Code Lyoko Secret Files Chapter 3: File 3: My Turn, a code lyoko fanfic

Here it is, guys. My last secret file. Hope you enjoy, and please R&R.

This is a fan-based work of fiction. I make no profit from this beyond my joy at expressing my imagination.

Code Lyoko Secret Files #3 – My Turn

Diary of Jeremy Belpois, Kadic High 8th Grade student – January 21, 2007

Needless to say, this was quite the predicament. It was bad enough XANA had once destroyed Lyoko and enslaved our classmate William to boot, but now it was near the end of the school year, and we hadn't even come close to breaking XANA's hold over him. Worse still, our parents and schoolteachers were catching on to our suspicious activity even faster, and if they found out, then we would be toast long before XANA achieved whatever goal he had in mind.

Of course, I'm the only one who knows otherwise about that last situation, but I can't tell that to the others or allow my parents or teachers to let the gang in on it. Besides, we're not half bad at this whole saving-the-world thing, if I do say so myself. But then again, that's coming from the guy who just gets them there and doesn't do anything else besides just figuratively hover over them and give them advice. I only went to Lyoko once, and it was unavoidable. Then again, I'm the only one who can get them there, so I'm not totally useless, but I'd still give anything to be who I once was and help them out in other ways somehow…

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Odd moaned in relief as the bell rang at the end of Ms. Hertz' math class. As we all got our things and started to leave, she called out to the others and me.

"I noticed your grades have been steadily dropping as of late," she noted sharply, "I do hope you're actually studying and not doing anything foolish, right?"

"Actually, it's quite the opposite of foolish, ma'am," I persuaded, "we're actually studying so much, that we just don't get enough sleep because we're concerned with what will await us once we get out of school."

"Well, if I were you, I wouldn't worry about those things until they come," she sighed, "because worry leads to stress, and that only leads to sloppy performance in anything you do, no matter what. Good day to you all."

"Good day, Ms. Hertz," I said back, and we all turned to leave. While we were walking down the hall, Yumi looked at me.

"You may make good excuses now," she said, "but they'll figure it out sooner or later. Tell me what we'll do then, huh?"

"We'll do what Ms. Hertz said," I replied, "we'll tug that vine when it comes, but until then, we focus on first rescuing William, then taking down XANA for good."

"Easy for you to say," Yumi said irritably, "you don't even help fight on Lyoko because you're just too scared. You don't do anything except for sit in a chair, press a few keys, and then hope someone gives you a medal for saving the world."

"Hey! That's not fair, Yumi!" Aelita yelled. "Don't take out your family issues on Jeremy! It's not like he's done anything to deserve that!"

"Like you know anything about family issues," Yumi growled at her, "you don't even have a family except for a father who's stuck in a prison of his own making!"

"Yumi, what the hell's gotten into you?" Ulrich shouted, grabbing Yumi by the arm. "This isn't like you at all!"

Yumi looked at Ulrich for a long time, and then sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, guys. It's just that…my parents now think that you and this school is a bad influence on my education and are trying to pull me out and enroll me in another school across town."

"What?" Ulrich gasped. "You too?"

"Me too?" Yumi asked.

"My dad said the exact same thing when he called me yesterday," Ulrich said, "and here I thought we still had plenty of time to get this all back to normal, but now it looks like that's just a pipe dream."

"Not necessarily," I said, grinning slyly.

"What's with the creepy look, Einstein?" Odd asked me.

"Last night," I said, "I developed the basis of a program that could break XANA's control over William and destroy all of those Replikas."

"Cool!" Odd said. "Why didn't you tell us this earlier?"

"Because it wasn't finished," I answered, "and I didn't want you getting any false hopes if it wouldn't work."

"When can we use it?" Yumi asked eagerly.

"Right at lunch tomorrow, if we're lucky," I replied, grinning.

Odd, however, looked like he would be sick. "We have to go without lunch? No way! That just ain't right!"

