A/N: Here is the next installment of my Jerlita Roleswap AU. Hope you all enjoy it~
Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko in any way, shape, or form.
Note: Remember, any episodes not mentioned either as the inspiration for a chapter or just in passing are not part of the AU, mainly because the roleswap makes them useless, and those only mentioned in passing are just filler and/or would be the same no matter who has what role.
Beta read by swordsdownforreview
Sorry this chapter is so late. My internet was turned off for the past five days.
!~~~J~E~R~L~I~T~A~~R~O~L~E~S~W~A~P~~A~U~~~!
"There's something wrong with Aelita. Jérémie's concerned, but her lips are sealed."
Episode 28: Temptation
(Based on Temptation)
Odd flew past the various trees of the Forest Sector, weaving the Overboard in and out to dodge the lasers of the squadron of three Hornets chasing him. He ignored his passenger's yelp as he flew straight towards a tree before alerting course right before he hit said tree. This action caused a Hornet to bump into it and be destroyed.
Said passenger, an elf clad in blue, promptly asked him, "Odd, just out of curiosity, why do you always wait for the last second to do that?"
"That way I can be certain," Odd replied, not looking behind him at Jérémie. "I'm being careful." He then playfully added, "Besides, it's more fun!"
Jérémie gave him a worried look, not looking very reassured, but he said nothing.
The two remaining Hornets fired at them, and Odd flew left and right to avoid both lasers and trees, Jérémie tightly clutching onto him the whole time. The two monsters fired again, and Jérémie yelped again at the tense situation, at the close proximity of both the lasers and the trees. He gasped sharply as Odd zipped by a tree at close range, getting another Hornet destroyed.
"Is that what you call fun?!" a frightened Jérémie asked. "Looks more like insanity if you ask me!"
"Oh, you mean there's a difference?" Odd joked, chuckling until he saw the elf's unamused expression. Back to serious, he added, "Sorry I'm scaring you, Jer, but it's saving me Arrows."
The last Hornet fired, and Odd swerved to avoid the laser. He then heard the familiar whirring of Yumi's fan and looked up in time to see said fan to bounce off of two trees before returning to hit and destroy the Hornet.
As Yumi caught her fan, Odd winked and saluted her, "Thanks, Yumi."
"Don't mention it," she winked back, flying her Overwing alongside them. "And Jérémie, if you want, you can hop on behind me instead. I'm not a pilot that takes risks."
Odd pouted at the playful jab, as Jérémie replied, "Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine. We're almost at the tower anyways."
Yumi shrugged, "If you so say," choosing to stay close by just in case. She then glanced down at Ulrich, who was riding his Overbike on the path below them on their right.
Ulrich glanced back to see a Hornet, who immediately fired at him. He weaved in and out in a serpentine manner to avoid the lasers, as a second Hornet joined the first. Ulrich unsheathed his katana before slowing down. He stood up on his seat, before jumping up into the air with his Super Sprint. He spun around as he flew up, before striking both with his katana, destroying them. He then landed back on his Overbike while it was still in motion.
Amazing what super speed would let you do...
"Odd, Jérémie, you're only a few minutes away from the activated tower," Aelita reported from the lab.
Usually, she'd join them in clearing the passage, but lately, she'd been taking up the controls instead. Missions to Sector Five, they understood. But in the case of activated towers, like this one, Jérémie could do everything she could straight from the tower, and his goggles were connected directly to the holomap. None of them understood why.
"Bummer," Odd replied, sounding a little disappointed while also joking. "I was just starting to enjoy myself."
Another Hornet appeared behind him and began firing. One of its shots hit the Overboard, causing it to begin glitching out, a clear sign it was about to give up.
"Finally, some action!" Odd exclaimed, as he lowered down to the path Ulrich was riding on. "Sorry, Prince Charming, the ride's coming to a stop!"
Jérémie immediately bailed, not wanting to fall into the Digital Sea by accident. Meanwhile, Odd continued on the glitching Overboard until it finally disappeared, at which point, he leapt off and landed on a tree trunk. His paws letting him stay up there, he leapt down and landed safely beside Jérémie, who was getting to his feet.
"You okay?" the cat asked, and the elf nodded. "Good. We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot."
The activated tower was in sight. It was the same one XANA used to fill the Kadic dorms with a toxic gas, an attack that Jim, Sissi, and Ulrich almost died from. Jérémie's tree trunks, the ones he created to reach the tower, were still there. Good, he didn't have to re-create them.
Behind them, however, was a squadron a five Hornets. The two turned around when they first heard the (annoying) hum of their wings, in time to see them appear from the sky.
"Hurry!" Odd told Jérémie. "I'll cover you."
As the elf ran off towards the tower, Odd fired at a Hornet, destroying it. He fired again, only for this Arrow to miss. He fired a third time as he backed away from the lasers, only for him to miss yet again. A laser hit him in the stomach, but he turned that force into a backflip. Mid-flip, he fired again, destroying another monster before landing on his feet.
Jérémie hopped across the tree trunks to avoid the pond surrounding the tower. Once he landed on the island, blue transparent tentacles dangled in front him, making him halt in his tracks.
Feeling that all-too familiar magnetic pull, he looked up at the Scyphozoa as it descended from the sky, having wisely waited next to the tower. He backed away slowly, knowing he wouldn't get very far.
Fortunately, Yumi flew in on her Overwing and threw one of her fans. Said fan sliced off the monster's tentacles before they could touch him.
The passage now technically cleared, the elf ran towards the tower, while calling back to the geisha, "Thanks, Yumi!"
He then entered the tower at a run, stopping in the center of the platform. He let the data stream carry him the lower level up to the top one. Once he landed, he approached the center again. The interface greeted him, and he placed his hand on it. His handprint was accepted.
JEREMIE_
CODE_
LYOKO_
He glanced at the data windows that lined the wall of the tower and watched them all start falling. Once they started doing so, he smiled and relayed to Aelita, "Tower deactivated."
"Great job. I'll start the Return and get you all home," she replied.
Outside, the other three had regrouped, with Ulrich and Yumi still seated on their now idle vehicles. They were all surprised at Aelita's declaration.
"Really?" Yumi asked her friend, curious, as she put away the fan she used to attack the Scyphozoa. "Why? XANA didn't even have time to launch an attack on Earth. You said so yourself."
"Right," Odd added. "And if anything did happen, you would've told us by now."
"You can't be too careful." The pink-ette sounded like them questioning her was getting on her nerves.
"Um, may I remind you that going back in time makes XANA stronger?" Ulrich pointed out.
"I know what I'm doing, alright?" she retorted.
"Well, if you know," Ulrich replied, "then explain it to us, Miss Einstein!"
"No time. Just trust me." What was going on? This attitude was not like Aelita at all.
Still inside the tower, his only light being the interface flashing 'Code: LYOKO', Jérémie cut in, "Aelita, that's not the point they're trying to make." He was very worried about her behavior lately. She kept acting like everything was fine, but he knew better.
"That's my final answer," Aelita retorted. "Return to the past, now."
Jérémie could only watch as a bright white flash burst forth from the bottom of the dark tower before engulfing everything.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Time rewound to this morning. Jérémie found himself back at the vending machines, joined by Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi, all with their school bags slung over their shoulders. They were waiting for classes to start, and like before, Aelita hadn't joined them yet, likely still in her room.
