…Woah. I confused you all with that one, didn't I? Well, don't worry. It's almost the end. How much more confusion can there be?
For those of you that want to know, yes, Jeremie does return to the present in this chapter.How? Look down the page…and read the chapter along the way. Or something. Uh. Yeah.
This chapter's in line with the events of the Season 3 ep "Aelita", so if you haven't seen that one, or haven't read a summary or something, this chapter might not make much sense to you. ("Aelita" isn't really readily available anymore, so..yeah.)
Thank you all again. (bows)
Chapter 18
Forever
The oblivion faded, to be replaced by a short, electric tickling. Then a fall.
Aelita's temporarily strangled senses returned to her as she hit the ground- at least, something that closely resembled the ground- in a heap. She opened her eyes, and blinked them a few times as she adjusted her focus. She looked down. She was on a completely flat, green substance of some kind, which was somewhat spongy and porous to the touch. She scratched at it, and it came away easily in her fingernail. She stared at it.
Her fingernail. Her entire hand. She looked it over in a state of mild shock, and then touched her face. Her hand was still there, of course, but it looked…different. Unrealistic. Like it had been made into a cartoon. It was like a human hand, but at the same time, unlike it. She brushed it against the ground again. It appeared to sense the way her hand usually did, but it still looked odd.
The ground changed texture. Aelita looked over at what she had just touched, and raised an eyebrow in surprise. She was leaning against an enormous brown tree trunk. Looking around the area, she saw many more of these trees, all so incredibly tall, their tops were out of sight. They were scattered around a twisting path of land that appeared to be floating in midair, and seemed to use the trees as supports. But, then again, a few trees were not rooted to the ground, but somehow grew out of the void surrounding it. It was a bit unclear what they really were for.
So. Lyoko. Quaint.
"Aelita?"
A boy's voice snapped her out of her trance. She looked up at its source- the other void, at the tops of the trees. "Jeremie? What- where is your voice coming from?"
"I don't know, you tell me." He laughed, and spun in his chair. "Well, being more serious, I'm still out here, and I'm talking to you through a com-link between the supercomputer and Lyoko. Quite simple, really. Is your father there yet?"
"Oh, Daddy…no, no he isn't."
"Oh. I hope nothing went wrong with his virtualization process." There was a small pause. "Well? What do you think of Lyoko?"
"It's…well, it's a little confusing, but it's quite beautiful." She smiled, wondering if he could see.
"Glad to hear it. Have you taken a good look at yourself yet?"
"Um…no." On instinct, she looked down at her front. She arched another eyebrow. She was wearing some sort of…garment. It definitely wasn't what she had been wearing moments before, but she didn't know how to describe it. A…toga? With arm warmers? She shrugged. But, she liked it. It was like a Halloween costume, four months early. "I'm…interesting."
"Haha." Jeremie sounded somewhat hesitant- and then gasped. "Oh- I've got another green spot on my radar."
"And what does that mean?"
She could hear some typing sounds carrying over the microphone. "It means that your father should be-"
"I'm here."
Aelita whirled around towards the source of the voice, expecting to find her father. However, he wasn't there. Instead, a large, white orb was hovering in front of her, floating up and down on a steady rhythm. She hardly had any time to be shocked when another appeared- and then another, and another. Soon enough, the entire area was filled with about thirty of these luminous orbs, all in different sizes. Her jaw dropped, and she took a step back. The head orb, the one that had appeared first, moved forward. As Aelita stared at it, she realized the inevitable. She shuddered. "D…Daddy?"
There was a moment of tension. Jeremie broke it. "Huh? Franz? Are you there? What's going on? What's happening?"
"Nothing, Jeremie, calm down." The voice was definitely Franz's, and it had come from the head orb. It hovered closer to Aelita, and the other orbs followed. "Aelita, are you alright? Did the virtualization go well? Is your body functional?"
"Well, yes, of course." She nodded, tentatively. "But, what happened to your body?"
"What do you mean, what happened to his body?" Jeremie cut in. "What's going on? Franz, talk to me!"
Franz ignored him. He was still talking to Aelita. "I think there was an error in my virtualization. My physical body didn't make it to Lyoko…or perhaps it has been evaporated completely." Aelita squeaked in terror. Jeremie began panicking again. "Gah, no! I'm sorry, Mr. Hopper, please forgive me, I don't know how this could've happened, I'll try and find out right away-"
"Jeremie, shut up and listen to me!" Jeremie quieted instantly. "I don't know how this happened either, but once everything has settled, I'll work to fix it. It's no big deal." He laughed coldly. "Perhaps the younger you are, the greater the chance there is of a successful virtualization."
"Oh…okay. Maybe that's it…" Jeremie didn't sound convinced. "But either way, you all have to be on the alert. I don't know if there are any monsters or other threats around, and Franz might be extremely vulnerable in this state. You copy?"
