The Cartoon Continuum
(Fair warning I give a general synopsis of the show CodeLyokoso if you plan on watching it skip pages 4-7)
(Also the events in the factory take place during the CodeLyoko Evolution episode Obstinacy)
(The appearance I give XANA is completely of my design as XANA)
Comment: Damn, this one is more than twice the length of the last two chapters…
Chater 3:
Return to the Past Now! Part 2
Kenneth's POV:
I wake up to find Jeremy and Octus sitting and talking with each other while the rest of us are sprawled on our backs across the ground.
The two looked up at me as Jeremy smiled. "Oh good you're awake."
"Yeah…" I said stretching. "How'd you guys wake up so quickly?"
"Well Octus is a robot," Jeremy stated the obvious. "Meaning that such feats will not harm him."
"What about you?" I ask the boy.
"Well, when you've traveled through time as much as I have, you become immune to such things no matter what method used." Jeremy explained.
"Alright then." I reply.
"I believe we should now wake our teammates from their slumber." Octus speak up.
"He's right." I reply. "C'mon Jer. I'll take care of Epic and Ace you get Ben, Finn and Liv."
"Sure." Jeremy agrees.
I turn to my jesteresque friend. "Epic…" I shake the boy who simply waves me off. I smirk. "Epic… Ace and Smile are going out with each other."
Epic immediately shoots up at that. "What?!" I laugh at him. "Seriously dude, not cool."
"Well you're such a heavy sleeper." I say in defense. "Besides we've got a mission to do and we don't need you sleeping on the job."
He grumbles as I move on to Ace. No matter how many times one of us does that trick he still falls for it. Dude really needs to just tell the girl how he feels. I barely tap the boy and he shoots up.
"Yes sir!" He shouts. He looks around. "Oh… I'm not at Providence... sorry force of habit with the early wakeup call and all."
"Yeah, yeah I get it Six made you jumpy. Now we need to go, we've only got two hours before the Fusions show up."
"Right, let's go!" Ace shouts. I look around to see the others all awake.
"Alright Jeremy," I say to him. "Lead the way, since you know what you're doing."
We begin to walk through the evening following Jeremy. He stops abruptly causing some of us to bump into each other. "What gives?" Ace asks.
"Look down." Jeremy says and we see a manhole cover.
"Seriously!?" Ben and Epic ask.
"Afraid of getting a little dirty?" Ace asked as he opened the manhole cover and begins climbing down the ladder. "Back in Providence, we had to clean out the Fusion Evo cages and trust me once you've done that nothing can faze you anymore."
I take Ace's words into consideration, not wanting to know what it was like to do such a disturbing task I climb down the ladder after Jeremy who followed Ace. Reaching the bottom I found the massive semicircular structure that was the underground sewer system of the suburbs. It had walkway on each side in the middle of that was the murky water as expected in a sewer system.
After observing the place I look to see the others in the sewer as well.
"Eww…" Ben sighs.
"You turn into guys like Goop and Swampfire and you can't even handle a little sewer?" Jeremy asks.
"Hey!" Ben shouts defensively. "When you become an alien let me know!"
Jeremy ignores them and calls up to Octus. "Octus you can't fit! You're going to have to go the long way, I'll send you the coordinates of the factory via nanocom."
"Understood," Octus confirms his understanding. "We will rendezvous at the Renault Factory upon my arrival."
"Better take on a human form Octus!" Ace calls. "It might ruin things if people see a robot roaming around the city."
"Affirmative" Octus agrees as his form fades to that of Newton. He then walks away and covers the manhole.
We turn to Jeremy who's pressing several buttons on his Nanocom. "There, Octus is good." He tells us I sent him the coordinates.
"Well, guess it's time for a walk through the sewers then." I say.
"And waste that much time?" Jeremy asks. "No, there's a much simpler way."
"What's that?" Finn asks. Like that Jeremy presses several buttons on his nanocom. Like that a bright light shone out of his nanocom as several bits of data pieced themselves together. There formed a light blue hover scooter.
"Oh I get it." Epic replies rolling up his sleeve and doing the same with his releasing a black, red and yellow hover board that looked similar to his hat.
Seconds later all our hover boards appeared as Jeremy was the only one who had a scooter. "Lead the way Jeremy." I tell him and like that we begin our ride through the sewers.
Jeremy, Liv, Ace and I ride side by side on our hover boards with Epic, Ben and Finn close behind. "So Jeremy, tell me about the factory, XANA and this Franz Hoper guy." Liv asks.
"Alright," Jeremy agrees. "XANA was created at least a decade ago as an artificial intelligence program that was originally designed to destroy a military project during the Cold War known as Carthage that could relay any communications between enemies."
"Wasn't that a good thing though?" Ace asks.
"It would be," Jeremy sighed. "But the program eventually was able to do so much more than originally intended that Franz Hopper realized that if the Government had this much power that it would be abused. So he created XANA to destroy it."
"That makes sense." I say.
"Yeah, but what made this XANA go rouge?" Liv asks.
"Well after Carthage was destroyed Franz Hopper developed a Virtual structure, a world so to speak to limit XANA's power as he continued developing this technology."
"To do something like that he would need a large amount of hardware or a sort of limitless web server." Ace said.
"Yeah, Lyoko: The virtual world that XANA once resided was on a server of such proportions." Jeremy explained. "Hopper's vision had to be changed when men from the government took his wife away for two reasons; one was to punish Franz for destroying Carthage; whereas the other was as a warning to Franz telling him that eventually they'll be going after him too. So they kept on hunting him down and the only way out in Hopper's mind was to go to another world."