"Aelita's really becoming a pain," Ulrich began. Unlike the previous take, they were talking about the pink-ette's mood these past two weeks. "She just flies off the handle for no reason at all. She's...she's like a time bomb."
Yumi was getting her hot chocolate, "Maybe she's got family problems." She turned to the pink-ette's own cousin, "Odd, have you received any hint to that being case?"
"No," Odd replied. He hadn't heard anything, which was telling because if she was having family issues, he would be the first person to know about them, being her cousin and all. "But I think I have a better explanation."
Ulrich raised an eyebrow, as Yumi decided to indulge him, too worried about Aelita to care, "Which is?"
"Maybe she's only just realized that she has a split personality and that on the night of a full moon, she becomes the demonic Doctor Shrank himself! Capable of grafting animal body parts onto human beings! And now she knows that she must bear the weight of this curse and face this terrible fate worse than death!"
Jérémie and Yumi stared at him flatly, unamused, as Ulrich replied, "You've been watching too much 'Hospital of Horrors', Odd. She's probably just stressed out."
"Hey, it's a fantastic show!" Odd defended himself. "Who could ever pass it up?"
The other three simply held up their drinks to answer, and that answer was 'us, that's who'.
Ulrich glanced over at the courtyard next to them, expecting their fifth due to seeing what time it was. Sure enough, there she was. "Speak of the devil..."
Aelita, her own school bag slung over her shoulder, walked straight up to the vending machines, ignoring Odd when he asked, "How's life, cuz?"
As she inserted her money for a hot chocolate, Jérémie softly asked her, "Where were you?" These last two weeks, her sudden change in behavior made him concerned, and now it was starting to seep out uncontrollably.
"In my room," she snapped, not meeting his eyes. "Why, is there a law against it?"
"Geez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," Yumi muttered, crossing her arms. She didn't like this side of Aelita, stress or not. "Chill out, will you? We're just worried."
"I'm fine, okay?!" the pink-ette sharply replied. Those two words were practically her new catchphrase. "I'm a big girl now, so just get off my back!"
Ulrich leaned over to Odd, and mumbled, "Hey, you might have something with your Doctor Shrank theory. I'm sorry for poking fun at it." Honestly, nothing else would explain Aelita lashing out in unjustified anger at her own friends.
Odd shrugged, "I told you. I know my cousin." The five-minute warning bell then rang, thankfully interrupting the tense conversation. "C'mon, let's go. Right now, I've also gotta face a fate worse than death."
"What's that?" Ulrich asked, as the crazy-haired blonde walked away.
"Mrs. Meyer's class..."
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
"Property allows us to calculate length. For example, in a triangle marked ABC. With straight lines called RS and BC, which are parallel."
As Mrs. Meyer was lecturing, using the chalkboard to help her, Odd was drawing instead of taking notes. His deskmate, Ulrich, was only taking notes based on what the teacher wrote on the board. Jérémie's notes were based on both the board as well as the teacher's verbal lecture. Aelita, meanwhile, was finding it difficult to concentrate.
"First we calculate X, then SC. Hypothetically, ABC is a triangle. R is a point on AB. N is a point on AC."
Aelita's mind was filled with a familiar peaceful, snowy mountain-side. It was time to go home, time to have dinner. So she was walking there.
But behind her, a snowstorm was raging, covering the space she was no longer occupying. It kept creeping closer and closer...
"Aelita, are you okay?" But Jérémie's whispered concern brought her back to reality.
She was grateful she still had the presence of mind to respond to him whenever he called, but right now, she had a headache, a massive one. She could barely concentrate in class the previous take, but this time, the pain was a lot worse.
"X equals 7 times 8. 10x equals 56. And that's it. It's rather simple in the end."
Mrs. Meyer's finished her lecture, just as Aelita stood up from her seat. She ignored her deskmate Jérémie's worried glance.
"Uh, ma'am," she powered through the pain, but it was still seeping through, given how she was still holding her head as she talked.
"Yes, Miss Schaeffer, you have a question?" Mrs. Meyer asked.
"M-May I please go to the infirmary...?"
On top of Jérémie's concern, she also ignored Ulrich and Odd's as well, as they immediately glanced up when she asked this question. She didn't get an alert from the superscan, so it meant that it wasn't XANA. It was her.
Seeing her troubled state, Mrs. Meyer replied, almost caught off-guard, "Oh, yes, of course."
Aelita began trudging towards the exit, nodding her thanks to the teacher as she did so.
On her way past him, Jérémie offered, "You want me to come with you?"
"No." Her answer was short and curt, and once again, she forced herself to ignore how worried he was. She also forced herself to ignore the guilt that boiled up from yelling at him.
She never meant to. The first time it happened, it had shocked her. She had never gotten that angry at him before, to the point where she had to walk away from him to cool down. All he had done was urge her to come to lunch because she had skipped breakfast that morning. Since then, she had become cranky and snippy, with even the slightest annoyance setting her off.
But the end result would be worth it.
It had to be.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Now in the cafeteria for lunch hour, the other three caught Yumi up with their fifth's whereabouts.
"Aelita skipped music class?" Yumi asked incredulously, grabbing a dish. She couldn't believe it; music class with Mr. Mirti was the pink-ette's favorite class, because being a DJ herself, it made sense.
"And art class," Ulrich added, knowing that Aelita loved art class with Mr. Chardin as much as music class. "And now she's skipping lunch." He moved his tray down the line to make room for the people behind him.
"Lunch, I can understand," Odd commented, concern in his voice. "But skipping art and music are not her style." He was the jokester, but he couldn't deny that his cousin's behavior was not normal.
Jérémie was behind Odd, but before he could grab a plate, he chose to abort, "I'm gonna check her room."
"Good luck," Yumi replied, as Jérémie left the lunch time, offering a silent apology to the people behind him. "With her grouchy attitude, I doubt she'll listen, but you never know."
Jérémie shrugged, before leaving the cafeteria as a boy on a mission.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Aelita was indeed in her room. She remained fixed and unperturbed in front of her computer, typing in quick codes on the keyboard. Her concentration was total—if she stopped typing for even a second, she felt like the world would end. An overreaction, possibly, but knowing XANA, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
On the screen, lines of calculations and graphs of all kinds scrolled by continuously. Despite her thoughts, her actions were surprisingly mechanical. At times, it seemed like those of a robot.
But she never noticed.
A knock came to her door, and she answered, "Yes?", barely turning her head away from the screen to acknowledge her visitor. She hoped they'd leave quickly.
Her door opened, and her screen partially reflected Jérémie's face peeking in. He was holding up a binder, offering what he hoped what was a comforting smile, "It's me. I brought you the notes from the classes you missed."
"Put them down on the bed," she replied thinly.
He did so, before approaching her, taking a deep breath to calm his nerves as he did so. "Aelita, is something wrong? If you have problems, you can tell me, you know. If you're mad at us for something, then tell us so we can correct it." He placed a hand on her shoulder, attempting to comfort her. He found this side of her unsettling, being strange about the Return in time, the snippiness, skipping classes when she always tried to avoid it...
"Nothing, I'm fine," she replied, dismissively. She hoped her answer would make him drop the subject. She really did not want to talk about this. "There's nothing wrong with me, and I'm not mad at any of you. I'm just working. That's all. It's important we stay one step ahead of XANA. Your words, remember?"
