Re writing Code Lyoko because why the heck not, hope you enjoy it, it's owned by moonscoop

It all started just as everyone thinks it did. A boy needed some parts for a robot.

Kadic Academy wasn't a very good source for parts, but Jeremie Belpois knew a place that should have plenty of parts. It was an abandoned car factory after all. Why'd it get abandoned though? There were all sorts of rumors. Most were ridiculous, like strange lights at night and explosions. Some thought workers went missing. Most people just thought the company moved locations and never got the building demolished. Whatever, the reason didn't really matter. All that mattered to Jeremie was that the place was, in fact, abandoned. Because of that, he could scour the place for supplies.

This wasn't the first time Jeremie had been to this factory. It really was a great place for spare parts. Most of the machines were perfectly in tact, right down to the batteries. The only downside was that everything was kinda outdated. Maybe that's why the owners just left it here. Jeremie cracked his knuckles while stretching his arms out.

"Right, let's see what you have for me today, oh factory of mine." the young genius said, smiling. He'd come to really enjoy his foraging time in this old, empty building. It was a place where he could get away from all the airheads who treated him different just because he genuinely enjoyed math and science. It was a place where he could focus solely on himself and his projects. Most importantly, it was a quiet place to get away.

RING RING

The ONE time he forgot to put his phone on silence. It was a text.

Come find me

Jeremie looked at the message and blinked. The number was unknown. The message itself was cryptic to say the least, and paired with the surroundings, it was kind of creepy.

"Pfft, some dumb prank." Jeremie brushed it off as nothing more than that. He started rummaging through a pile of scrap metal and found a few gears and cogs that he could use. The robot was for the robot competition at school. It was still a month or two away but the robot needed to be able to play basketball. It wasn't by any means an easy task, but nothing Jeremie couldn't handle. Especially since the only other student planning to participate, as far as he knew, was Herb Pichon. Herb liked to think Jeremie was his academic rival, but Jeremie would always beat him at everything, no matter how hard he tried.

While Jeremie searched through another pile of parts, he sensed a movement. Was there someone in the factory with him? Was it the kid who texted him? Jeremie looked up and turned his head from side to side. He didn't want to give away his position, just in case there was someone dangerous there with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something like...a shadow? He turned very slowly until he was face to face with an old freight elevator.

There was...someone...something...there. A shadow, a flickering humanoid shadow. Jeremie couldn't make out any details about the figure, but he was suddenly very afraid. The hairs on his arms stood a bit in response to an electrical field...but he didn't notice it.

With as much stealth as he could muster, Jeremie got up, ran over to a series of staircases, and climbed them up to the entrance. The bridge had a manhole in it, which led to the sewers. This was Jeremie could sneak back to his dorm. Getting caught off campus after curfew was a week's detention.

The figure never moved, and as soon as Jeremie left, it disappeared.

Jeremie was distracted in his classes the next day. He just couldn't stop thinking about that figure, and the text. The text had to be real, he'd saved it in his phone. The figure had to be a trick of the light though. He couldn't go to that factory at night anymore. Either that or he just needed more sleep. He'd always needed more sleep. There probably wasn't a point in his life where Jeremie wasn't tired.

After classes he retired to his dorm. He was ahead on his homework, so he had nothing to do but sit and let his mind wander. He began to entertain ridiculous notions like the paranormal, and he cursed himself for getting scared of something so obviously fake. Finally he resolved to go to the factory again. He would go in that elevator to prove nothing weird was there.

Soon he found himself in front of the elevator. Nothing strange was happening.

"See, you were afraid of nothing." Jeremie said to himself. Though...he was curious as to where this elevator went. Maybe there were better parts down there.

Well, first he needed to see if it even worked. He pressed the big red button and was surprised when he actually heard it grumble to life. The elevator slowly rose from who knew how far below the ground. He stepped inside. It held his weight...that passed the first test. Man, this elevator was filled with so much dust. It tickled Jeremie's nose, and he sneezed.

