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.
Special Note: Since it's been a year since Chapter 1, I will introduce the Lyokowarriors and other characters with their full names and how old they are now.
Warning: Bring some tissues! Writing this one made me cry.
!~~~J~E~R~L~I~T~A~~R~O~L~E~S~W~A~P~~A~U~~~!
"One year has passed, so it's Jérémie's birthday. But the Lyokowarriors aren't the only ones who are celebrating. XANA is too, in its own way."
Episode 15: By a Hair
(Based on Just In Time & The Trap)
In the early hours of the morning, Aelita Schaeffer, now age 15, sat in the chair in front of the supercomputer monitor. She was here all night, having worked on her breakthrough for the past week with very little sleep and food, if any at all.
"Interface transfer, activated," she announced, as she typed in the necessary codes and commands. "Virtual memory, activated. Code management, configured. Scanners, activated and verified. Targeting, okay."
But it would be worth it.
"Hopefully it'll work this time," she muttered. "Ready, Jérémie?"
"Ready," he replied, the holomap showing him inside of a tower in the Ice Sector.
"Here we go." She pressed the Enter key, and her updated materialization program started running.
The window in front of her showed Jérémie's avatar, and it was losing color from the feet up, just as expected. Once all the color was gone, a green plus sign started flashing.
Aelita could barely contain her smile, as she got out of the chair and ran to the ladder, climbing down to the level below. If it really worked, then the scanners would show the proof.
The scanner opened, and Aelita's smile didn't fade as she checked the results.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
The other three Lyokowarriors were in the park, having had breakfast and now waiting for the first bell of the day to ring.
Ulrich Stern, now age 15, and Yumi Ishiyama, now age 16, were sparring with Pencak Silat, or as Odd would call it, they were "flirting".
Speaking of whom, Odd Della Robbia, now age 15, threw the stick in his hands, and his dog Kiwi immediately ran after it.
The two lovebirds broke apart for some air, and Yumi asked, "Anyone seen Aelita this morning? She didn't come for breakfast."
"I think she spent the night in the lab," Odd explained. "She was working on something. 'Really important', she said." He smiled as he hummed in thought.
He, Yumi, and Ulrich all spoke aloud one single word, "Jérémie!"
"Of course," Ulrich exclaimed. "Who else would it be?"
He was caught off guard by Yumi knocking him down with a swift kick to his head.
Needless to say, he wasn't very amused, "Hey! We're taking a break!"
"Sorry," but Yumi wasn't. Not really. "Guess I forgot."
As Yumi helped Ulrich back to his feet, Aelita came running up to them, "Hey, guys! I have some amazing news!"
She stopped in front of them, before hunching over to catch her breath.
"Let me guess," Odd said, as Kiwi came running back to his owner, thrown stick in his mouth. "Does it have anything to do with materializing Jérémie?"
Aelita blinked in surprise, "Um, yeah. How'd you guess? You know what? That doesn't matter." Her smile returned in full force, "I finally did it! You know that breakthrough I had a week ago? I decided to tackle the problem from a different angle."
"And?" Yumi asked. "Did you do it or not?"
"I sure did!" The pink-ette then reached into her jumper pocket and pulled out a test tube. "Ta-da!" She held it up for the other three to see.
"That's it?" Ulrich's expression read disappointment. He wasn't amused or convinced. "You materialized a test tube?"
"No, airheads!" Aelita corrected. "Look inside!"
The three leaned in closer and discovered that there was indeed something inside the test tube. Something small and thin, and blonde.
"A hair?" Odd guessed. "You only materialized one hair?"
"You guys really don't get it, do you?" Aelita frowned. "This hair belongs to Jérémie!"
The other three were surprised by this revelation. "For real?" Ulrich asked, and the pink-ette nodded.
"How did you manage this?" Yumi added. "It's quite a milestone!"
"It is," Aelita agreed, her cheeks pink as she kept looking at the strand of hair inside the test tube she was holding. "It took me a lot of sleepless nights, especially this past week. Thanks, all three of you, for bringing me snacks from the vending machines to keep me running. But I had to have it ready by today."
The others' surprise and excitement turned into confusion. "Wait, what?" Odd asked. "Why? What's so special about today?"
Aelita's smile faded somewhat, but it still remained, "Don't tell me you guys forgot. It's October 9th. Jérémie's birthday."
About five and a half months ago, they were watching Sissi celebrate her birthday by handing out invitations to her party that night when they remembered that Jérémie likely didn't remember when his birthday was. So they, as a group, had decided that it would be the day Aelita first met him (October 9, 2005).
They also decided not to tell Jérémie, wanting to surprise him.
"Oh, yeah!" Odd mentally beat himself for forgetting.
"Yeah, I forgot all about it," Ulrich admitted.
"At least you remembered, Aelita," Yumi said. "So you thought his materialization would be a good present for him, huh?"
"The perfect gift," Aelita corrected, with pink cheeks and a bright smile. Her green eyes were focused on the hair in the test tube that she was holding. "And thanks to this hair, I know it will work this time."
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
The group headed to the factory, and the lab, led by Aelita, who was becoming increasingly excited that this could possibly be their final visit to this place.
"So why a hair?" Yumi asked.
"Well, because it's a simple anatomical structure that contains the entire genetic code of the person it belongs to," Aelita explains. "I figured that if I managed to materialize one of Jérémie's hairs, then I could expand the program to an entire virtual avatar. The actual process is a bit complicated, but if you want me to explain it in detail, I can."
Odd quickly jumped in, "We take your word for it, cuz." Ulrich and Yumi both vehemently nodded. None of them needed a lecture from their Miss Einstein.
