"So," began Keeva, "let me see if I got this right: sometime in the latter fourth of the nineteen hundreds, Aelita's parents were working on something called Project Carthage. Supposedly it was some kind of weapon related to communications, but you five don't have all the details yet. All that you do know is that Lyoko and the AI XANA were created as a consequence of this project, that Aelita was born during this period, and that eventually Franz Hopper, Aelita's dad, decided that it was too dangerous to keep online. Eventually, after Aelita's mom was apparently kidnapped by people related to the project, Franz Hopper used special scanners to digitalize himself and Aelita into Lyoko to escape capture. Sometime before or after this digitalization, XANA went rogue. About, what, twenty five years later, Jeremie found the supercomputer while looking for robot parts and reactivated it, and met Aelita. The rest of you met got dragged into this mess either due to snooping around or because XANA launched his first attack on Earth shortly after Lyoko came online. You guys spent a year trying to get Aelita materialized onto Earth so that you could shut down the supercomputer and take out XANA without killing her, but by the time you finally managed to get her fully seperated from the computer, XANA found a way to get out into the internet, so now you have to use the supercomputer to try and find where he is hiding. Oh, and apparently you found Hopper somewhere in the net and tried to recruit William to aid you, only for him to get caught by XANA and turned into said AI's most dangerous servant?"

"Pretty much," was Jeremie's sheepish reply.

The group had returned to the Analog World shortly after Keeva had landed, and were now making their way back to Kadic. The five Lyoko Warriors were all faintly blushing after hearing their story told, all feeling a little embarassed by their mistakes in hindsight.

"...Well, not the craziest story I've heard. Or lived."

"Really?" asked Odd. "You've heard of someone that went to a virtual world and fought an evil computer program?"

"That would be my grandfather on my dad's side."

"...Wait, what?"

"Look, I know I owe you an explanation, especially after you shared, well, everything with me, but can it wait until tonight? We haven't even had dinner yet."

The rest of the Lyoko warriors all felt some pain from their stomachs at that remark - it was almost dinner time, and most of them hadn't eaten anything yet.

"Fair enough," conceded Aelita. "Though couldn't we talk over dinner?"

"Then I won't know if you're paying more attention to your food over what I am saying. Also, I have a whole presentation ready to make things easier to understand!"

The rest of the group (including Jeremie and Aelita) all wondered why she would have a presentation on hand, but decided not to broach the topic. Things were getting to the point that they just wanted to crazy girl to stop doing things that made no sense.

Huh. So this was how Sissi felt.

XXXXX

"Alright, programs, get cracking! We have maybe one-point-five user hours before Superuser Flynn brings her friends over for an introduction. So let's make their first impression a memorable one!"

"Yes ma'am!"

The Grid was alive with activity. Across the sole city that composed this digital world, programs were at work cleaning the area, tuning up vehicles and buildings, and generally making things look presentable. It had been many cycles since users other than Keeva had entered this iteration of the Grid, and the various programs were eager to see please. Objectively, they knew that they had plenty of time to prepare - unless directly interacting with the Analog World, the Grid's time ran significantly faster than what users were accustomed to - but it never hurt to start preparing early.

XXXXX

"So, Einstein, you got any ideas about the digital world that Keeva says she's been to? What it might be like?"

"No many," was Jeremie's reply. "The only things that I can assume about it are that it has equipment and entities from the various games her grandfather, Kevin Flynn, created - the bike she used seem to be an improved version of the titular vehicles from Lights Cycles, while her disk seems to originate from the game Disk Wars. I'm still trying to figure out how that makes any sense."

"Well, it was worth a shot asking."

"Did you find out anything new from my father's diary?"

"Actually, yes. There's a peculiar entry from 1987 in it."

Without waiting for the group to respond, Jeremie pulled out the diary in question and started reading.

