A/N: Well, it looks like thing are off to a good start in this story. Here's the second part. Also, remember my genres: Drama/Humor. This isn't going to be a slap-stick comedy, instead the humor is going to be "serious" humor. That is, it's going to be entwined with the story.
Also, the older gang will be referred to with quotation marks around their names so that why you won't be confused with the younger gang. Enjoy and thanks for reading (and reviewing)!
Yumie Nishidera: Yeah, that was the younger Jeremie in the chair. Thanks for being my first reviewer.
Janika: "There are so many idiots in the world today that instead of wasting my breath on them I'm simply going to wave my hand in front of them and say 'bah' when they say something dumb." "Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're an idiot, Dan."
"Bah!"
Chinesechic: Why is everybody confused with the voices? I thought they were pretty obvious. Anyway, thanks for the Odd compliment. It will play a role in the next chapter, BTW. Thanks for reviewing.
thesuperdot: I'm glad you're going to review every chapter. Unfortunately, only one of your predictions will come true. The one about them meeting their future selves.
D Wolf Falls: I have a ton of original ideas. A few of them will come out in this story. You'll like them, I'm sure.
renayumi: I'll try to update every 4-5 days. Maybe less if I'm feeling crazy. Thanks for reviewing.
ulrichsister: I read and reviewed your story. Don't worry about spelling. I can't do it either.
Kree the Wolf: Other than a squirrel, chocolate and the other Dan, what else can keep your attention?
JLyoko: I hope that this chapter will clear some things up for you but something tells me that it won't. Anyway, I think you'll like this. Enjoy.
This chapter is dedicated to:
Yumie Nishidera
For being my first reviewer
The electrocuted man was flung onto the floor in the middle of the room, his wrench glued to his hand. His companion stared in awe as three figures appeared in the scanners. One of them fell to the floor, revealing a fourth.
Odd was shoved to the ground by a weight he couldn't recognize. A girly "Oh!" came from behind him as she collided on top of him. He moaned in pain. The flattened boy recognized the voice.
"Hey, Aelita, could you get off me?" Odd added, coughing, "You weigh a ton!"
Offended, the pink-haired girl whispered into his ear, "Thanks for noticing, Odd!" Then she used his head as a handhold and pushed her body up. Once she was standing, the troublesome teen was about to rise but was impeded by Aelita's foot in the center of his back as she calmly strutted across his spine and gave a confused glance at Ulrich and Yumi, who were both equally confused.
A low growl escaped the throat of the person in the middle of the room. His navy blue eyes were dead set on the Jeremie that he addressed earlier. He slowly rose from the metal surface, weary of his ordeal and walked over to him, snarling.
The shock from a few seconds ago left him without any memory of the coming attractions. His short, blonde hair which was covered by a red bandana that hid a scar from the other electrical incident looked lobe-sided as it was sticking up on one side.
"Jeremie" was frightened at this sight because he knew how committed the eighteen-year-old was to what his words; it was no idle threat. "Tristan, come on, you don't want to do this," the older computer programmer futilely tried to negotiate with him while backing up to the ladder that led to the first sub-level. He felt the cold, metal bars press against his shoulder blades. The touch of steel reminded him of what would happen if he didn't escape. Quickly, he jolted around and climbed up the ladder.
However, "Jeremie's" former self had his curiosity get the best of him and he met "Jeremie" on the third step from the bottom. The older and younger selves stared at each other for a split second. They yelled in shock and in a panic both versions' grip slipped and they fell to the floor on opposite ends of the ladder.
The older Jeremie wore tan pants and a blue t-shirt that read in small print on top, "Professors of the Shuck and Jive." In the middle were larger white letters spelling out, "Shuck U." The humor was obvious but because of the situation Jeremie didn't laugh. Instead, he studied the other features about this person. He didn't wear glasses and had the exact same posture as himself.
"Huh?" the six-foot-tall wrench-handed man remarked. Tristan stopped and pondered this phenomenon. It was an impossibility that he hadn't thought of before. Then he realized the guest looked unusually similar to "Jeremie" and recalled an event that he was told about years ago about how his friends went into the future.
