Disclaimer: no matter how much I try to deny it, I simply don't any part of the Code Lyoko franchise. I cry myself to sleep over it almost every night. JK!
Neuilly-sur-Seine
The sedan cruised down the main road of the semi-suburban neighborhood like a ghost. With its matte-black paint job and hydrogen fuel cell-powered engine, it was virtually invisible and inaudible as it moved through the night. Even on a clear day, no human eyes could penetrate the film of its heavily tinted windows. The driver had left the lights off, favoring the night vision built into the windshield's heads-up display. Though it looked ordinary on the outside from a distance, the vehicle had also been retrofitted with bulletproof glass and powerful armor plates within its body panels.
In the driver's seat, Grigory Nictapolus kept his gaze fixed directly forward, looking hypnotized by the many digital gauges and icons of the HUD, scratching away an itch in his beard every now and then. The drive from the airport had been long and tiresome, though his training had enabled him to bear with it for the time being. As he started to think about where he would rather be than in a Parisian suburb at half-past-two in the morning, a low growl from behind brought his mind back into focus.
"They know we're getting close," the attractive blonde-haired woman sitting next to him intuited. Eva Skinner, a fellow spy and assassin accompanying Grigory on his mission, had been rather quiet for most of the car ride except for their time of departure from the airport and now. She had been replaying the mission briefing in her head over and over again: capture Professor Philippe Broulet, a French government scientist and ex-Project: Carthage researcher, and transport him to the Deckard, Inc. HQ with as little collateral damage as possible. Her concentration had been broken when Grigory's two Rottweilers, Vladimir and Sasha, had begun to stir. She knew they could sense that they would be stopping soon.
"They're smarter than most dogs," Grigory said, his thick Russian accent reminding Eva of something straight out of a film or video game.
As the car made a right turn on the next intersection, the monotonous voice of the car's artificial intelligence crackled through the stereo system, saying, "Your destination is exactly twenty-point-zero-eight meters to your right." Grigory pulled into a driveway that led to a large white house with a spacious front lawn. After parking and shutting off the engine, the burly man reached for his holster and pulled out a pistol with a fat sound suppressor. Eva had her own sidearm in addition to a pair of compact submachine guns, all of which were suppressed as well.
Donning night-vision goggles, the two assassins simultaneously exited the vehicle, with Eva immediately going for the front door whilst her partner opened one of the rear passenger doors and went to the trunk to retrieve more equipment. The massive dogs bounded out and onto the lawn, stretching their sore bodies before joining their master by the entrance to the house. Even if a pedestrian or another car were to pass by at this hour, there was little chance they could see or hear them in the darkness. Eva was dressed in a form-fitting bodysuit zipped up past her bustline with a utility belt, some tactical accessories, shin-high boots and fingerless gloves, all jet-black. Grigory had a similar pair of gloves, but wore a sable leather jacket over a T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants and combat boots. They were almost totally invisible.
Eva unlocked the door with a small instrument and gingerly pushed it open, letting the animals enter first. The two Rottweilers crept into the living room like they were stalking prey, holding their heads high to sniff the air and listen for any sudden noises. The humans were right behind them, sweeping the immediate area with their eyes, weapons at the ready. Eva unhooked a miniature spy drone that resembled a remote-controlled toy from her belt and tossed it into the air. The small device hovered with the use of four small rotors extending from its body, which then carried it away to the adjacent kitchen and onward. Integrated cameras taking hundreds of photos each second created a three-dimensional map of the home's interior that was sent to the assassins' wrist computers as holographic readouts. Scanning every nook and cranny like this would give them an idea of where their target might be.
They inspected every room the little drone had flown through, including the living room, kitchen, den, garage, laundry room and bathroom. There was no sign of human activity in any of them. The house had at least three people living it: the professor himself, his wife and one of their sons who helped care for them in their old age. It was a priority to ensure that they did not run into one of them if they were awake for any reason. The standard policy of Phoenix was to kill any and all witnesses on sight, which would complicate things for this particular mission. This was, after all, the abode of a government scientist in the capitol of one of the remaining world powers.
From the den, Grigory activated his small headset and asked, "Anything yet?"
"Negative," Eva replied.
"Let's regroup and search upstairs."
The two Phoenix agents met in the living room where they had started. There was nobody on this floor that they could find, so they agreed that it was time to search the second floor. As if he had read their minds, Vladimir was sitting at the bottom of the staircase with one of his front paws propped up on the lowest step. As Grigory ordered his pets to stay put, Eva guided the drone to scan ahead. Once it was finished with a detailed map of everything above, they slowly made their way up the carpeted steps and into a hallway with a few doors. The first one on the left was another bathroom, and the next one on the right was the bedroom of Philippe's grown son. Eva made her way inside and sprayed the sleeping man's nose with chloroform from a small bottle, guaranteeing that he would be out until they were long gone.
Grigory was already at the next door, gently twisting its chrome knob and pushing it open. Inside at the other side of the room was a large bed with two people asleep in it. Target acquired. He signaled for Eva to follow him in before sneaking up to the unconscious elderly couple and zeroing in on Philippe, looming over him like the boogeyman. The female spy went to the opposite side of the bed and angled her canister of chloroform into the face of Mrs. Broulet, who lay on her side with her back to the specialist. She sprayed the powerful substance over the older woman's nostrils, knocking her out. As she did, though, the sound of the compressed air that propelled the chemical compound from its container was sharp enough to rouse Philippe from his slumber. Groggy and fatigued, it took him a few seconds to register that the figure standing over him wasn't his wife or his son, but in fact a total stranger. He nearly jumped out of his skin and started to shout, but Grigory brought a hand over his mouth to silence him before any sound could escape his lips.
"Please try not to struggle, Professor," the younger man whispered, his head hovering over Philippe's terrified face. "It would be very unfortunate if we had to hurt you." As he spoke, Grigory took out a small syringe and pierced a vein in the old man's neck, injecting him with a long-lasting sedative. The fear in his eyes vanished as he quickly lost consciousness. The Russian man couldn't help but grin, knowing that he had just finished the hardest part of the mission with little to no difficulty at all. He switched his headset to another channel. "Homestead, this is Nightstalker-One. We have secured the target and will be en route to Orly Airport. I repeat, we have secured the target and will be en route to Orly Airport, over."
"Homestead acknowledges. Good work, Nightstalker," a deep voice resonated through the device's earpiece. "We have transport on standby and will give you a max time of eight hours to rendezvous, over."
"Copy that. Over and out." Grigory cut the transmission and turned to Eva. "Let's get his things and go."
Nodding, the young woman immediately went to work with helping collect Philippe's personal belongings. After a few minutes they had secured his toothbrush, glasses, and medicine. They were all gathered up with a few changes of clothes from his dresser and stuffed everything into a travel case that had been found in the room's walk-in closet. They then left the room with Grigory supporting Philippe's upper torso over his shoulder and Eva supporting his legs and dragging the case behind her. Heading downstairs and into the living room, the professor was set down on the floor to have his hands and feet bound before he was placed in a body bag. The operatives carried their load out the door and to the car, putting the man and his "luggage" in the trunk and letting the dogs climb into the back seats.
"So, how do you think this one went?" Eva asked as they simultaneously entered the automobile.
"Better than the mishap in Washington," Grigory answered truthfully. He started the car up and addressed the AI. "Give me the fastest route to Orly Airport with minimal traffic."
"Confirmed. Calculating route now..."
