Chapter 7:
The Warrior Awakens
It was one of those rainy mornings in early November. There were several exams around the corner, and the library was buzzing with activity. In a corner of the library, Selina and Laura were studying for the Physics and History tests they had that day. Since Selina wasn't very good at History, Laura was helping her review for the test they were going to have that day.
"Who were the founders of Rome?"
"Aeneas was the progenitor of the Roman people, but it was his descendants Romulus and Remus who founded Rome"
"Very good! Now let's continue with the names of the Roman kings before the advent of the republic. Their names are..."
"Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullius Hostilius, Ancus Martius, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius and Tarquinius the Superbus"
Laura continued to ask him a repertoire of questions about the history of Rome until recess was over. Her conclusion was that Selina was going to do great on the History test. And the redhead's conclusion was that after the exams she was going to take a nap, because she couldn't take it anymore. For most of her free time she had been helping Theo and Heidi prepare for the Math test, and she barely had time left to prepare for her own, having to stay up late into the night. And when she could finally go to bed, she suffered the same nightmares: the one about her being attacked and devoured by wolves, only this time the boy wasn't there to save her. She was about to lose her mind.
"You have the test very well prepared" said Laura smiling as she got up from her seat and gathered her things. "I don't understand why you asked for my help"
Selina lifted her head from her notes. She was pale as a ghost and two deep dark circles were drawn under her light blue eyes.
"I've had two hours of sleep in the last three days" she mumbled. "I can fucking smell sounds. Please kill me and put me out of my misery"
"I'll kill you when this week's exams are over" at the redhead's lack of reaction, she walked over to Selina and put her hand on her shoulder. "No, seriously, what's wrong with you? I've been noticing you looking very unwell lately"
"I've been having nightmares for the past few days. It's nothing"
"What do you mean, it's nothing?" replied the girl incredulously. "You look like the corpse bride. Whatever it is, you can tell me about it, okay?"
Selina offered him a faint smile. If anything, she wanted to tell her about all those nightmares that had haunted her during her childhood and in the last few weeks had resurfaced again, but what could she tell her that made even the slightest bit of sense?
"I know, Laura, I know. I just want to finish today's exams and take a nap. That unless there's a nuclear apocalypse, no one is going to get me out of my room"
Her frankness made Laura smile. Selina stood up and picked up her notes, a little more upbeat.
"Last words before the History exam, Miss Levesque?" she said in a TV reporter tone.
"Alea iacta est. The die is cast.
In the afternoon, the cafeteria was overflowing with students. After two exams in a row, everyone was eager to enjoy the hot chocolate and buns served by the cook. Outside, the rain was pouring down relentlessly. After hanging out with Laura talking about a million things, Selina was lining up to get a nice hot cocoa and croissants. The prospect of drinking hot chocolate with her new friends almost pushed the nightmares that had been haunting her for the past few nights into the background.
Arriving at the table where the gang was, she was greeted warmly by her new friends. The conversation was really lively. It was clear that they were up to something.
"So..., have you guys found out anything new about Cortex or Tyron?" asked Selina, as she dipped a croissant into her hot chocolate.
Jeremy nodded and pushed his glasses up his nose.
"Yes. With the data you deciphered I was able to find out that Cortex, although Lyoko was used as a model, their system is completely different from Lyoko's" he paused before continuing. "In order to create an antivirus and destroy it, I would have to start from scratch"
"And the next thing?"
This time it was Aelita who spoke. Selina noticed that the pinkette was somewhere between shocked and disturbed. Perhaps she too carried her share of dark and sinister secrets and longed to be able to reveal them. She cleared her throat and began to speak.
""Yesterday afternoon we went to the Hermitage. I wanted to find out what the connection was between my father and Professor Tyron. Searching through his papers we found a logbook of sorts. It was written in invisible ink, but thanks to Yumi we managed to read it"
The girl shrugged, but her eyes sparkled with a point of pride.
"Hopper was a science teacher and therefore an expert in chemistry. The other day Hertz talked about invisible inks and that potassium ferrocyanide could be used as an invisible ink. If so, with some ferric nitrate we could reveal the contents of the text. In the loft was a science kit case. We took the ferric nitrate, and ta-da! The text appeared as if by magic"
"And what was it that the notebook said?" inquired Selina, puzzled. "Because you have the face of having discovered the corpse of a murder victim"
Aelita bit her lip. What she put in that notebook was far worse than coming across any murder victim. It had forever changed everything she knew about her parents.
"The notebook related that in the late 1980s my parents defected from the Project Carthage because of the potential danger it posed to humanity" Selina nodded, understanding what he meant. Among other things, it had been explained to her that the Supercomputer, XANA and Lyoko had been created to destroy Project Carthage. "My mother was kidnapped when I was three years old and my father and I fled Switzerland. We ended up in Paris and my father started teaching at the Kadic Academy. Soon after, he started building the Supercomputer and Lyoko to isolate Project Carthage. XANA was going to serve to protect it. But my father was not alone. He was accompanied on the project by Professor Tyron and one Andrew Hopper"
"Andrew Hopper?" repeated Selina, dumbfounded. "Hopper, like your mother, Anthea Hopper?"
"Yes. According to my father's notebook, I have an uncle. And apparently, he and my father were pretty close friends. But the funny thing is, I don't remember having an uncle. I don't understand why my father wanted me to forget something so important from my past"
"Did it say anything else in the notebook?" inquired Odd. "Like where he lived or something?"
The pinkette shook her head.
"No. But apparently Andrew Hopper and Tyron had known each other for a long time. I think it was Andrew was a student of Tyron's"
"You think Andrew knows something about what happened to your mother?" asked Ulrich, an idea looming in his mind.
"I don't. But if my uncle and Tyron shared the same past, maybe we'll get a clue by going to Cortex. We got a good handful of data on Tyron the other time"
She looked at Jeremy, who was silent. Too many problems had suddenly arisen, and a visit to Cortex might solve them all. They might find out who exactly Andrew Hopper was, they might even have some clue as to Anthea's whereabouts, and very importantly, they might collect enough data to start creating an antivirus with which to destroy XANA once and for all.
"As soon as the rain stops, we're going to the factory" Selina finished drinking her hot chocolate and wanted to leave quietly, but Jeremy's voice stopped her. "You too, Selina"
"Me?"
"Yes, you. You're darn good at decrypting encrypted data: there's no protection you can't crack" Jeremy explained, unaware to Selina's sudden pallor. "With you, we could find out a lot of things about Cortex"
Selina put her hands to her temples, trying to soothe the headache that was beginning to set in. She hadn't slept for days, plagued by nightmares, and she was beginning to lose control of her powers. In the morning, in biology class, she had inadvertently fried the projector while Mrs. Hertz was explaining cell division. And throughout the morning, it had only gotten worse.