July 8, 1981

I don't know how, but someone found us. While we were working on Project Carthage, someone intruded on the network. It was only for a moment, and they didn't download any data, but the point still stands that someone located the project. A full cybersecurity review is currently underway. We intend to determine who was responsible, whether or not the project was compromised, and how to proceed going forward.

The whole group was silent for a moment, until Ulrich decided to speak up. "Wait, someone hacked into Project Carthage?"

"Looks like it. I'm not sure why the attempt was so short, but the fact that it happened is rather worrisome - whoever did it might still be around."

"Jeremie, my father put himself and me in Lyoko for roughly twenty five years. Whoever launched the hacking attempt may have lost interest by now."

"Still, we should keep this in mind going forward. We might have someone other than XANA to worry about now."

XXXXX

Sitting in her room just after finishing dinner, Keeva had just pulled out her phone. Moments later, a call started.

"Hey, kiddo, how're things going?"

"Good. I made some new friends at Kadic."

"Really? That was fast."

"You'd be surprised how interested they were in computers."

"Interesting. So, what're you up to now?"

"Oh, just getting some things ready for the night, making sure Babbage City has no outstanding issues, the usual."

"I see. Listen, could you do your old man a favor?"

"Hmm?"

"I was doing a data dive with your mom, Alan, Jet, and Evan, and we recovered a few more programs. Think you could help me correct their code?"

"Sure. When will you have them over?"

"Oh, about three analog hours from now."

"Okay. You can count on me, daddy!"

"Thanks, kiddo. And again, I'm sorry we had to move on such short notice-"

"Hey, it's fine. We need to keep the Grid away from prying eyes."

"Still, thanks for your support. Look, I have some stuff to handle right now, call you again tomorrow?"

"Sure. Good night, daddy."

"Goodnight, kiddo."

Hanging up the call, Keeva opened up her phone's browser and typed in the name "Franz Hopper." Maybe knowing some public details on Aelita's father might help her comprehend who he was off the grid.

Oh, nice joke.

The results Keeva got were rather meager - primarily notes on his academic accomplishments, how he had been a science teacher at Kadic, and that he had vanished suddenly in the nineties - but there was one bit of information they had interested her: he had apparently worked with a computer company known as Cyberlink for a few years, until they had lost a lawsuit with an American company called Data Monkeys involving corporate espionage. Noticing the dates of employment, Keeva found that Hopper had worked for the group just prior to teaching at Kadic, and been an employee for a long time. Almost as long as the duration of Project Carthage.

Hmm.

A knock at the door forced Keeva to cease her musings - it seemed her companions were here. Hastily readying a certain program, Keeva unlocked her door, and found the five Lyoko Warriors waiting. "Come in, come in! Grey before someone notices!"

The group hastily filed in, after which Keeva quietly closed the door and made her way to her laptop.

"So, you were going to share your secret with us?" Asked Yumi.

"Yes, but before I go on, could you check that laser emitter?"

Glancing in the direction Keeva was pointed, Yumi decided to oblige the American girl. "It looks fine to me. Jeremie, Aelita, you have any feedback?"

"Looks good to me," answered Jeremie.

"Seems fine," affirmed Aelita.

"Excellent," was Keeva's response as the final part of her program finished compiling. Standing up, Keeva turned to glance at her companions. "Now then, since you want to know my secret, I believe it best that you see it first hand. So let's go see it!"

Before the group had time to react, Keeva pressed the enter key on her keyboard.

XXXXX

When sensation finally returned to Jeremie, the first thing he noticed was that his surroundings had changed - as opposed to Keeva's room, he was now in a darker, more open space. Around him, his friends were slowly coming to, all trying to figure out what was going on. Keeva, however, was standing in front of them, alongside...herself?

Wait, was that-

"Mu?"

The other Keeva smiled. "That would be me. Nice to meet you in the flesh...or in the code, as the case may be."

"Wait," asked Odd, "you're Mu? The program Keeva made."

"She is," Confirmed Keeva. "And now..."

