Here we go again. Nother…chapter-like thingy.

Thanks for all the answers to the question! One person did get it right- Tetsu Deinonychus, who guessed 'Johnny the Homicidal Maniac'. DING DING DING. I love the works of Jhonen Vasquez – Invader Zim especially, but JTHM is pwnage as well. Thank you Tetsu! (gives Yumi plushie!)

Some notes. One, I made a small edit to chapter 2 in order for this chapter to fit with the rest of the story. Two, it contains lots of S4 spoilers.

So enjoy this next installment. I'm sure quite a few of you are going to like it.

Chapter 8
We Interrupt This Program…

Ulrich, Odd, Yumi, and Aelita were staring at the screen, their brains stopped momentarily.

"Uh…" Ulrich was the first to recover. "What just happened?"

"As far as I can tell," Yumi said, also falling out of stupor, "The supercomputer's gone kukoo, Jeremie's taken off on a last-minute vacation to who-the-hell-knows-where, and there's a tower activation. Perfect enough for you?"

"Yeah." Ulrich swallowed nervously. "Excellent."

The metric grams of sugar coursing through Odd's body at the moment forced him to keep starting at the blinking dot. Aelita was, as well- for another reason. She climbed into the interface seat. "Hm…tower activation, return to the past now…it should be clear to me, but right now it's as clear as mud." She hit the Enter key. The message vanished. "All I can really assume is that it has something to do with Jeremie's disappearance."

Yumi and Ulrich nodded in agreement. Odd, recovered now that the dot was gone, didn't. "Hey- we don't have to jump to crazy conclusions. For all we know, ol' Jerboy's just gone to the little Einstein's room or something like that." He smiled uncertainly.

"Odd, we've been through enough XANA attacks to know that in our case, a worst-case scenario can and does happen." Her tone stayed completely level- if she was trying to hide any grief or fear, she was doing so very well. She hit several more keys. A brief alarm sounded. "Strange…the Return To The Past function is locked."

"Didn't Jeremie block that to XANA?"

"Yes, Yumi, but XANA never fails to surprise us. Maybe that's why he activated the tower…" Another alarm. "Tower located. Huh…it's the Sector 5 tower. XANA must really not want it deactivated."

"Well, wait up…what exactly happened to Jeremie? I mean, just in case it happens to one of us…" Ulrich thought for a minute. "Return to the past…maybe XANA killed Jeremie somehow, and then did one to hide the evidence." He sounded as though he hoped he was wrong.

"Or, thinking on the lines that he's alive, XANA might've captured him somehow, then done one to eliminate the struggle. Nah…" Odd shook his head. "Jeremie couldn't struggle for THAT long."

"You're both wrong," Yumi interrupted, looking baffled. "If any Return To The Past had happened at all, we would've known, right? I mean, we remember what happens, and big white bubbles that reverse time are pretty hard to ignore."

"True. Which just makes it even more cryptic." Aelita turned from the screen to look at them. "But we may have a better chance of understanding if we deactivate the tower. It could…bring him back…maybe. Get in the elevator, I'll set a timer for the vehicles and myself."

They nodded, and set off for the elevator. As they walked, Ulrich nudged Odd in the ribs.

"Hey- did you notice how cold Aelita was back there?" he said in a loud whisper. "I mean considering it's about Jeremie and all…"

"I dunno, maybe she's still mad at hi-" He paused, and revolved slowly to face Aelita. She was staring at them, her face livid.

Odd forced a huge smile, and backed away. "Uh…I mean, we're getting in the elevator, and going down to the scanners, and going to Lyoko, and completely ignoring everything else in the world, hahaha…" He was cut off by the closing of the elevator doors. Yumi rolled her eyes at him just before they shut.

Aelita was alone. She stared at the monitor, her mind blank. Then, slowly, she began working on the virtualization programs. And typing. And thinking.

"Jeremie…"

"Transfer, Odd. Transfer, Ulrich. Transfer, Yumi. Scanner, Odd. Scanner, Ulrich. Scanner, Yumi…Virtualization."

