A/N: I hope y'all liked the last chapter! Bet y'all didn't expect a new one so soon!

12/28/2019 – Did a bit of editing. Don't worry, the story is still the same! Just a few punctuation and grammar mistakes I've found along with a few missing words.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything Code Lyoko. The characters and main story belong to the original creators.

Sittin' In A Tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Chapter 18: A Sea of Green

"Dahlia!" Odd's voice seemed to echo around them as Yumi frowns.

"Odd-"

"What did you do? What were you thinking? She wasn't hurting me! She didn't harm me or anyone else! What were you-?"

Maybe it was the sting on his cheek, or just the simple fact that Yumi's face was twisted in frustrated and angry tears, that got Odd to drop his sentence. The Japanese girl glares at him, her own hand stinging from the slap she'd delivered to her friend. "What was I thinking?" She screams. "Let me tell you." Her words made him shrink back a bit. "I was thinking that my friend had disappeared right after a party we had thrown in order to make him feel better. I was thinking that my friend had been gone for the last forty-eight hours because of some girl he's fraternizing with! I was thinking-"

"I wasn't fraternizing with her!" The blond retorts, "And what are you talking about gone for forty-eight-" He took a step back as her fist appeared in his face, threatening as to what would happen if she didn't get to finish her piece.

"-that of all the people and things you could follow willingly, why the HELL is it that you're following some virtual girl that we know nothing about?!" There was a long pause. Hard, deep breaths filled the silence before a throat was cleared. A scowl came to Yumi's face as she heard the noise.

"Yes." Jeremy's voice answered, "you've been missing for the last forty-eight hours. Ulrich's been making up excuses for why you've been absent from class while I scanned for you in Lyoko in hopes… Well in hopes of figuring out which part you were in." He rambled for a moment before shaking his head. It was obvious their boy genius was tired from more than likely being at the factory since the disappearance of Odd. All they had known was that Odd was on Lyoko, more than likely lured by their new enemy, Dahlia. At the same time, Jeremy couldn't help but look at the coding he'd managed to swipe from her. What was she doing on Lyoko? What was her purpose? Was she a pawn from X.A.N.A. or was it something else? Odd had told them she was X.A.N.A. and the data only proved that she could be devirtualized just like Aelita had been. He just couldn't get passed the questions he had, including the latest one: What did Dahlia have to do with Franz Hopper being alive?

Odd stood there, stunned into silence. How had Dahlia's life story taken so long, but in a way how hadn't it taken longer than a measly two days?

"Do you get it now?" Yumi demands as she wiped at her angry tears. "You've been gone, kidnapped by that thing, and we didn't know what to do! How were we supposed to save you? Even Aelita didn't have an idea, then we found that stupid bubble tucked away!" She clenched her fists before pointing a finger in his face so close she could have picked his nose or poked out his eye, "Do you know how stupid it was for you to just up and disappear into Lyoko with her around?! She already kidnapped you once, but then you allow her to do it again?! Why are you allowing her to tempt you? All she had to do was push you into the digital sea and it'd be over with! You'd have been gone! She could have gotten rid of you and you wouldn't have ever known it! Why don't you just think?! Why-?"

Odd mumbled something, making Yumi pause in her tirade.

"What was that?" She demands, anger still dripping from her words.

"I said," Odd began, "she wouldn't have done that." His voice was loud enough to make her be taken aback.

Naturally the girl didn't back down with that. "What?" Yumi simply growls as her hands moved to grab him by his collar but instead hovered over it. "And what makes you think that? Why would she just let you live?"

Odd's golden eyes stared at her almost dumbfounded that she'd ask that question, almost. Then he remembered that she didn't know what he knew. "Because she didn't want to be the bad guy."

No words were said as Yumi and Jeremy stared at him, one on a virtual plane and the other on a physical one. Yumi's hands dropped, and Odd simply took this as an invitation to go on. "Dahlia showed me her memories." He explains. "She's Aelita's cousin and here because of her father."

The words slowly digested before Jeremy started shaking his head, not like the other two could see him. "That's impossible." He finally spoke. "Aelita doesn't have any family that had to do with the Carthage project… A cousin isn't even mentioned in Hopper's notes."

"Aelita is hardly mentioned in his notes," Odd reminds him. If they hadn't known better, they'd have thought that Odd paid attention to those things. "He only mentions his wife once, but he does mention the name Puck. Maybe it stands for something? Like Dahlia's father's name… It could be an alias!" The teen scrunched his nose up as he tried to think. What had been his last name again? "Jonathan…" he mumbled to himself, "Jonathan…" he frowns, what would have given Hopper the incentive to give his ex-partner a nickname of Puck? It was just like Aelita's toy, Mister Puck. "What is it…?" Odd contemplated before realization suddenly hit him like a train, and he just couldn't help that small chuckle when he realized the irony, "Goodfellow, Jonathan Goodfellow." Dahlia's father had been anything but a good fellow, and of all the things to call the man; the mischievous fairy from A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck!

"She told you all of this?" Aelita's voice came from the sky towards Yumi and Odd.

Yumi was simply staring at him, almost as if he'd lost his mind. The dark haired girl knew their friend liked to play jokes and kid around, but this was as if he was taking the joke too far.

"No," he comments sincerely, "she showed me."

Outside of Lyoko, in the factory that the gang commonly frequented, Aelita and Jeremy exchanged looks. The pink haired girl was constantly attempting to remember her past, but every memory was fleeting and each one seemed to be on X.A.N.A.'s terms. "Father…does he really mention Puck?" She queries.

The blond beside her was already pulling up Franz Hopper's diary. He was still in the process of decoding it, and there were words he'd managed to puzzle out. Puck had been one left in plain sight. Was it a hint? "Here," he declares as he reveals the passage to her. "I've been working on this one, but I thought that Puck might have just been a mention of Mister Puck, your doll. I thought maybe he had tied something else to him."

Aelita didn't pay attention as she read the partially decoded sentence, "Puck… infatuated with Carthage,… hopes of usurping… project as..." Her frown had only grown as she continued to read. Bits and pieces of sentences that hardly made much sense had filled a paragraph of this person Hopper named as Puck, but later on in his diary there was a complete sentence in which Puck was mentioned once again. "Puck will use any means to get his hands on Project Carthage."

She blinked at this. Did this mean that Puck, whomever he was, had been removed from the project? Or was this when her father had taken it, running off into hiding with his small family? She winced, her head already hurt, pounding with the new information that swirled in her constantly ticking brain. A flash of a sea of grass and fireflies dancing around her, made Aelita grip the arm of Jeremy's chair. "Lita!" The voice was so familiar and yet she couldn't place who had called for her. She could see the world tilt, the grass and stars seemed to switch places before she was lying on the ground. "Owwie…" came the voice before arms scooped her and another child up.

"Aelita, Dahlia, there you are!" It was another new voice; one Aelita recalled speaking to her several times. "Over here! I found them!" She couldn't stop herself from inspecting her so called savior. His hair fell in his face, keeping it hidden in shadow. Somehow she knew that this man, a man that seemed gentle, was not at all what he seemed. His persona was simply an illusion, for the benefit of her and her parents.

There were more voices. Her parents and another woman, who must have been the mother of the child she'd exchanged looks with. Bright green eyes and inky, long hair, a mix of the child's own parents. Aelita recognized them, though these belonged to a child at the age of at least five in her memories. The ones she'd just recently seen belonged to another, of her age, but also in virtualized form. The name slipped from her lips like the whisper of a secret, "Dally…"

A/N: I hope y'all enjoyed it! R&R!