Well, here it is! After agonizing weeks of research and preparations, here's Chpater 6!
Disclaimer: Code Lyoko (C) 2002-2012 MoonScoop, not JeremyX. Plese support the official release.
(The fandom is okay, too, though)
Chapter 6: Trials and Preparations
The SUV drove over a number of muddy ruts before reaching its destination, which was about twenty miles away from the city. A chain-link fence encircled rows of tents, a field of training courses, a mess hall, and the commander's cabin. The worn-out sign at the gate read:
"Camp Gideon – Unauthorized entry is prohibited and will result in appropriate application of severe punishment."
Jeremy rolled down the passenger's window, pulled out his badge, and showed it to the security camera. It scanned the badge for two seconds, and then beeped while the gate opened with a loud whirring noise.
"Welcome, Captain Belpois," the computer said as the vehicle continued to the main building. As it stopped near the door, Jeremy got out and pressed the buzzer on the door, and a tall man in a black army uniform came out to greet him.
"Good afternoon, Sergeant Miller," Jeremy said, saluting him.
"Captain Belpois?" he gaped, while saluting in response, and clearly surprised. "What are you doing here? I thought you had retired for the rest of your school year!"
"You need to keep up with the times, sergeant," Jeremy replied, "because things have gotten pretty ugly as of late." He then motioned to the car. "I got some fresh meat here, so I need the camp trainer here, pronto."
"Yes, sir," the sergeant saluted, going inside as Agent Beklin, Agent Shackloft, and the others got out of the car. Before they arrived, the gang had been given new pairs of military trainee uniforms from Jeremy's dad, and they were wearing them as they stood next to the car.
"I take it these guys know you," William stated.
"Of course," Jeremy responded, "because this is where I was trained."
"Cool," Odd gawked, looking around at the campsite. A few minutes later, the sergeant reemerged from the bunker along with a very familiar looking figure, who saluted as he emerged.
"Special Forces Trainer Jim Morales reporting for duty, sir," Jim's loud voice rang out, but then blinked when he noticed whom he was facing.
"Belpois?" he said, raising an eyebrow, "What are you kids doing here?"
"I called you here to train us," Jeremy answered, "since we need it for the coming battle."
"You?" Jim asked. "But he said that a captain called me here to train some new recruits."
"That's right," Jeremy repeated, "and you're looking at him."
"You, a captain in the Secret Police?" Jim chuckled, clearly not grasping the facts present to him.
"He may not look like it, Agent Morales," the sergeant shot at him, "but three years ago, he single-handedly stopped the most diabolical criminal syndicates ever to roam the streets of France."
Jim was taken aback by this, but Jeremy commented, "Well, not by myself, but I did take down their boss alone, but that's only because everyone else was incapacitated at that moment."
"Let me guess," Jim grinned, "You'd rather not talk about it, hm?"
Jeremy smiled. "Exactly,"
"All right, then," Jim barked, rubbing his hands together, "then let's cut the chatting and get to the sweating, shall we? Let's hit the track, people!"
With that, they all followed him a little way to a dirt track at the back of the camp, and motioned for the gang to line up at the starting line.
"All right, uh, troops," Jim started, "this course spans the entire perimeter of the campsite, so I'll make it easy for now and get one lap out of you. That's five kilometers, which is about 3.1 miles. You've all got five minutes, and that starts…
NOW!"
With that, they all took off. William and Sissi lagged a bit, but Ulrich and Odd were running as fast as ever.
"You're not gonna beat me, buddy boy!" Odd shouted as caught up with Ulrich. But just as he did, something sped easily past them both.
"Come on, guys," Jeremy teased as he passed Odd, "I thought you were stronger than that!"
"That's easy for you to say!" Odd panted, "Your dad told me you've been doing this since you could walk!"
"Not true," Jeremy said, "I've been doing this since I was five, and that was long after I learned to walk. It's just that I'm doing something different than I normally do."
As he said this, they came to the end of the track and Jeremy was the first to cross the end line, followed shortly by Odd and Ulrich, then the rest came a few seconds later. As they finished, Jim couldn't help but laugh.
"Belpois is making you two look pathetic!" he barked at Odd and Ulrich.
"Now, come on, Jim," Jeremy said, panting, "you may be a trainer, but trainers are supposed to be supportive of their trainees, aren't they?"
"I think that's enough for now," William panted.
"Fair enough," Jeremy said, "considering our debriefing starts in a few minutes. That all right with you, Jim?"
"Hey, if you kids gotta be somewhere, don't let me hold you up," Jim answered.
With that, Jeremy and the others, along with Jim, Agent Beklin, and Agent Shackloft, marched to the commander's cabin at the center of camp. A bunch of collapsible chairs had been neatly arranged into picture-perfect rows and columns, and they all sat down in the front row. Jeremy's dad, who had followed the SUV in his car, joined them. Soon after, two men entered the room from the other side. Though the first man did not look very old, except from his high cheekbones, which were visible in his expression, his eyes showed more battle experience than any number of battle scars.