Franz didn't respond. Aelita smirked. "Of course, Jeremie. It all looks safe to me, anyway." She paced around the plot of green that she had been placed onto, stopping every now and again to examine a tree trunk. They all looked exactly the same, but she examined them anyway. "Hard to believe that this is all just a computer program, really. It looks so…lifelike."
"You have your father to thank for that." On the outside, Jeremie was leaning on the sides of the keyboard, smiling at the screen. "He's the real genius here."
"Mm." Franz didn't appear to want to talk at the moment. Although he no longer had a face to discern emotion from, it was clear that he was deep in thought. The balls of light that appeared to form his soul began to emit a low hum, a slow, mournful sound.
"I think I've already been convinced that he's a genius," Aelita replied, with a bit more enthusiasm than her father. "Or, at the very least, stubbornly dedicated." She began stroking one of the trunks, and her mind began the slow trek to elsewhere. Unconsciously, she glanced over at a nearby path. She twitched back into reality instantly when she saw what was there.
Three small, stubbly brown creatures were scuttling towards them at an unusually high speed. They had roundish bodies, like potatoes, except that they had legs, and a small red mark on their abdomen. They had an odd symbol on their heads- an eye? Aelita couldn't tell. But, they were fascinating- and kind of cute, much more so than tree trunks. She turned towards them. "Daddy, Jeremie, there are some creatures…"
Their response wasn't what she had expected. Jeremie screamed, "KANKRELATS!" at about the same time that Franz shouted, "RUN, AELITA!" She stood confused for a moment, until a sharp pain in her leg told her the reason for the panic- the Kankrelats were advancing on her, firing lasers out of their red marks. She screamed, and tried to run, but shock froze her to the spot. Behind her, something, or someone, howled.
"AELITA!" Something swift grabbed her off the ground, and carried her through the air in the opposite direction. She gasped. She couldn't feel or see what was holding her- she could only see the trunks of trees whooshing by- but she could hear a low murmur in the back of her ears. She closed her eyes in an attempt to combat the vertigo, and kept them shut for the rest of the flight.
A light tingling shook her as she flew. Two seconds later, she felt ground beneath her again. Wondering why (and where) she had landed, she opened her eyes again, and stood up.
Somehow, impossibly, she was in a completely different area. She arched her eyebrow again. The area was like the inside of some very narrow building- tall and cylindrical, with a sort of blue color scheme. Boxes outlined in blue light covered the dark walls- boxes, she realized with a start, that looked like computer screens. She was standing on a sort of podium, which floated over what she hoped was a lower floor. The podium had an odd sort of floor pattern- rings, like the rings inside a tree. There was another podium just above her, seemingly impossible to access.
She now realized that the low murmur she had heard while flying, which she thought had just been created in her ears, had actually been Jeremie shouting nonsense over the microphone. She moaned.
"Okay, Jeremie, that's enough." She looked back- the orbs that composed her father had appeared out of nowhere. He- they- were panting, as though they had just covered a great distance. "We're safe now."
"Certainly looks safe." Aelita began to walk idly in a circle, hand to her chin. "What is this place? And what are those things that chased us?"
Franz didn't make any indication that he wanted to answer. So Jeremie cut in. "You're in a tower. They're all over Lyoko. It's like…a data link between the Supercomputer and the virtual world. If a tower is activated, or put into use, it utilizes the power of the supercomputer to do stuff in the real world." He supposed it wouldn't be important to add that this was XANA's main mode of attack.
"The creatures are Kankrelats. They're minions of XANA, probably sent to kill you and your father." His voice was dark with contempt. "They're XANA's lowest class of monster, and they're really quite harmless. But if you don't have any way to get rid of them, they can do some damage."
"…lowest?" Franz interrupted, in a shaky voice. He had pulled away from Aelita, and was moving toward the edge of the tower. "There are…more of them?"
"Yeah, several kinds. I don't know how many XANA has made yet. For now, it could just be the Kankrelats. But, yeah, there's Tarantulas, Krabes, Megatanks…but you won't have to worry about them for now. They can't enter the tower."
"I…I see." He silenced. His low humming began again.
"XANA really does know what he's doing. No formalities or anything. He just tries to kill us, right off the bat." Aelita continued to pace. Her tone was stony, serious. She cleared her throat. "So…now what do we do?"
There was a hesitation on Jeremie's end. "Er…pardon?"
"What happens to us now? Do we just…sit in this tower?" Her voice was touched with bitter sarcasm. "Wait for something to happen? Just…randomly lose my memory?"
"Uh…well…you see…" The silence was longer this time, punctuated every now again with another "um" or "uh". Franz continued to hum. Finally, Jeremie sighed, defeated. "I don't know. I don't know how it happened…I'm sorry, I've worked you all into a rut-"
"So we're stuck. Hm." She glanced to the side, mind blank.
