Past and Present
By thesuperdot
Chapter 6: Encounters
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Grant sat alone in the underground bunker staring at the computer screen in front of him.
On this very screen, despite all logical explanations, were his friends, Terry, Ceil, and Ax. They were human, of course, but not at the moment, they were digital.
And from the sounds of it, they were having a bang up time of it!
"I can't believe this! We are in a virtually created world!"
"You're telling me! We look different, but feel the same!"
"Hey, Grant? What's your opinion of this? You there, man?"
Grant's head snapped up. He was reading a bit of the online manual for the computer. He really didn't need it; the computer was surprisingly easy to use, despite what it could manage. "Yeah, I'm here. I've really no idea what to think… It, it's just so…"
"Bizarre?"
"Bingo! I wonder if Jeremy's ever seen this before. Or maybe even created this?"
Ceil's voice came through. "That could be it, but I doubt it. This place hasn't been used in awhile."
"Yeah, I guess you're right, but still…"
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Inside Lyoko, three new people were still adjusting to what was going on. Ax was the last one through the scanner. He materialized into thin air and dropped down in front of Ceil and Terry.
"Whoa… That was… Different!"
Ceil and Terry laughed, they looked different, or rather, they had different clothes on.
"You okay there Ax? You look kinda feverish."
Ceil joined in. "Yeah, so much that your hair is on fire!"
"Wait, what?" Ax put a hand to his hair, only to find that it was indeed on fire. "YIKES!"
Ceil and Terry began to laugh even harder. Ax then realized that he was supposed to be that way. "Oh, ha, ha, guys!" Ax took a better look at himself. He was wearing his usual outfit, although, it was slightly steaming, he also was wearing black gloves, and although he couldn't see it, his eyes were bright orange.
He pointed a finger at Terry. "Well, the only good thing about yours is that your face is covered!" Then with out warning, the tip of his finger ignited. "Whoa…"
Terry's face was indeed covered up; leaving only his eyes visible, but he looked much like a ninja. In fact, everything from the outfit a normal ninja would wear was exactly what he was wearing. On his back, however, there were two katana, ready for him to use.
"Hey, Ax? I think you can manipulate fire in here!"
"Really, Terry? How do you know that?"
"The tip of your finger is acting like a lighter. I'd say that's a pretty good idea of what you can do."
Ax held his hand out as if he wanted something, and sure enough, a baseball sized ball of fire materialized in his hand, hovering a few cm above it. "Sweet!"
Suddenly, Ax and Terry were picked up by an unseen force. They struggled to get out, but found themselves unable to do so. Then they heard a voice nearby.
"HA! Oh, man! That was the easiest surprise I have ever pulled on you two!" Ceil stepped out from behind one of the large trees. Ceil looked more along the lines of a magician. She was wearing a large red robe that trailed a little on the ground; it was tied around the waist by a golden rope. Underneath the robe, near the ground, she had on a pair of blue pants and some brown shoes. She also had on white gloves, and a blue conical hat with a combination of stars and moons. He long blond hair was not in a pony tail, it was straight behind her.
To Terry and Ax, she looked like Mickey Mouse the Wizard. She was displeased when they said that, and made no concern to let them down gently. Rather, she made sure that the ground was dented when they hit.
Terry pulled out his sword and prepared to lunge at Ceil. But when he did, he hit an invisible wall. Ax also began to laugh. Terry got up, rubbing his nose.
"Ouch, what was that for?"
"You were going to attack me!" Ceil said.
Terry growled and then unexpectedly vanished. Ceil and Ax abruptly stopped and looked around. "TERRY! Where'd you go?"
From somewhere in front of them Terry's voice came. "What are you talking about? I'm right here!"
"Well, she means we can't see you!"
"Grant, will you tell them I'm still here?"
"Well, the map says you are, but the virtual camera shows you're gone. You must be invisible, I guess."
"Invisible, huh?" Then, Terry went silent.
"Err, Terry…?" Ax said, nervously. Nothing.
