Lyoko, Desert Sector, Sunday 12:00 Noon: Jeremy held on tightly, his chest pressed against Aelita's back and his arms squeezing her waist. If he paid no attention to his surroundings he could almost imagine the heat her body would radiate, the scent of her hair and the softness of it against his face. But the if was a big one, for the if assumed that they were somewhere other than one hundred feet in the air on Lyoko. And it assumed that he was not plastered to her back out of fear, hanging on for dear life as she tried to coax him into loosing up.
An ill advised look down captured part of the pink and blue overboard she had created, the special project she had been working on all morning and through part of yesterday evening. Even as he shut his eyes he could still imagine the shape of the board, slightly wider and longer than Odd's. He could appreciate the brightly colored pink pattern that adorned the front of her unique board, the way the likeness of her energy field weapon trailed into flames as it met the part of the board meant for riders. Intellectually he knew the extra thrusters he had observed on the ground compensated for the increased digital mass. The longer vertical stabilizers would make for a more stable platform. He couldn't shake the feeling they were teeth, or knives though he knew Aelita had nothing so sinister in mind when she created them.
Aelita huffed in annoyance and guided her board back to the desert surface. She had expected that Jeremy wouldn't like this. But he had learned to handle the sewer jumps on his scooter. By comparison this should have been easy. Unlike on earth, a fall wouldn't amount to anything other than minor and temporary pain. There was no disgusting sewer water to fall into and no one around to laugh at his mistakes. Yet Jeremy seemed to be scared out of his mind, unable to manage even the simplest of maneuvers. As she brought the board to a hover mere inches from the ground she shook herself and pried Jeremy's hands off of her waist. "Jeremy," there was no hiding the disappointment in her voice, "we're back on the ground, you can get off now."
Jeremy opened his eyes, confirmed Aelita's statement, and jumped off the board. But the disappointment in Aelita's voice and the way she faked a smile as she turned to look at him stabbed through him. She had obviously been counting on him being up to a flight in the virtual world and had expected so much more from him. But he wasn't Odd and if that's what she was going to want out of this relationship it was going to be a short one. Words said while snuggled together in his bed came to mind, that she loved him for who he was. That he had been willing to face anything for the sake of his friends. But there was no life of death danger here, nothing was dependent on him making this work so there was nothing to banish away the fear. "Aelita... I... I'm sorry it's just."
"It's alright Jeremy, I just thought I'd try and show you why I loved flying on the overboard so much."
Jeremy smiled at her, the gesture forced and he knew Aelita could tell. "You're really good on the board... Why don't you do some tricks, you know I've never actually seen you fly in person." He watched as Aelita considered. "I can bring up Odd's board," he added in a low, defeated voice.
Aelita frowned and shook her head no. She didn't want Odd's version of the overboard. She wanted Jeremy standing behind her on the one she created, enjoying the simple fact of riding with her. She didn't doubt he could handle it, if he would simply try. But first he had to be pushed past his fear. Unfortunately she was at a loss for how to do that. Without any other alternative she looked him in the eye and just asked: "Jeremy, what are you so afraid of?" With a quick stroke of inspiration she raised her hand and tapped the bracelet, summoning her wings. A quick stroke from them and she was hovering a couple of feet of the ground. Looking down at Jeremy she asked, "do you remember when you gave these to me?" When Jeremy nodded she continued, "what did I say?"
"That I was the wind beneath your wings."
Aelita's smile quickly became very real, "you gave me the ability to fly, both here in Lyoko and in the real world. Now it's my turn. You know I'll always be at your side and together we've beaten the worst XANA could throw at us. I don't mind teaching you how to love and live but you need to be willing to learn. You've proven to be a quick learner in other things, trust me and give this an honest try. If you really don't like it I won't ask again. ok?"
