Author's Note: What started out as my attempt at a Jeremie/Aelita oneshot has gradually evolved into a complete reimagining of the show's major plot-points, as told from Jeremie's perspective. This is a character that I've never written before, a ship that is far from my favorite, and a plotline that is much more grandiose than I had originally anticipated. Any feedback would be very much appreciated.

I'm twelve years-old when I lay eyes on her for the first time.

She's ethereal, like a vision. Artificial light emanating off of digital flesh, a complexion like porcelain. Her ears end in jagged, polygonal points like an elf's from a Tolkien novel, and her hair glows bright pink like nothing I've ever seen before.

Her name is Aelita, but I won't know that for another several days yet, time manipulation excluded. Until then I call her Maya.

"Who are you?" her voice calls out from the speakers, singing with feedback. "Where am I?"

"I'm Jeremie," I answer, self-conscious despite being alone in the room. She seems so real, despite her fantastical appearance. I think that I'm dealing with an artificial intelligence of some sort, advanced far beyond my understanding, but I couldn't be more wrong if I tried. "And you're-... well, you're in a computer right now."

"A computer?" she repeats, virtual gaze wavering with disbelief. The emotion in her face is crystal-clear, and I'm in awe of her emulation of humanity.

"A supercomputer, actually," I amend in a misfired attempt at reassurance. My hands dance across the keys as we speak, searching the database for answers. Her coding is so complex it's incredible. She's incredible. "More specifically, you're in the software. Integrated with the code. Like some sort of... program."

"You mean to say that I'm a computer program?"

"Yes. I think so. I don't know." I sigh once, exasperated, pausing to run my fingertips through my hair. "You're very inquisitive for an AI."

"AI?"

"Artificial intelligence." I stop halfway through reading a text file on the origins of the supercomputer, something about harboring a virtual world and a thing called XANA. Nowhere does it mention anything about a beautiful girl.

No dice. No time. I was supposed to be back at the dorms hours ago, and my hunt for spare parts has run far longer than I'd bargained for. "Look, I need to be getting back," I tell her, though why I'm bothering to explain myself to her at this point is beyond me. She's not even human. "I'm already late as it is."

I push away from the monitor and stand to leave, though my eyes remain squarely on hers. For some reason I can't bring myself to look away. Her blinding stare follows me in turn and flickers fearfully when I step back.

"Don't go!" she exclaims, and I stop dead in my tracks. "Please, don't go. I-I don't know where I am, or... who I am, and it's quiet here. So quiet. I don't think that I can stand it. Just-..."

She trails-off, eyes muted and downcast. I've never encountered a program so lifelike.

Then, pleading, she asks of me, "Just say that you'll come back."

My mind races with considerations. Cost and benefit. Risk versus reward. Looking into her colorless gaze, I already know what my answer is before I say it.

"I will," I promise. I don't break it.

"It's not just a computer, it's a supercomputer. Capable of simulating an entire world. Worlds, in fact."

"I think that electrical shock might've fried your brain, Belpois."

Stern is leaned skeptically back in the revolving chair, his calloused, brown eyes flitting from me to the girl on the screen then back again like he can't decide which one of us to distrust more. I'm beginning to wonder if bringing him here was a mistake, but at this point I neither know about nor am immune to the computer's return trips, so the line of thought is ultimately moot.

"I'm serious, Stern."

"That's what has me worried."

"Look, if you don't believe me, just ask-..."

"The computer, right?" he snipes, smirking.

My brow furrows in annoyance. "She has a name," I defend.

He nods dismissively, crossing his legs. "Sure she does. So tell me, 'Maya.' Is this guy off his nut or what?"

Maya frowns, considering his question thoroughly. Her expressions are inherently mechanical- processed and pixelated as any generated image is- but watching her I've gradually begun to speculate that she's more than just a complicated series of numbers and equations. "There's really no way to be certain," she tells him honestly.

"Is that right?" he asks, half-mocking. The other half of him seems decidedly unsure. "That's not very convincing, you have to admit."

"I do. But then again, we can never truly 'know' anything," she explains. "Even some aspects of reality are- at their core- presupposed to be true; senses, gravity, being. For all you know, you and Jeremie Belpois might simply be experiencing some sort of shared dream, or perhaps a mutual delusion brought on by an electronic accident or sporting injury. For all I know, neither of you are real, and this is all just a hallucination occurring within my own mind, and so on. Deception and illusion are always a possibility. So I don't begrudge you your doubts. I only ask that you hear him out before writing us off."

I glance at Ulrich, expecting to find a dumbfounded, thoroughly vacant look in his eyes. But he appears shockingly reserved, I daresay even a little intrigued. His hands fold a tent around his mouth and chin as he ponders, and he's stopped looking at me entirely, focused instead on Maya and her words. His tongue hits the roof of his mouth with an audible click as he sits there formulating his reply, foot tapping thoughtfully on the graying, metal floor.

Then, finally: "Okay, Belpois. I'm listening."

"It's obvious, right?" Yumi proposes, resting nonchalantly against the side of my desk. Her black eyes are closed as she crosses her arms over her chest, not dignifying any of us with so much as a flicker of her guarded gaze as she decides Maya's fate. "We have to shut it down."

"Agreed." Of course it's Ulrich. "It's too risky. If this 'XANA' or whatever it's called manages to break free, who knows if we can stop it?"

