Okay, a heads up, there was a little error in the end so I had to fix it. Sorry about that.
(Ratchet's POV)
So it seems like he knows me from another timeline. I noticed the look on Adrien's face. Wow, I don't even know how he deals with UDF and Nefarious Faction if he can't even keep a proper face with his own people. Then again, Earthians are pretty fierce in terms of combat strategy. I did get startled very fast as looked through my Holo-guise. "What's going on?" I asked in English before Adrien got all edgy. This is already torture for him I bet. I just guessed by his name that he would know English. He did and we started talking to eachother in that language. "I made a better holo-guise than that. A matter of fact. Adrien could also use one to conceal carry" Pritchard said, "But, he needs to chill out before he gets one. He really looks nervous, almost like he's looking at the face of torture." That was definitly the best way to say it. "Adrien, what got you worked up?" Pritchard asked. "When you turned off that Holo-guise, I thought we were done for." Adrien said. Okay, that explains it. I put on the new holo-guise and calibrated it how I wanted to. However, I might agree with Adrien on this one, something is just not right.
(Pritchard's POV)
I never seen him in the last two timelines looking this edgy. I am going to have a talk with him on the way back. I know for sure Lucy will not like a person who is very edgy, and well, Adrien is all that Lucy has, and it goes vice versa. In the first timeline I was at. The year was 2036, and the couple were already getting married. They even had an idea for the name of their child."Michael Johnson." No Tavirez in the boy's last name, because Adrien helped dismantle the Tavirez Mob. He never wanted that legacy to live on again. By 2050, Michael already had some pretty crazy dream. I wonder if this was relating to Ratchet now. Adrien was never a Galactic Ranger, he was only an ally. However, in 2055, he discussed a new peace alliace with Ratchet. I was there. Ratchet had a younger Lombax right next to him known as Firax. Adrien was also setting up a few things for Michael. He even paid for a ship to be made out of Graphene or a mixture of Graphine and hard steel with Ratchet's help. Of course the children got genes from strange places. Adrien did say that Michael reminds him of himself at a younger age. Maybe Adrien at a younger age was just like Michael, smart and strong, but at the same time, edgy and impulsive. Of couse, the older version of Adrien only had the edgy part taken out. Now, it's reset again. 2027, I get to sit through Adrien's edgy behavior which annoys me past my patience. I don't know why Jessica, my wife, stopped watching Adrien. He is getting out of hand. *Sigh* this is why I never liked INTERPOL, always irresponsible, even with things they say they are gonna do. Then again, it could also be XANA. Yes, I do know what that thing is and I only successfully able to remove here from my machine once. The rest required EMP, Believe it or not. XANA hates EMP's. Probably because XANA is a virus which requires to be transfered through electronics. Now, Jacob was acting strangely too, it's not about Adrien, but when he was on the computer, he had a sudden twitch and he went back on the computer like everything was normal. Of course, I called Jeremie, he said that XANA was missing. I think XANA might have taken control of Jacob. This I have to tell Adrien.
(Adrien's POV)
Okay, I am calmed down now. So, Pritchard told me something about Jacob. "I have a feeling Jacob is being controlled by XANA, it's best if you avoid him" he said. I guess I know now, I gotta break away from him before I get the brunt. I think Ratchet should use his own Hologuise still because i know XANA won't be able to get in that. Anyways, Ratchet calibrated his new holo-guise. A matter of fact. that holo-guise used the same script that the computers in programming class used. As soon as Ratchet was in his Holo-guise all ready to go, Mr. Pritchard drove us back to Kadic Academy. Principle Delmas I think his name was had a long chat with Mr. Pritchard since he didn't know that was referring to the office under his garage. Delmas let it slide for now, because Mr. Pritchard did bring us back. I'll admit though, it did seem like a perv move despite having access out of that office. Then again, he's a bit off on a social level. I think he had some kind of autism and maybe a minor tick disorder or maybe it was tourette's syndrome. I heard Jessica talking about that stuff in the background. I won't mention any of the tourette's syndrome to him, but I wonder if Pritchard is high-functioning autistic. In terms of IQ, he's gotta be within the 0.1%, but he is not an Einstein like Jeremie is, he's more of a Da Vinci from how I see it, he's been doing a lot of art, building, designs, all sorts of stuff. A matter of fact, i wonder if I could give him my IXS, it was his design. Seems like time went by and it's lunchtime right now. I took Ratchet to the student store instead to get some different food other than that garbage they serve for lunch. I haven't seen the entire week's menu yet, but all that bread tastes like crap. People say that "oh, french bread tastes good" and stuff like that. French bread is tasteless. Even water has more taste in it than that bread does, yes water does have a taste, it's called contamination. Not saying all water is dirty, I mean, clean water is contaminated by the filter it used. Contamination is really a neutral term meaning it has something else in it. For example, my laptop is contaminated with Lua because I am doing some game developing. Wait. WHY THE *CENSORED* AM I DOING GAME DEVELOPING WHEN WE HAVE A VIRUS THAT IS CAPABLE OF LEVITATING OBJECTS TO THROW AT PEOPLE AND IS CAPABLE OF MIND CONTROL? There goes a $1500 laptop into the garbage chute with an EMP chip killing it. Okay so, I went to the table where the Lyoko warriors are meeting at, next thing you know Jacob slaps me on the back. It made my heart rate triple because of that. "Jacob," I said, "now is not a good time.
