Odd nor Aelita could face that was Xenon gone. When they got back from Lyoko, Odd forced Jeremie to check every sector. Jeremie did, he even checked sector five, but Xenon was nowhere to found. Odd and the others looked on Lyoko themselves to see if a guardian had taken Xenon prisoner, but with no prevail. Xenon had simply disappeared from Lyoko completely.
After a couple days, the school grew worried. They questioned the gang of Xenon's whereabouts but they said they didn't know. The school reported Xenon missing. Her stepparents arrived from Paris. The Smiths talked to the school and asked to talk to the people she hung out with. The school gave them permission.
Jeremie, Aelita, Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd walked with the Smiths around campus. The Smiths asked standard questions like, "Do you know what happened to her?" and "When did you last see her?" and etc. They walked for a couple minute in silence. The Smiths looked around to see if anyone was around and there wasn't. They leaned in closer to the gang.
"Did she disappear on Lyoko?" Mrs. Smith asked.
"How do you know about Lyoko?" Aelita asked.
"Well, she, Xenon, told us about it a long time ago. But I recognize you, Aelita, Xenon told us she had a sister with pink hair." Mrs. Smith said.
"Do you have any clue where she might be?" Odd asked hopeful.
"Most likely, sector seven." Mr. Smith said.
"What?" Yumi, Ulrich, Jeremie, and Odd asked in unison.
"Sector seven. It's a sector that Xenon created and been working on for years."
"What about sector six?" Jeremie asked.
"Sector six is how Xenon got here. I'm sure you know that's she was born twenty-six years ago." Mrs. Smith said and waited to see if there was any surprise, there wasn't so she continued. "Xenon got her by…"
(Flash back)
Mr. And Mrs. Smith were playing with their adopted daughter. She had short blonde hair and purple eyes. There was a knock on the door. Mr. Smith went to get it. When he opened it he saw a woman of about eighteen or nineteen with blonde hair with purple streaks and purple eyes. She wore jeans and a purple sweatshirt. She had sunken eyes and bags under her eyes from days without sleep.
"Hello. Who are you?" Mr. Smith asked politely.
"Xenon." The woman replied. Mr. Smith seemed confused. "Your daughter." She added helpfully. He still looked confused. "May I come in?" Mr. Smith was dazed as he held the door open wider to let the woman in. She walked in and sat on the couch in the living room where Mrs. Smith and her daughter were. She looked over to Mrs. Smith and baby Xenon, she smiled.
"How can you be our daughter?" Mr. Smith asked. Mrs. Smith looked up at the woman.
"I'm from the future about twenty-eight years." Xenon said. The Smiths looked at her not believing her. Xenon walked over to her baby self and pointed hers and the baby's eyes. The Smiths looked at both pair of eyes. Their eyes widened in disbelief.
"You are, aren't you?" Mrs. Smith asked. "Why are you here?"
Xenon unfolded everything about Lyoko. "I need to take my younger self into the future to change the course of history. There's something that can't happen."
"What happened?" Mrs. Smith asked.
"Someone died that should not have." Xenon said.
"Will we ever see Xenon again?" Mrs. Smith suddenly being very attached to her daughter.
"Yes, in ten years or thereabouts." Xenon said. Mrs. Smith looked sadly at her two-year-old daughter. She gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead and gave her to the older Xenon. Xenon nodded to her stepparents.
"Bye." Xenon said.
"Bye."
(End Flashback)
"Sector six runs the return to the past program. It controls time. That's how Xenon was able to take her younger self and stop from someone from dying."
"Who was going to die?" Odd asked.
"She didn't tell us." Silence followed this. After a while, Mrs. Smith spoke again. "So, we just need her laptop to get her out of sector seven."
"Um…you may have misunderstood us." Ulrich said. "She fell into the digital void." The Smiths face fell.
"She might not be gone." Mrs. Smith said as she remembered how smart her daughter was.
"You may not understand what happens when something falls into the digital void. When something does, it gets permanently deleted." Jeremie said.
"No, she can make geysers appear to fool her enemies to think she's gone." Mrs. Smith said. She started to walk in the direction of the dorms. "The only way to find her is through her computer." They walked to the girl's floor and went to Xenon's room which Room 112. As they approached it, the gang remembered that they had never been inside her room besides Aelita. When Mrs. Smith opened the door it revealed a simple twin bed with a purple blanket on top. It also had a desk with a small lamp on top and her binder. Her closet was half open to reveal jeans, skirts, and a variety of different purple shirts.
Mrs. Smith looked around the room and so did everyone else, but they could find head or tail of Xenon's metallic laptop. Odd looked around the room. He had to think like Xenon would. His brain kept saying the desk, but it was obvious there wasn't her laptop anywhere on the desk or the drawers. Think like Xenon. He told himself. Odd's mind wandered to when Xana had almost killed Xenon. He remembered when she had a secret cupboard in the sewers that held extra skateboards and a scooter. A secret hiding spot… Odd knocked his knuckles on the desk nothing happened. He moved her binder and rapped on that spot the wood fell in a hole and moved sideways out of view to reveal Xenon's laptop.
