Episode 11:
"The Future Never Lies"
"Wake up Jeremy, wake up" Aelita said, shaking Jeremy's limp body on the ground for the second time in what felt to her like eternity. "Wha… what's going on?" Jeremy moaned as he returned to consciousness. "Where the hell are we?" he asked his friends. "A government facility right out of town. You sent us here, remember?" Ulrich commented as Jeremy stood back up on his feet. "Yea, yea, I remember. What happened though?" he asked, but before anyone could answer, all the computers in the lab turned on, with the shape of a familiar eye taking up the monitors. "No time, we need to get out of here" Aelita said.
Jeremy and his friends barged out of the computer lab and into the halls. "Follow me, I know the way out of here" Jeremy said, and started leading his friends down the white hall, but before they could reach the first corner, the Calvary arrived in the form of a possessed government operative. Odd extended his arm and charged up his arrows as Ulrich and Yumi reached for their weapons. "Stay behind me" Aelita told Jeremy as energy filled up her palms. The government operative wrestled his pistol from its holster and swiftly attached a silencer before aiming it between Aelita's eyes. Chaos shortly ensued.
The possessed body fired his bullet, which was stopped mid air by a rival bullet, custody of Odd, and before XANA could take another shot at Aelita's life, he was flown back against the wall from the impact of Aelita's energy blasts. Ulrich's swords pinned his shoulders to the wall, while Yumi's fans bound the operative's legs to the wall. "You already lost this battle" the possessed man said. "The battle will be lost before you even leave this building" he smirked. "We have stopped you be-" Jeremy started to say, but Aelita put her hand up, indicating Jeremy to shut up. Aelita walked over to the man still pinned against the wall, whose grin only grew.
"How are you doing this, we destroyed you" said Aelita. "Long story, but its not important how I am here, what's important is that I am here" he said. Aelita stared into XANA's eyes for a couple seconds, before opening her man and putting it on the possessed man's face. Without reconsidering her options, she sent all her energy through her hand into the unfortunate man attached to the wall. His body shook with fury until it laid limp and his heart beat stopped. "Why the hell did you do that Aelita?" Odd immediately commented as he loaded his arm and aimed it at Aelita.
"For years we have fought XANA, and while he kept on threatening lives, we never did" she said, with water forming in her eyes. "We need to raise our game" she said. "That does not mean killing people" Jeremy said quietly. His body was shaking as he watched the limp body hang from the wall. "Damon is XANA's main source right now, which means that if we want to destroy XANA, we need to off Damon" Aelita said. "You know I am right" she added, and saw the others agree with her, not verbally, but she saw their facial expressions. "Better know how to do it when the time comes than go in inexperienced".
"We need to keep moving" Ulrich said, breaking a couple seconds of silence. He and Yumi retrieved their weapons, and then they continued through the building. "The exit is this way" he said, pointing down the hall. "Go down, I will catch up with you" he said. "Don't be long, we need to get out of here" Aelita said, but he ushered her to continue. Jeremy stopped running with them, and continued to walk down the hallway slowly, looking for a certain room. Now that he was in the building, he had some other business to take care of.
After a couple minutes of searching, he found what he was looking for. Jeremy stopped in front of a door that on the surface looked like all the others in the building, but Jeremy knew the contents behind the door held a deeper meaning, he just did not know what they were yet. He looked up at the title of the door, which read '10.9.14'. Each office in the building was named after its primary occupant, and once the person who occupied the office left government work, the office was retired and kept as it was when the government official retired.
This room was of special interest to the ZAIA operation, according to files that Jeremy read on the organization. '10.9.14' was one of their bases, and it was no surprise to Jeremy that the room was locked when he tried to enter it. He grabbed the handle and shook it violently, but the more he shook it, the more his head began to pound. "Shit, not now" he thought, but there was no stopping it: He was going into another displacement. His nose started to bleed as his vision started fading. "Help!" he called out, hoping his friends would hear him. "I'm over here!" he said again, but heard no response. He sunk to his knees as he lost all his vision and was barely clinging onto consciousness. "Help" he barely let out one last time before he fainted on the floor.
3 Hours, 4 Minutes Later
Jeremy woke up on his bed, his head pounding, dry blood covering his upper lip from his nose. "Someone, anyone there?" he called out, his head in to much pain to lift up. After no response, he decided to sit up, even though it hurt him like hell. "What time is it?" he wondered aloud, though no one was there to hear his question. He glanced across his desk to check his clock, which was off. "Figures" he said as he rubbed his face.
