2: 7:00 am is XANA's finest hour
It was 6:59:38 am and the sun had yet to show itself. Besides for some occasional snoring and leaky faucets, all was quiet inside Kadic. Everyone was enjoying their final hour of sleep, including Jeremie.
He had started compiling the code which would form the basis of William's double at the factory. Of course, he had returned to his dormitory before the 10:00 pm curfew to avoid explaining to Jim Morales - of all people - why he was out late at night. Rather than collapsing onto his bed however, he turned on his desktop and continued working on the clone.
Once again, Jeremie had completely disregarded Aelita's recommendation of getting a good night's rest. He was doing all of this for her and the greater good, and reasoned to himself that a couple of hours of sleep could be sacrificed for necessary productivity. And so, it was half-past-one before his eyelids grew heavy and he dozed off while still sitting in front of his computer; monitor abuzz with the script for the clone nearly a quarter complete.
But as the clock struck seven, an all-familiar beeping sound coming from his computer, which immediately got his attention.
"Wha–" Jeremie muttered as he felt around his desk for his glasses. His eyes widened when he saw the red tower in front of him.
Oh no. XANA's up to no good again. But this early?
As if injected with a sudden adrenaline rush, the teenage boy quickly got up. He typed in several lines onto the command console to obtain more details about XANA's latest offensive. Next, he rummaged through his drawers for his mobile phone and called Aelita, hoping that she had kept her phone on 24/7 like he told her to.
"Come on…pick up already…" Jeremie muttered while attempting to get dressed at the same time. He was halfway done putting on his sand-coloured trousers when Aelita groggily answered the call.
"H-h-hello?"
"Aelita, it's me."
"What's the m-matter Jeremie?" asked Aelita, yawning.
"XANA has launched an attack in the Forest sector. Try and get to the factory ASAP."
That seemed to have woken up Aelita and she responded sharply.
"Alright, I'll call Yumi. You go get Odd and Ulrich." And with that, she hung up as Jeremie called Odd's mobile; seeing as Ulrich had his phone suspended last week. But that's another story.
On the fourth ring, he heard barking coming from Odd's end of the line.
"Quiet Kiwi, you don't want Jim to hear you. Sorry Einstein. What's up? Did you have that nightmare about the blue screen of death again?"
"No, Odd. By the way, you seem to be awake and energetic."
"What can I say? If you get your eight hours of sleep a day, you'd feel the same J. Hey that rhymed!"
"Yeah. We know you're a regular Robert Frost. Listen, XANA's at it again, and I need you and Ulrich to get to the factory ASAP."
"I dunno Jeremie. Ulrich gets real mad when you disturb his sleepy time."
"I don't care. Use any means necessary, but I need you both at the factory now! Who knows what XANA's up to? Or are you forgetting that William is on its side as well?"
"Alright, alright. More the merrier. Got it. I'll be there in ten minutes. And if I'm not…it's all Ulrich's fault."
"Whatever," said Jeremie as he ended the call and left his room in a hurry, running past a snoring Jim.
Fifteen minutes later, Team LYOKO had assembled in the lower levels of the abandoned factory. Ulrich appeared half-asleep and evidently struggling to keep his eyes open. On the other hand, Yumi was huffing and puffing after sprinting nearly two kilometres from her house.
"So, any ideas on what this is about, Einstein?"
"I don't know. That's why I wanted all of us here, awake and attentive, eh Ulrich?" Jeremie added as he saw Ulrich propped up against the wall, eyelids closed.
"Aww. Looks like someone stayed up a little too late doing his homework," Yumi smirked between breaths.
"Too much of a good thing, I suppose," said Aelita.
"I'll get his attention," said a brave, bold Odd as he approached Ulrich, then yelled into his ear.
"ULRICH! CANADA WAS WHAT NOW?"
This startled Ulrich so much that he jumped at least two feet into the air, and he started blabbering about the True North Strong and Free.
