Chapter 19:

"It wasn't your fault," Aelita told him kindly as she gripped his hand a little tighter, "You did it to save the world."

"Doesn't make it better," Jonas proclaimed sadly as he looked at the ground in a defeated manner, "What if I saved the world today, just to have him take it over tomorrow? How am I gonna live with myself knowing I could have stopped it?"

"This really has eaten at you," She suddenly stated, causing him to look at her again, "The Odd I know would never say die. He would never give up." She added genuinely, leaving him to turn back to the floor again.

"I'm sorry, Princess, but the Odd you knew died – a long time ago," He admitted quietly.

"No, he hasn't," Odd suddenly put in and everyone looked toward him as he approached a little closer than he was usually comfortable with, "He's just been covered up," He added sternly, "There's darkness in everyone, even me, but I don't let it tear me down – I don't let rule me."

This was followed by a moment of silence as Jonas looked down again, before sighing loudly as he ran a hand through his hair in a dejected manner.

"Maybe I forget how to do that," He muttered mostly to himself before sighing again as he leaned back on his hands, a little more collected than he had been a moment earlier. Which seemed to be perfect timing, for that was when Jeremy's computer announced with a friendly tone that it had just received a message.

"It's for you," The genius informed the man; who sighed again and turned to give Aelita a sour look.

"You have an uncanny ability to make me do work when I'd rather sleep," He informed her, before struggling to his feet as she laughed.

Ulrich immediately moved to get under his arm again, fearing for all the world that the poor guy would fall without the support and helped him over to the computer so he could read over the encrypted message.

"Huh," He proclaimed thoughtfully once he was finished, causing Jeremy to panic slightly as he looked between the screen and Jonas several times.

"What?" He demanded. "Is it bad?"

"No," Jonas answered simply before reaching up to push a little button on the side of his hard drive which caused the computer to start running a whole list of programs. "Could you do me a favor?" He added then, leaving Jeremy to look between his screen and him questionably, clearly trying to figure out what he had just done.

"What?" The genius asked slowly; obviously a little reluctant to agree without knowing first what the man wanted.

"Could you send me to Lyoko?"

That's right, 20 chapters in and they're Finally going to the digital world.

Hope I kept it entertaining.

;)