Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko.
Chapter Two: To the Unknown
Yumi stepped into the old, abandoned factory, taking a running leap to the ropes and swinging down to the main floor. She stepped inside the elevator and pressed the button, allowing the door to close in front of her. She leaned against the back of the lift, crossing her arms and sighing. She had been the last one to go here, she was sure of that. She had to go home before this so her parents wouldn't get so suspicious.
She pushed herself off the wall when the elevator stopped and typed in the pass code on the panel. She could hear the electricity run through the machine as the giant wheel began to turn. The door opened, allowing a small breeze to ruffle her hair.
"I know! It's a master doingerbox!" she heard Odd exclaim as she stepped inside.
"Odd! Don't!" Jeremie exclaimed, trying to take the small object that had been taken from him back.
She raised an eyebrow. "What the heck's a doingerbox?" she asked, stepping next to Ulrich.
Odd looked up at her, a genuine expression of confusion on his face. Jeremie snatched back the object just as he realized what she had meant. "Oh, yeah! That's what my little cousin back at home calls TV remotes. Sorry, guess it slipped." He grinned and scratched the back of his head.
"So, what is it?" Ulrich asked the small genius, getting to the point.
"Well, first something must be explained," Jeremie said, setting the remote-like object down. He turned to his friends, a serious expression on his face. "You remember a few days ago, there was a black tower?" They nodded, interested now. "Well… something strange happened…."
No! It can't end this way!
I knew it. We're gonna die…
Jeremie! Alternate dimension! Franz-The others' eyes were wide as the boy finished his explanation. There was a moment before anyone spoke.
"Why didn't you tell us earlier?" Aelita asked, frowning very slightly.
The boy sighed. "I wasn't sure if it was just XANA messing with me or not. I didn't want to worry you guys. But!" He turned back to his computer, opening up a few files to get to the folder with all the documents. "I think I know what happened." He scrolled down quite a ways and double clicked one of the icons. "See?" He leaned back, allowing the others to lean forward and read what was written.
After a few moments, Odd spoke up. "Um… I don't get it."
The others, sans Aelita, nodded in agreement. The pink-haired girl, though, had widened eyes as they read the document quickly. "They were from another dimension?"
"Exactly!" Jeremie grinned.
"How would this help us defeat XANA?" Ulrich asked.
"Our alternates came here to find a way to defeat their XANA! Maybe we can do the same thing. Maybe, out there, there is a dimension where we finally won!" Jeremie's voice trembled with excitement at the possibility.
Aelita cocked her head to the side in confusion, though. "Why does it have instructions on how to build the remote, though? They used a tower."
"That's easy to explain," Jeremie said, minimizing the window and finding another document. He opened it and it had the same information, but it used a tower instead. "This was the first way he discovered how to do this. He would have to activate two towers, one from his own dimension, and one from the dimension he would travel to. This has been proven faulty, though, by what happened the other day. If one of the towers is deactivated, the connection is lost and those who had traveled here are sent back. Ours found a better way to travel, after finding out how to use it with the towers."
Aelita nodded, an excited smile also forming on her lips.
"So you're saying we're just gonna go into another dimension without knowing what'll be waiting for us there?" Yumi asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well… uh…" the boy scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "I wouldn't put it that way…."
"We could end up anywhere!" Odd said, his eyes glimmering as he recalled the hundreds of science fiction stories he had read and/or watched. "We could end up in a dimension so different, that time doesn't even run the same way! We could be there for a few seconds, come back, and millions of years would have gone by in our world. We could also-"
"Odd," Ulrich said, warningly.
The boy grinned innocently, silencing himself.
"I think we should go," Aelita said determinedly. "From what you told us, Jeremie, they were in trouble. They came to us for help. We should go to them."
"We don't know if we can even help at all, though," Yumi said evenly. "From what Jeremie said, they had it pretty bad."
"That's why we should at least try," Aelita looked her friend steadily in the eyes.
There was a moment of tense silence as the two girls stared each other in the eyes, neither angry, nor happy with each other. Finally, Yumi cracked a smile and sighed.
"We are against XANA," she said as Aelita too smiled.
"So we're going tonight?" Odd asked, grinning eagerly.
"I guess we should," Jeremie remarked. "They were in big trouble."
Jeremie set to the job of calling the school, using the supercomputer, to convince the principal that the four non-day students had good reasons for not being at the school that night. Odd ran off to the school to go get Kiwi for some reason and Ulrich followed him. Yumi went up to the main floor to talk to her parents on her cell phone, knowing that it would take a little while. This left Aelita and the computer genius alone in the compute room. The girl turned to Jeremie, a thoughtful look on her face.
"Jeremie," she said softly, frowning slightly in thought. "I can understand how your alternate didn't come here, but why do you think mine didn't?"
The boy shook his head, shrugging. "I honestly have no idea."
The boy stifled a yawn as he got to work on the computer again, starting up a program he had recently created. It would protect the towers from XANA as long as possible while they were gone, acting like a barrier.
OoOoO
"Let's get going!" Odd exclaimed, running out of the elevator with Kiwi at his heels. Ulrich stepped into the computer room at a slower pace.
"Odd?" Jeremie said, raising an eyebrow as he looked down at the dog. "Why'd you get Kiwi?"
"So he could come with, duh" the purple clad boy responded.
Jeremie merely shook his head before holding up the remote he had just finished fixing up. His lips formed a grin as he thought of all the possibilities that small device would reveal. Franz Hopper surely surpassed even Einstein (the real one, of course).
He had gotten the coordinates from the tower that had been activated, so he knew they were about to go to the right dimension. He set the small device to the correct destination and hesitated a moment, his hand hovering over the button that would activate it.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked the others, looking each of them in the eyes, even Kiwi's though it was only for a second.
Nobody backed down, and he pressed the button, causing a bright light to flash around them. When they were able to open their eyes, they saw an orb-like object floating in the middle of all of them. It looked almost like water, or glass. They could see distorted figures of each other when they looked through it.
Odd, practically mesmerized by it, reached out and placed his hand on it. His fingers slipped through it, causing it to ripple softly. They couldn't see his fingers inside, which was strange since it was transparent. He grinned and stepped inside of it. Kiwi, not wanting to be left behind his master, barked and jumped inside also.
The others glanced at each other, and Ulrich was the next to step inside, holding up both his hands up cautiously. Yumi stepped inside after him.
Jeremie and Aelita looked at each other. The girl gave him a reassuring smile and stepped up to it. She held her arms out and stepped inside it like she would a tower. Jeremie watched, his eyes wide, clutching the remote tightly. He was starting to have second thoughts, but clenched his teeth determinedly. If he was able to go on Lyoko at least once…
He stepped inside.
OoOoO
Author's Note
Yay! Another chapter done! Just so you know, that word doingerbox really was something one of my cousins used to call a remote. The 'doing' part of the word is not pronounced as in 'I'm doing something.' It's pronounced like the sound effect boing except with a d instead of a b.
I thank you all who reviewed.