"Sorry Mrs. Hertz. So as I was saying, Canada is the second largest…no wait…fifth...umm...uh...third…fuc-, I mean, umm…second largest country in the world! Yeah! Exactly! And…" And that was when Ulrich suddenly realized that he was not in the classroom, while the others tried their best to contain their laughter.
"See? Told you it would work!"
"Odd, I'm going to kill you. Then, I'm going to bring you back from your grave and kill you again," muttered Ulrich through clenched teeth and an expression of clear embarrassment.
"Well, you can murder Odd later. But right now, head for the scanners."
Aelita, Odd, Ulrich and Yumi headed down to the scanner room, where the three cylindrical pods linked to the supercomputer by various wires awaited them.
"You sure you're up for this? We don't want you falling asleep while fighting."
"Very funny Yumi," replied Ulrich as he stepped into the scanner.
"You sure? No Red Bull, caffeine or anything for the empty fuel tank?" snickered Odd as he and Aelita both entered the scanners.
"Shut up, Odd." Clearly, this was becoming a favourite catchphrase.
From one floor above, Jeremie placed his headset on and began his traditional virtualization speech.
"Alright. Transfer, Ulrich. Transfer, Aelita. Trans–"
"Hey Jeremie, why do you say 'transfer' this and 'scanner' that all the time?"
"No time for that Odd," said Jeremie as he continued.
"Scanner, Ulrich. Scanner, Aelita. Scanner, Odd. And – virtualization. Okay Yumi, your turn now."
Soon, the four warriors landed on LYOKO's Forest sector, one of the digital world's four distinct topographic locations. It looked the same as ever, with its tall dangling trees, rolling landscape and narrow grassy paths encompassed by a yellow-brown background.
"Alright Jeremie, where's the activated tower?" asked Aelita.
"Not too far from where you guys are right now. I'm uploading your vehicles," he added as he pressed the 'enter' key.
Three modes of transportation materialized in front of them. Odd jumped onto his thin OverBoard while Ulrich climbed onto his sleek OverBike, which left the stable OverWing for Yumi and Aelita to board.
"So Jeremie, any idea what XANA is up to? Apart from depriving us of an hour of sleep?" inquired Ulrich as Team LYOKO sped towards the activated tower.
"No idea. I've been checking local news sources, cameras around the factory and on Kadic grounds. It doesn't seem like anything's going on in the real world. No abnormalities, no monsters…nothing."
"Figures XANA's trying to make me fail geography," mumbled Ulrich.
"I'm sure you'll do fine," said Yumi.
"Yeah, just picture the class wearing nothing but underwear when you present. Except me, of course."
"Shut up, Odd!" the rest of the group exclaimed.
"Anyways guys, there's the Tower…and it looks like we got company."
A platoon of XANA's monsters blocked their way to the Way Tower, which was emitting a red aura. Two Tarantulas were situated beside the cylindrical vessel and a squadron of Hornets were hovering above.
Odd sighed. "Isn't there ever one time when we can just walk right up to a Tower and deactivate it without a fight?"
"Probably not," said Yumi.
"Right then. Ulrich and I will take care of the monsters. You two get to the Tower. The simple diversion. I don't want to miss breakfast because of all this."
"Watch out!" yelled Yumi as the Tarantulas saw them advancing and moved towards them while firing a barrage of lasers. Ulrich barely managed to navigate through multiple laser blasts from the oncoming mecha-arachnids, while Aelita had produced her bright pink energy field to deflect shots as she and Yumi flew past the monsters.
Unfortunately, Odd was forced to tilt his vehicle to absorb the blasts. The OverBoard was instantly digitized as he landed on the ground on his feet, like all cats.
"LASER ARROW!" he yelled and fired his trademark projectiles at the incoming Hornets. The first one was dodged by an incoming Hornet. But the second bullet found its target – the Eye of XANA on another one of the bee-like monsters, and it exploded into scrap metal.