"On Behalf of both of us..."

"Welcome to the Grid!"

With that statement, the darkness of the area around them gave way to light. Buildings came into focus, as did several types of vehicles. Most interesting of all, though, were the people. They all wore the same attire - strange suits covered in flowing lines of light - but there were so many of them. If Jeremie had to guess, there were at least one hundred looking at them right now, and several thousand more simply doing things. What exactly they were doing eluded Jeremie, but their presence was still a shock.

"Is this...your virtual world?" Asked Aelita, being the first of the group to recover from the stupor that had fallen into upon seeing the Grid.

"The fourth iteration of it, yes," confirmed Keeva.

"As for our history," continued My, "I will pull that up for you now."

A pair of projectors activated, each producing a titanic hologram.

"In the year 1983, Keeva's grandfather Kevin Flynn tried to use a program named Clu to hack into ENCOM's servers to obtain proof that Executive Ed Dillinger had plagiarized his games for sale by ENCOM. When this failed due to interference from ENCOM's Master Control Program, he contact his two remaining friends in the company, Alan Bradley and Lora Baines, to help him attempt a more direct method of exposing Dillinger's fraud. This ended with Flynn encountering the MCP and almost managing to disable it via a paradox. At the last minute, the MCP used an experimental digitization laser to forcibly digitize Flynn."

The holograms shifted as Mu spoke, depicting the events as they were mentioned, and ended with Flynn ending up in a place much like where they were now, but with poorer graphics.

"On the Grid, programs exist in the same way people do in the analog world. The MCP attempted to dispose of Flynn hbu sending him to Dillinger's program Sark for execution via the games, in this case a deadly version of Light Cycles, which Flynn had designed. After winning the game and surviving a disk fight, he was imprisoned with several other programs, including a counter MCP program created by Alan known as Tron."

Images of the fighting flashed on the screens, relaying their story of Kevin.

"Breaking free, Tron and Flynn were joined by other programs, included a female one named Yori that was designed by Lora. Together, they confronted and defeated the MCP and Sark, unknowingly saving both the Grid and Earth, as the MCP had been steadily subsuming other functions to expand its control, with plans to seize the nuclear assets of the Pentagon and the Kremlin so that it could control mankind."

"What?!" Shouted all the Lyoko Warriors in unison.

"My grandfather and Tron saved both Earth and the Grid with the help of some friends."

"Not our point," noted Odd. "But thank you for clarifying. Please, keep going."

"Flynn escaped the Grid and was able to get Dillinger fired for his actions, and was not only rehired by the company, but also promoted to Chief Executive Officer. He would later marry Jordan Canas in 1982, which would result in the birth of a son named Samuel, or Sam from short, the following year. Jordan would unfortunately pass away due to a car accident in 1983."

Everyone threw sympathetic looks at Keeva, who couldn't help but let out a sigh as her eyes watered slightly.

This wasn't even the worse thing that had happened with her parents.

"Kevin would end up straining his relationship with Sam over the next four years due to both the needs of running his company and efforts to improve the Grid. To aid in the latter, he recreated and reformatted Clu to act as a system administrator program. He had planned to introduce the Grif to the world so that he could advance scientific progress, but a discovery in 1989 would change that."

Images of the Grid evolving filled the holograms, until they settled on the view of a group of programs just outside what looked like the Digital Sea.

"What happened in 1989?" Asked Aelita.

"During an examination of the Grid, Flynn discovered a new type of program had emerged: sentient isometric algorithms. These were artificial intelligences that had literally just emerged randomly from the Sea of Simulation, and were beyond anything user created programs - also know as basic/ - could comprehend. They even had an equivalent to DNA. Their existence was, quite simply, a miracle. Flynn felt that they would revolutionize society. But Clu disagreed."

Jeremie could not believe what he had just heard. "Wait, are you saying that a race of AIs literally just appeared on the Grid one day?"

"I just described it as a miracle!" Noted a rather annoyed Mu.