Under those conditions, trying to use her powers was like controlling plutonium in a nuclear reactor: it might work, but if she let her guard down, even for a moment, she could wipe her friends off the map in the blink of an eye.
"Jeremy, I can't do it. I haven't slept in days and I look like a zombie. Do you really want a girl like that fiddling with the Supercomputer?"
"Even if you are a zombie, when it comes to decrypting data, you're the best"
Selina shuddered. Under no circumstances was she going to use her powers if she wasn't in control. When she'd given in to her impulses she'd almost killed her mother. She couldn't let the same thing happen again.
"I can't!" she exclaimed, her eyes filled with unshed tears. "I don't want to lose control! I don't want what happened the other time to happen to you!"
"The other time?" Jeremy looked at her in confusion. "Selina, what are you talking about?"
But she had already gotten up from her seat and stormed out of the cafeteria, slamming the door. Jeremy frowned, concerned. What did Selina mean by the other time? Aelita put her hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure him.
"Selina just needs a nap. She hasn't slept for days. I highly doubt it's a good idea for her to be in the lab in that condition"
"Aelita, it's one thing for her to be sleep deprived, and another for her to suddenly be terrified to use her powers" he tried to reorganize his thoughts before continuing. "But what worries me most of all is what she said. I don't want what happened the other time to happen to you. What happened the other time?"
Everyone was silent. Of Selina's past they knew absolutely nothing. But perhaps Selina had kept it that way on purpose. She didn't want them to know anything about her because she was afraid of what would happen if they found out. She was afraid of herself. The question was: why?
"If she doesn't want to tell us what happened to her, we have to accept it" Yumi said, thoughtfully. "But we have to respect her right to privacy. Since she came to Kadic all she's done is help us"
"Alright. We'll go to Cortex without her" it upset him not to count for her help, but most of all, Jeremy was sad to see her so scared, used to seeing her as tough, brave and self-confident. "Hopefully in the evening she'll feel a little better" then he turned to William. "Are you coming with us?"
The boy shook his head.
"No. I'd rather stay at Kadic to study, I have a Math exam and I'm terrible at it" he paused, as if what he was about to say made him a little embarrassed. "Besides, I'd like to talk to Selina alone. Whatever is wrong with her, she shouldn't go through it on her own"
Lyoko's floodgates opened and the Skid appeared in the Digital Sea. While this mission did not carry the same urgency as the others, it was no less important. Aside from obtaining data to create a possible antivirus and destroy Cortex, they had another mystery to solve: who was Andrew Hopper and what had become of him?
As they sailed through the Digital Sea, Jeremy filled them in on some of the details of the mission.
"I've programmed some new cards. They allow you to search for information specifically related to Andrew Hopper" Jeremy explained. "In theory they could work"
Aelita frowned, concerned.
"In theory?"
"Well, the video we got of your father and Tyron was pretty messed up, and I highly doubt Tyron would leave his personal data without heavily encrypting it first. But I'm sure the cards will work"
"And if the data is heavily encrypted?"
"Then I'll decrypt them, even if I have to spend sleepless nights. But I don't want to ask Selina for help: even if she is a master key to any unimaginable database, above all she is a teenager like any of us. And right now her mental state is very fragile. No way am I going to force her to use her powers"
This last he said with a mixture of envy and compassion. Jeremy envied Selina's abilities to decrypt encrypted data and control any electronic device, but he also understood that it was something very difficult to control. And judging by what Selina had implied, on one occasion, when she had used her powers, things had ended in disaster.
Unfortunately, Odd only picked up on the envy part of Jeremy's comment and didn't hesitate to poke fun at him.
"That, or you're afraid we'll replace you with Selina. She's obviously way smarter than you!"
"Odd, shut up!" shouted Yumi and Ulrich.
Aelita ignored Odd's taunts and asked the question that seemed really important to her.
"You think what's more important to find out about my newfound uncle than collecting data to create an antivirus to destroy Cortex?"
"I think both are of equal importance," Jeremy replied, grimly. "Even though Cortex is XANA's home, it's also the only source of information we have at the moment on your family"
William was walking through the halls of Kadic, when he bumped into a blonde girl. It was Laura Gauthier, the new tenth grader. And as far as he knew, she was Selina's best friend.
"Hey, do you know where Selina is? I'd like to talk to her for a moment"
Laura looked at him half disgusted, half intrigued.
"She's sleeping in her room, but don't even think about disturbing her. She's not feeling very well"
"I know she's had sleepless nights, but I'd like to talk to her, just for a moment"
Laura clenched her fists. William never thought that female copy of Jeremy was violent, but in those moments she looked like she wanted to rip his head off.
"Look William, I don't know what the hell you said to her in the afternoon, but she is very upset" Laura growled. "She seems to be on the verge of a panic attack"
William bit his lip. He wasn't entirely sure, but he thought he knew what had happened to Selina, and if one thing was clear to him, it was that she shouldn't be afraid of herself and reject others just because she had a moment of weakness.
"I'm sorry. Look... as soon as she wakes up from her nap, tell her that I'd like to talk to her. I know what she's going through and I want to help her."
"What exactly do you know?"
William and Laura turned and found themselves face to face with Selina, her red hair disheveled and an angry, worried look on her face. William swallowed saliva. One thing was for sure: the conversation he was about to have with Selina was going to be playing with fire.
Thanks to Odd's mob-driving skills, the Megapod reached the Cortex core in no time. But just after arriving, the classic ship's horn that preceded the wildest terrain changes was heard. The hatches leading into the Cortex core opened, and they raced to the gangway leading into the core.
A gap opened up in the terrain. Aelita, Yumi and Ulrich jumped over it with no trouble, but Odd stayed on the other side. A second later the platform where the purple cat stood tilted like a pitcher pouring water. In desperation, he tried to cling to the ground with his claws, but slipped until he was dangling over the edge of the cliff.
"Jeremy, send my Overboard!"
"You won't have enough time" shouted Ulrich. "Jump over here!"
Odd tried to balance to reach the platform, but his feet were several yards from the edge.
"It's too far, I won't make it!"
"Jeremy!" Yumi cried out in fright as Odd began to lose his grip. "Odd is falling into the digital sea! Devirtualize him, quickly!"
Odd let go and fell into the void, but just as he was about to take a dip in the Digital Sea, Jeremy devirtualized him. A few seconds later, the blond emerged from the scanner, scared out of his mind, but alive.
"Thanks Jeremy. Just in time"
While Odd made sure he was alive and kicking, Aelita, Yumi and Ulrich ran to the closing core gates. They managed to get in just in time. Once inside the core Yumi and Ulrich jumped from platform to platform until they reached the terminal, while Aelita simply used her wings to get there.
