aren't you?"
"Yes, jeez, but my best friend isn't and I haven't talked to him in a while. I feel bad."
"Talk to him when we get there, then."
"...Maybe."
-( ( • ) )-
The Lyoko Warriors made their way out of the imposingly impressive Berlin Hauptbahnhof, down the steps with their various luggage and finally across the street to wait by the railing by the Spree River.
"We're staying at the Super Computer when we find it, remember." Jeremie sat down cross-legged and pulled his laptop out of his duffel bag. "I have the coordinates for the Super Computer but I'm not sure where it is on street level." He looked up the coordinates, then entered them into a world map.
"Shouldn't you have done this on the train?" William asked. Jeremie glared up at him.
"I had more important things to handle."
"Yes, don't you know that petty arguments outweigh necessity?" Aelita said in a saccharine tone, rolling her eyes as she spoke. "It's pretty clearly this address." She pointed at one of three addresses on a sidebar, Lagerhaus 15, which was the only one highlighted in yellow.
"Einstein, I think that says Lagerhaus Vierzehn. No, Lagerhaus Funfzehn. How we get there, though, I have no idea." Odd said, trying to read the words.
"Ask someone." Aelita looked back at the many people entering and exiting the train station.
"If we can find someone who speaks Français that's actually interested in helping us," Alex added warily.
"I'll do it." Odd took the pen from Jeremie's pocket, scribbling the address onto his hand, then looked around and spotted a girl in a black jacket with a purple hood pulled over her head waiting near a bus stop. He walked over to her and tapped her shoulder.
"Hallo, Ich versuche eine adresse zu finden. Sprechen sie Franzosisch?" She bristled, but nodded, turning slowly.
"Oui."
"Okay, we're looking for Lagerhaus Funfzehn. Do you know where that is?"
"Warehouse fifteen? That's not specific."
"Uhh, I have an address here." Odd thrust his hand out, and the girl peered from underneath her bangs and hood to read the horrendous writing.
"Ah, believe it or not, I'm headed there too. That address seems to be near the Spreepark in Plänterwald, about half a kilo behind the Waldschule. Why are you headed there?"
"Um, an international scavenger hunting game." Odd turned to the others and motioned to them as the girl pulled her hood down, shaking her hair, which was tied in a cinnamon bun with two hair sticks sticking out. "Those are my friends. From Canada, Japan, Scotland, America, England and France, and then I'm from Italy..."
"Oh, I'm fairly well acquainted with them." said the girl. "Aelita, Yumi, William, Sissi, Alex and Jeremie, and you're Odd."
"How did you...?" Odd turned back to the girl, scrunching up his face as he regarded her, trying to recognize her. "Stella?"
"Close. Starla." She frowned, her stunning green eyes fixated on him defiantly. "I find it awfully convenient that you're over here asking me for directions now, especially to a place so close to my Papa's house. Do you think I wouldn't notice that first, you took the only major night train from Paris to Berlin right after school let out, then followed me to Starbucks? Maybe if you knew how to use an inside voice! Don't tell me you followed me here, because if you're here to apologize for cheating on me, with your cousin, might I add, who is standing right over there, you could have just texted or called me. It could be considered sweet that you came all the way over here and found me but it's gonna take more than stalking me with your entire group of friends to win me back, so don't you dare think-"
"I swear I didn't come to find you!"
"Yeah, that's why you just tapped me on my shoulder and asked me to take you down to an abandoned warehouse, where you could do God knows what to me. I cannot believe you have the nerve, the audacity to try to get me alone with you then lie to me when I'm too smart to fall for it! I am no fool, Della Robbia!" Starla accused, then she produced a small can from her hoodie's pocket and began spraying Odd down with it.
-( ( • ) )-
Back with the others, Alex and Yumi munched on a bag of chips they were sharing and watched Odd and Starla while the others chatted.
"Is that Starla Ramisso?" Alex asked.
"Yep," Yumi replied. After a pause taken to eat a few chips, Alex spoke again.
"Is she spraying him with mace?"
