I do not own anything in this story.
Danny flies through the closed doors to the core and see Hawkeye and Wasp finish off the rest of the krabs that Tyron spawned into the Cortex. Hawkeye and Jan turn their heads to Danny and notice that he was alone. "We failed." Hawkeye mutters.
Danny flies over to them and lands a few feet from them. "What happened with Jeremy?" Jan asks her cousin curiously.
Danny closes his eyes feeling conflicted with the choice he made on Jeremy's life. "I'll explain everything once we're in the real world. Jeremy should be almost done putting in the virus to destroy the Cortex." He tells them.
"Let's get going then." Hawkeye says as he gets on the Overbike. Danny nods his head and flies off to the portal with Jan and Hawkeye following him.
Chat runs into the jet with the other teens close behind him. Ulrich and Odd enter the jet with Aelita's arms over their shoulders and set her down on one of the chairs as Ladybug runs past them and sits down on the pilot seat. "Do you know how to fly a plane?" Chat asks his partner.
"No, but right now we're out of options at the moment." Ladybug replies back holding in her nervousness and fear.
"Don't worry I know how to fly. I'll go ahead and take over." Odd says as he walks up to Ladybug.
"Be my guest, Feline." Ladybug gestures as she gets out of the pilot seat.
Odd sits down on the pilot seat and starts pushing specific buttons on the control pad surprising everyone when they hear the engine start up. Odd grabs the steering wheel and says, "Everyone buckle up! We're probably going to have a bumpy ride." Everyone sits down and straps themselves in, but Ulrich buckles Aelita into her seat before buckling himself in. "Here we go!" He pushes the back allowing it to start going up into the air then grabs the lever. He pulls the lever back and smirks as the jet takes off leaving the facility about to blow up behind them.
Everyone finds themselves holding onto their seats including Aelita who just got out of her shock about Jeremy's attack. She looks up at Odd in the pilot seat and yells, "Odd, don't you dare destroy the engines to your carelessness."
Odd removes his hand from the lever and gives her a thumb up. "Don't worry Aelita. I know how to handle a jet." He assures her.
"That's not what I'm worried about." Aelita mutters knowing about Odd's behavior to do crazy stunts while driving any vehicle. She leans back in her chair and looks over at Ulrich was staring back at her worry in his eyes. She looks up at the ceiling of the plane and says, "I'm going to lose him again."
Ulrich grunts and shakes his head. "You don't know about that for sure." He tells her.
"If he was going to survive, he wouldn't have stabbed me when we were in sector five." She counters back getting Ulrich to sigh in defeat.
Ladybug and Chat Noir hear her words and widen their eyes in surprise. They glance back at Aelita who was leaning back in her chair sadness etched in her eyes. "Was the guy we saw planning to destroy the base your boyfriend?" Chat asks aware of how wrong the question sounds.
Aelita closes her eyes and sighs, "Yeah, that was Jeremy. He…" An explosion goes off in the distance behind them catching everyone off guard by the sudden force that shook the plane. "Odd!"
"I'm already on it!" Odd yells back as he pulls the wheel back towards him. He grits his teeth and gets the plane higher up into the air. He stables the plane out and turns his head slightly giving the others a smirk. "I told you that don't have to worry. Anyway, we got a long flight ahead of us."
"Aren't we supposed to take them back to Paris before heading to New York?" Ulrich asks his best friend.
"I think we get a say in this before you guys argue over our well-being." Ladybug speaks up getting Ulrich to turn his head to her.
"Sorry, but it's just going to be a long flight back home, and I doubt you guys would want to stay in the jet when you have families to go home to." Ulrich apologizes.
"What if we were homeless, did you ever think of that?" Chat asks keeping a straight face even though he was joking.
Ulrich snickers, "I would believe that if Angelic Code didn't do her research on you guys. Plus, homeless heroes seem unlikely, since you guys look like you are at good health."
"He's right." Ladybug remarks with a sly grin getting Chat to groan in defeat. "But, after everything that has happened I doubt that the battle is over at the moment."
"What do you mean?" Odd asks curiously.
Ladybug puts her right hand to her chin and speaks her thoughts. "Tyron was forced to escape, and I doubt he would be able to stay hidden after being forced to flee a hidden base. If we had some way to track him then…"
"I'm way ahead of you Ladybug." Aelita says as she brings up her holo-screen. She brings up the tracker by hacking into his phone and narrows her eyebrows when the red dot shows him heading in a different direction than they were going. "Odd…"
"Just give me the directions, and I'll fly us after him." Odd tells her before she could give the command.
William and Yumi watch as Danny and the others walk out of the scanner with sadness in their eyes. The two teens notice the sad looks and glance at each other in worry then back at Danny. "How did it go?" William asks. "Were you able to get to Jeremy?"
"Danny said he was going to explain everything as a group to avoid explaining multiple times on what happened to Jeremy." Jan tells them as Danny walks by the two Lyoko Warriors.