The virtualization process was too familiar. First, the feeling as though you were a very large, electrified bowl of soup, flying though a sea of flashing lights. Then, a sudden pull back into reality- or, at least as real as Lyoko could be. Then, a three meter free fall. Ouchy.

Yumi, Ulrich, and Odd all made this drop at the same time. They only had to wait a minute for Aelita, accompanied by the Overwing, Overboard, and Overbike. They were trapped in a familiar, spinning blue sphere – the Sector 5 main hall. They were in.

Odd was flexing, stretching his paws to the ceiling. "Aah…no more transport orb rides means no more motion sickness."

"Yes, Odd, we've heard." Yumi glared at him, then turned to Aelita. "So where is this tower?"

"Considering it's the only one in this sector, you'd think I'd have thought to check." She groaned. "But it should be easy to find. We just have to look for a horde of monsters."

"Not to mention Mr. Long Tan and Handsome." Ulrich rolled his eyes.

"Yes, him too." She faced all of them, taking the commanding authority in Jeremie's absence. "We'll split up. Whoever finds the tower first will go to the Skid's hangar and wait for the others there. Sound good?" The others nodded in general agreement.

"Heh, we have to go through all this? Would've been a breeze if Je-" Ulrich shoved Odd with the flat edge of his sword. Aelita pretended not to notice.

"Well then…" She waved her hand over the star on her wrist, causing transluscent, pink wings to burst from her shoulders. The others mounted their vehicles. They took off down the only corridor out of the main hall, and split off at the forks they came across.

Aelita was soon on her own, flying through the endless maze of hallways and passages of the path she had taken. Navigating these areas was a job only for her wings- her mind was left completely free of anything to think about, except the occasional wall. Or jutting blue block. Or blond computer nerd. Or sudden dip in altitude. Or blonde computer nerd. Or dead end.

Jeremie.

She tried not to sentimentalize her thoughts of this boy. She couldn't think of his face, his smile, how he was so plain, yet had prepubescent charm and cuteness, his blind devotion to anything he set his mind to… nothing. No memories, none of his achievements…that just brought back the pain of everything she had said. Even if it was all true. He could be dead, and the last words she had said to him were a criticism of his stubbornness. She couldn't even remember if she'd said goodbye.

"Okay. I guess he is. I'll...see you later, Jeremie."

Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit.

She tried to dehumanize her situation. She only thought of the ways that he might have disappeared. Her only clues…his disappearance, obviously. The return to the past. The activated tower, suggesting XANA's involvement.

Perhaps the RTTP's involvement was a red herring…no, XANA wouldn't go through that effort just to confuse them. Even if there was no evidence an RTTP had taken place, something just wasn't right. But then, maybe the tower was meant for more than simply accessing the program. Perhaps something had been changed…something that only affected Jeremie. Something they couldn't detect. It hit her-

Or rather, she hit it. Or her. Not looking where she was going, she had entered the Skid's hangar, and rammed right into Yumi. She fell on Ulrich, who was running in from another direction, and then both were immediately plowed into by Odd before any romantic interlude could take place.

"What happened? Anyone find it?" Ulrich yelled, his voice muffled by Yumi's armpit.

"Oh, oh no," Odd groaned, getting up and dusting himself off. "All I ran into was the freaking Creeper Tea Party! They were not happy to have an uninvited guest, oh no…"

"So I guess nobody found it, huh?" Yumi looked down at Ulrich, allowing herself one small blush before standing to face Aelita.

"No, but listen- I think I know what happened to Je-" Another thought struck her suddenly- and it was a doozy. "Oh. Oh no. Ha. Ha ha ha…"

"Wha? What'd you find out?"

"No, no, I just remembered…" She couldn't stop giggling. "When we recreated Sector 5…"

"See, Aelita?" Jeremie revolved in the chair, beckoning towards the screen. "This is all the code from Sector 5 that your very smart father sent us. I just press this little button over here, and Lyoko is back in business!" He did a funny sort of chair-dance. "At least, I'm pretty sure it will be."