"Yep."
Alex took another handful. "Should we help him?"
"Nope."
-( ( • ) )-
After a short argument and assault with pepper spray, the Warriors were on a bus ride, and once the ride ended and Starla waved while she walked down the sidewalk, Odd looked at the piece of paper with which Starla had given him directions, as well as written her number at the bottom. "She's a cutie, eh, William?"
"Uh, yeah, I guess. I wasn't really paying attention to her." William answered.
"That's right, huh? You have the same problem as me." Odd looked over at Yumi who was chatting it up with Sissi and Alex, then at Aelita, who was holding Jeremie's hand. "But it's a problem we'll have to live with. At least those two made up, finally."
"Um, if you're done joking around we need to head out," William said a bit louder to get the others' attention. "We don't know what Xana will have guarding this place and we don't have our powers." He looked back at Yumi, who turned away.
"I guess I'm ready." Odd did a couple of mock punches. "Should just be possessed scientists."
"Just?" Jeremie blurted. "Um, we don't have powers. And some of us aren't upgraded or know how to fight."
"Leave it to Alex and me to save the day." Odd proclaimed as he posed heroically.
"Dork." Yumi quipped with a roll of her eyes.
"Are we near the place?" Sissi interrupted impatiently.
"I think so." Odd looked around. "She said we'd have to use a map at this point."
The strained but mildly jovial mood quickly soured as Jeremie took more and more time to find a usable map. "So, nothing I can find actually has much of anything listed. What we're looking for is..."
"What is it?" Aelita asked.
"We have to find a way to get into the cordoned area behind the Spreepark, where an old military base was located."
"Cordoned?" Sissi asked.
"Sealed off, barred from entry. This page says that the majority of the area was demolished, with the remainder allowed to decay back into the woods. Due to the many ammunition residues in the soil, access to parts of the site is restricted, as the cordoned areas can be life-threatening." Jeremie read slowly, then looked up, glancing between the Warriors. "We have no Return to the Past if someone gets hurt. We're as mortal as anyone else."
"Why in the world would this be behind a school and amusement park?"
"Well, frankly, a lot of places have amusement parks near their depot districts. And it's still a fairly long walk away..."
"Do we at least have a reliable path to get there? Without being caught, preferably?" Alex questioned.
"We have a Google Earth map, bird's eye view of nothing but trees, that we can try to guess where we are in relation to the warehouse off of," Jeremie said simply.
"Wonderful."
"We better start walking, Warriors." Jeremie trailed off.
-( ( • ) )-
As the group made their way through the woods, with Jeremie staring down at his phone, there was no shortage of wildlife to be found, from ants to deer. The Warriors were so on edge that even Sissi had fallen into a mud puddle when a large steer suddenly took off from nearby, snapping fallen branches and rustling the flora. Aelita clung to Jeremie, certain she'd heard a wolf howl. Finally, the warehouse the Warriors were desperately searching for came into view.
"We have to be really careful. Aelita, Jeremie, stay back." Odd murmured.
"What about William and Sissi?" Aelita asked.
"They know some Pencak Silat, remember? They might not be as good as Ulrich and I were, but we will need them. We don't know how many guards are there." Yumi eyed the two large bay doors of the warehouse.
"And we don't have our powers. This isn't a Translation." Alex warned.
"Um, can we grab weapons?" William gulped as he looked around. "Like this metal bar." He pulled one out of a small drainage ditch.
"We can't kill these guys, we have to be careful." Odd reminded as he took hold of a smaller piece of metal. "Einstein, what if Xana doesn't give up? Or there are a hundred robots in there? I don't think we can handle that."
"There is a Super Computer in Australia. Although I don't know if we can get there from any road. Aelita's got this pretty hard for us." Jeremie remarked.
"Then this is it." Yumi picked up a 2x4.
"If we fail or Xana doesn't give it up we are screwed." Sissi quavered, taking a smaller metal pole than the one William had. "Xana will take over the world!"