Factory
"Ugh, where is he?" Jeremy checked his watch, pacing back and forth around the room while Ulrich, Yumi and Aelita sat around the supercomputer's monitor. "It's already been ten minutes and he's late again like every other time," he fumed.
"We could just start without him," Yumi suggested. The Lyoko warriors had agreed to meet at the factory after breakfast after Jeremy had discovered something in the digital sea. Odd was late as always, and the rest of the group was now on pins and needles.
The clanking of the elevator and the turn of the door's large tumbler signaled their hyper blond friend's arrival. Odd ran out and skidded to a stop when the doors split, his expression a frantic one. "Here I am! I know what you're going to say, but I'm onto something big, something crazy!" He spoke like a crazed fan girl gushing over a boy-band.
Aelita looked up from her lap and raised one eyebrow. "A new girlfriend?"
"No, a pirated copy of Cyberbiker 7!" Odd said ecstatically. "It's not even out in France yet and I can't miss out on a bargain like that."
Jeremy sighed and pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "You mean you nearly missed a critical meeting for a video game? What if there was an attack?!" he scowled. In just one day, Jeremy had already become stressed with the resurrection of XANA and his work with the supercomputer, making his temperment much shorter than it usually was.
"Well it wasn't, right?" the blond young man asked, shrugging his shoulders innocently. The others rolled their eyes.
"Okay, you know what? I'll drop it," Jeremy raised his hands. He returned to the chair ushered everyone in the room to come closer. "Anyway, I wanted you all here because I found something new. With Aelita's help, I managed to localize a signal from the Digital Sea. It's far off, but its nature is similar to a Replika."
Ulrich, Odd and Yumi looked at each other to gauge their reactions. They were all surprised to some extent, but after the assumptions made by the genius couple the other day, this did not come with any earth-shattering impact. "XANA?" Yumi asked curiously.
"More like the place of his rebirth," Jeremy corrected. "Well, I think, at least."
"We think that if we go there, we can get all these questions answered: how XANA was reactivated, by whom, or by what," Aelita explained.
"And how to destroy him," Jeremy added. "By that, I mean for good."
Ulrich lightly coughed into his fist. "Exactly how are we supposed to get there? By swimming?"
"No, by submarine," Aelita giggled.
Odd beamed at them. "Sweet! You guys reprogrammed the Skid?" The Lyoko warriors all remembered that ego-crushing day when the Skidbadnir had been destroyed by the Kolossus. It had not been used since then, leading them to believe that it was permanently out of commission.
"Well, while some people are goofing off, others are working," Jeremie said matter-of-factly. The rest of the group, including Odd, shared a joyful laugh.
Aelita made a firm stance and place her hands on her hips. "So, who's ready for an adventure today?" she asked, a spirited glint in her eyes.
"Definitely."
"Yes."
"Very."
Kadic Academy
The stillness of the woods located within Kadic's property line was disturbed by the manhole being opened from within and birthing the five young adults. First was Yumi, followed by Aelita, Odd, Ulrich, and then Jeremy. They waited by the hole until the last Lyoko warrior climbed out, taking the time to admire the serene environment they were in. Birds were singing and squirrels were running about the canopy of the trees, gathering or fighting over food. They knew exploring the distant Replika so early in the day was not a wise decision to make. It was agreed that they would wait until the schoolday was behind them before virtualizing and boarding the Skid.
Everything seemed peaceful until they heard the sound of a stick snapping against the ground. Caught off guard by the close proximity of the noise and possibilities of its origin, the entire group whipped their heads around to see an individual standing there. He had a stocky build, stood taller than any of them, with scruffy black hair and clothes that included a black shirt, a brown jacket, denim jeans and rough cross-country sneakers. It was their former teammate and enemy, William Dunbar.
William carefully studied the sheepish faces of the gang, knowing exactly what they were up to. "So, you guys out here for a walk or just messing around?"
"Oh yes, I love strolling through the sewers," Odd began sarcastically, "because it reminds me of my vacation home in—" He stopped when he saw the serious and ruthless glare William was giving him.
"On Lyoko, right?" William guessed. Some of the warriors awkwardly avoided making eye contact, knowing that this was going to be a difficult conversation. "I saw and heard about all the freaky shit that happened the day before. Do you guys think I'm an idiot or something?" He began to look more and more frustrated by the second.
Yumi tried to speak first. "William—"
"XANA's back, isn't he?" William interrupted, figuratively hitting the nail right on the head. "Did you turn the supercomputer back on?"
"It's complicated," Jeremy said while rubbing the back of his skull and looking off into space.
William looked at him disbelievingly. "Complicated? It's not complicated; it's very simple. I'm not some bystander you can just lie to and then make forget about something that happened, do you understand? I. Can. Help. You. Didn't I prove that I could fight?
Ulrich stood up and took a step forward towards the older teen. "You mostly proved that you were hot-headed." he retorted harshly. "You're not reliable, and you played it solo without even thinking. XANA made you his bitch because of that."
"What happened to me could have happened to one of you at any point."
"Yeah but it didn't," Odd cut in. "You spent your time showing off and fell into a trap like some amateur. Then you tried to screw us all and kill—"
"I was never your enemy!" William snapped at them. The Lyoko warriors fell silent as a bird could be heard fluttering away in response to the outburst. William's shoulders rose and fell while his face had become a gentle shade of red. He turned around on his heel and stormed off, leaving behind a strong tension that kept the group from speaking for a few seconds.
They carried on and reached the school before the first bell, splitting up for their classes. Aelita and Jeremie would be in history class by now, while Odd and Ulrich were heading for earth sciences with Ms. Hertz. Yumi tagged along for the moment, her route to foreign cultures class being in the same direction. As they climbed the U-shaped staircase to the second floor of the building, Ulrich took notice of the pout his girlfriend made when her mind was stuck on a troublesome subject.
"Hey Yumi, is something bothering you?" Ulrich asked softly. He touched her shoulder to make her stop walking, which both he and Odd made sure to do themselves.
Yumi looked up and rapidly shook her head when she realized Ulrich had noticed her brooding. "Oh, I'm okay," she said with a faint blush. "It's just that...were we too harsh with William today?"
The question left Ulrich baffled. "What? You're the one asking that? The last time you were on Lyoko with William, he was XANA's puppet, and trying to kill us."
"I know," the Japanese girl said, "but XANA is back, and things have changed. We've all changed over the years, and so has William."
She glanced to her right, seeing Odd staring back at her with wide eyes. "Who are you and what closet have you left the real Yumi bound and gagged in?"
Yumi and Ulrich snickered at the joke. "You're right, it's stupid," she continued with a nod. "Come on, let's get to our classes." She trudged up the steps with the boys in tow, melding with the river of students as they too traversed to their own destinations. They did not think about William for the rest of the day, instead focusing on their work and the daring operation they would carry out later on.
...XXX...
As the final bell rang, the students of Kadic streamed out of the doors and across the campus' blacktop, heading for either the dormitory building or to their cars. Odd pushed his way through the immediate crowd and scanned the area for one specific person. He finally spotted the underclassman Xavier Gosselin by one of the benches, who noticed him as well.
Xavier stood up and walked in the direction of the cafeteria, signaling for Odd to follow him. He tailed him to the empty lunchroom and skulked behind the kitchen counter. Rosa was nowhere to be found, giving Xavier the chance to pull open the heavy door to the freezer, letting Odd come inside with him.
"Do you have it?" Odd asked excitedly.
Xavier reached into his bag and flashed a translucent-blue PlayStation 4 disk jacket. "Here it is. That'll be forty euros, please."