"Aww." Aelita leaned over and gave Jeremie a kiss on his forehead. "But…have you ever thought of changing the code around just a tiny bit? Y'know, obliterate a few disadvantages, make things a little easier for ourselves?"

"Hey, great idea! Franz Hopper certainly passed down some good genes to you." He smiled. "Lessee…the timer mechanism."

"Yes, that was always a pain." Aelita watched as Jeremie erased mountains of code. "How about…the Sector 5 tower?"

"Oh, great observation! It's a bit too unwieldy and isolated for our tastes, but perfect for XANA…"

"…so basically, it doesn't exist anymore." She took a few deep breaths. "Sorry about that."

"Well, yeah, it's great," Yumi said, confused, "But how was it activated if it doesn't exist?"

"Well, I'm no expert, but my best guess is that XANA somehow stole the code for the lost tower, and recreated it somewhere else." Ulrich shrugged uncertainly.

"We should've been alerted if there were changes made to any of the sectors, so there's only one place it could really be." She snapped her fingers. "A Replika."

"Oh, you mean those little floaty things in the Digital Network that look like Lyoko? It fits." Odd laughed a little. "XANA must REALLY not want it deactivated."

"Well, what matters is that we deactivate it," Aelita said, her face growing more serious. "As far as I can tell, it's the only way we can save Jeremie." A muscle twitched in her shoulder. "Come on, let's get in."

"Into what?"

"The Skid, of course. It's right over there."

"Well, yeah, but…" Odd looked down at the transport area beneath his feet. "Don't we need ol' Einstein to-"

"No. We can get in the old fashioned way." A smirk wormed its way across her face.

"And…how do we do that?"

"BONZAI!" Ejecting her wings, Aelita flew up to the Skid's central pod and hit a latch on the cover, causing the glass to slide up. She slipped inside. The other three were bewildered, Odd especially. "I had no idea we could do that."

The only vehicle left among them was the Overwing, so they all climbed on it to duplicate Aelita's feat. Soon, they were all more or less comfortable in the Skid.

"Releasing supports…" Aelita did all the necessary takeoff routines from the inside. "Everyone ready?"

"Yep."

"Yeah."

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

"No. Here we go, then-" With a roar, the Skidbladnir jettisoned out of the hangar, floated over the Digital Sea, and dived in. Soon, they had exited Lyoko, and entered the endless red ocean that was the digital network. All in less than a paragraph.

"Okay, everyone," Aelita's voice sounded throughout the ship. "Look around for Replikas. Anyone see any?"

"Well, lesee…nothing over here…"

"There's just this flashy little sign with the number 42 on it…"

"No, nothing…hey. There's something over there, by Lyoko. It's really tiny, but it looks roundish."

"Hm…Aelita moved the Skid closer to the round object. "Whatever it is, Lyoko's gravity is overpowering its gravity. It'll be hard to get close…"

They tried anyway. Finally, as the approached its underside, and tried very hard to stay there, they saw that it was a Replika, but a very, very small one, barely a tenth of Lyoko's size. It looked kind of wimpy next to big old Lyoko.

"It must have only been built to house the tower," Yumi commented, "If it is the right one."

"There's a good chance of that." Aelita's voice sombered again. "Come on, we know what we have to do." Pressing a few buttons, she shone a light on the Replika's Eye of XANA, located on its underside arm-thingy. Carefully, she began work on the entry code…

It was the calm before the storm.

XANA looked down at the coded makeup of the digital sea, visible over the shiny, black leather boots of the body he had claimed from the humans. The boots held legs, which were swung over the edge of the Replika, dangling several meters from no certain death.

The Replika was, as noted, very, very small. It only contained one small, sightly oblong island, resembling the Desert sector, with a tower at one end and nothing at the other. Except XANA, at the moment. And a few, erm, friends to help with the fight. Several Tarantulas (firing some random shots into the air in synchronized patters), a Megatank or two (rolling round and round the tower) some Krabes for good measure (dancing…oddly enough) and a solitary Kankrelat. Said Kankrelat was sitting on XANA's head, his pointed feet messing up his already perfectly tousled hair.

