AN: Being extremely unsatisfied with how I had to cram a lot of action in a little less than seven thousand words, I probably will edit it to make room for about 2-3 thousand more words, if I can… which will probably take a few days or so, depending on how fast I decide to update. I am also displeased at how I had portrayed the scene before Aelita basically committed suicide (before the Page Break thing). It was just… unrealistic. Stick around for the next section of this story, if you want to. It's basically a, five- thousand worded explanation on the series. It's finally over!

A warm thank you to AelitaStones1 (aka "Aelita") for the numerous amounts of reviews she has written on my stories.

Code Apocalypse: Epilogue
July 13, 22:40

Jeremie stared at the ground, unable to comprehend what had just happened, no matter how many times he ran it through his mind. Everything had went by so quickly- infiltrating into XANA's base of operations, running for their lives from mechanical monsters, breaking through to Aelita, her sacrifice, the explosion… everything that had happened in the last hours had seemed like it was nothing more than a blur of events to him. His gaze shifted towards the ruins of what was once a group of buildings before they looked away from the charred masses again and back towards the ground. Michael panted happily as Jeremie stroked his fur and rubbed the base of his ears, wagging his tail furiously as Jeremie continued to pet him.

What used to be several structures grouped together in the woods was now a mass of twisted metal, broken bricks, and burnt wood, still smoldering slightly. The large plumes of black smoke in a burning red sky had easily attracted the firefighters, who responded almost immediately by sending out a squadron of helicopters and planes carrying water in their storage holds. Once they arrived, the water would be dumped onto the fire as well as the surrounding vegetation to keep the fire from spreading. The battle raged on for hours- the fire was increasing in temperature, almost to the point that the water would be easily turned into vapor.

Thankfully, the weather had cooperated- what began as a light rain shower turned into a downpour of rain- the result of copious amounts of humidity lingering in the surrounding area for several days. The firefighters then gained the upper hand on the battle- taking the fire out in less than an hour.

Ash drifted from the site, one piece of the soft, gray-black material landing on Michael's nose. He snorted and blew it off, shaking his fur to free himself of the substance building-up on his fur. The unpleasant odor of burnt wood and smoke lingered around the area- it seemed like there wasn't anywhere in the world that he could escape to in order to forget the distinct smell of the smoke and fire, or the events that had happened. With a sigh, he stopped petting Michael and let the almost fully-grown wolf roam free.

A cool wind blew through the trees, and Jeremie shivered slightly. Yumi draped a blanket over his shoulder. Jeremie gave a small smile in acknowledgement, and Yumi nodded, not wishing to disturb him at the moment. Yumi and the others had rented a car and had driven as fast as they could, arriving just in time to see the structures collapse. It was clearly a logical choice, Jeremie thought, once he began to think about it. They wouldn't spend an hour walking to one of their own cars and then driving here separately. With Yumi behind the wheel, even turning in the wrong direction several times due to the high speed didn't deter her from trying to reach her friends.

Waldo walked by, and Jeremie motioned him over with a wave of his hand. With a slightly guilty expression, Waldo stopped and changed direction, heading towards his son-in-law with a guilty conscience. Huddling closer, he signaled with another hand gesture that he wanted to make this talk as private as possible.

"You didn't fully explain to me why you let Aelita go." Jeremie whispered, looking at Waldo with mixed emotions- curiosity, anger, and anxiety. Waldo swallowed; glad that Jeremie couldn't see his pupils through the thick tinted glasses he wore.

"When you get to be as old as me, Jeremie, you learn that sometimes, you have to let the most treasured things in your life go."

Silence met Waldo, which gave him an excuse to carry on with his explanation.

"You see, when I had sacrificed, or attempted to, my being in Lyoko all those years ago, I had to let go of Aelita, if I was going to let the beings on the world continue to survive. If I had let those feelings interfere with my thinking, I probably wouldn't have done it in the first place!"

"… Continue…"
"For you see, Jeremie, Aelita had done the same thing to you, me, your children and my wife just a few hours ago. Both of us were in her place, where she had to painfully watch as I let myself be taken by death, helpless to stop the situation. She was in my place, and played the role quite well. …What I mean by that phrase is that her determination to stop XANA didn't let the thought of death faze her from the ultimate goal, or as you might call it, her personal mission to cripple XANA as much as she could in one swift blow."
"It wouldn't have made a difference. Though we have won a battle in a Pyrrhic victory, XANA could still win the overall war. We have lost." Jeremie hung his head down, and Waldo scratched his beard thoughtfully.
"Wouldn't made a difference, you say? Tell me, Jeremie. Would you have wanted hundreds of clones of you and your friends, as they committed horrible acts simultaneously and framed you for the things they did? Perhaps the government would have thought that you and your friends had committed these acts on your own, and might have chased you down in their craze to hold onto their lives. Perhaps they would have you guys imprisoned, maybe executed you and your friends for things that you or your friends never did."
"But-"
"A weaker enemy is easier to defeat, is it not?"
"Yes… I suppose so." Jeremie sighed.
"Don't dwell on the past… I have… thought too much on the past… and it led to my madness… the creation of the supercomputer… XANA… and the ripple effect of my one action, one that would change Aelita's life forever…"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that if I hadn't been mentally deranged from the loss of Antea and the pressures of working on Project: CARTHAGE, Lyoko would have never existed. You would have found nothing in the factory except for the scrap metal and dust lying around. You wouldn't have befriended the current friends you have now… and… you would have never met Aelita."
"Never met Aelita?"
"No, Jeremie. Right now, she would be around 35 years of age, if she wasn't stuck in the supercomputer for 11 years. She would have grown up to be a woman that would be strong in both the physical and mental aspects, but secretively lonely inside. Perhaps she would have loved someone else, and the future might have been different."
"Perhaps… but I am happy for the things she has taught and shown me… for being a friend that became close to me… as if she was one of my own family members."
"Never forget, Jeremie, never forget."
"I won't, Mr. Schaeffer."