"Here we are" said Ulrich looking around, in case the Cortex core activated its anti-intruder mode. "When you can, pass us the special cards."
Jeremy typed on the keyboard and a few seconds later three strange purple cards appeared in the hands of the angel, the ninja and the samurai.
"Here you go. The cards can do two things at once: look up general Cortex data and look up information related to Andrew Hopper"
Aelita gave a nod and inserted the card into the terminal, which promptly swallowed it. For a few moments, things happened as planned, with Jeremy getting all sorts of juicy data about Cortex, but just as the card started searching for data with the last name Hopper on it, the connection was cut. Five seconds later an alarm went off, sounding like a cross between a fire siren and a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
"What is that?!" shouted Ulrich.
"Looks like a firewall" Jeremy muttered, but was stunned to see what was on the screen. "Oh no, my scan detected some strange presence in the core! Uhh... Can you see anything around?"
Ulrich looked this way and that, trying to see something abnormal, while Aelita prepared her wings. If things got bad she could always fly away. Yumi looked down at the ground and held back an exclamation as she saw a bright green shape moving below the surface, like a water monster.
"Look over there!"
Ulrich turned, but the glowing green shape had disappeared. It was actually moving underneath the platform, like a fly on the ceiling.
"Where? I didn't see it!"
"I didn't imagine it. I tell you I saw something!"
Jeremy cut through that discussion with some rather confusing and disturbing information.
"Listen, it's really strange, but I sense five presences other than you"
"I don't get it, what do you mean by "presences"? Monsters?" Ulrich asked, puzzled. "Could you be a bit more specific, please?"
"I've been working on it. Do you think it's easy?"
Ulrich unsheathed his katanas and Yumi did the same with her fans. Aelita formed energy fields, ready to attack at the slightest sign. Whatever it was, they were going to wait for it and give it the beating of its life.
Yumi turned as she heard a strange sound, like sand rubbing against metal. Ulrich had heard it too, and the glowing green form appeared briefly behind the boy, just long enough for the ravenette to throw her fans at it and put Ulrich on notice. But that was nothing more than a decoy. The figure came to the surface, and before she could even react, it devirtualized Yumi with two huge katanas.
"What the heck is that?!" Aelita yelled in fright.
"I don't know!" Ulrich replied. "I can't see them! They're hiding!"
Ulrich and Aelita heard the sound of sand brushing against metal again. They were not going to stand there waiting for those creatures to devirtualize them. The samurai jumped from platform to platform until he reached the terminal, while Aelita flew there. A few seconds after landing, Aelita saw a strange glow a few steps away from Ulrich.
"Ulrich, watch out!"
The boy turned and found himself face to face with a humanoid figure, dressed in a dark green bodysuit with geometric patterns in white, with a masked face on which a white circle glowed, like the eye of a cyclops. He wielded both katanas and looked ready to skewer Ulrich like a kebab.
At that moment, a pink flash of lightning pounced on that evil copy of Green Lantern. It was Aelita. Without giving him time to react, the girl threw an energy field that devirtualized him on the spot. But things had only just begun. Five evil copies of Green Lantern rose from the surface and cornered the teenagers.
Aelita threw energy field after energy field at the creatures, but they dodged them as if it were nothing. Suddenly, one came up from behind and devirtualized the pinkette in the blink of an eye.
"Aelita, no!"
Filled with rage, Ulrich lunged with his drawn katanas towards one of those strange humanoid creatures, but it nimbly threw itself to the side at the same time as it delivered a brutal elbow to the boy's back, knocking him to the ground.
He tried to retrieve his katanas and get up, but one of the creatures, without even giving him time to scream, plunged its swords into his torso, devirtualizing him. Evil copies of Green Lantern, one, Lyoko warriors, zero.
William and Selina were sitting at the foot of a tree, away from prying eyes and ears. Laura had warned the boy that if he ever said anything to her again that made Selina sad, he would find out. Once he was sure no one could hear them, he began to speak.
"Look.., I don't know where to start but whatever happened to you, it's not your fault"
Selina's eyes hardened.
"You don't know shit"
"I may not know shit, but I do know what it's like to suddenly have superpowers and have it go to your head with disastrous results"
Selina smiled bitterly. She knew all too well what had happened to William, who due to his impulsiveness had been possessed by XANA and being her slave for months. But at least he had screwed up in a virtual world, instead of almost killing his parents in the real world.
"And if you knew all along that you had superpowers, and even knowing how dangerous it could be, you let yourself get carried away in anger and spite?"
William was speechless. At last he had a thread to pull on. But that thread concealed something truly dangerous. He looked at Selina, unable to believe what she was implying. From the first moment, she had used his powers for good. He couldn't imagine her hurting someone in cold blood. He watched as the redhead looked at him with a crooked smile, as if to say Now you're afraid of me, aren't you?
Maybe that's why she was surprised to see William approaching her, with his legs close to hers and holding her hand. Suddenly, Selina's mouth was dry as a rock.
"What happened to you, Selina?"
Two forces were fighting furiously inside the girl. Her mind told her that she must shut up, that if she told him the truth about what she had done, he would never speak to her again. But her heart could no longer carry that secret that was poisoning her inside. She wanted more than anything to get rid of that burden, to tell the truth about who she was. He might reject her, but she would never find out if she didn't try.
But before she could make up her mind, the manhole cover opened and out came Jeremy, Aelita, Odd, Ulrich and Yumi, all of them with funeral faces. The temperature in the park seemed to drop twenty degrees.
Odd, seeing how William was glued to Selina and still holding her hand, grinned from ear to ear. Apparently, the dark-haired boy had given up trying with Yumi and was now going for a certain redhead.
"Are we interrupting something?"
"No!" shouted William and Selina at the same time. But then William noticed the look on the gang's faces. "What happened?"
"Cortex has upgraded his security" said Jeremy, deadly serious. "Some greenish creatures appeared in the core and devirtualized us in the blink of an eye"
Until recently, Selina was the only one who suffered nightmares night after night, but not anymore. After the traumatic experience at Cortex, Ulrich was also having a hard time at night. In his nightmares, he would shoo dark shadows and shriek incomprehensible words in the middle of the night. He gave Selina competition: they both tore the school's nighttime silence with their screams of helplessness.
He went through morning classes like a sleepwalker, and upon meeting up with his friends he found out some very disturbing news about the Ninjas: they weren't monsters from XANA.
"What?" repeated Ulrich in astonishment. "XANA didn't program them?"