He picked up a fairly good-sized rock, threw it up and down a few times, and tossed it over the edge. Impressed by the sparks it sent up when it hit the Sea, he did it a few more times. He wondered how big a splash his sword, lying a meter away, would make. Or a tower. Or Yumi. He had thrown her in several times, but she always had this annoying habit of being saved. Still, it was fun to do as such. Her screams of terror were beautiful.

But those were idle thoughts, unsuited to an evil, world-conquering virus. More suited to, say, a human. Or a Kankrelat. Particularly, the one that was seated on his head at the moment.

"Isn't this great, XANA? Huh? Huh? Isn't it?" The Kankrelat did an odd little dance on his head. His clicks and whirrs were, unfortunately, decipherable to XANA's ears. "If we win this battle we win it all, right? Right? She told me that, you know, the Schyphozoa did! She's kinda mean, but she always tells the truth! And I'm gonna help us win, okay? Okay?"

"Mmm." He threw another rock off. "Look, this battle really isn't all that important. We're just making them think it is." He laughed a little, a hollow, deprived laugh.

"Well, I think it's important! And you know why? Cause you thought of it, and you're the best, huh, XANA?"

"You don't need to remind me. I know I'm the best." Vanity. Idle as well, but quite fun. He smiled and leaned back, discreetly trying to throw the Kankrelat off.

"Buuuut…" Oh great. "Y'know, sometimes they kinda seem like real nice people in their own world. Maybe if we got to know them better-"

XANA's eyes narrowed. "I am fundamentally uninterested in that," he drolled in a bored tone. "Humans are near useless to me. To form any positive relationship with them would be a waste of time, resources, and character development."

"Oh, but I like them! I really like Odd. He's really cool, he even kinda plays with you before he devirtualizes you!" Ulrich's kinda funny lookin, and Jeremie's kind of a dit… but Aelita's really pretty, and so's Yumi, and she's all tough and cool and she really hates you for stealing her boyfriend's body-"

XANA picked up another rock, changed his mind, grabbed the Kankrelat, and threw it over the edge. He laughed as it hit the sea, sending up a torrent of light.

He turned to face his other servants, his face cold. "Anyone else have compliments for our enemies?"

There was no answer.

"Perfect." He gave them all a smile, and then returned to rock-throwing.

Of course, all of the monsters were big enough to throw him off themselves. But that would have little to no effect, as XANA, intelligent being that he was, did not reside completely in his stolen body. He simply used it as a sort of puppet. A very attractive puppet, too.

Not that the body's previous owner minded. In fact, he had no idea where the previous owner was. Poor old William Dunbar- oh, yeah, that was the body's name- had only helped the simpering warriors once before XANA had taken him. He had always had an enemy's respect for the humans- they were determined, driven creatures, if sometimes to unadvisable levels. But when he had seen William, he not only respected, but coveted him. His looks alone were enough to get him quite a bit of attention, he had strength, and his charisma and influence could be easily replicated. He was everything a good evil ruler needed to be. But, he was an idiot. Which is where XANA, all-time anti-idiot, came in. He took William's body for himself, chucked his soul into the void- to hell if he knew where it went- and attacked the humans with the body. Yay.

Still, being human was somewhat limiting. The feeling of confining a soul to one spot, killed so easily, was unsettling. And all the things they needed to live on a regular basis…like breathing. Such fragility. And then there was the human instincts. Emotions. Fears. Et cetra. Easily suppressed, in any case. It was definitely worth it.

But such unnecessary thinking was, as said, idle, only wasting time. He had things to do, places to be, people to slaughter. This was only confirmed as a loud roar split the sky. XANA sighed, stood, and picked up his sword. Time to serve his purpose.

Haha. I rambled a bit. So sorry.

So either way, that's a little look at the present. Now, back to our regularly scheduled revision, already in progress…

-Carth

P.S. Yes. I think the Schyphozoa is a girl.