Chapter 1
Overcube
"Aélita, can you read me?" Jérémie asked, the sound of keys depressing in quick succession filling his ears. He quickly fiddled with the mike attached to the ear piece on his ear, trying to find where it was most conferrable.
"Ready, Jérémie," Aélita said.
"Okay, Aélita," Jérémie said, running through the line of code he had tested earlier in the day on his laptop. He watched as the mix of letters and numbers, measurements and place holder colors, filled into the window on the main screen. Getting to the end of what he had tested he said," I'm virtualizing vehicle proto-type number one…" He finished typing in the code, quickly scanning his eyes over the window, and hovered his pinky over the return key. Pressing it, he said, "Now."
Jérémie watched as the code on screen ran through, as if being processed from the top and disappearing into Lyoko. Once the last line of code disappeared, a new window appeared, showing an ID card similar to that of his friends. Where there should be a picture of what it belonged to was a question mark, reminding Jérémie he needed to add that.
The sound of wonderful laughter came from the speakers around the screen, getting his attention back to the window with Aélita's yellow triangle. A small smile pulled at his cheeks as he sat, confused as to what was funny. "I don't get it. What is it?"
"Jérémie," Aélita said, her voice full of laughter that made Jérémie's small smile grow. "It's a flying cube!"
"What?" Jérémie's smile faltered, realizing he hadn't programed what shape it would take.
Aélita shifted her weight as she stood in a clearing of the desert, a hand resting on her hip as she smiled at what was before her. A featureless white cube, a meter in size, floated above the yellow ground. "I'm being serious. I'll send you a visual," Aélita said, reaching into the familiar code that made up the world around her.
Connecting her sight to Jérémie's screen, a window appeared before Jérémie showing him what she saw. Jérémie's smile quickly fell into a pout.
"Ok, so it needs a little tweakin-" Jérémie cut himself off as two red icons appeared on Jérémie's map. He glanced up at the screens above him to call up their ID cards. "Aélita! Three Kankrelats at twelve o'clock! Use the flying cube to get out of there!"
Aélita looked past the cube, her smile evaporating as she disconnected her visuals from Jérémie's screen. Dropping quickly behind the flying cube as the first laser appeared, she looked up at the sky to ask, "How am I supposed to pilot a flying cube?!"
"How am I supposed to know? It's a cube, there aren't flying cubes in the real world!" Jérémie's panicked disembodied voice called out to her.
"You made it!" Aélita pointed out.
Jérémie grabbed a fist full of his blonde hair, trying to urge his brain to work quicker. He dropped his hands back to the keyboard, pulling up a detailed layout of the desert sector to the holomap beside him. He saw where Aélita was as the three Kankrelats approached from the west. Quickly scanning his eyes over the holomap, he found what he was looking for along a pathway in the east. "Aélita, there's a way tower to the east of you, try to use the cube to get there!"
Aélita took her eyes away from the shooting Kankrelats to drop down onto her knees, letting out a note as she let herself connect into the data that created Lyoko. A rock wall created itself between her and the three monsters, stopping a laser in its newly constructed surface. She opened her eyes to take in her new creation before smiling as she got to her feet. She jumped up so that she could sit on top of the cube, it bobbing up and down as it got adjusted to her weight. She leaned to the right, trying to find a way to be conferrable on a cube, only to have it send her in that direction with her. She quickly sat straight, glancing down to see she was now hovering over the Digital Sea. "So that's how you wanna play," Aélita mumbled, leaning back to the left to send herself and the cube back onto land. She tried to command the cube to stop, seeing the end of her newly constructed rock wall coming to an end only to stop just past it.
The swivel of a Kankrelat got her attention as the first of three noticed her. It's friends not far behind in realizing where she now was. In quick secession, three lasers shot at her, one making contact with the cube's corner.
Aélita did her best to try and grip the edges of the cube as the thing started to spin with the impact. She leaned back, hoping to send it in a direction only for it to take off. She glanced over her shoulder, finding where the tower was as the cube started driving her there, backwards. A shot flying by her remind her of her enemies, getting her to look forward at them. A ghost of a smile came across her face as she watched their little legs try and keep up.
"How are you flying it?" Jérémie asked, worry still evident in his voice.
Aélita leaned quickly to her right, ducking under a blast that was aimed for her shoulder. She glanced behind her to see the tower coming up close, keeping herself leaning backwards to fly towards it. "It appears to be motion based. It's be kinda fun if I wasn't being shot at," Aélita admitted, the cube wanting to rotate again now that Aélita was looking behind herself. She quickly turned back to face the running Kankrelats, straightening out the cube. She smiled as a playfulness came over her, letting out a laugh as Lyoko's wind brushed passed her.
Without her realizing it, she quickly went into the tower, the feeling of going through something so fast wiping the smile off her face. She quickly turned to look where she was going only to fly straight into the tower's wall of code on the inside. She gripped the cube with her fingers as best as she could, there not being much to grab, as she made impact with the wall. She looked down only for the cube to bob under her, it wanting to go somewhere still. She held on as tight as she could as the cube took that as an order to drop, sending her falling into the data flow below.
She let gravity take its control, along with the cube, as she was sent back upwards and out of the tower again at high speed. She opened her eyes to see she was now in the ice sector as she was sped to the edge of the platform. "I think I'm getting the hang of it," Aélita admitted, leaning to make sure she stayed above platform. "But I can't figure out how to stop." She looked forward only for her eyes to widen as an outcropping of ice loomed ahead of her. "How do I stop!?"
"All I can do to it is devirtualize it," Jérémie admitted, panic in his voice.
Aélita quickly leaned backwards, hoping to at least slow herself down. Instead it did a quick reverse, sending her back towards the tower. She started shifting her weight back and forth from left to right only to send the cube spinning. She stopped and did her best to hold still, slowly coming to a bobbing halt. Taking this as her chance, she jumped off and turned back to eye the cube as it devirtualized.
"Clearly it needs more work," Jérémie admitted, typing away at the keyboard. He looked back at the holomap of the desert sector to see the three Kankrelats circle the tower once before disappearing from sight. He turned back to look at the screens in front of him and asked, "Do you feel any of Xana's pulsations?"
Aélita threw a quick glance around her before sitting down on the snowy ground, closing her eyes to let the world around her filter into her senses. After a moment she opened her eyes and said, "No, all's quiet except for the Kankrelats that just wanted to say hi."
"You wanna come to Earth for lunch?" Jérémie asked, his cheeks quickly gaining color as he stared hopefully at the screen.
Aélita's face appeared in front of him, a smile pulling at her features. "Of course, Jérémie."
AN: This story all started with one sentence TheArchivis said to me one day when we were talking. "I'm imagining that Aelita had some input on designing the vehicles just because she was able to actually see what he created. His first attempt is just a floating cube, and Aelita insists that they need something more ergonomic... I mean, this isn't supported by canon at all, Jeremie can and does sometimes get a visual of Lyoko through one of the warriors' eyes, but it's a funny idea." Which led to me writing a short little thing of Jérémie and Aélita working on the Overcube and led to this colab. About a week later, and we had a story outline written up and a month later we had the story done.
ODD: You? Did a colab with someone?
AN: Yes Odd, I colabed on a story.
ODD: But you're… you're a hermit! You don't talk to anyone!
AN: I talk to you, don't I?
AÉLITA: It's good for her.
ODD: She's been Xanafied! Don't trust her!