"True," said Jeremie, who then took a glance at the nearby programs watching him and his friends. "Is there a reason there aren't any of these Isometric Algorithms here right now? I'd expect to see at least one as part of the welcoming party."

A pained expression emerged on Keeva's face. "Yes, there is. As mentioned, Clu did not share my grandfather's opinions. You see, Clu had been given the directive to create the perfect system. The problem as that these new programs - the ISOs - had no function within the system. They did nothing, yet still consumed energy. And that made them a problem. My grandfather failed to pick up on this, or that Clu would not be able to accept that Flynn had changed, as by his nature, Clu was incapable of change. So one day, he rebelled against Flynn."

Keeva's voice started to crack as tears began to well up in her eyes as images of Clu's betrayal formed around her. "Flynn escaped, but Tron was captured and tortured."

The group gasped, but Keeva soldiered on. "Tron would eventually escape, but Clu found that to be of no concern. Instead, having already turned public opinion against them via corruption of a program of their number known as Abraxas..."

"Clu ordered the genocide of the ISOs."

If pins had existed in the Grid, the Lyoko Warriors would've heard it falling. Keeva now had tears streaming down her face as the images around her turned to terrified programs trying to flee Clu's forces, only to be hunted down and shattered into millions of pieces. On and on the digital slaughter went, until only one ISO remained.

Aelita was the only one able to speak. "I..I...I'm so sorry..."

Keeva let out a sigh. "My grandfather only managed to a single ISO - a girl named Quorra. He took her with him to shelter in a hidden sanctuary far away from Clu's base in Tron City. But despite eluded Clu, Flynn could never free Quorra from his former subordinate's grasp - as long as Clu controlled Tron City, Flynn would be unable to risk sending Quorra to the safety of our world. Tron, meanwhile, would eventually escape and try to start an uprising in Argon Coty, but he was recaptured and forcibly turned into Clu's servant, now known as Rinzler. And as far as the world was concerned, Flynn vanished from the face of the Earth sometime in 1989, with my dad not hearing anything from him until twenty years later."

Ulrich was the first of the group to offer a gaze of sympathy. "Ouch. That has to hurt."

"It was worse for my grandfather - time on the grid is a lot faster than it is on Earth. My dad might've had to spend twenty years hoping Kevin would come home, but my grandfather had to endure one thousand years of knowing that he failed in all of his goals."

Once again, the area was silent, and once again, it was Aelita who broke the silence. "O-on-one thousand years?!"

"Yeah. On the plus side, that time rate difference means we won't have to worry about people wondering where we are while we're in the Grid. Not that it makes me feel better."

"...please continue."

"Clue spent those cycles conquering all of the grid that he could, but despite this, he felt unsatisfied. So long as he was in the Grif, he could not create, only repurpose. So eventually, he impersonated my grandfather and lured my dad to the Grid. He was hoping that this would bait Kevin into the open so that he could steal my grandfather's disk and use it to escape into and conquer the Analog World - the world of man. It...didn't work out."

"Sounds like we're getting to the best part," noted Odd. "Or at least the less depressing one."

"Yeah. My father and grandfather managed to outsmart Clu and convince Tron to return to our side. Ultimately, my dad and Quorra escaped the Grid, but it required my grandfather to sacrifice himself to destroy Clu."

"Ouch. You've really lost a lot of family."

"Thank you for your sympathies, Odd."

"So what happened next?" Asked Yumi.

"My dad decided to be more active in running ENCOM and appointment Alan as Chairman of the Board. Afterwards, he copied the Grid onto his phone-"

"What?!"

"-processing power and storage have come a long way from when the Grid was made! Anyway, he copied the Grid onto his phone, and together with Quorra, they started working to fix the damage that Clu had done. It's been a...slow process."

The group made a gesture for her to continue.

"Flynn destroyed Clu by reabsorbing him into himself. This had...extremely negative effects on the Grid."

