RIPRENDERE – COMING IN SEPTEMBER 2005
Legal shit: I own the rights to Generation Zero and not much else. Cyborg 009 and the song from Code: LYOKO "A World Without Danger" do not belong to me. Well, who the hell cares? ((goes and buys the rights))
In this chapter, the last three OCs make their appearances. And they all know what's going on, and why it is. Can you guess who they are without cheating?…blah. And yes, all mythological things have been researched by Sadie and Mika. It's really quite interesting. The sequel shall be fun.
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D.S. al Coda
Chapter Twelve: Without Danger
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009 was looking at the stars again from Epona's garden. His red eyes sparkled in the light cast from various places. It was night, but he wasn't tired at all. He wanted rest, but it would not come.
"Hey, what are you doing out here?" 0021 asked. She walked to the planter he was laying in and sat down next to him. She wore jeans and a tank top. "I thought I would be the only one out this late. So, what's your excuse?"
009 shifted his glance to the girl. She was looking up into the sky, sitting cross-legged in the flowers with her hands sitting on her left leg. Something was different about her this time.
Then he realized. 0021 was sad. As if she could read thoughts, she turned to look at him and gave 009 her best smile.
"So…what are you going to do once we get back?" 0021 asked. Her voice wavered.
"I…don't know, really." 009 replied. 0021 looked into the flowers.
"I don't either. I have a lot to catch up on. I am in a high-powered high school program, and there's only a few months left to get two months of work done. And as for my family…" She said, pulling her legs to her chest. She buried her head in her legs.
009 realized that there wasn't very much for him to return to. He could try and find somewhere to work, but that wouldn't work very well. He had never really been in a real school.
Looking to 0021, he saw that she had a life to get back to. Why else would she be so upset?
"Don't worry, 0021. You can catch up…why else you be in that program?" 009 tried. 0021 lifted her head and smiled.
"Good point. Aren't you a little nervous about what will happen with all of us?" 0021 said. Her hair fell to cover her eyes. 009 saw that she had tear stains running down her cheeks.
"Honestly…I have no idea what I'll do. There's not much in Japan for me. And to think of it…not anywhere else. There's no evil to fight any longer…" 009 responded to her question. He looked up at the stars.
"I'm sure you'll find something, 009. We all will, eventually. I suppose…" 0021 said. A grin crossed her face.
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While 0021 and 009 thought they were the only ones awake, it turned out that they were not. Omega, Pandora, Epona, Fate, and the rest of Generation Zero were wide awake. It was time for them to decide something.
"We've been hiding here because of Black Ghost." Epona opened. "I guess I can rightfully say that we're living in a world without danger."
"I beg to differ, Mega. There will always be danger in the world, no matter that Black Ghost is gone." Fate interrupted. "You forget…we all have our own demons to face. My wings have been torn for eternity by all we've done…"
"Come on now, Fate." Poseidon said. "My brothers didn't fall in love with Pandora and yourself for no reason. But I do agree that we have a lot to face when we return to Earth."
A pair of white wings flew from Fate's back. They were, at one point, beautiful, but had long passed that stage. The bone stuck out at a strange angle on her ring wing. Through both were scars of varying sizes, in various shapes. Finally, the entire tip of the left wing was decked with rings, pierced through to her bone. Poseidon could remember the time when they had been pure…a very long time ago.
"I remember that. You invited both of them up here at one time. Fate and I had to hide for days until they left. As I recall…" Pandora said.
"Okay! I get the point! Sorry!" Poseidon said. "Was it really my fault that Hades fell in love with you?"
Pandora was silent. She turned her head away. ISV sighed, as did OV.
"I haven't seen you all in such a long time…" OV said. "I feel like I've missed an entire life, being locked away in that warehouse."
"Don't worry, Panthos can show you." Omega said. ISV shot her a scathing look. "In a one-man show, of course."
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"Neeee…I'm sleepy…" 0021 said, curling up into the flowers. "Hang Epona if she tries to get me to move, 'kay?"
009 smiled to her. "Mind if I fall asleep on top of you?"
"Not at all. I'm probably nice and warm." 0021 replied. "Hey, 009, would you tell me something? You've gotta promise to be honest, though. I want an honest answer."
"Okay."