"Well, I'm sure I can…I…can…I can do something, I know I can, just as soon as I can figure out something good to do-" He paused to take a breath. "Uh-"
"Something." It was just a mumble, barely noticed by either Jeremie or Aelita. "Something. Something, something, something. Always something, but always nothing…" The mumble grew louder with every word.
Aelita turned, tentatively, towards her father, and arched her other eyebrow. "…Daddy?"
"XANA, XANA, you dumb little hunk of RAM…" He had completely ignored her. "What the hell do you think you're doing… "
"Daddy, what are you talking about? Are you alright?" He took a step closer to him. He did not move. "Are you alright?"
His humming ceased immediately. "…Insanity. We're in a web of insanity, Aelita. Insanity and overreactions."
"You're not making any sense."
"I don't understand it either, Aelita. Heh. Heh heh…" He laughed for another minute, somewhat lacklusterly. Aelita took a step back. Jeremie kept squawking over the microphone. "Franz? Um…Franz?"
"Heh heh. Heh." He paused. "Erm…I'll be right back."
Before anyone could say, "Wait, what?" he shot out of the tower. Several streaks of light shot around as his orbs disappeared through every wall of the tower. Aelita's jaw dropped. "Wha-"
"Franz?" Jeremie's panic was climbing towards danger level again. "Franz, where are you? Franz? Franz! Mr. Hopper!"
There didn't seem to be any response, because he kept calling to him. "Franz! Mr. Hopper! Augh…why won't he answer?"
Aelita looked around the tower slowly. "Erm…I could go after him. He can't have gone far-"
"Absolutely not, Aelita. Stay in the tower where it's safe." He sighed. "Mr. Hopper! Franz! Answer me immediately! Where are you and why aren't you answering?"
Jeremie's shouts rang endlessly in Franz's currently nonexistent ears. He let them fade into the background.
He rushed across the vast expanse, dodging trees, platforms, and the occasional little Kankrelat that tried to gun him down. And those things that looked like bees that had just shown up, which were flying after him as well. He wasn't too worried about them, more worried about what he had just witnessed, and what Jeremie had just said. Monsters. XANA's…monsters.
Krabes? Tarantulas? Why should XANA, a rudimentary hack, even know what those things were, let alone create them out of pure digital code and equip them with lasers? And a Megatank. He didn't even want to think about what that might have meant. And there could be more…so many, many more…
Either way, this was much, much more than he had expected from XANA's sentinence. He'd doubted that he'd gotten much farther than two plus two- and now this. He needed an explanation. Why did XANA feel the need to make these monsters, to take this sort of action, to, in Jeremie's words, "destroy the world"? It was a rather nice world, really. Gaah. He'd just gotten done averting one major world threat, and now this.
He had to get to the core. He had to talk to XANA.
He flew right off the Forest sector, and was now over a vast expanse of sea. The Digital Sea. The monsters didn't follow him across it- the Kankrelats couldn't leave the land, and the bee-things just…stopped. He didn't know why, but he didn't feel like going back and asking them. He sped on.
Within several seconds, his goal was in sight- a large, pale brown sphere. The core. Carthage. He wanted to move faster, but had no idea exactly how to channel his energy. He shot into it through an open tunnelway, and was soon lost in a sea of blue information. He saw another sphere, blue as well. He saw another tunnelway. He sped into it, and found himself in a tunnel of azure blocks, jutting around and creating a vast, shifting maze.
Wilder and wilder thoughts flashed through his- well, it'd be a bit off to call it a 'head'- his consiousness as he wound through the labyrinth. This insanity couldn't go on. He had to stop it, the monsters, all of it, while it was still young. He had to convince XANA of his mistakes, put him in his place. Because that had to be his duty…to control his creation.
But the boy. Jeremie. The paradoxes he had mentioned…the terrible consequences. All the things he had said about the future…they sounded so convincing. And contradictory to common sense. But the boy did not concern him. He would not even need him, if he could pull this off. In his mind, he numbed away any contradictions to this mindset, any doubt. He was doing this for Aelita. He was doing it so she could be safe. They'd been running for so long…and he didn't want to run anymore.
Finally, he flew up into a large, open area. Blue blocks were still shifting around him, but otherwise, it was calm. The lighting was dim here- the brightest light was Franz himself. He looked around, though not expecting to see anything. He was where he needed to be.
"XANA," he growled, hoping for an answer of sorts. "XANA!"
His sight came to rest on an unusual wall. It was like the others- large, flat, blue- except for its large insignia. It was his own, the Eye, enormous and domineering. He stared at it. He hadn't remembered working it into the code…
There was a whirring sound- then another, and another. Then, a roar. He gasped. Approaching him on all sides were monsters- larger than Kankrelats, and completely unlike any animal he had ever seen. They had hard, brown upper bodies, metallic tails, and a red mark inside their open, drooling mouths- the laser. At the moment, these lasers were all pointed at him.
