AN: Edited, with 10% less commas (for fun, I might start counting the number of commas I use). There aren't any semicolons here either- I lied about them.

The importance of boring you people in some chapters was so that I can hit you with other stuff either and catch you off guard. I consider it an ingenious plan. I love unpredictability.

Code: Apocalypse- Chapter 6

"Are you insane?" Odd practically yelled at the young nervous genius over the phone. "You're going to kill us all!"

Jeremie bit his bottom lip as a reaction and let Odd yell at him for his apparent stupidity. His shut his eyes and mentally berated himself for telling the others about the little conversation he and 'Aelita' had in the attic. Ulrich and Yumi were slightly slouching against the cream-colored wall beside the doorway, hands in their pockets of their pants and their faces set into a calm and thoughtful expression. Since Jeremie had reluctantly broken the news to them, they had not said anything yet, choosing to let Odd express his feelings first as a sign of courtesy. They didn't think much of the situation, but possibly contemplating whether the copy was telling the truth or not, and whether if she was really their ally. The clone in question had volunteered to step outside for a while as they talked, though they were pretty sure that the clone could probably not resist the temptation of listening the window or door like a small child, hearing things and secrets she was not meant to hear at the time by the keyhole of her parents' bedroom while they talked without knowing her presence.

"Shoot me, Odd! Shoot me! Shoot me just for trying to ally with a supposed enemy on a common ground against an insane Artificial Intelligence we wasted years of our lives on in the past! Shoot me with the pistol you use in the shooting range, longing for the same kind of excitement in your life that you had when we were united against fighting XANA! Come over here and shoot me right here, right now!"

There was silence on the other end of the receiver. It was obvious that Odd was either shocked by the outburst of the normally quiet and reserved Jeremie, or that he had chosen not to answer Jeremie at the moment. Either way, the line was silent for a long time on both sides of the telephone. The phone clicked once, and the line went dead. The white-colored phone was slammed against the receiver, the sound echoing shortly before fading away. No words were exchanged between the three in the tense space of the silent room.

[Page Break]

Visions endlessly played inside of its mind- people and places of who it had never seen before flashing momentarily before giving way to another memory. Memories that was not its own flashed through its mind shortly. In some memories, he saw four others who were bound by a connection with each other came to be familiar to its mind as they laughed with each other for reasons that it didn't know. It watched through someone's point of view as they grew up before his eyes- their faces, bodies, and voices changing, but their connection with each other failed to waver. Gradually, by increments, those memories began to fade as his consciousness called to him, lifting him out of the dream-like reverie.

Everything it saw when it first opened its dark brown eyes was tinted either a dark shade of red or black and wavered as its watery prison continued pumping oxygen into its lungs via a machine hidden to its sight. There was a burning pain in its lungs as the machinery forced its lungs to expand and contract over and over again. It fully awoke with much confusion to find itself in a large glass tube large enough to house its body, with two shadowed figures in front of it muttering words that it could not hear or plainly understand at the moment. Its body was somehow suspended by an invisible force in the water- its body completely submerged in the dark liquid. Thoughts- simple and childish in their nature- floated momentarily to its mind before a sudden and excruciating pain occurred. It gritted its teeth and shut its eyes in pain, swatting around itself in a struggle to free itself from the burning sensation in its throat. A cry of pain was wrenched from its throat and out its lips as the pain continued to course through its body. Anger suddenly boiled inside it- hatred of every living thing flowed through its veins continuously. It opened its mouth and let out a loud and terrible roar- muffled by the water in the glass tank- and its anger blinded its vision as a large wave of red energy emanated from its body in a circle. The glass glowed light pink as it absorbed the shockwave until it reached its breaking point.

The glass surrounding it shattered- large pieces of glass flew outwards as the wave of energy hit it, littering the floor as the water that had surrounded it spewed out in a great torrent. It stood in the center of its ruined casing, taking its first ragged breath on its own and tasting freedom from the glass case for the first time as it looked to where the two figures had stood, immediately confused as it saw a large red beehive-style barrier protecting them from the water and the flying glass shards. One of the figures lowered its hand, and the barrier disappeared from view just as quickly as it had come. Suddenly perplexed at its location, it looked around, similar forms akin to these strangers that were shielded by the barrier were encased in similar glass casing, their eyes closed. Noting for the first time the bare metal walls and the numerous computers alongside chemicals bubbling in beakers and flasks on a long table on the side opposite to its current location, it took stock of its situations when there was no apparent way to escape from outside of the room without confronting the two strangers in front of him. It cautiously looked at the figures- one taller and more menacing than the other- before looking down and noticing for the first time its' body.

