OKAY I AM REALLY SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THIS ONE I've had this idea for ages and I'd love to do something with this one but I think this might be the most it ever is. And it'll be a little longer than usual, too!

It's essentially an AU where the Lyoko Warriors' parents are teenagers and THEY'RE the Lyoko Warriors. Enjoy.

Day 11: Alternate Universe

"Come on, come on!"

Anthea Hopper kicked her legs back and forth in the chair, trying to burn off some of her excess energy. She knew it wasn't bad to be excited, but she didn't have much time before she'd have to hold it all back and pretend like nothing was out of the ordinary. She could whoop and holler and run laps around the factory soon - it would only feel sweeter when her victory had been earned.

The supercomputer was lighting up before her eyes, and the progress bar was pushing across the central screen. When it got to the end it vanished, and replaced itself with a dark backdrop.

"Waldo," she said. "Hey, Waldo!"

On that backdrop was a boy, or a 3D image of a boy, with mop of tousled brown hair. For a second he looked unfocused and listless - but as soon as she spoke, his green eyes lit up. "Ah - Anthea!" He scrambled to straighten his posture. "Is it morning already?"

"It depends on what you call 'morning', Waldo." Anthea said, fighting back a laugh. "It's about 12:30. But for a Sunday, that's pretty good."

"As long as you get the sleep you need, then that's fine." Waldo brushed a stray strand of hair from his face, briefly uncovering a long, pointed elf-ear. "I haven't detected any of XANA's vibrations lately. Are you just stopping in to chat, or are we working on something today?"

If she hadn't been trying hard not to, Anthea knew she would've grinned. "Well…you could say we're working on something."

"Could say?" Waldo tapped his chin. "Anthea, you're using that…weird double-speak again. Where you say something and you make me guess what it is."

"Guilty as charged!" Now Anthea let herself grin. "Listen, we've having kind of a get-together today. The whole team's on their way - or at least they should be." She fished her phone out of her skirt pocket and looked at it. "I sent a mass text like twenty minutes ago, and so far only Takeo and Michel replied…"

"Everyone's coming?" Waldo's eyes went wide. "What did they say?"

"Takeo says he'll try and get out of the family shopping trip, and he'll pick up Akiko on the way. And Michel says he'll try and get Robert out of bed." Anthea began typing. "I'm gonna tell Michel to rouse the others, too. I feel bad depending on him like this, but he's the only one over at school with any kind of responsibility."

"And the only one who could ever get Robert to wake up on a Sunday," Waldo said.

"True, true." Anthea laughed, and put the phone away. She looked back up at Waldo, whose face, she could see, had fallen slightly. "Hey, champ," she said. "Something got you down?"

"I wonder what it'll be like to sleep," Waldo said. "I know so much about computers and about science, and yet that's one basic thing every human being does that I don't. I'm sure I'll be terrible at it."

"What - no, no!" Anthea wished desperately that she could put her hand through the screen and turn his frown upside-down. "It's…not really something you can BE bad at. I mean, you can have trouble sleeping, but it's not anything to be ashamed of. And we're all here to help you."

"Of course. I have faith in every one of you." Waldo smiled, showing off slightly uneven teeth. "But of course, that'll have to wait until the materialization program is done."

"Yes, yes," Anthea said, screaming internally. "What a pity."

Seven minutes later Michel Belpois appeared, looking bright, well-rested, and artfully casual. Or, at least he would be, if not for the fact that he was struggling to hold Robert Della Robbia onto his two feet. "Hey, 'afternoon!" he said, waving at her with his one free hand. Robert managed a wave and a "'lo" before he lapsed back to sleep.

"What he said." Michel's girlfriend, Anita Montablain, was on Robert's other side, looking drowsy, but able to stand on her own two feet. Either she'd put on eyeliner before she'd left her room, or she hadn't washed it off from the previous day, and even in the near-winter chill she wore a sleeveless, patched jean jacket.

"I think he can have a few more minutes." Michael lowered Robert to the ground, and clapped his hands together. "So, what's this surprise you were talking about?"

"Mike and I were guessing all the way here," Anita said. "I'm thinking whoopee cushions in the scanners."

"Close, but wrong. I never repeat a joke, Anita." Behind her, Waldo stifled a laugh. "Any signs of life from the others?"

"Well, we knocked on Jorgen's door," Michael said. "And he told us to…well, I'm not gonna repeat what he said." He laughed. "He'll be along, I think he just didn't want his concentration broken on whatever he was doing."

"Writing his memoir, probably," Anita said.

"Marguerite wanted to get lunch first, and Frieda's showering," Anita said. "But that was a while ago, so they - well, speak of the devil, there they are now!"

While she'd been speaking, a girl with long brown hair and sensible flats had lowered herself through the ceiling trapdoor. That was Frieda Bayer. Marguerite Evanson climbed down after her, waiting until after Frieda had stepped off the ladder before she jumped the rest of the way down.

"There you are!" Anita said. "I thought you guys'd be a lot later."

"You'd be amazed how fast you can run when Jean-Pierre is trying to catch up to you," Frieda said, dusting herself off.

"I swear to god," Marguerite said, readjusting her purple bun. "Just because that guy's mom is the principal, he thinks he can do whatever he wants and get away with it - "

"Hey, guys, we've established that this is a Jean-Pierre Free Zone," Anthea said.

