Chapter 3:

"What happened, are you alright?" Aelita asked as her friends walked out of the elevator with an air of annoyance about them.

"Yeah, we're fine." Odd announced quietly, causing Ulrich to huff.

"If you call what just happened 'fine'." He added sourly.

"The important thing is; no one was hurt." Yumi amended sternly.

"Not yet." Ulrich corrected. "That guy just took out all three of us in less than a second."

"Sounds like a personal issue to me." Yumi countered as she folded her arms to glare at him, causing the kid to look away. "If you wouldn't mind shelving your injured ego for a moment, we have a major problem here."

"We saw everything from the cameras." Jeremy added, leaving them all to look at him. "But, I wasn't able to get a look at his face, did you –"

"No," Odd answered before he was finished. "It was covered; seems he doesn't want us to know who he is."

"He had dark blond hair." Ulrich put in seriously and they looked at him, obviously hoping that he would continue, but, unfortunately, that appeared to be the extent of his knowledge.

"Alright –" Jeremy stated sourly as he turned back to his computer. "That narrows it down to about half the population of the planet."

"Then let's do a Return to the Past and catch him before he can –" Ulrich tried only to be interrupted.

"That won't work." Jeremy proclaimed as he brought up a window, and everyone crowded around the screen to watch the camera in the scanner room show what had transpired during the power outage.

They proceeded to watch as lights on the camera flickered briefly while one of the scanners closed its doors before the brightness in the room nearly blinding them for a moment; then returned to normal just in time for the doors to open once again and reveal the body of the person they had been fighting with earlier.

Watching a little longer, they realized he had been unconscious for quite a while before finally waking up and struggled into the elevator, clearly exhausted and likely in a great deal of pain.

"If he came out of the scanner, a Return to the Past would do nothing." Jeremy explained once the video was over. "Plus, we can't risk it until we know for sure that he's a threat."

"He came out of the scanner." Ulrich repeated, causing Jeremy to sigh. "Of course he's a threat."

"There isn't an activated Tower." Aelita pointed out.

"Then Xana must have a new attack method."

"If that's the case, then why didn't he go after Aelita, or any of us for that manner?" Jeremy countered quietly, causing Ulrich to pause as he tried to come up with an answer for that.

"Do you think it could be my father?" Aelita added hopefully, causing the room to go quiet as they watched her turn to Jeremy with a look in her eyes that seemed to almost beg him to tell her this suggestion was the correct one.

"I don't know." He admitted kindly after a moment of thought. "But I'll keep working on it. If he is connected to Franz Hopper, I'll find out how.

…

"You feeling alright?" The waiter asked and he to look up as the woman placed his food in front of him with a worried expression, clearly having noticed how exhausted he was.

"Yeah, I'm just hungry." He said with a smile that caused her to immediately blush in response.

"I haven't seen you around here before." She noticed as she fiddled with her tray a bit and moved a bit of her hair behind her ear.

"It's been a while since I've been here." He admitted kindly.

"Oh – y-you've lived here before?" She asked shyly, clearly wondering if maybe she should just shut up and leave him to his meal, but he made it obvious that he was very happy to have her company.

"Yeah, a long time ago," He stated quietly as he picked up his burger and took a bite, humming to himself slightly as the taste invigorated him a little.

"What's your name?" She asked next and he turned back to look at her as he considered telling. In truth, he didn't belong in this timeline, so he shouldn't be interacting with anyone, even strangers, but given that it was very likely that he would be forced to make a life here, he figured he might as well start now.'

"Jonas," He answered with a rehearsed lie and a smile. "Jonas Stones."

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