Hello all, I'm gonna start off by saying, ignore the titles. They are just place holders. They have nothing to do with the actual story any more... Sorry about that, in the final verson they will reflect the actual story, or will just be CH 1, CH 2... Anywho, I hope there aren't any errors in this, there shouldn't be but it doesn't always accpet my formatting. If you notice anything stupid that I did please feel free to tell me. Thanks and enjoy.
I ran into my dorm room and quickly closed the door behind me. I turned around and began heading for my computer chair but I stopped mid stride when I noticed a small ball floating in midair a foot from my desk. The ball was both white and black at the same time, as if the two colors were pulsating together. The ball itself was just a little smaller than a foot from one side to the other and it was hovering three feet off the ground. It was one of the strangest things I had seen in the real world, and I had no idea what it was, or who it was from.
I began walking towards it to get a closer look but as I neared it I suddenly felt my body stop but I kept going... I watched in astonishment as I was pulled into the 'above space' that I only saw in my dreams. I then watched in horror as I was pulled into a world without seeing what it was like first. From the glimpse it was a place that I had neither ever been to before nor had ever even seen until now, but I didn't have much time to think because I was suddenly inside it standing awkwardly, my eyes adjusting to the light.
When I could see again I looked around to see where I was. I seemed to be standing in an open field but there was something different about it. It looked somehow artificial, the way it was designed and the way that it 'flowed', the horizon appeared to be to close. I also noticed that this was not an earthlike world because the light, which had been bothering me before, was coming from four suns. There was a white sun, a yellow sun, a blue sun, and a red sun randomly scattered through the sky. The sky itself was a light blue-green and was only partly cloudy. This was defiantly not an earth-like world.
I began walking around looking for anything that might tell me where I was or why I was here, especially since I wasn't supposed to be asleep yet. As I neared what I thought was the horizon I suddenly noticed that it was in fact the edge of a cliff. I continued walking towards it and just as I got close enough to look over someone suddenly spoke to me.
"I wouldn't jump if I were you." said a kind young voice from behind me. The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. "You don't know what you might run into down there..."
I turned around to see who was talking to me and found myself looking at a young boy, just a little older than myself. He was wearing long white robes, or more specifically a white cloak over white cloths, but beneath the white was a darker color, which was probably black. His face, though it was young, had a firm look to it. There was kindness in his eyes, but there was also experience, wisdom. I was beginning to think that this person was not as old as he appeared.
"Well, are you going to speak, or does cat have you tongue?"
After he spoke I heard a horse kind of laughter coming from somewhere near buy. It sounded as though the person was eating something when they laughed, or something similar. I wasn't able to tell where it had come from, there were trees on that side behind the boy, and in any case it sounded like it had come from more than one place. The boy didn't seem to notice it at all so I decided to ignore it and simply respond.
"Where am I?" I asked.
"You are in a universe which is nearly impossible to see, and almost impossible to get to." the boy said, smiling a little.
"Ok, how did I get here then?"
"I summoned you." he replied, his smile growing.
"How did you summon me?"
"You seriously don't know? You can't even guess?"
"No... I have had dreams of going into other worlds but those..."
"Those were not simply dreams. Those were how you travel." The boy said. "You are a traveler, there is no doubt to that."
"A traveler?" I asked.
The boy smile grew broader and he turned to one side looking off in that direction. I could almost feel the giddiness coming from him. It was almost enough to replace the wisdom that I had seen earlier. The boy was so strange that I couldn't even guess what he was going to do next.
"Who are you." I asked.
"I thought I was the last." He replied. "When the war was 'over', I thought everyone else had been destroyed. I am glad that I was wrong."
"Who are you?" I repeated.
"I am the traveler." He said looking at me again, his smile gone. "I am the most powerful, not by choice, not by birth, but by necessity. Within me is a power so strong that it can destroy the universes, a power that can create universes. A power that can be used ultimately for good or evil, and who ever controls it can never be stopped. Well, he was stopped... but that was by me."
"Who are you?" I asked again raising my voice.
"I am the Aricitic traveler." He said as though it was common knowledge. "I am the man you met in your 'dream' last night."
"You are?" I asked, but then realized something. "What power do you possess?"
"Nothing, that was just me rambling, and I apologize. You came to find out what the ball was that was floating in your room." He said smiling again. "That is something that will help you with the little problem that you are struggling with. When you get back run it and you will see what I mean."