Danny turns his attention to Tony, who was looking over a file he received from a random source, and clears his throat getting the adult to look up from the screen with a raised eyebrow. "What happened with Jeremy?" Tony asks Danny.
Danny sighs and walks over to the wall frustrated with the situation. He sits down on a chair and turns to everyone as they stare at him with worried looks. "Ok, this is basically what happened. We went into the Cortex and were ambushed by that huge army of ninjas." Danny starts getting the basic part of how it started. "We probably would have been there longer if Tony didn't get rid of those ninjas."
"Glad I could help you guys with that problem." Tony adds with an arrogant grin.
"Marcus and Rachel decided to stay behind and protect the portal while the rest of us went after Jeremy. We made just in time for Jeremy to enter the core of the Cortex. Once I got inside I saw Jeremy at the…"
"Interface."
"Yeah, he was at the interface of the Cortex. I was going to get him out of there to stop him from doing something stupid, but there was a complication one he couldn't ignore."
"What kind of complication are we talking about here?" Yumi asks getting a bad feeling in her gut.
Danny closes his eyes and lowers his head. "He told me that his memories were disappearing. He looked over all the possibilities if he or Aelita could save his mind from completely disappearing."
"I'm guessing there wasn't." Jan remarks sadly.
Danny nods his head slightly. "Yeah, he said there was no way of doing it, and he didn't want Aelita to waste her time trying to save him once his memories were completely gone."
Yumi balls her hands up and mutters, "So he stabs Aelita in the back, goes to the Cortex alone after we fixed his mind, and destroys the Cortex without telling us anything. I wonder if it was even worth doing what we did." She walks away and leaves the room slamming the door behind her getting everyone to wince.
"The Cortex is destroyed, right?" William asks them.
"Yeah, Jeremy put some kind of virus in it and made sure everything was destroyed." Danny answers without looking up.
"I guess that means the two files I got were sent by him." Tony speaks up surprising everyone.
"What do you mean by that Stark?" Hawkeye asks the billionaire.
"The supercomputer received two files a few minutes ago by an unknown source. I looked over the first file, and you guys would not believe what the file is." Tony waves for them to gather around the supercomputer confusing everyone at Tony's excitement. He brings up the first file showing bunch of pictures of a house and specific numbers written down on where it would be.
"A house, you brought us over here to see a house." Jan says feeling disappointed about what she was seeing.
"There's one more picture." Tony tells them and brings up the picture getting a gasp from William immediately.
Everyone looks at William who was staring at the picture in surprise. "Is that who I think it is?" William asks.
Tony nods his head. "Yes, that is Anthea Schaeffer, Aelita's mother."
William runs out of the room and goes after Yumi hoping to tell her the good news despite losing Jeremy again. Danny grabs his phone and presses the 'call' button. He hears the phone ring a couple times and smiles when the person picks it up. "Hello?"
"Ladybug, I know that this is weird for me to call you, but there is something I need to tell Angelic Code, and it is important." Danny tells his friend.
Ladybug glances back at Aelita and hands her phone out to Aelita who looks up with a raised eyebrow. "Phantom wants to tell you something. It sounds pretty important." She tells Aelita.
Aelita brings up another holo-screen and puts it up next to her ear. "What do you want Phantom? I'm a bit busy chasing down Tyron right now." She says not really wanting to talk with Danny at the moment.
"I know you're upset with Jeremy, Aelita, but there's something you need to know." Danny tells her not really getting her full attention.
"Then tell me."
Danny sighs over the phone. "Jeremy sent two files to the supercomputer. Tony opened the first one, and the file was filled with pictures of a house and a woman."
"I still don't…"
"The woman is your mom." Aelita stops at those words.
"Are you sure?" Aelita asks slowly.
"Yes, Tony recognizes her enough to know that she looks exactly like your mother."
Aelita moves her holo-screens to the side and opens one of the supercomputer getting Ulrich, Ladybug, and Chat Noir to stare at her in confusion. She brings up the file and moves through all the pictures only to stop on the one with her mother. She looks at the picture carefully and tears start to form at the corner of her eyes. "Mom…"
Ulrich immediately freezes for a second at that word and unbuckles himself out of his seat. He walks up to Aelita and sees the picture of her mother. He looks at Aelita's face and asks, "Is that who I think it is?"
Aelita nods her head and brings up the numbers for the house's location. She puts them up on the map and watches as it stops at a specific spot in France. She immediately notices that they were heading in that general direction and smirks, "Danny, I'm going to have to call you back. I have an evil scientist to catch and a mother to reunite with."
"Good luck."
Aelita makes the holo-screen next to her ear disappear and looks up at Odd. "Odd, you have permission to go crazy." She tells him.
Ulrich runs into his seat and buckles up immediately while Odd glances back at her in confusion. "Why are you giving me permission to do that?" He asks her.
