August 6th, 2029, Monday 2nd iteration
The sun peeked out of the treetops, its light cast upon the upper floors of Kadic Academy. The air was wrapped in a summer warmth as the cloudless sky gained a purple hue. The heat began to evaporate the residue of the evening rain that sank into the brickwork and splattered the glass panes.
The arrival of dawn signaled a new week of school and a deafening alarm from the phone of a Kadic student. With a fatigued groan, an arm emerged from the sheets to rummage through the mess that laid on top of a nightstand. Various items began to fall off as the hand stumbled across the top of the furniture piece. When the palm finally made contact, the fingers curled around the device and yanked it, along with the cable, towards the bed.
Marco slumped out of his bed as sunlight intersected his groggy, tan face. He let out a wide yawn and a broad stretch; the exertion was followed by the growl of his stomach but was superseded by a massive headache. He checked his phone to find it was a Monday.
"That's odd," he thought to himself as he dragged himself out of bed, "didn't I already had my first day of classes?"
When Marco stood up, a burst of pain swelled up on his left leg, but the pain left as quickly as it came. The confused Marco could not find any clear injury on his leg and no amount of simple contact could recreate the pain.
"Was I just having a dream?"
The teen figured he was just nervous about the new school. It was probably best if he just continued with his day. He didn't want a repeat of his last school.
After a quick shower and breakfast, he made his way towards his first class, math. As he sat down at his desk, he began to feel as though something more was going. He felt that he was in this room before. He sat in this chair before. He'd seen that pasty teacher before; even his voice was heard before. As Marco proceeded to ignore the teacher's words, the questions began creeping up.
"What was his name again? The schedule sheet said Mr. Pichon. I swear I heard that name."
Suddenly his ears perked up to say the teacher say, "So please give a warm welcome to, Marco Della Robbia."
At that point, some of Marco's memories started to vaguely return to him. He had gone through this already. He had gone through an entire day of people trying to kiss up to him. He got chased …by a dog? Or was it a robot? He defiantly went into a white void… a white void.
"Great, this is turning out just like my last school."
But then one particular factor stuck out to him.
Eito.
If you were to ask Eito, the 'Return to the Past' is one of the best perks of being a Lyoko Warrior. He would tell you how enjoyable it is to know surprises ahead of time, to avoid any mistakes you made the first time around, and to especially mess with people how were not immune. On the rare times it's been used, it was always to protect the secrecy of Lyoko.
However, this time it was different. As he passed through the halls of Kadic, Eito saw the faces of students unaware of what had happened during the first iteration of today. Even though he was off fighting in Lyoko and never saw the full scale of the attack, when he was told why a Return to the Past was being launched, it struck a different chord with him.
As another group of students on their way to the cafeteria walked past him, his eye caught a particular blonde with thick-rimmed glasses approaching him. Her eyes carried bags while she carried two bags, one for school and another for her laptop, in one hand and a coffee cup in the other.
"Oh, hey Maya. How's it going?"
The blonde spoke with a blunt, monotone delivery, "Not good. That attack lost us a fair bit of ground in the Desert Sector. They're starting to close in on that sector's Way Tower."
"So, another raid tonight?"
The mere mention of the topic was another for her to groan, "That's the problem. Now that they can activate the towers, we can't just do them whenever we want. If we poorly mismanage manpower and they activate a tower, we could find ourselves having to hold out for hours before we can even try to deactivate the tower."
"Then what do we do?"
"Until I figure out the logistics, I'm putting the raids on hold," tired from the prospect of a larger workload Maya decided to change the topic, "So, how's progress with Marco? How much does he know?"
"Absolutely clueless," Eito "He has no idea what's going on. His dad probably never even mentioned Lyoko in front of him."
At that moment, a voice right next to them chimed in, "Then let's fixed that."
The two teens turned their heads to find a tense Marco with a determined glare, "Lyoko. Is that the name of that 'specialized computer' or was that what tried to kill me?"
"Marco," replied Eito enthusiastically only to go into a more strained, concerned tone, "You remembered."
"Yeah I did," said Marco, erupting in a furious tone, "As well as all the other times that big, white flash of yours gave me a migraine."
Maya began to chime in, "That's a common side effect of having improper immunity to the Return to the Past."
"Well, you better fix this cause it's been giving me problems for months."
"How does time travel give you problems?" asked Eito.
"I'd rather not talk about it."
The answer made Eito laugh and even made Maya give a soft chuckle.
"Anyways," began Maya, "we can discuss this further. But not here. Too many ears."
"So then, when can we talk?"
"Tonight," said Maya, "Meet us at the Factory."
"And where is that?"
"Do you remember where the sewer entrance was?" asked Eito.