Jérémie, his interface on the screen, chuckled.
Aelita shot Odd an unamused look, "Message received." She then changed her tune. "Well, shall we?"
"Wait, we're doing this now?" Ulrich asked.
"Well, yeah," Aelita answered, not understanding his hesitation. "Why wait? The sooner we materialize Jérémie, the sooner we can shut down XANA." That is what they all agreed on, right?
"He's right. Maybe we should wait, Aelita," Yumi suggested.
Aelita was becoming more confused by the minute. "Why? Everything is set up. All I have to do is hit one button."
"Come back to Earth for a minute. Not everything has been set up," Ulrich explained his and Yumi's reasoning. "Jérémie has no parents, no birth certificate, no identity, nothing attached to his name. He's not enrolled in any school, though that could be fixed easily, but...all of that together means he doesn't exist in our world!"
Jérémie, on the screen in front of them, lowered his gaze, his smile fading, as he remembered just how little he actually had. Everything he had now was all on account of his friends.
What would happen if the group suddenly broke up? Where would Jérémie go then?
Odd added, "They're right, 'Lita. Just imagine, 'Hello, I'm Jérémie! I just got here from a virtual reality!' That is, for sure, a one-way ticket to the nuthouse."
"Aelita, it's okay," Jérémie softly cut in, hoping his smile was comforting enough. "I can wait for a little while longer." He didn't want to be a burden to his friends anymore than he already was...
Yumi and Ulrich both sent him grateful looks. "Thank you, Jérémie," the oldest of the group said. She turned back to the pink-ette, who was deep in an inner debate. "We get why you want to do this now, Aelita. We really do. Believe us, we want the same thing. But let's wait until we know, for certain, what our cover story is."
There was a brief pause.
"But XANA's still out there," Aelita quietly reminded them. "And still as much of a threat as it was when this all started." Aelita also had a point.
"I've got an idea," Odd brought up, wanting this conversation to go back to happy. "Jérémie's already known at school as your pen pal, Aelita. We could just say he's transfering to Kadic to be closer to you. Because that wouldn't be too far from the truth."
"The enrollment process could take a while, though," Aelita reminded, the logical side of her brain admitting that Yumi and Ulrich were right. "We'll have to hack into city hall and create a false identity for him. Who do we say his parents are?"
"Just say he's an orphan," Ulrich told her.
"Yeah," Yumi agreed. "And until we can get him his own dorm at Kadic, he can stay with me. I'm sure my parents wouldn't mind. You know that out of all three of you, my parents trust you the most, Aelita, being my first female friend and all. No joke, they call it a debt they can never repay you."
Aelita cracked a smile, "I guess they can get their chance now. We can say it's a way to repay me?"
Yumi nodded, "Sounds good to me. So, we can materialize Jérémie now, since the date does match up perfectly, but we keep him on the downlow until he's enrolled at Kadic." She turned to Odd and Ulrich, "That sound good?"
Both boys agreed to this plan, with Odd adding, "Yeah, just make sure you place him in our class."
Yumi then turned to Jérémie, "How's this sitting with you, Jer?"
"Are you guys sure it won't be a problem for you?" was all he could think of to say. Several months later, and they still couldn't get rid of his self-esteem issues.
"No problem at all," Odd sent him a thumbs up.
Aelita amended that, knowing Jérémie appreciated honesty, "It's going to be tough. We don't really know what we're doing. But it's something we're willing to learn."
Jérémie finally smiled, "Okay. I'm ready." Though he wasn't sure why or how the date lined up, or what that was about.
Because he really did want to leave Lyoko, to explore Earth and everything he had read up on during the past year.
"Okay, here we go," Aelita muttered. "Moment of truth."
She hit Enter, thus concluding the materialization procedures and launching the program. On the screen, color began to fade from the wire-frame of Jérémie's avatar.
"Hold on," Odd said. "We need something historic to say to mark this moment. But what?"
He began to think, only to be interrupted by the window on the screen displaying a red exclamation mark, signifying that something went wrong.
As an alarm sounded in tandem with the flashing icon, Odd finished with, "Well, 'ERROR' is a great thing to say..."
Ulrich shot Odd a dark look, as Aelita gaped at the screen where the disastrous message was blinking, "W-What happened? Everything was going just fine earlier!"
Jérémie said nothing, seemingly speechless as well.
"You'll get it eventually, Aelita," Yumi said, placing a comforting hand on the pink-ette's shoulder. "In a few days, everything really will be all set."
Ulrich followed Yumi's example, "Yeah. Now, we'll actually have some time to hammer out all the details of Jérémie's false identity."
Odd checked his watch, "Uh-oh!", and started panicking. "Come on, guys! If we don't materialize in the classroom in a couple of minutes, we're not going to last a few days!"
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
A couple hours later, the group was in the cafeteria. Odd was downing his meal like normal, while Aelita was lost in thought.
"I don't get it. I was so sure it would work this time," she muttered. Ulrich and Yumi shared a slightly concerned glance.
"Aelita," Yumi began, "you said the hair contained Jérémie's entire genetic code, right?" Aelita nodded. Yumi continued, "And you also said that it gave you enough for the parameters for materialization." Aelita nodded again. "Is there any reason that would fail? Because, I agree, it should've worked."
"I wish I knew," Aelita said, before taking a bite of carrot from her tray. "If I'm doing something wrong, then the only way to find out is to start over." She shrugged, before turning to her lunch.
"No, don't do that," Odd replied. "You're only a hair's breadth away!"
Aelita shot her cousin a dry look, not appreciating him joking at a time like this.
Yumi rolled her eyes, "Can't you ever be serious, Odd?"