Aelita gives him an assuring smile. "Tyron is leading us straight to someone he doesn't want us to meet."
"Who?"
"My mom."
Odd's eyes widen in surprise at the piece of information. "How do you…?"
"Let's just say that Jeremy was able to give us something we needed to find her location." Aelita interrupts him. He smile became a frown when she heard her now dead boyfriend's name come from her mouth.
Odd smirks and turns his attention to the flight. "That's all I needed to know! Yahoo!" He pushes the speed getting everyone to lean back against the seats at the sudden push of speed.
Aelita giggles and opens up the second file on the supercomputer. She notices that it was only a video file and sighs when she sees Jeremy's face on the video. She closes the file and puts it away in the supercomputer before shutting the holo-screen off. 'I need to focus. Jeremy's video will only distract me at the moment.' She thinks.
"Is he always like this?!" Chat yells out not liking the sudden push of speed.
"No," Ulrich starts getting Chat to sigh in relief, "he's usually way worse."
Chat squeaks in fear as Ulrich and Aelita chuckle at the sudden discomfort of the miraculous holder. "You don't have to scare him." Ladybug tells Ulrich.
Ulrich glances at Ladybug and smirks, "Who says I was joking?" This got Ladybug to widen her eyes in surprise and fear.
'What did I sign myself up for?' Ladybug thinks fearing Odd's driving ability.
Tyron stops his car in the driveway of his house and exits his car slamming the door behind him angrily. He enters his house to find a pink haired woman walking out of the master bedroom with a hard expression on her face. "Hello Tyron, how did your job experiment go?" She asks not really caring about his virtual world.
Tyron smashes his right fist against the wall growling in frustration. "It's gone. My job is terminated, and those teens destroyed everything I did to rebuild the virtual world after your husband betrayed us!" He yells angrily.
"You leave my husband out of this!" The woman yells back at him. "You kidnapped me, and now my family is dead because of your greed! If anyone is to blame for your failure, all the blame is on you and no one else."
"Don't you dare talk back to me, woman." Tyron growls angrily at her.
She narrows her eyebrows at him. "What will you do Tyron? I know Hydra still has use for me, and now that your ties are cut they can kill you for harming me."
Tyron balls both of his hands up and grins evilly, "I wouldn't be too sure of that. If I can't have the virtual world, then I'll make sure that they can't have it either." He pulls a pistol of his pocket and points it straight at her who didn't even flinch at the sight of the gun. "I wish it didn't have to be this way Anthea, but I'm out of options at this moment."
Suddenly, Tyron finds his face hitting the carpet hard with a hand holding his head down. "I might as well give you another option then." Odd whispers dangerously. He kicks the gun out of Tyron's hand and looks back at Anthea with a serious look. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, but how did you find us?" Anthea asks curiously.
"Odd!" Aelita yells as she and the other three run into the house. Aelita looks down at the man held down on the floor by Odd who was looking at Aelita with a serious look in his eyes. "What happened?"
"He was going to shoot your mom. I had a small flash into the future." He explains lamely but got his point across.
Ulrich walks up to the down scientist and hits the man on the back of the neck knocking him out completely. "I'm surprised he didn't try to resist." Ulrich tells them.
"I think Feline almost made him lose consciousness from the force." Chat says with a shrug of his shoulders. "Anyway, what do we do with him?"
"We take him to Shield. They'll know what to do with him." Aelita tells them. She looks at Ladybug and says, "You make sure the guys get him loaded up on the jet. I have a couple other things to do."
Ladybug nods her head. "Good luck." She tells her as the guys pick Tyron up and head to their jet. Ladybug follows them out leaving the mother and daughter alone.
Aelita turns to her mother who was now sitting on the couch. "He didn't hurt you at all, did he?" Aelita says deciding to start out professionally.
Anthea shakes her head. "No, but thanks for asking. I guess you lead this small team of teens that stopped Tyron, huh?"
"We had something to do with it." Aelita admits crossing her arms over her chest. "In all honesty, the fight against Tyron and Hydra is more personal for me than the others."
Anthea snickers and shakes her head. "I can't argue with you there. They killed my family to get what they wanted."
'She believes we died. This might actually be harder than I originally thought.' Aelita thinks sadly. She looks away from her mom and sees a picture of her family when she was younger. "Was this your family?"
Anthea looks at the picture and smiles sadly, "Yes, my husband was a great man and scientist. He loved me and our daughter so much that he would do anything to protect us. I don't know what I would have done without him helping me raise Aelita." She gets up from the couch and grabs the picture frame. She runs her right hand over the frame remembering the good times she had with her family.
Aelita stares at her mom's back then transforms back to her civilian side. "I bet she would be happy to find out that you're still alive. I know I am."
"Yeah," Anthea mutters not knowing that she was agreeing with her daughter, "she would be happy, and she probably would have become a great scientist just like her father."
