Disclaimer- Code: Lyoko and related characters belong to Moonscoop and etc. I do, however, own Wanre.
ZZZTTT
The camera turned on with a small blip of light to reveal an empty chair. A familiar voice in the background shouted, "Go on! I'll catch up in a bit, just gotta check a few things first."
"You sure, Jeremie?" asked a concerned but noticeably tired voice.
Jeremie sounded almost forcibly upbeat. "Yeah, yeah. Don't worry, Aelita, it's nothing big."
There was a brief moment of silence, and then a haggard, older looking Jeremie walked on screen only to collapse in the terminal chair. He groaned deeply and massaged his temples before leaning against the left side of his chair with his chin propped up on his hand. He moved his free hand to tap something on the keyboard, paused, as if mildly surprised, and muttered, "Of course," before sinking back into the chair again.
"Febuary 14, 2007," the boy said in a monotone voice devoid of all life. He paused again, staring at something off screen, brows furrowed as if he was thinking hard at how to say what was on his mind.
A minute passed by, then two. The only thing moving were his fingers as they drummed against the armrest. Finally he leaned forward, put his head down against the palms of his hands, and said in a harsh, ragged whisper, "He's back."
Jeremie reached out, tapped the keyboard, and the screen turned black.
ZZZTTT
Yumi had to sneak in through her window when she came home. It was a real pain, always had been, no matter how many times she had done it before. During these times she would wish dearly that her room was on the ground floor and not on the second story above the rose bush.
Huffing and puffing, Yumi steadily pulled herself up the knotted rope that hung from her window, hand over hand, and hoping that no dirt from the flower bed clung to her shoes and stuck to the house. Once she reached the top the girl hauled herself up onto the window sill, quiet as could be, and swung one leg into the room so that she was straddling the window. Then, balancing carefully against the mild height dizziness, she looped the rope around her arm into a bundle.
The entire time her body was tense, the hair on the back of her neck prickling uneasily as she strained her ears to catch any sounds that would be a sign that someone was awake in the house. There was always that panicked fear that her parents would walk in and find her sneaking out for a mission or back in, half-exhausted and covered in dust, after finishing one. She was always lucky though, and tonight the fear remained just that.
Yumi made a quick, looping knot to tie the bundle together and kicked it behind her desk along with her shoes. A quick pause to listen to the house, filled with the snores of her father, and the adrenaline started to drain from her, leaving her body filled with a bone-deep weariness that accompanied any mission. She didn't bother to pull off the sweatshirt she had hastily slipped on when she got the call and instead clambered into her bed and tugged at the blanket.
Except the blanket wouldn't budge.
"Nnn…"
Yumi froze and her heart went into overdrive.
"Yumi?" The sleep grogged voice struck a familiar cord and Yumi sat up, scowling, but somewhat relieved at the fact that she at least knew who was in her bed.
"Hiroki? What're you doing here?" she demanded irritably in a harsh whisper, yanking at her blanket that her little brother was sleeping on top of.
"What'm I doing here?" Hiroki shot back, popping up into a sitting position to glare up at his sister. "I think the question is, where the fuck were you? It's-" He swiveled his head around to look at the clock. "It's one AM!"
"It's none of your business," Yumi hissed, "And don't swear."
"I'm twelve years old-"
"Go back to your room!"
A moment of silence. Then, "Kaa-chan and Tou-chan were fighting," Hiroki said in a rush, "I couldn't sleep so I came here and you were gone and please can't I stay? I won't tell nobody where you went and-"
Yumi held up a hand to silence him and cocked her head to the side, listening more carefully to the sounds themselves rather than just sounds. Her father's snores were coming from downstairs, probably in the living room, and, yes, there it was. Muffled cries so faint people would've thought it was their imagination. The exhaustion from before came rushing back. She could probably sleep for days and still be tired.
"Fine," she said finally, thumping onto her side away from her brother and shoving her face into her pillow. "You can stay. Just go to sleep okay, Hiroki-chan?"
"Yeah," he said. She could feel him wiggling around on the bed next to her to get comfortable. "Yeah. Arigato, oneesan."
"Ie ie."
"Wanre. Wanre, wake yourself," a deep metallic voice clicked over the sound of steady, rhythmic, stabbing whirrs of machinery.