"Hey, Terry cut it out, would ya?" Ceil said, though not as nervously. Suddenly, Ceil felt a shoe or something on her back and before she could react, Terry had knocked her down and stood on her back with a smile.
"HA! GOTCHA!"
Face first in the ground, Ceil said nothing coherent. "Ett ff my accck."
"What?"
Ax shrugged. "I think she said get off my back."
Terry did and even helped her up. She said thank you by a very hard punch to the face. Ax, who had begun to laugh again, laughed harder.
"Shut up, Ax!" Terry and Ceil said.
"Well, then, now that we're here, what now?"
Ceil took control immediately. "Let's check out one of those towers that were mentioned."
"Alright, hey Grant! Where's one of those towers?"
Out in reality, Grant tapped the keys on the computer. "Erraaa, the nearest one is about two miles away; juts keep heading straight from where you are."
"Two miles?"
Grant voice sounded cheerful at this. "At least you'll get some exercise!"
"Well? Shall we?" Ceil said.
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In the real world, Grant was monitoring the status of what he now knew was called Lyoko. He was becoming more and more used to the layout of the computer, in fact, although he didn't know this, it was what Jeremy based his world famous JOS off of.
A sharp beeping alerted Grant to a small red dot approaching Terry, Ceil, and Ax from behind.
"Hey, guys! Something's coming toward you." A small message indicated the name of what it was. "Something called a roach…"
On Lyoko, the guys stopped and looked up when Grant spoke to them.
"A roach? Must be a creature of some sort." Ceil said.
Ax pounced at this. "AH HA! Pointing out the obvious, are we Ceil?"
Ceil snapped her fingers as Ax laughed. A clicking sound from behind them alerted them to the 'roach'. Sure enough, the thing came into view and stopped a few feet from Ceil. It looked at them and they looked at it.
"Whoa, weird lookin' thing, isn't it?" Ax remarked.
Terry had one of his swords out, just in case. Ceil, however, had no problem with the thing, she reasoned that it wasn't a threat. Ceil even knelt down on one knee to get closer to it.
Cocking her head to the side she remarked: "It seems harmless enough, it even has the eye-thing on it."
Ax placed a finger to his lip. "I don't think that's a good idea…"
"Yeah, why don't you leave it alone? Let's find that tower."
Ceil looked at Terry. "Aw, come on! If it was going to attack, it would have…"
She got no further. The roach charged up a shot and it her square in the chest, knocking her back a few feet. She landed hard on the ground. "Cough… Cough…"
Ax and Terry were totally shocked at that. "GOOD GOD!" "CEIL! ARE YOU OKAY!"
Grant was hearing all of this, and even saw the HP on Ceil drop to 90. "Hey, what's going on? What happened? Is Ceil okay?"
The roach managed to get two more shots in before Terry and Ax decided to distract it.
Terry pulled out his swords and began to stab the creature, but, much to his horror, they bounced off like rubber.
Ax, too, began to attack, throwing fireball after fireball but, it seemed as if the creature was fireproof as well!
Ceil was unable to do a thing as the roach hit her with shot after shot. Terry let out a cry of frustration. "ARRRRGGHH! We can't kill it! What is this? A bug in the computer?"
A voice then came out of nowhere. "The symbol! The symbol is the weak point!" Followed by what looked like a disk hitting the roach in the front, cleaved it in two, and exploded.
Two more roaches appeared out of nowhere from behind a few trees and approached them from behind, their lives, however, was cut short by two arrowheads, again right to the head.
Finally, a large block like creature dropped down from the trees. This one was cut down by the owner of the voice; he took his sword and plunged it right into the glass dome on it, causing it to explode.
Terry and Ax ran over to the crumpled form of Ceil and help her up. But before they could thank their saviors, the sword-wielder pointed his sword at Terry's neck, another, this one in purple, dropped down along with a female.
Finally, a pink haired girl ran up to them
The purple one took aim at Ax's throat, and the female had Ceil in throwing distance of her fan.