He sighed, "Yeah, I remember." That's why he couldn't protest against that. "But we've always worked together, yet during the past two weeks, you seem intent on working by yourself. You refuse to let me help now, no matter how much you're struggling."
She quickly replied with what she hoped seemed like a viable explanation, and not an excuse, "Because I'm working on the anti-virus, and the last time I got your hopes up, they were immediately torn down." That bug prevented him from entering towers, which in turn led to Ulrich getting severely chewed up by those wolves. And it was all her fault. "Nothing's wrong with me. I'm just working on the thing that will free you from XANA. That's worth working on, isn't it?" She was getting short and curt again.
It was strange. Two weeks ago, she could read Jérémie like an open book, but right now, she couldn't. On his face was a strange expression. It wasn't completely concern, but it wasn't entirely suspicion either.
"Of course, it is," he quietly replied. "You know more than anyone how much I want to be freed from the supercomputer. But the last thing I want is for it to cost you your social life. You should take a break from time to time. At least, come down and have lunch with us. Then, you can get back to work." He was trying to reason with her, attempting to compromise.
But her annoyance at being torn away from her work right now made her snap, "Oh, yeah, does XANA take breaks?! No! So what do you want?! You want to lose your memory?!"
Jérémie, surprisingly, turned away from her. Snippy Aelita didn't understand, but bubbly Aelita would. He was hiding from her how hurt he was, how much this was really affecting him.
"No, I don't," he quietly told her. "But my fear of losing my memory to XANA doesn't even come close to my fear of losing you, Aelita." He turned back around to face her, unshed tears in his eyes. "You mean the world to me, real or virtual doesn't matter...but I hardly recognize you anymore..."
It was the earnesty in his voice that finally brought her back to reality. What she was doing, what she was trying right now, was not working. All she was doing was hurting herself as well as her friends. She was warned, and she attempted steps to prevent it, but it happened anyway. She needed to fix this, and she still could.
Shaken by his confession, Aelita hesitated, before turning away from her computer to face him, "Jérémie...?" He was watching her intently. "You're right. There is something going on. But I don't know how to explain it in a way that would make sense."
He took a step forward, "Just start from the beginning."
She paused, gathering her thoughts. From the beginning—easier said than done, but she could do it. This was Jérémie.
But the moment she opened her mouth to speak, an alarm from her computer began to sound. Both turned to watch the familiar animation of the wireframe of a tower turning red and being located in the sea of neutral blue towers.
Aelita promptly turned back to Jérémie, unable to prevent herself from snapping at him, "See?! I told you XANA never takes a break!"
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Rosa was gathering the salt and pepper shakers from each table. Now that lunch was almost over, she was beginning the clean-up while Gaston started on dinner.
Only one table was occupied, because Odd was still eating, having claimed not only his portion, but also Jérémie and Aelita's once it became obvious they weren't going to return to the cafeteria any time soon.
Ulrich, resting his head in his hand because he was bored, and Yumi, unimpressed, could only watch Odd finish up the food in front of him.
"You sure you're done now?" Yumi asked the blonde, impatiently and sarcastically. Just then her phone rang, and she answered it without a word.
"S.O.S. XANA." It was Jérémie. He sounded a little torn; something had happened between him and Aelita, for sure. Yumi made a mental note to talk to him about it later.
"Don't worry, Jer," she replied. "We're on our way."
"Please hurry," he urged, almost pleading, before he hung up.
As Yumi placed her phone back into her pocket, she relayed the news to Ulrich and Odd, "XANA's launched an attack. We have to go to the factory," before getting to her feet.
But as soon as she stood up, Rosa called out to her, "You, over there! Sit back down."
"Huh?" Ulrich and Odd also stood up in confusion at her order. The sound of Rosa's voice seemed to be doubled with a robotic voice...
"I said sit down." Rosa growled before picking up a plate from her cart and throwing it towards them at super-human speed.
Yumi ducked just in time, while Ulrich and Odd both barely avoided the plate by moving out of the way. The plate ended up hitting the wall behind them, shattering into many shards of glass.
Welp. They knew what the attack was now.
XANA-Rosa levitated a plate to her hand using a jolt of electricity before throwing it. She then repeated the process with the next three plates in the stack of dishes on her cart. Fortunately, the four plates all hit the wall behind them, as the trio remained ducked underneath their table.
"I shouldn't have said her mashed potatoes looked like barf, I guess," Odd joked.
"If you ask me, this looks more like a XANA possession," Yumi corrected. "Cover me. I'm gonna try to reach Aelita and Jérémie at the factory."
"Yes, ma'am!" Odd and Ulrich both saluted at her, before turning to each other. Odd continued, addressing his roommate, "On three, buddy. One, two, three!"
The boys promply stood up, ducking to avoid a plate thrown by XANA-Rosa before throwing some of their own, every plate they had on their table.
Meanwhile, Yumi ran as quickly as she could towards the exit, successfully slipping out of the still-open door as XANA-Rosa held up a pot lid, the plates thrown by Ulrich and Odd breaking when they hit it.
"Hey!" XANA-Rosa yelled once the barrage was over.
Odd turned to Ulrich with a smirk, "Ready for another round?"
"Absolutely," Ulrich replied, returning the playful gesture with one of his own. "After all, it's not every day we get the opportunity to break up the place."
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Aelita tapped her foot impatiently as she looked at the supercomputer's clock for what felt to her like the millionth time in the past ten minutes. She was in the lab, while Jérémie was waiting down in the scanner room because she refused to send him to Lyoko by himself.
"Where are they?!" she asked, mostly to herself. She was referring to the other three.
Jérémie offered in a soft tone, "Maybe they got held up by the attack. In that case, we can't wait. Come with me." Anything to get her away from a computer screen...
"No, it's fine. We'll just wait," she immediately replied. If she was on Lyoko during a Return, her experiment wouldn't work...
Jérémie didn't reply to that.
She groaned in frustration a mere five seconds later, "Ugh! Seriously, what can they be doing?!"
"We're doing what we can," came Yumi's voice from the scanner room, and Aelita let out a small sigh of relief. "XANA's possessed Rosa, and Ulrich and Odd stayed behind to cover my escape from the cafeteria. Sorry, we'll have to make do without them."
"They do love entertaining, don't they?" Jérémie responded in amusement.
"Hurry up," Aelita snapped. "The activated tower is in the Mountain Sector." She typed in the commands, bringing up their ID cards one by one. "Transfer Yumi, transfer Jérémie!" Their avatars began loading. "Scanner Yumi, scanner Jérémie!" Once both were finished loading, she pressed 'Enter'. "Virtualization!"
Two arrows, one yellow and one green, appeared on the holomap in the Mountain Sector, both a few meters away from the tower XANA was using.
"The activated tower should be in sight," the pink-ette told them.
"It is. We can see it. But there's also an army of monsters blocking our way," Yumi reported. On the holomap, Aelita could see eighteen red circles—all Kankrelats—blocking the path leading to the tower in an army-like formation. "I have a funny feeling we should take cover."
"A wise idea," Aelita replied, and both arrows ran forward before stopping behind a large rock nearby. A pause, and she started getting worried. "Are you two okay?"
"We're fine," Jérémie reassured her. "The Kankrelats are just advancing now that they know we're here."
"We'd be a lot better if you could virtualize the Overwing in case we need to make a quick getaway," Yumi added.