"So leave." I reply. "I mean surely he could've joined up with the Plumbers or something, I mean he can build a virtual world? He should be able to build a space ship too."
"This was the 1990's." Jeremy explained. "Back then the plumbers were completely hidden from the public eye."
"So what did he do then?" Liv asks.
"He realized he needed to keep his daughter safe, as he didn't want her to be taken away like his wife and began to adapt Lyoko so that they would be able to be virtualized and live there."
"But that didn't work." Ace replies.
"It would've if Franz was more careful." Jeremy explained. "One of the functions of the supercomputer was called 'Return to the Past' which is exactly what it implies as it was able to travel back through time. Franz used this to replay the day he was captured, about 1,500 times until he completed his work, but the time revision slowly drew him to madness."
"Naturally," I say. "I mean who would wanna relive the same day five times let alone 1 and a half thousand times."
"As he returned to the past XANA gained more and more power until he achieved sentience and questioned Franz's orders and waited until Franz and his daughter arrived on Lyoko where he betrayed them." Jeremy explained. "He took Franz's half of what he deemed the keys to Lyoko which gave the user absolute control of Lyoko before Franz manually shut down the computer from inside."
"So is that why Franz is deemed dead, but not really according to Dexter?" Liv asks.
"No, when the supercomputer was shut down for the first time the inhabitants went into a deep slumber." Jeremy explained.
"Then who turned it back on?" I ask.
"That would be me." Jeremy explained. "In present day it would've been four years ago I turned on the computer."
"When I turned on the computer I meet Aelita who was trapped in the computer, and had no memory of her past life." Jeremy continued. "I worked for more than a year on finding a materialization program that could bring Aelita to earth until I succeeded."
"So Aelita's Hopper's daughter, then?" I ask.
"Yeah, when she came to earth we thought that we could just turn off the computer and be rid of XANA forever, but XANA had stolen part of her humanity which bound her to him meaning if we shut down Lyoko and XANA we kill Aelita as well."
Liv smirks. "What's with these villains having twists at every turn, in order to make us not kill them?"
Jeremy laughs. "Ya, it turns out XANA wanted the keys to Lyoko inside of Aelita so he could escape from the computer and not be bound to it and in the end succeeded in getting them."
"So then XANA had absolute control?" Ace asks.
"Yeah, but he realized he couldn't do anything if me and my friends were still around so he expanded his empire but also attempted to destroy Lyoko to cut off our only way to fight him and in the end succeeded by possessing William on his first trip to Lyoko."
"Is that why William looks like a gothic kinda guy when he's fighting?" I ask.
"Ya after XANA used William to destroy Lyoko XANA left a digital imprint of himself in William that forever left his DNA inside him. He was XANA's slave and was his general that he used to command his monsters and fight us on Lyoko." Jeremy explained.
"But with Lyoko destroyed and William under XANA's permanent control," Liv says. "Shouldn't that be like game over?"
"It was all hope was lost. But XANA didn't count on one thing." Jeremy said.
"What's that?" Ace asked.
"Hopper was still alive and sent us the data to recreate Lyoko!" Jeremy exclaimed. "That brought the fight to continue, and like it or not XANA was getting scared, he knew that he would never be able to win if his creator was still alive so he kept throwing Aelita into the digital sea in order to draw Hopper out."
"Why does some virtual water matter?" I ask. "Will you drown?"
Jeremy laughs. "No, but what it does do is it tears apart your virtual avatar and will not bring you back to earth, kinda like going to jail in monopoly; do not pass go, do not collect 200."
"So he's using a fathers love for his daughter in hopes of killing his creator?" I ask. Jeremy just nods. "Man that's just wrong."
"Ya, XANA knew that his daughter's life was the only thing to bring Hopper out of hiding," Jeremy explained. "So we needed to defeat XANA once and for all."
"What did you do?" Liv asks.
"I created a program that would wipe out XANA for good and in the end we did it, but at the cost of Hoppers life." Jeremy explained.
"But XANA's still around!" I shout angered at the digital entity. "He sacrificed his life and XANA lived, leaving Aelita alone."
"Yes," Jeremy said sadly. "XANA survived and we've been fighting him ever since."
"Makes sense why Aelita's so moody then." Ace replied. It's very true that Aelita is moody, though she can hang back and be cool she can also be very angry, depressive and ruthless as well and now we know exactly why.
I sigh looking down at the water we float over.
"Woo-hoo!" Finn shouted. I look behind me to see Ben, Epic and Finn doing all kinds of flips and tricks. That brightens my spirits a bit as I smirk. Always a competition with them isn't it.
Jeremy stops at an outlet of the sewer and gestures to a ladder. We nod and get on solid ground again. We then get off our individual vehicles and store them back in our nanocoms.
Jeremy checks the watch function of his nanocom "Come on guys, we've got an hour and fourty-five minutes before the invasion begins."
"Right let's go!" I command taking the ladder after Jeremy followed shortly by Ben.
At the top of the ladder I reach out for Jeremy's hand which he kindly takes and pulls me up. I then do the same with Ben. Once all assembled we look to see the old abandoned factory looming in front of us. We begin to walk towards the factory and upon entry we see two cables hanging down. Jeremy takes the cable and swings down with Ben following suit, then Finn and I take the next two cables and land down on our feet to the bottom floor.
We land to see an elevator which Jeremy stands in front of. Once the entire group is there Jeremy turns to the large red button that's supposed to turn on the elevator but to our surprise he actually takes the button of its hinges to reveal a small control panel with a number pad. Jeremy then inputs the code '1506' that then makes the elevator slide open.