He sat on his bed as he sorted out the numbers on his bed. He just had his fourth temporal displacement, so he had just woken up from a 3 hour and 4 minute power nap of sorts, but this is where he was confused. Did he just come out of a displacement? Or was he in one? Is this the past, present, or future in relation to real time? All of the math was making his headache worse, and Jeremy fell back down on his head. As he was laying there, looking up at his ceiling and thinking of better times, he heard his door open and Odd ran in.
"Thank god you woke up" Odd said hurriedly. "Odd, you look like hell" Jeremy commented, and Odd did look like hell. His pants were full of mud, and Odd was bleeding on his left cheek. "What the hell happened to you?" Jeremy asked his friend. "You have no idea what's going on, do you?" Odd asked Jeremy, who shook his head to indicate he did not. Odd ran across Jeremy's room to pull open the blinds. "Now that can not be a good thing" Jeremy said as he observed the events going on around him.
Outside, Ulrich, Yumi, and Aelita were fighting for their lives. The students and facility around them were attempting to kill them in any way possible. "Jim, snap out of it!" Ulrich yelled out to his teacher, who was trying to whack Ulrich to death with a baseball. Ulrich grabbed one of his katanas, kicked Jim in the groin, and held the tip of his sword at Jim's neck. "You were once of us once, come through for us" Ulrich yelled, but all his attempts were futile. XANA's eye was bold in Jim's eyes. It was the same for Yumi who was fighting Mrs. Hertz, and Aelita who was trying to fend off Mr. Delmas.
"What the hell happened?" Jeremy asked Odd. "Well, you passed out back at the government facility out of town, and we brought you back here" he explained. "By the time we arrived, XANA was possessing people. So far, it appears to be localized, but everyone who he has previous possessed who has is not immune, which is pretty much everyone on campus, is already under XANA's control" he concluded. "We need to destroy the space station supercomputer" Jeremy said to Odd, who nodded in agreement. "We were fighting down there to keep you safe" Odd said. Odd helped Jeremy get up from his bed, and the two of them left Jeremy's room.
"If we can gain access to the space station supercomputer, we can fix my temporal displacement problem" Jeremy commented to Odd, though Odd was barely listening. "Let me concentrate" Odd replied, and Jeremy kept silence as Odd loaded his arm and aimed around the corner of the hallway. "It's clear" Odd said, and Jeremy followed him down the hall and out the building. "Get down" Odd immediately ordered once they stepped outdoors. Jeremy did so and the looked up to see Odd wrestling with Sissy. Odd let her go and moved into en garde position.
Sissy launched a roundhouse kick on Odd, who proceeded to grab her leg and twist it. She fell to the ground, and Odd dug his heel into her stomach. "That will keep her knocked out for a couple hours" Odd commented to Jeremy, who was paralyzed with shock. "Aelita, lovie dovies, over here!" Odd called out to his friends, getting frowns from Ulrich and Yumi. "I have Jeremy!" he added, and they ran over. "We need to get to the factory Jeremy" Aelita said to Jeremy. "Yes, yes" Jeremy repeated as he furiously shook his head, his eyes fixated on Sissy's unconscious body. "What?" he asked as he turned his head towards Aelita. "Focus Jeremy, we need to get to the factory" she repeated, a little angry. "Of course, right" he said quickly, before glancing back at Sissy.
"Focus!" Yumi said, snapping in front of Jeremy. "Right, lets go" he said, taking his eyes off of Sissy again and starting to walk away. Before he could get very far though, Nurse Yolanda attempted to tackle him from the side. Yumi quickly intervened, swiftly kicking her in the thigh, causing her to topple over. Jeremy froze in fear once again, and only resumed walking when Aelita held his hand and tugged him to keep moving with the others. They continued to walk towards the sewer entrance in the woods, with Jeremy in the middle of his friends.
"So what exactly is the plan?" Ulrich asked Jeremy as they climbed into the sewers. "I am going to virtualize you back into Lyoko, and you are going to shut down the space station" Jeremy said as calmly he possibly could. "But the Skid was destroyed, remember? How will we get back to the space station?" Yumi asked Jeremy. "Well, since Damon uploaded the contents of the chip that I used to materialize you at the government facility into the space station supercomputer, I can just refocus on the same codes and signal and bring you directly into space" Jeremy said hurriedly as he stepped off of the ladder. "Good luck with that" a dark voice said from behind the gang.