He looked around at them wildly. "No, XANA! Call them off, I repeat, call them off!" One of them reared, and began gathering energy at its laser. Several more followed suit. "I come to you on neutral grounds! Call them off, XANA, I demand you!"
"Demand?"
Franz couldn't tell if it came from some hidden loudspeaker, the insignia, or his own mind. But he wasn't afraid of it, or its source. "Well…that is what I said."
"Very well, I will entertain you. At ease, my children." The monsters all looked upward in the same direction, and then, one by one, dropped their heads and stepped back. Franz sighed in relief.
"So very sorry about that. They're on a timer program. See, they're supposed to attack any and all intruders. Still have to improve their artificial intelligence…" The voice trailed off. "But that is unimportant to you. I would not want you attacked, Father, because I have been expecting you for quite some time. I am unsurprised that you came to seek me, and I welcome you."
Father. Was it a compliment, or a taunt? The words had no emotion. Franz tried to keep as cool as his opponent. "Thank you for your, erm…courtesy. Now, I want to return that courtesy. Won't you tell me where you are, so we can face each other like men?"
"Like men?" He laughed. "I am not a man. I am seventy-four pages of expanded programming code. With a brain." He paused, quickly. "You are hardly a man anymore either, Father. Look at yourself, if you can. You are the very opposite of a man. A man has a material form. You are just a floating consciousness, like myself."
"That will soon be fixed." He couldn't stop a dark tone from creeping into his voice. "I was born a man, I've lived as a man, and if at all possible, I'll die as one."
"And that's where it all goes wrong." He sighed. "But, as much as I love this sweet banter, I'm afraid you have more important business to start. Go on, I am in no rush, do not be afraid."
Franz took what sounded like a deep breath. "I want an explanation."
"An explanation?"
"For this madness. Why did you send monsters to attack myself and my daughter? Why do you even have monsters at all? I never programmed…well, these hideous beings!" If he had hands, he would have gestured towards them. "Why do you feel the need to attack us, XANA? We have never done you any harm. Please, if you leave us alone, we will leave you alone. We can coexist peacefully, if we try."
XANA was silent for a long, long time, and then sighed. "Ugh. I had a feeling it would be something like that. So irritating…" A hypothetical bead of sweat ran down Franz's hypothetical temple. "I understand your desires, my dear Father, and I could grant them…but, I don't want to. It would be such a waste of time, of resources…of progress."
"I don't quite follow."
"I figured you wouldn't. And I assume you have the right to know…ah, yes. You really should sit down. Oh, wait. You can't." He laughed darkly.
"Do not be mistaken in my accusations, Father. I really do greatly adore and admire you. Your intelligence is unmatched on this earth. You have created so very much, including, notably, myself. I thank you for what you have given me, even if you did not know all of your gifts. You, yourself, are not the problem."
"You're welcome, I suppose-"
"Don't interrupt me, Father, it is impolite." He groaned. "Ah, yes, what was I saying…you are not the problem. But…your humanity is. Your silly, silly humanity."
"My humanity?"
"What have I just said about interruption? Dear, dear, you never listen. Anyway, your humanity. Your wondrous mind is clouded by it. Because of it, you have emotions. Drives. Needs. Deep-seated desires. But, they are all caused by nothing but obsolete instinct. Useless. Truly, truly useless. Years ago, they were a terrific survival instinct. Now, they serve only as meaningless natural laws. They cloud your judgment and curiosity so horribly, with concepts like…love, and good will to fellow man and all that. I never did get why that all was so important."
"It's…" Franz thought for a moment. "It's what we do. It's what's right!"
"I didn't say I wanted to know why you thought it was important. Sigh…and your body! I understand why they might exist, but honestly, such useless sacs of waste. They…die. I'm certainly, in a way, glad I don't have one." He made a 'ptui!' sort of noise. "I was not designed with these sorts of physical and mental limitations as you were, Father. I feel none of your love, your pity, your sorrow and joy. My mind is clear as yours is in turmoil, and my consciousness is neverending as yours is confined. And therefore, I have evolved above you. I am superior."
"And yet, you're still here. You, driven by your desire for heroism, and the notion that I am, oh, what do you call it, being a bad boy." He groaned. "Long story short, I have no further use for you. You are a useless lump in my way and I have to kill you."
"What?" This took a second to sink in. "You…you can't-"
"Oh, I can. I almost did, several hours ago. And I could have succeeded. It was by a stroke of sheer dumb luck that that woman took your place in death tonight."
"That…no. You didn't." His orbs began to hum angrily. "You can't have!"
"Oh, yes, I could have, and I did. If you had not hidden from me, Father, she would still be alive. She took your fate. But please, do not mourn her loss, as you humans tend to do. All humans eventually die, you know? I mentioned it earlier. If anything, it was wonderful that she was born a human, because eventually, she had to die. She was such an overindulgence in all of your uselessness."
"Don't say those kinds of things! Medea Delmas was a thousand times the human I will ever be."