"Jeremie," he called. Both versions looked at him with blank expressions, proving his hypothesis. "I think today is 'the day'."
"Well, that would explain how they're here," "Jeremie" stated, peering behind his friend. Tristan turned around and saw the new visitors. He added in his defense, "And how you were electrocuted."
Tristan pondered his words carefully and concluded, "Yes, it would." He then tossed the wrench near some gray, metal suitcases by the scanner that he was modifying and looked at the four kids behind him. "Welcome to the world of tomorrow, you guys," he greeted, without an ounce of sarcasm in his voice. "You're going to be in for quite a shock."
Ulrich, Odd, Aelita and Yumi looked at him in confusion. They didn't understand his riddle, which they thought it was. Even more questions raced though the younger ones' minds as they noticed Aelita next to Odd.
Tristan observed the gang's cautious glances at each other and preempted a bombardment of inquiries that would have followed, "I think it would be best if you guys just listened to what we have to say. It'll answer all of your questions."
Jeremie ran over to his friends, "Are you guys alright?" As he finished saying that he noticed Aelita and halted. "Aelita!" he said in complete bewilderment. The fact that Lyoko wasn't active and that her presence wasn't being hindered made Jeremie emotional as he hugged his newly-minted friend. "I can't believe you're okay!"
Aelita sensed his feelings though his tone and became concerned with his unusually high pitch. "Jeremie what happened?" she asked, returning his embrace. "And how did I get here?"
He took a deep breath and told everyone that Lyoko was deactivated. It was a shock to all except for two men.
Odd let the two enjoy each others company with a smirk on his face. He shifted his attention to Tristan. "So, you want to explain or do you want me to start guessing?"
Jeremie and Aelita let go of each other and listened.
Tristan stood with his arms crossed in front of the gang. He wore a black leather coat over a white shirt and blue denim jeans with white shoes. In a firm voice he said, "Alright, here's the deal: X.A.N.A.'s last attack from your perspective changed the code to the 'Return to the Past' program. Instead of returning to the past you went into the future. Five years if I remember correctly."
"Jeremie" walked up beside him and corrected Tristan, "Four years, eight months and three days to be exact." He paused and the two engineers exchanged glances.
Tristan added, "When you ran the program you came here but as your Jeremie said, Lyoko is shut down so you came out of the scanners because our Lyoko couldn't contain you."
Jeremie rubbed his chin looking for the significance of such a date. There was the possibility that X.A.N.A. could have sent them further but it didn't make any sense to the young scientist. He asked, "Do you know why X.A.N.A. chose such an unusual date?"
"Jeremie", sharing the exact same behavior of his former self, unknowingly mimicked him. The gang finally realized that this Jeremie was indeed their Jeremie's future self.
The older Jeremie responded, "From what we were told when we went into the future, X.A.N.A. altered the code to the program. He changed a function parameter that represented the amount of time a tower had been activated and one other line of code. Since he's only been online for so long he changed the variable to the largest amount of time he's ever experienced. The other line made it so that you and only you guys would go into the future and not the past; a simple Boolean expression turned from true to false."
Jeremie visualized the code of Lyoko and instantly recognized the two items that he spoke of. It wouldn't take long to correct them.
Aelita asked, "If we're in the future then how do we get back to our time?"
"I don't think you can," "Jeremie" regrettably informed the visitors.
The room fell silent after his answer. Everybody instantly became depressed except for one person. He knew of a way but in order to it, it would take a huge emotional toll on "Jeremie". Realistically speaking, it was going to happen anyway but he didn't want the younger group to see him to go through another episode of depression like he had twice before.
However, logic and necessity overrode his concerns. As much as he hated to execute his plan, it still had to be done. Tristan then told it to the group.