"No. On the previous mission, while it's true that the Ninjas kicked our asses, I did manage to grab some very interesting data from Cortex" explained Jeremy. "It took me quite a while to decipher it, but I got it in the end"
He pulled his computer out of his backpack and opened a video file. It was the same office where Professor Tyron and Franz Hopper had been arguing, only in it was Tyron giving instructions to a group of hooded people in dark coveralls, like the ones you wear when you go to play a virtual reality video game.
"What the heck is that?" exclaimed William.
"Tyron does not possess the virtualization technique" explained Aelita. "So to send people to Cortex, he uses cybernetic jumpsuits that makes whoever wears them indirectly project themselves into Cortex."
"That's why they were so fast and unpredictable" muttered Yumi. "Because they were human"
"Yes. It's going to be very difficult to fight him" Jeremy replied grimly. "This new enemy is even more dangerous than XANA"
Odd smiled with amusement. If fighting XANA monsters was exciting, fighting humans added an extra challenge to the whole thing.
"Well they just don't know Odd Della Robbia! A couple of good laser arrows and that's it!"
"That, and new weapons too. Odd, I know you're as fast and agile as the Ninjas, and with your laser arrows you stand a chance of defending yourself" he turned to Yumi. "But you, in close combat with the Ninjas you have every chance of losing"
"Thanks for the encouragement"
"You're welcome" Jeremy replied, not picking up on the sarcasm. "Aside from creating a program that allows you to disable Cortex's firewall, I programmed a new weapon for you. A Bo staff"
Yumi grinned from ear to ear. Jeremy may have been a bit of a standoffish person at times, but this time he had hit the nail on the head. Ever since she was little she had trained in both bojutsu and jojutsu. Now in hand-to-hand combat with the Ninjas she could fight on equal terms.
"Thank you very much"
"You're welcome" he replied with a half smile. "Well, then are you guys okay with going to the lab after class?"
Ulrich shook his head.
"Sorry, but it will be without me"
"Why? Afraid of those Ninjas?" said William mockingly. "I can lend you my sword if you want"
"I have a karate competition" he explained, a bit embarrassed. "I can't let my teammates down"
"And what about us?"
Ulrich was unable to answer Odd's question. He looked down, embarrassed.
"I'm really sorry. I've got to go"
He went at a brisk pace down the halls, trying to get as far away from Yumi's look of disappointment as possible.
In the afternoon, after school, Jeremy, Aelita, Odd, Yumi and William went to the factory. They all had some concern about the mission ahead. An anti-intrusion security system in the Cortex core was bad enough, but a squad of highly trained human fighters? This time they would have to tread carefully.
The trip across the Digital Sea was uneventful, but soon after arriving at Cortex, trouble began. Odd, because of his racing driver skills, had been given the position of Megapod driver. The Megapod sped across the surface of Cortex, with Odd bragging about his impressive driving skills, amidst the growing annoyance of the passengers. But he didn't have much time to gloat. Suddenly, six Tarantulas jumped out of a corner and began firing at the Megapod.
"Ahh! Some action at last! I was getting bored" exclaimed Odd.
He put the pedal to the metal, escaping the Tarantulas' gunfire like someone trying to outrun a bullet on foot. Suddenly, the alarm horn sounded, and before he knew it, the platform on which the Megapod was driving rose to almost the height of a skyscraper. Had it not been for Odd's quick reflexes, braking right at the edge of the cliff, the Megapod would have gone over the edge.
At the foot of the makeshift skyscraper, the Tarantulas began to climb up its walls and, before they could react, the Megapod was cornered.
"And now, what do we do?" asked Yumi.
"I didn't say my last word"
He put the pedal to the metal, and ignoring the lasers hitting the Megapod, he rammed the surrounding Tarantulas, knocking them off the platform like bowling pins. In two skids he had gotten rid of four Tarantulas, but the remaining ones kept firing at the Megapod.
"Jeremy, find something!" Odd exclaimed, holding the controls of the Megapod as he tried to sweep the Tarantulas away. "We won't be able to go bowling much longer!"
"I know, the Megapod's shield took a lot of damage. I have to manage to transfer you some energy"
Yumi shook her head. An energy transfer would take at least five minutes, and she doubted they would have more than a minute before the Megapod said This is as far as I can go.
"But we don't have time, Jeremy!"
"Yeah, we have no choice now" sentenced Odd. "Hang on"
What he did next was so impulsive and dangerous that he should've change his middle name to dumbass.
Ignoring the lasers of the Tarantulas hitting the Megapod, Odd put his foot down on the accelerator and shot off in a straight line, running over the monsters that crossed his path. Two Tarantulas jumped on either side of the vehicle and started shooting, but Odd, doing some wild skids, ran over two more monsters and jumped off the cliff.
It was a few seconds that seemed like millennia. The Megapod fell to the ground along with the Tarantulas, which ended up squashed like bugs. The vehicle somersaulted several times before it stopped just at the edge of the platform. Odd sighed, relieved. This time, reality had trumped any video game.
"Your captain thanks you for choosing Cortex Airlines" Odd said, once everyone stopped bouncing around like marbles. "Sorry for the small turbulences"
At the Kadic Academy, Ulrich was listening to Jim's explanations of the upcoming fight, but at the same time he had his mind elsewhere. It was clear to him: he would fight like a champion, win the cup for his team and then head back to the factory.
"So guys, this is the moment of truth. This is not the time of doubts anymore. From now on, only one thing matters: The smell of your tatami, and your opponent's eyes"
The boy sitting to Ulrich's right frowned.
"But that makes two things"
"In your world that makes two things. In mine, that's only one. Where was I? Oh yes, your opponents eyes. The first one to lower his eyes, loses. It's like the cane toads when I was in Botswana. I'll tell you about them another time, but it was exactly the same" he looked at his favorite student, who decidedly had his head somewhere else. "Oh, Stern? Are you with us?"
Ulrich blinked in surprise, not knowing what to do or say.
"Yes, yes"
"Well I hope so. Because we're counting on you!"
The next fifteen minutes were the longest of Ulrich's life. He had to watch as his teammates were effortlessly defeated while he waited his turn. He almost jumped for joy when it was finally his turn to fight the opposing team. He stared at his opponent.
"You've got to take your time. Okay?" whispered Jim in his ear. "Just watch, like the mongoose defying a cobra"
Ulrich nodded and got into fighting position. The competition judge gave the signal.
"Ready? Go!"
Ulrich didn't think twice. Remembering Jim's advice about being unpredictable, he threw himself to the ground and before his opponent could even understand what he was about to do, he knocked him to the ground with a withering swing of his leg.
"You're great, Ulrich!" exclaimed one of his team members.