XANA watched with amusement as the newly born warrior inspected itself, raising one hand to its eye level and flexing its fingers and muscles, the red and black body-suit armor that it was outfitted with shifting slightly as it flexed and un-flexed its arm. The clone of Ulrich Stern had been perfect in almost every single way- there was hardly any way to tell it from the real Ulrich Stern except by the overwhelming sense of rage and obedience XANA had instilled into its mind to make it a mindless monster capable of large amounts of destruction done. Each of the warriors' stolen information gleaned from their profile cards in the supercomputer had each been modified before the clones' creation. Lowering its hand, the Ulrich Stern clone shifted its focus to the taller figure, its eyes dull before recognizing one of them, avoiding eye contact and bowing its head in respect.

"Master…" it uttered to the taller figure- its first word in the cruel world where it had been created in- the said figure giving a wicked smile and baring two rows of white, slightly-pointed teeth in response.

[Page Break]

"Give me that over there, and I'll take some of these… and one of those…" William ordered as he pointed to various items hanging on a wall in the store.
"Good Lord, son!" The store owner said in response, his heavy eyebrows shifting upwards as his surprise was registered. "Are you a one man army, or what?" he said, giving the said items in a large paper bag that would mostly conceal their shapes and placing it on top of the glass showcasing case.
"I will be…" William replied, peering at the silver and black automatic shotgun he had taken out of the paper bag to inspect it. "I will be."
"Gun license, please… thank you…" the store owner said as he took the weapons license from William, inspecting it carefully to see if it was a valid license or not. "Alright… I'll just have to run a mandatory standard background check, and I need you to fill out these papers… right … here" the store owner said, pushing a small packet of papers with a black pen on top. "So excuse me for a minute, and I'll be right back"

William looked at the store owner's retreating back before scowling in disgust at the papers. William hated paperwork, and all forms of it. What made it worse was that there was more papers he had to fill out than he could normally tolerate- amounting to about 5 pieces of papers in total.

"This is not 2001" he muttered angrily. "I shouldn't have to do this. Everything is digital now…" he muttered as he began to fill out the papers. "Name… date of birth… France... I hate paperwork."
"You gotta fill them out, son, if you want these. These aren't cheap either. You'll be lucky to find new or hardly used weapons like these without breaking your bank account!" He declared with a hearty chuckle.
"I guess so..." William muttered as he slid completed page after completed page to the other side, starting on the other pages almost immediately. "I hate boats, boat people… boat lawyers…"
"What does that have to do with guns and questions?"
"You'll find out yourself someday…" William said, straightening up and capping the pen. "Also…" William added, looking thoughtful. "Do you have any extra ammunition?"

[Page Break]

"Found it!" Waldo yelled, looking quite triumphant as he held up a small set of chips and waving it to his wife, sweat-dropping when he realized that they didn't mean anything to her. "You see, it's a copy of the programs when I first started on Project: CARTHAGE, as well as several other side programs that I never really finished."
"Any chance we might be able to recreate… recreate…" Antea struggled to find the word.
"Lyoko."
"Yes."
"No."
"No?"
"Yes. This is the earlier files of Lyoko, which would be incompatible to the finalized version of Lyoko. Think of a PC from the late 1990s trying to interact with a computer from this day and age. Though I've been gone for approximately 20 years…"
"20 years I spent rotting away…"
"Being stuck in a world you created by an AI that had suddenly decided to go rouge isn't a picnic either, my dear 'Tea." Waldo shot back before thinking thoughtfully. "By the way… you still have not told me what happened, or where you were in the years I haven't seen you since you were taken away by those governmental types near Christmas."
"Around" Antea replied, shrugging. "They spent two years trying to interrogate me on Project: CARTHAGE before sending me to America."
"America? Why would they give you a free trip there?"
"No idea, but I was stuck in a gradually degrading mental asylum in Laurel, Maryland for about a year or two. It's abandoned now, of course, it was shut down around… I'd say about 1991. 'Course, they laughed at my pink hair and I dealt with their jokes. I think I'd much be rather sent to another governmental facility, like the one I recently escaped from. At least they had Ice Cream on Fridays."
"Speaking of which, we better tone down the activity. There's a lot of buzzing in the nearest town nearby of mysterious activity that was not done by any company- which means the people have noticed our little redecorating job."
"Ben voyons…" Antea muttered.