(Jacob's POV)
Okay, I took my hand off Adrien and it looked like some black stuff passing into his back. I think it's just a pigment of my imagination. All this XENA theory going around just gets to my head sometimes. I believe it's all just there to scare people and all. I listened to Adrien and backed away. Adrien ate his food and went to follow Jeremie and Ulrich who were just getting to the virtualizer room. John followed them too. I do have a feeling something was up.
(Ulrich's POV)
Seriously, I have no idea what is up with Adrien, he acted pretty strangely around his brother. Then again, I guess that's American culture for you. Adrien explained that it was a personal thing. However, I think it's more than that. Jeremie did notice something about Jacob, a twitch. Jacob didn't noticed the twitch, however, by the time Jacob had that twitch, XANA was nowhere to be seen on the electrical system. We will need to keep a very close eye on Adrien though, simply because Jacob touched him before he got that triple beat on his chest. We soon got to the room. However, just before John entered the room. Adrien slammed the door behind him seperating us. He then locked the door and broke the handle to keep us locked in. John went to get some help. Adrien just looked like he is ready to fight. Adrien did not know Martial Arts at all, but he sure knew how to fight. After 5 minutes of getting hit in the torso area, I managed to kick Adrien's head into the brick wall twice. As if once wasn't enough for his thick skull. And won't you look at that, not a bruise on his head. Once we find a way to deal with XANA who controlled his body, we will get Adrien to an infirmary where the nurse will go deeper and check for some internal damage. This guy was too hard to face with just skills. I had to use different objects arounf my enviroment. John soon threw in an EMP and got to cover for some reason. The EMP turned out to be a grenade that blew up and scared off XANA so now we know it's gone. I carried Adrien a quarter way to the infrmary before deciding to get someone to help me with him because he felt like he was malnutritioned. It turned out it's his mediterrainean diet because he's not able to digest food as fast. I guess he was trying to not get fat. I can understand that, what I don't undestand is why he has to be the human toothpick over it. It could also be the food. He always disliked the bread which was so far, everywhere in his lunch. I agree, it is tasteless. John seemed to like to an extent. We are going to have Adrien stay off our team for a week or two, but he will be able to support us through basically teaching us a few things. He didn't know Martial Arts, but his movement and skills were pretty insane. So, the nurse did have an XRAY lucky for Adrien. His head was completely intact, however, he is going to have to have a brace around his right ankle because it did get smashed. John got the exosuit for Adrien so he doesn't have to wear crutches.