Jeremie raised an eyebrow. "Can you elaborate?"

"Well, the immediate area around where the two merged was hit with an explosion comparable to a nuclear weapon-"

"What?!"

"-and afterwards, it turned out the explosion had created some kind of malignant code that had corrupted the Grid. It is...difficult to describe."

The fact the holograms didn't show any images relating to said corruption certainly helped convey that point.

"So, Sam and Quorra decided to create a new Grid using what could be salvaged from the old one. This is known as Grid 3.0. The city we are in is a pocket version of that Grid, and is known as Grid 4.0. These act as both improvements on the old Grid...and as bases to salvage elements from the old Grid."

"How's that been going?" Asked Odd.

"Slowly. Even after letting others in on the secret of the Grid, namely Alan and Lora, it had still been slow. Sam and Quorra also had to handle running ENCOM..and interacting with each other."

"Huh?"

"Look, they bonded a bit while trying to get out of the Grid. About twelve months after they did, they were cooing over a baby in crib, which they decided to name Keeva."

For a moment, everything was silent. Then, rather predictably...

"...WAIT WHAT?!"

"Yeah," conceded Keeva as she removed and tapped on her disk. "I may be human.."

After a few taps, her attire changed - while it was still the strange outfit that all programs wore, it now had several extra white lines on it.

"...but I am also part ISO."

The group was mostly silent after that, except from Jeremie and Aelita. Especially Jeremie.

"You're part AI? You..you...this is..."

"A miracle?"

"Yes...wait, you knew that already."

Keeva couldn't help smirking. "I did say that the existence of the ISOs is - miracle."

"You did. Still, I just...this has never happened in history. Even XANA was created by Franz Hopper. Your mother just came into existence!"

"Yeah, she did. And now she's the last of them. At least in terms of being pure ISOs."

"Oh. I'm sorry if I-"

"Relax. I get your feelings. It's okay."

"I can't quite say I know what it's like losing everyone you've ever known," interjected Aelita. "But I have lost my father and mother, so if you need-"

"Save the sympathy for my mom. All of those I have lost passed away before I was born. I'm just...sad...to know that I'll never get to meet my grandparents...or any of my mom's family...because they were all wiped out by someone who was technically my uncle...ugh, I'm sorry for that."

"You've been through a lot," replied Ulrich. "It's okay to let off some of your grief."

"Thanks. Well, I'm finished talking right now. Do you want a tour of the Grid?"

Everyone had one thought in that regard:

"Yes!"

XXXXX

The group found themselves atop a strange strain equivalent called a solar sail. Jeremie had noted that a true solar sail was something completely different, but in a rare moment, had also admitted that it they were in an entirely unique world that didn't totally conform to Earth, so the difference was acceptable.

"Now, the area we were sent to upon first being scanned was the Arrival Annex. It also has a return portal for when you want to go back to Earth. We'll stop by the Coliseum, the Light Cycle Circuit, the marina, the super compiler, and the Code Resequencer before returning to the Annex. Please make sure you are in your seats or holding a rail before the Solar Sail goes...and go we shall right now!"

XXXXX

The Lyoko Warriors watched in awe as they arrived at the Coliseum, where a myriad assortment of programs were competing in Disk Wars. The lights of their disks flitted through the simulated air, making for an incredible sight.

"Interested in the disk wars, are we?"

"Yeah, this is awesome!" Noted Ulrich.

"Hey," asked Yumi, "if we could find a way to use our Lyoko powers here, could we use the Coliseum for training?"

Mu was the one to answer. "Time could probably be arranged, but I think it would be more prudent to assemble a designated training area for you to master your skills. But that is not a bad idea."

XXXXX

The next stop was the Light Cycle Circuit. Once again, there was a feeling of awe at all of the light constructs racing along the circuit. But now it was Aelita who was most interested in the sight before them.

"Keeva?"

"Yes Aelita?"

