The Search For Franz Hopper
5: Arrival
Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko
Ulrich and Odd were still unconscious, not moving at all. Yumi ran over to Ulrich's body.
"Ulrich! Ulrich!" Yumi cried. "Ulrich! Wake up!"
Ulrich still didn't move a muscle, and neither did Odd after Jeremie and Aelita tried to wake him.
"We gotta get outta here!" said Jeremie and they began to run carrying the two still bodies.
"WHERE DO YOU THIN YOU'RE GOING?" yelled XANA as he charged another bolt of electricity in his hand.
He shot the bolt at Jeremie as the others entered the elevator.
"Jeremie!" cried Aelita.
"Get the...electric...bomb..." Jeremie said silently as the doors shut without him.
"The bomb?" asked Yumi. "Oh that thing!"
Yumi and Aelita reached the lab room and found the bomb in the far side of the room. They laid the bodies against the wall just right of the elevator. Aelita began to worry about Jeremie. Yumi retrieved the heavy case that looks like a toolbox with a car battery attached to it. Aelita flipped a switch and the bomb suddenly activated. She immediately turned it off.
"That was close", said Aelita. "Okay, now we know how it works at least."
The elevator door opened and in there was XANA with Jeremie's body in his arm. He threw the body on the ground in front of him and grinned.
"This is for Jeremie!" cried Aelita as she activated the bomb.
The box made a loud beep and created a blinding white flash of electricity. XANA screamed in a scary, deep voice and when the flash was gone he was as well leaving no body. Then Odd and Ulrich woke up. Jeremie was still unconscious.
"What just happened?" asked Odd as he stood up, scratching his head.
"XANA made his first attack", replied Yumi.
"Hey wait. Where's Hunter?" asked Ulrich. "I thought he was possessed by XANA."
"No he wasn't", replied Aelita. "XANA took the form of that kid. He never took over anyone."
Aelita then went over to Jeremie's body and tried waking him. He didn't. The gang went back to school staying as silent as possible, and Yumi went home. Odd and Ulrich went back to their dorm while Aelita stayed in Jeremie's room to monitor him, to see if he was actually all right if he woke up.
Morning came and during the night Aelita fell asleep on Jeremie's bed. She woke up and tried to wake Jeremie. He woke up this time thankfully but in a daze.
"Huh, where am I? How did I get here?" asked Jeremie.
"XANA knocked you unconscious", replied Aelita as she shed a tear. "Oh Jeremie I thought you'd never come to!"
She hugged Jeremie out of love and relief. Jeremie patted her back and said, "I'm fine. But what happened to XANA? And how did the bomb work out?"
"Pretty well considering it obliterated XANA", replied Aelita. "But I'm guessing he'll be back."
"You're probably right", replied Jeremie. "But this also looks like a good opportunity to save your father. Since Hunter's gone, we can go to Lyoko whenever again."
The bell rang and it was time for class. But it was a Friday so the students would get out earlier than usual and at the same time there were only three classes. The students went off to first period.
During that class, Jeremie's computer began to beep repeatedly.
"A tower", whispered Jeremie to himself.
The bell rang and class was over.
"Guys a tower's been activated", announced Jeremie to Odd, Ulrich and Aelita. "We should get to the factory to see if Franz sent something to the supercomputer."
"Okay I'll get Yumi", replied Ulrich. "I think she just had chemistry. I'll meet you guys in the forest."
The gang met up in the forest and entered the sewer and eventually the factory. Jeremie took the controls in the lab and sent the warriors to the Desert Sector.
"Sorry guys can you wait one second?" asked Jeremie. "Franz did send us a message...Oh weird!"
"What is it Jeremie?" asked Yumi.
"Okay we have to do what we did when I was sent into virtual limbo", replied Jeremie.
"Huh?" replied Odd not knowing what Jeremie was talking about. "Wait...Oh when you were trapped between Lyoko and Earth?"
"Yeah."
"So we have to get memory from the passage towers?" asked Aelita.
"You got it", replied Jeremie. "But remember the fragments we still have to get in Sector 5. We have to get the fragments first, otherwise he'll be transferred into our world invisible, deleted completely or with a horrible deformed body."
"Yikes", said Odd. "That would be creepy."
"Okay I'm sending the transporter."
Jeremie entered the code and the transporter took the warriors to Sector 5. They exited the transporter and the door opened.
"Three minutes, right Jeremie?" asked Ulrich.
"Yup", replied Jeremie. "Go for it!"