"Well, I wouldn't say she became a scientist…"
Anthea catches what Aelita says and narrows her eyebrows feeling a little suspicious about the teen in her house. "What do you by…?" Anthea turns around completely to see Aelita in her normal everyday clothes and notices that she looks almost exactly like her daughter.
"I guess you could say I decided to take up computer science once I graduate from high school." Aelita says deciding to continue the conversation about her future. "There are quite a few possibilities out there for me to do, but becoming a hero came to mind thanks to a couple friends of mine."
Anthea blinks a couple times and mutters, "I must be dreaming. You're making it seem like that you're my daughter even though she's dead."
Aelita puts her hands by her sides feeling sad about the life her mom had to lives over the past decade. "I guess you could say that I am your daughter. After all, what kind of daughter would I be if I let my own mother die before I could reunite with her?"
"I think it's better if you leave." Anthea says not wanting to continue the conversation.
Aelita shakes her head sighing at the situation. "Of course you wouldn't believe me. I mean being trapped in a virtual world at the bottom of an abandoned factory for nearly a decade was nice especially since dad shut it off with us inside. He even changed his name to Franz Hopper to avoid getting us caught, but it wasn't enough." Anthea just stares at her daughter as Aelita continues talking. "The Hermitage was a nice home for us to live at back at the time, but I wish I remember more about the cabin we had in the mountains."
Anthea stares at her daughter just stares up at her mother with desperation in them. Her eyes widen when her mind finally makes the connection of what her daughter was trying to tell her. She walks up to her daughter and pulls her into a hug tears spilling from her eyes. "Aelita…"
"I'm here mom. You don't have to worry about Tyron or the Hydra agents who kidnapped you." Aelita whispers into her mother's ear.
Anthea hugs her daughter tightly and mutters, "You're alive."
Yumi stares at the city from the window when William walks up next to her holding two glasses of water. Yumi takes the glass of water muttering, "Thanks."
"No problem." William replies back before looking out the window along with her.
"So her mom is alive, huh?" Yumi asks trying to strike up a conversation.
William sighs, "Yumi, don't try talking her when we know Jeremy and Ulrich are on your mind."
Yumi glances over at William and asks, "What do you want me to say William? That Ulrich shouldn't make the same choice Jeremy did? I doubt it make much of a difference even if we do talk about it."
William looks at Yumi worryingly and mutters, "It might be better to talk to someone about it instead of yelling at Ulrich."
Yumi sighs and puts her left elbow on the window sill. She takes a drink of water from the glass in her left hand and asks, "Where do you want me to start? I already confessed to him without meaning to."
"Yeah, but with Jeremy officially gone what do you even feel now?" Yumi closes her eyes and starts pouring her heart out to William, and William listens to everything she says giving his input when he felt like he needed to.
Aelita walks into the plane to see an unconscious Tyron tied down to a chair and the others talking with each other. Ladybug sees Aelita from the corner of her left eye and turns her head to Aelita gasping when she notices that Aelita was in her normal clothes. "Why are you not in your hero costume?" Ladybug asks feeling a little frightened that another person was revealing their secret identity even though she already met Aelita in her civilian clothes.
Aelita walks past the five with a smile on her face. She turns around and says, "Good question, but with everything that has happened I figured I owed Chat to see what I look like as a civilian."
"Uh, thanks?" Chat says not sure how to respond to the honor.
"She means that you guys came along even though you didn't really do anything, and she felt indebted to show you guys her identity." Odd explains getting the two to nod accepting the explanation from Odd. "We don't really have much of an identity to hide though."
"The chips make it hard for most people to even remember what your faces look like." Aelita tells Odd before he could say anything more about what he didn't fully know.
"Oh…wait, does that mean my face is blurry to everyone I meet while the chip is active?" Odd asks feeling a little offended that he had to hide his face.
"It's for identity protection Odd, and with Tyron's Cortex taken down for good we're free from his torment."
"What are we going to do if Hydra rebuilds the virtual world?" Ulrich asks feeling a little conflicted about everything dealing with Hydra. "I doubt they would just give up the project even with Tyron out of the picture."
"You're right." Anthea says as she walks into the plane with a suitcase in her right hand. "Hydra made it clear that they won't give up on the project."
"We'll worry about it later." Aelita tells them glancing over at Odd then at her mother.
Odd sees Aelita's eyes travel from him to her mother and raises an eyebrow confused why she would do that. Aelita looks at him again then at her mother and repeated the process three more times before Odd glances over at Anthea. Odd glances at the suitcase then mutters, "Oh…" He walks over to Anthea and gives her a smile. "Let me take your bag."
Anthea hands her bag to Odd and smiles in gratitude. "Thank you, um…"
"Oh, I'm Odd Della Robbia, but everyone calls me Odd." Odd introduces himself to Aelita's mother.