"It's okay" said Jim, with a touch of reluctant admiration. "He didn't hear anything, but that's quite effective though"
Ulrich saluted his opponent, as the judge declared the victory, but the competition had only just begun. When it was his turn with the next opponent, he tried to land a punch, but the opponent nimbly stepped aside. Exactly as the Ninja who had devirtualized him in Cortex had done.
"You're too predictable, Stern!" exclaimed Jim. "He can anticipate all of your moves. You don't have a robot in front of you"
As if remembering that Ninjas were humans and not robots, Ulrich stood up and, getting into a fighting stance, ran towards his opponent, apparently to throw another punch. But as his opponent prepared to block it, Ulrich delivered a spinning kick that sent his opponent to the ground.
"Enough!" exclaimed the judge. "Blue team wins the finals!"
Ulrich's teammates cheered him, while Jim directly jumped on the boy and grabbed him hard by the shoulders, congratulating him.
"Well done, Stern! That was unpredictable!"
Ulrich received the applause and congratulations of his teammates with a half smile, but before the judge handed him the competition trophy he was already running on his way to the factory. He had no time to lose.
When Aelita, Odd William and Yumi entered the interior of the Cortex core, it was almost as calm and quiet as the Digital Sea. Aelita activated her wings and flew to the platform where the terminal was located, while the rest jumped from platform to platform until they got there. Once they were at the terminal, Aelita inserted the card Jeremy had programmed. Let's see if this time they could find information about Andrew Hopper without running into a squad of Ninjas after fifteen seconds.
"Well done Jeremy, it worked!" Yumi exclaimed as it started downloading data without triggering the firewall.
Odd smiled and turned around, admiring the view inside the core from the platform he was standing on.
"You're a true genius" he exclaimed, but when he looked down he was scared to death to see a Ninja peeking out of the surface. Looking up he saw that there were two more Ninjas on an upper platform. "Uhh, genius? Great anti-firewall system, Einstein!"
One of the Ninjas rushed towards Aelita at inhuman speed, but before he could thrust his blades at him, Odd fired several laser arrows, instantly devirtualizing him.
"Thank you Odd!" exclaimed Aelita in relief.
"You're welcome! Ahhh!"
A Ninja had come out of nowhere and stabbed Odd in the back, instantly devirtualizing him. The Ninjas approached Aelita, Yumi and William, cornering them. It was going to be a hand-to-hand fight. Yumi remembered how fast and unpredictable the Ninjas were. They were human, and so they had to deal with them as they would a human soldier.
William ran towards a Ninja with sword at the ready, but Yumi threw her fans and at her signal, the boy used his Supersmoke to make the fans go through his body as if he didn't exist and instead devirtualize the Ninja.
Above, Aelita was in serious trouble. She was flying from platform to platform, trying to escape, but the Ninja were following her at breakneck speed. In desperation, she launched several energy fields, but the Ninjas dodged them like nothing. She landed on a platform near the terminal, only to find a Ninja a few steps away from her.
Just when she thought she was about to be devirtualized, a cloud of black smoke came out of nowhere and devirtualized the Ninja with a commanding blow. It was William.
"Thank you, William!"
"You're welcome, but first we need to give Yumi a hand"
Down below, Yumi was in serious trouble with the remaining Ninja. Those fans were really good from long distances, but in close combat she was screwed. She jumped down to the platform immediately below, trying to rearrange her plan of attack, but the Ninja was giving her no respite.
Trying not to be seen, Aelita flew to below the platform where Yumi and the Ninja were. She waited for the right moment, and just when the Ninja was about to pounce on Yumi, the pinkette came out of her hiding place and threw an energy field at him, devirtualizing him.
"Great job, guys!" exclaimed Jeremy from the lab. Things were looking better than ever: they had managed to defeat the Ninjas and among the data downloaded from Cortex, data on Andrew Hopper was starting to appear. What more could they ask for?
He turned as he heard the elevator doors open, and did his best to contain his surprise as Ulrich and Selina entered the lab. While Ulrich's arrival was predictable, Selina's was less so - she was supposed to be napping, not sneaking into the factory!
"Ulrich, how did you do at the karate championship? Did you win the cup?"
The brunette nodded smiling.
"Yes. Jim may have a screw loose sometimes, but I have to admit he hits the nail on the head with his advice"
Jeremy gave a half-smile. He was sorry that Ulrich hadn't gone to Cortex, but he was also very proud that he had managed to win the championship. But pride soon gave way to incipient worry. What the hell was Selina doing in the lab?
"Selina, what are you doing here?" said Odd, frowning. "Shouldn't you be resting?"
The girl bit her lip. She had decided, she was going to tell them the truth about who she was. She just hoped they could forgive her.
"I was coming to tell you something..." she took a deep breath, steeling herself before continuing. "I lied about my powers. The thing didn't start in August. It started long before. And it's not just limited to cyberkinesis. It's much more"
Jeremy did his best to remain neutral. He was finally going to find out what had happened to Selina.
"Okay. Do you want to tell me now or would you rather wait until after the mission?"
"I'd rather everyone be here before I tell. By the way, how are things going at Cortex?"
Things were going smoothly at Cortex. Once free from the threat of the Ninjas, a lot of data was starting to appear on the screen in front of the terminal. Reading it, Aelita discovered a lot of things. In the early 1980s, Andrew Hopper was doing his PhD in quantum computing under the supervision of Professor Tyron. Noticing his capabilities, he was recruited by the sponsors of the Carthage project. But realizing how dangerous it was, he defected along with Anthea Hopper, Waldo Schaeffer and Alan Tyron. After Anthea was kidnapped, Andrew and Waldo kept in touch, even visiting Waldo and his young daughter, Aelita, from time to time. Disturbingly, there was no more news of him as of early June 1999. This was around the same time that Aelita and Franz Hopper had fled to Lyoko.
Aelita sent the data to Jeremy and waited patiently for the moment of devirtualization, but a strange noise startled her. It was a inhuman screech, like that of a banshee. From the orb in the center of the room, a bolt of lightning shot out, enveloping Aelita, Yumi and William in a strange yellow aura.
"What the hell was that?" cried William, scared out of his wits.
"I don't know, but we have to get out of here!"
The teenagers broke into a run for the outside. At this moment, William was more grateful than ever for his Supersmoke, just as Aelita was proud of her wings and Yumi was proud of her agility. Thanks to those things, they managed to get out of Cortex's core just in time.
Jeremy, who had seen it all, made a scan of the avatars. A glowing danger triangle and several source codes popped up on the screen. After reading them, he was as pale as wax.
"Jeremy, what's wrong?" asked Ulrich.
The boy wiped the sweat from his brow. Things were really getting grim now.
"Guys..." he gulped. "We... We have a big problem..."
"Don't keep us on tenterhooks, Jeremy, what happened?"