"This thing hasn't been touched in years." Jeremie mused. Before him was a panel of four buttons, supposedly for four floors, including this one. He decided he would approach this scientifically, searching each floor thouroughly, one at a time. He'd start with the one right below this one.

Jeremie paused with his finger just in front of the button. He felt that faint electrical field once more, like a presence or something...but he soon shook the feeling off and pressed the button. The shed-like door fell with a clang, and the elevator slowly descended with a rumble that betrayed the years that weighed upon that contraption.

After a moment, it came to a stop. The door in front of him was...impressive. There was no other word for it. It was shiny metal tinted green, though that might have just been the light. This door protected something. It was meant to keep people out. In fact, there was a keypad near the door. It needed a passcode.

That might have taken years to figure out.

He touched the keypad and the door whirred to life.

Or a couple of seconds.

Jeremie watched in awe as the doors opened and light streamed in. He saw...some screens, and a...a hologram? Yeah, that was a hologram projector with a kind of world on it or something. Wires hung haphazardly from the ceiling. There was a fancy office chair...and the walls were lined with the same metal as the door, though now he saw that the metal was gold.

This was the LAST thing he was expecting.

"Hello?"

Jeremie flattened himself on the wall instinctively. There was someone else here, a girl by the sound of it. Who was it?

"Um, excuse me? I know you're there. Could you come out, please?"

Jeremie poked his head out of the elevator. Who was it?

"It's about time you showed up. I called for you hours ago."

His eyes focused and he saw who it was, a pink haired girl with elf ears on the computer screen.

Just what sort of rabbit hole had he gone down?

Jeremie approached the computer with caution. Just because the girl on the screen seemed nice enough didn't say anything about the danger he was or wasn't in.

"You called me?" Jeremie raised an eyebrow.

"Your phone." The girl gestured to Jeremie's pocket. Jeremie slid his hand into his pocket to check, but he already knew what she was referring to.

"You mean this message? You sent it?"

"Yes."

"From...inside the computer?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Jeremie asked a bit more bluntly than he probably should have, but the boy was never one to fret over social graces. The question was simple, but it still threw the girl off her balance for a moment. Then she answered.

"Well...because I need help." She looked down like she was...embaressed, ashamed, or perhaps she was just shy.

"What do you need help with? And by the way who are you? And what is this place?" these questions were cool and calculated. He was merely trying to asses the situation.

"My name is Aelita. I'm the guardian of the world inside the computer, Lyoko. There's someone with me, a program named Xana. I have to fight him every day to make sure he can never escape and attack the Earth. For however long I've been living here, I've been able to handle him on my own. But now, he's tired of me meddling in his plans, and so he created creatures to destroy me. I have no way to fight them. I need help."

She'd rehearsed these lines over and over again while she was waiting for this boy to come find her. It was the only way she could prevent herself from sounding like a fool. Jeremie just sat there for a moment, pushing the rim of his glasses up the bridge of his nose, contemplating the situation. Aelita stared at him, waiting for a response.

"How do you expect me to help you?" Jeremie said after a long pause. Aelita's face lit up.

"Go down two floors. You should see a large cylinder with a switch on the front. Switch it off."

"Switch the computer off?" Jeremie asked.

Aelita merely nodded in response.

"And...what would happen to you?"

"I'd go into stasis indefinitely." She said this rather flatly.

"How can you keep so calm about that?!"

"I'm a computer program, and besides it's not like there's any choice. If we don't do anything Xana will get out and attack people."

Jeremie leaned back and closed his eyes.

"What if...what if I found some people to help you? You said you needed help fighting...so we'll get fighters. That way you could keep on living."

"I...I would like that, but it's too risky."

"It's nothing I can't handle. Come on. Let's keep this thing on for a week...if this Xana is still a threat by then, I'll shut it down."

"Promise?"

"Yeah, I swear."

The two smiled at each other. In a weird way, Jeremie felt this could be the beginning of a friendship.

Review if you liked it ^^