Jeremy looked up at his angel and fought with himself. He wanted to do this for her and maybe even for himself. In all honesty he wanted to be able to go outside and play like other teens did. But over the years the bullying and teasing had gotten the better of him. Then, when he actually had friends who might be willing to overlook his shortcomings without constantly making fun of him, he had found an enemy that only he was truly qualified to fight. Changing his gaze to Aelita's overboard he wished that he could just get on the thing and ride it.
Aelita watched Jeremy struggle and remained fixed in her spot, using every ounce of willpower to stop herself from demanding he hop on again. Jeremy was going to have to decide to do this himself because if he didn't it wasn't likely he'd manage. That was one of the best and worst things about her boyfriend. If he chose to set himself a goal there was nothing that would stop him from reaching it. But if he didn't want to do something it was unlikely anything would make him. She noticed him change position and take a step towards the hovering board. There was determination in his expression and while that was the wrong approach to this, it was something she could work with. Suppressing a happy squeal she dropped lightly to her feet, turned off her wings and patted Jeremy's shoulder as she passed him and stepped onto the board.
Jeremy forced back his nervousness for a second time and tried to bury it much deeper this time. He stepped up on the board, taking Aelita's offered hand to steady himself. This time, rather than just plaster himself against her back he took note of how she was standing and tried to mimic her stance.
Looking over her shoulder, Aelita had to smile as she saw Jeremy imitate her stance. The realization that he probably had no idea what he was doing and wouldn't find it as instinctual as she did hit her suddenly and she turned around, careful to not throw Jeremy off balance. She explained to Jeremy how his body position would be able to affect the boards flight and then proceeded to demonstrate by leaning him over until they both toppled and fell to the ground. The goal was twofold, one objective was to show that even if he fell it would be ok since they were on Lyoko and the second was to help him get a feel for how much he could be off balance before he did fall. Here the wider board was a help, Odd's board would have flipped over at a much shallower angle than hers did. The fact was something she hoped Jeremy would appreciate.
Having gotten the basics of ground school Jeremy gathered his courage and told Aelita he was ready to try again. Staying close to the ground, she started off with a slow series of turns to help Jeremy translate his instruction into the actual feel of the board. Slowly he began to loosen up, his movements becoming more fluid as he gained confidence in his ability to keep up, and in her ability to keep them both within his abilities. She sped up, and began to demonstrate that speed made angles that would have toppled them possible to maintain. Jeremy mentioned that it was centrifugal force that helped them stay stable and then yelped as she jerked the board into a climb.
Jeremy, embarrassed by his outburst, shut up after apologizing and tried to fight the rising fear as they gained altitude. The desert plateau slowly grew smaller and smaller as Aelita continued to climb which didn't help him much. But as bad as it felt to watch the safety of solid ground get farther away, the view of the sector was spectacular. He could see the various platforms suspended in mid air, some with large canyons and others with narrow passage ways running between them. Towers all across the sector had a faint white glow, confirming their status as neutral while they handled the nanosecond by nanosecond job of maintaining the supercomputer's operating system, hardware and data flow. Far below the digital sea loomed, the likely final resting place of Aelita's father and of XANA. Sadness at the thought mixed with a sense of gratitude that he and Aelita were not directly over it.
Aelita glanced around the sector, unknowingly considering some of the very same things Jeremy was. She hadn't really gotten any time to truly look around and appreciate the virtual world that her father had built as a sanctuary. Remembering why she was here though, she glanced back over her shoulder to see Jeremy seemingly ok with being up this high and the lazy, spiral climb that he was ignoring to take in the scenery. Facing forward again she smirked and leveled out then pushed the nose down.
Jeremy couldn't help it, he screamed as felt the pull of gravity try and smash him into Aelita's back just before the acceleration took hold to remove its effect and he plunged towards the ground. He fought the instinct to close his eyes and then felt something try to crush him against the board as Aelita leaned to the right to turn their straight descent into a spiral which he had no choice but to go along with. His stomach felt like it was now in his head and he desperately battled to avoid jumping at Aelita's back and holding on to her. That was likely to sent them both tumbling out of control.