We all pile inside and Jeremy says. "Whatever you do remain calm, my friends and I at the time had encountered many specters that were sent by XANA meaning anyone could've been a threat to us."
"Relax calm is my midde name." Ben smirks.
"Why does that not make me feel any better?" Jeremy asks.
"How do we know that you were in the factory at this time though?" Ace asks.
"I know," Jeremy sighs. "This is when the fusion invasion started and a sort of revelation was given to Aelita."
With that the elevator opens and we are amazed to see the computer lab before us, with its slight blue tint as the whole room was composed of metal. But the best part was the giant computer in the center of the room with the holographic projection of what appears to be the layout of a room with many platforms that bend around a core on different levels.
Finn lets out a sligh "Wow…" This makes the six teens in the room turn to look at us.
The first of which was sitting in the chair in front of the computer which was none other than Jeremy, of course not the present day incarnation. The farthest left is a girl of Asian descent with brown eyes and jet black hair that The next is a boy who is in crutches who is next to the Yumi he had brown hair that was cut just below her neck she wore a black biker jacket with a white black shirt under it along with black pants, I know her as Yumi; swept to the side in one direction he wore a green jacket that complemented his chocolate eyes with a black shirt and grey pants, I of course know he's Ulrich; next to him is a rather short boy with messy brown hair spiked up in the front with a vague purple spot there he wore a periwinkle jumper with a blue DC shirt with a skateboard on it as well as dark jeans, knowing Odd it isn't a surprise he's here; next to Odd is a boy with messy black hair and dark grey eyes he wears a black shirt under a denim jacket and dark jeans, it's quite strange to see William looking casual; lastly is the person I've been dreading to see Laura Gauthier with her golden locks and blue eyes, she currently wears a black dress.
"Specters?!" Ulrich asks.
"But XANA hasn't launched an attack." Yumi informs the group.
"Wait!" Our Jeremy shouts. "Just listen to me for a second."
"You've got two seconds XANA!" William shouts.
"I am Jeremy, sent from the future by Dexter to warn you about the upcoming Fusion invasion." Jeremy informs.
"Fusions?" Laura asks slightly interested in what he has to say.
"Yes, an alien race that eats up planets and its next target is earth. I have been fighting with many of the worlds heroes against Fuse and his minions for about a year."
"Right aliens…" Ulrich laughs.
"Hey!" Ben shouts. "I take offence to that!"
"Ben Tennyson?" William asks.
"See I told you that the weird thing in the sky was some sort of alien invasion and that we'll be the ones to stop it!" Odd shouted.
"Don't believe this shit!" William shouts. "This is definitely XANA and I'm not standing down to him!"
"William's right," Yumi said. "XANA's pulled this kind of thing on us before, despite the outrageousness of the situation. Plus think about it, Odd can't be right."
"Yeah!" Odd shouts in glee and I resist the urge to face palm "Hey I can be right sometimes!"
"Come on guys!" William shouts charging for us.
Odd and Yumi quickly follow. "Alright, so that's how you're gonna play it…" Ben says gesturing for the gauntlet on his wrist before slamming down the faceplate of the metamorphosing device. He's enveloped in a flash of green light that blinds the three running at us.
There stands the tall humanoid alien with a black and blue design and green eyes he has the Ultimatrix symbol on his chest. "FASTTRACK!" The alien yells in its high pitched nasally voice.
Their Jeremy looks at him and says. "Watch out guys that one is definitely a polymorphic specter the others could be too, but I'm not sure."
"I'll show you polymorphic!" Fasttrack yells running at the two. But our Jeremy grabs his arm.
"Odd you big fat cheese head!" The boy shouts.
The three advancing teens immediately stopped. "Einstein is that really you?" Odd asks.
"Who else?" Jeremy smiles at his friend.
"Mom?!" A voice shouts from the computers speakers. The five kids then gather around the computer. We slowly follow and Ben turns back to his human form. "Mom! It's mom and she's with Tyron!"
The five gasp and I look at older Jeremy who looks down in shame.
"Who's Tyron?" Finn asks. But is quickly shushed by Liv.
Younger Jeremy grabs his headset. "Calm down Aelita are you sure it's your mother?" He asks.
"Yes, I recognize her. She's in the lab with her. I'm sure of it!" The voice answers.
"But…" William can't find the words. "I thought her mother was dead?"
"Aelita?" Ace asks and our Jeremy sadly nods.
"We never really knew what happened to her." Both Jeremy's sighed. "Aelita never talks about it."
"What is she doing with Tyron?" Odd asks.
"I don't know." Younger Jeremy says. "But I need to stop the data transfer."
"Wait I don't get it." Laura says. "Why can't we inject the virus?"
Yumi sighs "Because the supercomputer is the only way for Aelita to stay in contact with her mother."
"Oh man…" Ben and Finn sigh.
"Jeremy," Yumi gains a sense of authority in her voice. "Things have changed; we have a new mystery to solve."
"Yeah," Ulrich agrees. "I agree with Yumi."
Ben, William, Ace, Finn, Liv and I nod as well.
"Aelita, I'm bringing you back." Younger Jeremy confirms.
"No, I am finishing the mission!" The virtual girl confirms.
Older Jeremy takes the mic. "Aelita you are not in good condition to continue!"
"Oh no!" Younger Jeremy shouts as several red blips appear on the screen behind Aelita's yellow one. "Aelita, get out! The ninjas are here!"