I chuckled. "We'll have lunch, silly. Do you really think I'd starve us all, even if it were for something like this?"

"Well…" Odd started, but then Ulrich grabbed his arm and dragged him along with the rest of us to the cafeteria for today's lunch.

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Rosa, the cafeteria lady, watched as the clock ticked noon, signifying the start of the lunch hour, and pulled her white latex gloves past her elbows to prepare for the onslaught of kids seeking lunch. To her surprise, the first ones in were the five of us. She then got ready for serving, when I noticed two black sparks running from the wires of the cooking machines, one to the pots, the other went up to the ceiling lights and then disappeared. I blinked for a second, and then proceeded to receive my lunch tray.

"Did you guys notice something strange about the ovens and stuff?" I asked.

"Not really," Odd replied, his mouth already full. Other students had entered by now.

"Sorry," I smirked, "I guess I'm just a little jumpy."

However, a few minutes after I had said this, the lights began to flicker, and the sky outside grew darker, but the light over us began to get brighter. Suddenly, as the other lights went out, the one over us broke its bulb, and a thin bolt of lightning shot out of the socket, catching us completely off guard, and struck Yumi's chair and coursed through her body for about five seconds before she dropped to the floor.

"Yumi!" Ulrich yelled.

Then, just as we became aware of what happened, Odd shot up and clutched his head, his throat, and then his stomach, and two seconds later, he passed out right next to Yumi.

"Not Odd, too!" Aelita gasped.

I then touched his forehead with the tips of my index and middle fingers to check his pulse, and I took it back almost as quickly as I put them there.

"He's burning up!" I shouted. "And his pulse is quickening like crazy!"

Just then, my phone rumbled, and I looked at it to notice two devices: the Eye of Lyoko, and a black snake mark that made me jolt I astonishment. I knew three things at once. The first was that XANA was behind this whole event; and that we were almost helpless to stop him, the second was that XANA knew more about me than I thought or would have liked, and the third was that I knew what I had to do for my friends. There was a choice for me to make, and I was willing to accept it, no matter what it meant.

"Bad news, guys," I said, looking up, "XANA's back, and he's the one you can blame for what you've just witnessed."

"Why?" Ulrich asked angrily. "Why would he do this to Yumi and Odd?"

"He's determined to stop us from stopping him," Aelita said, "no matter what."

I looked at Ulrich. "You can take care of them, Ulrich. Aelita and I will head to Lyoko alone."

"But what about Aelita?" Ulrich asked, "She can't head for the tower by herself!"

I paused for a while, and then my eyes narrowed. "She's not going to go alone. I'm going to Lyoko with her."

"What?" Ulrich gasped. "But you can't fight as well as we can! And besides, you said you were never going to go back!"

"Well, I knew that problem would be fixed in no time," I said, "and thus, here we are. Besides, he called me out."

"XANA did?" Ulrich asked, but before I answered, I shouted out,

"Hey, somebody! I need some help here, now!"

Within seconds, Mr. Delmas and the whole school faculty was on the scene, and got Odd and Yumi to the school infirmary quickly and safely. Turns out, Odd got a rare food poisoning in his system which quickly infiltrates the body and causes stomach cramps and a humungous headache, and Yumi was obviously in shock after being struck by that bolt of lightning.

"I need you two," Mr. Delmas said, "to take this notice to the hospital down the street and ask for the prescription you see here."

Aelita and I nodded, and took this as our opportunity to escape to the factory for a much more effective treatment. We dashed to the forest near the school after we left the grounds, and fortunately no one was there to stop us. We unlocked our scooters and raced to the factory without a moment to lose. Once we got to the end of the tunnel, we climbed up the ladder, removed the manhole cover, jumped down the rope, and rode the elevator down to the computer room. Once we were in, I sat down in the chair, but didn't put on the headset as I looked at the Tower Scan.

"It's in Sector Five," I said, "now let's go."