"Do you like me? As in like…almost love."
009 sat up to get a look at her face. It was devoid of emotion, but her eyes were sparkling with all it took. Her hair sat over one of her eyes and her head was turned to look up at the stars.
"What do you mean?"
"I'll ask you again, and don't be afraid to tell me the truth. Do you love me?"
"A little…"
"Okay. Do you love 003?"
"Yes…"
0021 smiled and turned her head back down. "I won't be mad at you. I'll go sleep somewhere else. Do you mind?"
009 looked at her. "Why won't you stay?"
0021 turned as she was walking. "You don't need me any longer. You've realized that you don't love me."
As he walked toward her, she hit her acceleration switch and ran away. He couldn't keep up, so he didn't try. All 009 did was sit back down on the planter and eventually fell asleep from worrying too much.
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The next morning, 0021 looked blankly down to Earth. She wore a red t-shirt with "The Real Thing!" stamped on it in white, medium blue flared jeans, and black shoes. Her hair was down, and she held the Keyblade in her hand.
"You look depressed." 0015 said. "And that takes something. Did 009 finally dump you?"
0021 ran away with her accelerator. 0015 was right behind her, and seized 0021 and left acceleration mode.
"What the hell's wrong? 009 was pretty freaked out too when I was talking about you." 0015 said, holding 0021 so she couldn't run again.
"I'm not telling." 0021 answered stubbornly. 0015 sighed and took the Keyblade.
"What if I use this?" 0015 demanded. 0021 shook in fear and tried to back away. "This isn't right, 0021. Fuck, if I could, I'd force the truth out of you or 009. Something's not right with either of you."
0021 squirmed out of 0015's grasp and ran away. 0015 left her to go. Epona took her place.
"Either something they ate was poison, or something is really fucked up between them." 0015 noted. Epona nodded.
"Your 'crack addict' is nowhere near as perky as she was when she was fighting. I doubt that someone would have the guts to poison 0021, and because of her, afraid to poison 009. Therefore, we have eliminated the possibility of poisoning. So, do you think someone busted them making out or something?" Epona commented.
"Eh, no. I don't think 0021 would be too upset to talk if that happened. She'd have disemboweled them." 0015 replied casually. Epona shrugged and blinked in a way that probably meant that she could have guessed that much. They walked out toward the atrium.
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Later that day, 0016 was out being…uh…0016? Yeah! 0016 was being herself out in the garden. 0021 stepped into the garden, and upon seeing 0016, ran away once again. 0016 noticed, and didn't care. She returned to polishing her nails.
Unfortunately, as 0021 tried to escape being seen, ran head-first into 009. 0021 looked up at him and screamed. Before she could run, he seized her by the wrist. Wriggle as she might, she could not get loose. As she went into acceleration mode, she took him right along with her. Once she saw this, she stopped and turned around to face him.
"Look…I'm sorry." 0021 said, casting her gaze to the ground. "I'm going back to Earth. I don't want to stay any longer. I have to get back home."
She ran off again. 009 sighed and found that Fate was standing next to him. He jumped in surprise.
"Jesus, what the hell happened?" Fate asked him. "Last night you were getting along just fine, and here we are now, the bridge between you burned. So, who did what?"
009 shook his head and turned the other way. Fate sighed and Verita came in.
"Things are only getting worse. 0021's planning to get back to her home." Verita said. "I hope neither of them take this too far…"
"Do you know what happened?" Fate asked.
"I…uh…erm…yes." Verita confessed. "0021 has finally discovered that 009 loves 003."
"She shouldn't be taking it this bad. Well…I only mean to say…she's already gone through thirteen boys." Fate said.
"I wish I could get that to happen." 0016 said. "I had Jet for a while…then those dorks at the shop…but never thirteen of 'em. Testosterone doesn't come cheap, right?"
"Around here, we happen to have a high supply." Verita mused.
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And thus the day continued, with 0021 and 009 being completely antisocial and not many things that were interesting occurred. Sure, 004 and 0017 stayed close to one another, and 002 and 0014 played strip poker with them, but that was as interesting as it got. 009 and 0021 continued to avoid any and all social contact, even with Umbra and Luna.