"Ninjas?" Ben whispers to me before I lightly elbow him in the gut to shut him up.
"Aelita!" Young Jeremy shouts. "Look you need to come back and that's that!"
The red blips begin to inch closer to Aelita's yellow as Young Jeremy types furiously at the computers keyboard. Aelita's blip then disappears from the screen. "Nice job." Older Jeremy says to himself.
"Dude?" Ben asks. "Isn't that a little egotistic."
Jeremy shrugs. "Probably."
We then turn to hear the elevator open. We all look sadly at the approaching girl, Aelita Scaeffer with her strawberry pink hair and emerald green eyes. She wears a pink tank top that slightly hugs her body under a denim jacket and a black ruffled skirt. We all stare awkwardly at her in the group as both Jeremy's walk up to the girl in question.
She is not at all fazed by this as shouts at both boys or the one boy, agh! Damn time travel! "I had time to inject the virus! Why did you abort the mission?"
"We all decided to, Aelita." Younger Jeremy tells her.
"Your mother is still alive!" Older Jeremy shouts.
"I know but XANA is at 85% of his power!" Aelita snaps back.
"It doesn't matter Aelita!" Older Jeremy replies. "We need XANA more than ever now."
"Besides," Younger Jeremy grabs the pink haired girl's hands. Older Jeremy looks slightly jealous despite the fact that it's him. "The thing you want most is to see your mother again!"
"You'd risk your life for that." The two say simultaneously. "You've done it already."
"If we destroy the Cortex you'll lose her forever." The younger of the two continues. "We could never risk that."
Finn steps up. "Listen Aelita, I know you don't know me yet and even so we're not on the best of terms but right now that doesn't matter. The point of the matter is that I lost my real parents too. Hell I don't even remember them but that doesn't matter! The point is that you have a chance to find your mother and trust me when I say that I'd kill for that opportunity. The point of the matter is that you should go after her no matter where this war may take you cuz I swear to God you will regret it if you do!"
The girl looked at Finn completely void of emotion. She then walked away from the Jeremys' and to Finn. The hat clad hero reared back as Aelita reared back an arm and… wrapped her other arm around the hero. Finn was surprised knowing how much Aelita hated him intruding on her life or emotions but slowly eased into hugging the now crying girl.
Odd smirks. "Now we have two good reasons to resist XANA."
Ben smirks. "And Fuse too!"
"Um… who are these guys?" Aelita asks as she got out of Finn's grasp. "And why is Ben Tennyson here?"
"Haha knew she'd know who I was!" Ben smirks Epic grumbles as he hands him twenty Taros.
"Seriously guys?" I ask quite annoyed.
Older Jeremy cleared his throat. "We come from a year into the future, in which a war with the planet Fusion has been brewing."
"So," Yumi asks. "How does this concern us?
"You guys." Older Jeremy sighs. "We need your help to preserve the factory and free XANA as well as Franz Hopper."
"He's alive?" They all ask in shock including younger Jeremy.
Older Jeremy nods. "I worked closely with Dexter McPherson of Dex Labs Industries in fishing out what we appear his DNA sequence codes that were scattered across the network I have a program that will be able to assemble these remains into a human being but we can only rematerialize him when we return to the future."
BOOM! The factory begins to rumble as what appears to be a large mass falls on the factory. "What the hell was that?!" A voice shouts from the supercomputer.
We rush to see the face of a man appear in a new window on the screen. The man had wavy black hair that swooped down over his right eye with red highlights in it, he had pale skin as well as piercing red eyes that had the eye of XANA in the pupils as well as the same symbol lightly imprinted on his forehead. It's obvious that the slight disturbance had left the digital entity bemused.
"XANA…" William growled.
XANA laughed. "Well William it's so nice that you remembered me! I'm sure you remember the moments you have had with me!"
William growled at the AI's sarcastic remark. XANA then turned back to his frown. "Now once again Belpois, Schaeffer, Stern, Ishiyama, Dunbar, Dellarobia, Tennyson, Finn, Braten, Mann, Ace, and Greystone what the hell is going on?!"
"How do you know us?" Liv asked.
"Now, Now, Liv Hex Braten you are avoiding the question." He looked at him from the screen straight in the eyes, as if he was in the room with us this made Liv get slightly disturbed for a second. "But I suppose I will answer your question. As soon as you entered the room I ran a facial recognition scan on each of you and immediately scanned the internet in hopes of finding you. Some of you were quite simple to find like Ben Tennyson and Epic Kingdom Mann, whereas others were rather painful like you Finn the human boy and Liv Hex Braten. So once again I ask each of you and this time I expect an answer. What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On."
I sigh. "XANA, we're under attack."
The digital entity looks at me with his piercing logo. "Very well, shall I send my monsters to help?" XANA asked.
"No!" Those of us from the future shout making Younger Jeremy and his friends look at us confused but XANA doesn't even bat an eyelash.
"What my friends and I had meant to say was that it wouldn't be a good idea to send out your monsters." Jeremy replied. "With just a single drop of Fusion matter even Megatanks dissolve or begin to be controlled by Fuse, this is already bad enough without them in the way."
Older Jeremy turns toward his younger friends. "You guys head over to the scanner room I have a little program that should be able to help."
His friends nod and Ulrich begins to hobble off to the elevator on his crutches. "Not you Ulrich!" Both Jeremy's command.
"But the others need my help!" He insisted.
Younger Jeremy spoke up. "I forbid you to step foot in a scanner Ulrich."
Ulrich glared.