Aelita grit her teeth and slowed their descent after losing about half their altitude. She had hoped for less of an extreme reaction and reminded herself that Jeremy wasn't as used to this as she was. Giving him a moment to calm down she continued their descent in a much more gentle manner. But she couldn't shake the feeling of guilt over doing that to him and hoped it wouldn't discourage him. "Jeremy, I'm sorry for that... I didn't mean to scare you." That much, she added to herself.
"It's ok," Jeremy replied sounding a little breathless. "Just warn me next time." The larger, slower downward spiral was finally allowing his stomach to catch up to the rest of his body. Which didn't make any sense since his body didn't actually have a stomach here. But he knew he'd never make fun of Odd over the transport orb again. The thought did help out his mood though, Odd had eventually gotten used to the ride which gave him hope that he would as well.
Aelita pointed at a plateau several degrees to the left, "that's out next destination, Jeremy." With that she angled the board towards it. She heard him groan as he realized what she had in mind. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll do fine."
Jeremy gulped then forced himself to calm down, replying "if you say so...". In the distance he could see the canyon and began to focus on it, hoping that he wouldn't disappoint her again. While Aelita dropped the rest of their altitude, Jeremy studied the layout and tried to map out how he was going to have to move based on the control lessons from earlier. The possibility of hitting a wall and the possible speed of reaction he would need worried him. Aelita's calm confidence as they approached the canyon opening soothed him.
His anxiety seemed to increase once he was too low to continue studying the layout of the canyon and as the walls finally closed in around him the reality of how little space there was to work with hit. Probably owing to Aelita's moderate speed, the walls moving by seemed to stay well defined and it was distracting. He also found that the long distance view did little to help him with the reality of the close up experience. As a result of all this he was lagging Aelita and reacting too stiffly, sometimes over correcting and other times under correcting. It was forcing Aelita to really struggle to keep control and in his frustration he briefly closed his eyes and wished that he had asked Aelita to slow down some more. When he opened them he was completely disoriented.
Aelita knew she was in trouble, it was easy enough to feel. Unfortunately the source of the problem was Jeremy and in the split second of panic that she might never have felt otherwise she lost any opportunity to avoid a collision with the outcropping of rock. She screamed for Jeremy to jump and forgot that she'd never told him about the boards safety feature. He was anchored to the board and it would require a direct command from him before he could get off.
Jeremy tried to obey and threw himself at the ground but his feet remained firmly attached to the board. The effort jerked the overboard about Jeremy's Z-axis and Aelita, who was unprepared to counter the sudden movement, yelped as she was thrown off despite her attempt to stay on. Her scream tore through the air as she flew towards the ground and watched the overboard make a violent impact against the outcropping.
In his panic stricken mind, the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. The board shuddered as it hit the wall then careened back into the canyon and towards the opposite wall. He strained to stop the tumble as his off center weight forced the nose up. Frantically reaching for anything he somehow hit the thrusters and the board's middle smashed into the upper lip of the canyon wall, the collision jerking his body forward while rotating the board until he was perpendicular to the wall. Feeling himself rotating downwards he braced himself to be dragged along the side before realizing that he was in free fall.
Aelita skidded to a stop, the horror of watching Jeremy's crash having made her nearly oblivious to her own initial impact. She slowly rolled over and stood up, her mind shaking off the notion that she needed to check for injuries just in time to let her hear the sound of Jeremy falling to the ground.
"JEREMY!" She screamed as she ran towards him, ignoring the fact that this was Lyoko and he couldn't have been injured. "Jeremy, are you ok?"
Jeremy picked himself up, groaning as he moved under the imagined pain of his fall. however it was fleeting and he realized that it really just meant the fall was enough to scrape off some lifepoints. "I'm fine Aelita," he called out while watching her rush towards him. "How about you?"