Marco closed his eyes to focus as he pieced together what he could remember.
"Yeah."
"Cool. I'll meet you there inside the tunnels at… let's say 21:00."
"Alright."
"Cool. Oh, and be sure not to tell anyone about this. Don't want to start the whole day over again."
It took Marco a moment to process what Eito meant, "Fair enough."
"Then I'll see you tonight," said Eito waving a goodbye.
"Uh, we still have a robotics class together."
"Oh, … right."
Just then, the post-lunch robotics class became awkward for both of them.
Marco felt as though beads of sweat on himself as he made his way to the sewer entrance. He couldn't help but feel nervous. Marco had been in this school for one- technically two days and he was already considering sneaking out. He already promised Mom that he wouldn't get into trouble this time. But his curiosity and the solid lead to answers couldn't let go of him.
As he disappeared into the greenery, he wondered whether or not this was a trap. That this was some elaborate ploy to kidnap him and hold him for ransom. Perhaps he had seen too many of dad's movies.
With the last light of dusk, Marco found his way down the ladder into the sewers where Eito was waiting with his smartphone acting as the only source of light.
"Ready for the trip?"
"I'm here. Aren't I?"
As the duo moved through sewers, Marco felt the suspension grow. Whatever he was about to witness, it couldn't be too crazy.
The industrial grind of the Factory's elevator eased into a screeching halt. The large, circular lock unhatched itself, allowing the massive door to open. Marco could only look upon the supercomputer's console room with disbelief. As he stared off into the hologram mapping all of Lyoko, a computer chair swerved around the hologram projector to reveal Maya sitting at the helm.
"Hello again, Marco," the blonde greeted, "I know that we didn't get the time to introduce ourselves. My name is Maya Belpois."
She begins to motion towards Marco's left to a group of furniture out of a living room setting: a coffee table on top of a rug, a minifridge, and its most prominent feature a couch with a metal frame and cushions tied to it. There were other items, such as a metal cabinet, a service cart, and a wooden crate off to the side. Sitting on the couch was Alysa, focusing on her laptop, and another boy with jet black hair.
"You've already met my younger sister, Alysa, and the other one is Michael."
"So you're the new guy I been hearing so much about," greeted Michael as the two couch potatoes gave a wave, their attention still attached to the laptop.
"What is all this?" asked Marco.
Alysa chimed in, "You might want to take a seat."
After Marco was given an explanation about the general concept of Lyoko, he was given a moment of silence to process what he was told with a cup of tea Alysa brewed for him.
"So, this is a supercomputer with reality-bending properties and the ability to time travel. And why do you have this?"
"Right now, there is a war going on in Lyoko. There is someone… or something trying to take over the Supercomputer through the internet. While they don't have any proper access to Lyoko's systems, they are using an army of virtual monsters to occupy the four sectors of Lyoko. What you saw on the first version of today was their first success at accessing a Tower's terminal for the first time since they had invaded and using it to conduct a very basic attack. It's only a matter of time before they work up the hierarchy of Lyoko's admin systems and take full control."
"Why not just turn it off?" asked Marco.
"Lyoko is our only real option of fighting back," Alysa softly spoke, "They have … made moves in the real world. We don't know how they would react if we turned it off."
"Why do you need me?"
"While we can fight on Lyoko alongside our own army, there's only some much we can do," said Maya, "We struggle at pushing back and we can barely hold the line. We need more soldiers. Since you're resistant to the effects of the Return to the Past, we figured you would be a good fit."
Marco had to take another moment to process what he was being told. If it had not been what he saw earlier, he'd have thought he was being initiated into a cult or was being pranked. But it was real and the fact that puzzle pieces in his mind were starting to come together made it so easy to accept. But a few things still bothered him: Why is there a world-bending computer underneath an abandoned factory? Where are the adults? What makes me 'resistant' to a Return to the Past? Before he could ask those questions, the silence was broken.
"Sis, they're starting to advance on the Way Tower," said Alysa, "They're heading for our main defense."
"Already? They might be getting a new shipment soon," said Maya as she scribbled something into a notepad, "Alright everyone, head to the scanners. Take out as many as you can.
"All of us?" said Michael, "What if they activate a tower again."
"Don't worry about that," explained Maya, "There's a large gap in time the Supercomputer has to take before a tower can do something like that again."
Marco stood around confused as Alysa, Michael, and Eito made their way down the ladder to the scanners.
"Well then, Marco, you have two choices," said Maya, "You can either help us or stay on the sidelines. What'll it be?"
As sketchy as this entire situation seemed, it felt refreshing. For once in a long time, people were talking to Marco; they didn't even seem to care about who his father was. What's the harm in helping them out for at least one night? It was the least he could do. Besides, he needs more answers.