Disclaimer: I don't own Code Lyoko. (but it'd be neat if I did)

Chapter Four: A Ray of Hope

The small group of children walked through the many twisting tunnels of the base, following this world's Sissi. She had told them that they were going to an area where they could rest.

She left them for another duty when they had made it to the large room with hundreds of makeshift beds. Most of them were blankets folded to make a futon. Some actually had mattresses, but those, as it looked, were for injured people who were recovering. It looked as if this was not just a room for sleep.

"Jim?" Yumi said suddenly, surprising the other three. They looked over and saw their PE teacher, looking down at his arm and flexing it. It was mechanical. He was changed, also. He wasn't quite as large as he used to be, and had quiet a bit more muscle.

He looked up in surprise, then smiled when he recognized them. "Oh, hey," he said, waving his flesh hand. "Did you guys get hurt again?"

Odd raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

The man frowned, then squinted at them a little. "You look different." Then he saw Kiwi sitting quietly near the blonde boy's feat. His eyes widened slightly. "I thought that dog was dead," he muttered. "I even remember seeing the grave you made for him." He gave them all another look. "Jeremie had mentioned another world… Are you…?" Yumi nodded, causing a wide grin to spread on the man's face. "Welcome to the resistance, then!" he said. "Did you bring her?"

"Who?"

"Aelita?"

"You mean me?" Aelita stepped up from behind them, causing his smile to grow even more.

He stood up quickly, a light of hope shining in his eyes, and gripped her shoulders. It felt strange to have one hand be so hard and cold while the other soft and warm.

"This war can finally end!" he exclaimed, his grin very wide.

"What are you talking about?" a woman asked, sounding like she had woken up just then. When she saw the girl, though, she froze, her eyes very wide. "Oh my god," she said softly.

Within a matter of seconds, the poor girl was surrounded by a bunch of hopeful individuals, a new light burning in all of their previously deadened eyes.

"What's going on?" a voice asked, not really heard by anybody, from the door. The boy whom the voice belonged to saw something he knew shouldn't. His fingers twitched and his eyes widened, barely daring to believe. It wasn't the girl in the center of the room, honestly, that had caught his attention. It was a certain little gray dog that he had his purple eyes glued to. "K-Kiwi?" he said, softly.

The dog's ears perked and he turned toward the boy, his tail wagging. It let out a bark and trotted over to him.

"Huh? Kiwi?" Odd turned away from the mass of chattering people to look over at his dog, who was walking away. "What are you-"

He stopped when he saw himself at the doorway.

"Kiwi!" the Odd with the injury on his face exclaimed kneeling down and allowing the dog to leap into his arms, barking gleefully. He started laughing, surprising his alternate when tears fell out of his eyes. It was strange, seeing himself cry. He bent down to him, for once not knowing what to say. It was himself, after all. Finally, he decided to ask something

"So, what happened to your Kiwi?" he asked. "What's been happening?"

The boy sighed, rubbing the dog's belly as it wagged its tail, glad for the attention. "He was killed by one of XANA's Krabes. It was just before things started getting really bad. XANA sent monsters to Earth again, except this time they were much stronger. We managed to stop them, but not in time. Kiwi was really only one out of quite a few victims, including some of the teachers and students. After we stopped him, when we left the factory, he immediately invaded it, having activated a tower right away and materializing more monsters. This stopped us from getting inside.

"We managed to find a way in, though. When we tried, it was our old group, just the five of us. Yumi, and Ulrich went ahead to make sure we could get rid of anything dangerous while I stayed behind with Jeremie and Aelita. After all, they aren't that good at fighting. But I guess I was ambushed and hit in the head, because I can't really remember what happened after that." He pointed to his head injury. "I have this to prove it, though. As you can see we managed to get out, but not without difficulty. We all got beat up pretty bad… especially Aelita. That's why we need your Aelita."

"No wonder she's so famous all of a sudden," Odd grinned, glancing over at his friend, who was no longer surrounded by excited people, but now rather attentive people as they asked questions about her own world. "Princess is getting a lot of attention, now."

Odd reached down and started messing with the dog too, who welcomed the attention. Suddenly, there was a crash from above. There was a tense silence for a moment before everyone, sans the dimensional visitors, quickly and efficiently started running to other rooms as more crashes resounded.

"What's going on?" Yumi asked.

"XANA's monsters are attacking!" Julien's alternate answered quickly before going on his way.

"But this isn't Lyoko," Ulrich frowned.

Two Odds approached them, the only difference between them being the laceration on this dimension's face, and the rings under his eyes. "I'll explain on the way," he said. "Come with me." With that, they began walking through the many tunnels, the current world's Odd telling Aelita, Ulrich, and Yumi what he had told Odd.

OoOoO

"I remember when everything was normal, at least as normal as it could get with XANA around.," the unfeeling Jeremie said as sounds of battle raged from above.

Jeremie stared at him with a look of shock. "I can't believe it!" he shouted. "You're acting as if there isn't anything going on right now!"

Before he could shout at him some more, the door opened and Sissi looked inside at the two of them. "We're going, Jeremie," she said, addressing the cyborg. "He found our base. It's now or never. You coming?"

"I have to stay with Aelita," he responded, turning back to the girl, sleeping serenely despite her horrible injuries.

"Wait!" Jeremie stepped forward. "I'll go with."

The girl snorted. "You? What good would you be? You don't even know how to fight."

"That may be, but do you know how to run the supercomputer?" he retorted, not even realizing that he sounded a bit like his counterpart.

She frowned, hating having something so painfully obvious pointed out to her. "Fine," she said, pivoting and walking away.

Jeremie quickly ran out the door, following her. His alternate watched the door as it shut

The girl suddenly spun to him just as he was about to catch up. "Here," she tossed him something. He clumsily caught it and looked down at it. The boy looked surprised as he stared down at a futuristic looking gun. He looked questioningly up at the girl's fiery eyes. "You might need it. Trust me."

OoOoO

Author's Note

I could've, and should've, named this chapter Attack but I wanted to have a chapter that seemed brighter.

This story is turning out very different then I originally had planned. One thing that caught me completely off-guard was when Sissi suddenly had a mechanical leg. Then suddenly, Jeremie's an emotionless cyborg! I honestly don't know what's going to happen next! I had something very different planned, and now it looks like it will happen very differently. It seems to be going back on track a little bit, though.

I got 10 reviews! That's a new record for me!