For awhile, no one spoke. Finally, the sword wielder did. "Who are you?"
The purple one answered that for them. "They don't seem like Xana monsters."
"We… we… Xana? What…?" Was all Terry could say. The sword wielder waved his sword evilly.
"WHO. ARE. YOU?"
"My, my name is, t, Terry. The fire one is Ax, and, and the fe, female is Ceil…"
Finally the female spoke. "Do you think they are AI's?"
The pink haired girl shook her head. "No, I'd know if they were. I'm the only one here, so they must be new people."
The purple kid gave a suggestion. "Why not ask Jeremy? He could tell us."
"Very well. Jeremy! Who are these people?"
Grant answered. "Hey, what on earth is going on down there? Four more cards have appeared as well as four new dots! Looks like your having a social gathering, actually."
The four mystery people looked at each other in shock. "HEY! Who are you and what did you do to Jeremy?"
There was a pause. "Who's Jeremy? And who are you?"
Ceil regained her composure. "Put the weapons down. We won't run." She said with infinite calm.
"Not a chance!" Then the swordsman saw the purple kid and the female do it. "What are you doing?"
"I believe them; after all, Xana attacked them."
The swordsman shrugged. "Yeah, alright. But I still don't trust them."
Terry felt braver. "And who are you? We told you our names."
"I'm Ulrich." Said the swordsman.
"Name's Odd." Said the purple kid.
"Yumi." Said the female.
"And I am called Aelita." Said the pink haired kid.
Grant voice called out. "Good God! Did they just say what I think they said?"
Terry shook his head slightly. "Yeah… but, that can't be!"
Ulrich cocked his head to the side. "Can't be what?"
"You three should, by all means, be dead!" Ceil finished.
"What? What on earth do you mean, dead?"
"She means just that! You guys went missing!" Ax said.
"No way! Jeremy would have saved us, he's always willing to place himself in danger for us." Said Odd.
Grant spoke again. "You three have been missing for almost twenty years!"
Aelita gasped. "That explains why I saw a time discrepancy!"
Yumi looked at Aelita. "Then, shouldn't we be gone from Lyoko itself?"
Aelita shook her head. "No, he must not have cleared the memory banks."
"Ah, why don't we continue this outside of Lyoko?" Ceil asked.
The missing people looked at her. "Sure, but we won't be able to take Aelita with us."
"Why not?"
"Aelita is an AI. She can't leave. Jeremy was looking for a way to let her out."
Grant gasped aloud. "A… I…? Artificial Intelligence?"
"Yes. I am an AI."
"OHHHHHH SNNNNNAAAAPPPP! That ROCKS!"
Terry smiled. "Forgive him, he's a computer lover."
"Heh, we know how it is; Jeremy was a computer geek as well. He helped us out in a number of situations."
By this time, they had reached the tower, the all entered it. Aelita began to tap on a virtual keyboard. "Okay, Grant was it? I'll take care of everything, you make sure it works. We'll send Terry, Ax, and Ceil first, then Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi next. You tell me when the scanners close."
"Okay, sounds simple enough."
As soon as Grant made sure the tubes were closed for Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi, he threw off the headset, jumped off the seat, and ran down to the elevator.
His only thought: 'Why do I feel that this is going to get messy?'
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Arriving down at the scanner room, brief introductions were made.
This was immediately followed by what to do now that the ones who'd been missing were actually stuck inside a computer for 20 are back.
The only one that Grant knew of who might have an idea was, of course, Jeremy.
And, so, after a unanimous decision, they hopped into the elevator and rode it up to the top.
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After they had left, the monitor began to act funny. It flickered and showed random images then finally displayed a simple message of alarming proportions.
Warning! Activity detected!
Tower 387 activation imminent!
Time remaining: T- 1:00:00… 0:59:59… 59:58… 59:57… 59:56…
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Next Chapter Not as Soon as I'd Like! I'm going to work on my other stories for a bit.