Wanre growled softly and turned on his side, as reluctant as any human to wake, before slowly sitting up. The whirring stopped, and suddenly his makeshift bed lurched down with a loud groan of gears.
Three different sources of buzzing could be heard from up above along with a soft, breezy chuckle.
"To think, one of our own can sleep," an airy voice, sounding exactly the same as Queenie's without the fire, remarked. Wanre looked up at the sky and watched the giant hornet Elder known as Duchess flutter down to perch on the joint of a giant krab leg next to him. Two squeals announced the dive-bomb tactics of his flies, and he suddenly found his shoulders to be their new perches. "You know your ears twitch?"
Wanre rubbed his ears with his hands and growled something unintelligible as they flattened down.
"I believe the humans would call such a thing 'cute'," the deep voice from before said as Duchess reached out toward Wanre with one spindly foreleg. His blindfold hung from the end.
"It isn't cute," Wanre growled indignantly at the Elder krab he sat on as he took back his blindfold.
"Is cute," Duchess affirmed, her chuckle just the barest sigh of the wind as she jumped into the air and flew to one of the rocky spires that surrounded what Sebastian, the krab, considered his "humble" abode.
Wanre glared at her, and then was clipped in the face as the flies took flight when the Sebastian started to shake, settling down comfortable in the sand of the desert sector. Huffing softly in his hurt pride, Wanre jumped to the ground while he yanked his blindfold over his head and let it dangle from the base of his neck.
Sebastian was the second largest Elder that Wanre had met, second only to Queenie, who, he was assured of, was the largest. Sebastian was not quite double the size of a normal krab, which was a bit unusual. All the other Elders he had met were at least twice as big as their children. However, the intimidating spikes on Sebastian's shell and legs, combined with the two menacing pinchers situated on either side of his three eyes, left no room to doubt his status. Currently, Sebastian was half-buried in the sand, legs curled up on either side of him like some fat, happy tarantula.
"Queenie told me you were going to experiment in your fighting with the human children," Sebastian said, "From the rescue Queenie and Duchess had to pull, I take it that your experiment did not go as planned?" There was a mild hint of disapproval in that pleasant, metallic voice.
Wanre blanched slightly and sat down on a convenient dune, digging his paws into the sand. "It wasn't an experiment," he said, flipping his left hand in the air. "I was going to… but the apes had gotten weapon upgrades. I wasn't going to chance experimenting until I got more information on their new abilities. Besides, I wasn't so sure that I could fight as well as I normally would've with these new blades on my arms." As an afterthought, he looked up at Duchess and added, "I'm sorry that you and Queenie had to show yourselves. I know the Elders would rather be left alone in the fight between the humans and my Master."
"An upgrade?" Sebastian asked, the slightly higher pitched inflection in his voice the only thing that signaled his statement was also a question. The krab shifted slightly to look up at Duchess. Wanre rolled his eyes and fell back onto the sand with a muted thud.
They were communicating telepathically. For some reason all the Elders could do this with each other; they could even do it from different sectors. They could also do it with his Master, but when he had asked about it Queenie bluntly stated that they did not interfere with XANA and XANA did not interfere with them.
It was a curious topic… one that he would very much like to learn more about, but he had enough sense when to leave things well enough alone.
"Duchess tells me you saved the Creator's daughter," Sebastian remarked after a few minutes.
Wanre bolted upright and scowled. "I did not save her," he rasped. The flies flew down from their playing to huddle by his side as if in comfort. He ignored them and stared at Sebastian. "I did not save her," he repeated, "I just… I… I caught her."
"Prevented fall into digital sea, same thing," Duchess said.
"Regardless of the technicalities," Sebastian continued, "Have you thought about the consequences of your actions?"
Wanre scowled deeper. Of course he had. The moment he felt his claws ripping down the stone his mind started firing off scenarios of what could happen next.
Seeing his expression, Sebastian chugged on to another question, "Do you know why you did it?"
Wanre lowered his eyes, scooped up a palmful of sand, and watched the grains slowly fall to the ground. "No," he whispered. His eyes snapped up at the krab. "Do you know why?"
Sebastian shuddered in his version of a shrug. "We have theories."
Duchess buzzed down and landed on top of his shell. "We think it is a deep, embedded program," she said, her head tilted to the side. "Your… subconscious."