"Okay, coming up." As she was bringing up the aforementioned vehicle, the phone call window popped up, along with Odd's ID card. "Odd?"
"Aelita, how's it going on your end?" her cousin asked. In the background, it sounded like someone was picking up a cart. "Because over here, we're starting to run out of ammo." She heard the sound of Ulrich throwing something.
"Yumi and Jérémie are on Lyoko now. There's a few monsters blocking the path, though."
"Okay, we'll try our best to hang in there for a few minutes," Odd replied. "Just remember that Rosa's speciality is ratatouille and Shepard's pie made with chopped sirloin. So you better hustle." Translation: they were scared because Rosa was currently possessed by XANA.
"We'll try to hurry, but it's not going to be quick," she warned.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
The Overwing appeared next to Jérémie and Yumi as they were hiding behind the large rock. They continued observing the Kankrelats in front of the tower, thankful that the shots were only hitting their cover and not either of them.
"Come on, guys, get a move on!" Aelita ordered. "Odd and Ulrich are in a really bad way!"
"Oh, what a shame!" Yumi sarcastically bit back, gesturing to the army of Kankrelats in their way. "All we need here are some sandwiches for a nice picnic!"
Jérémie peeked out from the rock and watched as two rows of the Kankrelat battalion fired at the rock, before turning to Yumi. "I think I have an idea. You're going to have to use your telekinesis though."
"As long as it works," was Yumi's response.
Jérémie left the cover of the rock and stepped out into the open space of the platform right before the pathway the monsters were on. Once they saw him, the Kankrelats immediately stopped firing, XANA clearly afraid to hit him. The elf concentrated hard, closing his eyes to get a better picture of what he wanted to create: a giant ball of rock.
Once he felt this boulder come into existence, he heard Yumi say, "Oh, I see now. Nice idea, Jer."
He opened his eyes in time to see Yumi pick it up with her mind, before using her arms to motion the boulder to move forward.
The boulder followed her motion, rolling down the path and running over the Kankrelats, crushing at least half of them, if not most. Two of them destroyed each other after bumping into each other. Three managed to get away, while one tried to decide which way to go, only to get crushed by the boulder.
As the boulder fell over the edge and into the Digital Sea below, Yumi and Jérémie both hopped onto the Overwing and flew right over the remaining few Kankrelats.
Yumi came to a brief stop in front of the activated tower, during which Jérémie hopped off, before circling around to face the last couple of monsters.
Jérémie entered the tower at a run.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
XANA-Rosa growled as she advanced, her cart held up over her head, towards Ulrich and Odd as they hid behind the table they were using as cover.
"Here she comes!" Ulrich warned. XANA-Rosa loomed over them, her imposing shadow covering them. "Now I know what Tweety feels like against Sylvester..."
Odd was still on the phone with Aelita, "Hey, cuz, what are you guys waiting for?"
"Jérémie's in the tower now," she told him. "Just hang in there for another fifteen seconds."
Odd glanced up nervously at XANA-Rosa.
JEREMIE_
CODE_
XANA-Rosa finally threw her cart at them. Both boys jumped out of the way to avoid it, unable to unsee how the cart just broke apart upon impact with their table that was lying on it's side.
"Fifteen seconds?!" Odd demanded. "That's like an eternity!"
LYOKO_
Rosa's eyes suddenly turned back to normal, and she fell to the ground, unconscious. Given their theory about why some people fainted after the tower was deactivated, and why others didn't, Ulrich and Odd shared a worried glance with each other, both wondering what XANA's mission was this time.
Back in the lab, Aelita was unaware of their thoughts. She only heard Odd ask her after a few seconds of silence, "Aelita? I think this calls for a Return to the Past, don't you?"
"Right! I'm launching it, get ready," she said.
But as she typed in the necessary commands, she had a moment of hesitation. She looked to her left, where she kept it, undecided. Should she? Jérémie had made her remember how dangerous this was, all the warnings about it, which were clearly true.
But the end result would be worth it.
She made up her mind and reached down, picking it up off the ground. She slipped it on, it being a strange-looking helmet straight out of a sci-fi movie.
Once it was secure, she pressed the 'Enter' key, "Return to the past, now!"
As the white bubble enveloped her and everything else, Aelita received impressive electrical influxes to her brain thanks to the helmet. It sounded wrong, but she enjoyed this sensation. It felt good and lately, it was the only relief from her snippiness and headaches.
But this time, it felt different...
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Time had yet again rewinded to this morning. As she promised herself, Yumi had asked Jérémie about his chat with Aelita in the pink-ette's room, but Jérémie had declined interest in talking about it. Seeing that he wouldn't spill, the other three had no choice but to change the subject.
But as the clock neared the time of the five-minute warning bell, they started to get worried. Aelita hadn't shown up yet, when she should have by now.
"What's she up to?" Ulrich asked, looking around the courtyard. "She should be here already!"
"Why don't we go check her room?" Jérémie suggested.
He heard no protests, so he led the others to the pink-ette's dorm room. On the way, they received no calls or texts from her.
He knocked on her door, but didn't receive an answer. Deciding to take the risk, he opened the door, only to be surprised at what they found, "Aelita!"
She was lying on the ground, unconscious, clearly having fallen out of her chair, as it had fallen over with her.
But why?
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Aelita remained out cold as they carried her to the infirmary, not waking up even when Yolanda took her vitals and saw that her blood pressure was dangerously low and her heartbeat wasn't as strong as it should've been (not a lethal rate, but still concerning).
"I think she may be in a coma," the nurse said, crossing over to her desk and picking up her phone. "I need to call the hospital."
"Is that really necessary?" Odd asked, he and Jérémie being the only ones allowed inside while Yolanda worked (Ulrich and Yumi remained outside). He was worried, and he had decided not to hide it. This was his cousin who was in that bed, after all.
"They may be able to find the cause," she gently reassured the two boys. "I can't. I don't have the right instruments for it, unfortunately."
Jérémie was quiet as Odd turned back to his cousin and began shaking her shoulder, "Aelita, wake up! It's terrible! Jérémie has fallen in love with Laura Gauthier!" Nothing. The pink-ette did not move. She normally would have. "No reaction." His shoulders sank before he turned to Yolanda, "You're right! This is serious!"
The woman only nodded in agreement as she dialed the number to call an ambulance.
Jérémie, however, kept his eyes on Aelita. This allowed him to discover something, "Her eyelids are moving."
They were, but she remained out cold.
Knowing this, Yolanda guessed, "She must be dreaming," her phone pressed to her ear.
Unknown to them, Aelita was dreaming of that mountain side again. The snowstorm continued to engulf the path behind her, but this time, it was surging. She barely reacted to it when it began filling the air ahead of her, because she felt half-dead, but she did react when she heard a low growl behind her from the darkness.
She paused in her tracks and slowly turned around, only to see a pair of piercing yellow eyes staring at her and eventually the outline of a black-furred wolf advancing towards her.
Her parents always warned her about the wolves that lived in the forest surrounding their Swiss Alps chalet, to be careful because they were wild animals and not domesticated pets, and thus, not always nice to humans.
So she ran, away from the wolves, away from the snowstorm, and towards home, where a light was burning bright in the window. That light meant safety and sanity. She had to reach it.
She ran and ran, but the light was just getting farther and farther away...