"Damn, you drive a hard bargain," Odd commented as he took out his wallet, "but it's worth it." He handed the younger student the money who in turn passed the case to him. "So this is Cyberbiker 7, right?"
"I swear on a stack of Bibles," Xavier said, raising his right hand to illustrate. "I only made a few of those, so consider yourself lucky."
"Awesome!" Odd opened the jacket to inspect his purchase while Xavier promptly exited the freezer set and off to wherever his business took him next. As expected of a pirated video game, it was a simple white disk with the game's title crudely written on its surface in black marker ink. He was practically hypnotized by the object he held, realizing far too late that the metal doorway—his only was out—was suddenly closed.
The lunch lady Rosa had returned from her break to set up the kitchen for the dinner she was expected to prepare for tonight. As she inspected all of the necessary cooking implements, she noticed that the freezer door had been left open. Instead of questioning exactly who may had left it like this, she absentmindedly shut and locked it, knowing that the food inside would spoil if she didn't. What she did not know, however, was that she had just sealed away her best breakfast, lunch, and dinner patron in the entire school. She carelessly walked away with no further regard for the matter.
Factory
"I don't know what tell you," Ulrich shrugged, "but he was with us one moment and then gone the next." That was the best excuse he and Yumi could give Jeremy when they realized that Odd did not accompany them to the factory. They honestly had no idea where he could be at the moment, though it probably had something to do with that video game he was so enthralled with earlier. Wherever he was, he wasn't answering any of their calls.
"And he seemed so excited about riding the Skid," Aelita added. She knew Odd would not sacrifice a trip to Lyoko just for a video game.
Jeremy, who was annoyed by the whole thing, shook his head with exhaustion. "Well it doesn't matter, because you guys are going with or without him."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Yumi questioned.
"The signal from the digital sea is very weak; no sense in losing it because of Odd. Now get going!" As reluctant as they were to do so, Ulrich and Yumi would choose diving without a full crew as opposed to being subjected to one of Jeremy's angrier moments. They turned back without hesitation and entered the elevator's threshold, waiting for their pink-haired captain to join them. When Aelita turned around to follow, her boyfriend grasped her left hand in his, stopping her. She looked over her shoulder to see him looking into her eyes with sincere concern. "Be careful," he cautioned.
Aelita smirked. "You know me," she teased, pulling away from him and went inside the elevator with her two bodyguards as the doors closed behind her. Jeremy smiled to himself as they left, seeing that the adventurous streak in her had not left her at all. Even with the imminent danger ahead, he would always try to have her back in situations like this.
Anything for her, he thought while returning to his chair and preparing the scanners. By now, the three warriors were already down in the room and would be waiting for him to set everything up. He brought up the three virtual ID cards and entered the codes that got fired up the three machines. "Scanner, Ulrich. Scanner, Yumi. Scanner, Aelita." He hit the enter key. "Virtualization."
Sector Five
Landing on the floor of the arena, Ulrich, Aelita and Yumi immediately ran through the break in the wall that lead to the core zone. They only stopped once they arrived at the lift, allowing the machine to carry them up to the Skid's hangar. The three of them stared in awe at the large craft as it floated motionlessly between the supports that locked it firmly in place. It looked exactly like they remembered it to, complete with the four Navskids that clung to its main body.
"I forgot how beautiful it was," Yumi said softly.
"Yeah," Aelita breathed out as the lift came to a stop, "too bad Odd's not here." They walked across the platform surrounding the vehicle and stepped onto the teleportation pads. They were beamed into their respective stations, with Aelita ending up in the cockpit and Ulrich and Yumi in their individual Navskids. Guided by memory alone, the pinkette princess went through the step-by-step process for takeoff. "Opening interface," she announced after pressing the ignition button and watched the holographic screens that displayed the sub's internal systems and shield levels flicker on. "Do you read me, Navskids?"
"Loud and clear, Captain," Team Lyoko's other couple responded in unison.
"Awesome. Jeremy, are we ready to go?"
"Aye-aye," she heard her boyfriend say, "releasing locks."
Kadic Academy
"Hello? Is anybody out there?" Odd desperately called through the freezer door, rapping at it with his fists. Being trapped as she was proved to be anything but pleasant. His ears and cheeks were now bright red, and his fingertips felt numb. "Please, somebody help!"
As he walked away with the cup of yogurt he had gotten from the lunchroom's refrigerated snack bar, William could hear the faint sounds of banging metal and a voice with a particularly high pitch. Curious, he decided to investigate after confirming no one else was around. It sounded like somebody was on the other side of the freezer door. Unsure of what was the most appropriate thing to say first, William gently knocked on the metal door with his free hand and said, "Hello?"
"William?! William, is that you?!"
He recognized the voice almost immediately. "Odd?"
"Yeah it's me, Odd! You've got to get me out; it's cold in here!"
William took his sweet time to fully grasp the situation: Odd Della Robbia, one of the people treating him like a stranger, was locked in the kitchen freezer and needed rescuing. A snicker was forced out of the older boy's nose and accompanied with a controlled yet hysterical laughter that only served to further chip away at the skinny blonde boy's pride. Once William calmed down, his demeanor took on a dramatic shift from humor to righteous power. "So how does it feel to be trapped like...what was it you said earlier…oh yeah, an amateur?"
"Oh, haha, I'm dying of laughter," Odd groaned sarcastically. He remembered how he called William an amateur to his face earlier and knew he may have had something like this coming. But now was not the time to be put in his place, especially when he was needed on Lyoko. And he was trapped in a freezer for goodness sake! "I'm sorry about that amateur crack earlier. Can you please bury the hatchet and find Jim or Rosa? They have the keys. It's urgent; the others need me somewhere."
"XANA's attacking?"
"Not really," Odd said, "but it's still important."
A sly grin unexpectedly appeared on William's face. "Okay, I'll see what I can do." He turned around and headed for the main doors, taking one last satisfactory spoonful of his yogurt before tossing the half-full cup into the garbage. He wasn't going to send for help, at least not yet. Rather, he was going straight to the factory in Odd's stead to help the Lyoko warriors in whatever mess they were probably getting themselves into.
Whether they like it or not, I'm going prove myself useful.
Digital Sea
The gateway of Lyoko's ventral opening unfolded like thin flower pedals, granting the Skidbladnir access to the Digital Sea. Through the still and endless blue liquid was the world network's clustered databases, shaped like a massive upside-down city. Aelita brought the Skid's main body and stabilizing fins into horizontal positions. The three crew members had the time to take in their surroundings, remembering how awe-inspiring a sight such as this.
"It hasn't changed much, has it?" Ulrich voiced. Having been the latest team member to be virtualized in two years, he had noticed how his Lyoko form had altered since the last time he was here. He was still a samurai with twin katanas and a gold and brown bodysuit, though the color pattern had been moved around in a few places. A scouter with a translucent red lens rested over his left eye. Apparently this was supposed to aid in his lightning-fast special attacks.
"Yeah, it feels so weird to be back here again," Yumi said as she looked around through the cockpit of her Navskid.
"Aelita, head to coordinates one-seventy and find a hub," Jeremy ordered.
Aelita nodded. "Engaging turbo jets and auxiliary engines." She pressed a button on the controls and gripped the joysticks as the sub began cruising forward through the watery abyss. They maintained a stable speed for several minutes, lazily avoiding several of the databases that displayed moving data and codes along their sides.