"One down, two to go!" Odd cheered, as the other two Hornets turned round.
"Good job, Odd. By the way, why do you say 'Laser Arrow' all the time? You sound like some sort of Digimon or something."
"No time to chat about that Jeremie," the feline boy replied as he targeted the remaining Hornets. But he was hit first with a volley of laser fire. Further up ahead, Ulrich leapt off his uni-motorcycle and brandished his weapon: a katana with the ability to deflect laser fire. It was essentially a lightsaber-sword hybrid.
"Triplicate!" Ulrich said as he replicated two clones and sprinted towards the Tarantulas. Confused by which was the real Ulrich, the monsters took no chances and fired at all three of them. However, they only managed to take down two of the three 'Ulrichs'…
Which turned out to be the doppelgangers.
The real Ulrich jumped upwards and stabbed one of the Tarantulas in its XANA's Eye, destroying it. The remaining one began firing rapidly at Ulrich, and despite Ulrich's attempts to deflect the shots, several of them hit his lower torso. He was clearly moving more sluggishly than usual - normally, blocking laser fire was his specialty. But without a hearty bowl of oatmeal...
"Ulrich, snap out of it…you lost nearly all of your life points. One more hit, and it's over for you," came Jeremie's voice over LYOKO.
"Got it." Rolling to the side, he bent his knees and leapt towards the Tarantula and hurled his katana at the monster's Eye like a javelin. Simultaneously, the Tarantula shot him at point-blank and the young Shinobi was instantly devirtualized.
"Ulrich!" Yumi cried.
"He did his job, Yumi. Hurry up and get Aelita to the Tower."
Ulrich soon emerged from the scanner room and headed upstairs to join Jeremie.
"Did I kill it?"
His teammate moved over to allow him to see the LYOKO map on the computer screen, which was now Tarantula-free.
"Of course," he replied with a smile, which was abruptly replaced by a frown as he glanced back to the computer screen. "It looks like things are going to be a bit harder now though."
"Why's that?"
"He's here."
"William?"
Jeremie nodded, and pointed to the red dot which just materialized onto his screen between the Tower and the two female LYOKO warriors.
Back on LYOKO, the situation was becoming dire. Odd had managed to take down another Hornet, but he was short on life points and was out of ammunition.
"Jeremie, I'm out of arrows. A little help here?"
"Sorry, Odd. It'll take me one minute. William's shown up."
"Fine, but make it–" he never got to finish his sentence, as he was devirtualized from a Hornet head shot.
"Dammit. If Jeremie ever finds the time to modify my outfit, it'd better come with at least 20 more arrows, no, 20 more homing arrows," Odd mumbled to himself as he came out of the scanner, defeated.
"Aelita, get to the Tower. I'll handle William," said Yumi before getting off the OverWing to confront the brief former member of Team LYOKO. While the tall, slim teenager with spiky long black-hair known as William Dunbar still had that cocky smile etched on his face, his avatar outfit had changed considerably upon joining the Dark Side. His suit was now jet-black with a few red stripes and decorated with the Eye of XANA. His massive sword, the Zweihander now had blackened veins pulsating along it.
William Dunbar
Age: 17
LYOKO avatar: Evil Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII.
Rating: D for Dick!
Fun facts:
He was nicknamed 'Captain Cockshaw' at his previous school.
On pace for a Kadic record – Most Classes Skipped (the previous record was 13, set in 1984).
"So William, ready to have your ass kicked?" asked Yumi as she brandished her weapons – two fans which were similar to the Light Discs in Tron.
"Hmph," came Cocky Cock's gruff reply. He attacked first, sending a stream of black energy towards Yumi, who was completely caught off guard and fell back several metres.
"Yumi!" Ulrich cried.
"You only have twenty life points remaining," Jeremie added.