With that, I started up the three-minute-auto-virtualization program and Aelita and I took the elevator down to the scanner room. I took a breath, and Aelita looked at me.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked. "Sector Five is harder than all the other sectors, and not because of the monsters."

"When someone calls you out," I said, "you have to answer them. That's the way of a warrior."

Besides, I added to myself, I have to know how he knew that thing about me, and that's not going to happen unless I experience this first hand.

With that, we stepped into the scanners together and the doors shut behind us before we were enveloped in light.

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Aelita was the first to appear in the digital maze of Sector Five, and I followed after. Luckily for me, and my self-esteem, I managed to rewrite my digital avatar in the same way I had rewritten the others' avatars. For those of you who don't know, my original avatar is embarrassing for me to comment about. My look was styled after the Black Mage from the original Final Fantasy, and I begrudgingly say that Ulrich was right in his saying I looked ridiculous. I mean, imagine it, me in a huge dark blue cloak, with a huge, floppy hat that almost covered my face, and no sort of weapon whatsoever but a stick. Well, it was really a rod, but you get the point. Those Megatanks ripped through me like tissue paper, mostly because I wasn't used to fighting on Lyoko, and also because I always tripped on my cloak whenever I tried to attack.

Now it was another story. I was now dressed in a navy blue skin-tight jumpsuit, with the Eye of Lyoko in a clip that held the ends of a long frayed black cape. I had silver colored body armor, and clips and holsters for several types of weapons on almost every square inch of my body. Think of it like a combination of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII and Solid Snake from Metal Gear. I also noticed a gauntlet on my left arm that, when I opened it up, had a small keyboard with a screen that showed what the screen on the supercomputer in the factory lab showed. This was because it was synced with the supercomputer, which meant that I could work the machine from inside Lyoko itself.

"I disagree with Ulrich," Aelita said, observing my new form, "you don't look all that ridiculous."

"Not now," I admitted, "but I don't want to talk about what my first avatar looked like, thank you very much. Let's focus on finding that tower before XANA finds us."

Having said that, we charged forward out of the virtual elevator into the mayhem of the ever-altering realm of Carthage. We went on for a long time, and eerily did not encounter any of XANA's monsters. This could either mean that he was unaware of our intrusion in his former dwelling place, or that he was setting a trap. Unfortunately, if he wasn't aware of us here, then he couldn't be considered a real Artificial Intelligence.

Sure enough, we rounded another corner and were nearly scathed by twin beams of energy from two Creepers in an army of monsters that stood between us, and the Tower. Also leading the charge, no surprise, was William, sword drawn, and ready for action. I thought then, how I could win this fight without any experience fighting William. I then thought about Ulrich, and for no reason, I reached for my back, and felt two rods coming out of a pack on my back, and when I pulled them out, I ended up drawing out two long katana blades, similar to Ulrich's.

"Okay," I said, grinning, "That's pretty cool."

I then charged forward and slashed at two of the Creepers. Luckily, they weren't very fast to begin with, and they went down like nothing.

"Yes!" I shouted, excited. "That was awesome! I finally got one!"

"Great going, Jeremy," Aelita added, "but don't get cocky! There's more where they came from!"

"Right," I replied, dodging another blast.

It then occurred to me: if I had Ulrich's swords, do I have the other's powers here as well? I then sheathed the swords, and reaching into one of the holsters, pulled out two kunai, or ninja knives, that frilled out into weapons that looked a little like Yumi's fans. Grinning while twirling them on my index fingers, I hurled them at two Hornets, and it went through them like wet newspaper. The knife-razors flew back to me, and I locked them back in, eager to try another weapon. I imagined cocking my arm, like Odd would, and actually fired three laser arrows at a line of Bloks, and I couldn't have felt better. I then brought my hands together, and witnessed as Aelita fired an energy field at a Crab, and I saw myself doing the same, except the plasma sphere was blue instead of pink. I then fired it at the Crab, which exploded on contact. There was also a bracelet in the shape of the Eye of Lyoko on my right wrist, which looked like Aelita's and meant that I could fly too. Waving my hand over it, blue translucent wings sprouted from my back, which I used to fly high enough to blast a Megatank without getting in its firing range.