They eventually reached a hub. In the center was the swirling vortex that would swallow the Skidbladnir whole and deposit it closer to their destination. Aelita guided the Skid through the long glowing pipes that supported the hub's disk-shaped body. Descending into the portal, the three warriors watched with amazement as they were sucked into a long and twisting wormhole, much like the one they saw when they were virtualized.
Seconds later, the Skid was propelled out into a distant part of the network, which, contrary to what they expected, looked no different from where they had entered the hub system. "Jeremy, we're here," Aelita reported, "but I can't see anything. Are you sure this is the right place?"
Factory
"The signal is weak, but it's there. Just keep your eyes peeled and you'll find something," Jeremy insisted. He knew they would not likely spot this Replika immediately, but he was certain they would stumble upon it any minute. Behind him came the sound of the elevator doors opening and sneakers scuffing against the floor. He had already prepared what to say when this finally came. "Odd, it's easy to forgive people for doing things that are in their nature. The things you do sometimes, though, can be very strenuous on our relationship as a group. Lucky for you, Aelita encourages me to be more understanding, so all I can say is that I'm...disappointed."
"Wow, that had to be the nicest thing you've ever said to me, Jeremy."
Jeremy's blood ran cold when he did not recognize the voice as Odd's. He whipped his head around so fast he hurt his neck, nearly jumping out of his chair when his eyes registered the person standing behind him to see William. His fears were replaced with confusion and exhaustion. "William, how did you get in here?"
"It's not like I forgot how to use the hidden keypad since you showed me," William answered smugly, crossing his arms over his chest.
The blond teen sighed. "Can we talk about this some other time? We're in the middle–"
"Of a mission," William forcefully interrupted, "I can see that. I just dropped in to tell you that Odd couldn't come: he had a...let's say a minor setback. He said it was cool if I filled in for him."
"Jeremy, we've found something," Aelita announced suddenly.
His attention refocused on the task at hand, Jeremy turned back to the monitor and adjusted his earpiece. "What does it look like?" he asked quizzically.
Digital Sea
"It's a giant sphere like Lyoko," Aelita analyzed, "but it looks evil: it has spikes all around it like some kind of cortex." Her description of the monstrous thing was rather accurate. Like Lyoko, this Replika was a sphere made up of thousands upon thousands of cubes, but what stood out from Lyoko was the presence of the thin rectangular blocks that surrounded it. They jutted out from the sphere's otherwise smooth surface in an even pattern, resembling the protective spines of some ungodly seed or fruit.
The pinkette elf angled the nose of the Skid to descend deeper into the blackness of the Digital Sea. At the bottom of the Replika was the familiar curved passageway that would lead into the world housed within. She then flipped the switch that made the submersible's fins and body fold perpendicularly and it to a full stop before the closed gate. Strangely, it did not bear the eye of XANA on it. "We've found a portal, but it's locked."
"Don't worry; if this is anything like Lyoko, decrypting it shouldn't be that hard." From the tone in his voice, Aelita could tell that Jeremy was probably speaking to someone else besides her. Thinking it would sound silly to ask out loud, she remained silent and waited for the portal to be decrypted and opened. Within ten seconds, the talons of the opening's rim drew back and presented the bright white portal to the Skid as if to invite it inside. The sub drifted into the mouth of the passageway and immediately rose out of the sea's surface afterwards.
The environment was far more detailed than expected in terms of scenery. The "sky" was colored like a late afternoon, with fluffy clouds and a shining sun, elements that did not exist in Lyoko. Even stranger was the single immense sector that floated in midair just ahead of them.
It was shaped vaguely like a disk and made from blue-green blocks of various shapes and sizes. Unlike those found in Sector Five, these modules did not appear to be solid, but had black strips with glowing circuitry on their sides and bytes of data running through them. It slowly rotated around it central axis like some flattened, mechanical planet.
"Jeremy, are you seeing this?" Aelita asked softly after sending her boyfriend a first-person visual of what she herself was looking at.
"I am," he replied calmly. "So this is how XANA survived. You'll have to explore this 'Cortex' more thoroughly."
"Coming up alongside." Aelita parked the Skidbladnir to the very edge of the sector. Jeremy and Aelita knew that the Skid was too valuable to risk damaging in a place they knew nothing about. The chances of traps or security systems being hidden in the Cortex were high, and losing the craft could leave them stranded.
"Disembarking." With the simple push of a button, the avatars of Yumi, Aelita and Ulrich seemed to fade from existence in a manner akin to images on a faulty television screen. They reappeared outside of the sub, standing alongside each other on the surface. In front of them appeared the Overbike and Overwing vehicles, ready for use. Jeremy had sent them before he began launching a super-scan of the Replika.
Ulrich walked over to his signature transport, while Yumi climbed aboard her own. "Saddle up, Princess," he motioned for Aelita, flashing a smile. She hopped onto the tandem seat and held on as the two vehicles drove off together.
...XXX...
Navigating the Cortex was not so different from taking a drive through the city, only there were no cars or pedestrians to watch out for and no roads to stay on. The Cortex itself was in fact much like a city, its raised modules similar to buildings and the spaces between them being the streets. Jeremy had found the quickest route to the sector's center, which was configured into a mostly straight pathway through towering blocks and a few gaps here or there. Yumi and Ulrich were enjoying the thrill of racing along the long straightaway, silently goading each other to keep up. Aelita was well aware of the teasing her friends exchanged, tightening her grip around Ulrich's waist on the Overbike for fear of some disastrous crash that often resulted from hazardous drag-races such as this.
"Guys, something's happening!" Jeremy warned.
As the vehicles rounded a huge corner, the environment ahead of them suddenly began to change. The path broke apart into wide blocks and tall monoliths that rose, sank, and shifted to create walls and gaps that were certainly meant to prevent the Lyoko warriors from continuing on. With his fast reflexes, Ulrich clenched the hand brakes of the Overbike and stopped it right at the edge of a newly-formed gap with an uninterrupted view of the Digital Sea below. He and Aelita watched as Yumi zoomed ahead of them on her floating Overwing.
"Yumi, watch out!" Ulrich cried to her. Heeding her soul mate's warning, Yumi looked back in front of her to belatedly realize that a huge block even larger than the school dormitory was now in her direct path. Her reaction came to slow as she collided head on into the solid wall, disappearing with her ride in an explosion of confetti-like pixels.
"Yumi!" Aelita gasped, naturally extending her hand out in concern.
"What the hell just happened?"
"I don't know," Ulrich said. "Everything just started moving. I stopped, but Yumi got devirtualized."
"The Cortex must change like Sector Five used to. Wait a minute...oh no," Jeremy started grimly, "Yumi's not showing up in the scanner!"
"What?!" Panic began to overtake Ulrich. Yumi had "died" once before after falling into the Digital Sea, being resurrected shortly afterwards through luck and sacrifice. Did that mean the same thing had happened again now? Aelita, who was equally worried, was nevertheless able to remain calm and listen carefully to the soothing voice of her boyfriend.
"It means she's trapped in a kind of virtual limbo," Jeremy explained. "The Cortex is somehow interfering with her foreign virtual data. Maybe it's design isn't compatible with virtualized material from Lyoko, or—"
"Okay, enough with that science gibberish!" Ulrich snapped. "Is Yumi alive or not?!"
Jeremy anxiously replied with, "I can't give you a definitive answer right now, Ulrich! This problem isn't black and white. But yes, Yumi is technically dead, yet not in the traditional sense. I just have to recover her digital signal and she'll be fine. What you and Aelita have to focus on right now is getting to the core of the Cortex, is that clear?"
