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13

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"So…now what do we do?"

The group had convened back in the computer room. Sissi had needed time to compose herself, and was clinging close to Odd, though no one could blame her at all. Jeremie was awake, but slumped in the computer chair where Aelita had put him, and she was tending to him now even as he asked the question. Yumi had a bad bruise on her head, and Ulrich had her propped up against the center hologram console, holding her close.

Yumi groaned. "Man…I was the last one to this party, and I still got messed up." She offered a winced but playful smile. "Next time, let's not spike the punch quite so hard, yeah?"

A few chuckles went around the room, but it was mostly subdued. Aelita smiled a bit, but it was tense.

Sissi looked up from her spot on the floor next to Odd. "Is it always like this? Like…is it always this bad?"

Yumi made a non-committal noise. "On occasion, yeah, but thankfully not too often."

The computer pinged, and Jeremie pulled himself up slightly to check it. "Scan is done." The others all looked up at him as he began to read it off. "Yeah, that's what I thought. The sample of the creature's DNA is almost entirely moss fitted with the trademarks of a XANA program. He rewrote a basic life form and turned it into a behemoth; one that didn't need him around to run itself."

"Almost entirely?" Aelita prompted.

"Yeah. There's humanoid DNA mixed into it. That fits with what I expected."

"But how did it get human DNA?"

Jeremie shrugged. "I can tell you at least where the moss came from. It's a local breed; it grew right here in the factory. According to the building scans, it was in the old smelting room, the one with the broken catwalk."

Odd looked up. "Hang on. That's the room where…"

He paused, looking at Sissi, and she got it too. "That's where I fell."

Odd nodded, looking up at Jeremie. "That's how it got human DNA. Sissi cut her foot when she ran back there. I'll bet the moss was already forming below, and a couple drops of blood landed in it."

Aelita put a hand on her chin. "Actually, I think that changes everything." She looked at Jeremie. "I don't think XANA intended to make that monster."

Her boyfriend looked confused. "Huh?"

"Think about it. What could do more damage to the factory? One giant bog beast thing, or a sentient moss overtaking the entire inside, choking out all the machinery?" Aelita turned to Sissi. "I'll bet Sissi's blood messed with the intended design."

Jeremie sat up a bit straighter. "So you're saying he wanted a real life version of the Marabounta, but instead…"

Odd chimed in. "Instead, he got the Thing From The Black Lagoon. Which almost did the job anyways."

"So it's my fault again…" Sissi's voice was quiet as she felt the pang of regret again.

But Aelita quickly spoke up. "No, actually it's kind of the opposite. If your blood hadn't landed in that thing, we could have been dealing with something a lot worse that we might not have been able to stop. That monster was a handful, but as you proved, at least we could actually beat it."

Sissi shuddered; she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to forget the smell or the sight of it's charred, smoldering husk.

Jeremie cleared his throat. "At any rate, we've got a decision to make now. A big one." Everyone looked up to him as he pulled himself up straighter again. "Herve and Nikolas are still trapped in the old boiler room downstairs, and with the door smashed like that, we can't really let them out of it easily. Plus, they saw the beast. In addition," He tapped a few keys on the computer screen, and a camera view from upstairs turned on, showing that a few police cars and a fire engine had pulled up at the far end of the bridge, examining the black smoking lump that had been the creature. "The smoke signals it sent up got a lot of attention."

The others went silent, and slowly they all looked to Sissi. She looked confused for a moment, then it sunk in.

"You have to do a Return to the Past."

"Yes." Jeremie replied. "We're going to have to undo all of this, and there's no way to do it without that."

Aelita looked to Sissi, biting her lip, trying to think of what to say.

But it was Ulrich who got there first.

"Sissi."

She looked up at him. "Yeah?"

"You've seen now the kinds of things we deal with. It's not always this bad, but it's not the first time we've all gotten slammed around by something and nearly died. And it's not the first time we've witnessed something really terrible before. I can absolutely imagine what's going on in your head right now; we all can, because we've all been there." He took a breath. "So, you've got a choice to make here."

Yumi continued. "The only way to not have you included in the time wipe is for you to virtualize on Lyoko at least once. Once you've done that, you'll keep your memory whenever we have to go back. But you'll also be marked as one of us, and thus one of XANA's enemies."

"If you choose to not do that, then we'll activate the Return to the Past from here." Aelita said. "You won't remember anything from the last couple days, and it will be like it never happened. You won't remember anything about the factory, or Lyoko, or any of it." Her expression softened. "And you won't remember the moss beast and what you had to do to stop it.

Jeremie chimed in now. "You'll still be with Odd. We'll still be your friends. You'll still remember that."

Odd turned to look at her, and she met his eyes. When he spoke, he was quiet.

"I'm…sorry for all of this. When I started this, when I wanted to tell you about it all, I didn't really think it out. It's all been so normal for us for so long that I forgot how much of a change it would be. And now you've had to both live that, and fight in it for your own survival." He shook his head. "It's not what I wanted to happen. I didn't want you in danger. But I guess in hindsight, I was being a naïve fool about it." He took her hands in his, and squeezed them. "So if you want to go back, and if you want to forget all of this, and go back to a normal life, I'll understand." He smiled. "And it won't change me loving you one bit."

Sissi felt herself tearing up as she looked at Odd. She turned, looking at each of her friends in turn, marveling again that she had the chance to think of them that way. She thought about everything that had happened; all the stress, all the pain, all the terror, all the wonder, all the change, and then thought about the life she wanted to have.

And then she made her decision.

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