A|N: This is for the story challenge at XANA's Lair. All spelling and grammar errors are mine and are most likely intentional.
Code Lyoko belongs to MoonScoop, Antefilms, uh... oh, I don't know. It sure isn't me, anyway.
Permission to use Anya Belhop (here dubbed Anya Belpois) was given prior to the writing of this story by Kat, otherwise known as Son-Neko on DeviantArt. Go look her up and admire her wonderful Code Lyoko comics.
I do not own any of the Disney princesses that have been mentioned in any part of this story. Disney owns them.
July - Faerie Tale
It had been fifteen years since the battle had been won, and life had returned to normal. Well, almost normal, since by that point to them "normal" was fighting a demonic artificial intelligence once or twice a day. The youngsters had devoted their newfound time and energy to school and friendships, and later, more serious relationships. Now they were grown up and had moved on in life. They still occasionally called and chatted about the times when they had fought against said demonic artificial intelligence, and met at class reunions at the Academy they had once attended.
But none of them had advanced as far as Mr. and Mrs. Einstein, who now owned a small house in the outskirts of Paris. He was a science teacher at the Academy, while going to university part-time to earn his doctorate in Physics. She was a computer technician who preferred to work from home, especially in the past three-and-a-half years, but often did day runs to the Academy to fix equipment and write programs for their computers.
Perhaps their most important achievement, however, was the little girl they had borne together, with grey-blue eyes and chin-length pink hair. Her name was Anya, and already it had been evident that she took on after her mother more, though the vision problem definitely came from her father.
That evening, Mr. and Mrs. Belpois were stuck at the school in a snowstorm, and little Anya was under the care of one blond man, the lover of purple, Odd Della Robbia. They were sitting in front of the window in her bedroom watching the snow and the wind flurry, sipping freshly-made hot chocolate. Odd would point out random patterns in the fat snowflakes as the swirled by, and Anya would giggle.
"Tell me a story, Uncle Odd!"
Odd grinned mischievously. "Have I got the story for you. I once went to a fancy restaurant with your mother, and there's this waiter that comes out, only he couldn't seem to walk straight. 'Can I take your order?' he asked. I said, 'Do you have any frog's legs?' and the waiter says, 'I don't have frog's legs; that's just the way I walk!' Hahahaha!" He let out a laugh.
Anya giggled at him. "You're so silly, Uncle Odd." She nodded, and then nuzzled herself into his arms. "But I wanna hear a REAL story."
"A real story, eh? Well let's see," began the blond-haired man, holding the three-year-old close. "Once upon a time, in a land known to few, there lived a woodland elf-sprite with pink hair. It was a beautiful place, and she was the only one who lived there."
"Pink hair like me?" Anya inquired excitedly.
"Yes, pink hair like yours," he nodded.
"Tell me more!" she insisted.
"She'd been asleep there for ten years when suddenly a demigod from another world found her there. He woke her up, asked her who she was, and asked her about her world. You see, the demigod couldn't cross into her world, and she couldn't cross into his world, but they were able to talk to each other."
"What were der names?" asked the young pinkette.
"The demigod's name was Jérémie, and the elf-sprite's name was Aelita."
Anya, having no concept of the first names of her parents besides "Mommy" and "Daddy", grinned. "Jermie and Aeli? Dat's pretty! Tell me more!"
"But there was a problem," he said, his voice growing slightly darker. "She couldn't remember anything. She didn't know who she was or where she came from. And then there was also this evil spirit name Xana who woke up at the same time the elf girl did."
"Evil spirit named Sanna?" Anya asked with tentative curiosity. "And did de world have a name?"
Odd thought for a moment, and then nodded. "It was called Lyoko."
"Loko? Dat's a funny name," she giggled. "Tell me more!"
"So, there was the evil spirit who wanted to take over the world, but in order to do that he had to stop Jermie, and Sanna thought it'd be easy. You see, the demigod was very smart and powerful, but he wasn't very strong. He couldn't do it by himself, and so he got the help of his three very good friends: a Japanese princess, a samurai, and a purple cat."
Anya's eyes lit up at the mention of the princess and again at the cat.
"You see, those three were able to cross into Loko, though they lived in the same world as Jermie normally. And as Sanna would keep attacking Jermie's world, they would go and help Aeli stop the attacks by getting her to the tower that Sanna would use to attack in their world. They fought lots of monsters, and—"
"Wow," Anya said, unintentionally cutting him off. "Dey were very brave." She nodded.
Odd smiled at the girl. "Yes, they were. They went on many adventures in Loko together, and Jermie was able to keep them safe while they were there."
"But how could he do dat if he wasn't dere?" she asked.
Odd thought for another moment. "Magic," he finally said. He put it away in the back of his mind for answering any questions he couldn't go into more detail about.
"Tell me one of deir aventures!" Anya demanded.
"Well, let's see. There was this time that Jermie tried to go into Aeli's world with the Japanese princess using the magic Jermie normally used to get them to Loko. But she messed up, and Jermie ended up in some kind of an in-between world, and after that she couldn't do anything to help him get out or help the others get in," Odd narrated.