Ignoring the question she began to slow down just enough to avoid tackling him to the ground when she collided with him. Wrapping their arms around each other the couple wasted no time in saying "I'm sorry". They separated and looked each other over, slightly surprised at the apology. Jeremy looked down at the ground, he had disappointed Aelita and proven again that he had no business being anywhere but in front of a computer or book. "I'm sorry," he murmured again.
Aelita frowned as she saw the downcast look in Jeremy's eyes as he turned them towards the ground. She looked up at the canyon walls and cursed herself for trying to take the canyon so fast. If she'd tried a little slower... "Jeremy?" She waited until he looked up at her. "I really am sorry, I took that too fast for the both of us."
"It's my fault Aelita, I'm the one who lost track of where I was... I closed my eyes for one second and..."
Aelita's face flashed with anger for a moment then softened as she realized what Jeremy had said. "Lost track of where you were?" She asked gently.
Jeremy stared shamefully down the canyon, "when we were in the air I tried to memorize the layout so I could navigate."
Closing her eyes, Aelita counted to three then opened them to see a very worried Jeremy. He didn't realize that she was mad at herself more than at him. At worst he'd done what he thought was best to impress her. But the most likely answer was that he thought that was the best way to deal with the situation. She'd taught him how the board responds to movement, it's controls, but not how to handle a confined space. Blowing out a breath she reached out and grabbed Jeremy's shoulder. "I guess I need to learn a thing or two about teaching," she said apologetically.
Jeremy shook his head, "it's not your fault. I knew when."
"STOP!" Aelita shouted, "not everything that goes wrong is your fault." Calming herself she continued, "I taught you to control the board but not how to ride it. Please give me another chance."
Jeremy looked away worriedly then looked back as he felt her eyes boring into him. There was a pleading note to them that he just couldn't say no to. "Ok," he replied a little shakily before pulling up his interface and noticing that he could remake Aelita's new board. He tapped in the command and hoped for the best as another board materialized.
Over the next hour Aelita showed Jeremy how to really control the board. Their earlier maneuvers were, in retrospect, much too sloppy to handle the confined quarters of a canyon. Aelita climbed out of the canyon and spent the next hour getting Jeremy used to actually flying the overboard with her. More than simply showing him the controls, she helped him get used to the feel of each maneuver and taught him the basics of anticipating how much he would need to move by using her creativity to form curving lines that snaked across the desert plateaus to follow. It was a lot more tedious than flying through a canyon but at the same time it did build Jeremy's confidence and ability considerably.
Satisfied by his progress, Aelita flew them both to another desert canyon. This time Jeremy glanced at the canyon but forced himself not to make the same mistake again. Aelita added speed and Jeremy braced himself, splitting his attention between Aelita's posture and the canyon walls. Both would help him make the trip safely. He felt her break slightly as they entered and breathed a sigh of relief, she had been going a little too fast for his liking.
As Aelita entered the second canyon, she chose a speed that she hoped would be ok for Jeremy, but was a little too slow to be exciting for herself and lame by Odd's standards. Still she navigated the passage, noticing that the board seemed a lot more stable and that Jeremy was reacting better. Hoping she could push things father she added some speed and though she knew Jeremy tensed, he seemed to keep up fairly well after a period of adjustment.
Jeremy watched as the walls raced by and picked out what he thought was the best line to follow. Part of his attention was also focused on Aelita, allowing him to be alert to the small changes in her posture that signaled she may have different plans than him. He leaned with her as they came around a bend, allowing the turn to drift slightly to the outside. Feeling the board accelerate, Jeremy found that though he did get a little more nervous it didn't show as much. His reaction times, agility and strength had all been boosted by the virtualization process and now that he was used to both his 'new' body and the process of navigating he was starting to have fun.