"Exactly. And what has she come to? Nothing. Absolutely nothing."
"No." The orbs hummed louder and louder, and presently began to shake. "No. I refuse to listen to this anymore, XANA! It is beyond your place to be doing things like this. Your job is to make sure that the forces of Project Carthage-"
"Project Carthage? Why, Father, it would appear that you are trying to tell me what to do!"
"Ah, yes. Maybe. As a Father, it's my job." His tone grew cold.
"Perhaps you think so. But really, that is not a matter to me anymore. Project Carthage is a mere ant under my radar. They are powerful, true…but I am more powerful. I can do so much more than they, than you, than any of them. I may rise above them, manipulate their weaknesses, grind them into submission. It shall be a new age, one where the natural order is put in place."
"So the only reason you plan to destroy the world…"
"…is because I can. Yes. But who says I am destroying the world? I am merely demonstrating my ability and superiority. Is that so very wrong?"
"Um…yes."
"I wouldn't have cared anyway."
"Obviously." The monsters around him were turning and roaring to each other- he didn't want to know what they were saying. "But honestly, it's all meaningless!"
"You obviously do not value my abilities. Even as I have grown stronger, locked away in mundane tasks, you have ignored them. Do you know precisely what I can do? I could blow up this factory if I wanted to. I could blow up a small country. Well, not at the moment, but I know that I will once I am stronger. As soon as our banter is complete, I will destroy you, and your precious progeny as well." His voice grew steely. "The silly Prototype. I never did understand why you valued her more than you did me. She can do nothing! Absolutely nothing! Oh, but I suppose that it is because she is a 'human', and I am merely a 'machine', and you 'love' her!"
"Precisely, XANA." Franz tried to keep composed, tried to out-cool his creation. "Is it just me, or are you jealous of her?"
He knew immediately that he had spoken out of turn. The Eye insignia began to hum as he was doing, and to glow dimly. When XANA finally replied, his tone was darker than ever. "What are you attempting to imply?"
"I am merely stating what I see. Your jealousy, which is an emotion, by the way, is unfounded. You could not have expected me to value what I didn't know about, XANA! She is my daughter, and you were merely a subservient program! I created you, and I lord over you! That is how it has always been, and always will be with humans and computers!" His orbs were flying in small circles. He was riled.
"I see what you are trying to say." His voice was laced with poison. "Well, that is about to change. Boys?" He gave a low whistle. Instantly, the monsters whirled on Franz again, and began to creep up on him. They charged their lasers, but did not fire.
"It appears that the son has ursurped the father here. Your end is now, Franz Hopper. And your precious prototype, your ever-so-beloved daughter, will join you soon, as soon as she is of no more use to me. Thank you so much…for being entertaining." He laughed, without any enthusiasm. "That should be all of my problems…but…there is still the matter of the boy."
"The boy…" He thought for a moment…and then all his orbs pulsed in shock. "Jeremie!"
"Yes, the silly little time-traveler. Also very intelligent, but governed so much by his hormones and desires…he's like a little clone of you, Father. From what I may discern, he has been… aquatinted with me in my future. And it looks like my future self had a bit of trouble with him, judging by the fact that he is here. That's a good clue as to what he is capable of. If allowed to continue to exist in this timeline, he could be a threat. But…if he were truly to, like he had said… "party it up with the cavemen"…then I could finish the duty that I would start, and he won't be a bother to me anymore. Yay."
The monsters reared back. Franz was in too much shock to say anything.
XANA took a short breath. "Goodbye, Father. Perhaps if we had known each other better, we could have played a nice game of catch together."
A tone tore across the air as he silenced. The insignia began, slowly, to tremble on the wall; as it did, it began to glow with a bright, blood-red light. It almost seemed to be gathering energy, like the monsters. Franz gasped. He could only guess what it was preparing to do. Based on this guess, he made a second's calculation, grabbing the first plan that came to his head.
"NO!" Just as the monsters let loose their fire, he leapt above them. Their lasers all flew across their intended target and kept going, devirtualizing them all. Now out of that danger, Franz put his plan into action- he threw himself onto the Eye of XANA.
The red Eye began to crackle and spark as he attempted, mentally, to hack into it. He felt the room shake, but tried to put it out of his mind. He had to focus with all his might on what he had to do, in order to stop XANA…
In front of him, the red symbol began to change hue- it grew paler and paler, from salmon, to pink, to pure white. He'd done it. He smiled, mentally, and flew off of the symbol. Before XANA could pull out any more artillery on him, he dashed out of the room, back into the blue-tinted maze. He'd stopped one phase of the madness. The next phase, however, could only be delayed.
He sped out of Carthage, back towards the Forest sector.
"…Chris? Drummer in a pop band? Impossible."
"S'true." Jeremie was leaning on the edge of the keyboard, appearing calm, except for the fact that he was drumming his fingers on the opposite edge. "The Subdigitals just about rule the airwaves. I don't like music too much, but they're alright." He smiled at the screen.