"And it will be my fault, right, Jeremie?" Aelita spat, glaring at Jeremie.
"No, I never said that, Aelita!" Jeremie agonized, but she simply turned away. "We need to do this. I don't know how long it will take me to make a Scanner if I can. Even with the parts from another Scanner and Franz's plans, I don't know if we can build another one." He set the bag filled with Scanner cables down.
"Then we'll just have to make this count," Alex growled, picking up a nearby crowbar.
"Princess, Einstein, grab a weapon. If we need to retreat, you might have to defend yourselves." Odd warned as he, Yumi, Alex, Sissi, and William all inched toward the first large, rusted bay door. "I would normally say ladies first, but in this case, I'll go first." Odd bounced to the door, grabbed the handle, and flung it open.
"Oh my god!" Sissi wailed, diving to the ground behind the wall as at least a dozen robots exited the building, firing lasers.
"Aelita, Jeremie, hide!" Alex leaped forward and smashed a robot in the head with the crowbar he had picked up.
"Watch out!" William pushed Yumi out of the way. He was hit with several lasers and fell to the ground in pain.
"What do we do?!" Jeremie ducked behind an old crumbled chunk of a wall, where Sissi was laying on the ground with her hands over her head. "Aelita, get down!"
"I have to help them!" Aelita exclaimed as she sprinted forward with a piece of metal, while Jeremie stayed cowering behind the wall.
"Gah!" Yumi was hit by a laser squarely in her navel, but she pressed forward. She slammed a robot in the head with the 2x4, but it broke against the metal of the robot. "Without my powers this is impossible!"
"No, it isn't, Yumi," William shouted. Yumi turned just in time to catch the metal bar William had been carrying. "Smash them up." William encouraged as he winced in pain. Not only were the wounds from the lasers hurting him, but he was still suffering from the wounds from the Scanner accident.
"I can do this," Yumi assured herself as she skewered the chest of the robot, ripping the circuitry inside apart.
"Come on, Xana, that's the best you got?" Odd smashed a robot's head in. "You've only hit me twice!" He dodged a laser and smashed another robot's head in. "Are you the last one?" Odd dropped the piece of metal as the last robot was slain by Aelita. "Great job, Princess."
"I had to help." Aelita dropped the metal bar. "Ow." She rubbed her arm where she had been hit.
"I told you not to go out there." Jeremie knocked some dirt from his shirt as he and Sissi stood.
"I had to help our friends." Aelita stepped over a smashed robot. "William, are you okay?" She kneeled down next to him.
"No. I'm bleeding. I think I tore something." William grimaced in pain as Aelita helped him off the ground. "Thanks."
"Well, when I figure out the Scanner we can heal you." Jeremie offered.
"He might be healed normally by then." Alex scoffed, pocketing the hammer. "And there might be more guards."
"William, Einstein, stay here. Lovely ladies, and Alex, if you would come with me." Odd mewled and bowed before he walked in through the door.
-( ( • ) )-
In the warehouse itself, everything was eerily quiet. A few mice and spiders scattered, but the cobwebs and critters were helpless to avoid the impending doom of a merciless combat boot as Alex confidently led the group.
"Nothing else in here?" Yumi inquired as she opened a nearby door and found nothing more than a supply closet.
"Is Jeremie sure a Super Computer is in here?" Sissi whispered, shivering.
"We were attacked by Xana's robots. They had to be guarding something." Aelita replied over her shoulder as she climbed a metal staircase to a catwalk above. She walked across the catwalk and at the end, she opened a hatch to find a long sterile gray hallway with a few more steel hatches along it, and a single metal door at the end. Excitedly, Aelita ran in and ignored the other hatches as she sprinted to the door.
"I found it!" she exclaimed joyously as she flung it open, revealing a set of steps that led down into a tall room at ground level with all sorts of machinery about. There was a towering silo-like structure of about 18 meters with tubes running about it, and a single golden cylinder atop it. A staircase to Aelita's left ran about 20 feet up, then another of the same length ran perpendicular to it, and a final staircase opposite to that would bring whoever took them to the cylinder. Beyond the first staircase Aelita saw, a room about 165 square feet in size and two meters tall housed several computer screens and one keyboard in front of a chair not at all unlike the chair in front of the interface in France. The niche seemed to cut partially into the silo-like structure, with cables and wires running from the screens and keyboards into the wall.