They gang entered the room and the key was straight ahead. But the room was full of moving blocks with an abyss of nothingness underneath them. They began to hop from block to block
"Two minutes", Jeremie announced.
"Who's the closest?" asked Ulrich and he saw Yumi on the block closest to the key. "Yumi go!"
Although Yumi was the closest to the key, there was a considerable jump in front of her. She then made a running start and jumped with all her might. She was about to reach the edge but fell short. Luckily she caught on with her hands. She climbed up and kicked the key in.
"Close one", said Yumi.
"I'll say", replied Odd. "Hey there's the exit, let's go!"
They group left the room and reached the platform with the interface.
"Get ready guys", warned Jeremie.
The Mantas began to hatch as Aelita accessed the Sector 5 mainframe. She selected, clicked and closed windows on the panel while Odd, Ulrich and Yumi blocked the lasers fired by the Mantas. Odd fired his arrows and Yumi threw her fans at the same Manta.
"One down!" yelled Odd.
One Manta approached the platform. Ulrich jumped over the gliding beast and jumped on the insignia on the Manta. He stabbed the beast and it exploded as he jumped back to the platform. One remained.
"I'm almost done you guys", announced Aelita. "I've found two more encrypted files. Oh make that three. I'm sending the data to you now, Jeremie."
"Okay then. Your vehicles are on the way", announced Jeremie.
"Ulrich watch out!" yelled Yumi.
The Manta fired at the Overbike Ulrich was riding and hit it. The split second before the bike was destroyed Ulrich jumped off the bike at the Manta. The Manta fired again as Ulrich threw his sword at the monster's insignia. They hit each other at the same time devirtualizing Ulrich and destroying the Manta. The others escaped into the Ice Sector.
"5 fragments", said Jeremie. "Looks like we're doing well."
"Jeremie that was all I could find", said Aelita.
"Really?" asked Jeremie. "Maybe we can begin to save Franz. I still have to decode the files by activating a tower so it might take a while."
"Okay", replied Aelita. "There's a tower right by us. Can you activate that one?"
"I'm on it now."
A second later.
"Done. Okay Aelita, go for it."
Aelita entered the tower in a field of icebergs and pillars, and activated the interface there. Jeremie began the decoding process like the time they decoded the files on Franz Hopper's diary.
"These files are pretty big", said Jeremie. "Bigger than all the files that were on Franz Hopper's diary combined. Odd, Yumi I'm going to devirtualize you."
"Alright", said Odd.
The two were sent back to Earth and met Jeremie in the lab.
"You guys should go back before people get suspicious about where we are", said Jeremie. "Aelita and I'll will monitor the decoding process."
"Okay we'll cover for you in class", replied Ulrich.
"Later!", said Odd.
The three left the factory and headed back to school. Luckily it was lunch so they were off the hook for now. No one seemed to realize they were gone except Sissi. They got their food and in came Sissi with a menacing grin on her face.
"Now what kind of no good are you guys up to this time", said Sissi. "And where's your friend Einstein, not to mention Mrs Einstein."
"They're working on a project", replied Odd.
"What project?" Sissi asked.
"To make uhh, worms intelligent. And he might even test it on you", said Odd as Ulrich and Yumi began to laugh as Sissi marched off in anger.
Meanwhile at the factory...
It's been an hour since Jeremie and Aelita began decoding the files. Apparently Jeremie was right, they were huge.
"Aelita, how's it going on your end?" asked Jeremie.
"Fine", Aelita replied. "It's close to finishing. I think it'll finish in a few more minutes."
"Great job then."
Five minutes passed and the decoding ended. Jeremie deactivated the tower and devirtualized Aelita in the same tower. She went up to the lab room to see what she decoded.
"So how exactly are we gonna free my father with these fragments?" asked Aelita.
"The only way I can think of is by threading it in to the scanners at the same time we thread in the memory from the four passage towers."
"Okay, I should be able to manipulate the towers so they can actually read and compile the files' information."
"Right then, but we should get back to school so no one notices we were gone for half the day."
Jeremie and Aelita went back to school. It was in the middle of th elast period of the day so they entered the calss with the excuse that Jeremie was in the infirmary and Aelita took him there.
"So how did it go?" whispered Ulrich to Jeremie.
"It's all done", replied Jeremie. "We just have to get the memory from the passage towers on Lyoko from the four sectors. Then we should be able to get Franz Hopper."