All of that was tested as they rounded the next bend and discovered that it was a dead end. A circular clearing existed with a tower in the center and a rapid calculation suggested that it was possible to skim the outside of the cul-de-sac and head out the same way they had entered. Missing whatever cue would have signaled that his girlfriend was ready to leave, he shifted himself to guide the board along the outside wall of the canyon. Aelita meanwhile threw herself back into him to raise the nose and added thrust to make the board climb.
Suddenly discovering that she and Jeremy were dangerously out of sync, Aelita strained to recover from the spin that the combination of riders produced before they could tumble into the canyon wall. A repeat of the earlier crash was something she desperately wanted to avoid. Jeremy belatedly realized his mistake and moved to recover which only exaggerated the correction Aelita was making. Instead of leveling out from a dangerous left rotation, the couple found themselves rolling over to the right. Fighting to keep control before they tumbled into a wall Aelita shouted at Jeremy and he centered himself and stopped trying to help.
Jeremy looked at the pink hair in front of him after they flight had been stabilized and wondered. He was finally getting the hang of this and then he screwed it up. The sound of happy though slightly annoyed laughter, was the last thing he expected to hear as Aelita called over her shoulder, "so what happened back there? Feel like making another crash landing or were you just trying to see how good I am at dealing with unexpected emergencies?"
"Sorry, I was expecting you to go around the outside and back through the canyon."
"Don't be sorry, you did really well back there. So did you enjoy it?"
"Actually, yeah I did. In fact I might be even able to get used to this... Well. at least in here. I don't know about outside Lyoko."
"You might surprise yourself," Aelita quipped with an audible grin. Turning a little more serious she said "listen I don't expect you to become an athlete or an extreme sports addict like Odd. I just wanted to show you that you can handle a little excitement. That you could have a little fun that wasn't entirely mental, you know?"
"I think so, maybe I even need that from time to time, just remember to go easy on me. I can break more easily than you can."
"I doubt that." Aelita replied. She spied a way-tower and a wicked grin spread across her face. One that she was glad Jeremy couldn't see. "Next stop, Mountain sector." He wasn't as fragile as he thought and it was time to show him.
Jeremy didn't get a chance to reply as Aelita dropped them both towards the way-tower she had lined up with. His voice caught in his throat as they sped towards the glowing, white, very solid looking structure. He now understood why Yumi had been dubious of his assertion that she could take the Overwing through a tower. Every instinct screamed at him to jump off the board or at least put his hand in front of his face to try and protect himself from the impact.
Before he could do either thing however they were at the tower and he felt only the slightest resistance as he went through the wall. Grateful that Aelita didn't see him flinch he marveled at her piloting skill as they slipped between the lower platform and the wall to fly down into the data streams within the inter-tower network. His eyes were glued to the walls as code, data, and commands flew by. For reasons he still didn't understand some of the mass of data was actually meaningful. Before he could consider that fact any farther he saw the platform of the exit tower and any code or data fragments he had read melted back to meaningless binary. He flinched again as the tower's wall rippled and he passed through to reveal the mountain sector. Aelita had them in a climb the instant the board was clear of the tower and it seemed like she was searching for something. "What are you looking for?" Jeremy asked.
"The trail I scared you on."
"Oh." He remembered that incident, when she had shown such skill on the original version of the overboard. He had been terrified as she showed off, his overworked mind kept imagining how XANA would make him watch as it killed Yumi, Ulrich and Odd before his eyes. Then, if he was lucky, XANA would kill him and if not he would get to watch helpless as XANA destroyed the world. But another part couldn't help but be proud of the young woman he rescued and how strong she was becoming.
"Found it!" She announced as she planned out her approach and then sang.
Hearing her song for the first time while in Lyoko showed that his headset did not do it justice. Jeremy smiled as she continued and watched, wide eyed, as Lyoko's terrain reformed itself to her will. "You know, I've sung for you why is this the first time I've heard you sing?" The last few notes seemed to linger in his ears, his mind clinging to them as Aelita answered his question.