"The beam you got in the core. Tyron injected you with a program that if we don't disable it, it's going to trap you in Cortex forever. If you hadn't gotten out of the core, you would have been trapped. But outside the core, you have a little over half an hour"
Ulrich almost fell over in shock.
"Jeremy, can you delete that program?"
"Yes, but first I need to find out where it's operating from"
"You need to find out where it operates from?" Selina said, the corner of her mouth quirking upward.
"Yes, but I don't know if I'll do it in time..." Jeremy stopped in his tracks as he watched Selina approach the keyboard. "But what are you doing?"
Selina, ignoring Jeremy's protests, stepped in front of the keyboard and began to work. She had never tracked the location of a place in a virtual world, but for her tracking a location was as easy as breathing, and where it was meant nothing. In less than a minute, she had figured out where the program was operating from: a tower on Cortex 30 degrees East of their current position.
"Here you go"
Jeremy blinked. He still hadn't gotten used to how fast Selina worked. But in those moments he was really grateful for her speed. Once they learned the adress, Aelita, Yumi and William materialized in the Megapod and shot off towards the tower. He then turned his attention back to Ulrich.
"Ulrich, I could virtualize you on Cortex"
"No way!" he exclaimed outraged. "In case you don't remember, the ground changes at the drop of a hat. The last thing I need is to get stuck like happened the other time"
"No, but knowing the location, I could virtualize you in the vicinity of the tower, without risking you running face first into a wall. Which for this, we're going to need all the help we can get."
"Are you absolutely sure?"
"Completely. The program itself is easy to disable, but I need Aelita, Yumi and William not to devirtualize before I launch it. Please, if you've won a karate championship, you'll be able to defend yourself very well in Cortex"
Ulrich looked at him as if wanting to get angry, but in one thing Jeremy was right: his friends needed all the protection they could get. He nodded and headed for the elevator, but was stunned to see Selina following him.
"But what are you doing?" asked Jeremy as he watched the girl call the elevator.
"If you think I'm just going to stand by and watch my friends put their asses on the line, you're sorely mistaken, Jeremy" she said, winking at him.
The boy gulped, worried. The situation was really critical, and although it was clear that Selina was a really competent girl, virtualizing her in Cortex (a virtual world much more dangerous than Lyoko) and on an emergency mission, could be a sure recipe for catastrophe.
But so far, Selina had acted with great lucidity in each of XANA's attacks. As complicated as the situation was, she had kept a cool head at all times and had taken advantage of the resources at her disposal to defend herself against XANA's attacks at school. Perhaps she would be more careful than William. He just hoped he hadn't made a mistake.
"All right," sighed Jeremy. "Go to the scanner room"
Selina smiled, barely able to hide her excitement at her first mission, and stepped into the elevator with Ulrich. They almost made a dash for the scanners when the elevator door opened.
"Prepare to head for Cortex!" announced Jeremy over the speakers.
"Dramatic!"
Selina let out a giggle at Ulrich's comment and climbed into the scanner without hesitation.
"Transfer Ulrich; Transfer Selina"
Ulrich gave Selina a knowing smile and whispered See you in Cortex before the scanner doors closed.
"Scanner Ulrich; Scanner Selina"
Selina watched as the scanner lit up and a strange tingling sensation spread throughout her body. Then, as Jeremy said "Virtualization!" a gust of wind blew her hair upwards and a blinding light made everything go blank.
When she was little, Selina used to jump from the top of trees because she wanted to train to be a parachutist. So when she fell from the sky, she was able to land like a cat and not crash to the ground. Ulrich, who had landed a short distance away from her, looked at her with an arched eyebrow.
"Hey, you look pretty cool"
Selina looked down. She was wearing a short dress, a dark blue almost black, with purple trim and a hexagon on the chest with a strange silver symbol. To match the dress she wore black tights and dark blue boots, like the gloves that covered half of her arm. Her eyes were outlined with kohl and her hair was pulled back in a braid that fell over her shoulder. Truth be told, her avatar combined the aesthetics of Aelita and William, making her look like a dark warrior.
The girl looked around her, bewildered. The landscape, aseptic and metallic with shades of gray and bluish, had the same feeling of unreality as that of a video game, and yet her senses were multiplied tenfold. She could feel the structure of the terrain, every nearby presence around her. It was as if she had radar embedded in her head.
"The tower is located at the end of the passage you have on the left" Jeremy's voice interrupted his ramblings. "There goes the cab"
The Overbike materialized and Ulrich jumped in it instantly. Selina hopped in as co-pilot and they shot off through Cortex's cannons. During the ride she tried to ask Jeremy if he had any powers, but other than that she could summon two blades, he knew nothing about anything. He just didn't understand what was on Selina's card.
Soon they arrived at an esplanade enclosed by unreachable walls, where a few hundred meters away a tower shone with a strange purple glow. Ulrich looked around, trying to notice some trace of the Megapod, but there was nothing at all. Where had they gone?
The roar of an engine threw off his suspicions and the Megapod jumped off a nearby platform, landing and circling the ground several times before coming to a stop. Soon, Aelita, Yumi and William were energized, looking sick to their stomachs. Selina made a mental note to never get into a vehicle with Yumi as the driver.
"See how it wasn't that bad?" asked Yumi proudly, but her pride gave way to surprise when he saw Selina standing next to Ulrich. "But what are you doing here?"
"Let's just leave it at I'm your emergency bodyguard in case things get ugly" replied the girl.
Yumi blinked, puzzled, but opted to change the subject. Namely, when they would have the program that would deactivate Tyron's virus. There were only twenty minutes left before they would have to make Cortex their permanent residence.
"Jeremy, how's that program coming along?" the girl asked. "That I don't want to change my nationality from French to Cortexian"
"Just a moment," Jeremy worked frantically. Tyron's program was fucking difficult, but thanks to the tip from the tower he was beginning to understand its structure. He hit the enter button on his keyboard and finally finished the program. "Done! Aelita, I'm passing it to you!"
The pinkette felt a card materialize in her hand, and made an attempt to run towards the tower, but Yumi stopped her.
"Wait, here's something that doesn't convince me"
"Just because it's quiet, doesn't mean we're going to encounter a swarm of XANA monsters" William replied. "Or a squad of Ninjas"
Selina closed her eyes and tried to activate that sixth sense, and instantly her mind sounded the alarm. She could sense at least six human avatars hidden in the ground structure.
"No way, William" said Selina, deadly serious. She made silver blades appear and got into position. "I think Tyron called in the Seventh Cavalry"
A few seconds later, six Ninjas emerged from the ground and cornered the warriors in a ring. If not for the redhead, they had created the perfect trap.