"Greetings," the man started. "For those of you who don't know, I am General Gordon Alistair, Commander of the Second Secret Service of France, and Honorary Sheriff of INTERPOL. This man here is my partner in crime stopping, Dan Larkson, Deputy Sheriff of National Security." He motioned to the second man, who saluted to the group.
"The matter of which I called you here," General Gordon continued, "is this."
He pressed a button on a remote control, and uploaded a picture of a man in a mug shot to the screen of the large television screen on the wall The man looked in his late forties, with moussed and gray-streaked black hair, and a thick, bushy, black beard.
"This man," he said, "for those of you who don't know, is Geraldo Danzkhi, the current leader of the Black Cobras. At approximately 12:31 this morning, he escaped from his containment chamber by use of a time bomb, carefully put together over his period of confinement with pieces salvaged from various places. No one could have detected even the most remote clue as to how and when he did this, but he has done it, and now we face the threat of the Cobras yet again."
Jeremy glowered. "Damn it. Why didn't they just stay down when they got beat?"
The general noticed Jeremy's remark, and responded, "If it was that easy, Captain, then they wouldn't be the vicious cult that they are."
Jeremy made a face at this, and sighed. "True enough, but I think we all wish that they would just learn to take a hint."
"Well, since we've established countless times over that they will not, let's move on, shall we?" the general retorted, turning back to the screen, which now showed a mug shot of the man that attacked the school.
"I have no doubt that you all know this man, but for those who don't," he continued, looking at Jim, "this man is the one who attacked Kadic Academy, Djeral Pynchev. Small part-time drug dealer, illegal arms shipping, and about every major crime you can think of that is so predictable for an agent of the Black Cobras." Alistair then turned to Jeremy. "Before I go any further, Captain, I trust your mission was a success?"
Jeremy grinned and saluted. "Affirmative, General. Scipio has rescued the princess, slain Hannibal, and Carthage has been razed to the ground."
"Scipio?" Aelita jolted. "What do you mean by him, Hannibal, and Carthage? And what do you mean by a mission?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Jeremy asked, looking at her. "You're the mission. I'm referring to when we got you out of Lyoko, broke you free of XANA's control, and destroyed him once and for all. That was my mission."
"Your mission?" Ulrich said. "So, our whole time spent on Lyoko…all the things we did about Lyoko…all that was…"
"All a mission organized by my section in the National Police," Jeremy finished. "Now that doesn't mean that it wasn't more than a mission, but it was what it was."
"What about all the things you did to keep it all together?" Yumi asked. "Hacking into the school's system, hacking into government systems, and all those other times you broke the law? Not to mention the time you almost got arrested?"
Jeremy smiled. "Who said I broke the law? Ever heard of government clearance?" He held up his badge, and pulled out a security card from another pocket of the badge case. "All those times I said that I 'hacked' and 'broke into' these places was all authorized by the ones in authority over those places. Take the school, for instance. Principal Delmas allowed everything to happen. In fact, he used Aelita's background from when she was already enrolled here ten years ago, but it was slightly changed for obvious reasons. As for the attempted arrest, the feds would have taken over before I divulged anything."
"So, daddy knew about all this?" Sissi said, struggling to put the pieces together inside her head.
"Not just him," Jeremy added, "but the whole mission to rescue Aelita and destroy XANA was ordered by Jeromé Romaine Keller himself."
The mention of that name made Ulrich, Odd, William, and Sissi jump to their feet.
"WHAT?" Ulrich shouted.
"The President?" Odd gasped.
"That whole Lyoko mission was an order from President Keller?" William asked, shocked beyond anything.
"Why else do you think that your parents didn't tell you about how they knew about Lyoko?" Jeremy asked, raising an eyebrow.
"But I thought that your dad told them not to tell after you told him," Odd stuttered.
"Well, that was a contributing factor," Jeremy replied, "but the whole deal with Carthage and Lyoko was an issue of national security. It's not like we could just tell anyone, which is why you were warned to keep out of it, Jim." He turned to Jim when he said this. "It wasn't to keep you in the dark or to endanger your position, but to keep you from getting involved with something out of your league."
Jim looked shocked, then grinned wildly. "So you kids were up to something, weren't you?"
"Nothing illegal," Jeremy said, "but yes, we were."
Jim pounded his fist in his hand. "Yes! I knew it! I knew all along that you kids were doing something fishy!"
"Well, not fishy, per se," Jeremy elaborated, "but we just didn't want to attract any… unnecessary attention to our mission. Besides, you learned it before, but you just forgot."
"Wait a minute," William said, "speaking of that, how did the principal or anyone else even know about what you guys did at all? Didn't that time-rewind program blank out everyone's memory who didn't go to Lyoko?"
"Well, yes," Jeremy said, "but those involved with Project Carthage, like Waldo, obviously developed protection against the Return to the Past's effects. He got the tech and gave it to his friends, that being our parents, in case of an emergency. As it turned out, the whole thing with XANA was as big an emergency as you can imagine."