"You've never asked" Aelita replied casually. "Now get ready because here we go." She angled down and took the trail faster than the desert canyon. But Jeremy was ready, more alert to his surroundings and a lot more acclimated to what was happening. This trail was easier to follow than the canyon but more nerve-wracking because everything was open and even with the recovery program he really did not want to experience falling into the digital sea. But he also couldn't deny having fun as his concentration on the ride forced everything else away.
Aelita let out a peel of happy laughter as she made a long jump, spun around in the air and managed the landing for both of them. Jeremy managed to not grab her and hold on for dear life while she preformed the stunt. Once it was over though he felt a strange sense of elation over the risky move. He was starting to understand what Odd found so appealing in his stupid stunts. Though, the feeling was nowhere near enough to make him consider doing any such thing on a regular basis.
Seeing a tunnel brought a new sense of fear as he had never tried navigating inside a totally enclosed environment like that. As good at this as it seemed he was getting he wasn't quite sure he was up to this challenge. But Aelita continued her pace, and this time there was no questioning Aelita's intent as they rounded the last bend and hurtled towards the tunnel's entrance. The first thing he noticed was that it wasn't as dark as he expected. The second was that it felt safer than being outside. The rock walls were much too close for comfort however, and so he kept his movements small and allowed Aelita to do most of the work navigating the cavern.
Aelita followed the twisting path and remembered what lay just ahead. She got an idea based on Jeremy's earlier mistake in the desert and slowed down as she briefly considered. It was why she was here after all and despite Jeremy's discomfort with the tunnel he was still doing very well. "Hey Jeremy, I'm going to make a violent turn so get ready and get as close to me as possible. Match my movements just like you've been practicing. Or tell me not to now."
Jeremy noticed her slowing down and decided to try it. The worst that could happen was an embarrassing fall, they were inside after all. Hesitantly he replied "ok."
"Ok, here goes." They entered the spherical room and she steered the board to fly them sideways along the wall for one entire revolution. Seeing as Jeremy had held on for that she abruptly cut across her circle when they reached the tunnel they had come in through and headed across the center of the room towards the exit. She angled off to the left side then quickly pulled the nose up just in time to avoid colliding with the wall. Next she swept the nose down like a pendulum, tracing a U shaped arc. Now facing down and on the right side of the exit tunnel she pulled the nose up and angled the board to make it through the tunnel they had entered from. It was the hardest maneuver she had yet tried with Jeremy and he handled it... well enough anyway.
Jeremy was surprised that she had tried that and even more surprised that he handled it without tripping her up. He was very grateful that he didn't have a physical body because as they leveled out in the tunnel after his heart would have been beating out of his chest.
Wishing she could continue this lesson, a quick check of Lyoko's clock said it was time to get ready for the arrival of their friends. Reluctantly, Aelita headed towards a tower so that she and Jeremy could get the necessary programs set up. "It's time to get ready for our friends."
"Yeah, ok" Jeremy answered with a mixture of relief and regret. "Did you really have to do that last maneuver?"
"You could have said no when I asked if you were ready for it."
"Well, let's just say it was more than I was expecting and I'm glad I don't really have a stomach here."
Aelita laughed, "you and me both. But seriously Jeremy, you really did a good job on that trail and I'm impressed." She brought the board down near a tower.
Jeremy stepped off the overboard and waited until Aelita was off to respond. "You must be awfully easy to impress then."
Aelita playfully punched Jeremy's shoulder then ran into the tower to avoid retaliation. Jeremy ran after her, phasing through the wall and following her up to the second level. Before Jeremy could do anything an alert caught his attention and he watched the elevator open to reveal the gang arriving a little early. The camera feed wasn't the greatest way to judge but it looked like Yumi and Ulrich were glaring daggers at Odd before they turned their attention to the computer console.
A/N: Next up will be how Yumi, Ulrich and Odd spent their day.