When it came to battles, the most Selina had ever experienced had been her boxing and fencing classes at her old school. But she was very agile and had a kind of innate instinct for fighting.
So when one of the Ninjas pounced on her, she was ready to take him on. Brandishing her blades, she ran towards him and made a leap of several meters flying over his head. Once behind him, she stabbed him in the back. One down.
"On second thought" Ulrich muttered, trying to hide as he fended off a Ninja with his katanas. "You'll manage without me"
Selina gave him a nod and prepared to attack the next Ninja. Jeremy had made it very clear to her that if Aelita, Yumi, or William devirtualized before the program was uploaded to the tower, they would stay in Cortex forever.
A few meters away, William was fighting a Ninja, who parried his every thrust. The Ninja sent him flying through the air with a kick, but he managed to hold on to his sword. Before he could attack him again, he used his Supersmoke and leapt with impressive speed at his enemy, devirtualizing him with a slash.
Aelita wanted to congratulate him, but there was no time. She and Yumi were surrounded by two Ninjas, whom she was trying to keep at bay by throwing field after field of energy at them, but that had only worked if the girl could fly, and the Ninjas had seen to it that she couldn't activate her wings and get her feet off the ground.
Yumi made her Bo staff appear and charged at the Ninja, but not to attack it, but to use it as a springboard. She took a leap, and using her head to propel herself, she launched herself at the Ninja that was harassing Aelita and jabbed the staff into his eye. Taking advantage of that moment of distraction, Aelita activated her wings and took flight, launching an energy field at the other Ninja from above.
But there were still too many of them. Another one was hit. And another one. But they kept appearing incessantly.
"Please don't. Not now!"
William turned with a start - Selina!
The girl was with her back against the wall, surrounded by three Ninjas. She held her blades tightly, but her hands were shaking.
"Selina! I'm coming!" shouted the boy, but another Ninja appeared right behind him and pinned him down with a kind of greenish beam. William tried to use his Supersmoke to free himself, but it was as if he had been injected with a neuromuscular blocker. He could not move a muscle, nor transform. He was completely paralyzed.
"Se...lina!" he shouted as he saw the girl on her knees. She had one hand on the ground and shivers seemed to shake her.
Then, suddenly, Selina raised her head. Her eyes had changed color, they were now purple. The girl raised a hand as if asking them to stop, and inexplicably, the Ninjas around her froze at the gesture.
"Selina? What's wrong with you?" asked William, panting.
She didn't answer. The purple glow in her eyes transformed into a luminous flash that enveloped her in an eerie purplish aura. The Ninjas recoiled in fright as Selina scrambled to her feet. She no longer looked like the same girl William and the rest of his friends knew. She was serene. Calm. Then, all at once, she raised her hands and it was as if a thousand bolts of lightning struck Cortex.
A ripple of purple energy ran through everything.
Aelita, Yumi, Ulrich and William were blinded by the blast. The Ninjas surrounding Selina, struck by that prodigious energy, were instantly devirtualized. The Ninja that left him paralyzed tried to sink to the ground, but that energy made him volatilize. The rest of the Ninjas suffered the same fate.
William fell to the ground without breath, but before he lost consciousness, he saw Selina next to him.
She was glowing. She was electricity. Pure electricity.
Then he closed his eyes and the darkness returned.
A kind voice called out to him, while a hand gently stroked his cheek.
"William, can you hear me? Please, William, open your eyes! Listen to my voice. I'm here, it's Selina, can you hear me?"
"Selina..."
"Yes, yes, William!" the girl, hugging him, burst into tears. "How frightened I've been. I thought I had... I thought I had..."
"I'm all right" the boy murmured, trying to sit up. He looked around, he was in the lab. Aelita had managed to load the program into the tower just in time.
Around him, were Aelita, Jeremy, Odd, Ulrich and Yumi, still in shock from what had just happened, but alive and kicking.
"It was all my fault! I was the one who did... this!" the girl glanced around, trembling.
"Your fault?" repeated Odd. "If it's a fault having saved my friends from the Ninjas, then... I hope you keep screwing up like you did just now!" he exclaimed to dedramatize.
Selina laughed through her tears.
"Yes, but I was afraid I'd hurt you guys... And above all, I have not been truthful with you" the tone in which she uttered these words revealed a deep regret for not having told the truth. "I have been a fool, I know, but I was so afraid..."
"Afraid of what?"
"I simply didn't know what was happening to me. And when I found out all about XANA and Lyoko I was scared to tell you the truth. I thought that if you knew what had happened to me, you would turn your backs on me or outright dissect me like a lizard"
Jeremy brushed back a strand of hair that fell over his eyes as he looked at Selina. Who was that girl really? They had been on the verge of death, there was no point in keeping secrets anymore.
"And now you're willing to tell us everything?" he asked with a smile.
Selina nodded. She sat down next to William and began to talk.
"Ever since I was a little girl, I always got along very well with computers. For me, hacking or controlling any electronic device is as easy for me as breathing or talking. It's as if I have some sort of instruction manual embedded in my brain. I tried my best to hide it from my parents, but my mother was fed up with me spending all my time with computers and composing music and having no friends"
The girl paused before continuing, trying to repress those terrible memories, but her friends had to know the whole truth. She told them about her constant fights with her mother because of her lack of social life, that she preferred to stay in her room tinkering with computers and composing songs rather than partying around. She told them how she once yelled at her mother and slammed the door in her face. Her parents forbade her to compose music under any circumstances and took the door out of its hinges. And that's how Selina stayed: unhinged.
"That night I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes the rage built up in me, and I felt that strange energy growing inside me. I could feel every electric current in the wiring in the house, how mom would get out of the shower and turn on her stupid professional-grade hair dryer. I screamed at the top of my lungs and wished the electricity would consume her. And then it happened"
She was quiet for a moment and looked at her friends to see if they understood her. And they did. Aelita and the rest stared at her in horror. In the dim light of the lab, Selina's eyes blazed like lightning.
"It was as if the electricity had a life of its own" she continued to recount. "Ten seconds later I heard a boom and my father's screams. The dryer had electrocuted my mother so hard that she had been thrown down the stairs"
When Selina finished her story, she was clearly fighting back tears. A subtle, weary tremor went through her frame, like a runner past her endurance. It seemed like Selina had been fighting for a long time.
"My mom had multiple fractures all over her body and on the way to the hospital her heart stopped twice. And all because of me. And if I hadn't gone in there to stop it? To stop what I started?" she looked completely burned out, but still kept talking. "After she was discharged from the hospital, I sneaked out. I was so scared I'd hurt them again that I slept in that creepy-ass warehouse near home. In August, my parents, thinking that I could use a change of scenery, enrolled me as a boarder at Kadic"
She trailed off, shivering a little with no electricity to light her up or destroy anything else. This wasn't a fun sharing of secrets between friends. Selina's already withdrawing body language suggested she was sure William and the others would walk away from her now.
