Weapon Showcase

A Code Lyoko one-shot by Custom Magnum.

Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko. It belongs to Moonscope.

.o0o.

Ulrich Stern grunted as he placed a rather large black trunk in the center of the floor of his room. He turned his head and saw both Yumi Ishiyama and Aelita Hopper leaning on his bed. He sighed. "Okay, would you please tell me why you wanted me to take these weapons out?" the brown-haired boy asked.

"I want to learn how to use a weapon," Aelita stated.

Ulrich blinked. "Why?" Understanding came in the form of a look from Aelita. "Right, stupid question." And with that, the boy opened up the trunk, revealing a bunch of wooden practice weapons; the majority of them swords.

"So you only brought the practice weapons out," Yumi stated as she looked into the chest.

Ulrich turned his attention back to the black-haired girl. "Well, you really can't expect me to go looking for the key to get the real sharp weapons out. Besides, once my parents get home I'm going to be dead for having two girls in my room as it is."

Aelita moved over to the chest and pulled out a wooden sword that reminded her of the katana that Ulrich used on Lyoko. "What's this?" she asked.

Ulrich looked at the weapon in question. "That's a bokken, it's basically a wooden version of a katana." He moved over to the chest and pulled out another of the wooden swords. He gripped the handle with both hands and held the sword at an angle a few inches in front of his face, and he stepped back with his right foot.

Aelita clumsily copied his movements.

Ulrich turned around and slashed downward in the air.

Aelita tried copying Ulrich's movement and ended up striking her foot. Ignoring the urge to cry out in pain, the pink-haired girl put the weapon back in the chest. "It just doesn't suit me," she said.

Ulrich didn't think any weapon suited Aelita, but he kept his mouth shut. Of course, the glare that Yumi was sending him probably had something to do with that. The boy saw that his pink-haired friend had pulled out a weapon that looked like two cylinders attacked by a short metal chain. "Those are nunchaku," He said, moving back over to the chest and depositing his bokken, before quickly getting away as Aelita struck downward with the nunchaku, one hand on one of the padded cylinder portions.

Yumi chuckled as Aelita accidentally hit herself in the side of the face when she tried to move the weapon to chest level, a little too much force in the movement of her hand.

"Definitely not," Aelita commented as she nursed her cheek, before she placed that weapon back in the chest, and began to search through the remaining weapons. After shaking her head at a few of the weapons in the chest, she pulled out two weapons that looked like a forearm guard with handles on one side.

'Great, Tonfa,' Ulrich thought as he saw his friend grab to two weapons by the small handle, turn sideways, and bend her knees, the distance between her legs giving her the appearance of sitting on an invisible horse. 'This should be interesting to watch.'

Aelita swung her right arm forward as hard as she could and the tonfa flew out of her hand and landed on the floor by a nearby shelf.

Ulrich wondered how Yumi and Aelita had managed to talk him into this.

"Okay, that might not be good either," Aelita said, moving over to collect the 'thrown' tonfa and placing both weapons back into the chest.

"Maybe we're going about this wrong," Yumi muttered as Aelita grabbed something that resembled a three-prong pitchfork with a longer center prong, out of the chest.

"What do you mean?" Aelita asked, turning to her friend.

"Let's face it, you're not a fighter," Yumi said simply. "A more defensive weapon is probably a better bet. Definitely something without a blade." After all, Yumi didn't want to see what damage Aelita could inadvertently do with a pair of sai. "Oh, and you might want to put that back," she said, turning towards her friend.

The pink-haired girl complied, a look of understanding on her face.

Ulrich inwardly sighed.

"I know, but we still don't know what XANA's capable of," Aelita said. "For all we know, he could hack into Lyoko to activate a tower to prepare an attack, and what if he sends the Méduse after me again."

"Why would he do that?" Ulrich asked.

"Because my father gave me more than just my memories back," she said. "Stuff that XANA probably has access to, and doesn't want us to have."

"She's been thinking like since school ended," Yumi stated.

"Okay. So you're looking for a weapon for your avatar on Lyoko?" Ulrich asked. At Aelita's nod, he continued, "And you want to be able to practice it on Earth?" Another nod. "Okay then. I think I have just the thing." With that, Ulrich moved over to the closet and opened the door. After a few seconds of searching, he pulled out a simple polished staff that was a little less than two meters long. "This should do it," he said, before tossing the staff at Aelita, who barely managed to catch it.

"Most monsters aren't going to be hurt by a stick," Yumi pointed out dryly.

"Of course not," Ulrich replied. "But do you really think that giving Aelita a bladed weapon to practice with is a good idea?"

Yumi and Aelita both went pale.

Ulrich smirked. "Exactly my point. The best weapon for Aelita on Lyoko would probably be a naginata. I'd lend you a wooden one, except that it's one of the few bladed weapons that my family doesn't have. Anyway, its long range in addition to the bladed end makes it very useful. It was the weapon most largely used by female members of the samurai class in feudal Japan because of those reasons, it kept the 'stronger' men out of range."

Aelita blinked. "You've studied up on this stuff, haven't you?" At Ulrich's confirmation, she smirked. "Then why did you barely pass history class?"

Ulrich went beet red. "I'm not interested in the subject. I know about the French Revolution and stuff like that.""Not according to your grades," Aelita countered.

Yumi laughed but then her eyes narrowed for a moment. 'What is she doing?' she thought.

"Hey, I'm helping you pick out a weapon and this is the thanks I get?" Ulrich answered.

"Hey, I'm Odd's cousin. I'm obligated to annoy you in his absence," Aelita said with a playful smirk.

"…But your—"

"I'm trying to make sure that I don't blow my cover," Aelita whispered.

"Why do you—" Ulrich began to say, before the door to his room opened and his mother barged in.

"Ulrich! What's going on?" the eldest woman shouted. "Having two girls in your room! Get them out of here now! What do you think you're doing anyway?"

"Showing off my weapon collection?" Ulrich answered weakly, even though it was the truth.

The End

.o0o.

Author's Notes:
This fic is meant to be a short little fluff piece that is a set up for a later (and much larger) story.

Anyway, the Méduse is the Scyphozoa. I'm using the French names for the monsters, since for every other monster the dub is inconsistent at times.

And yes, you have to wait for another story to see Aelita with a naginata on Lyoko. It just wouldn't fit in if included here.

The 'thinking like this since school ended' line is a very small reference to my earlier one-shot "Early Morning Confessions".