Chapter two: his secret

Dedicated to: Katja and Alex, thanks for helping me with the incoming oc's of this story!

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France, 30 august 2008

Jeremie Belpois was a strict teacher at the Kadic academy boarding school. He wasn't that popular amongst his pupils since he often gave complicated tests and even worse homework. Nobody knew much about this guy; the only acknowledged thing was that he had been on this school when he was young. He recently hit 26 years of age and was a successful and nearly famous programmer. He was a genius at that subject and had invented many useful things. That was it. Nobody knew about his friends, who his family was and they hadn't a clue that he had a daughter either.

Sarah Belpois, now twelve years old and thirteen in just a few hours, was playing in the garden behind the modern house. Only Jer's best friends knew about the existence of his adopted child. Extraordinary about her was her hair, which reached till her shoulders and was so bright blonde it looked like sunshine itself. Her sparkling eyes were dark blue and fitted perfectly with her cute face. She usually wore small golden earrings, with a little red diamante in them. Her favourite colour was obviously blue, since she woe a light blue skirt reaching to her knees, a sleeveless blue top and a dark blue jacket with some symbols on the back. She was rather small and skinny for her age like her "dad".

The girl was happily tossing a ball around when she suddenly saw some kind of huge blinding flash incoming, soon engulfing all of the surroundings. "Not again," she mumbled. The next moment she stood back in her room, incredibly irritated where every other person should be astonished. She rushed downstairs to her dad's study room where he was working most of the time. Indeed he was there and when she entered he quickly clicked away some screens, muttering. "Daddy!" she nearly yelled, "it happened again!"

"I know, darling," he replied softly.

The little girl couldn't stand mysteries like those, for sure not when it occurred for twelve years already with nobody telling her anything. "But WHY? Why are we two the only ones who notice it?"

"I'll explain you later," answered her dad.

"Yeah, right. You just keep saying that, but you never do it!" snapped the angry girl.

The blonde genius, also known as "Einstein" by his friends, remained quiet for a moment, staring to his now empty screen. "I'll tell you some things then, since tomorrow will be your birthday. See it as an extra present, but I won't reveal everything just yet."

This made the future teenager smile again. She grabbed the green chair in the corner of the room and sat in front of her father, turning all attention to him. She had so many questions and was dieing to know all those secrets. "Who am I?" was her first enquiry.

Jeremie sighed at that one, already hard to answer. "You probably know I lied already?" His child nodded in agreement. "Well, you are my real daughter, not adopted."

"I know, I figured that quite some time ago. But why did you lie to everyone? Why did you keep me a secret for six years? And who is my mother?" Sarah asked this all calmly now, instead of flipping out as Jeremie expected.

"Aelita Stones was. You look much like her.. Unfortunately she disappeared." The advanced programmer stopped his sentence to wipe away a single tear before he continued. "We never saw her again. I kept you a secret until you were six, because I'd rather not have my friends know you were my daughter. So I made up a story of adopting you and that's also why I choose the age of sic, since it'd be illogical to get a kid as a lone father right after it's born."

"Why didn't you want the others to know? What's wrong about me? And what about the police? Haven't they found mother yet, or.. uncle Ulrich and everyone? They all disappeared too, huh? I'm also wondering why you won't let me go to normal school, and what's up with that white flash."

Jeremie leant back in his chair, sighing deeply. Seems like his daughter had prepared for this moment a long time ago, taking the most difficult questions to shoot at him. "Nothing is wrong with you, sweetheart. I had my reason why I didn't tell anyone. You'll understand later. I don't know where everyone is, but you don't have to worry, it's all fine. About your school: I preferred to give you lessons in private, because you were too smart for the prep school and all." Jeremie paused once again, thinking of the real facts and blaming himself for them, plus being mad on himself for lying at his daughter. She was the last person he loved who wasn't dead or missing yet, that's why he wanted her to be safe at home. He'd have it hard when she moved to Kadic the day after tomorrow.

"Don't you worry about the white flash either, it's nothing." The blonde man was desperately worried himself. The evil roaming in the virtual world got more and more dangerous every single minute and now he was alone. He wouldn't be able to last for a long time like this, struggling on his own. He couldn't ask anyone for help. Nobody would believe him. But his daughter wouldn't know. She had to be safe and lead a normal life.

"Don't you worry," he repeated, "everything will be all right. You'd better prepare for school."

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Author's note: Don't forget to check the forum on cl.yourbb.nl/index.php ! Advertise your stories there, enjoy the games, discuss things and way more! Note: it's possible the forum starts up in Dutch thanks to an annoying little bug, but I can fix it for you when you pm me.

Note 2: Beta-read by: WeaponFanfic.