"I don't have a subconscious," Wanre snarled, flinging the rest of the sand in his hand away. "I am a program created by my Master to do as He wills."
Sebastian's three eyes lit up for a brief moment before dimming. "Who is to say… you have emotions – do not snort at me- and a very innate and natural curiosity. The rest of us, we can only simulate such things, and our curiosity is limited to our programming and purpose. "
Eyes narrowing, Wanre slinked onto his feet and curled his hands into fists at his sides, ignoring the sharp prickling of his claws cutting into his palms. "What're you insinuating?"
"Insinuate nothing, "Duchess said. "Only observe."
"Do not think so negatively of your actions, Wanre," Sebastian sighed, "Preventing her fall could prove to be fruitful."
Hearing this, Wanre's ears pulled forward and his hands loosened their tight fists. Seeing that he had the monster's attention, Sebastian said, "The humans have reason to not try and kill you. Or at the very least, the Creator's daughter, will. I suggest you use this to your advantage."
It took five days to reconfigure the materialization program and come up with a viable plan of what to do once the program was launched and their target materialized.
"Why do you even need to mess with the damn thing?" Odd had griped one time in Jeremie's room, watching the boy genius tap away while he twirled a pencil around his fingers.
"I'm making sure that everything's still functional and that the programming's perfect," Jeremie had replied without looking up. "Since I don't have access to Wanre's programming I can't exactly run a simulation."
Hearing this, Odd tossed his pencil at the back of Jeremie's head where it made a muted thack. Jeremie swiveled around in his chair and stared daggers at the other blond, who said, "For a genius you sure are dumb sometimes. Let's just go to Sector 5 and hack it."
Four pairs of incredulous eyes stared at him. Odd scowled. "What?"
"Who are you and what have you done with my roommate?" Ulrich demanded.
"Shut up."
So they did. End up going to Carthage that is.
Ulrich swallowed a groan when they arrived in the Arena of Carthage. He looked down at the ground until the walls stopped spinning in an attempt to keep his vertigo under control.
"Alrightie, time to go!" Odd yipped as he took off and led the way down the newly formed passageway.
Up above, Jeremie shouted out instructions to guide them through the pale blue maze. "You should be coming onto a big chamber now. The Key's located on the back wall!"
The group turned the corner and was blasted with a bright light from the end of the hallway.
"Got it, Einstein!" Odd shouted.
Ulrich unsheathed his twin katanas from his back and readied them in front of him as he ran. "I'll go on ahead!" he shouted behind him. "Supersprint!" He bolted up through the doorway and was immediately barraged with laser blasts. He circled back around to the chamber entrance and took shelter behind a large column, cursing quietly.
"Creepers!" he yelled as the gang approached. Right then a laser blasted onto the ground where Odd stepped out of the hallway. The boy yowled and lept up, his tail fur standing on end. Yumi blocked the next two shots and tossed her fan up with a yell while Aelita snuck into the chamber behind her and stood next to Ulrich, twin energy fields formed in her hand to block other lasers. The fan screamed up into the air and sliced into a creeper perched on a square balcony near the high ceiling of the chamber.
"A minute left!"
"They're all up near the ceiling!" Yumi cart wheeled out of the way of another fire. "Odd and I'll take care of them! You and Aelita find the key!"
"Roger!"
"I'll take the left, Aelita you take right!"
"Got it!"
Ulrich twirled his katanas a couple of times to warm up his wrists and then once more shouted, "Supersprint!"
He left the group behind in a blur and zoomed around the chamber, just barely missing the pillars that randomly shot up from the floor. He could hear the lasers of the creepers blasting past him, just missing him by a scant few centimeters or clinking off of his trusty blades.
"Forty seconds left!"
Where is it where is it where is it? Maybe he missed it? Ulrich skidded into a u-turn and zoomed back around his side of the chamber, looking higher than he did last time.
"See anything?" Odd shouted, shooting laser arrows up around the roof. Three explosions signaled the end of three monsters.
"Not yet!" Ulrich yelled as he zoomed past him for the second time.
"Ulrich! Here!"
"Thirty seconds!"
Another skid mark on the floor as Ulrich turned directions. He saw Aelita blocking a barrage of lasers from the creeper standing guard over the key situated over two-thirds of the way up a perfectly smooth, vertical wall. Can I make it up that?