(Adrien's POV)
That was strange, I blacked out when I got in the room and then I ended up in the infirmary. This is why I don't like VR so much, it has problems. "So, how does your head feel?" Ratchet said. "It felt like it's been kicked through a brick wall twice" I replied. All I can say is *censored* happens and you gotta deal with it. I tried to get up, but the nurse pushed me back in the bed and insisted. "You have a broken ankle right now" She said. You gotta be kidding me, I know *censored* happens, but this is already excessive in my opinion. I have no clue if it's gonna heal this time or not. Probably not, I been in space and I am showing signs of osteoporosis. Don't get me wrong, some of my weight loss accounts for the amount of mass lost in my bones, the rest is 25 pounds of stuff that has been killing my stomach lining, I'm probably gonna get some peas and a blender from wal-mart so I can make myself some soup. I don't know about Ratchet, but he probably can handle it since the water is cleaner here. I have a few tricks I learned with cooking so hopefully it will help. Also, I'm getting some milk because of bone issues. After all, going to space for 2 months is gonna cause some major issues, doesn't matter if you have magnet boots. The worst thing about being on my IXS wasn't the choice of side I made, nor the battles, nor the crash landing, it was the bone mass reduction because that was something I will never be able to avoid. Anyways, I'm glad Ratchet got that exosuit, there was one problem, it was not United States, it was Chinese. Okay, I know, Chinese, in general, are nice people, but they kinda took advantage of the U.S. trade deal. It wasn't entirely their fault, I mean, a federalist country trading with a communist country is gonna lead to some economic trouble with the federalist country. Here what communism is, it's equal pay for everyone, no matter how hard you worked. Heh, a lot of job haters would sure love to go to a communist country huh? Do absolutely nothing or just a little bit and still get paid. That actually doesn't sound to bad in my opinion, but that just makes me sound like a hypocrite. Of course, I'm hoping that widespread terraforming and intersteller travel is possible before there is luxury communism. Which government is gonna go 4 lightyears to another planet just to make a new law. Hint hint: NOBODY. Heck, no one wants to risk warping some email to another place because it will have the chance of destroying a planet. You know. The IXS I built uses enough antimatter to turn Jupiter into a star and make the solar system a trinary system. I think we already have another star that is much darker than the one we know. I think it's called NEMESIS, or was it Planet X? I forgot. *Censored*, I am glad I don't discuss this stuff with people like Jeremie or Ulrich or even Jacob, not that it's classified, I just sound like a nerd in my head, and I probably sound or look like one overall. I think I look like a nerd because of the Tuxedo, after all, people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Markus Persson, they are rich computer geeks. The difference is, they are self made, I was rich because of the Tavirez Mob. I have a feeling, if XANA went into me. I think it will know about something that I allowed the Tavirez Mob to make.
*The school alarm sounds off because of a drone swarm*
Yep, I am so gonna be in a heap of trouble with INTERPOL if they find out about that.
(Ratchet's POV)
"This is not a drill, all students go to the basement of the school to avoid drone strikes, we will not be responsible if you get hit" The announcer said. Adrien got on his exosuit and started to rush to the nearby apartment he rented. I have a feeling that last trip to Iberia was not just cleaning. I think he brought something back. I'm hoping it's not too deadly. Then he called me. "John we need to move, NOW!" We got to his car and drove to the apartment. We soon got to his apartment room where we found something covered in a sheet of blanket and graphene that said "In the case of SHTF, use the equipment under these sheets." He always abbreviates things that will drive people insane. He uncovered an armory which included 4 AR-15X2's, all accompanied by 40 x100 EMP round magazines. "Take two of them and shoot everything in the sky that flies, I don't care if it's a bird." Adrien said. We each grabbed two guns with Adrien carrying 30 magazines while I carried the rest. He had his exosuit so it was no problem. We got out shooting at the drones, by the time 60% of them were gone, I ran out of ammo. "I'm out" I said. "Then take some ammo!" Adrien bursted out. Soon, we managed to take out 97% of the drones, the rest were shot down by what appeared to be Tavirez Mob.
(Adrien's POV)
We are done, finally. However, I soon saw Derrick Tavirez, one of the 43 mob kingpins walking up to me. I had my hand right on the holster where my 1911 is. Good thing my armory had it. Ratchet walked back to the apartment to get something else just incase. "So, finally the traitor finally reveals himself away from the protection of INTERPOL, one of the allies of our enemy gangs." He said. "Trust me, you need to stop this war Derrick, this mob was stared as an independant enterprise, not a radical terrorist group! I argued.
"So you think we started this, we just finished the job for whoever were shooting the drones down, I'm guessing that was you since you are the only one who made an IXS by himself in the first place!" Derrick said.
"Trust me, I don't think the mob's grandmasters would like this at all cousin." I said.
"They would, because I am the current grandmaster Adrien, you are a pawn who could simply remove this piece, and yet, you won't because it will mean being a checkmate anyways." Derrick said.
"You think this is a game of chess Derrick? Here's the difference, you have to play by the rules, but with me by myself, I'm my own piece" I mocked just before my IXS flew right behind me aiming it's guns at the mob army there. "Right now, this ship carries a gram of antimatter. Here, I only need 0.01% of that gram to take you all down. Don't even try shooting it down because 1 gram is enough to wipe out anything within a 4 kilometer radius. I got a proposition for you, turn you and your men in and we will allow you to live a decent life where you'll still be able to beat people up."
"Trust me Adrien, it isn't going to be a free life. We don't want to be in a prison where we get chipped." Derrick said.
"I never said it was going to be here" I said.
Soon, Derrick and his men following him were warped up to a ship used by Solona Rangers to escort prisoners. It wasn't maximum security by their standards, but it was enough where they won't escape.