"Guess I better introduce myself as well." Ulrich says getting the mother to turn her attention to Ulrich. "I'm Ulrich Stern, Mrs. Schaeffer." He introduces as he walks up to the woman.
"It's nice to see that Aelita has made some friends while I was absent from her life." Anthea remarks when her eyes stop on Ladybug and Chat Noir. "I suppose you guys are her friends as well."
"I never met her until today." Chat admits.
Ladybug elbows Chat on his left side and says, "Sorry about Chat, he's not usually this blunt, but Angelic Code and I only met one time before today. We're more like acquaintances than friends at the moment."
Anthea smiles genuinely, "At least I know she has people she could count on." She hears a compartment door open behind her but doesn't pay any attention to it.
"That sounds purrrfect to me." Chat says deciding it was the right time to give one of his cat puns.
Ladybug gives Chat an 'are you kidding me?' look then hears Odd say, "Oo, a cat pun, I bet I could come up with something better." Odd pushes the suitcase into the storage compartment and shuts it smiling at the idea of doing a cat pun himself.
"Please don't." Aelita, Ulrich, and Ladybug say at the same time getting Odd and Chat to sigh.
"I guess no one will understand us cats and our puns." Odd says as he walks up next to Chat.
"At least we have each other." Chat says agreeing with his cat costume buddy.
"Please don't make things complicated." Ladybug deadpans at their stupid behavior. "I rather not have Angelic Code kick us off the plane and make us walk back to Paris."
"I thought we were in Sweden."
"We are."
Chat shuts his mouth and sits down on one of the chairs pouting in defeat. Odd shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly and asks, "Hey Aelita, are we going to drop them off at Paris first?"
"It'll be our first stop before going back to New York." Aelita answers as she walks over to the controls in front of the pilot's seat. She sits down on the pilot's seat and starts everything up for their flight back.
"You know how to fly a plane?" Anthea wonders as she watches her daughter curiously.
Aelita smirks, "You have a lot to learn about me mom. I have grown up for almost three years without you or dad, and to be honest it will be nice having you in my life again mom."
Anthea smiles warmly as everyone sat down and buckled up getting ready for Aelita to fly them back to their destinations. "I can say the same thing."
Hawkeye walks down the halls of the Helicarrier and heads into Fury's office shutting the door behind him. Hawkeye leans against the door and stares at Fury who sets the report down on his desk. "Well, are you going to lecture me about my decision?" Hawkeye asks not really in the mood for the lecture.
"No, as much as I want to lecture you for leaving without receiving orders, you were faced with a decision. Maurice doesn't work for Shield, and he chose to hotwire your bike. It is hard to do anything about that, but your interference was needed when Maurice told me what happened on the virtual world." Fury explains as he leans back on his chair. "He's really gone, huh?"
"According to Phantom Jeremy was losing his memory and made a decision no one would have approved of. He figured it would be better to take out the main source of their problems than become an empty shell of a mind on the virtual world." Hawkeye explains sighing in defeat. "Stuff like that is not going to be easy to come back from."
"They'll jump back from it. They did the first time their friend died."
"Not helpful Fury."
"Anyway, Tyron's base was taken out, and Tyron was captured by Aelita's team. They're on their way back with him right now."
"Good, I doubt anyone wants him to continue his business creating virtual worlds. It won't stop Hydra though."
Fury nods his head. "Agreed, but we'll worry about them later." He pushes a folder towards Hawkeye's direction getting Hawkeye to walk over to the desk. Hawkeye grabs the folder and opens it up raising an eyebrow when he sees a picture of an angry Hulk. "The Hulk has been spotted near the old gamma research facility. You and Black Widow are going there to take him down before he could cause any more harm to the people."
Hawkeye shuts the folder and nods his head before walking away. "We'll do the best we can, but don't expect us to be successful. The hulk is a tough guy to take down."
"I know, but anyone else will be defeated before they could try to get a hit on him. We got a specific serum and needle that should make him lose consciousness long enough for us to apprehend Banner." Fury explains.
"Let's just hope it will take one shot." Hawkeye mutters before leaving the room.
Fury crosses his arms and mutters, "You're going to hate what you are going to be put through in the next couple months Clint. Things aren't getting any easier for any of us." He grabs another folder and opens it up showing two pictures: one of a purple teen and another of a masked teen in a ninja suit. "Hm, I have another stop to make for the new team to stop this invasion. Randy Cunningham, you better be worth it kid."
Danny walks through the front door and stops when he sees Professor Xavier, Logan, Max, and Ororo standing there waiting for him and Aelita to come home. Danny looks between all of them and asks, "Um, is there something going on?"
"You tell us. Do you feel like taking on Hydra again?" Logan asks rhetorically.
Danny blinks a couple times and gives them a nervous smile. "Are you guys upset that I fought them, or that I dragged Rachel into it?" He asks cautiously.
"Both." Ororo answers.