Jérémie and Odd left the infirmary once it was clear that they could no longer help. Now, all they could do was let Yolanda handle things. Yumi and Ulrich were still seated on the waiting bench outside, and once they saw their friends, they immediately stood up.
"What's wrong with her?" Ulrich asked.
Odd shrugged, as he shoved his hands into his pockets, "Her vitals are low, but other than that, Yolanda can't find the cause of her coma. She called the hospital. Hopefully, they can find out what's wrong."
"Something must have happened during the last Return," Jérémie admitted, deep in thought. Aelita was crouchy before then, but other than that, she was fine. Or at least, that's probably what she wanted them to believe.
"XANA?" Yumi asked.
"I have no idea," Jérémie replied, "but I think it's worth checking out the supercomputer. Maybe then, we'll find some answers..."
"I'll go with you," Odd offered, falling in step beside the blue-clad blonde. Together, the two left the infirmary wing of the administrative building.
Ulrich and Yumi were left behind, both wishing to stay here, close by their pink friend, neither wanting to leave her. What if she woke up?
"Should we search Aelita's room?" she asked him.
"I really don't want to do that," he replied. Snippy or not, Aelita still deserved her privacy. "But I guess we don't really have a choice..."
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Once inside Aelita's room, Yumi volunteered to take up searching Aelita's personal effects, while Ulrich searched her computer, to save him from the embarrassment of him rummaging through a female's closet.
"Nothing special in her wardrobe," Yumi reported. "Except I just found out that Aelita owns an unnatural amount of pink. Even her undergarments." She was looking in the pink-ette's underwear drawer, but she chose to simply close said drawer without taking anything out. "Nothing amongst her bookshelf either. How about you?"
"The superscan shows no activated tower or system alerts after the tower we just deactivated," now it was Ulrich's turn to report, "which is strange because Rosa passed out after being released from XANA's control." They had theorized that a possession victim passing out meant that XANA was on a particular mission that time. "There's also a ton of files spread out amongst four folders, and I could be wrong, but none of them seem alarming for Aelita to have. One folder's for stuff related to family, another for school stuff, a third for music, and a fourth for Lyoko stuff."
"We should probably have Jérémie look through the Lyoko folder," Yumi suggested, looking over Ulrich's shoulder, and he nodded, agreeing with her. The Japanese girl then noticed another folder, alone in the bottom right corner rather than with the others located in the top left corner. She pointed at it, "Hey, what's that one?"
"'Emergencies Only'?" Ulrich named the file, before moving the cursor and clicking on it, but a red X showed up were the cursor should've been instead. "Access restricted?"
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Odd held an unusual amount of interest in the statistical data of the Return program currently on the screen. However, given how his cousin was in a coma, it made sense. Unusual, and sort of sad, but understandable.
"Well?" He asked, his way of asking for a translation of what all this data was telling them.
"The logs are all normal," Jérémie, sitting in the lab chair, replied. "There certainly was a major discharge of energy during that last Return, though, but it's no different than any of the previous Returns." He paused as a thought suddenly came to mind, "Hang on." He typed in a couple of commands to looking at the logs farther back, approximately by two weeks. He was right... "I knew it. The first time these readings first came up was two weeks ago."
"Two weeks ago?" Odd asked, deep down understanding what that meant. "You mean around the time Aelita's personality did a 180?"
"Yeah."
"B-But why?"
Jérémie could only shrug, "I have no idea, but the answer has to be around here somewhere."
"Then, let's start looking," Odd replied, before looking around the room. This factory was huge, but it was likely something that was close by the lab for easy access, or in her room.
Meanwhile, Jérémie went back to the logs, digging through the supercomputer's vast database for any sign of something that seemed out of place. His work was quickly interrupted by Odd finding something, and sounding cheerful at that.
"Hey, Jérémie! Who do I remind you of?"
The blue-clad blonde turned to face him, only for his heart to immediately start beating fast, feeling like it was about to leap out of his chest, when he saw what Odd was wearing as a hat.
It was a strange-looking helmet that wrapped around the side of one's head, with wires protruding from it. Aelita would've recognized it as the same helmet she put on before the previous Return...
Odd didn't seem to notice, instead making a caricatured pose, as if he was holding a laser gun, before saying in a deep voice, "I'm General Strong! We've discovered a giant china plate over Washington!" He changed his voice from deep to high-pitching, and posed as an assistant, "No, it's not a china plate! It's a UFO!" He then started laughing, only to stop when he saw the look of utter shock on Jérémie's face.
The genius looked like he was about to have a panic attack, frozen and frightened.
Odd immediately changed his tune, "Sorry, Jer. I know humor's out of place right now, knowing my cousin's in a coma, but I had to lighten the situation."
Jérémie vehemently shook his head, "Stop it. Stop it! It's not funny! It's a neuronal headset! Take it off right now and tell me where you found it!"
Surprised by his friend's serious reaction (especially since he couldn't remember anything from his past aside from certain feelings to specific things), Odd took off the helmet and pointed to the corner behind him, "Right there." In that corner was a green blanket, the shade very similar to the light that illuminated the lab, making it rather hard to see because it was so camouflaged. He turned back to Jérémie and saw that the boy's expression had not changed, "Are you okay, Jérémie?"
The blue-clad blonde shook his head, "No. That thing," he sounded like he despised the helmet, "is dangerous. It needs to be destroyed. Right now."
The tension was interrupted by the supercomputer receiving a call from Ulrich.
Jérémie picked up, "Ulrich?"
"We need you. Can you meet us in Aelita's room?"
"Okay."
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Jérémie hovered the cursor over Aelita's 'Emergency Only' file folder and clicked on it, only to get the same result as Ulrich and Yumi did. All they told him was that there was a file on the pink-ette's computer that they couldn't open, and were hoping he could. "Huh, interesting. Hold on." He then typed in a couple of commands to crack the lock on the folder. He then clicked on it again, and this time, it opened up to see six entries. "Got it. Guess what the password was."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Ulrich asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion.
"Humor me."
"'Jerlita4ever'?" Odd guessed, as Ulrich and Yumi both shrugged.
Jérémie ignored the blush that arose onto his cheeks, "No. 'DoubleChocolateCake'."
The others immediately paused. "That's," Yumi realized, "the type of cake we bought for your first birthday with us." Ulrich was quiet.
"And the first food I tasted when I was first materialized," Jérémie finished. They had promised the first food he ate on Earth was a piece of that cake, and they had kept their promise. "My point is that the name of the folder being 'Emergencies Only' and the password being something only we would know strongly indicates that the contents of this folder are for us and our eyes only." He let that sink in for a moment, before turning back to the computer screen. "There's only six files in here, and all of them are video clips."
Odd shut the door, as Yumi said, "Start with the first one."
Jérémie clicked on the first file listed, and a video clip began playing, dating approximately two weeks ago, when everything about their friend had changed.
It showed said friend in her room, adjusting her camera's angle (likely her webcam). She then began to speak, "Hey, guys. If you're seeing this, then it means that something has happened to me. You're probably wondering about the why, so I've decided to record this video to explain it all while I'm still myself." None of them liked the implications of that. "Thanks to the data we recovered from Sector Five yesterday, I've managed to decode another part of Périn's diary. In this section, he explains a way one can use the Returns to the Past to logarithmically increase their intelligence. Not wanting to fail you guys again, I decided to try it." She held up the same headset Odd had found in the lab earlier, and immediately looked excited, "It's amazing! It's as if my brain suddenly had the processing power of ten computers linked in series!" Her smile faded, "But Périn also warned about dangerous side effects, that my mental and physical health would suffer. I haven't felt any effects yet, but if you've seen the signs, now you know why."