At the same time, the lone Hornet had caught up to the OverWing. It fired two shots and scored a direct hit on the OverWing that digitized the vehicle as Aelita fell off. As she righted herself on the sector's surface, she quickly created a pink ball of energy in her left hand and tossed it at the bugger; which fell way short of its intended target. Aelita forgot that her right hand was the dominant one. And then –
"Watch out behind you!"
The pinkette turned around and saw the Scyphozoa slowly gliding towards her. She tried summoning another sphere of energy, but this time only a couple of sparks appeared and fizzed out as she backed into a grassy cliff.
Once again, she was trapped. The monster extended its tentacles and initiated the memory modification process.
Meanwhile, William fired another dark energy blast at Yumi; but this time, she was ready. She somersaulted over the blast, and threw one of her fans. Not expecting her to be able to avoid his attack, William was struck by the fan and disarmed as he fell to his knees. His massive sword, the Zweihander clattered several metres away.
"You lose, William," said Yumi coldly. As she moved in to take him out with her remaining fan, William looked up with a pleading look.
"Y–Yumi, h-h-help…XANA…my head…" he said weakly, raising his hand.
She hesitated. Was he not fully under XANA's control after all? He seemed to have returned to normal. Indeed, the XANA mark on his uniform was disappearing. Yumi slowly leaned forwards.
"Yumi! Snap out of it!"
Ulrich's voice pierced through Yumi's conscience. She looked down to see a smirk already begin to return to William's face, as his free hand began conjuring up another dark blast.
"God damn it," Yumi muttered as she quickly retracted her hand, leapt backwards and hurled her fan at William. He digitized it with his dark sphere and looked around for his sword.
Which was in Yumi's hands.
"Looking for this, William?"
The Zweihander was undoubtedly heavy – even with both hands, Yumi struggled to wield it. But that didn't stop her from swinging it at Captain Cockshaw. It caught him in the chest as he dissolved into thin air with a mixture of shock and frustration.
"Nice one Yumi!" said Ulrich.
"Yumi – 1, WilliXANA – 0."
"Damn right, Odd." She dropped William's massive sword before it too vanished.
"I hate to interrupt the party, but Aelita's in trouble. The Scyphozoa is extracting her memories!"
"Got it, Jeremie," Yumi replied as she retrieved her fan. She turned to see Aelita being suspended by the Scyphozoa's tentacles; two of which were inserted into Aelita's head.
"HAI-YAH!" exclaimed Yumi as she threw her fan shuriken-style, which ripped through the tentacles and forced the maimed memory-modifying monster to retreat.
"That was eas–" Yumi never got to finish her sentence, because the Hornet that everyone forgot about had devirtualized her.
While the monster had focused on Yumi, Aelita successfully conjured an energy ball – this time on her right hand. The Hornet didn't even have time to swerve away or counterattack, and was obliterated by the power of pink.
"Fantastic, Aelita."
"All done before school starts," Odd happily exclaimed. Aelita laughed and headed off to finish the job.
Back in the scanner room, Yumi emerged in a heap, exhausted by the fight with William. She groaned before hearing Ulrich's voice.
"Remind me to buy you an Easy Button for your next birthday," he said as Yumi brushed her hair out of her eyes and chuckled.
Aelita had entered the Tower and headed towards the centre of the platform; the path illuminated by white lights as she walked through. She then floated to the top before stepping down at the highest platform. A screen materialized in front of her as Aelita placed her right palm on it and it began verifying her identification.
NAME: … AELITA_
CODE: … LYOKO_
"Tower…deactivated," said Aelita, as the blue walls of the Tower dimmed; erasing themselves of XANA's temporarily-stored data.
"So, still no clue on what XANA was up to?" asked Odd. Classes did not start for another hour, and they were all incredibly famished as they walked towards the cafeteria.
"It was trying to get us late for class so we'd flunk our presentations?" suggested Ulrich.
"That wouldn't work Ulrich. We could've just programmed a 'return to the past'."
"Oh…right, I forgot about that."
"Well there has to be a reason…there always has been," said Yumi.