"Getting back to the subject at hand," General Gordon said, "we need to find out where these new Cobras are recruiting their new peons, and what Danzkhi plans to do now that his old crew is back. The only question is: how will we approach this?"
Sissi raised her hand, and the general laughed. "This isn't your classroom, young lady, but what would you like to say?"
Sissi lowered her hand, turned a little red for a while at Alistair's comment, and then said, "Well, what about that car bomber?" she asked. "We could get him to tell who sent him to the school, and maybe get a bead on this mystery."
Everyone looked at her, and Yumi said, "That's…not a half-bad idea, Sissi."
"Yeah," Odd agreed. "Good thinking, for once."
Sissi grinned awkwardly. "Thanks, I guess."
"Pynchev has already been taken to the Antoine Barrack, the most secure, non-federal prison that was available," the general stated, "but it's quite a ways away from our current location. It's all the way in Dijon, and that's about 306 kilometers away from here in Sceaux. Plus, there's no road to get to the island compound, and we can't just take a boat all the way out there just to cross a few kilos of deep water."
"No problem, General," Jeremy said. "We'll just take a chopper, won't we then?"
"Another good idea, Captain," Alistair agreed. "You're really getting back into this, aren't you?"
"Indeed I am, sir," he replied happily, "and it's good to be back."
"Hold on," Odd said, "I thought you said you hated flying. Why would you suggest it now?"
"I didn't take that flight," Jeremy said, "because I knew they would recognize me, and that would just lead to more pawing over me and asking me to fly them."
"Wait," Ulrich said, "you can fly?"
"Yeah," he replied, "I got my junior pilot's license at age 11, but only for provisional measures. I was surprisingly tall for an eleven-year-old. By now I'm definitely old enough for a fully-fledged license. Now let's go."
With that, the gang got up out of the chairs, and they followed Jeremy out the door.
"I swear, Jeremy," Odd said, "you are just full of surprises today, aren't you?" At that, Jeremy simply grinned widely.
"Maybe," he said, "but I guess that's just how I roll."
He led them to a nearby heliport, with two helicopters ready for flying, and five agents for vehicle security. When Jeremy came onto the heliport, all the agents saluted him.
"All vehicles ready for takeoff, sir!" One of them said, who was clearly in charge of the port. "What are your orders, Captain Belpois, sir?"
"We're heading for Dijon, soldier," Jeremy replied, "and we're gonna need backup. I'll need a small troop to accompany us on our expedition to the Antoine Barrack."
"Sir, yes, sir!" they all responded. With the agents, the gang all piled into the chopper and Jeremy began to initiate the takeoff sequence.
"Hey, Jeremy," Sissi asked, "Where are those two agents and your dad?"
"Agents Beklin and Shackloft, and my dad said they would stay behind at the camp," he answered, and then they all heard a shout from the opposite side of the port.
"Hey! Wait for me!" It took the gang a fraction of a second to realize it was Jim who had hollered at the chopper, and Jeremy signaled the pilot to pause. As Jim finally caught up with the copter, he looked up at the gang and panted.
"You're not gonna do something cool like this," he gasped, "and not take me along, right?"
Jeremy smiled. "No, because that would be just rude. Of course you can come, just don't do anything incredibly dangerous and/or stupid."
As the chopper ascended from the helipad, everyone looked out the window wide-eyed with awe, since, with the exception of Odd, they had never been in a helicopter before. Aelita was especially intrigued as she looked out over the suburb of Sceaux with wonder and amazement.
"It's…so beautiful," she whispered, "The whole town looks amazing from up here."
The others couldn't agree with her more. To see the townspeople walking about, some rushing to work and others just doing their other daily routines, and to see the cars speeding down the roads, seeing all this from so high in the sky was truly an experience like no other. They figured that Jeremy had probably seen this multiple times, but they had rarely taken time for a moment like this.
"Aelita looks really happy, doesn't she?" Sissi asked William.
"Well, put yourself in her place," he replied. "She's been trapped in a virtual prison for nearly ten years, and before that, she never ventured away from her home. Now she is going even farther than when the guys were still trying to take down XANA. She's never had a chance to experience something like this, so it's needless to say that she's excited."
"That's right," Jeremy said, "but if I were you I wouldn't get to attached to the beauty, because it's about to get pretty ugly." He pointed to the distance. Several kilometers away from their current location was a small island in the middle of an equally small lake, but they could tell fro the color of the water, that it was not shallow. The island was almost completely taken up by a large building, surrounded by a tall, thick fence, which looked like it was giving off occasional bursts of static.
"Is that…?" Yumi started.
"Yes, Yumi," Jeremy answered shortly, "that fence is electric. It's just the sort of security precaution needed for the famous Antoine Barrack. In a few mere moments, we will know more about these new Cobras, who sent them, and how we can stop them before they destroy everything we hold most dear. It's only a mater of time…"
Next chapter coming very soon!
-JeremyX signing off!
