OK, I see in the reviews people are getting a leetle too excited about wanting me to post new chapters faster than ASAP. Well, relax! They'll always be posted as quickly as possible. Rome wasn't built in a day!
Chapter 16-Irene Is Still With Me
"Irene?"
Aelita reached out to the hazy figure of the girl. Her hand went right through her!
"My soul and mind remain," she said, "but my image is a virtual projection."
"I'm... I'm a little confused," Aelita sighed.
"You're supposed to help me," Irene said.
"With what?"
"You're supposed to help me find mommy and daddy. I can't find them. The computer tells me Aelita is supposed to help me. Aren't you Aelita?"
"Yes, but why me? What computer? I have so many questions, I don't know where to start."
Irene looked like she was about to cry. "You're not going to help me?"
"Oh, oh, I'll help you!" Aelita assured her. "I'm just confused."
"Aelita, what's going on?" Jeremie's voice echoed through the tower. He had been quiet the last few seconds. Probably too astonished to speak.
"I find Irene," Aelita answered.
"You found her? We have hundreds of questions to ask her!"
"We just got a hundred more."
"So I heard. Let's try and get this straightened out."
Outside the tower Yumi, Ulrich, and Odd stood impatiently outside.
"Wasn't Jeremie supposed to tell us when Aelita got to Carthage?" groaned Odd.
"He hasn't given us word yet," Yumi said. "HEY JER! What's up?"
Jeremie answered soon. "I'm sorry, but Aelita is not in Carthage. I don't think she's going."
"What! Why not?" yelled Ulrich.
"Something is happening in the tower..." Jeremie said.
The three looked at each other in wonder.
"So, Irene," Aelita said softly to the aroused little girl in front of her. "Who is the computer?"
"I don't know. He doesn't look like computer. He looks an... an... an..."
Irene paused. "Aaaa-toe-pus." She stressed each syllable.
"An octopus?" Aelita asked.
"Yeah!" Irene said. "He gots lots of arms!"
"Helo..." Aelita said to herself.
"He says he's a computer and he tells me all kinds of stuff."
"What kind of stuff?"
"He says daddy made him and the place we're in. He says daddy made the place so I would see him and mommy again. And he said you gots to help me see them."
"Who's your daddy?" Aelita asked.
"My daddy. He lived with me and mommy," Irene answered matter-of-factly. "Daddies always live with mommies and their little girls and boys, silly!"
"Yes, but do you know his name?"
"Daddy. But sometimes other people called him somthing silly."
"Did they call him Franz Hopper?"
Irene gasped and her eyes got wide. "How did you know that? Are you magic, like a unicorn or a princess?"
"Well, it's clear," Jeremie said. "She's a main link."
"Hi, boy!" Irene yelled. "What's a man lint?"
"Kind of," Jeremie corrected.
Yumi was screaming questions at Jeremie outside the tower. Most of the questions were: "Jeremie, what is going on in that tower?"
Finally Jeremie answered.
"Aelita is having a very important conversation with Irene!"
The Lyoko crew gasped. "Irene?" "Really?" "Dude, this is like a movie!"
"Well, she's helping, but not too much. Since she's so young, she doesn't know or understand much."
Aelita heard what Jeremie had said in the tower. She watched Irene as she put her hand through the platform she sat on, hand in, hand out, in, out, in, out.
"You can say that again!" Aelita said. She turned back to Irene. "OK. Why am I going to help you?"
"Look at my hand!" Irene giggled.
Aelita looked at her for a minute, then sighed. "Hoo, boy. This is gonna be a toughy."
For hours on end, Aelita tried to get Irene to answer her question. Aelita thought she was going to fall and die any second, she was so frustrated. Yumi, Ulrich, and Odd lay outside the tower recounting the adventures they'd had in the past. XANA's monsters were laying, too, and believe it or not, some were actually napping.
Jeremie fell asleep in his chair in the computer room, the incessant 'why me' question from Aelita easing him to sleep. Then he awoke to the sound of screaming and white noise getting louder and louder.
"Ah-wha- what's happening?" he screamed into his microphone.
"Something is swallowing the forest region!" exclaimed Yumi.
Indeed, back in Lyoko the forest region was being devirtualized bit by bit. It was like the 'giant eraser', as climbed by Odd, from one of the more recent missions. Only difference was, instead of something invisible, a sea of thousands of tiny vibrating things!
"Jeremie, what is that?" yelled Ulrich.
"They're nanites! They're eating Lyoko bit by bit! This is what White Noise Day is doing!" Jeremie shouted.
XANA's monsters moved like a great wave, as before, toward the nanites. Thick ribbons of lasers streamed at the little creatures. But the fire only had the effect of making holes in the ocean of nanites, which were quickly regrouped into part of them too.
"They reproduce and regroup too quickly to be destroyed. You'll have to come back to Earth!"
"What about Aelita and Helo?" Odd asked.
"That's for me to worry about. Materialization," Jeremie said.
In an instant Odd found himself falling out of his scanner and thudding onto the metal floor. Ulrich and Yumi spilled out of their scanners too.
"Aelita!" Yumi shrieked. She scrambled to her feet the instant she hit the ground and ran int the elevator. The boys, still on the floor, looked at her. Yumi stared them down expectantly. "Move it!" she hollered.
At her command they tripped to the elevator and rode down to Jeremie.
"Aelita," Jeremie told her just after materializing the three, "get out of that tower! Use it to go to XANA's tower in Carthage!"
"But-" Aelita sputtered.
"Don't ask! Move it!"
Irene looked at Aelita. "Aren't you going to help me? Please!"
"OK, OK," Aelita said. She grabbed Irene. Of course, her hand went right through her. "Follow me!" Aelita told her.
She floated back down to the bottom platform. She looked back up to the one above her. Irene looked over the edge fearfully. "I'm scared..."
"Sing your favorite song! Sing it while jumping off! And sing it until you feel yourself on ground again!" Aelita said.
Irene started to singing the ABC's as she jumped off and floated gracefully beside her.
When she landed she threw her hands in the air. "I did it!"
"OK, now, put your arms out to your sides." Aelita displayed it for her. Irene copied her. "Stand next to me, on the edge here, good, OK, now close your eyes, now, fall forward!"
They both fell into the digital tunnel, heading toward the Carthage tower. Finally they came to it, stepping onto the platform. "That was fun!" exclaimed Irene.
Aelita sat on the middle dot of the green XANA symbol on the platform.
"I need to know some things from you, Irene." Aelita didn't care why Jeremie got them out of the tower. She had more important things to think about. "Now tell me: why am I supposed to help you?"
"I can't remember," Irene said.
Aelita gave a deep sigh.
101010101010101000101011010101001010101010
"Can I materialize you now?" Jeremie asked. He was obviously antagonized by the situation.
"No, we're so close, Jeremie!" Aelita said.
"You're at the same progress you were hours ago." It was midnight. The rest of Lyoko had been destroyed, except for Carthage. Inside XANA's tower Aelita had been questioning Irene for hours on end.
"Oh yeah? Listen to this!"
Aelita turned to Irene. "Why me? Why am I helping?"
Irene's eyes went wide, her mouth agape, as if she had just remembered. "The computer! He told me! He told me you were still with me!"
"Huh?"
"My living form! He said you were a seperate part of me!"
"What? You mean... am I you?"
"He said we together making the whole living Irene."
"I am you."
Ooooooo... this is one of my favorite parts:D :D :D :D :D
Next chapter: Upon this discovery, Aelita finds her past within Irene's memory. Now, there's only one thing to do... Chapter 17-Do the Impossible