He turned to the trees and said something that I didn't understand. Something in the trees began moving but I couldn't see enough of it to know what it was. When he turned back to me he spoke again, "I will be coming to help you rid yourself of an even larger problem soon enough, but for now you will have to wait. Have a safe trip, Jeremie."
When he said my name I felt myself rush back to my body. I gasped for air, as though I had been holding my breath, but no time had even passed in this world. I was still moving towards the floating ball... and as I thought of it the ball disappeared and a disk popped into existence. The disk fell to the ground and I moved to pick it up. It wasn't damaged, or scratched when I looked at it, and it was labeled 'for Aelita'. I placed it into the CD-Rom drive and opened it. It automatically began running my antivirus program and I watched as it edited it. When it finished the program was nearly completed... so it really was helpful after all. I wonder who that boy was.
I watched the ground as Ulrich and I walked through the small forest on school grounds. I had told him about the nightmare I had just had. He had looked shocked and we had begun on our journey through the wood, in silence. He had walked in silent contemplation, thinking over what I had told him, ever since he suggested that we take a walk. I didn't know what to do, whether or not to say anything or simply continue walking in silence. It seemed that this new information was difficult to take in, but it also seemed that there was something else on his mind.
"Yumi," Ulrich said suddenly breaking the silence. "I think there is something wrong with me. I have been withdrawing and changing. It seems that something within my mind takes over and I change. This happened just a little while ago; the others say that I was cruel to Sissi."
"How were you cruel?" I asked.
"That's the thing. I don't even remember. I never remember the things that I do, it is as if they don't even happen to me." he said.
"Maybe you have some sort of, um, ability that hasn't been unlocked." I said. "Maybe this is it trying to escape. At this school I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. There are other students, other than me, that have abilities."
"Yeah, Kadic Junior High, School for the strange and gifted." Ulrich said with a bitter laugh.
"No, it's true. Odd, he has an ability... and so does Jeremie. I'm not sure what they are but I can sense them, I have been able to for a long time now."
"So then, what, are you saying that I was destined to come here? To be one of the one's who found Lyoko?" he asked.
"I don't know, maybe... I don't know most of these things, I can just sense them." I told him. "My abilities are ruled by my emotions and they grow stronger through touch. I can only just barely sense things otherwise."
A gentle breeze blew around us. It was getting colder and I could see the light beginning to fade beyond the leaves of the trees. I knew that it must be a cloud coming over us, which meant that there was a storm about to hit us. I knew that we should start heading back to the school and I could tell that Ulrich believed so as well. We reversed our steps and began walking the way we had come. The woods weren't that big so it wouldn't take us very long to get back to the school so we didn't hurry.
As we walked the wind continued to blow and grew harder. The air around us was getting colder almost by the second. I was beginning to shiver and when Ulrich noticed he moved closer to me. When we touched I saw a sudden flash but it went away as quickly as it had come. I didn't think much of it since I didn't get any kind of telepathic vision. We continued walking in silence towards the school.
After a while I began to realize that we should have reached the school by now. It was very dark around us, but still light enough to see by but barely. The trees around us were towering black figures in the dim light and the underbrush made the ground move as though it were alive. Every so often I thought I saw or heard something moving but I ignored it since there were no large animals in the woods near the school. The woods weren't big enough, but on the other hand they weren't this big either...
"Um, Ulrich..." I began.
"I know, we're lost."
"But the woods aren't this big. We should have made it out by now, it's not like people can really get lost in them."
"But we are."
And then it began to rain. The rain fell all around us, regardless of the trees. Within only a few seconds we were drenched. Now it was cold, dark, and raining, not to mention that we were impossibly lost. I couldn't think of how it could get worse. But that was never a good thing to do, because that always made it worse. As soon as the thought passed though my mind a large animal dashed out of the underbrush on one side of the path to the other. It had been the size of a large dog and had moved very quickly. I hadn't had enough time or light to see what it was, but I knew that it was big and dangerous...
"Where are we?" I asked.
"I don't know but it doesn't seem friendly..." Ulrich said.
Jeremie was already on his computer and trying to communicate with Aelita. It took only a few moments and her face popped up in a small window on his desktop. She smiled and said, "Good morning Jeremie, did you sleep well?"
"Yes, but I over slept." Jeremie replied 'forgetting' to mention his strange dream and his vision. "I don't mean to be rude but I am going to cut this short, do you sense any pulsations?"