"I found it!" Aelita cried once more. She could hear the footsteps of Alex, Yumi, Odd and Sissi up to and across the catwalk, into the hallway, and finally, they were in the room with her.
"And what's that?" Odd asked as he sprinted up the stairs and to the cylinder atop them all. "Is this what I think it is?" he called down, leaning against the railing.
Aelita followed and stepped around the tube to look at it. "The cables must lead to the Super Computer, which is surely right below our feet. It must be at least three times as wide and four times as tall as the one in France, maybe because it's more primitive than my father's original. This room is a little bigger than the one in France too. I'm not positive yet, but I think this is a Scanner." She came back around again and stepped inside. Aelita tapped the Scanner's floor with her foot. "There should be a bitter electromagnet under here." She then raised her hands to reach the top. "And up there is a Hopperian CPU, a design created by my father."
"A Hopperian CPU?" Alex asked as he came up the final set of stairs with Sissi and Yumi, watching Aelita look over the Scanner.
"Yes! And this," she began as she stepped outside of the tube and pointed to the wires that grounded it to the Super Computer, "is a set of data feed cables. And those thicker cables are the power conduits." She placed her hand on the Scanner's exterior. "This should be an outer titanium skin over exertanium, then an inter-wall cavity full of power wires, data lines, that sort of thing, and then a nanotube layer of exertanium hexagons that are one billionth of an inch each."
"What's exertanium?" inquired Alex. "I've never heard of that before."
"A room-temperature superconductor. Aside from the obvious power efficiency it gives the Supercomputer, it also allows it to access zero-point space through a vacuum. The nanotubes composed of exertanium open rifts to ZPS when energized. These rifts can then be used to convert energy to matter or vice versa."
"Aelita!" the other four exclaimed.
"Yes?" Aelita asked politely as she turned around.
"We don't need to know how the Scanner works. We just need to know why it's here." Yumi said, looking the Scanner over.
"I don't know. But I know Xana put it here." Aelita murmured sheepishly.
"I don't know either." Odd declared as he trotted over to a keyboard near a chair like the old one in the Factory, waiting at the other side of the room. "But I bet we can find out." He sat in the chair. "Um, Franz did things but not enough for me to understand this." He then got back up.
"You guys go and help William. I'll start going through this." Aelita ordered as she sat down and the other four left.
-( ( • ) )-
After helping William in, Jeremie checked the Scanner and Super Computer out. "Why would Xana have a Scanner built?"
"This is where he used to keep William, and it might be where Ulrich stayed too. He was also planning on an army." Aelita answered, looking through the Super Computer. "But then he destroyed our Super Computer. He didn't need to create an army on Lyoko to stop us."
"But then that means Xana thinks he's already won," Odd noted as he sat down on the floor, next to William.
"Hasn't he?" William lamented as he pressed his shirt against his wound to keep it from bleeding more. "Can we get our clothes cleaned? This shirt is already ruined."
"I could go out and ask. I just don't know the words for laundry, or clean clothes." Odd got up and walked to his bag, getting a book out. "Let's see, wascherei, sauber, and kleidung."
"Like you're going to remember." Sissi jabbed.
"Wascherei, sauber, kleidung." Odd repeated. "Wascherei, sauber, kleidung. Wascherei, sauber, kleidung. Wascherei, sauber, kleidung. Wo kennen wir unsere wascherei tun, um unsere kleidung zu saubern?"
"You just learned how to ask to do laundry after reading the words once?" Alex quipped with disbelief, but Odd simply nodded.
"Not that hard." he mused.
"Lucky those upgrades were given to you by Franz," Jeremie commented.