"Is it possible we could obtain some of the information regarding the Light Cycles?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking about the emitters for the...light ribbon?"

Jeremie glanced at Aelita. "You want to give the sovereign, Overboard, and Overbike those light barriers?"

"We saw what they did to a manta. Maybe we could use them against against hornets? Or even Megatanks?"

"...That is an excellent idea, and I second it."

Keeva thought for a moment, then smiled. "I'll see what I can do."

XXXXX

As the Solar Rail passed over the Marina, Jeremy focused his attention on programs traveling too and from the docks. The only thing that made him stop was when he started to notice droplets impacting the window of the Solar Sail, which soon turned into rain.

"Something got your eye, Jeremie?"

Glancing back at Keeva, Jeremie nodded. "I'm just comparing this virtual world to Lyoko. There are...so many differences."

"Which ones have you noted?"

"The biggest one would be the presence of all the programs on the Grid. In Lyoko, there was nothing aside from XANA's monster and Aelita, but here, there's so many programs just, well, I suppose functioning would be the term."

"It would."

"Then there's the environment of the Grid. Lyoko had sectors representing a forest, mountains, a desert, and a Tundra in addition to Sector V, but those were just visuals - temperature didn't factor in to this. But the Grid doesn't just have biomes, but even weather and temperatures. And speaking of temperature, on Lyoko, you only had the senses of sight and hearing, but the Grid has stimuli for all fives senses, if how programs react to liquid energy is any indication...Wait, programs need to consume energy to function? That's also a difference!"

"I need to introduce you to my parents - you'll have so much to compare with them."

Keeva did not miss how Aelita reacted to that, and merely made a submissive gesture, which seemed to placate the pinkette.

XXXXX

"...Hey, I need to ask something."

Mu glanced at Odd. "What is it?"

"What is the purpose of the Super-Compiler? I mean, what kind of programs does it compile?"

"...I expected Jeremie or Aelita to ask that."

"Hey, Einstein and his girlfriend -"

"Wha?!"

"-mentioned that word enough that I looked it up so they'd sounding so confusing."

"I see. To answer your question, the Super Compiler creates new programs for the Grid. Either it compiles them wholesale for a specific function, or it takes some coding from existing programs to create a new one with a mixture of their traits."

"Huh?"

"The second option allows two programs to create a baby program. It allows them to reproduce without user input."

"...Your parents made a way for programs to reproduce with each other?"

"Yes, and that's because they didn't want to program the, ahem, *equipment* to do it the way people do."

Everyone blushed at remark. "Oh."

"Yeah. Also, some programs have pestered me to know how humans create more of themselves. I don't want to talk about it."

"Any specific reason for that?"

"I have a younger brother, and I was came in on my parents attempting to 'compile' him the...um...'messy way'."

Everyone else started blushing up a storm. "Oh my," went Yumi.

"Yup. And now some of the more vulgar and curious programs keep trying to steal my disk to learn about the process."

"How does you disk relate to that?"

"The disk is officially known as my Identity Disk, and it contains a program's memories and personality. Theoretically, you could use it to resurrect a deleted program, but my parents have only just started testing that idea."

"I see...wait, why didn't we get disks?"

"Users do not arrive with disks, and I didn't see a need to give you disks when you first landed. Next time you come over, you can get disks."

XXXXX

Finally, the group arrived at the Code Resequencer.

"Is this some kind of hospital?" Asked Ulrich.

"In a manner of speaking," confirmed Mu. "The purpose of this facility is to assist in repairing the code of programs exposed to ...excessive corruption."

"Such as?"

"This is where we fix any programs my parents retrieved from the old Grif."

Ulrich glanced at Keeva. "You do that here?"

"Sometimes, yes. My parents have larger facilities for this purpose on the 3.0 Grid, but I help sometimes. It helps that the faster flow of time in the Grid gives you more time to study."

"You think that being on the Grid for a protracted period of time is why your Lyoko Avatar is older than your biological age?"