As Odd shrugged, Ulrich decided to change the subject, "Speaking of hair, Odd, your dog sheds an awful lot of them. Most of them end up on my bed, too."
"What's the big deal about two or three hairs?" Odd asked.
"Two or three?!" Ulrich retorted, as the two girls began giggling. "With all the hairs he sheds, I could knit you another Kiwi!"
The mood was ruined was the group was approached by Hervé, "Hey, Aelita. There's a new movie out, Attack of the Robots. I was hoping you'd sneak out with me tonight to see it."
Aelita resisted the urge to roll her eyes, "Hervé, I told you I'm already taken." She was, ever since Jérémie had saved her from Virtual Limbo. "And besides, I actually have a lot of work to do." She really did. She had to find out what went wrong with the program earlier.
But Hervé was never one to take 'no' for an answer. "You know," he leaned in closer, "there's this rumor that the entire dormitory building knows, about this one dog Odd is hiding in his room. Since I'm crazy about dogs myself and it hasn't destroyed my stuff yet, I'm willing to keep my mouth shut if you go with me just this once."
But before Aelita could even open her mouth, Yumi beat her to it, "Really, Pichon? Aelita's diary wasn't enough for you, now you threaten her with Kiwi?" The Japanese girl was angry and she was squeezing the glass she was holding. "If you blackmail Aelita ever again, you're going to wish you knew Pencak Silat as well as I do–!"
Yumi wasn't able to finish, because the glass in her hand suddenly shattered.
Hervé's eyebrow twitched, but he fortunately got the message and left them alone for the rest of the day.
"You okay, Yumi?" Aelita asked.
Ulrich gently took hold of Yumi's wrist and looked at the three cuts on her hands.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Ulrich watched Yolanda cross over to her medicine cabinet and pull out a bottle of iodine. After closing the cabinet doors, the woman dabbed some on a ball of cotton and gently pressed it against the cuts on Yumi's open palm, who winced at the pain this caused her.
Yumi barely flinched, so Ulrich knew that, this time, she must've really been shaken up.
"It's nothing serious," Yolanda reassured the Japanese girl. "The cuts aren't very deep." Once she was done with the iodine, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a band-aid. She gave it to Ulrich, saying, "Would you put this on her hand, please, while I go fill out an incident report?" So the record would show it was an accident.
Ulrich nodded as he took the band-aid, before taking off the wrappers. Yolanda went into her office, located in a side room.
Yumi wouldn't stop looking at her cut-up hand as he sat down next to her. "I don't get it. I barely squeezed the glass. They're pretty fragile, I guess..."
"I wouldn't call them that," Ulrich admitted. "We're not talking about expensive Venetian crystal. More like cheap cafeteria plastic." He carefully put the band-aid on her three cuts. "Anyways, thanks for the reminder of what I'm in for if I ever get on your nerves." He sent her a smile, hoping it would cheer her up.
It worked, because Yumi's response was a smile.
But it quickly faded, "You know, part of me was actually hoping it would work. Aelita's program. I'm getting tired of fighting. Day in and day out. I mean, I don't envy Aelita's position at all, but..."
"You want it to end," Ulrich finished. "I know how you feel. But I'm willing to bear it a little longer if it means getting Jérémie here the right way and in one piece."
Yumi's smile returned, "Yeah. You think he has a list of things he wants to experience?"
"Oh, I don't doubt it," he replied. "And I guarantee that hugging Aelita is at the very top."
The two shared a laugh, before they both looked down and noticed that Ulrich was still holding Yumi's hand.
Both embarrassed, they broke the contact with reddening faces. While they hadn't brought up their kiss with the others, they still had yet to talk about it between themselves.
Ulrich stood up from the bed and walked up to the window.
Fortunately, Ulrich's phone ringing broke the awkwardness between them.
He immediately answered, "Hello?"
"Ulrich!" It was Aelita. "I found the problem! You and Yumi come to my room now!"
"Okay, we'll be right there."
Yumi glanced up, expecting the worst.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Odd was already in Aelita's room when Ulrich and Yumi arrived, and Jérémie's interface was on her screen. Aelita was also pacing, looking increasingly frantic with each passing second.
"What's up?" Yumi asked. "Couldn't you have waited until after classes today to tell us what was wrong?"
"No!" Aelita was suddenly shouting, but the others easily could see that it was because of the stress and anxiety she was feeling, though they didn't know why. "It's a disaster!"
"Aelita, breathe," Ulrich ordered. "Tell us what's wrong."
The pink-ette obeyed, taking a deep breath, before explaining, "I wanted to figure out why the materialization didn't work, so I checked Jérémie's digital profile to see if there was something I missed. But when I checked, it was...it was all bugged up!" Ah, no wonder Aelita was panicking. Apparently, this understanding showed on their faces. "It gets worse. Going back over my first test, I realized that I hit a button I shouldn't have when I materialized the hair! So it damaged the annex program!"
"Annex?" Odd asked. "What does that mean?"
Aelita swallowed a lump in her throat, trying to keep herself from crying, "It means that the program linking Jérémie to the towers is corrupted. If he enters the code: LYOKO into a tower, he'll be reformatted and subsequently deleted."
A weight was suddenly placed over the group. Not physically, but the knowledge of this put a huge damper on the mood. Which, just this morning, was happy because it was Jérémie's birthday and Aelita may have had a great gift for him.
Which was now ruined.
Jérémie seemed to be taking this news with grace, because he chose to look on the positive side, "You know, Aelita, a program can always be debugged. We'll work together."
He and Aelita connected eyes. "But what if XANA attacks before we're done?"