"Danny, you can't just go fight an army like you just did." Charles starts to explain. "They could have done something terrible to you guys, and I'm starting to wonder if your work as a hero is clouding your judgement to protect what is important."
"I was protecting something important." Danny responds back starting to feel a little upset with the professor's choice of words.
Logan crosses his arms over his chest and nods his head. "Ok, so they were after Aelita's project." Logan says for the others to understand what Danny meant. "You guys stopped them, but after everything was over and cleaned up, you three didn't come home. What happened?"
Danny sighs as Rachel walks into the building. "Well, to be honest I'm not in the mood to explain everything at the moment."
"Have you told them that Aelita found her mom?" Rachel asks not hearing the last thing Danny just said.
The four adults' eyes widen at the question while Danny turns his head to her giving her a glare. "I haven't even told them what happened yet."
Rachel winces and mutters, "Oops…"
"Let's go to my office you two. You guys have a lot of explaining to do." Charles tells his two students.
Kurt watches everything while hanging onto the ceiling keeping his breath soft and his mind clear and teleports away knowing that he wasn't going to get any more information at the moment. He appears in his room where Scott, Jean, Stacy, Evan, Kitty, Dawn, and Rogue were waiting for him and glances back at his door before turning his attention to the teens in his room. "What did you learn Kurt?" Scott asks.
"Not much unfortunately." Kurt answers while rubbing the back of his neck nervously.
"Just tell us what you did find out. We shouldn't have expected them to talk about everything out in the open." Jean tells him.
Kurt gives her a soft smile and nods his head. "Thanks Jean."
"No problem."
"Anyway, everything started like you zought it would: Danny comes home, gets scolded, and starts explaining da situation zat it had to do vid Aelita's project." Kurt starts explaining.
"Ok, we figured that those men were after something important if Rachel had to leave stealing Scott's car." Evan says pointing at Scott with his thumb.
"Yeah, but Rachel walked through da door and asked if Danny had told zem zat Aelita found her mom." Kurt finishes.
Everyone gasps in surprise at the sudden drop of news. "This is truly good news." Dawn says happy that her friend was able to find her mother.
"Good news? This is great news!" Stacy says feeling excited. "Aelita is reconnected with her mom after…how long has it been since she was separated from her mom?" She asks not sure how long it has been since she never learned about it from anyone.
Scott scratches his head feeling a little conflicted that he didn't know the answer either. "I don't know, but you're right. Aelita has found her mom, and after everything that has gone on in her life, she deserves some good news." He tells them happy for his friend.
"What are we going to do then?" Kitty asks curiously. "We can't throw a party since it is getting pretty late. All the other students are in bed."
Scott puts his hand to his chin feeling conflicted with their current situation. "True, guess we'll have to come up with something in the morning. There isn't much for us to do tonight except congratulate Aelita for finding her mother."
"What about everything that leads up to Aelita finding her mother?" Rogue asks getting everyone to look at her either confused or surprised. "I doubt it was easy for her to find her mother. Something had to happen for that to happen."
"We'll worry about it in the morning." Jean pipes up before an argument or conflict could start between them. "Right now we're supposed to be in bed, and I doubt the Professor would be happy with us if he found out we were still awake even if we stay awake to congratulate Aelita."
"I wouldn't be surprised if he already knew." Evan admits crossing his arms over his chest.
"He doesn't. Right now, we're in the clear." Dawn assures them.
"Then we better go to bed before he does find out." Scott tells them.
The teens head to their rooms and go straight to bed except for Stacy who enters her room and waits a few minutes before exiting her room. She looks down the hallway making sure the coast was clear. She walks down the hallway and stops in front of Professor Xavier's office. 'Let's see if I can…' Her thoughts come to a halt when she hears the door knob turn. She goes right against the wall and turns into a small puddle of water right as Danny and Rachel exit the office.
"We'll talk more about this in the morning." Charles tells them.
"Goodnight Professor." Danny says before shutting the door.
The two sigh in relief as the conversation was over for the time being. "Oh man, I thought we would have been in there forever." Rachel whispers.
Danny rubs his forehead with his index finger and thumb on his right hand. "I know why he's worried, but he can't expect us to do nothing." Danny whispers not liking the whole situation Charles was putting on them. "He acts like he knows what is best for everyone."
"He can't expect us to stay hidden all the time. It might be okay with some of the mutants, but there is too much going on that we can't shrug it off." Rachel admits. "It almost seemed like he didn't care that Aelita found her mom."
Danny rolls his eyes and mutters, "He doesn't like the fact that Aelita left again without him knowing. Last time she did it, he almost grounded us."
Rachel snickers and crosses her arms over her chest. "I know why he worries about us, but you and Aelita are almost full-fledged adults. You're already teaching, and Aelita is helping other people with technology. I get why he's worried about my safety since I did take Scott's car and drive it into New York."
"I'm surprised you even know how to drive." Danny admits.