"A neuronal headset," Jérémie muttered, connecting the pieces. "Her insecurities were dragging her down to the point where she chose to try out something so dangerous!" He wasn't mad at Aelita, but at himself for not realizing the signs before.
Yumi was calm as she told him to, "Open the most recent entry."
"Right," he agreed. "This one's from yesterday." He opened it, and a video clip played of Aelita in her room once again.
This time, she was wearing the headset, and she had a hand to her temple as if she was feeling a headache. "Every time I use the headset, my mental and physical health just get worse and worse. Périn was right. But I can't stop now! I've almost completed the anti-virus! If I can hang on just a bit longer, then I can finally fulfill my promise to you, Jérémie. The end result will be worth it, but I'm not sure you guys would understand..."
The entry ended there, with the window closing out by itself.
"So we found the cause," was Ulrich's response, "but what about the solution?"
Jérémie only shrugged.
Just then, an alert popped up on screen, showing the wireframe of a tower turning red.
"Great, that's all we needed," Ulrich muttered. XANA was attacking.
"Let's head to the factory," Yumi suggested. "The sooner we deactivate the tower, the better."
The four left the room, closing the door behind them, but while the other three turned towards the sewer passage, Odd faced the opposite direction.
"You guys go ahead. I need to stop by the infirmary first, and make sure that XANA's attack isn't directed towards Aelita this time." He just couldn't get out of his head the image of Rosa fainting after being released from her possession.
Understanding this, the other three nodded before they all went their separate ways.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Odd arrived at the administrative building just in time to see a paramedic load Aelita and the stretcher she was strapped to into the back of the ambulance that had arrived to respond to Yolanda's call. Mr. Delmas and Yolanda, being the principal and the nurse respectively, watched the EMT close the doors, shutting the out-cold Aelita inside.
Mr. Delmas held up a folder full of papers, "Come with me, sir. There are papers we have to sign." Which was the standard procedure whenever a student had a medical emergency and had to be transported to the nearby hospital. Aelita's parents also had to be told.
None of the three adults saw the black spectre enter the ambulance, immediately taking control of the vehicle, but Odd did. He saw XANA start up the engine and take off down the streets at full speed, not caring about the speed limit.
"Hey! My ambulance!" the EMT cried, not understanding why the vehicle he was assigned just left without any human input.
"Aelita!" Odd called out, revealing him to the adults, but he paid them no mind as he stole a day student's bike from the nearby rack and took off after the ambulance, ignoring the protests of the three adults still at Kadic, confused as to what was going on.
Right now, Odd Della Robbia only cared about his cousin Aelita Schaeffer and getting her to safety. He didn't care about any adult that dared to stop him.
Pretty soon, he caught up with the renegade ambulance, but he wasn't close enough to stop it. Seeing this, he pulled out his phone and dialed the first number that came to mind.
"Odd? You okay?"
"Jérémie, XANA has taken control of Aelita's ambulance. I'm gonna try to do something about it, but I'm really counting on you guys."
"We'll go as fast as we can, I promise," was the response before the call ended.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Jérémie dropped to the ground of the Ice Sector from the sky, landing perfectly on his feet. Ulrich and Yumi were on either side of him, all three having been sent here via the Self-Virtualization program. He hadn't brought up the vehicles—there wasn't enough time—instead virtualizing the three of them as close to the tower as he could.
He slipped on his goggles, letting the holomap guide him in the right direction. Once he got an alert, he pointed to their collective left, "The tower is that way. Let's go!"
He took the lead, running down the path in the direction the holomap was telling him to go, with Ulrich and Yumi hot on his heels.
It took a few minutes, but eventually they reached the plateau the tower was on. Said tower was in the middle of a circle of large ice pillars supporting waterfalls on all sides.
"There it is!" Yumi exclaimed.
The three came to a stop when five Tarantulas suddenly virtualized in front of them, effectively blocking the pathway to the tower.
"Maybe you should've have said it so loud," Ulrich quipped, responding to Yumi's observations.
"What now?" Jérémie asked. There was no way any of these Tarantulas would let him get past them, not when there was only two bodyguards with him. Maybe if Odd was with them, he'd stand a chance, but not with only two.
"I've got an idea," Ulrich suggested. The five Tarantulas were all together, making a line. The only way to get past was to split them all up.
"I love it when you say that," Yumi quipped in return.
He sent her a smile as he unsheathed his katana, "Just make sure that the three of us stick together." He flipped and twirled his katana in the air, before catching it with the blade pointed to the ground. He then stabbed the ice below them, creating a few cracks.
"Oh," Jérémie realized what the plan was as Ulrich stabbed another part of the ground, creating more cracks. "I see." He then concentrated, using his power of Creation to widen the cracks into full-blown fissures. It didn't take much effort to get the effect he wanted.
One of the fissures widened underneath one of the Tarantulas, causing it to fall into the water below.
Ulrich watched with a proud smile the results of his idea, until he felt his feet spread wider apart. Looking down, he noticed one of the fissures underneath himself. Panicking slightly, he quickly jumped onto the ice piece Jérémie and Yumi were standing on, knowing how important it was that they stuck together, so much so that he had brought it up himself.
A second Tarantula fell into the water due to a fissure widening beneath it.
Once the plateau had separated into numerous ice pieces, a third Tarantula slipped on the ice, failing to gain a solid footing, and drowned in the water as well.
Two Tarantulas remained and Jérémie didn't have a clear path to the tower anymore, but two on two was more of a fair fight than two on five.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Odd rode the stolen bike at full speed after the ambulance that was just out of reach. Cutting through the park, he managed to catch up to it. Once he saw his reflection in the side mirror, he reached for the passenger side door, only for XANA to speed the ambulance up, putting the door handle just out of his reach.
He was panting as XANA drove the ambulance out of the school, making a sharp left turn. Fortunately, he managed to catch up to the back right window, and saw the unconscious Aelita inside.
"Aelita!" He pounded on the window, hoping she would hear, but his voice was too muffled to do any good.
She continued to dream of that mountain being engulfed by a blizzard, running away from the wolf that represented everything about herself that she was scared of affecting her friends and their mission, of ruining her chances of fulfilling the promise she made to Jérémie. She was running as fast as she could, but she was still unable to reach home...
"Aelita!" He called out to her again, but she remained unmoving.
He needed to reach a door of this ambulance; it didn't matter which one. But the vehicle was just out of reach, and soon he'd be too tired to pedal this fast. He needed a boost.
The ambulance made a sharp left again, and Odd saw the upcoming staircase and made a break for it. He rode the bike all the way down the stairs, ignoring how bumpy the ride was. Fortunately, the shortcut had given him a slight head start.
He reached out to the nearest door handle and finally got a grip on it. He pulled it open, and due to the wind, it left him hanging onto the handle, the bike he stole left behind.
Smiling, he finally climbed inside and began shaking his cousin's shoulders. She did not stir, but his eyes grazed upon XANA's destination: the Seine River.
XANA planned to drown her.