Ten minutes later, the bell rang and the day was finally over. The gang met up with Yumi and headed for the factory. Jeremie virtualized Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and Aelita sending them to the Ice Sector to begin the retrieval process.
"This might take a few hours", said Jeremie. "But the vehicles should speed up the process considerably."
"Let's get started then", replied Ulrich. "There's no time to lose."
They found the first tower and Aelita entered it. She began to do her work for about fifteen minutes while the others waited outside the tower to keep an eye out even though XANA had no way of virtualizing monsters onto Lyoko. But you can't be too careful.
Fifteen minutes stood and Aelita announced, "I'm done with this tower. On to the next one."
The gang went in, got Aelita where the tower led to the Forest Sector. This process went on for another tow hours as Jeremie waited and saw the memory meter on his screen get closer to full. Eventually the gang ended up in the Mountain Sector where the last tower was located. Then another fifteen minutes passed and Aelita finished the retrieval process and exited the tower.
"Good job you guys", announced Jeremie. "I'm gonna start the process now!"
Jeremie typed in a few thing and hit the return key. A window opened on his screen with a the five files and a picture of the tower Aelita just left and watched as the files copied themselves into the tower as well as the memory for the scanners.
"You guys will have to wait to get devirtualized", said Jeremie. "Sorry but all three scanners are needed to save Aelita's dad."
"No problem", replied Odd. "I could use a break for now. I think we all could. That was a long run."
"I'll head down to the scanner room and see what happens", said Jeremie. "I hope we did things right."
Jeremie left the computer and took the elevator down to the scanners. They were all closed so he didn't know which one Franz Hopper would materialize into. Then one opened and out came a cloud of steam. Jeremie began to see a shadow in the cloud and the figure began to step out. It was a man in a black vest, black collared shit, and black pants. Franz Hopper had arrived.
"Franz...Hopper?" asked Jeremie.
"Huh! Who are you? How did I get here?" asked Franz.
"Come with me", said Jeremie. "There's something you need to see."
Jeremie took Franz up to the lab room and told him about everything taht was going on at that time, and about XANA.
"Guys I'm devirtualizing you", announced Jeremie. "I think it worked."
Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and Aelita came back to Earth and went up to the lab room. They saw the man wearing all black and Aelita gasped.
"It's you", said Aelita. "It's really you, daddy!"
"Aelita?" said Franz. "Is it really you?"
They ran towards each other and hugged.
"Oh what a terrible nightmare...say who are your friends?" he said.
"That's Ulrich, Odd and Yumi", answered Aelita. "And I think you've met Jeremie."
"Thank you", said Franz. "You saved my life. I'm sorry to hear what happened with XANA."
"He's already attacked", said Jeremie. "But he's temporarily incapicitated."
"Is my house okay?" asked Franz.
"Your house?" said Jeremie. "Oh the Hermitage. Yes it's there but kina beat up."
"Take me there", said Franz.
The gang guided Franz to the Hermitage arriving at the entrance by the basement of the house. He entered and was stunned about how beat up it was but happy that it was still there. Franz went upstairs and the gang followed him. He found his piano and began to play that catchy tune Aelita was so familiar with. Then he stopped playing as if he realized something.
"I forgot to ask", said Franz. "What became of my diary?"
"I'm sorry to say XANA destroyed the CDs and erased the memory from the supercomputer", replied Jeremie. "When he took the form of the kid I told you about, he snuck into the factory and managed to access the restricted access area of the supercomputer and deleted everything there."
"Oh I see", said Franz. "At least you've freed me so there's no need for it anymore."
"Right cause we have the real deal right here", said Odd.
"Hey were you really a teacher at Kadic?" asked Jeremie.
"Why yes I was", Franz replied. "Until the government hired me as a sort of mercenary. Why do you ask?"
"We found your record in the school office a while back", said Ulrich. "Just about the same time Aelita discovered this house."
"Wait so you're saying you go to Kadic?" asked Franz. "That's fantastric. Good for you. By the way I think I'll try tidying up here and live here. I believe I still am legally exist in this city with this address so I can live here."
"Alright then", said Jeremie. "That's another problem solved."
All seemed fine but Jeremie overlooked one problem, Franz was now human and since he was human now he has basic needs. Franz seemed sufficient enough to do this on his own so the gang left him to do this task. The gang said bye and went back to school. Franz began to tidy up.
"What a mess..." he said.
Success! The creator is now free of XANA's grasp. Here Part 1 of the saga ends as the Lyoko gang gains a new ally. I will update the story ASAP and it will be the same name. R&R