Which turned into a very interesting predicament at dinner. When Luna sat down, Diana, Heilos, Umbra, Artemis and two other girls sat down near her. One had silvery-white hair tied into a bun, and the other had soft blond hair that fell to her shoulders. Both had amazing blue eyes.
"Oh, pardon me. These two are Selene and Eos." Luna said. Poseidon grinned.
"Hey, does that mean Zeus and Hades can come over?" Poseidon asked. Pandora threw her box at him.
"Selene and Eos mean no harm. You idiots couldn't even get us under you if you paid us to. You don't see me inviting my family over here, do you? They're a special case." Pandora said. She turned to the rest of the group, including all the socially active cyborgs and the rest of Generation Zero. "Luna, Diana, Artemis, Umbra, and Selene are all beings of the moon. Helios and Apollo, who are twins, are respectively the sun. Eos, the dawn, is a twin to Selene. I have no family. Poseidon's family includes Hades, God of the underworld, Zeus, the God of Gods, and their sisters Hera, Demeter, and Hestia."
"Pandora's still ticked off at Zeus for creating her." Poseidon said, earning another thump with the box. "But Pan can't remember what my sisters were. Hera was Goddess of marriage and childbirth, Hestia of the hearth, and Demeter of fertility."
"Not me, as in myself. He created my way-great grandmother." Pandora explained. "Hey, Eos, why isn't Apollo here?"
"He'll be here. He won't miss a chance for free food." Umbra said. Seconds later, true to the sister's words, a boy with flaming orange hair fell out of the air to sit next to Diana.
"I warned you." Umbra said. This boy, Apollo, carried the characteristic blue eyes. "I know what you're thinking. Apollo is dead, right? He isn't. This is a different Apollo, from a different family. Artemis and Apollo, according to Greek mythology, were twins born to Zeus. That's partially true."
"But the real Apollo…that means…" 003 said. Luna nodded.
"I can explain some of this to you. The real Artemis, Apollo, Selene, Eos and Helios were Greek Gods and Goddesses. Diana and Luna are counterparts of Artemis and Selene respectively. Umbra is the shadow of the moon, and not a Goddess of any sort, to my knowledge." Selene said. Her voice was hardly above a whisper. "What you call Generation Zero are fragments of Gods and Goddesses. Pandora and Poseidon are of Greek Mythology, as am I. Kronos is a God. Veritas, divided between OV and ISV, is the God of truth. Neither knew that 'Veritas' meant 'truth'. Epona is a figure from Japan, and Omega has already explained that she is the personification of the end. Fate is not a Goddess, but controls fate."
0021 crept into the room. Selene caught her entrance and nodded. Eos picked up the story line.
"When Black Ghost learned of these powers in humans, he sought them out. The original ten members were asked if they wished to become cyborgs, and all ten declined the offer. They had to run for their lives, but one was captured and became the first ever cyborg. In the immediate years after that, roughly one hundred people were turned into prototype cyborgs. Years later, the first four final cyborgs were completed. Sixty years later, five more cyborgs were successfully completed." Eos continued. "And even now, we have a whole new generation. Artemis has been taken in and put under hypnosis. Am I confusing you at all?"
"It makes sense," 004 said. "I see the reasoning behind not asking whether or not we'd like to have been reconstructed, but it still seems pretty pointless."
Eos smiled. "We know all this because of Artemis. They took Diana along with Artemis by Artemis's request. Diana was constantly relaying us information about the Black Ghost organization, and we contacted ISV about it. All this information has taken us three years to compile.
"Originally, our mother was related to Verita's mother. We are cousins." Eos finished her explanation. Fate stepped in and saw that Selene, Eos and Apollo had arrived in her absence. She smiled and took a seat.
"But that doesn't answer the question of why we were created," 0017 said. Pandora looked up.
"I can tell you that." Pandora said, righting herself in her seat. "Black Ghost, or Scarl, since he first laid eyes on my box, has wanted it. Pandora's Box, as you all know from myths, contains evil things. The true Pandora opened it thousands of years ago, and she and Prometheus sealed it shut. Only one with a pure heart could open the box again and free the sleeping Hope. Scarl wanted to open the box to wholly fill his desire of controlling the entire universe. If he had Hope, there would be no hope for others to have, because he would have it all.