Before Ulrich could retort or make some hurtful proclamation, Aelita placed a hand over his shoulder. "He's right; we have to keep going," she sated with an even tone of voice. Ulrich did not look convinced. "Jeremy's the only one who can help Yumi right now. We have a mission to complete."
The young German samurai felt powerless to save his girlfriend or, for that matter, continue arguing, knowing that Aelita was right. With a heavy heart, he reluctantly revved the handle bars and steered the Overbike around in a wide arch. They went back the way they came for a moment before finding a route to use as a detour to their destination.
The pair eventually ended up traveling over a long "bridge" that would take them to the core. Unfortunately, the path they took experienced a serious obstacle as a block sank to the bottom of the sector, creating another gap to fall through. Ulrich did not have time to process this, and sent the Overbike over the edge and into empty space. Ulrich and Aelita screamed as they diverged from the vehicle and plummeted.
Aelita swept her hand over her star bracelet, spreading her wings and dramatically slowing her decent like a skydiver deploying their parachute. She drew her feathery appendages inward and dove after the falling Ulrich who had nothing to fly with. They reached out for each other's hands as the distance between them closed, yet the pull of gravity won the battle. Ulrich impacted against the cruel, hard surface below, vanishing in a flurry of pixels that soon dissipated. Aelita herself had to spread her wings out to stop in midair and avoid crashing head-first into the floor of the sector.
Factory
"Oh crap, Ulrich's stuck too!" Jeremie moaned, typing at the keyboard furiously. Finding and restoring Yumi's virtual data was difficult enough, but now he had to reassemble two human beings lost on the network. Time was something he needed but sorely lacked, especially now since Aelita was alone in a hazardous environment without an escort. He slammed a fist against the chair's armrest in impotent frustration, unable to juggle two important problems at once. "Dammit! What do we do?"
William had been standing next to Jeremy for a while now, and had payed close attention to everything that had happened. He was unsure as to what exactly had happened to Yumi and Ulrich in the sophisticated language of computers that Jeremy had been talking about, but it took no genius to understand that they were in trouble, as was Aelita. It was only until after he had gotten into the elevator that he realized this may be his chance to redeem himself; he had turned around to head for the scanners on instinct.
"William, where are you going?" Jeremy asked sharply, noticing his actions.
"Just tell me how to get to the Cortex," the older boy said dourly. "Besides you need me this time, right?"
Jeremy felt torn. He did not want William to get involved further, though there was the conflicting fact that his girlfriend was in a fix and needed backup. William had probably decided to step in for his own gain, but something about the way he was volunteering to help Aelita without asking to do so earlier was making the blond genius think about just how indispensable William Dunbar was at the moment.
Sighing in defeat, Jeremy concluded that he would have to argue later. "I'll have to send you there directly. The Skid will act as a relay for you."
William nodded with acknowledgement as the elevator doors slid shut. Jeremy turned back to the keyboard to set up one of the scanners. Once William was in position, he typed the keystrokes needed to initiate the process. "Scanner, William. Virtualization."
Cortex
The transfer had been successful. William noticed the Skidbladnir behind him after landing on the greenish platform over which it was parked. He was mildly impressed by the scenic view he had, looking over the horizon of the seemingly endless stretch of modules and connecting hubs of the Cortex.
Flashbacks of his enslavement by XANA began to appear in his head. They were memories of how his mind and soul were powerless as XANA worked his body like a puppet. Shuddering, he let his eyes trail down on himself, preparing for the worst.
His body suit was charcoal-black with a few bright orange stripes on his arms and legs, not the shimmering alabaster that he had hoped for. His skin was so pale it appeared to be gray like the hide of a rhinoceros. Though appalled, he sighed with relief to find the eye of XANA missing from his chest, and that the only sinister element of his virtual persona was the spiked gauntlet on his left forearm.
"William, are you okay? Don't waste time," Jeremy's voice entered William's head, grabbing his full attention. "Aelita is directly west of your position; I'll send you the Overboard to get there"
"Actually, that won't be necessary," William dismissed curtly. "I think I have something better." He held up his right hand and as black smoke began to appear around the appendage. "Looks like I got a little souvenir from XANA." With one mental command, his entire body evaporated into a cloud of smoke that slithered rapidly through the air to its destination like a gaseous serpent.
Kadic Academy
Odd was now feeling very cold. He had no idea how long he had been in the freezer for, but knew that William had not returned with help. The young teen's hair gel was nearly frozen solid by now, and his entire body was shivering like an autumn leaf. The feeling in his face and hands were nonexistent, and his nose was beginning to run. Was anyone coming for him? Were his friends even looking for him?
As he lightly banged his head against the thick door he was leaning back into, it swung open and send him falling back onto the floor. Warm air hit his skin, bringing him back to his senses in time to find a puzzled Jim standing over him. Odd rolled over and got to his feet, presenting the man with a sheepish grin.
"Della Robbia," Jim began, staring him down with a suspicious look, "were you the one making all that noise? What are you doing in the freezer?"
"What time is it?" Odd questioned, still confused.
"17:31."
"Well, William sure took his time to tell you."
Jim cocked a bushy eyebrow. "William? You mean William Dunbar? He didn't come to me for anything today," he explained.
"Well then how did..." Odd's eyes practically bugged out of his head. It wasn't until now that he put two pieces together to understand that he had been abandoned by William the minute he had finished talking to him. He also guessed that he ditched him to the factory in his place to weasel his way onto Lyoko in his place. A fire suddenly ignited in Odd's belly, solely directed at William. "Oh, I don't believe it!" He bolted past Jim and out the kitchen, heading for the cafeteria's doorway.
"Hey, wait a minute!" Jim yelled after him, receiving no response. "Alright then, Della Robbia, pick a number: two, four, six, eight?"
"Ten!"
"Okay, ten hours of detention it is."
Cortex
Having no vehicle at her disposal, Aelita opted to fly to the core on her own. She had traveled a kilometer in only five minutes, safe from the sector's shifting terrain that had so easily gotten the better of her friends. At last, the core was in reach after seeing it from afar for most of the journey.
The core externally resembled a miniature Replika, comprised of thousands of cubes brought together to form a huge sphere with a diameter nearly the width of a city block. The sphere itself appeared to be floating in the middle of a huge hole cut into the sector's surface that acted like a moat, the only contact being a bridge that was connected to the core's equatorial region. At this point of connection was what looked like a large portal, suggesting that this was merely a shell for the real core inside.
She glided downward and alighted at the far end of the bridge. From this distance, Aelita could see that the portal door was much like the arperture of a giant camera shutter, with six blade-like sections that overlapped one another. Before she could consider walking up to it, the virtual outline of a Krab took form and landed on the metallic floor on the other side. Aelita reacted quickly to the approaching monster, producing a pink ball of energy in her right hand to destroy it with. This was all she needed to confirm that XANA was indeed here in the Cortex and deploying countermeasures.
She hurled the energy ball at the Krab as the distance between them shrank. The tall crustacean simply squatted, letting the incoming projectile sail over its carapace and colliding with the sphere behind it. I returned fire with three shots, which Aelita dodged by quickly back-flipping and taking to the air once again. Avoiding more laser bolts, she glided over her attacker and clung to the surface of the core, hiding in an effort to buy herself time find a way inside the structure. The Krab made no hesitation to follow, using its powerful limbs to climb along the uneven terrain of the sphere, balanced as though it were walking over flat earth.
Aelita became airborne once more, but not for long. A laser bolt tore through one of her wings and struck her back, sending a jolt of momentary pain through her body and robbing her of several life points. She yelled as she was overtaken by gravity, falling flat on her face in front of the core's sealed entrance. Though dazed, she was very thankful that broken bones and damaged organs were not issues when virtualized.