"It was always this easy. Why do you think I did so well in Italian?" Odd cracked. Aelita shrugged as Jeremie plugged his laptop into the Super Computer and began transferring programs over.
-( ( • ) )-
An hour later, Jeremie's transfer was complete. "Now I just need to recalibrate all of the programs for this system. And I need to recalculate the Scanner to match our system, and..." He continued to ramble on, but Sissi looked up from where she had dozed off against the staircase.
"Jeremie, could you please?" she asked tiredly.
"Please what?" Jeremie replied innocently.
"Please stop with the tech talk," Sissi replied, trying to keep her voice cool.
"Well, Aelita won't know what to do if I don't tell her," he responded, causing Aelita to glare at him. Then Alex woke up from his place on the steps into the room.
"You guys sure are talking a lot. Means you're done, right?" he asked.
"Not even close." Aelita sneered, still glowering at Jeremie. "All we've finished is moving everything over from Jeremie's laptop."
"Oh, you did? Can I borrow it?" Alex sat up, suddenly wide awake. Jeremie opened his mouth to protest, but then stopped. This was unusual, to be sure. Alex didn't usually talk to anyone but Yumi, Odd or Aelita, most of the time. To be asking such a favor of Jeremie was surprising, but not totally unreasonable. They were working together against Xana.
"Well, as long as you don't pull an Odd and download hundreds of junk programs and games, I don't see why not..." Jeremie conceded. "Why do you need it?"
"I have someone I need to talk to. Your laptop can make video calls, right?"
"It can. Just be sure to plug it in so it doesn't die, and don't make too much noise so you don't disturb the others. And don't tell whoever you're calling where we are."
"Sure thing. I'll take it into one of the side rooms in the hall that took us here."
-( ( • ) )-
Yumi was wandering through the front of the warehouse, near the stairs to the catwalk, when William found her. "Big place, huh?" he said, trying to strike a conversation. She turned around.
"Yeah. And empty. We don't have a place to sleep. No place to make food. No shower room or anything." Yumi murmured.
"Yeah, anything." William agreed. "This is going to be a lot harder than I thought it would."
"Did you think this would be easy?"
"Well, no. But I had some ideas while lying in the hospital bed. None of them were like this." William noticed a door behind the staircase and opened it. "And...empty."
"They all are, except the one Alex is in. It looks like Xana abandoned this place."
"Jeremie said that since our Super Computer was destroyed Xana didn't need this place anymore. And he's right." William closed the door.
-( ( • ) )-
Aelita and Jeremie still sat at the control panel working on the programs, and Odd was eating a bag of chips, watching. "So that's it? We just transfer programs over and recalibrate them?" he asked between munches.
"No, Odd. We have no dock for the Skid so we'll need to build one. To do that we will have to find the codes and programs to do that. This is a different Super Computer, a different Lyoko, so there are different matrixes and binaries to deal with." Jeremie rubbed his temples. "And we have to recalibrate the transfer programs, vehicle programs, and everything else."
"Oh. Are we still going to build a Scanner? So we could have two?" Odd asked, slightly deflated.
"I just have parts and plans. I don't actually know how to build one. If you want to try and figure it out, go ahead, but you won't have my help. Maybe Aelita will." Aelita's neck nearly snapped as she turned from the screen to Jeremie at mach speed.
"Don't want me helping you, huh? Am I just going to mess things up again? Fine." Aelita pushed away and climbed the steps out of the room.
"What did you do to her, Einstein?" Odd asked, shocked.
"Nothing. She's just in a mood." Jeremie said dismissively, turning back to the screen.
"I think you should go after her. If she's mad at you, then you need to talk." Odd suggested, but Jeremie didn't respond. "Fine. I'll go talk to her."
-( ( • ) )-
Alex sighed a heavy sigh as he pulled off his already unbuttoned green shirt and threw it in a heap to the side of the empty room he had taken residence in, leaving him in cargo pants and a gray T-shirt. Jeremie's laptop was plugged into an old outlet, making it, the shirt and Alex himself the only objects in the room. He sighed again and wiped some sweat from his brow with the shirt.