Older Jeremy sighed. "Though I admire your persistence Ulrich there's a very good reason you shouldn't go out there. The first time this had happened to me the six of us were barely able to get out as the Fusion Matter ate up the factory and turned the factory into an Infected Zone. Ulrich with your injury you almost die getting out of here and you fighting is not the answer to that problem."
The others then begin to leave while Older Jeremy hands his younger self his nanocom which he instantly begins pressing buttons rapidly on, Damn he's a fast learner… , whereas Laura is typing on her Ipad as well.
A second later Odd, Yumi and William then climb up the ladder in the forms I've come to know them in.
Odd is now in a purple skintight body suit with many yellow patches and lines. He also now had orange cat like eyes as well as purple lines similar to war paint running down his cheeks. On his arms were black metallic gauntlets with golden tiger stripes going down the arms and blue holes on the knuckles. Not to mention his hair was now blonde and pointed completely upwards with a purple spot in the middle and his new tail.
Yumi had no facial marks but she was in a burgundy body suit that looked like a cross between a Geisha and a ninja.
William was in a black and red skintight body suit as well and his skin was even more paled than before.
Shortly following them a pink blur shot out from the ladder and softly landed down revealing to be Aelita in a changed form as well. She wore a skintight body suit made up of varying shades of pink as well and had a skirt.
Older Jeremy looked up from his seat at the computer. "Alright guys your Lyoko forms have up to 500 life points and after that I'm afraid your wounds will become fatal."
"Yeah, yeah Einstein we get it." Odd says. "Don't lose all your life points others wise I'll end up losing one of my nine lives."
"Very funny Odd." Older Jeremy smiled. "Anyways it's best that the ten of you split up into three groups, two of them will be groups of three and the other will be the final group of four. Ben, Kenneth and Yumi will be in one group they'll be the alpha squad who will be at the front lines of battle."
"Oh ya!" Ben smirks.
"Next will be Epic, Ace, and Odd. You guys will be beta squad who will be fighting off many of the monsters as well as making sure alpha squad is okay. Finally there's Gamma squad which will start out as a search and recovery team for Octus I feel like he's been outside too long and you guys'll hunt him down and bring him back here to help out, after which point you'll be a last line of defense for the factory keeping out Fusion monsters that manage to make their way inside."
"What are we waiting for?" I ask taking out an energy rifle and cocking it. "Let's go!"
We rush for the elevator and I punch the button that makes the elevator door open. We all pile inside and I look to Ben who slams down the faceplate of the Ultimatrix.
With a flash of green light there was an alien entirely made out of green roots, who had a black face, fangs, and on top of its head was a red petal surrounded by two other yellow petals, giving a slight floral appearance. It also had red petals coming out of its shoulders, and yellow ones on its forearms. On its chest was the ultimatrix symbol.
"Swampfire!" The alien shouts in its deep nasally voice.
"Damn it!" Odd shouted. "I wanted you to turn into Rath!"
"Tired of being the only Cat kid Odd?" Yumi asks me.
"Maybe…" Odd says. "Plus him and Wildmutt are my favorites!"
"Would that have something to do with Kiwi?" William asks.
"Maybe…" Odd sighs.
I then got a big whiff of the alien made of methane. The others started to as well.
"Seriously Ben?" Yumi asks. "Ever hear of deodorant?"
"I can't help it!" The boy in question stated. "Swampfire just stinks!"
"Dude, Couldn't you have transformed outside the elevator?" Epic asks.
"You always have to come to work prepared!" Swampfire insisted.
"A little too prepared if you ask me." William smirks.
"How often do I go on missions with this guy in the future?" Yumi asks.
"Everyone goes on at least a couple missions a week with Ben." Ace replied.
"Remind me to bring deodorant whenever I'm with this guy." Yumi says. "Can I count on you Aelita?"
"Sure Yumi." The girl smiles.
"Guys, guys." Finn starts. "It could be worse. It could've been fourarms!"
We laugh at that.
"Not funny guys…" Swampfire grumbles as the elevator opens.
"Let's go!" We run up the stairs to find the massive terrafuser at the bridge of the factory with a mass of fusion spawns swarming the place. Octus was there (in his robot form) trying to neutralize the terrafuser with a massive beam from his eye.
Ben, Yumi and I run towards the Terrafuser, Ben and I knowing how much easier it's to take one out when it's fresh.
"Beta clear a path for us to get to the Terrafuser!" I command Epic, Ace and Odd who nod as I continue to fire at the mass of Fusion Spawns getting one spawn after the other.
"Epic," Ace calls. "Offensive maneuver: 23C!"
"Dude," Epic says while slicing a spawn with his sword. "Just say attack!"
I ignore the rest of the conversation as I move along with Swampfire and Yumi. Yumi hurls her razor sharp fans at a spawn. While Swampfire hurls a fireball at another. A spawn makes an attempt to grab at Yumi but I shoot it away. Yumi gives me her thanks. But of course she doesn't understand the full extent of what I had just done for if she was touched directly by a Fusion we would've had a fusion double of her on the prowl.
I begin to fire more and more blasts at the massive throng of Fusions. The rays of negative energy make the Fusion Spawns explode on impact leaving a lot of Fusion Matter Residue on the floor.
I turn behind me to see Odd. "LASER ARROW!" He shouts as a stream of blue arrows made purely of energy fire out of the holes on his gauntlet. But out of nowhere a Spawn latches itself on his head. "Mmmf… Mmmf…" His words our unheard as the spawn latches onto him.
"Odd!" Yumi and I shout running for Odd as he desperately tried to get the Fusion Spawn off of his face.