"..Probably. Good idea, Jeremie."

"Thanks. By the way, what are those floating polyhedrons that accompany some programs?"

"Oh, those are bits. Programs keep them as pets. They're a little primitive compared to decs and hex-decs, but programs still like them."

"Decs? Hex decs?"

Jeremie rolled his eyes. "Odd, they're referring to number bases. There are three ways computers can store code. The first is binary which is just-"

"A long stream of zeroes and ones. I know that already Einstein."

"Then you'll also know that it means you have to store large numbers as really long lines of data. This is impractical, so people eventually coded in decimal storage, which is base ten - 0 through nine, specifically. Finally, there is hexadecimal storage, which is-"

"Base sixteen?"

"-um, yes, actually. How'd you guess?"

"I took math enough that the James for the polygons stuck?"

"...I can believe that."

Then Jeremie returned his attention to Keeva. "So in addition to programs, there are bits, decs, and hex-decs. Are there any other lifeforms living on the Grid?"

"The most common would be grid bugs and code worms. Both are normally tiny creatures, but some get rather large, especially after the original Grid was corrupted."

"How large."

A distant roar filled the air.

"That was the sound of a Titan Code Worm. Let's just sight light ships tend to avoid them."

Nothing else was said on that matter.

XXXXX

"So, time to go?"

Keeva glanced at Aelita. "Yeah. Look, you know the Code Resequencer? My parents are going to send in a few programs they found that need some repair. And while time runs faster on the Grid than it does in our world, it equalizes with ours whenever it interfaces with an external program."

"Really?"

Mu glanced at Jeremie. "Did we not hold a conversation while I was receiving data from the Supercomputer?"

"...Point taken."

"Yeah."

"Quite a world you got here. Anyone else been to it besides family?"

"Two, actually."

A nearby wall was suddenly illuminated with a picture of Keeva and two others - one a girl with blond hair, a red jacket, and a Sub Digitals shirt, the other a boy with black hair and glasses - kinda like Jeremie.

"Who are they?" asked Aelita.

"My friends - the boy is Ezekiel "Zeke" Bradley, Alan and Lora's grandson. As for the girl, her name's Eva Skinner. One day while Zeke and me were with our families working on Grid stuff, Eva snuck into ENCOM just as we were getting digitized, and the rest was history."

"I see. Where are they now?"

"Zeke's staying with his dad in a different part of France, helping out with some stuff related to the Grid. Eva's staying in America and just enjoying life right now, though I promised to call and text her every so often."

"Good to know."

"Thanks. It's nice to have people to share your burdens with."

Everyone smiled at that. "It does make them easier to carry," acknowledged Yumi.

A few minutes later, and the hextet were back in the Analog world, with the boys heading back to their dorms and the girls heading home. Keeva, meanwhile, was getting ready for bed.

The past day had been...exhiliarating, to say the least. In order, she had learned of the existence of another digital world, become a warrior in a hidden war that could decide the fate of the Earth, made five new friends, and introduced said friends to the Grid.

The future was likely to be turbulent, but right now? Things felt good.

XXXXX

AN: Wow, that turned out longer than expected.

Before you are wondering, yes, Zeke is Jet Bradley's son.

Eva is actually a character from Code Lyoko, but she's not from the show. She only appeared in a set of four novels that were made after Season 4 was completed. These novels were never released in English (two of them weren't even released in French), but they act as a continuation of the series, and take the plot off in a direct direction than Evolution did. Due to the divergences that happen in the story, Eva is the one who takes on William's role as being XANA's main minion (William never becomes a member of the team in that continuity), and eveutally becomes the sixth member of the Lyoko Warriors.

The Lyoko novels are also the only work set in Code Lyoko that concretely explains what Project Carthage is and who the Men in Black that show in the flashback segments are. For this reason, I consider them better than Code Lyoko Evolution, despite never reading them.

So, thoughts?

Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!