"You'll just have to work fast then," Odd told her.
"Okay," Aelita finally said. "But it will take time. I know it's a lot to ask, but can you three make up a believable story for the teachers? I can't leave this computer until the problem is solved."
"Of course," Yumi agreed, with Odd and Ulrich both nodding.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
As Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi left Aelita's room, Odd asked the other two, "You think they can do it?"
"You kidding?" Ulrich asked. "We've got two geniuses working on the problem!"
"Right," Yumi agreed. "If anybody can make miracles happen, it's those two!"
"I-I know, it's just..." Odd paused, and Ulrich and Yumi both looked over. They were somewhat surprised to see Odd so down. "It's just that I'm not ready to say goodbye."
"To Lyoko?" Ulrich guessed.
"No, to Jérémie," Odd confessed. "Before we met him, for two years, I've always suspected that there was a piece missing from our group. Don't get me wrong, the four of us are great friends and I wouldn't have it any other way, but..."
Ulrich was quiet, as Yumi softly asked Odd, "You think Jérémie is that missing piece?"
Odd nodded without a word.
Ulrich turned back to see where they were walking, admitting with total honesty, "So do I." He wasn't ready to say goodbye to Jérémie either.
Yumi slung a comforting arm around Odd's shoulder. She felt the same way. But, unfortunately, right now, they couldn't do anything.
But as the trio approached Odd and Ulrich's shared room, they heard barking from Kiwi (who else?).
Ulrich looked over at his roommate, "Hey, Odd, if you don't get Kiwi to calm down, they're going to find him."
Odd nodded in agreement, before he jogged up to their room and opened their door. His eyes immediately focused on Kiwi, who had not stopped barking.
Concerned, Odd ordered, "Hey! Quiet, Kiwi!"
But he continued his high-pitched barking, seemingly trying to make them understand something in the only way he knew how to communicate.
Ulrich and Yumi at the door, Odd pleaded, "You heard me, quiet down!"
Odd knelt down and tried to calm his dog down by giving him head pats, but Kiwi was still barking, still adamant to say what he needed to say.
"What's the matter?" Odd asked, trying to soothe Kiwi. "Did you smell something? What's wrong?" Not for the first time, Odd mentally cursed that dogs couldn't speak actual words.
One of the two windows in the room started cracking and Yumi and Ulrich both had a clear view of it. Panicking, Yumi shouted, "Odd, watch out!"
At the same time, Ulrich yelled, "Behind you!"
The cracks grew larger and larger until the window finally shattered, like an explosion. Odd immediately covered Kiwi, who yelped in fright, and dove away from the window as the glass shards went flying.
Kiwi whimpered, as Odd first checked on his dog, before looking back at the now broken window, and then back at Kiwi. "Kiwi, did you do that?"
The dog simply stared back, but relief seemed to be in his eyes.
"Odd, you okay?" Ulrich asked.
"I'm fine," Odd said, despite his hands shaking. He stood up, scooping up Kiwi in his arms as he did so. "Yumi, go hide Kiwi in Aelita's room. Ulrich, go get something to clean up these glass shards. And Jim if he doesn't already know."
"Right!" Ulrich said, as Yumi took Kiwi from Odd's arms. The two then went their separate ways.
It only took Ulrich about two to three minutes to return with Jim in tow, but while they were both gone, Odd just stood there, waiting for the trembling in his hands and legs to go down, waiting for his heart to stop beating so fast.
What had just happened?
Surely, that wasn't Kiwi's doing, right?
(The logical side of his brain kept telling him it was XANA, but Odd didn't want to listen. Listening, in this case, would just make him accept the possibility of losing Jérémie for good this time...)
Fortunately, Odd was all better, completely calm, by the time Ulrich returned with Jim, as well as a dustpan.
As Ulrich immediately began cleaning up the glass shards, Jim stared at the broken window, before cornering Odd.
"Maybe it was a stray football that did it," Jim guessed. "But of course, you two didn't see anything."
"We couldn't have seen anything, Jim," Odd maintained the confidence in his and Ulrich's cover story. "We weren't here. Ulrich was just coming back to get his homework for our next class when we saw the broken window."
"You know dorm rooms are off limits during the day," Jim began.
"We know," Odd was willing to take punishment for breaking that rule. "But it was an emergency."
Jim just sighed, "Very well. I'll let you off the hook this time." He turned to leave, but before he did, he gave the two one last order, "Ulrich, clean up your bed. There's hair all over it."
As Jim left, Ulrich shot Odd a death glare, which Odd pretended not to see.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Aelita wasn't sure why Kiwi needed to stay in her room for the time being. Yumi just dropped him off before leaving. But the pink-ette shrugged it off. She had work to do.
"Why don't you try scanning the STR connection blocks?" Jérémie offered.
Trying to ignore Kiwi's fussing, Aelita replied, "I already did. That's not where I went wrong." She then snapped at Kiwi, seeing him out of the corner of her eye, "Stop chewing my slipper!"
Jérémie blinked in surprise.
"Sorry, Jérémie, not you," Aelita reassured him, as she leaned down and wrestled the slipper from Kiwi's mouth. She held the chewed-up item to show Jérémie, clearly faking a smile, "I was talking to Kiwi. When he's around, it's hard for me to concentrate." She glanced back at Kiwi, who was wagging his tail expectedly. She sighed and threw her slipper in his direction, "Fine. Not like I can use it anymore anyways..."
She went back to her typing, before glancing back to see one of her bras in Kiwi's mouth.
Her face immediately turned red as she heard Jérémie ask, "Aelita? What's wrong?"
