Aelita gives me a fierce frown. "It's time, Jeremie. Time to re-introduce you to the thing called 'Lyoko.' Come with me, and please for our sake, keep quiet! Xana, you too."
Xana mentally sighs in my head. "Lyoko," he sighs quietly, as I exit Aelita's room and follow her downstairs to another room. She knocks and someone answers, rubbing their eyes. "Aelita?" Oh, it's Odd.
Aelita stares in shock. "Odd...mirror. Now." She pushes him into his room and flicks on the lights. "Argh!" Xana moans, as I rub my eyes, unable to see for a moment.
"AGH!!!" Odd screams. He'd seen his reflection: his hair wasn't quite as tall and was a tarnished gold, and the purple was beginning to disappear from his hair, not to mention that Odd was...kinda shorter.
"No time to start applying makeup," Aelita hisses. "We're gonna show Jeremie the factory now, ok?" The disgr...disgr...the horrified teen nods as I blink once more.
Suddenly I see Ulrich walking beside Odd, his footsteps falling into pace with Odd's own. Grinning treacherously, Ulrich walks into Odd, who chokes and drops to his knees, gasping for air.
"What-?!" Aelita gasps, kneeling down. Odd snorts. "I...I'm ok..." he mutters disbelievingly, before standing. "What about Yumi?" Xana asks.
"Yumi's asleep, let's leave her like that. Come on, follow me." Odd reaches into his pocket and takes out a small light beaconer, turning it on and letting a weak light guide us to the door.
We leave the building and head into what is called a forest, which doesn't look like the one I saw in Xana's dream, but I digress.
"Come," Aelita urges, as we enter a clearing. Odd bends down and picks up an iron covering, revealing a hole in the ground. Aelita climbs down. "Jeremie, you go down too," she calls up. I shut my eyes and leap down, landing with a crash onto a hard surface. "Ow."
This black-red stuff seeps out of a cut in my palm. I wince and rub it away, but more comes. "Aelita, help," I whimper. "Make this red stuff stop leaking from me."
She looks at my cut and makes a 'tsk' noise. "It's just a little blood is all." I think back to when the animal trap thing caught my leg. My blood wasn't dark back then like it is now. Unbuttoning the front of my night clothing, I gasp.
"What?!" cry Aelita, Odd, Ulrich, and Xana-all at the same time. The black spot that Split Xana repaired is still there, but it's moved...to the center of my chest. "It moved to your heart!" Ulrich's voice gasps. Aelita glares at me, actually piercing Xana with her gaze.
"I swear to you, I didn't do that! Remember I was tainted when that happened?!" Xana makes me walk to the water's edge and stick my hand in. As I draw my hand out of the water, it makes a strange hissing noise. Odd runs to my side, and the cut seals up with nothing more than a hint of black.
"Hmm..." Ulrich muses, putting a hand to Odd's chin and thinking hard, eyes narrowed in thought. "I've got it!" "Got what?" I ask, as Aelita nods. "Continue..."
"When Zombie me took part of Jeremie's soul, Xana must've permanently sealed up the hole, both in his soul AND in his body. In other words, Xana BECAME part of Jeremie. That means they share the same life, unless my zombie half removed the other part of his soul. That explains the black-red blood and the black spot on Jer's chest." (1)
Aelita nods. "It seems very logical, considering that these aren't normal circumstances." I don't get a lot of this, only that the black spots are Xana's effects and that he sealed my soul.
Walking along, to a ladder, then sliding down to an elevator. I place a hand on the steel wall, remembering the 'dream.' From out of nowhere, a strange phrase comes to mind:
"Beware the one that offers too much, and the element hidden within. The emotions run too strong, and one shall betray their only friends. That one shall die and yet be mourned, but come back in a more humble state than before."(2)
"Jeremie, what was that?" Odd demands, gazing at me with a look that describes confusion. "That was a weird voice." I hadn't known I was saying it out loud, but I guess I had. "I...it just suddenly came to my mind..."