"I found it." Odd said as he took it out. He gave it to Mrs. Smith who started it. Everyone looked over her shoulder. She clicked on the invisible folders and typed in the long password. She clicked on a folder named Xenon. It did not have a password to the file. Six sectors were searched, every sector besides Six. It took a couple minutes, then a red stop sign flashed. Everyone looked grave.
"She's gone?" Odd asked quietly as if someone heard it would happen.
"No, she's alive in the forest sector but only just." Mrs. Smith said. "We need to hurry." They rushed in the direction of the park before they remembered the Aelita clone had covered it up in cement. They redirected themselves to go through the city and they reached the abandoned factory and went down the elevator. Aelita, Odd, Ulrich and Yumi reached the scanners.
"Transfer Aelita, transfer Odd, transfer Ulrich, scanner Aelita, scanner Odd, scanner Ulrich. Virtualization. Transfer Yumi, scanner Yumi. Virtualization."
Aelita, Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi landed in the forest on their vehicles. The followed the path they went just a couple of days ago to the tower. They reach the plateau with a hole in the middle, made by one of Xenon's thunderbolts. They went close to the edge of where Xenon had fallen.
"Here?" Ulrich asked for Jeremie to hear.
"Sort of. Someone look over the side you should some vines and find Xenon. Or according to her mother, what's left." Jeremie said. No one liked how Jeremie said, 'What's left.' Odd felt it should him who went to get Xenon. He moved his overboard over the edge and went down.
"Ah!" Odd yelled in surprise.
"What?" Aelita asked slightly frightened.
Think I'm hideous, Odd? A voice asked him in his head.
"No, it's just I'm surprised." Odd said looking at what seemed to be a small white blob in the shape of a body having no detail at all. The white blob hardly looked like Xenon at all. I need to be taken to a tower. Xenon's voice said in Odd's mind. Odd took the baby form into his arms and went back up to solid ground. Ulrich, Yumi, and Aelita looked at the white form.
I know I'm ugly. Faking my death reduces me to this. Xenon said in all their minds.
"Not at all." Aelita said. Odd held the white blob, like someone would a baby, quite well. "You know Odd, you'll probably make a good father." Odd looked at the form in his arm and put on a smile.
"Probably will." And hopefully it'll be with Xenon. He thought. What am I thinking? He asked himself. I known Xenon less than two weeks and I'm thinking stuff like this?
"You need to get Xenon to a tower now." Jeremie said with urgency in his voice. Odd and the others headed for the tower twenty feet from them and walked into the now neutral, blue, tower. Odd placed "Xenon" on the white dot in the center of Xana's symbol and waited for Xenon to recover.
The white blob grew to Xenon's height. It then gave detail to Xenon's Lyoko form. The white sash around her waist went from white to its normal purple. Xenon's eyes moved around underneath her eyelids. Her eye fluttered open for a second before they closed again. A couple minutes later her eyes completely opened. She saw Odd looking at her and she smiled. She sat up.
"What happened?" Aelita asked.
"I recovered." Xenon said.
"No, I mean on Lyoko the other day."
"Don't you think we should wait till we get back to Earth? I'm sure Jeremie would like to know too." Xenon said. Jeremie virtualized them back to Earth. When Xenon's scanner door opened she was met with the arms of two people.
"Hi, mom. Hi dad." Xenon said as she gave them both a hug.
"So, how are you doing?" Mr. Smith asked.
"Good, just trying to survive against a demonic artificial intelligence." Xenon said as if that was every other teen would say. Odd came out of a scanner and walked over to Xenon. They embraced each other in a hug. Her parents looked at her and lifted an eyebrow.
"Who's your boyfriend?" Mrs. Smith asked.
"He not my boyfriend." Xenon said, getting closer to what a real teen would say to her parents. "We're just friends." Mrs. Smith dropped it.
"So, what happened?" Aelita asked Xenon.
"Well…"
(Flash back)
"NO!" Screamed an inhuman voice that came from Xenon's clone. The clone raced at Xenon in fury and entered the bubble and the bubble disappeared. Xenon's clone rammed into her and knocked Xenon off her disc. Xenon desperately tried to stop for a couple seconds till she gave up. I'll just make them think I died, but I don't want to do that to Odd…She thought as she was pushed directly over the digital void and the clones backed away from her. She fell. She opened her eyes slightly as she fell and saw Odd staring at her.
"I'm sorry." She whispered. When she fell beneath the surface and no one could see her. She snapped her fingers and a disc went beneath her and she went up. I need to create geyser. So, my clone won't come looking. She thought. She used all her energy to create a fifty-foot geyser. She felt suddenly weak and spotted some vines on the underside of the plateau. She laid down on the vines and collapsed.