"God, why is this so nerve-wracking?" he asked nobody in particular as he finally sat cross-legged in front of the laptop and tapped a few keys, typing JOswald1992 and sending a video call request.
In a small white bedroom with beige carpet, a simple wooden bed with a white mattress and beige comforter and beige pillows, a wooden nightstand on either side of the bed with a white lamp on the leftmost one, a wooden dresser with some stuffed animals atop it and a full-length mirror beside it, a black laptop that had been sitting on the bed began to beep. Its owner, a tall boy with ash blonde hair and gray-blue eyes in a black leather jacket with fleece lining, a dark blue T-shirt with matching jeans and black high-top shoes, entered the room, sat on the bed and checked the laptop. He furrowed his eyebrows, for he didn't recognize the username calling; JBelpois.09.10.04 was unfamiliar to him. Nonetheless, he accepted the video call.
"Hey, Jaden." Alex's voice came through the laptop.
"Alex...?" The boy's expression quickly flashed with surprise. He clasped his hands in front of his chin and leaned on them, obviously disturbed. "Why are you calling me?"
"It's been a while," Alex replied. "I see that diet you tried worked well."
"Yeah, thanks." Jaden mused, taking his left hand away. "You told me not to talk to you anymore..."
"That's right," Alex said, wiping his forehead again, looking away. "I'm calling to tell you I miss the way things used to be."
"I know you do. You told me that a year ago. But you told me to stop hanging around you." Jaden's eyes narrowed, his pale face starting to go a bit red. "I had to make new friends because I didn't want to upset you. But then you stopped hanging around our group anyway, to hang out in that Subdigitals girl's group. Why?"
"There are very good reasons for that." Alex turned back to the screen, making eye contact.
"May I hear them?" Jaden raised his eyebrows.
"I'm afraid not." Alex bit his lip.
"Why am I not surprised? It's always an excuse I'm not even allowed to know. I never could know." Jaden looked away. "Why did you even call?"
"This time there is literally no way I could possibly tell you, the reasons are that important. I wish I could tell you and maybe someday I can but until then..." Alex trailed off, holding his head in his hand.
"Until then, what? I'm supposed to just deal with you trying to fix things without actually trying to fix them?"
"I swear I've been trying, Jaden, I really have," Alex promised.
"It took you a year to talk to me." Jaden spat. "Where's the effort in any of this?"
-( ( • ) )-
Yumi and William walked out of the building. "I can't believe we did it." Yumi laughed as she kicked a robot.
"You guys did it. I wasn't much good, was I?" William held his wound, checking that it had stopped bleeding.
"You did great. I probably would have been hurt worse than you if you hadn't saved me." She rubbed her stomach where she had been hit.
"I just threw myself at you. You're lucky I didn't hurt you with that wild tackle." William laughed.
-( ( • ) )-
Odd found Aelita in an empty room, not unlike the one Alex was in, alone. "Princess, what happened?" He put a hand on her shoulder and she turned around.
"Nothing, Odd." she snapped.
"You wouldn't be mad over nothing. Please tell me what happened. Einstein is too busy with the Super Computer to see he needs to talk to you, so I will."
"How does that sound familiar?" Aelita sat down on the floor with her back against the wall.
"He's a genius when it comes to math, science, and computers." Odd sat down next to her. "But when it comes to friendships, and more, he's an idiot." Odd smiled but Aelita didn't laugh. He reached over and grabbed her hand. "What happened?"
"He blamed everything on me. Said this was all because I messed up. If it wasn't for me," Aelita felt tears fill her eyes, "we wouldn't have to do this if I hadn't messed up." She began to cry.
"Princess, don't cry." Odd hugged Aelita. "I'm sure he didn't really say that. It might have sounded like that, but there's no way he would say that."
"He did! When we were on the train, that's exactly what he said." Aelita hugged Odd and cried more.