We run and I quickly change the settings of my energy rifle to stun. I fire the ball of blue energy at the goop. Upon contact the blue ball dissipates into the goop, and energy crackles through it. The spawn jumps off of Odd as he begins to vomit. Yumi has his arm around him while I set my gun back to kill.
Firing beams of energy to cover them. Not letting a single spawn get past me. Suddenly fireballs begin to hit the Spawns and Swampfire runs over.
"What are you guys doing?" Ben asks.
"I know," I reply. "But we had to help Odd, a spawn was suffocating him."
"Guys!?" Yumi called out, with the immediate fear ringing through her voice. Ben and I turn to see Odd's vomit pooling together with some of the Fusion Matter on the ground. "Is that supposed to happen?"
"Uh-oh…" Swampfire gasps as the Fusion Matter begins to form into a mass body. It begins to take form into a physical body. Odd is still on his hands and knees gasping while Yumi helps him up.
Now we see the newly formed Fusion stand in front of us. It's head is a Fusion Spawn with a red spot in the middle, it has skintight bodysuit that was mostly varying shades of green but had splotches of red where the normal Odd had his yellow and has black tiger like gauntlets with red stripes and red holes on the knuckles and the large red tail. But the main difference between the two was the large claws that he had most likely for close combat.
'Watch out for claws…' A voice told me. 'Watch out for claws…' Professor Paradox! He was warning us of this!
"Laser arrow." The fusion darkly said firing the many red arrows of energy at us. They strike me hard, slightly disorienting me yet I still remain standing.
"We better call for back up." I tell Ben and Yumi. "I'll get Odd while the two of you cover me!"
They nod. Swampfire slams the ultimatrix symbol on his chest down. There standing in Swampfire's place was a large humanoid figure made entirely of wood making it seem to resemble a living tree. Along with this it also had large blue gelatinous shells that made up his head and the back of his head as well. In one of the gelatinous shells was his face was inside which had green eyes and a mouth. This evolved alien had the Ultimatrix symbol on his chest, the Ultimatrix symbol was accompanied by four metal spokes extending from the ends of the hourglass. The evolved Metamosian shouted its name.
"Ultimate Swampfire!" He then got out one of his gelatinous balls of goop and nodded to Yumi. "Hit 'em hard!"
He then threw the bomb at the Fusion catman. Odd was still struggling to reorient himself as I awkwardly pat him and begin to dial everyone on my nanocom. Finn, Epic, Liv and Ace answer.
"Yeah man?" Finn asks as I can clearly hear the slicing of a sword on his end.
"Kinda busy!" Liv answers.
"OW!" Epic answers. "You did not just do that! Get back here you stupid Fusion!"
"Can you hurry up?" Ace says. "In a bit of a jam here!"
"We need help!" I say to them. "Odd's sick and got himself a Fusion."
"Seriously?" Ace asks.
"On my way!" Finn replies and hangs up.
"Guys… I don't care what you're doing the point is we need backup!" I say and then hang up.
I look up at the battle with Fusion Odd to see Yumi with a staff engaging in close range combat with the Fusion. "How are we doing?" I ask Ultimate Swampfire.
"Terrible." The alien replies. "I mean Yumi's lost both of her fans and the Fusion ran up to me but Yumi engaged it in battle instead. Now I can't get a good shot in!"
"Try changing forms." I suggest. "I mean you can't hit Odd without getting Yumi so change into someone else."
Ben nods and changes form. This one was a giant red figure that had hulking muscles and four arms. He had green eyes and a black stripe that lead back into a pony tail. His Ultimatrix symbol was held by two large golden bans that went from his shoulders and crossed on his chest. The big brute himself let out his cry.
"Fourarms!" He shouted.
We look to see Yumi struggling before a cloud of black smoke flies at the Fusion knocking it on its back. William rematerialized from the smoke as his large zweihander formed in his hands. He struck the ground where the Fusions head once was but it rolled out of the way and shot laser arrows at William forcing him to retreat.
Yumi and William both run back towards us.
"Out of the way!" A voice shouts we turn to see Aelita and Liv running/flying away from a mass of Fusion spawns. I cock my energy riffle and fire at the Spawns following them. Ben rushes forward and the four armed gladiator-esque alien begins to smash the Fusions. Two figures then rush out as Fusions are slashed in half as they pass.
Epic and Finn make perfect timing. We regroup and I realize that now only Ace is missing.
"Dude I'm right here." I turn to see Ace.
"Ok, good." I reply. I look around at all of us and notice the Fusions retreating to the Terrafuser.
"Their forming a wall." Liv says.
"A wall?" I ask.
"Yeah," Ace continues. "Their making a last line of defense while Fusion Odd acts as their general."
"Ok," I then get into leading them. "Alright first thing I want is for Aelita to fly Odd back into the factory he's in no condition to continue fighting."
"Got it!" Aelita then gets Odd and flies off.
"Now half of us will take on Fusion Odd while the others take out the Terrafuser." I say. "Ben, Finn, William, and I will take on Fusion Odd while the rest of you go after the Terrafuser."
"Got it!" They all nod.
"I'll call Jeremy and tell them to have Aelita join you when she's finished with Odd."
I call the boy genius and wait. "Jeremy?"
"Uh… Kenneth is it?" He asks thus giving me the realization I'm talking to the younger one.
"Yeah," I reply. "Make sure that Aelita goes and joins the others with the Terrafuser okay."
"Yeah… Sure."
I end the call and we all turn towards the Fusion. Finn immediately runs at the fusion with his sword high above his head. Fusion Odd accepts and runs at him as well.