(Ratchet's POV)
I walked up to Adrien wondering what in the galaxy was going on. "What happened to them?" I asked Adrien. "You know that eventhough you don't have direct partnership with NATO, after that stunt you pulled with the UDF on Earth, we pretty much are allies to an extent. What the Tavirez Mob doesn't know is you also are allies with the Cooper Clan, so you are basically doing your dirty work right now, we'll deal with the UDF in time though." He explained. What, he thinks we are here to make deals? You gotta be kidding me. We are not here to make deals, we are here to help fight against the likes of the UDF and Nefarious Faction. True, they are gonna have to deal with their own international affairs, but Tavirez Mob, like he said was an ally problem with us. I'll talk with INTERPOL to see if I can help against the Tavirez Mob. However, XANA is a bigger threat. Adrien will be spending the next 2 weeks in his apartment studying "Lyoko" which is the code used in the VR simulation. This code will be blocked by a Lua and C++ hardwire cord so XANA will have no access to his computer. Especially when it's being powered by a 50 atom antimatter core, It's a desktop so no worries.
(Adrien's POV)
2 weeks later, I came up with a thing to take down XANA, the problem, it's a trojan horse. This Trojan Horse will act as a virtual EMP, so for me to use this, it means wiping out France's power grid. Unfortunately, that's the least damage it will do. In order for me to do this without wiping out the entire world's grid, I have to provide proof that XANA exists. Luckily enough for me, NASA beat me to it. As soon as everyone disconnected themselves from France, I plugged in the USB drive and the power was off in france for 30 minutes, somehow, my USB was still on. I soon pulled a pin from my EMP grenade, dropped it, and got out of range, XANA was finally killed. So, that was that. I went back to Kadic Academy where the power was finally on and Jeremie was still trying to figure out where XANA went. "You are a smart guy Adrien, do you know where XANA went?" He said. I had to tell him a blunt truth. "XANA seems to be dead, however, I just have a sinking feeling something is not right." Soon the TV flicked on with a story I seen on the other timeline. "This is just in, the US had nuked North Korea after California was destroyed by their ICBM's. However, it doesn't seem like Kim Jong Un launched the nukes, but a software that hacked into that program. No more signs of this virus known as "XANA" is anywhere to be found, but this is the second time WOMD's were used in war." The reporter said. I slammed my hand on the wall in frustration. This was the same thing that happened in my last timeline. There is no avoiding it. At least UDF aren't going to invade anyone for a long time though. I need to look at the bright side of things. "I'm sorry about this Adrien" Jeremie said.
"Don't be, you were already stronger than the rest of the French when you weren't." I said in a calmer tone. "Besides, this isn't your fault. I am going to need a break though, I guess I'll find an excuse to be expelled so I can go back to what I was doing."
The Principle walked into the room. "Hey Adrien, we got a hold of your files, why didn't you say you already graduated?" He said.
"It's a very long story that you don't need to know." I said. "I rather if you don't know it because, well, ignorance is bliss, especially during these times."
(Ratchet's POV)
Adrien landed his IXS in the area where I hid my ship. "So, Adrien Tavirez, are you going to help me with the rest of your buddies?" I said. "Nah, I don't think we need to help at all, since that mob is tearing itself apart, it will eventually die out, however, as far as implants go, I might get some of the loyalist who joined INTERPOL to take those projects down." Adrien said. "So despite everything you saw so far, you still keep with your religion?" I said. He came up with an answer that surprised and shocked me quite a bit. "The reason why we are making deals with you is not to make us dependant on your technologies, it's to create a better trust system. However, I am using technology that is also based off your technologies, simply because if you are what I've been predicting that you are, I'll make sure you guys are gonna get your planets taken out. Look, I'll be honest with you, when you say that we humans don't know anything about aliens from other planets, you are correct. This doesn't mean you are puppets, it just means we are taking measures to make sure the 'anti-christ' doesn't doom us. In your eyes, I may be a religious nut, and I probably am since you could be skeptical about it, but I want to defend my own country. Besides, if it's not religion that you need to refer to, those rice sized implants can cause physical infections to people. Turn them into zombie-looking people. Anyways, the loyalists are taking care of it so, where next?" He said
"Since Grimroth can use you for computers, we'll go to Veldin." I said.
"I thought programming was a part of enginnerring" He said.
"Yeah, but we need you to do something that will keep you off your lazy *censored*" I said.
"Heh, that's the kind of guy they need. Good on the inside, tough leader on the outside." Adrien said, "I'm hoping your actions are better though."
End: Code Lyoko