Jeremie nodded. As far as he knew, XANA was an objective-based program; there had to be some underlying motive for it to have attacked. Perhaps it was to test its extent of control over William. Or maybe it was just trying to catch them off guard, while they were still sleepy and unfocused.
"Well, at least we're in the all clear now. We beat William and we still have time for breakfast. Not a bad start to a crummy day ahead!"
Ulrich groaned. He always dreaded class presentation days. Not only did he have a severe case of stage fright, but it also meant sitting in class all day long listening to other presentations; which could get quite tedious and boring. And he was definitely not the type of person with a long attention span.
He felt a soft hand on his shoulder and looked to his side to see Yumi with a reassuring smile.
"Don't worry so much about it. You and Melanie put a lot of effort into it, so I'm sure you'll do fine."
"Yeah, Ulrich. Cheer up. Working with Melanie is a guaranteed B plus or higher."
"Just make sure you speak loud and clear and make good eye contact. And –" Yumi sighed, "– if it helps, you can imagine everyone's in nothing but their undergarments."
"Except me," added Odd.
That seemed to calm Ulrich's nerves a bit. He even managed a weak smile. "Thanks you two."
Behind them, Aelita noticed a slight crease on her friend's forehead.
"Something the matter, Jeremie?" she asked.
"Oh…it's nothing. Well…technically it's something…I mean…I'm still wondering what was XANA's reason for its attack today."
I wonder…
Thousands of miles above Kadic Academy, a passenger jet was making an early morning flight to Paris-Charles De Gaulle Airport from Toronto Pearson International Airport in Canada.
For the veteran Captain Jonathan Smith, it was another routine flight. It had been a smooth ride across the Atlantic, with minimum turbulence – abnormal for this time of year, but no one would complain.
After all, turbulence is possibly the scariest element of traveling on an airborne object – apart from cold airplane food or live snakes.
However, just over half an hour ago, as they had just crossed into French airspace, something strange had happened.
The Captain and his co-pilot were at a loss for words. The plane appeared to have changed course on its own, veering off its southeast heading. At least, that was what the communications systems indicated before shutting off. The engines were still functioning – they were still flying, albeit with a sudden drop in altitude – but it seemed that they had lost manual control over the aircraft.
A female flight attendant walked into the cockpit, informing him of the disabled electrical systems. Without a hint of panic, he informed her that it was merely a technical malfunction and suggested that they served breakfast a little earlier than usual. The hostess nodded curtly and left, closing the door behind her.
Utterly bewildered, Captain Smith turned back to his controls and was surprised that he hadn't noticed it earlier.
There appeared to be a faint, fuzzy image on the downed screens; which unmistakably resembled some sort of eye…or a dartboard supported by three beams.
Of course, there was one passenger who recognized the threat several minutes before Captain Smith.
One boy, who sported a Toronto Maple Leafs cap and jersey.
Slivers of his sky-blue hair protruded through – which was just a tad out of the norms, more appropriate for something like an anime convention. Furthermore, there were bags under his red eyes – perhaps a result of the incessant amount of time he had spent in front his laptop. From any passers-by's point of view, it merely looked like he was similar to others of his age and was addicted to online gaming.
Closer observation – to the point of snooping, would prove otherwise.
On one window was Google maps, which displayed a map of Paris marked with numerous points. There was also another tab that was uploading the most recent Naruto manga chapter. Another window was set to Notepad – in which the file was a long list of what appeared to be computer code.
But it was the final program that was most intriguing. It resembled a science fiction navigation screen aboard a starfighter, with moving bars and objects, lines of code at the bottom that seemed to be self-replicating and realistic visuals. The ones that stuck out the most was the flashing red cylindrical structure.
"Crap."
Seven minutes later, the in-flight entertainment systems turned off completely.
?
Age: ?
Rating: ?/?, where ? cannot equal zero
? facts:
Blue hair.