"I learned how to drive as a child thank you very much." Rachel says smirking in victory. "I might be thirteen, but I'm a high class learner." She clears her throat and continues her explanation. "Anyway, I know he fears what we would go through if people see us with our powers, but we need to grow up and get used to it before it happens to us when we're older."
Danny sighs, "Let's just go to bed before we say something we would regret." Rachel nods her head, and the two walk down the hallway to their rooms.
Stacy pops her head out of the ground and fully reforms herself onto her feet. She frowns and rubs her left arm uncomfortably. 'Do they really feel like they're…' Stacy shakes her head stopping her thoughts before they could go down the path. 'No, you cannot start thinking negatively about anyone until you know for sure, but I'm not going to get any sleep with this on my mind.' She walks back down the hall and stops in front of Danny's room.
Danny hears someone knock on his door and says, "It's open." He turns his head to the door and blinks surprised to see Stacy entering his room. "Stacy, what are you doing up? I thought everyone went to bed."
"They did, but I couldn't sleep without knowing something." Stacy admits as she shuts the door behind her.
"What is it you need to know?" Danny asks as he sits down on his bed.
Stacy sighs feeling conflicted about asking the question that just started to plague her mind. "Do you, Rachel, and Aelita hate the Professor?"
Danny blinks a couple times and sighs, "You were outside his office, weren't you?"
"Yeah, I was."
Danny pats his bed with his hand indicating that he wants her to sit down next to him. "Why were you there?"
Stacy sits down on Danny's bed and rubs the back of her neck. "Kurt overheard your conversation in the lobby and told us."
"Of course he did." Danny mutters sad that he ruined an idea that he and Rachel planned on the way back from Stark's building. "Well, he's going to get some extra training for later."
Stacy giggles lightly then frowns once her mind goes back to her earlier doubts. "Do you hate Professor Xavier?" She asks cautiously.
Danny sighs, "No, I don't hate him."
"Then why were you guys complaining about him earlier?"
Danny gets up from his bed and put his hands in his pockets. "Honestly, Rachel, Aelita, and I have been more active as heroes the past few weeks, and Xavier is not liking the fact that we're using our powers out in the open."
"I thought he was all for it though."
"He was until the incident with Magneto happened."
Stacy blinks a couple times and raises an eyebrow, "Who is Magneto?"
Danny sighs and runs his right hand through his hair. "He's a mutant that can control all metal things like magnetism."
"Wow, that's just…What happened at this incident?" Stacy asks deciding to continue the conversation instead of dwelling on the thought of someone controlling metal.
"I might tell you later, or someone else will tell you what happened." Danny admits not sure if she was ready to know who Magneto was as a person. "I will say that I took some major risks that Xavier did not approve of, and things only got worse when Rachel and Aelita started to make the same decisions later on down the line."
"I guess he wants you guys to stop being heroes, huh?" Stacy asks not liking the idea of them giving up their heroic lives.
Danny sighs, "Yeah, he does, but we still can't find a way to hate him since he did take us in to learn how to control our powers." He sits back down on his bed and gives Stacy a sad smile. "I know that we complain about him Stacy, but it doesn't mean we hate him."
"I know he can be overprotective Danny, but did he say something that pushed you guys over the edge?"
"You shouldn't have told them to give up their heroic deeds." Logan tells Charles.
Charles, who was looking out the window, sighs, "I know. I didn't mean to say it."
"You're losing their trust Charles." Max points out as he sits down on one of the chairs in front of Charles' desk. "I'm worried that you're becoming a little too overprotective of them. They need to grow up."
"What they need is discipline." Ororo speaks up as she leans against Charles' desk. "Danny and Aelita teach now, and their behavior is starting to mess with the other students. They want to go out and protect people with their powers, but none of them know about the negative repercussions that come with the people knowing about mutants. You know what happened at the school."
"This is why they need to grow up." Max says before Logan could say anything. "In order to be disciplined they need to learn between right and wrong, and in this situation they might have done things that could jeopardize people learning about mutants, but They didn't. It's one thing when you're protecting children, but the moment they become teenagers they need to start knowing what it is like if people knew about them. Most of them would either rash out or go into hiding, and we can't afford for them to do either."
"I agree with Tennyson." Logan says. "Most of them could be attacked at any given moment or have their powers neutralized without anyway to protect themselves. What are they going to do then?"
"That's enough arguing." Charles says before the conversation could become a full grown argument. He turns his chair back around and puts his elbows up on his desk. "In this conversation both of you are right, but right now we need to make sure they can control their powers before they learn self-defense. We can't afford having them lose control of their powers while they are learning self-defense."
Logan grunts and walks out of the room while Max sighs and gets up from his seat. "Sometimes the best control can be learned while learning to defend oneself." Max tells his friend before leaving the room as well.
"This is getting out of hand." Ororo admits getting Charles to sigh in agreement. "Will the three face punishment?"