[Page Break]

"Bring me the profiles of that mad scientist and that insane lady we're supposed to be hunting down."
"Yes sir!" the lower-ranking official replied, jerking his body to stand flagpole straight and raised his hand into a salute before leaving the room.

The government agent grunted in response and muttered something about not being a soldier before shoving the papers to one side of the desk. Lightly chewing the tip of a pen that he retrieved in his pocket, he boredly gazed around the room, taking in the ruined interior of the part of the building that used to be his office. The walls were badly fire damaged, and the floor was ruined from both the fire and the effects of the water from the sprinkler system and the fire department. Hundreds of files and the documenting he did on hundreds of people were gone- they were all reduced to ashes now. The scent of smoke lay heavily in the air, mingling unpleasantly with the numerous amounts of flowers and vanilla from the air fresheners the building's maintenance staff had sprayed in an attempt to get rid of the smoky odor. On one badly damaged wall, where the fire had spread to the room next to him, there was a constant reminder of the government's failures to detain one of the inmates they were keeping in the building for various purposes-mainly interrogation.

It was the hole in the wall that the said insane lady had made weeks ago. Some of the building's wooden framing was wrecked by simple brute force and a heavy object. Mix a person willing to escape for years, and you've got yourself a big brewing mass of trouble. Unfortunately, like a pan of hot oil and cold water, once the water hits the oil, the oil is going to spring up and lash at whatever it could reach as it flies through the air in response. Most of the building had been damaged to the point of it being totally condemned for the time being. However, the government administration didn't agree on the whole building stopping at once, and relocated its members to a safer part of the building, controlling which rooms would get electrical currents, gas, and running water in order to prevent another fire, or possibly another explosion.

The explosion that had occurred in the gas/electrical room had done untold amounts of damage to the government building- there was an enormous fire that had broken out, and had taken hours to finally extinguish. The sounds of heavy reconstructions done by dozens of construction workers filled the air. Sometimes, a drill boring through rock to rebuild the exterior of the wall would go off loudly, forcing him to clasp his hands over his ears in response. It was only when a certain Officer came into the room with two manila folders clutched in his hand did he break out of his reverie and turn his full attention to the younger male.

"Sir! I've got the files!"
"Thank you. I need them for review."
"Agent Simmons."
"Officer McCoy."

The lower ranking Officer nodded and left. Agent Simmons opened the light tan colored folders, both with large red lettering on their front that read "Closed", "Top Secret", "Case Dismissed" and various other messages. He opened the files and started reading the file that the small black lettering on the tab read "Franz Hopper". His mouth moved along as he read, but stopped at the paragraphs that detailed his exploits and plans to build a program- an Artificial Intelligence that was capable of self learning and disrupting enemy communications, as well as perform various other duties. He saw an old sketch of a supercomputer with writing and complex formulas and calculations written on the side that was slightly bent and folded. It was evident that the MIB had managed to steal some files from riffling through the Hermitage shortly after Franz and his daughter's disappearance, Agent Simmons stopped, eyes widening in realization.

"Get me the head of Intelligence" he whispered.

[Page Break]

Author's Note: The mentioned degrading mental asylum in Laurel, Maryland does exist in America. It is called "Forest Haven", and it did exist until 1991. Most of the buildings have been heavily damaged by vandals, arsonists, and drug dealers. You can see a lot of pictures if you search for "Dakota Fine and the Raiders of the Abandoned Insane Asylum", and click on the link that has the host website of brightestyoungthings(dot)com. There you will find pictures of the said abandoned Insane Asylum that Dakota had taken last year. … or you can search "Forest Haven" in Flickr or use Google Images.

… no, the shopkeeper of the gun store wasn't William's dad. He just calls every young guy "son".

Ben voyons- C'mon. This was said by Jim in episode 90 (French Version)

All clones' body suits are a dark version of Team Lyoko's Season 4 Lyoko avatars. Yes, they're a polymorph-human hybrid.