"So he made himself as evil as possible. His children were as evil as possible. In time, one heart turned completely black. And as I said before, only one with a pure heart could open the box. But even before that, he created cyborgs. If no human could open it, a cyborg surely could. Thus came Generations One and Two, out of pure desire for the box. And still, he had not realized that it was very simple. To open the box, one must be free of all desires for oneself, and be completely selfless. No human, not even myself, meets those standards. Time wore on, and I did not come out. It was time for Generation Three.
"Now we came to realize that Akio and Rona, the guardians to the end of the world, could easily give us away. But that never happened. They defended us. And when you came, Fate said it was time. Time for both the box to be opened and to come out of hiding. For the first time ever, for most of us, we were able to control what we hadn't before. Omega learned to control her power, and most important, we learned how to link them. What you saw between Kronos and Fate was a product of such. Then you walked through the door. I think you can place the puzzle together from there."
All the while, she had nervously been playing with the latch of the box. Pandora lifted it and closed it in her fingers. She saw Selene and Eos smiling at her. Something was wiggling on her hands. It was warm. As she prepared to crush it with the box, she saw that it was a hand.
"I don't feel like eating anymore." 0016 announced and left.
"She doesn't like that she's been used, that's all." 0034 said.
"We all were." 0050 said, departing.
"What idiot left his hand on mine?" Pandora demanded. She hadn't seen that the hand belonged to none other than Poseidon.
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Much later on that evening, 009 was in Epona's garden once again. He felt bad for having gotten the truth to 0021…but she had needed to have it sooner or later.
"Oh…I'll leave…" 0021 said, walking in and nearly walking out.
"Wait!" 009 shouted. She turned around.
"Yes?"
"Are you mad at me?"
"Uh…what do you want me to say?"
"ARE YOU MAD AT ME?"
"A little…it's actually the first time…"
"First time WHAT?"
"First time I've had this problem."
"WHAT problem?" He was loosing his temper. She looked so placidly calm, almost as if she didn't care that she was driving him insane by being in the same room.
"Love triangle. You're at the top of it." 0021 replied. He was standing now, almost ready to run to her and grab the teenager. She was ready to burst into tears at this. "It's my fault!"
And she exploded in tears, sinking to her knees and falling to the ground. 009 was lost for words and motion. He stumbled back onto the planter, sitting down once more and watching 0021 cry.
It lasted for about ten minutes. 0021 finally stopped crying and stood up. "It's obvious that you don't want me here. I'm leaving now."
As she was about to leave, 009 grabbed her by the arm and kissed her. Her eyes widened and her heart nearly stopped. But as she went into the ecstasy of the moment, she pushed him away.
"No…don't…" She said. She walked back toward the garden. "I've told you over and over again. That's not for me. Don't give it to me. Give it to 003."
009 couldn't understand. "Why, then, did you get so worked up?"
"I, like every other living thing on this planet, have emotions. When a boy tells me he doesn't like me, I take it. But it's sad. And 009…I feel wrong making you love me. So don't." 0021 explained. "Haven't you seen the look? When two people think they like one another. 003 has it for you, and you have it for her. I have it for you, but you don't for me. Sometimes it takes a while…but it comes."
009 sat down next to her on the planter. "So you're saying to go on living with 003 and not you? But I thought…" 0021 nodded. "I thought you loved me. And…"
"No, 009. I cannot force someone to feel something." 0021 said. "It's like trying to force the stars to stop shining."
And they sat out there, talking, until Epona chased them out that morning.
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"We're coming back to Earth with you." Epona said. "It may be a little crowded…do you mind?..."
"We are too." Eos announced. "It won't be too long, will it? Once we get past the atmosphere, we should be safe…"
"YEAH! WHOO! EXPLICIT MAKEOUT OVER HERE!" 0021 shouted, exploding through the door. She wore a neon shirt and jeans with neon patches all over. Selene nearly jumped out of her skin at seeing 0021 so hyper.
"Uh…who?" Epona dared ask. There was really no need for it. A second later, Poseidon came through the door with Pandora in his arms. She was giggling at him. "…Never mind. Ugh. If you're making out the entire time, I'll use the beginning of something to go in…"
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I think this is the last chapter…but there might be a real one after this. I have no idea! Don't hurt me! There will be a sequel indeed and an epilogue! Yay!