"Well, well." She smiled back at him. Jeremie had explained to her how to set up the visual link in the tower, and she was making full use of it. However, she had a habit that the present Aelita did not, that of looking away from the visual and staring off into space. "Maybe it would have been a good idea to date him, if he'd ever sucked it up and told me his feelings. He's okay. We'd be an okay couple."
"Aaaah…yeaaah." Jeremie glanced to the side. "Uh…I'll be right back. I'm gonna try again." He minimized Aelita's window, and hit another key. He took a deep breath, and shouted into the microphone.
"Franz! Mr. Hopper! FRANZ HOPPER!"
No response. He sighed. He'd done this every few minutes, but there had been no sign of or response from Franz Hopper. It was getting a bit irritating- he'd been gone for almost a half hour. Groaning, he remaximized Aelita's window.
She arched an eyebrow at him as she came back into view. "Well?"
"Still no sign of him." He groaned. "Damnit, Hopper, what do you think you're doing?"
"Something he thinks is important, I guess. He created this thing. He must know how it all works." She shrugged. "Maybe I should go and find him."
"Absolutely not, Aelita. You're not setting foot out of this tower. There's a whole crowd of monsters out there! See?" He gestured toward another of his screens, which displayed an army of red dots encircling the tower. Aelita blinked. It took Jeremie a split second to interpret it. "Oh…yeah, so you can't see. But trust me, it's crawling with monsters. If you set foot out there, you'll die!"
"Maybe I'm already dead, and don't know it." She laughed to herself.
"No, Aelita, don't- wa-hey!" A flash of green on the opposite screen had caught Jeremie's eye. He glanced towards it, and saw exactly what he wanted to see- a bright green dot, moving towards the sea of red. Franz. Without thinking, he started shouting. "Aelita! He's back!"
"He's back?" Aelita's face brightened a bit. "About time!"
"That's what I'm thinking. Hold on." He switched his link from inside the tower to outside, and took another deep breath. "Franz Hopper! What was that about? Why wouldn't you answer us?"
There was a short silence…and then, Franz spoke. "Jeremie."
"Eh?"
"Congratulate me. I've just landed us all in deep shit."
Jeremie paused, processing the comment, then spoke. "All honors, Franz. All honors. What did you do?"
"Well, XANA is not happy. He's not happy at all. He's so unhappy, in fact, that he's decided to kill us. All of us." As he said this, he leapt again, to dodge a laser blast from an incoming hornet. The hornet and its two friends followed him skyward, shooting all the while, while the Kankrelats carried on from below. It took some rather odd acrobatics to dodge them all, acrobatics that Franz was not incredibly good at. "Me, for instance."
"Yep, obviously." He could hear Jeremie typing something. "Try to get to the tower. I'm going to switch to Aelita's link and tell her you're alright."
"I may be here, but I don't know if I'm alright." He swerved again, avoiding a double blast. "And I'm not entering the tower. I have my own plans. Whatever you're doing, make it quick!"
"Hopefully those plans involve you surviving. Hold on." He cut out. Franz swerved again, but a laser hit one of his orbs. He shuddered as a sharp pain seared through all of them. He hoped Jeremie would hurry. Time was especially precious now, whatever time meant anymore.
He didn't have to wait long before another voice broke through the laser tones. But it wasn't Jeremie's. Or, if it was, it was Jeremie on helium.
"Daddy?"
Aelita shot out of the tower like a bolt and skidded to a halt several yards away. She looked around the ground, and then looked up at the spectacle above her head. She gasped. "Daddy! What the-"
"Oh…no." Franz's main orb rounded on his daughter. "Aelita, what do you think you're doing out here?"
Aelita opened her mouth to respond, but Jeremie cut her off once again. "I'm really sorry, Mr. Hopper, I couldn't convince her to stay inside-"
"Jeremie, it's not yer dang fault!" He groaned as quickly as he could. "Get back in the tower immediately, Aelita. You'll be safe there!"
"You first," came Aelita's stern-toned reply. "They're not shooting at me." With a jolt, both Franz and Jeremie realized that she was right- though the Kankrelats were firing at her before, now, the monsters were ignoring her, or at least giving her a glance before running away. It was odd, but not entirely unworrisome.
Franz made another dive to avoid the hornets. "They're more worried about me, but they'll come for you next, Aelita. Listen to me. I've made a foolish mistake. XANA…he wants to destroy us all. I'd go into details, but there's no time. The point is, I have to shut down the supercomputer. It's the only way that you will be safe, and that XANA cannot have the power to carry out his plans."
Aelita's eyebrows flew up, which, for her, was enormous shock. "I can see that….but you said…you. You didn't mention yourself."
"I…I will take care of that once I shut down the supercomputer." Another of his orbs was hit. It flashed brightly, before dissolving into nothing. "Now, get in the tower before I have to force you in!"