Della Robbia remains undecided, crossing his legs applesauce-style on top of my bed as he rocks back and forth in a feverish display of childish disinterest. "It is a lot of fun, though," he chimes in, relishing in the glares he receives from Stern and Ishiyama. "Running around, killing bad guys, dressed to the nines like every night is Halloween."

"Risking my life to cut class and play a computer game isn't exactly what I'd call 'fun,'" Yumi bites back.

"That's because you don't know fun," he argues, narrowly ducking the pencil that she throws point-first at his head.

"You guys can't be serious," I inject, glancing incredulously at Ulrich and Yumi. My hands clench tightly around the arms of my rolling chair, digging anxiously into leather. "What about Maya? Are we supposed to just leave her there, alone on Lyoko?"

"Jeremie," Ishiyama sighs, rising to meet me. She bows her head so that she can better see my eyes tucked beneath the dingy lenses of my spectacles, and I find her attempts to relate to me both condescending and manipulative. My nails burrow further into my seat. "It's just too dangerous. We don't even know if Maya-..."

"She's real," I snap, surprising myself as well as her. Yumi takes a step back, her gentle demeanor quickly reverting to aloof and standoffish once more. I like her better this way; it's more honest than that kind, fabricated persona she uses to get what she wants. "Computer science is my forté; I know what an AI looks like. She's not an invention, she's flesh and blood."

"Embedded in a computer program," she reminds me, clearly unconvinced.

"Yes. Somehow. How it happened isn't important." I get up from my desk and begin to pace around, unable to look at either of them for more than a second at a time. The fact that we're even having this discussion is revolting to me on a moral level, and the thought of entertaining it further makes me sick to my stomach. "What matters is that we get her out of there."

"But at what cost, Belpois?" Ulrich asks, pretending like he's just raised a good point.

Before I can rebut that, Maya interrupts us. "He's right, Jeremie," she says, metallic voice echoing through the dorm, clear and silver like a ringing bell. "They both are. It's not worth the risk. If XANA escapes the supercomputer, it'll mean the end of all organic life on Earth, not just humanity. Even assuming I am alive-..."

"You are," I protest.

"One life doesn't justify the loss of billions," she declares. Her reason is sound, logical. But in her eyes I can see that even she doesn't believe it. How could she? She's human.

"Everything is probabilistic."

Odd blinks dumbly, head cocked quizzically to one side. "Come again?"

"Probabilities," I go on, elaborating. "Chances. Think of it this way: there's a chance that lightning could strike any one of us whenever we step outside each day. That doesn't mean that we lock ourselves in our houses for fear of thunderstorms."

I catch Yumi's gaze crossing mine, expecting a retort, but she's fallen strangely silent. They're all listening, waiting for me to finish as they hang patiently on every word. It's a feeling I'll never quite get used to experiencing, but one that I'll often be forced to endure in the years left to come.

"The potential for failure is always out there, no matter how cataclysmic or myopic. But it can't stop us from living for ourselves, or for the people we care about. We can't keep waiting on a world without danger. That's not life. None that I want to live, anyway."

I glance over at the screen, meeting her eyes. They're pale and breathless and the mere sight of them fills me with a strength I never knew I had. "The possibilities are severe. I'm not arguing that. XANA is strong. But we outnumber him four to one. Five, if we're counting Maya."

"Aelita," she suddenly says, beaming warmly at us through the static of the monitor. She doesn't discriminate, even grinning when Ulrich and Yumi turn around to face her. "When I deactivated the tower, I remembered my name. It's Aelita."

There's a pause. She never stops smiling, even as her destiny rests solely in the hands of us quarreling, mismatched four. Yumi turns, Ulrich sighs, and I can only anxiously await their decisions with bated breath and strangled nerves.

"That's good enough for me." Odd abruptly leaps from the bed with a wide bow, waving his hands like he's curtsying before a dance. "You have my sword, Princess Aelita."

She giggles. The fact that she can see the humor in his antics where I can't is astonishing to me, though it might say more about how my humanity compares to hers than I'm willing to concede. "You mean your laser-arrows?"

"It's a metaphorical sword, milady. But yes. Those, too."

"Well, it's an honor to have your metaphorical sword at my side, good sir."

"Alright, enough already," Ulrich groans, standing as well. He casts me a look that might be considered an apology, perhaps even an admission that he was wrong, but he doesn't say anything of the sort before turning his brooding attentions to Aelita and Odd. "You can have my actual sword if you two promise to stop role-playing. Deal?"

Aelita laughs, and for the first time since I've met him I see a smile spring to Stern's lips. "It's a deal."

Another moment passes, and Ishiyama still hasn't said a word. She's just staring at the floor, counting the fibers that make up the face of the carpeting like they're the most interesting subject in the world.

"It's late," she finally says, grabbing her backpack off the ground as she makes for the exit. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

No one says anything for a moment, all of us looking stunned and confused. Only Odd has the gall to ask, "Does that mean-...?"

But she slams the door before he can finish, leaving the four of us to wonder in silence. My first thought is to run to the factory, to maybe protect the supercomputer should Yumi choose to do something drastic, but Aelita dissuades me as though reading my mind.

"Don't, Jeremie." The sound of her voice seems to evaporate my fears like a sun to water. "It should be unanimous."

I nod, but it's a hollow gesture of surrender more than any willing agreement.

Later that night, when I'm lying in my bed, I receive a text from Yumi that pulls me from my slumber. It reads, "I'm in," and nothing more.

And just like that, we're a team.