He turned towards the aisle and asked the nearby flight attendant: "excuse me, what's going on?"
"I don't know, sir," she answered with what appeared to be a sense of urgency before continuing her way towards the front of the plane.
? noticed that the plane had turned sharply to the left, and concluded that they must be now heading north. He also knew who – or what – was most certainly behind all of it…but nobody would believe that an evil virus within a supposedly dormant supercomputer from the Cold War era had hacked into the plane's internal systems.
Despite his lack of experience or proficiency in programming, ? attempted to manually override XANA's control over the aircraft – typing lines of codes with no success. The aircraft had decreased its altitude greatly, and he knew that a crash or collision was imminent. But there was nothing he could do. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes furiously.
Well, it was worth trying.
Fortunately, twenty five minutes later, the in-flight entertainment systems flickered back to life; power was restored and the plane was increasing its altitude. Moments before, ? could make out the faint outlines of skyscrapers from the side window, showing how close the aircraft had been to colliding with the superstructures. Those who were awake showed signs of fear, yet thought that such a disaster was impossible; surely this situation was all under control.
They were right.
"Your attention please, this is your Captain speaking. There appeared to be a slight malfunction on the aircraft's electrical systems for the past half hour. These problems seem to be restored, and we are back on course for Paris. Unfortunately, we will experience a delay of about thirty minutes and we apologize for the inconvenience."
Ignoring the French translation of the announcement, the exhausted boy looked back on his screen to find that the Way Tower had returned to its normal blue state.
"That…was close," he said to himself while smiling slightly.
It realizes that I'm a threat. This is going to be quite interesting. But I wished this program had more visuals than just stupid Way Towers.
He relaxed, shut off his laptop and closed his eyes.
But, if XANA was stopped…then that must mean that…she has awakened. Hmm…looks like someone already beat me to it.
Damn.
? then took out a long document, which was a bit yellowed from age and reread it with a sigh. His life had gone horribly downhill since his semi-sweet sixteenth birthday.
His parents died when he was only two. Since then, he had lived with his grandparents. On his sixteenth birthday four months ago, he received an anonymous letter telling him to pick up a package from a local storage facility.
The contents turned out to be nothing more than a bunch of old documents and artifacts, including the one he now held in his hands. It told him to go to Paris, among many other things. ? was really confused. Leaving his home to go to a foreign place all by his lonesome? ? did have some reliable contacts in Paris though, given past events. And as he read on however, he realized he had no choice.
This was a personal issue.
First, ? had to convince his grandparents, and promised that he would remain safe and in touch with them. Under the premise of pursuing a better education and gaining international experience, he applied for a student visa and to a prestigious academy in Paris. He was easily accepted, considering that he had consistently been ranked at the top of his class, much thanks to years of tutelage from his grandparents and his ability to grasp concepts quickly. The answers always seemed to just come naturally to him; a trait he shared with his father.
And now he was to be a high school student at the institution at which his father used to work for…Kadic Academy.
But ? knew that he must keep a low profile, regardless of how death and tragedy seemed to pursue him relentlessly. And of course, the student visa was only a temporary alibi. He was to blend in and act as a normal scholar to prevent arousing suspicion while he worked towards his true objective.
Find Aelita Schaeffer.
Aelita Stones / Hopper / Schaeffer?
Age: 16
LYOKO avatar: Elf
Rating: H for Hungry
Fun Facts:
She is right-handed.
Her favourite breakfast: buttered toast, sunny side up eggs, topped off with a glass of grapefruit juice.
Fragmented Legacy Fun Fact 002:
The word count for every chapter is an even number. In addition, the word count (except for the chapter sneak peeks sometimes) is always a multiple of 100.
A|N's:
Hooray! The second chapter is up on time! I'll try to release a new chapter as often as I can to keep the ball rolling; although this may not always be possible.
Feel free to leave a comment, and as always, thanks for reading Code LYOKO: Fragmented Legacies =)