"Hang tight, Aelita!" he yelled, sheathing his swords. Aelita looked over her shoulder just in time for him to seize her around the waist and zoom straight up the wall before she could scream in surprise. Thankfully she kept up her energy fields and used them a shield against the creeper. About half way up the wall he felt his footing start to slip. Another three feet and he was starting to feel himself plateauing in the air. Aelita fired off her energy fields and it enveloped the monster standing guard.
"Fifteen seconds!"
Ulrich clenched his jaw tight and tossed Aelita the rest of the way before all of his momentum could be lost just as the creeper exploded into pieces. And then he fell.
It was like he could see everything in slow motion while he fell, just like in a movie. The air seemed to slow down as Aelita flew up the rest of the way and just barely hit the Key by the tips of her fingers. He watched as the Key collapsed in on itself and glowed a brilliant white as it sank into the wall.
"Gotcha!" Odd and Yumi yelled, and the world came crashing back. Ulrich rushed through the air and landed with a jarring stop in two pairs of arms. Apparently he had closed his eyes when he got caught, because he was then unceremoniously dumped the last three feet on the ground and found himself blinking up at Aelita's backside as Yumi and Odd caught her and she came within four inches of slamming into his nose.
"Hoo!" Jeremie sighed. Ulrich could almost see him collapsing in his chair. "Okay. Everyone okay?"
"Yeah. As close as we can be to okay," Yumi replied, setting Aelita on her feet.
Odd crouched down next to Ulrich and waved his hand in front of his face. "Yoo-hoooo! You alright down there?"
Ulrich groaned and pushed away Odd's hand as he sat up, squeezing his eyes closed. He heard the girls giggling next to him, and then felt Yumi sympathetically patting the top of his head. When he opened his eyes he found Odd and Yumi's extended, helping hand, and grinned as they helped pull him to his feet.
"I gotta say, man," Odd said, thumping his back. "That was one of the cooler things you did on Lyoko."
"Yeah," Aelita said with a wide smile and looping an arm through his. "Fast thinking and fast feet."
Yumi chuckled softly and shook her head as Jeremie said, "Alright guys, we're losing time let's go!"
"Here we go again," Yumi said, rolling her eyes.
They went off at a fast clip down a newly opened hallway. Within a couple minutes they were running out onto one of the piers protruding out into the celestial dome. Unlike the other times they had come here, today the interface window was up.
"Huh. That's weird," Aelita murmured, her eyebrows scrunching together in scrutiny.
The rest of them narrowed their eyes and readied their weapons.
"Jeremie?" Yumi said questioningly.
"Already on it," Jeremie said. "…The supercomputer's not picking up anything. Whatever… or whoever was here, they're gone now." That news didn't do much to put the team at ease. Only Odd seemed to give any sign that he had relaxed a little by propping his hands on his hips.
"How long do you think you'll need to get the data?" Yumi asked quietly, sliding along the pier to stand at Aelita's back as the pink haired girl stepped up to the interface.
"I'm not sure… it depends on how well hidden the file is," Aelita responded. She paused, then said, "Whoever was here last forgot to close one last window."
Everyone looked over at her.
"What is it, Aelita?" Jeremie asked.
"It's… a cache. With articles," she said , surprise clear in her voice. "Articles on different martial arts styles, and psychology, and biology, and- and…."
Odd crept closer and looked over Aelita's shoulder. "And?"
"And… Kadic." The last word came out as a whisper.
"Wanre," Jeremie said immediately. "It's Wanre. He's been researching."
Ulrich gripped the handles of his katanas tighter, grumbling, "Great. That's not creepy at all."
"We'll deal with this later," Jeremie said firmly. "Right now we need to get the data before the mantas come."
Aelita nodded. "Right."
It didn't take too long for the mantas to start hatching. Five minutes maybe? He didn't know, and right now he didn't particularly care.
"Jeremie!" Ulrich shouted up. "Mantas are starting to hatch we need vehicles!"
"Coming right up, hang on!"
"Hey, Ae," Odd said, "How far you getting?"
"Getting there," she said, sounding mildly annoyed as her fingers flew across the screen, opening and closing windows as needed.
The walls of the sphere started bulging even more, and from behind the navy blue covering, muffled screeches could be heard.