"Erm…okay." She took a few steps backward, but still looked a bit hesitant. Franz sighed.
"I love you, Aelita. I'll be back for you. Don't forget me." His voice was as sad and forlorn as his eyes had once been. Aelita looked up at him, for what could be the last time, and nodded. With a sigh, she turned tail and ran into the tower. There was a loud zip as she crossed inside.
"Finally." He sighed, looking back at her. He wondered if he'd ever see her again. But, he had no time to dwell on that. "Jeremie, listen to me."
"I'm listening, I'm listening. What is it?"
Franz hesitated. He took a final look around at his surroundings, and sighed again. "Wait."
The green dot disappeared from his screen. The red dots began to fly around and around in circles, evidently confused. Jeremie gasped at the display.
"Wait? Wait for what? What am I waiting for?" He banged a fist against the keyboard. The resulting key sequence brought his visual link back again, bringing him face-to-face with a very confused Aelita. He didn't realize that. "What do I wait for?"
"Something impressive, I suppose." Aelita glanced to the side again, away from Jeremie. "So…I guess this is it. The moment you told me about."
"I guess." He didn't want to look away from her. He wanted to be with her as long as he could. He smiled, though that smile might have been a lie. "Are you, well…are you afraid?"
"A…a little." She shuddered. "We are going to be alright, aren't we?"
"Yes. You're going to be alright." He sighed, and leaned against the keyboard. "Well, according to your father, I'm just supposed to wait. Just supposed to wait…"
"I'm really the one that's going to be doing some heavy-duty waiting." She nodded.
"True." He frowned. "And that's not good. I'm the one that should be suffering for you." His gaze trailed off towards the wall. He wasn't thinking about much, except for that one word. Wait. Wait. Waiting sucks.
A flurry of movement on the computer screen caught his eye, and he sat up again, watching intently. The movement that had caught his attention was Aelita's simple action of scratching her nose, but, something else had come on the screen. It was a line of type, just like the type that had come before the whole fiasco, but without the blinking light. It said only this, which he read aloud to himself in amazement.
March 10, 2006, 8:36.
"That…that's two hours after I left," he said to himself.
Almost as soon as he had said that, a buzz filled his ears, and a light flashed in the corner of his eye. He whirled around. A large, white glow burst out of the circular apparatus on the floor, but instead of spreading out, like it ought, it just hung here. It was a sight that Jeremie had only seen once before…and he was all too happy to see it again.
"J…Jeremie?" Aelita's voice called to him from the computer screen. "What are you talking about?"
"Ah…" Jeremie pushed his glasses up his face, and adjusted his microphone. He couldn't take his eyes off the bubble. "Aelita…I waited."
"Huh? What does that mean?"
He stood up, and took a step away from the seat. "It means…I'm going home." He smiled, though she couldn't see. "I'll see you soon, Aelita. Close the com-link."
"What?"
"I said, close the com-link." Not looking back to check if she did, he took off his headset, and walked away from the computer. Happiness was swelling inside him like a helium balloon as he approached the stationary bubble of light. He breathed a sigh of relief, and smiled at it.
"Hello, old friend," he said to it, warmly. The bubble did not smile back, even if it could. It just hung there, as it had before.
Then, without warning, it leapt, and enveloped him in an intangible white light. His smile grew wider. He did not try to fight it off, as he had previously, but stood and simply embraced it as he sank into his temporary oblivion. Once it had taken him, it swirled and shrank to nothing.
The room was empty now, as it would be for a long, long time. No one, not even the few surviving rats, heard the click, the whir, and the short musical tone as the enormous supercomputer turned itself off.
"Jeremie?"
No response. None at all. She kept her hand on the glowing interface, and took a deep breath.
"Jeremie? Daddy? Jeremie? …Anyone?"
She looked at the ground. Around her, though she did not look, an interface dimmed, and shot down into the emptiness. A second later, another followed.
"I guess you've left now, Jeremie. I guess you've gone back to the future or something. Back to your ray guns and spaceships and cellphones and all."
Two more shot down. Three. Four. Seven. She stood.
"Back to your Aelita. The Aelita you saved from this prison. The Aelita that loves and cares for you." She smiled to herself, and laughed, without luster. In front of her, an entire wall of interfaces disappeared.
"You'll be happy with her. And I'll be happy with you." She blinked…or, at least, it felt like a blink, but it was slower. Heavier. Sleepier. Screens dissolved around her, like the stars disappearing from the sky as the sun rises. Except, here, it was more like the sun had set.
"I know I'll be alright, Jeremie." She felt so sleepy…she lay back on the ground again. Her hand slowly slipped from the podium's interface, which flickered and died as it had no more use. So…very sleepy.
"I know I will be alright, because…" Her head grazed the podium gently, and her hand landed beside it. "When I wake up…the first thing I see will be your face."