With a small smile, Waldo got up and helped Jeremie up and into the waiting van, where Francis was performing minor repairs on the van's mechanical parts.

"I hate vans… and planes… and the water… and small towns… and clones… and XANA…" Francis grumbled, trying to reverse the damage the clones had done in an attempt to sabotage the Warriors. "Aha!" He cried triumphantly when the engine roared to life and started up. "Get in, kiddies, and I'll show you how real men drive!"
"Oh, God, no" Yumi groaned, pulling out the keys to the rental car. I prefer to cause my own accident, thank you."
"Suit yourself." Francis whistled merrily, getting into the driver's seat.
"Oh, and Mr. Schaeffer?" Jeremie said, pausing at the open van door.
"Hmm?" Waldo questioned, quirking an eyebrow in interest.
"Thank you... for everything." No problem, Jeremie.
"Hey, ladies! Are you gonna spend eternity dawdling behind, or are you gonna get in here?"
"We're coming, we're coming!" Jeremie grumbled.

With a swish of the doors, the automatic lock clicked into place, and the van drove off, the rented car following not too far behind.

As they left, a shadow came out the dark, accompanied by 6 other shadows that followed silently behind their master towards the ruined buildings. XANA rested his sword on his shoulder and let his gaze wander over the ruins, his expression blank and unreadable. He narrowed his ruby-red eyes before he let out a nasty grin.

"I must admit that your actions were a fine attempt to sabotage my operations, dear sister." XANA let the blade hit the ground. "You did exterminate most of my fighting force, as well as the chance to immediately take over the world. However, dear sister, you made one mistake… I live… and you failed to take down my best fighters.." With one swish of his dark cape, he ground his feet in the dirt, turned around, and walked away, his clone fighters following behind him.

July 14, 00:00

The moon shone through the clouds in the sky, the rays touching over the ruins and illuminating the surrounding area. At that moment, as Jeremie stared outside of the passenger seat window, he gave a sigh and began to sing softly, remembering a song he had heard a long time ago.

Where teary, teary eyes once stood,

Weary sighs the tune,

Dreary, dreary for all the night,

And eerie light of the moon…

Biting his lip and in a fit of boredom, decided to add some of his own lyrics to the song in order for it to fit both his mood at the current situation at hand.

Oh, dreary, dreary, is our dire plight,

Clearly spelled is our doom,

Bathed in blood where fire burned bright,

Her body lies in a stone tomb.

The van drove farther and farther away, leaving the ruins behind. As the moon reached its zenith, and fully bathed the ruins in its light, one of the rocks moved. A hand made its way out of the rubble, madly scrabbling for something to hold onto. It grabbed onto a sturdy structure, and slowly pulled itself out, an arm and then an upper torso appearing. The figure heaved itself out of the rubble, standing on the top of the former structure without any fear.

It flexed and un-flexed its muscles, letting the two large appendages that were attached to its back spread out after being cramped in the small space. It breathed deeply, as if it hadn't breathed in all of its life, taking in the scents around it. It roared in exaltation of life, having gone through the fire and the flames, through life and death, just to come back and hand out its revenge against the evil that plagued humanity. It let its roar fade to a growl as it tried to remember something, but came up with nothing in memories at the moment.

What was it? It gave itself a quick look over, unsure of what it was, exactly. Her mind answered back with two words it had pulled out from a more primitive form of knowledge- 'female human'.

It was… a she? She was… human? Puzzled, she asked her mind once again, delving into the dark depths of her knowledge to find out who she was. One memory came to her mind, murky and almost unrecognizable. Spelled out on a birth certificate was "Antea Schaeffer", and under that, in the section that said 'daughter', the words clearly spelled "Aelita".

Aelita… Schaeffer? 'That was good enough of a name' she thought, before spreading her wings again. They were simply enormous in length, though instead of appearing like angel wings, they appeared more like a hawk's or an eagle's wings- powerful, and built for speed. Giving little thought to what lay ahead, she gave a deep growl that echoed in her throat, a warning to her enemies, although she didn't know who it was.

"I… live…"

With that, she took off with her massive wings, carrying herself farther and farther away from her past with every wingbeat,

AN: I'm not an expert in fire. I don't know the temperature point at which water turns into vapor within seconds (Reference to help you understand what I'm trying to say: the scene in "The Incredibles", where Frozone was unable to extinguish the fire in the burning building using his ice powers. He explained it to Bob (Mr. Incredible) why he couldn't extinguish them using his powers, but I had forgotten what he had said)

… I also wonder what would have happened if I didn't write the TX series, or any CL fanfiction after the two scrapped stories (see the Afterword)…

Song: "Dreary, Dreary" by the Gothic Archies (Song made for "A Series of Unfortunate Events"

Aelita lives. Be happy.