"Jeremie…" Yumi said.
"Two more seconds!"
True to his word, within two seconds the vehicles materialized next to the platforms. Everyone but Aelita jumped onto them and flew away from the pier, wordlessly adopting defensive positions around the girl.
"Remember, Yumi, Odd, you have about half of your lifepoints left from that creeper attack. Watch yourselves!"
"Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah we got it, we got it!" Odd shot off on his overboard to the first bulge. A manta head poked its head out and screeched. "Laser arrow!" The shot missed as the manta dived steeply. "Damnit!"
"Nice job Odd," Yumi drawled, circling above the remaining two bulges whose mantas were now slithering out.
"Shut up, Yumi."
Ulrich sighed loudly and revved up his overbike a couple of times before shooting up. Above him the mantas were already engaged in a dogfight with Odd and Yumi, and one managed to score a hit on Odd's leg.
"Careful, Odd!" he called.
"I'm fine!" he shouted.
"Hyah!"
A tessen fan zipped over a nearby manta's back and the resulting shockwave from the explosion caused Odd to yelp and cling onto his overboard as it threatened to spill him over.
"Yumi!"
"Sorry Odd!"
Ulrich flew by her and chuckled. "That was payback wasn't it?"
Yumi held up a finger to her lips and smirked at him before calling down to Aelita, "How're you doing down there?"
"I found a trail! Give me two more minutes!"
Ulrich shrugged and chased after a manta. "You heard the lady!"
A manta screamed and fired a laser. It caught Odd in the chest and he devirtualized while shaking his fist at the monster. Ulrich pulled up above it and jumped onto the offending monster, stabbing it through quickly before back-flipping back onto the overbike. "One more left!" he yelled over the explosion.
"Four more left!" Yumi corrected him, pointing up at three more squirming bulges in the wall.
"Scratch the two minutes," Aelita called up. "Jeremie I need a password!"
Ulrich growled. "Aaah…. Shit."
Things were starting to get pretty heated. Jeremie was still trying to crack the password to download the file and in that time six more mantas had hatched. Ulrich and Yumi were doing their best to hold most of them back, but a couple had slipped past their barricade. Aelita ducked under a laser fire and charged up an energy field in her palm. "Jeremie!"
"I know! Just- ten more seconds!"
"I don't think we're gonna last that long!" Ulrich yelled, leaning so far down over his overbike to slash at a manta that she was surprised he didn't fall. "Five! Four!"
"Energy field!" The manta harassing her exploded.
"You're gonna have to!"
A startled cry and a boom. "There goes Yumi," Ulrich bemoaned. "Three! Two!"
"One!" A affirmative beep from the interface.
"Jeremie!" Aelita said, her back now almost pressed up against the interface as she blocked the onslaught of another manta and then shot an energy field at it. "It's working! How long is the download going to take?"
"Uh."
Ulrich obliterated another manta and looked up to see the wall bulging again. "Jeremie our problems are gonna get added to again!"
"A minute- maybe!"
"Ulrich! Duck! Energy field!" Ulrich ducked his head to the side just as Aelita's ball of doom flew past it to hit the manta behind him.
Ulrich glanced behind him to see it explode. "Hoo, thanks Ae!"
"Thank me later!" she yelled, charging up two more blasts. "Got more company!"
"Someone needs to get neutered!" Ulrich growled in frustration. "I am getting really tired-" Ulrich lifted up his sword and blocked a blast at his head. "Okay, that's it!"
A minute. Just a minute. Oh god please just be a minute. Aelita thought, eyes flicking up at the threatening bulges. She got her wish. A minute later Jeremie called, "Got it! Hang on for materialization!"
Ulrich froze in mid-swing as a laser pierced his stomach and his color started disappearing. Aelita got blasted onto her back. She managed push herself up onto her elbows before another laser found its mark on her shoulder and she started to disintegrate into tiny blue squares.
Japanese translations (the best that I can make out):
Kaa-chan, Tou-chan: Informal (usually used for kids) form of mom and dad, respectively.
Arigato- Thank you
Oneesan- Older sister
Ie ie- Okay, used in place of "no problem"
A/N:
As always, a big thank you to everyone who reads and reviews. We're getting close to settling down comfortably for the main plot; just hang on there a little more!