The door was still open, and Odd kept XANA from closing the door on him by propping it open with his foot. After unstrapping Aelita from the bed, he picked her up bridal-style, before jumping from the moving vehicle, taking great care to place himself on the bottom while also using one of his hands to protect the back of her neck from any impact.
He was sore when they landed, and Aelita was still out cold, but at least they were safe from drowning.
However, XANA started turning the ambulance around, clearly not agreeing with what Odd had just done. Odd powered through his new limp (from the jump) and carried his cousin to a nearby alleyway that was too narrow for a vehicle to pass through.
Now safe (for the time being), he set his cousin and himself down next to a wall, ignoring the throbbing in his right leg (where his limp was) and began shaking the pink-ette again, "Aelita, you gotta wake up!"
The mountain in Aelita's mind was now completely covered with cold, blistering snow and hail. Even the light in the window, in the distance, was dimming. She fell to her knees, allowing the wolf to catch up with her and circle around her as if she was a piece of meat and it was starving.
"Aelita, you're not allowed to die on us! Don't you dare!"
That was...Odd's voice...
"C'mon! You still need to fulfill your promise to Jérémie! You can't do that if you're dead!"
He was right. She would allow herself to bite the dust only once she knew Jérémie was free from Lyoko, from the supercomputer, from XANA... She wasn't alone; she had friends to help her...
The light got brighter, which evidently scared the wolf. It turned back to look at it before running away with its tail between its legs.
Aelita got back to her feet and she resuming her run towards the light, towards home. This time, the further she ran, the closer it got.
"Wake up!" Odd urged her one last time, as she allowed the light to engulf her.
When she opened her eyes, her vision was blurry, but she could see the shape of a cone-shaped spike of blonde hair. Impaired vision or not, however, she'd always be able to spot her own cousin out of a crowd, no matter how big.
When her vision cleared, she saw that Odd was wearing a relieved smile, "Aelita! You're awake!" He then wrapped her in a bear hug.
Flustered, she stammered, "O-Odd, what's going on?" The last thing she remembered was putting the headset on and running the Return. Now, she was in an alleyway being hugged by her cousin. How much did she miss? What did she miss?
"We know about the neural headset," he told her, his voice quiet.
"Neuronal," she softly corrected. "You guys saw the video clips?"
It was more a statement than a question, but Odd answered anyways, "Yeah. We wish you would've talked to us about you not feeling smart enough before you tried something you were warned would be detrimental to your health, but we can talk about that later. Right now, XANA's taken over the ambulance were you placed in, intent on drowning you in the river, but I managed to save you before it could hit the water."
As if on cue, said ambulance finally found them and slammed into the entrance of the alleyway. Aside from some cracks in the brick walls in either side from the impact, nothing broke or fell.
Odd continued, "Long story short, just huge problems. Same old routine."
XANA repeated the process, widening the cracks a little more, but everything was still standing.
"We should also talk about why Jérémie had such a negative reaction to seeing that neural headset," Odd added.
This alarmed Aelita, as she quickly corrected, "Neuronal," before asking, "Negative how?"
Odd confessed, unable to get the blue-clad blonde's expression out of his memory. "It appeared to be another case of 'his mind doesn't remember, but his heart does'. It wasn't just fear; no, he seemed to despise it. He looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack, but when I asked if he was okay, he just said it needed to be destroyed."
"He did?" Aelita's heart both sank and flew. Sank because the headset was still increasing her intelligence. If she could hang on for a just a bit longer, she'd finish the anti-virus. Flew because Jérémie was the one who had made her realize just how dangerous that headset was, and part of her agreed with him.
"He was adamant, to the point where I legit thought he was about to destroy it himself."
That was quite the reaction, Aelita realized. Deep down, Jérémie somehow seemed to know that the headset wasn't worth it. He may not remember the memory, but he did remember the feeling that came with it. It was the same deal with Mister Pück and the Hermitage.
XANA smashed the ambulance into the wall for a third time, widened the cracks even more.
"But we can talk later," Odd finished, as he pulled out his phone. "Right now, we need to focus on staying alive."
Neither would be able to outrun this vehicle as long as it was under XANA's control. Both were physically weakened—Aelita due to the headset and Odd due to his limp—so their safest bet was to wait until the tower was deactivated.
Aelita nodded in agreement as Odd dialed the number of the supercomputer for an update.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Yumi glanced around at the broken ice as she asked Ulrich, "Well, Mr. Maverick, you got any other brilliant ideas?"
One of the remaining two Tarantulas slipped on its ice piece, but managed to crawl back up and regain its footing. It then fired a single laser at the trio. "Uh, well..." Said laser hit the samurai, instantly devirtualizing him.
Ulrich stepped out of the scanner, giving a sigh of frustration.
"Dirty cheater," he muttered, before climbing up the ladder to the lab. Odd and Aelita very likely weren't there, nor did he have to knowledge to bring up any of the vehicles, but he could keep an eye on the holomap for any nasty surprises XANA may have in store.
When he reached the lab, a voice was coming from the microphone. It was quiet, but audible. Ulrich rushed over and stuck it in his ear, "Ulrich! Jérémie! Yumi! Is anybody there?!"
"Odd, it's Ulrich," he replied. "Are you okay?"
"To be honest, not really." Odd's bluntness surprised Ulrich. The jokester rarely ever let negative emotions weigh him down, but when he did, that's how you knew the situation was serious.
"What's going on?" the brunette asked. The more Odd talked, the better his and Aelita's odds (no pun intended) were.
"Aelita's awake but she and I are about to be buried alive in rubble because XANA is aware of how buildings can collapse due to an outside impact! Please tell me you guys are almost at the tower!"
"They're right next to it. Just a couple of pests to get rid of first," he reassured his roommate.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Yumi studied her two opponents as well as how sturdy their respective ice pieces were. As she did so, Ulrich made an announcement.
"I don't mean to rush you guys, but XANA's trying to bury Odd and Aelita alive in rubble."
Jérémie turned to Yumi, "Then we have to strike now. I'll focus on the tower. You concentrate on the Tarantulas."
Yumi nodded, "Right!", before leaping up into the air. "Let's go!" Once she was high up, she unsheathed her fans, opening them up in a complete circle, before spinning around. Even as she landed in an ice piece in front of one of the Tarantulas, she continued to spin. The Tarantula fired, but her fans blocked every shot. Eventually, she stopped spinning, but she had thrown one of her fans right before she did so.
One Tarantula down, one more to go.
Yumi caught her fan as an ice bridge was formed, connecting the ice piece Jérémie was standing on to the pathway leading to the tower. She turned to face the last monster, as the elf began crossing the bridge.
The geisha blocked the first two shots before glancing up in time to see Jérémie slide down the remainder of the bridge and into the area where the tower was. She was rewarded with a shot to the chest and instant devirtualization.
Fortunately, by this time, Jérémie had entered the tower at a sprint. He was currently ascending to the top.
Once he landed on the second platform, he approached the center and was greeted by the interface. He logged in using his hand print, hoping it wasn't too late for Aelita or Odd.
JEREMIE_
CODE_
LYOKO_
As the data windows lining the walls fell, he announced to Ulrich, "Tower deactivated."
"Good job, Jer," Ulrich replied, "But Odd and Aelita are calling for a Return to the Past, and I have no idea how to activate it."