"Super smoke!" William shouts and dissipates into the smoky substance. Flying towards where Finn and the fusion are trading blows. The Fusion sees this and moves to only fighting Finn with one hand while firing his laser arrows at William. The boy is hit and begins falling down but the hulking tetramand catches him. I then carefully aim my energy riffle at the Fusion but am trying not to hit Finn.
"You're gonna lose!" Finn grunts while pushing back with his sword against the Fusions claws.
"Puny human you make me laugh!" The Fusion states. "This is just the beginning of the fall of the human race."
"Don't count on it!" A deep voice says from behind him. The Fusion is surprised. He turns and gets a slice in the back from Finn due to the distraction. There stands Fourarms who gives the Fusion a great big punch that sends him sky high. I take the chance and fire multiple shots at the Fusion until smoke comes and rises above him, in the dark sky William falls towards it with his sword raised and strikes it sending it down at the ground so hard that it falls into the bridge giving the lake a now green tint.
William lands with a smirk and we all run to the hole in the bridge.
Ben now in his human form smirks. "Take that ya dumb fusion!"
"Yeah alright!" Finn and William high five. But I still look at the hole in the bridge. It's never that easy to take out a Fusion no matter how young.
BOOM! There's a large blast as a cloud of green flies out all around us signaling the destruction of the Terrafuser.
I begin to relax at that. "OW!" Ben falls forward with five claw marks in the back of his jacket that release a little blood. We turn to see the Fusion of Odd still smirking at us.
Finn and William both charge forward with their swords raised but are knocked back by the arrows it fires. "Foolish humans it seems there is only one of you left standing! Much like you're 'grand' history."
"Think again Fusion jerk!" A voice calls from behind it. There it reveals Ace who punches the Fusion with his metallic gloves known as smack hands. The maneuver would've made Rex proud.
The fusion is knocked back before it's hit by several pink balls of energy as well as two continuous rays of light. I look to see Aelita, Liv and Epic fire their weapons at the Fusion and smirk.
Yumi then runs at the Fusion and holds it down with her staff. I get the picture and fire a shot at the Fusion who is still standing but is very weakened.
William and Finn struggle to get up and Liv holds Ben up as they walk to where Yumi holds down the Fusion. "It's over Fusion Odd." I say.
"I may be weakened but I will return for you dreadful humans." It says.
"How in the hell is this supposed to be Odd's clone?" William asks.
"Fusions can be as similar or different to their counterparts as possible." Liv replies.
You're telling me… I think the thought of my fusion coming to mind.
"It's over now Odd." Aelita says to the Fusion while holding an orb of pink energy in her hands. Those of us still able hold our weapons out threateningly.
"We'll meet again Aelita, dear." We take the chance and fire our weapons but the Fusion turns to an acid like substance that burns through the bridge and floats away in the water.
"Damn." Epic grumbles.
"I know right," Liv agrees. "We nearly had him."
A blue light appears.
"But now is the time to celebrate!" A voice says cheerfully revealing to be Professor Paradox.
"Again?" Liv asks.
"Oh pipe down, dear boy. I'm only here to congragulate you on saving the Renault Factory from becoming an infected zone!"
"Thanks." I say.
"Oh and let me help your friends." He then grabs William and Finn and they disappear. He then reappears. "Your turn Ben!"
"Where'd they go?" Yumi asks.
"Who knows…" Ace replies.
The four of them then step out of a portal with Odd looking good as new. "There we go, think of this as a small favor."
"Thanks, Paradox!" Ben says.
They man smiles and then disappears in a flash of blue light.
"That man seems very nice." Aelita said thoughtfully.
"Yeah." Odd agreed.
"Let's head back into the factory now." Aelita said.
"Jeremy should be finished and then we can head home." I reply.
We then walk back into the factory and head down the elevator.
At the computer Older Jeremy types furiously. While doing this XANA's face once again appears on the screen in a new window.
"Well I must say that was quite a fight!" The digital entity says yet still keeps a calm and sarcastic demeanor. "Such ferocity and bravery shall not be forgotten. I have to say, I now have some powerful allies as well as enemies."
"Just get into Jeremy's damn flash drive already!" I shout.
"Ouch! Touchy!" The AI remarks. He laughs. "But don't worry Mr. Greystone we shall speak again in your own time. After all there's no time like the present, or future in this case." And like that the window disappears.
Older Jeremy then gets off the computer and stretches. "Well that's that!"
"So we're done?" Epic asks.
"Yep, all we need to do is go back." Older Jeremy says.
"How do we do that though?" Ace asks.
"Leave it to me!" Ben smirks and slams down the faceplate of the Ultimatrix.
There standing in his place is the bulky figure of Clockwork. "Clockvork!" The alien yells in its heavy accent.
He shoots a beam of green energy at the wall and a swirling vortex then appears. Ben then transforms back to normal. "There that should take us about five minutes after we left."
"Should?" Liv questions.
"Relax," Ben smirks. "I got it all under control."
"Time to go home everyone!" I say.
Finn turns to Jeremy. "Wait, you said were going to get Aelita's dad back when we go back to the future?"
"Well yeah." Older Jeremy says. "Why?"
"No reason." Finn says. He then pushed the boy through the portal.
"Why'd you do that?" Ace asks.
"Cuz he might stop me." Finn states. "Anybody got a pen and paper?"
"Here." Ulrich says hobbling over on his crutches.
Finn then scribbles something down on the sheet. "Here," He hands it to Aelita. "Just remember to do this okay?"