She turned to him, "Nothing, nothing!" She then turned her monitor towards the wall, so Jérémie wouldn't be able to see what she was now trying to wrestle from Kiwi's grip, "Give that back to me, you mangy mutt, right now! That is not a toy!"
Jérémie, seeing the current angle of his view, tried leaning forward to get a better one. What was going on? He was hearing rustling and Kiwi growling. Then, he heard Aelita give a sound of triumph as Kiwi gave a little sad moan.
"Don't give me that look, Kiwi," he heard Aelita said as he heard one of her drawers open and close. "Here, chew on my other slipper."
As Kiwi continued his fussy behavior in the background, presumably with Aelita's other slipper, Aelita sat back down in her chair and turned the monitor to its correct position.
"Sorry about that, Jérémie," Aelita offered a smile. "He took my, um...handkerchief." It wasn't actually her handkerchief, Jérémie knew, but for Aelita's sake, he let it go.
Kiwi began to bark again, just like he did in Odd and Ulrich's room earlier.
Aelita, however, unaware of the broken window, just bashed her head on her keyboard as she groaned, "Please, take him away..."
But then she heard a loud crack above her, as well as Sissi crying out, "Aelita!"
Aelita looked up to see cracks appearing in her ceiling.
Jérémie saw them too, "Aelita, get out of there!"
Without a second thought, Aelita bolted from her room, running into Sissi on the way, before the two raced out of the dormitory building, as Jérémie only logged off once he saw Aelita was safe and Kiwi was hiding under Aelita's bed.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Aelita had retreated to where her friends were, while Sissi was telling everybody that would listen to her what had just happened. Classes were over now, as the pink-ette had just learned. Wow, she had worked that long?
"I always said Sissi's head was full of plaster," Odd joked, watching Sissi. "But given how Aelita witnessed it too, maybe it's not too outlandish." He turned back to the group. "You know, Aelita. I'm beginning to think that maybe materialization is too big a present. I mean, you're never going to beat it next year. Maybe programming a digital birthday cake would've been enough?"
"Very funny," Aelita flatly replied. She appreciated that he was trying to cheer her up, but now was not the time. "I'm going to the factory. With the dog constantly barking and the school falling apart, my room is no longer a quiet and peaceful place to work." She waved as she left for the sewer passage in the park.
As they watched her leave, Yumi admitted, "I hope she finds the right solution before XANA attacks again."
"Me too," Ulrich agreed.
The trio was quiet, before Yumi began heading for the front gates, "Well, I'm heading home now. Keep me posted, okay?"
Odd and Ulrich nodded, watching her leave with Hiroki in tow. Both ignored how dark the clouds were getting.
"You know, Odd," Ulrich broke the silence, "all these things happening are really weird. First, Yumi's glass breaks. Then, our window is shattered. And then, Aelita's ceiling starts falling apart. You think it's XANA?"
"I don't know for sure," Odd admitted, part of him still not wanting to face that scary possibility of losing a dear friend. "But I do find it suspicious that all of this started happening after that failed materialization attempt."
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
It was indeed quieter and more peaceful in the lab than in her room, but Aelita still wasn't getting anywhere. She was beginning to think that maybe it wasn't really her environment, but rather herself.
She sighed before holding her head in her hands. "This is all my fault..."
"Aelita?" Jérémie couldn't deny that she had made an error somewhere, but he was still concerned.
"I shouldn't have rushed it," she said, mostly to herself. "But I wanted to finish it by today."
"My materialization?" Jérémie asked, and Aelita nodded. "But what is so important about today specifically?"
Well, there went the surprise, but honestly, she couldn't care less. She had bigger issues to worry about right now. "Today is October 9th. One year ago today, I turned on this supercomputer, and you and I met. A few months ago, the others and I decided to make today your birthday, given how you can't remember your real one."
Jérémie softly smiled, "I appreciate the gesture, and I agree that October 9th is the best choice."
Aelita finally returned his smile, "Sorry I kinda ruined it. Your materialization was supposed to be how we celebrated."
Jérémie's smile faded a bit, "Aelita, you did not ruin this day, because I'm still alive. Everyone makes mistakes, and no one ever gets it right the first time. I know what will happen if I deactivate a tower right now, but I'm not scared. I have faith in you, because not once have you ever let me down. And even if I am reformatted, you have a strand of my DNA, so you can use it to track down my original fragments."
Aelita smiled, keeping that last bit of information in her back pocket, "You always look on the bright side, don't you?"
Jérémie shrugged, "One of us has to."
She giggled, before getting back to work.
But the mood didn't last long, as Jérémie suddenly gasped if he was being choked, making her look up at his interface in concern, "Jérémie? What's wrong?"
"I think I feel pulsations..." He didn't look very happy. His expression read shock.
"What?" The pink-ette could feel her hands shaking and palms sweating. She could feel her head shaking, her entire body starting to go numb with utter panic. "A-Are you sure?"
The blue elf only nodded.
Aelita kept shaking her head, muttering, "No, no, no, no, no..." over and over again, as she ran the command to launch the monoscan. If it was XANA, it would know for sure.
The results came back immediately, just to rub it in her face.
"No! Not now!" she cried in panic and despair as the monoscan showed an activated tower in the Forest Sector.
It was their worst nightmare...
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Back at Kadic, Jim and Principal Delmas were in the dormitory building, surveying the damage. It was pretty bad, worse than what they were told by Sissi, who was panicking when she told them.
"I've never seen a thing like this happen in my entire life," Mr. Delmas breathed.
Jim kicked away a piece of rubble, "You think humidity caused it, Sir? The clouds do look like they're about to burst."