"Aelita, get the hell out of there!" she heard Jeremy shout. As she recovered, her body was overtaken y a shadow, belonging to the Krab that now loomed over her. It raised a leg, poised to impale her in one jab that would guarantee instantaneous devirtualization. Aelita had time to roll out of the way of the appendage as its stroke fell, meeting only the floor of the bridge. The Krab repeated the same move, only now with its left front leg; the pink-haired princess narrowly avoided the attack, getting to her feet as fast as she could. But now she stood face-to-face with the creature as it charged its laser weapon to gun down the helpless Lyoko warrior.
For a moment, Aelita feared for her life. Considering what had happened to Ulrich and Yumi, there was no logical reason to doubt that her digital signature would not be lost in the Cortex's network. Jeremy could only do so much, and recovering three people may have been beyond his capacity. She would, in a sense, be dead. By some unbelievable stroke of luck, the Krab was distracted be a cloud of black smoke before it could fire. This smoke transformed into the eerily familiar avatar of William, who alighted on the monster's carapace, stabbing it through the eye of XANA with his massive Zweihänder sword. After it exploded, William stood there with a confident smirk, before turning around to see Aelita with a nervous look on her face and her throwing arm cocked back, an energy ball in hand. Her response to his presence was instinctual, given the negative history they shared on Lyoko as enemies.
"Hey, calm down," William said as he held up his free hand while his weapon vanished from the other in a puff of smoke, "it's just me."
The fact that he had disarmed himself was not lost on Aelita, leaving her the only one in the position to attack. She quickly broke her stance and made the energy ball disappear from her hand. "Sorry," she said with a hint of embarrassment in her voice, "just a force of habit."
William shrugged. "Whatever. Let's go." He motioned towards the entrance to the core, letting Aelita take the lead. She smiled at the gesture, walking across the length of the bridge with him in tow.
Factory
Jeremy was so heavily engrossed with the mission that he ignored the elevator doors sliding open. At this point he had been expecting Odd to make his timely arrival soon and did not flinch when the irate Italian boy trudged into the room with his "I'm-crazy-pissed-right-now" look.
"Where is he?!" he seethed. "Where is that sneaky bastard?! If I find him, and I will, I'll—!"
"Odd, please, save it for another time. William is already in the Cortex helping Aelita and they need backup."
Odd looked both confused and forlorn. "You mean he went in place of me? Wait, what's the Cortex?"
"Never mind, just hurry!" Jeremy turned around and frantically commanded. "I'll explain it all later, but I can tell you that right now Ulrich and Yumi are in danger!"
"Oh, yeah? Well so is William."
Cortex
For the life of her, Aelita could not push hard enough to make the core's entryway even budge. Despite her grades in gym, she was no athlete, lacking the stamina and physical strength of her friends like Ulrich and Yumi. Either way, the imposing doorway may as well have been made from solid rock, unmoving and virtually impenetrable. William, who stood by her, decided to act after watching her struggle long enough.
"Let me do it," he offered, motioning for her to step back. Once Aelita had backed up, William summoned his Zweihänder in both of his hands, posing like a baseball player up at bat. He brought the sword over his head and swung with tremendous force, making the blade forcefully impact against the door. Instead of piercing the or denting it, the attack created only a few sparks and some damage to William's ego.
Aelita sighed. "I guess it doesn't work that way either." Following her statement was a series of powerful vibrations from inside the core, which reverberated through the bridge and temporarily threw the two warriors off balance. Once they picked themselves up off the ground, the pair watched the shutter-like doorway open up like the maw of some immense alien creature.
"Well, looks like it's straight in from here," mused Aelita.
Just then, several red laser bolt sailed over their heads, catching them off guard. William and Aelita looked back to see two more Krabs on the far end of the bridge, shooting at them as they approached. Aelita was ready to fight again, but found herself being yanked back by William and thrown into the threshold of the core's opening. "Go on! Don't worry about me! I've got these assbags!"
With his huge weapon ready, William sprinted in a headlong charge towards the Krabs, deflecting several of the well-aimed shots fired at him. As he came within five meters from the monsters, he sank to his knees and slid underneath one of the lofty constructs. William timed it right and jumped high over the other Krab and landed on its carapace. He tried to keep his balance as the crustacean attempted to dislodge him, tilting its body at all angles like a wooden board floating on open water. The other Krab, with XANA's directive, seized the chance to shoot the troublesome human off of its distracted comrade.
Despite getting hit by a charged laser and losing twenty life points as a result, William was not about to let this hinder him. As he fell from the monster, he rolled and twisted his body to ensure his feet made contact with the floor first, then transformed into a cloud of black smoke again. The Krabs trailed their target as it drifted away and began flying up to the top of a nearby module of the Cortex.
He reverted back to his human form and peered over the edge of the elevated structure. The Krabs were scaling the vertical face of the module, heading straight for him. William could admit he mostly relied on brute force to win a fight, but in this particular engagement, he would have to play the strategist with no one else around to do that for him. Before he could decide on whether or not to ask for Jeremy's help or to cook up his own plan, the same annoyingly familiar voice from before assaulted his eardrums.
"WILLIAM!" The owner of the voice was none other than Odd, riding towards William on his Overboard, looking quite pissed at his aforementioned classmate. "You shithead, I'll kill you!" he proclaimed with a snarl, pouncing off his vehicle and straight at the young man he was directing his anger at, claws bared.
William was not as good a fighter as Ulrich, but his hand-eye coordination was pretty decent. Odd's movements were kind of predictable, even for someone with a feline persona for an avatar. He ducked, letting Odd's pounce become a humiliating dive into the floor. William smirked. "Hello, amateur. I guess Jim finally let you out, didn't he?"
The irked Odd pushed his torso up and aimed a laser arrow gauntlet at the Doppelsöldner, who quickly retaliated with a combat-ready stance to imply that he would run Odd through if necessary. The two of them may have actually started fighting if Jeremy had not intervened.
"Would you two knock it off?" he asked with a tone that most people reserved for bickering children. "If you have to settle something between yourselves, settle it later. There are more serious problems right now."
Jeremy's logic was as sound as his timing was perfect. The Krabs had just reached the top of the huge module, shooting at the two humans. William retrained his focus on the monsters and blocked several well-place laser bolts in the nick of time. Odd lay prone under the enemy fire before getting up into a crouching position. In that moment, they knew what they had to do, even as Odd flashed his new partner a 'you're-not-off-the-hook-yet' kind of look.
...XXX...
When William had shoved Aelita inside the entrance to the sphere, the core room did not immediately meet her expectations. Instead of a large chamber analogous to that of Lyoko's core, she found herself standing on a long bridge that ended in the middle of a dark sea of empty space. Her eyes could not penetrate the gloom, the only source of light coming from the open doorway behind her. She glanced back to see William charging the Krabs before jogging to the end of the walkway. She came to stop on top of a hexagonal pad with glowing white edges that seemed to intensify after her feet made contact. As predicted, her avatar was then beamed into an apparently trans-dimensional room with a layout that the pinkette princess had been anticipating upon entry.
The core room was enormous and physically spherical in shape, its walls studded with pyramid-shaped divots. Sprouting from both of the room's geometric poles were thick crystalline spires that nearly touched each other, a luminous ball of blue energy floating between them. As for anything that could be remotely considered a floor, there were multiple C-shaped platforms of mechanical origin that floated around the spires at varying elevations. Aelita stood on one of the higher ones, over an identical teleportation pad from before.