She nods. "Thank you."
"No problem." He smiles and he walks into the portal.
"Cya guys later!" Epic smiles before he goes in the portal.
"Later." Ben walks in.
"Bye." Ace walks in.
I look towards the portal and turn to them. "Guys, be careful. The war has only begun and I can say that you'll experience a lot when it comes. Just remember to keep fighting no matter what. Me and my team do it every day in hope of a better tomorrow."
"Don't worry." Odd says. "When Fuse get's one look at me he'll wish he never even uttered the name Odd DellaRobia."
I smirk at the boy knowing he's still the same as he is in the future now in the past and gah! Damn time travel!
"Bye guys." I then step through the portal.
I step out of the portal into the time room of Dex Labs smiling at the good job we had done.
Dexter smiles. "Well done! Not only have you restored the factory but as we speak Lyoko is in the process of becoming part of the training center!"
"Cool!" Finn says.
"Now, Jeremy where are XANA and Franz?" Dexter asks.
Jeremy pulls out two flash drives. He gives one to Dexter and he gestures for all of us to follow him. We do so as he takes us to a new room with a massive computer and one metal column.
Dexter inputs his flash and we wait a few seconds where Dexter is typing rapidly. Dexter then triumphantly presses the enter key and immediately a full body hologram of XANA appears before us. He wears a dark black cloak as well as a dark black shirt with a blood red eye of XANA on it and dark pants. He also wears black gloves with red lines running down them to the tips of his fingers like vines.
He wears those clothes along with his casual smirk. "So this is the future?"
"Yes, Welcome XANA!" Dexter shouts. "We have much work to do as your talents must be used to help the war."
"Why, of course." XANA says.
The AI then turns to face us. "So it appears that this is where we depart young warriors. It saddens my heart to see you all leave but alas the time has come."
"Jeremy, you may go ahead." Dexter says and he nods.
He walks to the computer and types on it rapidly until he says three words. "Materialization Franz Hopper!"
The metal column in question immediately opens and there is a man in a brown shirt and black dress pants under a lab coat. He wears round shades that obscure his eyes and black hair that is slightly graying Along with his large beard.
"Welcome Franz." Dexter says. "You are now in the future, and we need your assistance to fight off an alien race known as Fusions."
The man nods. "Very well. I shall assist you."
Finn whispers something to Jeremy who nods. "But you will begin this in two days for now you need to rest and see the world."
"I understand Jeremy." The man says completely calm.
XANA turns towards Franz. "Hello father."
"XANA!" The man growls.
"Yes I am sure you are still quite bothered by our previous encounter." XANA says. "For now let's just bury the hatchet and try to fight on the same side as originally intended."
Franz leaves the room and we follow after the man. I turn to Finn. "So what did that note to Aelita say?"
"You'll see." Finn smiled.
We come to the lobby of Dex Labs. The door immediately opens and in walks a certain pink haired girl holding a crumpled up piece of paper.
The girl looks up at Franz with tears falling down her face. Franz looks at her in surprise. "Aelita?"
"Daddy?" Aelita asks in surprise. Aelita then runs into the man's arms and begins to sob.
The man embraces the girl. I then remember what Jeremy told us about Hopper's daughter and smile. It's nice to be reunited once again.
I turn to Finn who can only help but smile. "Finn…"
He's trying to hold the tears back yet answers anyways. "Yeah?"
"You're awesome." I tell him. "That's a very great thing to do."
"Thanks."
Later the team is hanging out at HQ with Finn, Ben and Jeremy as guests.
"Man what a day…" Liv says.
"Eh… It wasn't much." Ben smirks.
"Dude," Epic starts. "You got scratched in the back by a Cat Fusion."
"Could've been worse." Finn says.
"Well there's only one thing left then." Ace says.
"What's that?" I ask.
"See who won the bet!" Ace replies.
"Awesome!" Ben shouts.
Jeremy smirks. "Alright guys let me check."
Jeremy takes out his nanocom and looks at us. I'm slightly curious to see who won. "The one who got the least monsters is… Ace and Liv with thirty-seven monsters."
The two sigh in defeat. "Then there's Finn with forty-five monsters."
Finn snapped his fingers. "Man…"
"Epic with forty-seven monsters."
Ben smiled "That means!"
"Kenneth wins with sixt-five to Ben's sixty-four!" Jeremy smirks.
"WHAT?!" We all shout.
"I didn't even bet." I say.
"I know but I still sent the program to you anyways and made sure it was left running. So Kenneth wins."
I smile. "How much did you guys bet again?"
I laugh as the six of them grumble as they dig through their pockets for Taros.
Present Day Ways:
Uh… So this is interesting. I don't entirely hate this chapter even if young Ways didn't fully understand how to do certain things. Uh… What's there to note?
I didn't talk about it last time but I am no longer a fan of first person perspective for a lot of reasons. Third person omniscient for the win lol. But this is before I started doing that even more way to show that this is old.
I cannot tell you why in the world Liv despises Paradox. There was probably going to be some sort of deep emotional reasoning that I had behind that but now? I honestly don't know.
Young Ways had a thought that swearing would obviously make his work more mature lmfao course you can see that be a thing in Cartoon Network: The Subspace Emissary as well but you also see me start to grow out of that in that fic.
XANA's characterization is very weird and I don't understand why. I know I wanted XANA to have an avatar and just kinda gave it to him. A design I mostly still stand by but the personality is certainly somethin'
The numbers for the contest are actually hilarious lmfao
And uh… That's it.
R&R I guess.