Odd reflected on his dilemma. He had strong feelings for Aelita, but she was with Jeremie. But... That might not be the case if he did something. But if he did, that he would be hurting Jeremie, who was his friend. If he said the right thing or the wrong thing, it could change a lot. "Princess, Aelita..." Odd sighed and pulled away from Aelita.
"What?" Aelita looked up at Odd as she cried.
"Einstein is an idiot, we know that. Punch him in the arm and call him an idiot. But know that he loves you. He might not always say or show it, but he does. Do you think your parents always said and did the right thing? Don't you think Franz became obsessed with the Super Computer? Even when he had a wonderful wife and a smart, beautiful daughter waiting for him at home?" Odd said, seeing a smile form on Aelita's face.
"I, I don't know. I got my memories back but a lot of them come to me in dreams so I don't know if they are dreams or memories."
"Jeremie does all of this for you." Odd hugged Aelita lightly. "He has been willing to face his fears and even gone to Lyoko for you. He has stayed up late into the night, skipped school, lunch, and dinner. All for you."
"So have you, and that means a lot." Aelita laughed a little. "Thank you, Odd. I know Jeremie's stressed and it is my fault, but-"
"No, it's not your fault. This is Xana's fault. If he could just relax and enjoy life, we wouldn't be here."
-( ( • ) )-
"I thought you needed your space and I needed mine. It stopped the fighting, us not talking. It was good to take a break." Alex insisted, still talking to Jaden.
"You know me better than anyone else ever has." Jaden hissed, trying to seem angry but obviously more hurt than anything else.
"I can't do that, Jaden." Alex shook his head regretfully.
"Why not?" Jaden demanded.
"I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to give you the wrong idea."
"You promised me our friendship wouldn't change because of my feelings for you but then every time any guy barely bumps into you or looks at you for more than half a second you get uncomfortable and think they're trying to hit on you. Apparently being so paranoid is so important you'd hurt your best friend just in case."
"It's because I can't love you, Jaden."
"I don't expect you to love me like that. But you should still love me like you did, as a best friend. You just need to stop with the damn lies!"
"I swear I have never lied to you-"
"Yeah, you kind of have. A promise broken is a lie. What else can it be if you say you'll do one thing then don't do it? Or when you promise to keep a secret then blurt it to the first person that asks?"
"But I have never purposefully tried to deceive you-"
"I can't know that. I don't understand why you even bothered to call. If you want to make up then say so." His expression softened, but Jaden looked toward his window, and with the change of view Alex noticed tears forming in his friend's eyes. "I have to go anyway. It's time to start dinner."
"Alright. I'll call you tomorrow." Alex promised, his voice almost sounding a bit weak.
"I'll believe that when it happens." With that, Alex watched Jaden reach forward and end the call. He buried his face in his hands and stifled a sob. He heard a knock at the door and turned.
"Yeah?"
"It's Sissi. Can I come in?"
"I guess." Alex turned away as the hatch opened and Sissi walked over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"I was walking by and I heard something that sounded like crying. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"Well, I'll be fine later."
"What happened?"
"I talked to my best friend."
"Oh, you miss him, huh? Yeah, I know how you feel. I miss my dad, and Herve and Nicholas."
"Well, that, and the fact we haven't talked in a year because he told me was gay and I got paranoid, pushed him away and stopped talking to him as much, he was annoyed with me for a long time because of it, I got sick of it and I didn't get why he was mad, and eventually I told him to stop coming around until he'd grow up."
"Sounds like you messed up pretty badly," Sissi said as she sat down next to Alex. She held her arms out, and Alex stared at her before awkwardly accepting her hug.
"I know."
"Well, take it from me. He won't be mad forever. The others used to hate me. They'd always make fun of me and insult me. Sometimes for no reason. Sometimes I would do mean things. I would do nice things sometimes too, and they'd appreciate it, but the next minute Odd or Yumi would be back to making cracks at me. I still think sometimes they were being too harsh. But I deserved some of it too. And now I'm a member of the group just like I always wanted. But I still don't really have any friends here. I would go shopping with Aelita and Yumi sometimes. But I've never ever had a real heart to heart conversation with any of them, except one time with William." Sissi explained, pulling away to look Alex in the eyes.