She sent Jeremy a data stream of her first-person perspective so he could see and document everything her eyes captured. As he had instructed her to do so, Aelita scanned the room for anything that could be used to relay information to the supercomputer. She spotted what resembled a computer interface one may expect to find at an airport or a bowling alley. It seemed like a good assumption to make. "I see can see an interface from here, Jeremy," she reported. Activating her wings, she glided across the core room and gracefully alighted on the lower platform like the angel she signified. The interface was levitating at waist height, mimicking a half-lidded eye with a distinct almond shape and a circular screen in its center like an eyeball.
"Okay, let's link up and save Yumi and Ulrich," Jeremy said.
Aelita brought her right hand out and splayed it over the screen for less than a second. In the absence of visible keys, the interface must have been touch-activated. Before Aelita appeared a translucent green digital graphic roughly the size of a movie theater screen. It portrayed streams of binary code and physical equations in rapidly flashing images. Her eyes struggled to sear at least some of the pictures into her brain; laboratories, group photos of scientists, warehouses and buildings she did not recognize. She was beginning to feel overwhelmed by all of it.
"Jeremy," she began numbly, "something really weird is happening."
"I know, I can see it too. But don't waste time; you have to find Yumi and Ulrich's digital signals," her boyfriend stressed.
Right, right. Focus, Aelita. Pulling her eyes away from the huge display, Aelita manipulated the screen of the interface again.
...XXX...
Balancing on his Overboard and performing a banking turn, Odd unleashed a barrage of laser arrows into one of the Krabs, hitting it in every vulnerable spot and destroying it. Simultaneously, the second Krab had the misfortune of William shifting from his smoky from in midair and cleaving it in two with his Zweihänder. "Game over," he said triumphantly.
Odd was still angry with William for abandoning him earlier, and naturally took the chance to exact his vengeance yet again. He skimmed the top of the module with the Overboard, knocking William off his feet and onto an adjacent, slightly lower one. The sudden attack left William somewhat disoriented andon his back in a daze whilst Odd stepped off of his board. "Now we can settle the score." The edge in his voice was keenly vindictive.
William casually stood back up, raising one hand pleadingly and keeping the other on the hilt of his sword. "Calm down, okay?"
"Not a chance!" Odd shook his head in defiance, raising both laser arrow gauntlets and training them on William. "I still have to kick your ass!"
"Don't make me fight you, Odd."
"Bring it on!" Before any physical harm could be exchanged between either of them, a felt tremor and distant groaning noise was enough to pique both their interests. "What the hell?"
William looked back to look at the core, his ears telling him that the sound and vibrations were originating from that particular direction. He motioned for Odd to follow him, walking to the edge of the module and concentrating with his eyes. When Odd followed, he could see what William was paying attention to. The huge circular entrance of the core room appeared to be growing teeth along its rim, which was perplexing until William's brain made sense of it: the core was shutting itself, with Aelita still in it!
"That's not good." William transformed into smoke and flew down to the entrance, while Odd retrieved his Overboard and followed. Stopping in front of the threshold, they saw the spaces between the shutters growing thinner with each passing second, and if Aelita couldn't leave just yet, they needed to do something that would buy her time. William and Odd began pushing against the moving parts, following basic human logic that trying to hold the door back would keep it open. This proved futile, as whatever force moving the shutters was many times stronger than the combined efforts of the two boys.
"Come on, Aelita! Step on it!" Odd grunted loudly.
...XXX...
Inside the dimension of the core room, Aelita could somehow feel the vibrations of the door closing. Instead of wondering how that was possible in a place that she had teleported to, she focused on finishing the process needed to retrieve the digital signatures of her missing friends. Using her skills as a hacker and Creativity power, she rode along the virtual vectors of the Cortex's raw data systems to single out the distinct virtual makeup of Yumi and Ulrich. She cross-referenced roughly a billion bytes of data every half of a second until each bit that they were comprised of had been rounded up and reassembled correctly. As soon as she had them sent off to the scanners, she took her hand off the console and stepped back. "There you have it, Jeremy; I'm finished. Yumi and Ulrich should be materializing any minute."
"Great job, now get out of there quickly," Jeremy ordered. "The door is closing and I have no way of knowing if I can bring you back to Earth from the core."
Aelita spread her wings again and prepare to fly up to the platform with the teleportation pad. Before doing so, she glanced back at the flashing images on the huge digital screen, feeling rather curious about it. Even with her great intellect, Aelita could not randomly guess what significance these images of research labs and experiments held in respect for this Replika. XANA had to have been responsible for its creation, right?
Then came one picture that lasted several seconds longer than the rest, or at least that was how Aelita perceived it. What she saw appeared to be part of a photograph with only one individual it seemed to be focusing on: a middle-aged man in a white lab coat with a heavy beard, glasses, and a thick head of graying hair. She recognized him immediately, though a small part of her did not want to believe her eyes. Whatever the reason, she was looking at her father, the late Waldo Schaeffer, AKA Franz Hopper.
Daddy? Aelita wanted to stand there and think why a picture of her father of all people would be in the Cortex, until Jeremy began yelling at her.
"Aelita, get the hell out of there now!"
...XXX...
"This had better work," William thought out loud. He raised the Zweihänder up over his head and brought it down fast, jamming the blade into the thin solace between the floor and one of the shutters. The gaps between them were now only narrow enough for a person of a light build to squeeze through. The sword buckled from the strain as it was deleted, crushing the theory that anything could be done to stop the doorway from sealing.
Before William or Odd could curse their misfortune and incompetence, their hopes were restored when a pink blur zipped out through the thinning space and landed delicately behind them. They turned around to find Aelita giving them a confident smirk, allowing them to shake their heads and express their relief. They could not have looked any happier to see her.
"I must say, Princess," Odd said, putting his hands on his hips and smiling, "this sure is a nice place you found for us."
Factory
All Yumi and Ulrich could remember was being devirtualized as they groggily stumbled out of the scanners. Feeling light-headed, they found staying on their feet to be quite tiring. Yumi carefully sat down by her scanner while Ulrich moved across the room to join her. He reached for one of her hands and clasped it with his own and rested his head against hers.
"What just happened?" Yumi had to ask. She felt as though she needed to lay down for a while and catch her breath.
Equally breathless, Ulrich shook his head. "No idea. We'll have to ask Jeremy."
"Don't worry, you two," the voice of their bespectacled friend crackled through the intercom, "I'll explain everything in a second. But first, I think I can send some help for both of you."
Once Jeremy had materialized William, Aelita and Odd, they graciously went straight to helping the disoriented pair to their feet and guiding them to elevator. They met Jeremy in the lab, who, after a few minutes of explanation, addressed what they had discovered in this new virtual world they had named the Cortex.
Aelita sat at the raised lip in the center of the rotunda next to Jeremy whole the rest of the Lyoko warriors and William were gathered around them. Ulrich and Yumi had recovered by now and were able to function without assistance. Now past their own predicament, they shared more interest in why a picture of Franz Hopper would be in the Replika of all places. It was simply too significant for their pink-haired friend to wave off as coincidence. They all knew it troubled her, as she looked as though she had seen a ghost.
"Are you absolutely sure it was your father?" Jeremy asked Aelita gently. He placed his hand on her shoulder for encouragement.
"I know it was him," she replied, "but I still don't understand it. How could he have anything to do with the Cortex?"
Jeremy made an optimistic shrug. "Probably nothing, but we can't be sure."