(End flash back)
"But how did you turn in a white blob?" Yumi asked.
"Making the geyser just wore me down the that shape. I don't really know. I woke up like that." Xenon said. She thought for a minute. "What are we going to say to the school?" We can't say, 'I faked my death in a virtual reality world so an evil artificial intelligence wouldn't actually kill me like he wants to.' They'll really believe that."
"There's always return to the past." Jeremie suggested.
"We can't return to the past. Over the years each return to the past Xana saved some of the energy from it and used it on this last two attacks. He used most of his energy on them. But we should give him any weapons that he'll just use back on us." Xenon said. Jeremie seemed taken back a little. "Well, I could always go back in time and--"
"Remember when you're older self use sector six to try to fix the timeline?" Mrs. Smith said squashing Xenon's idea.
"I'll just show up on campus and lie my way out of it, all right?" Xenon said all out of ideas. Mrs. Smith looked at her daughter like don't-even-think-about-it. "Fine, I won't lie. I'll tell them the truth and get a one way trip to the nut house." Xenon's mom sighed.
They walked out of the scanner room, into the elevator, and out of the factory. The sunset of a Saturday night, in the beginning of October, greeted them as they headed back to the school. Along the way, Ulrich and Yumi disappeared for a date they had planned. As they got closer to the school the redder the sunset got.
"I want to talk to Odd for a minute." Xenon said as they past the park. Xenon and Odd left them and headed into the park. They got far enough in that they wouldn't hear them or see. "I've missed you."
"I've missed you too." Odd said. Xenon took advantage of Odd's mouth being open and kissed him. Odd was numb for a second before he kissed back. He overpowered her tongue and pushed it back into its mouth and entered Xenon's. He wanted to memorize it. Xenon pulled her head back and they broke apart, both for gasping for air. Xenon smiled.
"I thought you wanted to talk to me." Odd said. He wouldn't have traded the kiss for anything except maybe for more kisses from Xenon.
"That's my way of talking sometimes." Xenon said. "I couldn't wait till we were alone."
"Now, that I think about it, I don't think I could have either." Odd said taking her hand and led her to the front of the park to rejoin the others. Xenon's mom lifted her eyebrow at them as they approached.
"I already told you were just friends." Xenon began even though she knew her and Odd have and would be much more that.
"Friends who go away for several minutes and come back holding hands?" Mrs. Smith asked.
Xenon looked down at her and Odd's hands. "Yep." She replied with a smile. "Mom, I'm sixteen." Xenon said as they walked through Kadic's gate. Aelita and Jeremie left them muttering something about, 'Aelita's anti-virus.' Xenon knew the computer probably wouldn't even be on.
"But, you've only been in my life six years and I have raised you practically since you were born. To me, you're my little innocent six year old daughter." Both, Xenon and Odd tried to restrain their laughter. Xenon laughed at anyone thinking she was innocent and Odd laughed because he high doubted Xenon was ever innocent.
The reached the office when they stopped. "What's you're story?" Mr. Smith asked. Xenon ignored her stepfather and walked into the office.
"Miss Smith!" Exclaimed the secretary, who getting ready to close down the office.
"May I speak to Mr. Delmas?" Xenon asked politely, trying to think of a story. Odd and her stepparents sat in the chairs in the office.
"Of course." Xenon walked to the principal's office and knock. She heard a faint, 'Come in.' and opened the door.
"Miss Smith! Where have you been?" Mr. Delmas asked as he got up. He wasn't sure if he should be angry or worried.
"I --- I…" Xenon had nothing. Maybe she should have asked her stepparents.
"I just left for a couple days." Xenon said.
"Yes, I know. Why?" He asked anger in his voice.
"I just had to, okay?"
"Why?" He asked sympathy in his voice now.
"You wouldn't understand."
"What's a matter? Is something wrong?"
"I left for my own personal reasons."
"Fine. You're off the hook." Mr. Delmas said, giving in.
"Really?" Xenon asked, surprised.
"Yep, after a two week detention. You'll be joining Jim in the work that need to done around the school. Goodbye." Mr. Delmas said. He was retiring in two years. He was getting tired of teens.
"Asshole." Xenon muttered.
"What was that?" Mr. Delmas asked, he didn't want to face growing old and hadn't got his, much needed, hearing aid.
"Nothing." Xenon said as she left his office.
-()-
A/N You didn't actually think I'd kill Xenon, did you? I was going to try to post this chapter over the weekend but I started watching a Korean drama called, "Jewel in the Palace" or in Korean the show in called, "Dae Jang Geum." I watched ten hours worth over the weekend, which is only ten episodes. It's a good series so far. Oh it had English subtitles.
Don't forget to review! Chapter seven will be up soon, hopefully!