I step inside the elevator with Odd on my right and Aelita on my left, and, unseen by anyone else, Atilea above me. "You think you get all the fun?" I give her a small, teasing smile, before the doors open.
Ba-bump.
"Huh?" Aelita mutters, before shaking her head. "Nevermind."
I gaze around the room, my eyes widening. "Wow! I saw this place before! In...some sort of...dream...I had!" Mentally I see Xana cringe. "Uh...sorry." I whisper. "Uh...it's ok, you didn't know..." he whispers back.
Ba-bump, ba-bump.
Aelita flinches, then presses a hand to her head. "I...must be tired. Anyway, Odd, Ulrich, Xana, let's tell the story of our past heroics, from all our views, ok?"
The stories take a long time to tell. Sometimes I get flashbacks as someone tells a story, then I hold my head and make a terrible face in my hands that nobody save Xana notices, but he's nice enough not to mention it. I guess he IS telling the truth about Zahnne...
"So...you're telling me that Lyoko is a virtual world...that's parallel to ours (whatever THAT means) and now we need to stop Zahnne from killing us?"
Everyone, including Ulrich's silhouette and Atilea's angelic form, nods.
"So that's what it is."
The screen across from us flickers once, then flares white, with a black symbol in the background. I glance at my hand and recognize it as Xana's Sign. However, this one was almost leering at us, and I could hear the cruel laughter.
In the center, instead of a regular dot, there's an upside-down star.
Zahnne was paying us a visit.
And I remember that nobody likes unexpected visitors.
"GO AWAY!!!" Xana booms, forcing my right hand to point at the big computer screen thing. Everyone, alive or not, turns to see the screen flicker once, and then the lights go out. Muffled thumps and a struggle is heard before our voices can break the silence.
"Is everyone here?!" Odd demands first.
"I'm here," Aelita whispers. I can now see her clearly in the darkness, but I seem...far away. Like I'm looking through someone else's eyes. Oh, Xana shifted to control, I suddenly remember what that's like and PANIC!
"I'm here," Xana forces me. "Oh, good, Xana's here, so Jeremie must be, too." "Yeah, I am," I mumble, before forced back into stationary control. (I don't know if that's the right word...)
The lights flicker back on.
Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump...3A hollow pulsation only told of in the Lyoko world, when a 'tower' is activated and Zahnne is awake...
"Guys," Xana clears my throat. "Zahnne is awake and working."
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1: Remember, this is sci-fi, and Ulrich's been bored, so why not study while you're at it, huh, Ulrich?
Ulrich: Fuck you.
I also vary Jeremie's situation with Odd's. I often tarnish the person I love the most xDD
2: "Beware the one that offers too much, and the element hidden within. The emotions run too strong, and one shall betray their only friends. That one shall die and yet be mourned, but come back in a more humble state than before."
This was inspired by the book 'Ghost Boy' where the main character is a boy with albinism. At one point, the 'Ghost Boy' whose name is Harold, is told, "Beware the ones with unnatural charm, and the beast that feeds with its tail. A tall man's meek and a dark one's pale. And there comes a monstrous harm." It's also a hint to the SEQUEL!
3: This is the sound a tower makes when it's activated; a loud 'ba-bump,' much like a heart.
Wow, this was a hard chapter for me! XD Man.
Preview:
I turn to the 'Warrior,' a fierce scowl on my face. "Aren't we warriors? Shouldn't we be risking life and limb to save...uh...Earth?!" "Uh..." Odd doesn't finish. I dart in front of him to see Zahnne's symbol on Odd's chest...remembering what it means...as I put two and two together, Xana and I shout: "ZAHNNE!"
A dreadfully calm voice that entwines with both Odd's and another unearthly voice speaks. "How very perceptive of you. However, you're rather slow on the draw, aren't you, Jeremie?"