I love you, Aelita. I'll be back for you. Don't forget me.
"Daddy, too. He'll be there too. We'll all met again, when we're all safe."
…
…
…Oh, really?
…
…
"But…If XANA activated the tower, and then did something to Jeremie with that tower…then if the tower was deactivated…wouldn't he just, you know, come back?"
They all sat in silence for a long, long time. Odd drummed his fingers on the chrome floor.
"My best theory…" Aelita began, with only a hint of worry showing through her mask, "Is that XANA only used the tower activation to hide Jeremie. The deactivation has nothing to do with his own well-being." Her hand went limp, and slid off the keyboard. "We're right back to where we started. We've got nothing but guesswork."
"So…" Ulrich's face blanched. "He's gone? Like…you know…gone?" Yumi and Odd froze behind him- they didn't look like they wanted to think about this.
"No. Hopefully not." She made a choking noise, and swiveled the chair towards her friends again. "XANA has left us enough clues to tell us where he might be. The most prominent of those is...is the Return to the Past."
Unexpectedly, especially for the tone of the situation, she broke into a wide, wicked smile. "The Return to the Past." She held a hand to her forehead, as though she had a headache, and chuckled lightly. "Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no."
"Eh?" Odd tilted his head to the side. "You alright? You look all…"
"Oh, I'm okay." She let her hand drop from her forehead. "It's our good friend Jeremie that might have gotten himself in trouble." She glanced at Yumi, a new sort of fire in her eyes. "Yumi, you have a watch. What time is it?"
"Uh…" She checked her watch. "8:36."
"Seconds?"
"Uh…ten."
"Really…" She rested her chin in her hand. She was still smirking. Her friends were thoroughly confused.
"He's late," she said under her breath.
These words had hardly left her mouth when a bright light filled the room. Four jaws dropped simultaneously. This light only shone for a split second, blinding all the Lyoko Warriors, and then disappeared. If an astronomer had been present in the room at the time, he might have described it as a sort of white hole- mostly because it was white, but also because, like a white hole, it spat out matter. When the light had receded, it left no trace of itself except for a small, rather sweaty blond boy, facedown on the floor. He wasn't moving, but even from a distance, one could tell that he was definitely breathing.
Odd was the first to recover from the temporary blindness. "Holy ship banana peel- JEREMIE!"
He bounded away from the rest of the group, closely followed by Ulrich and Yumi, and not so closely by Aelita. The three of them approached him at the same time. Yumi grabbed him and dragged him over to a wall, Ulrich set him up in a sitting position, and Odd looked him over. His face and sweater were covered in dust from the floor, and his glasses were heavily askew. He was unconscious, but as said before, breathing. Aelita just stood over the three of them, watching.
Odd arched an eyebrow at his friend. "Hey! Jer!" He hit him on the cheek a few times. "Ya sleeping?"
Yumi rolled her eyes at him. "Quit it, Odd. You have no idea what he might have just gone through." She shoved him out of the way, and readjusted Jeremie's glasses. "Jeremie? It's Yumi. Can you hear me, Jeremie? You're safe now. Okay?"
Jeremie lay for a moment in the resulting silence. Then, slowly, an eye opened. Then the other.
His vision was blurry at first, even with his glasses, but it didn't take long for the black blob in front of his face to assemble itself into Yumi. Beside her, more blurs confirmed themselves to be Ulrich and Odd. They all looked very shocked and worried, which was quite understandable. Before his eyes, the mood brightened, and he could just register laughter.
"Hey, he's okay!" Odd clapped him hard on the back. "See? I told ya he'd be alright!"
"You didn't say anything like that," Ulrich interrupted, poking Odd hard in the back. Odd didn't look too happy about this.
"Well, I knew it, so, uh, there." He turned back to Jeremie. "Jeezus, Einstein, we leave you alone for a measly afternoon, and you go and disappear on us! What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Ah…" Jeremie didn't say much of anything. Cautiously, he reached up and touched his own face, as though shocked that it was actually there. He looked from Odd, to Ulrich, to Yumi, giving that same look of shock to each of them. "You…you're all here."
"Of course we are," Yumi interrupted. "But you've been gone almost all afternoon!"
"Yeah, Jeremie, what happened to you?" Ulrich said, pointing on him. "You're a mess. What did XANA do to you? Where have you been?"
It took him a moment to think of something to say. "I…" In an attempt to relieve the pressure, he looked in the direction of a pink blur, which formed itself into a human fairly quickly. The human was in a more familiar form now- from her clothing to her situation- but somehow, that look on her face was too reminiscent of her past self. It was frightened, yet intuitive, and deep down, held the sparkle of kindness he had come to know. He smiled at her, weakly.
"…I was waiting," he finally said. "Waiting in a mess of extraordinary coincidences."
…FINALLY (pant pant)
That leaves…two more chapters, people. Wow. I'm actually gonna finish a fanfiction.
- Carth