"Yes," Mr. Delmas replied, "but the building itself doesn't look very damp."
The two men looked up at a small hole in the ceiling, just as a small dog (Kiwi) started barking.
"A dog!" Jim exclaimed, turning to the source of the barking. "Dogs aren't allowed here!"
Mr. Delmas watched as Jim kept running from room to room, searching for the animal that was barking but was not allowed to be here according to the rules.
But just as he hit Aelita's dorm, the wall to his left began to crack, just as it did to Aelita and Sissi.
Both men backed up as the cracks widened and traveled to the floor and ceiling.
"Jim," Mr. Delmas took charge, his first priority being the students' safety. "We must evacuate the school."
"Um, don't you just mean this building, Sir?"
"No, I mean the entire school. If this building is being affected, then it's highly likely that the others will soon be as well."
Jim had no choice but to agree.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
It was sunset now, and things weren't looking any better. Jim and Mr. Delmas were still checking out the damage Aelita and Sissi had witnessed earlier in the dorms. Most students were in the courtyard.
"I'm telling you it's XANA, Odd," Ulrich said. "There's nothing else it could be."
"I'm beginning to agree with you," Odd admitted. The more and more they talked about this, the more Odd had to face his very real fear of losing one of his friends. "But how is XANA doing this?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," Ulrich shrugged. "But you heard what Sissi said. Kiwi began barking just before the ceiling fell."
"You know, that might explain it," Odd said. "Kiwi, I mean. After all, he was barking before our window shattered too."
"Maybe Kiwi can feel the tremors," Ulrich suggested.
"Or he hears them coming," Odd said, remembering what Ms. Hertz said in science class two weeks ago. "Dogs can hear ultrasound, remember?"
"So Kiwi isn't being annoying on purpose," Ulrich realized. "He's been trying to warn us this whole time."
Odd nodded.
Ulrich's phone started ringing, and the brunette picked up immediately, "Aelita, please tell me you've got some good news."
"Sorry, I can't, because I don't," Aelita replied. "XANA's on the prowl."
"As we suspected," Ulrich admitted. "Don't worry. I'll call Yumi and we'll be on our way."
"Hurry," was all Aelita said before she hung up.
His cell phone still in hand, Ulrich turned to his roommate, "We were right. XANA's woken up."
Before Odd could respond, the school's intercom sprung to life, and Mr. Delmas's voice spoke over the speakers sprinkled through the entire campus, "Ladies and gentlemen, teachers and students alike, your attention please. Due to the dangers of a structural accident, please evacuate all buildings calmly, and leave the immediate area."
Horrible timing, as just then, the dark clouds opened up and the rain started pouring, with thunder rolling in the distance.
Mr. Delmas added to his announcement, "Despite the sudden rain, no one will be permitted inside any of the buildings until further notice. We, the staff, will provide umbrellas for those of you who do not have one. Please, for your safety, do as I say."
As the intercom turned off, Odd gasped, "Kiwi! He's still in Aelita's room!" He turned towards the dorm building, "I'll go get him and meet you and Yumi at the factory! Good luck!"
"You too," Ulrich quietly replied, as he watched his roommate run off into the rain and into the danger. His phone still in hand, he dialed Yumi's number, who picked up rather quickly.
"Hello, Ulrich. What's the update?"
"XANA's on the prowl," he relayed to her the news. "Aelita needs us on Lyoko."
"I'll be there," she reassured him. "But I'll be a little late. I was just about to take a bath."
Ulrich immediately wiped those thoughts from his mind, as he told her, "Okay. I'll go in first. Don't drag your feet."
"I won't."
The call then ended, along with Ulrich's expectations that this would be a good day.
It no longer was. It wasn't even daytime anymore. The sun had long since fallen.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Odd entered the dorm building with zero interference, surprisingly. He leapt over the large crack in the floor, before opening Aelita's door.
"Kiwi! Where are you? Come on!" he called.
Kiwi, hearing his owner's voice, scrambled out from underneath Aelita's bed and jumped right into Odd's arms, licking his face.
"You diggity dog!"
Odd made his way to the exit, carrying his dog underneath his arm, but he stopped when he heard a girl singing in a nearby room.
He ran to that room, and opened the door without knocking, hoping this girl was decent. Well, in this case, girls, plural.
It was Milly and Tamiya.
"Hey!" Milly shouted. "You can't just barge in here! Didn't anyone ever teach you to knock?!"
"Didn't you hear Mr. Delmas's announcement?" Odd asked, genuinely confused as to why they were still here, honestly curious as to why they didn't. "The school buildings are being evacuated!"
"But it's raining outside!" Tamiya said, but she and Milly both scrambled to their feet.
"It doesn't matter!" Odd cried. "We have to get out of here!"
As Milly and Tamiya followed out of their dorm room and down the hallway to the stairs, Kiwi leapt out of Odd's arms. The three humans let him walk in front of them, seeing clearly that the dog was listening intently for something. Milly and Tamiya didn't really understand what, but Odd did.
As they reached the stairs, Kiwi began barking again. This time, Odd knew what Kiwi was warning him about, so he immediately came to a halt at the top of the stairwell.
Now the question was where would those tremors be coming from?
"What's wrong with your dog?" Tamiya asked, she and Milly both confused.
Odd couldn't answer, nor was he kept waiting, wondering, for very long, because right then, the entire building began to shake. Milly and Tamiya immediately began holding onto each other, believing Odd now, as Odd squeezed his eyes shut.
When he opened them, he gasped in shock. To their complete horror, the stairs had collapsed.
Now they had no way of getting down.
But Odd suppressed his fear with determination. He turned back to the two younger students behind him, declaring, "About face!"