Jeremy's eyes widened in fear. "Multi layered voice" he whispered to himself before turning around with his friends. "Where are you all heading off to?" said the figure, whose voice was layered with that of XANA's. Ulrich drew a Katana and held it behind his back, as Odd aimed at the source of the voice. From out of the shadows appeared William, not only in full Lyoko gear, but in the armor he wore when under XANA's influence.
"How the hell are you possessing him, he should be immune like we are" Jeremy said to XANA, who chuckled slightly. "Yes, but unlike the rest of you, this dear boy was under my control for an intense, extended period of time. He is mine whenever I want him to be" XANA snarled. "All I had to do was reclaim his body and use your materialization program, so I should be thanking you Jeremy" he added as he drew his sword. Odd started firing away immediately, with arrows being joined and merged with Aelita's energy beams. XANA raised his sword to block the attack as Yumi and Ulrich ran towards him.
Yumi attacked William from behind and attempted to trip him as Ulrich prepared for a melee. William recovered with a back flip before attempting to chop Yumi with his sword. Ulrich came up from behind William and crossed his katanas around William's neck. "Give it up" Ulrich said furiously, but this only encouraged XANA to try harder. XANA faded into a cloud of smoke, but instead of simply teleporting to another area, he allowed the cloud of smoke to expand. "Guys, you there?" Odd called out, coughing through the smoke. "I can't see anything" Aelita chimed in, walking blindly with her hands out in front of her, feeling her way through the sewer.
"Where did William go?" Jeremy said, knelling on the ground, trying to stay away from the water. "He is in here, somewhere" Odd said, hugging the wall and staying put. "What about you Ulrich?" Jeremy called out, but there was no response. "Ulrich?" Yumi called out, with fear growing in her voice. "You there buddy?" Odd called out, but Ulrich did not reply. "Guys, over here" Aelita said from the center of the sewer. "I think…. Something happened" she said slowly. Her friends wandered to the source of her voice, but it was not until the smoke cleared that they realized what she was talking about.
Ulrich's body lied cold on the ground, with his katanas lieing on his sides. His mouth was barely hanging open, and his eyes were open but lifeless. "Ulrich" Yumi whimpered quietly as she ran over to his body. "No, no no no no" Odd said to himself, and he also rushed over to his friend's unconscious vessel. "Wake up buddy" he said as he slapped Ulrich's face. "Ulrich" Yumi quietly repeated to herself as her eyes started to flood. Aelita walked over to Jeremy to comfort him as he looked at his friend's body. "This can't be happening" Jeremy told Aelita as he started to hyperventilate. "This can't be real" he continued, and she laid her head on his shoulder as she to start to cry. "Ulrich!" Yumi cried out as she started to shake his body violently to no avail.
Jeremy stood there, watching all of this, as his heart rate started to pick up as his hyperventilation continued. He grabbed the bottom of his arm and felt his pulse rapidly increase. "This isn't real" he said to himself. "This isn't happening" he added. He rubbed his nose and saw the blood coming out of it. "I can stop this" he said out loud to his friends as his vision started to fade. They all looked up at him curiously. "You're not going to remember this, I can prevent this from happening" he continued as he sunk to his knees. "I'll bring him back" he said with his final breath before he passed out from the headaches.
The next thing Jeremy saw was his room's ceiling again, and he got up from his bed with his heart pounding. He wiped the blood from his nose and walked over to his window to see his friends fighting outside. He sat down near his computer and started thinking about what to do next. He just experienced one possible scenario of the events to come, and he had the ability to change everything. Knowing that Odd was going to come in his room in a few minutes to check up on him, Jeremy opened up a document on his computer.
"I know what's going on, I know how it started, and I know how to stop it" Jeremy typed at the top of the document. "Don't worry about me; make sure you are all safe. Aelita, I have always loved you, I just want you to know that. When I am done what I am about to do, this battle will be over, and we will have won, but there is still a war out there. In case I do not make it back, you need to find out who was the head of ZAIA before it became a government operation and locate him. He or she is the key to stopping this mess. All the info I have collected so far is located in a folder in the drawer below my computer" he typed.
He re-read the document a couple times, rethought his plan, and sighed before getting out of his chair and pushing it in. He looked outside and saw Odd running towards the dorm building, to check up on Jeremy, who knew this was his one chance to set things right. He opened his door and walked out of his room without looking back. He knew what he had to do to stop this madness, and he knew how to avoid the events that he just witnessed in his mind. He had a goal to complete.