Instead, William reached out to her, and squeezed her hand gently, offering her affection and comfort.
"All right" he muttered. "Turning your mother's hairdryer into an electric chair beats being possessed by XANA for months. You win"
At last, William had succeeded in making Selina smile.
"And your parents had no idea what happened?" asked Yumi. "No idea it was you?"
"The police said it was an accident, something about overloaded wires. But even if I told them, who would believe me? They'd think I was just hysterical about what had happened"
Jeremy frowned. For the sake of the mission, he had kept quiet about what he had found when scanning Selina. But what she was saying was too disturbing to ignore. Selina picked up on his doubts right away.
"What"
Jeremy hesitated.
"When I was virtualizing you, in the scan I saw that you had a packet of data in your head, as if someone had put foreign memories into your memory. You also had a bunch of source codes in your head, but I couldn't figure out what they were. They were encrypted beyond belief, as if they had sealed off that part of your memory" he paused, not knowing how he was going to reveal this. "What I did find out is that that data package belongs to XANA"
Everyone was silent, unable to believe Jeremy's statement.
"What?" said Selina in a whisper. "XANA injected a virus into my head without me knowing?"
"He didn't inject you with a virus. He injected you with a data packet" Jeremy corrected her. "I don't know what that data does, but I'll bet anything it has something to do with your cyberkinesis. Or the fact that you can sense spectres and hit them as if they were normal humans"
"But how can I have XANA data if when the thing started, the Supercomputer was off?" asked Selina. "It doesn't make sense"
Yumi bit her lip, deciding whether or not to reveal the theory she had in mind. What she suspected was crazy, but it was the only thing that made the slightest bit of sense.
"It's really weird. You have XANA data in your head, and yet your parents aren't even remotely related to Project Carthage. It's hard to believe that XANA would randomly pick an unknown little girl to put data in your head. Is there... any chance that you're adopted?"
From the way Selina's eyes were boring into Yumi, there was no chance in hell.
"I've heard the story from when I was two years old a million times. A medical miracle" Selina's tone brooked no argument. "I was born with a serious heart defect and by the time I was two years old I had already had three surgeries. In the next surgery, I had very little chance of survival, but somehow I managed to pull through and have been in perfect health ever since. In PE, I'm one of the best in the class"
Yumi went cold.
"Oh, God" she gasped. "You're like a changeling"
"What's that?"
Yumi fell silent. She liked Selina very much, the redhead was becoming one of her most cherished friends. She didn't want to be the one to crush everything Selina believed in.
"Yumi. What's a changeling?" Selina pursued and persisted in the face of more silence. "I'm sorry I haven't told you the truth, but please, if you know something that can clear up this mess, let me know"
Yumi drew in a deep breath.
"According to what the Lit teacher told in class, a changeling is a fairy baby that's switched with a human one at birth. Although in your case, you were switched when you were two years old"
The whole lab seemed to go black around them, as though it were a light bulb about to blow out.
"Wait" Selina said shakily. "What?"
"I thought that only happened in fairy tales, but it seems to me that XANA decided to create her own fairy baby and switch her for a human one"
"That's not possible!"
Yumi tried to speak reasonably, to try to get Selina to see things from her point of view.
"Selina, you have practically the same powers as XANA, you have a data package of his implanted in your brain, but your parents have not the slightest connection to the Carthage project. It's clear that you were switched for their biological daughter when you were two years old"
Selina clenched her fists, trying to hold back the tears that were about to slide down her cheeks. Every day, after getting out of the shower, she could clearly see the surgical scar that ran vertically across her chest. If her parents weren't her parents, she would know.
"Let's say you're right" Selina said, struggling to keep her voice even. "Let's say XANA indeed implanted a handful of data in me, along with another handful of source codes and switched me for my parents' biological daughter. The question is: why on Earth would he do that?"
Yumi bit her lip, not knowing what to say. Every thing they learned about Selina was becoming more and more confusing. Every answer led to more questions, and every revelation led to more secrets.
"I'm so sorry" whispered Aelita, startling Selina.
"Pardon?"
Slowly, the pinkette moved her gaze up to meet the redhead's, her eyes softening when she looked at her.
"Selina, I'm so sorry that you've been carrying all of this on your shoulders for so long with nobody to confide in"
It was something about the look on her face -the gentle, forgiving, understanding look on her face- that made Selina break down into tears. Because for the first time, she had finally been able to confess the whole truth to someone and instead of judgement or condemnation, she was met with acceptance. As if they didn't view her as a ruthless killer, as if her past wasn't lingering over her head like a constant reminder of what she had done, as if she wasn't the monster she thought herself to be.
"Hey, it's okay" she quietly said, leaning forward to wrap her arms around her trembling shoulders. "You're going to be okay. You are, without a single doubt in my mind, one of the strongest person I have ever met, both in skill and spirit. And you will get through this..."
"Aelita, I'm scared" she said, her voice breaking. "Not strong, nor brave- just really fucking afraid that lose control again and this time really hurt you. I'm afraid of who I really am. And this time I don't know what I'm going to do"
"Being afraid doesn't make you weak, it makes you human" she said gently. "Believe me or not, you're a good person and you have a good heart. It's not your fault what happened to you"
Selina sighed, wiping away a tear as she stared at the ground before them.
"You know, when this whole thing with the spectres and XANA started, even though I didn't know you guys at all, I just wanted to help you. You were being attacked by something that was just like me, something I was sure I could stop. And when you accepted me into the group, I thought I could finally have friends who would accept me for my powers and not see them as an aberration. Helping you with this whole XANA and Cortex thing was a way for me to make peace with my own secrets and what I had done. And now it turns out that Aelita and I each have our own disturbing mysteries to solve"
Her voice was ridden with fear. As if her mask of ever-present bravery had finally fallen, leaving behind a girl who was scared of the reality she was living.
Aelita bit the inside of her cheek, thinking of her newfound uncle, Andrew Hopper; her missing mother, Anthea; and the pile of secrets she had to uncover. She walked over to Selina and hugged her.
"This is a colossal mess" she said, earning a dejected laugh from Selina. "But, we are here for you unconditionally. We can figure this out together, okay? You are not alone in this anymore"
Friendship.
Until she met them, she thought it wasn't that important, but it had actually saved their lives time and time again.
And as she hugged Aelita back, and the rest of the gang joined in a massive group hug, Selina began to believe the pinkette's words. She may have had a lot of chilling secrets to decipher, but at least she didn't have to carry them alone anymore.
This time she had friends she could trust.