"No, why?" Aelita asked.
"Well, Ulrich has started acting funny. He has done it before, but not like this. He has never been cruel before." He told her. "I thought X.A.N.A. might have something to do with it."
"No, I haven't sensed any pulsations but I will watch for any that may come."
Jeremie would have said 'thank you' but at that moment he saw the dark cloud that was beginning to envelope the sky. Then the wind hit his window nearly breaking the glass. He could tell, just as everyone else, that this was not a natural storm. He quickly looked back at the screen and was shocked to see the look on Aelita's face. She had a look of pure horror, as though she was looking death in the eyes...
"Aelita, what's the matter?" Jeremie nearly yelled.
"Pulsations..." Aelita panted. "Thousands of them, millions, more than I can count, more than there are towers... and, I think someone is trying to hack into Lyoko. I can feel their cold grip clasping-" but here she was cut off into static and the link closed.
"Aelita? Aelita!" Jeremie yelled but it was no use the link was already lost. "Damn, what is happening in there?"
In town Odd was facing mass panic by all the people around him. He knew, by now, that he had to get to the factory. The others would probably be waiting for him, and there was no time to waist. If X.A.N.A. could control the weather there was no telling what could happen, and if X.A.N.A. got hold of godlike powers they would be dead before they knew what hit them... So it was with this in mind that Odd rushed against the mass panic towards the factory, which was still currently abandoned.
As he ran dodging people on every side he looked up at the sky. Lightening was dodging and darting across the black clouds and the wind was growing faster and faster at every moment. Parts of buildings were beginning to break and fly around or fall directly to the ground. He could hear screams near where the rubble landed and he prayed that no one had gotten hit. He ran even faster knowing that at any moment he himself could get crushed under some part of a building, and he knew that if he or anyone else died they would not be able to bring them back by going back in time...
Once, when they were still learning everything about Lyoko, there had been a X.A.N.A. attack. It had started out as usual, but this was when they were still new to it and they were cocky because of the ability to go back in time. They had not yet learned the horrible truth about what really happens to someone if they die... and the worse of it was to come during this X.A.N.A. attack.
X.A.N.A. was using electrical currents to create faux lightening throughout the city. The machine could control the lightening to an effect, but not fully. It was careful not to do anything to endanger itself, even though the factory did have a backup electrical generator within it... The faux precision strikes were aimed at the five members of the Lyoko gang, five because they originally were five. A fifth friend, a fifth person to fight against X.A.N.A. But there was an accident. During the lightening strikes it had been Yumi and her younger brother running through a field and her brother sacrificed himself to save Yumi.
They had thought that when they went back into the past that he would be alive again, and sure enough there he was, sitting in his class... but he was not alive. His body was there, but his soul, his being had left. They had buried him, all grieving for the loss. The doctors had not been able to determine what had killed him... his body should have worked fine, but there was no brain functions. His will was not there...
Odd shuddered as he passed under an arch. It had been the worst moment of this entire adventure. To loose a friend, or, for Yumi, a brother... it had nearly torn the group apart. That was why they tried to make sure that no one was ever put in real danger. They had to keep everyone alive; never again would someone have to grieve because of their mistakes... But today they wouldn't have to worry about anyone, he would make sure of that. Quickly he found a way to get into the underground passages, just above the sewer. This way he would not be in any danger...
The creatures continued moving around us, usually in darkness, but every now and then one or two would jump out on the path in front of us. Both Ulrich and I would jump when they did this. It was just as bad as the storm, which was still raging over us, and we were still getting pounded with rain. So it was with both fear and cold that we shivered as we walked. Neither of us could know if we would be attacked, or if we would survive the storm itself... but the worse part about it for me was the voices. I could hear faint voices in my head calling back and fourth. They were faint enough that I could not understand what they were saying, but they were also strong enough that I knew that I was hearing them. I looked over to Ulrich every now and then to see if he heard them as well, and he appeared to not take any notice...
Suddenly, to make things worse, a lightening bolt flew from the sky and hit the tree directly next to us. Three of the creatures suddenly rushed from that spot and I got a glimpse of one of them. It appeared to be a large dog, but some of its features were twisted. Its ears, the most noticeable, were bent up and back, in a way that reminded me of an elf. Its body was long and thin but full of muscle. But the most noticeable thing was its color; its fur was green. It was something that I had never heard of, and would have thought impossible...