The elf smiled, before turning back to the interface, his only source of light, "Don't worry. I'll handle it." He entered the time coordinates, praying that Aelita wouldn't be found passed out again, before hitting 'Launch'.
A bright white light emerged from the bottom of the tower and soon engulfed everything.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Time rewinded to this morning, yet again. And just like all the previous takes, Aelita had yet to show up at the vending machines, where her friends were waiting for her.
"Don't tell me she's out cold again," Ulrich muttered. Please don't let this be a repeat...
Once again, Jérémie led the others to Aelita's room. He gently knocked on the door, but this time, he opened it without waiting for a response, "Aelita?"
For the second time, what they saw shocked them.
"What are you doing?!" Odd asked.
His cousin was not unconsciousness this time, fortunately, but rather in the process of destroying the neuronal headset she had built herself by stomping it to pieces. "I checked the calculations I've made over the past two weeks! Most of them were wrong!" she explained, an angry expression on her face. "You're right, Jérémie! This thing deserves to be destroyed!"
"Wait a minute," Yumi slowly said, realizing what the implications were, "so you were destroying your health without actually improving your brain power. What a terrible deal! I wish you said something to us sooner, but we're glad you're okay."
"So am I," the pink-ette breathed as she sat down on her bed. "I'm sorry for being so mean to all of you." She turned to Jérémie as he sat down next to her, "I'm especially sorry for not trusting you. You're right, you and I are partners. Equals."
He smiled, "You're forgiven. Like Yumi said, I wish you said something sooner, but as long as you go back to being your old self again, I can live with it." He didn't like how she felt she wasn't smart enough for them, for him, to the extent where she was willing to destroy herself over proving that she was. "That's the important thing."
"That's for sure," Odd agreed. "Seeing you so grouchy, 'Lita, was really weird. You were getting to be like Doctor Shrank, or worse... like Ulrich!"
Said brunette immediately pouted, "Hey, I am not–..." He paused. He was about to protest, but then he'd look like a hypocrite. He wasn't exactly Mr. Sunshine. So he sighed and relented, "Okay, fine. Yes, I am. What's your point?"
The others began laughing, with Aelita feeling like a significant weight was lifted from her chest. She could breathe again. She'd be okay. Her recovery wouldn't be easy, but as long as her friends remained by her side, she could see it through to the end.
The end result would be worth it—and this time, she believed herself.
Yumi nodded her head at the smashed headset still on the ground, "You think XANA had something to do with it?"
Aelita immediately understood the question, "It certainly put me on the trap, but the information came directly from Périn's diary." The first video clip she recorded for them told them that.
"Are you saying," Ulrich asked, holding up two shaky fingers as he struggled to accept this, "that we have not one, but two enemies?"
"Absolutely not," the pink-ette reassured him. "Périn is not our enemy. But his discoveries are out of our league. His inventions surpass themselves, and even Périn himself. From now on, they should be taken with a hefty grain of salt, lest we end up repeating what happened to me or create another Marabounta situation."
Jérémie was awfully quiet as he cut in, "I don't think the inventions are his." The others are looked at him, raised eyebrows in confusion and slight concern. He shook his head, "I don't know how to prove it, so please don't ask me to. Aelita, could I see the excerpt you decoded?"
"The one that told me about the headset?" Aelita asked, and Jérémie nodded. She shrugged, "Sure."
She then stood up from her bed before sitting down in her computer chair and dug through some of the files on her computer, as Odd closed her door yet again to give them all some privacy. Once she found it, in a folder labeled 'Périn's Diary Snippets' within the main Lyoko desktop file, she opened it. "Sorry in advance for all the static," she said as she did so.
The five teens were greeted with the rather grainy image of a man with pale brunette hair and eyes just as blue as Jérémie's wearing a dark blue turtleneck. Due to knowing whose diary this was, they all immediately knew that this was Michel Périn. None of them could tell for sure due to the static, but it seemed as though the man was under a lot of stress at the time he recorded this.
They couldn't hear the exact date, only the year, so it started out with, "...1994 ... has found a way to increase our chances of completing... or so she says. She's referring to this..." An image appeared on screen, a somewhat blurry diagram of the neuronal headset, explaining to the others where Aelita knew what to build and how. "...calls it a neuronal headset...supposedly increases your intelligence by amplifying your brain waves...with the help of the return in time." Michel then took a deep breath, sounding as if he'd like to cry. "What she neglected to tell me... it damages your mental and physical health the more you use it...Sophie's receiving headaches much like the ones... receives, the ones that never go away. When I confronted her about it, she reminded me of our son's situation, how much worse he's getting day after day... treatments aren't working...she doesn't feel smart enough...we need to complete our project...before it's too late...only way... I told her that I understood her feelings...I feel the same way...we need to be there for him...we're all he has in this world...we can't do anything to take ourselves away from him...not now. Fortunately, she agreed to quit using it...promised to never do it again...watched as she destroyed it herself. So whoever finds this, do not...not worth it, even if someone else's life is on the line."
The clip ended there, and despite all the cuts with static, the five teens had a lot more information than before.
"'Our son'?" Yumi asked. "So Michel Périn had a wife, named Sophie, and she's the one who invented this neuronal headset?"
"To increase their chances of completing whatever project they had in mind," Aelita added, "assumedly to save their son from whatever was causing those headaches. Michel described them as ones that, quote, unquote, 'never go away'. That, on top of that child's bedroom being a makeshift hospital room, confirms to us that their son was sick. Really sick."
"Is it possible that they actually created Lyoko to help cure their son?" Odd quietly asked.
"Maybe. We need more evidence to make sure, but it sure seems like it," the pink-ette admitted. "But then that begs the question of where Michel, Sophie, and their son are now..."
Jérémie was quiet, refusing to say a word.
Ulrich finished, "Whatever the case, it seems as though Michel and Sophie were in a race against time itself."
What time was holding hostage, though, remained a theory that still needed to be proven.
!~~~J~E~R~L~I~T~A~~R~O~L~E~S~W~A~P~~A~U~~~!
Next Episode: 29 - Misconduct / Due to a misunderstanding, the tension between William and Ulrich boils to an all-new high.
A/N: A theory that I'm certain at least 85% of my readers have already figured out.
I wanted to add some build-up to this episode, because in canon, it sort of came out of nowhere (and the implication of Jérémie not feeling smart enough was very subtle, which I feel should've been addressed). With Aelita here, it all started in 'Attack of the Zombies', with that IQ test Jérémie had to take. It was subtle, but that's where I intended to plant the seeds. Then, we see her fail in both 'Marabounta' and 'Vertigo', the latter of which was the last straw.
I feel like some people really underestimate how important this (canon) episode is for Jérémie's character, especially since the neuronal headset could be argued to be an allegory for drug addiction. I feel like the writers also felt this way to an extent, because the neuronal headset is never brought up again, despite Jérémie finding the details about it in Franz Hopper's diary. Knowing this, there were two deleted scenes from canon that I really felt like should never have been cut, so I added them back in to this chapter.
Aelita dreaming of wolves is just a nod to canon. DeviantArt user FP7ETDP43 gave me the idea of her dreaming about the wolves no matter what universe she's in, and I really like it. In canon, they represent the men in black. Here, in the context of this chapter, they represent her insecurities, because in canon, the white hallway Jérémie sees being engulfed with darkness represents his deteriorating mental state, and it's the same deal here with the blizzard.