Just then, I noticed a very familiar rectangular holster on my right leg, and reached into it, just as William dashed towards Aelita, but was hit by a blast of energy that shot his right arm. Aelita turned and saw that the shot came from me, now back on the ground. More specifically, it came from a huge blaster that I held in my right hand. I guessed this was one of my personal weapons, which made me feel like I wasn't a total rip-off of the others.

"That was your only warning shot, William," I shouted. "Now back away from my girlfriend."

Aelita had never heard me call her that before, because I never did, but she didn't react to that. Instead, she pointed at me, saying,

"Look out! Behind you!"

I then wheeled around, and shot a Manta just before it shot me, but when I turned back, William kicked me in the stomach with tremendous force and sent me reeling into the wall. As I got up, I recalled my blaster and grabbed a different, longer rod from by backpack, and drew a sword as big as William's, but without the creepy vines. Also, it was longer and more mechanical looking, and it still had the Eye of Lyoko on the part of the blade near the hilt.

"Kinda like Cloud's sword," I said to myself. Gripping it tightly, I charged at William and slashed, but he quickly jumped out of the way, and counter-slashed at me. It was so strong it smacked me onto the ceiling, and sent me hurtling back down to the floor with a loud crash.

"Jeremy!" Aelita yelled in horror.

William stood over my body, grinning, and spoke in a voice like I never heard before,

"You should know when to stay out of things that you just can't possibly win." Without a doubt, I knew that was XANA speaking through William. "It was foolish of you to accept my challenge, boy."

"Foolish of you to think I would fall so quickly, XANA."

William growled in confusion, and then backed off as an eerie black aura surrounded my fallen body, much to his and Aelita's shock. Within seconds, I had changed greatly. My hair had stuck straight up and was crackling with lightning. My outfit and my sword turned black as I struggled to grasp it while getting back on my feet. Suddenly, I vanished, and as William was trying to figure out what had happened, he then clenched his chest and dropped his sword as I reappeared behind him, crouched on the floor with my sword behind my back.

"Too slow," I said in a voice that was lower pitched and sounded like other voices mingled together. After I had said that, William dropped on his knees and looked at me.

"How could you be this strong?" he asked, with a rasping voice. "Who…what are you?" William looked down and vanished in a plume of black smoke. As soon as I looked at Aelita, the changes that came over me vanished, and Aelita rushed over to me.

"You all right?" she asked.

"Just fine," I said, in my normal voice, but heavy with exhaustion. "We got rid of the monsters and William, so deactivate the tower, and I'll initiate a Return to the Past."

She nodded and headed into the tower. A minute later, the red aura surrounding the tower changed to white. A few seconds later, she exited the tower and looked at me.

"So, how do you get back to the supercomputer?" she asked.

"I don't have to," I said proudly, motioning to my gauntlet. I tapped a few keys and said out loud,

"Return to the Past now!"

With that, everything went white once again.

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I sat down in my seat at our table once again, or for the first time today, however you choose to say it, and looked at the others.

"So?" Odd asked Aelita, "how did he do? Did he get his butt kicked again?"

"Nope," she said happily. "He beat all the monsters and William all by himself."

"What?" they all jumped in shock.

"How did you do that?" Yumi gasped.

"That," I grinned, "is my little secret."

My expression darkened as I spoke that word. Secret. How long until they learn of how I did defeat William? I thought. Not to mention my greatest secret yet? And how did XANA know himself? Well, I guess only time will tell. Until then, we have to focus on freeing William and unplugging XANA for good. And with my new program, that will be sooner that he would hope.

- End Secret Diary Log