"Ulrich-" I started but he was walking over to the burning tree. At first I was horrified but then I realized that he was grabbing a branch. It would mean we would have a torch to walk with.
"Come on, I see a clearing up ahead." He said pointing at a gap in the trees where there was a white light coming in.
"Civilization. Good, maybe they can tell us where we are." I replied.
We continued walking, but now the animals kept their distance...
Jeremie had been running to the factory as fast as he could, and, he didn't know why, but he had brought the disk with him. He was currently running through the sewer that led from the school to the factory. He was running because all of their stuff was missing and he was in too much of a hurry to look for them. So far he had made it half way there and was passing by a corner when Odd jumped out and ran into him.
"Hey, watch where you're... Oh, Jeremie, you aren't at the factory yet?"
"No, I just lost contact with Aelita a few minutes ago and then noticed the storm."
"Yeah, I think X.A.N.A. is trying to play god again..."
"Well, we mortals will stop him, again."
Odd and Jeremie laughed at Jeremie's joke. Then Odd looked around and asked, "Where are the others?"
"I don't know, I couldn't reach them on their cell-phones."
"You don't think..."
"No. They are safe, I have a feeling that they are in a place where X.A.N.A. can't get them..."
We had reached the clearing, but as soon as we stepped into it I wished we hadn't. The creatures that Yumi and I had seen before were standing all around us, and there was one really large one in the center. In the light I saw that they were all various shades of green, from very light to dark, but the one in the center was a healthy kind of dark green, if I had to compare it, he looked like a vegetable... but this was no time to be impressed, we were in danger around these creatures.
"Ulrich, put down that branch." Yumi said, her voice firm.
"What? Are you insane?" I asked and looked at her. She had a solemn look on her face, little fear had remained but what was left I knew was because of my holding the stick. When I dropped it she seemed to relax.
"There, is that better?" I asked.
"Don't ask me, ask him." She said pointing at the dog, or rather wolf-they were far more like wolfs than dogs, in the center.
"You want me to ask an animal what it thinks." I said mockingly.
As I spoke she flinched and I realized that she was being serious. There was something that she knew that I didn't... and if that were so it must be because of her telepathy.
"Yumi, what's going on?"
That is the question you should have asked. Said a voice in my head, though voice isn't the right term. It was like I was hearing it but it was more like I was feeling it, or perhaps thinking it myself.
"We shouldn't be here..." Yumi said quietly, almost apologetically.
"Who said that?" I asked reacting to the voice.
I did. Said the voice. Look directly in front of you, child.
As I did so I looked directly into the center of the group of animals. The largest one, obviously the leader, was staring grimly at me.
You are trespassing on Aricitic territory. No humans are welcome here, but since we recently agreed with the traveler that we would leave the next two human children alone, one European male and one Asian female. We are bound to not attack you.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voiced changed to become more respectful.
I am the leader of the Aricitics. We live on the opposite side of Aricitopia from the traveler and his Aricitics.
"Ulrich we should leave." Yumi said.
"I think you are right Yumi. Lets go." I said.
"Uh," she stalled and turned to the creatures, Aricitics. "May we go?"
Leave, and never return to this part of Aricitopia. Humans are not welcome here, especially humans with special abilities. If it were up to me you would have already been bitten, but we must respect the traveler's word. Now go, leave us and return to your own world.
We walked back out of the clearing and back into the rain...
Odd and Jeremie had reached the factory. Odd was going down to the scanner room and Jeremie was trying to contact Aelita. Jeremie was desperately trying to get a link with Lyoko again but it simply wouldn't work. Nothing he did would allow him to get into Lyoko. He leaned back in his chair and nearly began to cry but then he remembered the CD that he had brought with him. Quickly he got it out and placed it in the drive. It automatically appeared on the screen.
'Running anti-viral spyware.' was displayed on the screen. The window began to change as multiple different characters appeared. He recognized a few of them in their various languages, but some of them were utterly foreign to him. As he watched a package was opened and something called the 'Aricitic Virus' was released into the computer. What happened next took only a few seconds, the entire room suddenly went pitch black as the screen shut off, then everything turned back on and the computer booted up. When everything was on again the computer displayed, 'Viral infections weakened and dormant. Press any key to...'
Quickly Jeremie pressed enter and said his famous catch phrase, "Return to the past now."