Apparently, when the older Yumi, Ulrich, Odd and Jeremie went into the future almost five years ago, the Aelita of that time gave them a disk with a program on it. It was designed for this specific case. The program would return whoever was in the scanner at that time to exactly four years, eight months and three days ago; exactly one second after they left. Then, once back to the correct time, the younger Jeremie would fix their code.
The disk and its content were both in "Jeremie's" dorm room at a local college in town so the older group would give it to the younger group before they left.
However, the problem was that in order to use the program X.A.N.A. had to be turned on. It was something that "Jeremie" was totally against.
As he predicted, his friend was seething with anger. He suddenly yelled at Tristan for not being considerate of Aelita, scaring the younger group.
"Jeremie" then exited the room but as he was doing so he left this thought, "By the way, it's nice to see you again, Odd. It's been a while." It especially frightened Jeremie when he walked into the elevator and slammed his fist into the up button making a loud THUD, not even looking back as he stepped inside.
Tristan didn't understand his statement and didn't want to ask him to repeat it. He believed that he meant that the situation was odd not that odd was a name.
Once the elevator doors were closed the lob-sided engineer turned back to the visitors. Before anybody could respond to what just happened he said, "Don't worry about him. He just needs some time to cool down."
"So we never did find the anti-virus, did we?" Jeremie assumed, saddened.
"Yes, you did. A half-year from your time you'll have found it," Tristan admitted, "However, that didn't solve Aelita's problem." He sat down, cross-legged on the floor with his back against the scanner. "Every time we find a cure for a virus and administer it, our next move is always to materialize Aelita but every time we do that X.A.N.A. always activates the tower that she's in and implants a new one."
The others followed Tristan's example and sprawled out on the cool surface.
He continued, "It wasn't until recently that Jeremie and I began to experiment with a firewall to protect Aelita from X.A.N.A. when she's being materialized, which is what this is." He pointed to the black box that he was working on earlier. Numerous cables were plugged into it. "It looks promising but yours truly always finds a way to get through.
"When Lyoko is deactivated, the virus triggers. That's the reason why your Aelita is not affected right now. Her virus is present in her but since she wasn't here when we shut down Lyoko it hasn't activated and won't."
"So, what kind of virus is in your Aelita right now?" asked Odd, as if he would understand.
Tristan stared down at his white shoes that were layered in dirt, oil and other various materials from the scanners and replied, "A deadly one." He sighed and tilted his head up against the scanner. Then he continued, "She's probably in the hospital. I'm sure that Jeremie's on his way there right now. She'll need to come back to Lyoko in a few hours before the virus kills her. Until then…I guess you guys are stuck here."
Tristan noticed Aelita grasping Jeremie's hand. He understood that she must be terrified, so he offered a simple piece of advice, "Just remember that whatever happened in my future might not necessarily happen in yours."
As comforting as those words should have been, Aelita took her desire to come to earth as the main reason for everyone being in this situation. If she hadn't have been so curious then nobody would be suffering!
Yumi looked at the optimistic side of things. Sure, the situation that their future selves were in was heart-breaking but she was still curious. "Tristan, do you think it's alright if we could see our future selves?"
Tristan responded with the sound of deep thought, "Hmmmmm."
Odd's eyes lit up with mischief from Yumi's comment. He too had something on his mind. "Yeah, I'd like to see if Ulrich and Yumi ever went out on date!" he said snickering.
Yumi giggled at his remark but Ulrich glared at him and threatened, "I'd like to know if Odd ever made it past the 8th grade."
"Wait. Odd? That's your name?" the bandana-wearing boy asked in disbelief. "I thought it was just an adjective."
"Huh? I don't get it. Why don't you know my name? Did something happen to me?" asked the purple-loving kid.
Tristan's memory of five years ago came back to him and he finally remembered what happened to a person named Odd. "Ironically enough, Ulrich, Odd did not make it past the 8th grade. However, there's a good reason for that…"
A/N: Oh, what a nice cliffy! Well, you kind of got a feel for the future gang. Not to great, huh? Don't worry things do get better...sort of. In the mean time, please review. Thanks!