"Right. Right. I guess that's what I said." Marguerite took a deep breath. "Alright, one, two, three, four, five…" She looked down at Robert, who was still asleep. "Six once he wakes up…"

"That leaves Takeo, Akiko, and Jorgen," Waldo said. "It's been so long since I've seen everyone in one place at the same time. I'm…I'm pretty excited."

"You know, me too." Anthea had a point - apart from meetings to discuss monumental occasions, usually XANA attacks resulted in a fracturing of their offensive group of eight. The four of them who were closest to the threat would stay behind and keep the school or affected area safe, and the other four would go to Lyoko and help escort Waldo to the tower. Anthea was always behind the computer - she would love to go to Lyoko, but no one else quite knew how to run the place like she did. "Here, I'll text them again."

Not long after she did, Jorgen Stern showed up, climbing down the ladder from the ceiling the same way Frieda and Marguerite had come. As ever, he wore a scowl on his face. "I got your text the first time, Anthea," he said. "You didn't need to treat me like I hadn't read it!"

"I just wanted to make sure everything's okay," Anthea said. "S'not a federal issue, dude."

"Hmph." Jorgen snorted, and set off for a distant corner of the room, which was where everyone, Jorgen included, liked him to be. He was a very powerful fighter, but if there was a heart of gold to be found under his jerk-ass exterior they had yet to find it.

Takeo Ishiyama and Akiko Suoh were, as usual, the last to arrive. The elevator opened up to reveal them in the middle of a heated discussion - Akiko insisted that her mother had seen Takeo entering her house, while Takeo insisted that even if she had he could easily have told her he was just asking for something for his own mother. But as soon as they saw the others, it died down. Akiko grinned and gave Anthea a wave, while Takeo shrugged. "Afternoon," he said.

"Good afternoon, and am I glad to see you guys!" Anthea said. "Everyone, gather round, gather round!"

She motioned toward the rest, and most of them moved forward at her signal, but Jorgen stayed in his corner, and Robert stayed on the floor. Michel picked Robert up and carried him with him, while Marguerite went to pull Jorgen over.

"So. Ladies, gentlemen." Anthea didn't even check to see whether everyone had gathered yet or not. She grinned, and leaned in close to the screen, wondering just what it would look like to Waldo. "I have a bit of an important announcement regarding our good friend Waldo."

Akiko was the only one to figure it out just from that. In her reflection on the computer screen Anthea saw her eyes go wide, and her hands fly to her mouth. "I'll get to that in a second, though," she said, reaching behind the screen. "But first, Waldo… what's that behind your ear?"

"My ear?" As Waldo looked to the side, Anthea quickly grabbed at the underside of the screen. She'd stashed a CD case there earlier - and now she held it up for all to see.

"It's the materialization program!" she announced. "Waldo, you're getting out of there today!"

The display had its intended effect - all the others burst into cheers. Michel hugged Anita, and Anita pulled him into a dip and kissed him passionately on the lips. Robert snapped awake immediately, and on hearing the explanation again immediately lost all traces of sleepiness. "Dude, you should've fuckin' told me!" he said, before pulling Takeo into a celebratory noogie. Even Jorgen cracked a smile, for just a moment. He knew when to recognize a victory.

Out of all the ones who should have been celebrating, Waldo simply looked bewildered. He looked rapidly from left to right, taking in what he was seeing. "You… is it true? Is that… is that really…?"

"It's as real as the nose on your face will be in about thirty minutes," Anthea said. "As soon as everyone gets down to the scanners, they'll join you on Lyoko so you can execute the full activation of the program. We'll have to collect data from all four sectors to-"

"Wait," Takeo said. "We're doing this now, as in now, now?"

"Well, yeah, now now!" Anthea said. "We're not gonna wait for XANA to show us what he thinks. Come on!"

"But how do we know this is perfectly safe?" Anita said. "It's not like we can test it on anyone or anything. What if it goes wrong?"

"And what do we do with him once he's here?" Jorgen said. "He has no record, no school, no anything."

Anthea could have told them that it didn't matter. But that wouldn't be right. It did. "I think," she started, and then started over. "I think it should be up to Waldo to decide whether that risk is worth it or not. He's the one coming here, after all." She turned back to the screen. "Waldo?"

Waldo gave them all a wide-eyed stare, and twisted his hands around themselves. Anthea could tell he was scared. She wished she could assure him, somehow, that everything would be alright. "If not taking the risk means staying like this forever," he finally said, "Then I'm taking the risk. I'll be there in thirty minutes."

"All RIGHT!" Marguerite punched the air, looking cheerful. "Okay, last one to the scanners is a rotten egg!"

"Your face is a rotten egg!" Robert took off after Marguerite, who laughed at him and disappeared down the ladder to the scanners.

Some of them headed after them, while the others headed for the elevator. Anthea was left alone at the console, alone with Waldo, who still looked fearful of what was to come. But she could tell this was what he wanted to do, and she was deliriously glad for it. "Guess now you'll get to see what sleeping is like," she said.

"I…I will," Waldo said. He shook his head, and puffed out his chest. "I'll sleep so well you'll think I was doing it all my life."

"That's m'boy!" Anthea laughed, and then, upon seeing the flashing indicator in the corner of her screen, opened up the scanner operation program. "Alright, let's get this show on the road."

- Carth