William awkwardly cleared his throat to get some attention. "This is great and all, but I'm kind of tired of beating around the bush: what are you guys going to do about me? Am I back on the team or what?"
The gang exchanged glances before letting Jeremy take the floor again. "Well, you did pull a fast one on Odd to get here."
"Yeah!" the skinny blonde quickly added.
"But," Jeremy resumed, "it's true that if you hadn't have showed up like you did and gone to Lyoko, things could have been much worse." In the background, Ulrich made an uncharacteristic nod in agreement, surprising even Yumi. "We also found XANA's lair, so...in short, we'll give it some thought."
Odd looked baffled. "What?! I was left for dead in a freezer and you're saying he might join our team?!" He pointed at Yumi. "I guess you'll be hooking up with him now, right?!" The Japanese girl smirked and shook her head.
"A simple 'thank you' will suffice," William replied, grinning smugly.
Kadic Academy
Jim slapped a circular sign with an adhesive underside to the face of the freezer door. It was red in color with bold white print that read "STAFF ONLY". He made sure it was as clear as the new rule he was about set for the students. Several of them had been gathered so that they may spread the message to their peers.
"Okay now," he started, "since some of us think we can play hide and seek in the freezer, the cafeteria will now be off-limits to students except during meals. And in case none of you take this seriously, for the next few days, anyone caught waltzing in here will get ten hours of detention!"
As with many of his personal talents, Odd prided himself in his ability to read lips. He could not physically hear a word Jim was saying through the cafeteria's windows, but his sharp eyes were able to discern them based on the movements of his mouth and tongue. Knowing that William was passing by, this would be as good as any chance for retribution.
Upon spotting him, Odd waved his arm for attention and ushered him over with a smile. William approached with a guilty face and low head like he was about to willingly accept the punishment coming his way. "Okay," he sighed, "what shall it be? Glove? Sword? Dueling pistol?"
"That won't be necessary, William; another fight wouldn't solve anything." Odd couldn't resist grinning. "We should just let bygones be bygones from here. To prove that, I came to put in a good word for you from Yumi. She's in the cafeteria right now, and wants to tell and maybe show you something, if you catch my drift."
William's eyes practically lit up after hearing this. "For real?" he asked, letting Odd nod his head. He almost rushed through the doors past Sissi and several exiting students before turning around one last time. "No hard feelings, right?"
"None at all, pal."
"Awesome." William extended his hands and shook Odd's, then excitedly entered the lunchroom. Odd looked back to the window and watched the older teen run into Jim, who began yelling at him. He could see the phrase "ten hours of detention" on the supervisor's lips, sealing William's fate for the remainder of the day.
Odd wheeled around and strutted confidently across the courtyard, looking happier than anyone else around him. Well I got my revenge, he thought, and I'll be able to play Cyberbiker 7 tonight.
...XXX...
Aelita lay awake in her bed, staring up at the ceiling in at trance. Her mind was a maelstrom of mixed thoughts and emotions that refused to let her sleep. The discoveries made in the Cortex may have answered a few questions, but raised entirely new ones. They had learned that XANA had survived using a Replika that was previously unknown to the Lyoko warriors. What they didn't know was where this new virtual world came from or who created it, and why there was an image of Franz Hopper in its data banks. Like a voracious rodent, the questions and lack of information was slowly gnawing away at her.
The room's door suddenly opened, startling Aelita. She would have shrieked had her eyes and brain not quickly identified the intruder as he stood in the open doorway. Jeremy was dressed in his light-blue pajamas and a pair of white socks. His glasses rested on the bridge of his nose. "Hey there," he greeted, flashing a small yet warm smile.
Realizing that she was still laying down, Aelita sat up and crossed her legs, the comforter falling to her lap. "Um...hi. What are you doing here?"
"I came to check on you," the blonde genius answered. "May I come in?" Aelita made a small nod and patted the bedding in front of her, indicating to where her boyfriend could make himself comfortable. Jeremy quietly shut the door behind him as he stepped inside the dorm room and took a seat on the bed next to her. "So, what's on your mind?"
Aelita was not entirely sure what to say in response. She was still hung up on the fact that Jeremy had the guts to sneak out from his room to see her in the middle of the night. Last she had checked, if was the other way around, where she would come to see him. Jeremy was usually respectful of the rule against students going to the dorm of the opposite gender after curfew. If they were caught and accused of trying to have intimate sexual relations on school grounds, they were as good as expelled. The suspicious side of Aelita's womanly instincts told her that men only took these risks for a limited number of reasons. Seeing the opportunity to tease it out of him, she innocently replied,"I don't know, what's on yours? You didn't come here trying to seduce me, did you?"
The skin over Jeremy's cheekbones suddenly flushed a shade of reddish-pink. He tried avoiding Aelita's gaze as she scrutinized him with a suspicious, slightly amused expression. "Uh, w-what?! No, of course not!" he stammered. "I came here because I noticed you were a little distant earlier. I was planning to talk to you about it when no one was around, so I waited until everyone else was asleep. I swear I didn't come here for any of that."
It was now Aelita's turn to become flustered. The young Lyoko princess had spent most of the afternoon and evening thinking only of the events in the virtual world. She remembered lounging on the rec room's sofa until the sun went down and saying very little at dinner as she quietly ate her food. Had it been that obvious to Jeremy? Then again, he did understand her best and probably deduced that there was something wrong before anyone else did. The knowledge of that helped to lift her spirits.
"You're worried about that picture of your dad in the Cortex, aren't you?" Jeremy guessed.
"Yeah," Aelita half-whispered, "and I can't stop thinking about it. It can't be a coincidence, and I'm afraid that all of this has something to do him, or that it's his own doing."
Jeremy reached up and placed a comforting hand on the distressed girl's shoulder. "I can bet you all the money in the world that that's not true. There's no way in hell Franz Hopper created that crazy Replika and brought XANA back to life."
"But—"
"Let me finish." Aelita quickly found herself in her boyfriend's embrace, his chin resting on her shoulder. "If it concerns you that much, then we're getting to the bottom of this. Your father was a good man, Aelita, and he sacrificed himself for you. If I have to go to the ends of the earth to clear his name, I will." He leaned back and looked her in the eye, reaching up to brush a loose pink bang out of her face. "Aelita, I promise you that I—that we—will find the answers you need. After we find out all we can about this Cortex and prove your father's innocence, we'll deal with XANA. He's immune to the anti-virus we used last time, but we'll find a way to kill him once and for all. And it won't just be the two of us doing all of this; the others—Yumi, Odd and Ulrich—they'll be with us every step of the way. We're all going to get through this because we love you. I love you."
Choking up, Aelita began to cry, sniffling as hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She grabbed Jeremy and held him tight before kissing him on the lips. The blonde genius' hands wrapped around her waist as he delicately kissed back. She broke the contact and buried her faced into his clavicle. "T-thank you, Jeremy. I l-love you t-too," she blubbered.
"I know," Jeremy replied softly as he massaged her scalp. Before he knew it, the girl had suddenly fallen fast asleep, completely spent. Jeremy chuckled to himself, releasing the sleeping Aelita from his grip and and setting her down gently on the bed, tucking her in and letting her head rest on the pillow. He kissed her forehead and got up to leave. As he exited the room and closed the door behind him, he reflected on the new promise he had made to her. It was a big one, but he was determined to keep it. Aelita deserved a peaceful life, free from the troubles of her past and a chance focus on the future. He hoped that he would still be in that future somewhere.
There you have it; chapter two over and done with!