"No, while I do agree they deserve it, the events have gotten a man arrested and Aelita reunited with her mom. Aelita and the others have faced an enemy head on and won, but the next time they act out like this they will get the punishment for disobeying orders." Charles tells her.
Ororo smiles softly, "You're probably going to let them off again, but I guess they're making good choices even if we don't agree with them."
Charles smiles and looks at Ororo. "You're probably right, and with how things are now it won't be long until Danny and Aelita will make the decision to leave or to stay and help teach more mutants."
"Someone has to make an impact on people's lives. If it has to be anyone, I would have them do it since they've gone through some bad things."
Charles looks away from Ororo with a distant look in his eyes saying, "Maybe more than we know."
Aelita looks out the window of Jan's apartment as she lays on the bed with her mom asleep next to her. She glances at her mom then back out the window. She gets out of the bed and walks over to the window bringing up her holo-screen on the super computer. She pulls up the file that she knows Jeremy left behind for her to watch. She makes a small holo-screen for her to listen to the video privately and puts it up against her ear unaware that it changes into an actual ear piece. She sits down on the chair in front of the desk in the guest bedroom and starts the file.
"Hey Aelita, I guess you're pretty mad at me for making this decision without telling you, but you would have stopped me before I could do anything. I wish I had more time to explain everything, but I will try the best I can." Jeremy sighs in defeat. "The past few months I have come to realize that my memory has been disappearing in a rate where my memory would be completely gone in a few months. I looked over all the possibilities if it could be saved, but there was nothing that would work. Everything possibility I ran through, and nothing was able to get through properly. I decided the best choice was to destroy the Cortex before Tyron and Hydra could do some real damage with it."
"Oh Jeremy…" Aelita mutters sadly as a tear forms in her left eye.
"I should have told everyone sooner, but you can't change the past. I wish there is more I could say before the Cortex is destroyed. I guess there is only one thing to say before sending this recording. I love you, and I'm sorry."
Aelita watches the video end at the last words from her boyfriend and smiles sadly at his worried face. She puts her hand against her holo-screen and removes the holo-ear piece not realizing that it was an ear piece. She closes the file and deletes the file the sad smile never leaving her face. "Goodbye Jeremy. I'll miss you." She makes her holo-screen disappear and looks at her mother the sad smile never leaving her face.
Tonight I learned that my research to save Jeremy would have wasted my time. I loved Jeremy and all that he has done for me and my friends. He even found the information to locate my mother. I won't lie and say that everything will be alright. My friends and I got together because of him, and while we did most of the fighting, he made the biggest sacrifices for all of us. The Lyoko Warriors will continue to do their work without him, and maybe my new friends would be able to join us in the fight to save this world from the pain that we are in now. All I know is that one chapter has ended and another has begun. I have my mom now all I have to do is save my dad. My only hope is that he's still alive.
Armin Zola walks into his laboratory with his robotic arms behind his back and stops in front of a screen where someone was waiting from the other end. "He failed." The man tells Zola.
"I know." Zola admits not planning on lying about the situation. "Tyron was overconfident, and Waldo Schaeffer's daughter has proven to be a bigger problem than we originally anticipated. She and her friends can activate their powers and weapons from the virtual world."
"That can be a problem with our plans."
"Agreed, and it seems they're making friends with other heroes. Things were complicated enough when Stark destroyed our machine equipped with his technology."
"Stark's tech is only a minor setback compared to our loss with the virtual world." The figure says waving the situation off the concern with Stark's interference.
"I'll have to set up a new team in a more isolated area. We can't afford having his daughter interfere with our work again."
"What about the boy?"
"Dead, and we shouldn't expect any more interference from him."
The figure nods his head. "Good, go ahead and start the project. It will take some time getting it all back up. Luckily Tyron's incompetence won't mess this up."
Zola nods his head on the screen. "I'll get to work on it right away."
"Good."
The screen turns off, and Zola walks away smirking in anticipation. 'Tyron has done his job.' He makes a flash drive come out of his robotic left hand and looks at it with his camera. 'Now we can make something better.'
Well, Armin Zola has gotten his hands on the data to create a new virtual world. Aelita is going to move on from losing Jeremy and wants to reconnect with her mom. Danny and Rachel are in conflict with Charles Xavier, and Stacy is trying to understand why things are going on as they are.
"Phew" I sure did put quite a bit into the conclusion of the Jeremy Arc. The next two chapters will focus on Anthea's relationship with her daughter, Danny's relationship with Rogue, and Kurt's relationship with Dawn. Yumi and Ulrich's relationship will be a small side-story I will write for you guys.
We're getting close to the Avengers being formed, and I am actually making plans on how the chapters will go down. I'm not going to reveal too much about that though.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, and reviews are greatly appreciated. I would love to know what you thought about the chapter, and if you see anything that you believe needs to be fixed, let me know. I would love your input. R&R