He led them to the hallway they just came from, Kiwi hot on their heels.
But they stopped again when they saw even more damage.
The crack by Aelita's dorm had grown wider. It was now too wide to jump across, but too high to jump down from.
"Now what?" Milly asked, frightened.
Odd couldn't blame her.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Ulrich arrived at the lab, emerging from the elevator at a run. He was at Aelita's side in no time.
"How are things over at Kadic?" Aelita immediately asked. Ulrich snuck a glance at the monitor, and saw that she was still working on debugging Jérémie's digital profile.
"There are cracks in the ceiling," Ulrich told her. "The principal's evacuated the entire school, even though it's pouring rain outside. XANA's using some kind of ultrasound to induce earthquakes. Kiwi can hear them."
"So that's why he was being such a pain?" Aelita asked, still typing away.
Ulrich nodded.
Aelita continued, "Those ultrasound waves could be coming from the electrical sockets."
"Whatever the case," Ulrich replied, "it may attack the factory too, so you be careful. Yumi and Odd are both on the way."
Aelita sighed, "Hopefully, XANA gives me enough time to debug Jérémie's profile..."
"Knowing XANA, I wouldn't count on it," Ulrich said, as his cell phone rang. He picked up quickly, "Yes, Odd?"
"Listen, I'm stuck in the dorms with Milly and Tamiya."
"Mr. Delmas evacuated the school for a reason!" The brunette sighed. "Did you, at least, find Kiwi?"
"Yeah, yeah, Kiwi's fine. Listen, I won't be able to meet you guys right now. I'll try to make it, but I can't make any promises."
In the background, Ulrich heard Kiwi start barking, and the brunette immediately went on edge. That meant danger.
He tensed up as he heard rumbling on the other end, and Milly and Tamiya begin whimpering with fear.
Then he heard loud clanking, and Odd crying out, "No!" that got quieter real quick.
"Odd! Odd! Answer me!"
No response.
With no other choice, Ulrich hung up and turned to Aelita, "No time to lose!"
Aelita's outburst was full of anxiety, "But I'm not finished debugging Jérémie's profile!"
"Odd is in danger!" he retorted. "Transfer me right now!"
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Yumi, fully dressed now, ran down the street towards the sewer passage as fast as she could.
As she was doing so, she heard numerous dogs, at least one on each city block, suddenly start barking and howling at the raining night sky.
Almost as if the sky was crying and the dogs were relaying its suffering...
But she knew that wasn't it, because she saw cracks quickly started forming in the streets and sidewalks.
She quickened her pace, hoping that Aelita had fixed the bugs by now.
Because the more cracks that appeared, the more the tremors grew in strength, and pretty soon, half the city was without power...
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
"Virtualization!"
Once Ulrich's avatar had formed in mid-air, he dropped down, landing perfectly on the green-colored ground of the Forest Sector. He stood up, his hand on the hilt of his katana as he surveyed the area.
He didn't notice the silhouette behind him until a hand was placed on his shoulder, "Hey."
Ulrich jumped and immediately turned around, hand posed to unsheath his katana, but he began to relax when he saw it was just Jérémie.
"Hey. Don't do that again," he gently scolded the blue elf. "You scared me."
Jérémie offered a sheepish smile, "Sorry." He turned serious, "I haven't run into any monsters yet, which is weird."
"Maybe XANA wants you to deactivate the tower," Ulrich offered.
"My thoughts exactly," Jérémie admitted. "Aelita?"
"I don't see anything on the holomap," their mission control relayed. "But that could change at any moment. Be careful."
"Well, right now, all we can do is follow the pulsations," Ulrich reminded them both. "If we do, we'll find the tower that goes with them and the monsters that are guarding it eventually."
"Then, let's go," the blue elf replied, before taking off, Ulrich hot on his heels.
The two boys missed the group of Kankrelats following them from the level below them. Aelita was too busy, so she missed them too.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Sissi's heart was beating fast as she couldn't take her eyes off of the wide gap in the dorms building. Nicolas was holding an umbrella over both of their heads, and focused on the steady beat of the rain that hit against their cover.
But Sissi couldn't focus on that at all. Only on the damage of the building that everybody slept in.
She heard footsteps behind her, and then Yumi ask, "What happened here?"
Sissi turned to her with tear-filled eyes and a worry-filled heart, "Odd is...Odd's still inside. We think he went to check if anyone was still in there."
"Probably Milly and Tamiya," Nicolas offered. "They're not here either."
She heard silence from Yumi before the elder of the two said, "Don't worry. I'm going to go get help."
As Sissi heard Yumi run away, she also heard Nicolas call after Yumi, "But Mr. Delmas has already called the firefighters! They're on the way!"
But there was something in Yumi's voice that had caught Sissi's attention. An inflection in the Japanese girl's voice. She sounded determined, like she knew what to do, like the kind of help Yumi was going to get wasn't what Nicolas thought she meant...
As Sissi remembered Ulrich admitting that he and his friends had a secret, she found herself comforted by that determination in Yumi's voice. She didn't know exactly where Yumi was going or what she was going to do, but Sissi trusted Yumi to know what to do.
And Sissi let Yumi's determination flow through herself. Odd, Milly, and Tamiya were trapped in there. She had to help. There had to be something she could do!
"Sissi, wait!" came Nicolas's voice, now sounding far away, causing Sissi to realize that she was running into the collapsing dormitory building.
But she didn't stop.
As soon as she entered, there was another tremor, but it didn't last long. Once it stopped, she started looking around, searching hallway after hallway, room after room, until she came across a cell phone, and picked it up. It must've been Odd's...