Anya gasped. "What happened?"
"I was just about to get there," said Odd. "So, Aeli was very smart, and she knew how they might be able to get Jermie back. You see, in her world, there were four sectors, and each sector had its own set of towers. Aeli had to go to the biggest tower in each sector to gather magical orbs that would allow Jermie to come back to Loko. But by the time she'd gotten to the third sector, a forest, Sanna had realized what was going on, and started sending monsters to stop her."
"Oh no!" she cried.
"Oh yes. She got past the monsters in the forest, but when she got to the mountain sector, there were more monsters blocking her path, and she couldn't get around them."
"Oh nooooo!" Anya repeated. "Does dat mean dey died?"
"But Aeli was very smart. She figured out that with another orb that Jermie kept in his room, the Japanese princess would be able to send over the samurai to Loko to help her. And so she did, the samurai destroyed all of the monsters, and Aeli made it to the tower. And Jermie was finally able to enter Loko."
"Dat's so cool!" she gushed. "What was it like?"
He remained quiet for a moment. "I'm not really sure," he finally said. "Jermie never told anybody else of what exactly it was like for him there, but he was very happy that he could finally see Aeli face-to-face, even if it was only for a few minutes."
"How romantic!" she swooned, folding her hands beneath her chin and staring up towards the ceiling, her eyes half-closed and a dreamy smile on her face.
"Silly little girl," Odd chuckled, giving her side a little tickle with his fingers. Anya giggled.
"Tell me more!" she insisted.
"Alright," he grinned. "Jermie was working on a way for Aeli to be able to come and live in his world so that they could destroy Loko and get rid of Sanna and live happily ever after."
"Did dey do it?" she asked.
"Yes, but not quite," Odd said. "You see, when Jermie was bringing Aeli into his world, Sanna infected her with a kind of virus to keep her from being able to live with Jermie and destroy Loko at the same time. Now, if they tried to destroy Loko and Sanna, Aeli would die too."
"Oh no!" Anya cried.
"But you see, Jermie knew there must have been a way to get rid of Sanna's virus. So he worked really, really hard to figure it out while she got to live in his world most of the time. In the meantime, they discovered a fifth sector on Loko that had a ton of information about Sanna and Loko. The geisha, the samurai, and cat went there a lot with Aeli so that she could get this information.
"But Sector Five had another evil, one of Sanna's biggest friends: a giant, brain-eating jellyfish." As he said the last few words, Odd held out his hand and placed it on top of Anya's head, wiggling his fingers and making 'rah' noises, as if that was somehow supposed to represent the sound the jellyfish would make when eating brains.
Anya squealed and giggled. "No! Don't eat my brains!"
Odd chuckled and moved his hand back to its previous position, and the young pinkette's giggling slowly subsided. "Tell me more!" she finally pleaded.
"So, Jermie and Aeli also learned about this other demigod named Hopper, who seemed to have some kind of connection with Aeli and Loko," the purple man continued. "And he left behind a diary that Jermie read, and he found out something very, very interesting."
"What was it?" Anya's eyes widened in heightened curiosity.
"Well, Jermie found out that Aeli was not only the guardian of Loko, but that she had the very keys to it, locked away in her memory."
"But if dey were in her mem'ry, den how could she use dem?" she asked.
"They weren't keys like your mommy and daddy use to get into the house or start the car; they were...special keys," he nodded. "Magic keys."
"Ooooh." She nodded. "Tell me more!"
"With this discovery, Jermie also learned that Sanna had never given Aeli a virus, but that he had taken something away from her. And he found it in Sector Five."
"What happened den?"
"What else? Aeli and friends were sent to go get it," he declared. "But the geisha and the cat were sent back to Jermie's world by monsters, and when they got to the thing Sanna took from her, the room started to fall apart, and the samurai was also sent back."
"Oh no! So what happened? Tell me more!" she pleaded.
"Sanna saw this moment, and he sent—"
"Odd! We're home!" Jérémie's call from the kitchen interrupted his statement.
"Tell me what happened!" Anya demanded, scrunching up her fists in determination. "I wanna know!"
Aelita walked into the room. "Odd, why is Anya not in bed?" she asked.
"Next time, princess. Okay?" he whispered to the girl.
"Okay," Anya mumbled resignedly as Aelita picked her up and put her to bed.
"Aelita, I'm going to head home now, if the weather lets me," Odd declared.
"Okay, Odd." Aelita smiled. "Thanks for taking care of Anya for us."
"My pleasure," he smiled back.
"Bye Uncle Odd!" Anya waved, and she settled underneath the covers as Odd and Aelita left the room.
She didn't know what demigods or sectors or infections or viruses were, but it didn't matter. All she knew was that it had been one of the most beautifullest fairy tales she had ever heard, even better than Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin and Little Red Riding Hood, and she couldn't wait to hear the end of it the next time he came.