"Yeah, I haven't either. I talk to Yumi sometimes. She knows what happened with Jaden. And William and I have played basketball together before. Sometimes I talk with Aelita. But I'm not close to any of them. And none of them were a best friend who also happened to confess that they're in love with you."
"No, I was that friend. Well, kind of. I wasn't exactly Ulrich's best friend. And he doesn't like me like that. Just like you don't like your best friend like that. But you can still be his friend."
"I can never look at him the same way again. Every time we hug, or every time he smiles at something I said, I know there's some emotions there that I'm not comfortable with."
"Yeah, I can understand that. But at the same time you should be honored he trusted you enough to come to you with it. After all, wouldn't it be horrifying if you never knew those feelings were there? That would make him a total creep, wouldn't it? And it can't have been easy. He probably stressed for a while about how you might react. No offense, Alex, but your reaction is probably exactly what he was afraid of. He's probably mad at himself too, for knowing you would react how you did but telling you anyway. Would you trust him with anything?"
"Probably."
"Are you comfortable around him? Don't worry about looking good, or being clean or embarrassing yourself? You just act like yourself?"
"Again, used to. But I don't feel comfortable with that now, and I think that's fair."
"Then that's your choice. But just remember that his feelings can't be helped, can't be changed, and won't go away. I've liked Ulrich for almost ten years. It's just not changing. But you can still be friends like you used to be."
"I think you're right about that much."
-( ( • ) )-
Jeremie was working on the transfer programs when a black mist appeared from a screen behind him and attacked him.
"Help!" He struggled to fight it off, but it attacked again and tried to suffocate him. Jeremie fell out of the chair and started to run toward the steps as the black mist attempted to suffocate him again.
Odd and Aelita were walking back to the Control Room when they saw Jeremie being attacked by the black mist.
"Jeremie!" Aelita cried. They both ran over to him and tried to fight the black mist by waving their hands through it as if to disperse it.
"Aelita, you help Jeremie. I'll find the others." Odd turned and ran as Aelita continued trying to fight the black mist off.
Odd sprinted through the building, screaming Yumi's, Alex's, Sissi's and William's names, then stopped. "Wait, what am I thinking?" He pulled his cell phone out and called Yumi. "Yumi, Xana's attacking."
"What? Now? What do we do?"
"I don't know, if the transfer program isn't set up or recalibrated we're in trouble. Just get to the Scanners, er, Scanner. And find the others." Odd and Yumi hung up, and the former ran back to Aelita and Jeremie.
-( ( • ) )-
Jeremie was lying on the floor, taking deep breaths, when Odd burst into the room.
"What happened?" he demanded.
"It went away but I'm sure there is still an activated Tower. We need to go, now." Jeremie panted.
"Is it ready, though? What happens if we try to send someone and something happens?" Odd asked.
Aelita shrugged. "I'll go first."
"No, I will." William asserted as he and Yumi came through the door and down the steps. "Odd, you're upgraded. You're needed to fight Xana and Ulrich." He looked over at Yumi to see her reaction. "I'll go first."
"Okay, but, well, there's only one Sector. It's a bit like the Forest Sector from what I could tell. But it's larger than a normal Sector. Its filename is Xanadu, so I guess you could call it that. Without the Super Scan reset to this Super Computer, you're going to have to hunt the Tower down, on foot."
"We can do it, Einstein, just get us there." Odd promised as the trio began to ascend the tall staircase to the lone Scanner. Jeremie stepped over to the keyboard as William stepped into the Scanner.
"Yumi, if something happens, um, I lo-" William was cut off by the Scanner doors closing and the process initializing.
"Transfer William, Scanner William, Virtualization." Jeremie crossed his fingers, hoping William would be okay.
"Well?" Aelita looked at the screen expectantly.
"I don't know. William, are you there?" Jeremie called into the headset as Alex and Sissi stepped into the Control Room.
To be continued...