"Sissi!"
She glanced up to see Odd, Milly, and Tamiya all laying down on the floor above, which was slanted at a very dangerous angle.
"Odd! I'm here to help!"
"Good!" Odd called back. "Catch Kiwi!"
He then let his dog, in his arms, go, and Sissi barely managed to catch the animal, due to her confusion as to what Odd meant.
But she did.
She set Kiwi on the ground, before glancing back up at Odd, who said, "Now, be ready to catch me if I fall!"
"What?!" Tamiya asked. "Are you out out of your mind, Odd! It's at least a ten meter drop!"
"We can't stay here!" Odd told the two younger girls. "We gotta cross over to the other side! I can't tell you how, but we're gonna make it! Besides if Sissi found her way inside, that means we have a path out!"
"Trust him!" Sissi called back. Odd was in on Ulrich's secret. Like Yumi, Odd knew what was really going on. So trusting Odd here was their best bet.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Sissi!" Odd said, a smile on his face, a real one. "Here I go!"
Sissi hovered over Odd's estimated landing spot as he came hurtling down towards the gap. With the agility of an Olympic athlete, Odd landed on the ground in front of her perfectly.
The two then turned to Milly and Tamiya.
"Come on!" Odd encouraged them. "We'll catch you!"
Milly and Tamiya glanced at each other, both asking each other if they should without speaking.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Ulrich followed Jérémie, who was following the pulsations, as the two ran down the path.
"We're coming to the parallel paths!" Ulrich told Aelita.
"Be careful! Kankrelats are also converging on those crossroads!"
Sure enough, Ulrich felt two sudden, sharp pains in his leg. He recovered from his tumble, and immediately unsheathed his katana as Jérémie knelt beside him.
"Aelita, how many lifepoints do I have?"
"Hold on, uh...90! No, 80!" Aelita replied, as the two boys continued down the path to the activated tower.
"Make up your mind, Aelita! I gotta know!" A Kankrelat suddenly shot at them from behind them, and Ulrich ordered, "Take cover, Jérémie!"
Aelita snapped back, "I can't do a million things at once! Dodge the lasers and you won't have to keep track!"
Four Kankrelats surrounded them, and Jérémie hid behind a tree as Ulrich dodged and blocked their lasers with his katana.
Ulrich quickly hid behind a separate tree from the blue elf to recover his breath and ground.
A laser fired, and Ulrich ducked in time to dodge it, but the tree he was using wasn't so lucky.
He grabbed Jérémie's hand and led him, exclaiming, "We can't stay here!"
Jérémie followed him without a word, while the Kankrelats still followed them.
As they approached another crossroads, Ulrich could now see the pulsations too (only see, though, not feel). They were red circles (to him, at least) that traveled along the ground. Jérémie had previously explained that this phenomenon was concerning, because it meant that XANA's current attack was severe.
The first time they experienced this, it led to that first death...
The Kankrelats had followed them, and one charged up its laser and fired. Ulrich pushed Jérémie to the ground to avoid it, his katana still in hand.
"Head towards the tower!" Ulrich told Jérémie, who nodded and began to run.
But the elf didn't get very far. The Kankrelats were waiting for him.
The two were completely surrounded.
"Any last words?" Ulrich asked, sincerely hoping Jérémie would actually say something. He was pretty quiet right now and had been since Ulrich first landed.
Jérémie didn't get a chance to answer, as a fan suddenly traveled through the air and sliced through one of the four Kankrelats surrounding them.
The two boys glanced up in time to see Yumi catch her fan in mid-air and land on the path beside them.
"I see you boys need a lady's touch around here," Yumi quipped before throwing her fan again, destroying two more Kankrelats.
Yumi caught her fan a second time, as Ulrich used his Super Sprint to leap up and dodge the lasers of the fourth and final Kankrelat. Once he landed behind it, he waited for it to turn around before stabbing it in the eye with his katana.
"Let's hurry!" Yumi exclaimed. "The factory is just as bad as the school!"
Jérémie led the way to the tower, still following the pulsations, with Yumi and Ulrich still holding onto their weapons.
"There it is!" Ulrich exclaimed.
Still running as fast as they could, the trio glanced to their left and saw the tower that XANA had claimed for this round, the red halo standing out amidst all of this green...
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Tamiya chose to trust Odd and Sissi and slid down first. Odd caught her with very little effort. As he set her down, Sissi turned to Milly, who had lingered behind, "Your turn, Milly! It's okay!"
"No, I'll never make it!" Milly cried back, clearly still too scared.
"Sure you will!" Odd said. She never found the words, but Sissi had always appreciated his ability to stay positive, even if dark situations such as this one.
Kiwi began barking again, and the tremors that followed were immediate. They caused the floor Milly was on to slant even more, leaving her with no choice but to slide down.
Milly landed on the ground below, very close to the edge, but she had not found her balance, as she flailed her arms widely to gain it somehow.
But Sissi quickly grabbed her wrist and pulled her to safety.
Milly immediately fell into Sissi's warm embrace and tightly hung on, even as Odd congratulated the two younger ones on being brave.
"Good job, girls," he said, before turning to Sissi. "Now, Sissi, show us the way out. How did you get in?"
"Follow me," Sissi said, Milly now tightly clutching onto her hand, and she retraced her steps.
But as she turned the final corner, she had no choice but to stop.
"Oh no!" Milly and Tamiya gasped behind her.
"No, I don't believe this!" Odd muttered.
Their only and last exit was blocked off by rubble.
Now, the four of them were truly trapped with no way out.
Kiwi started barking again, and once again, the quake began immediately.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
They were also there. The tower was in sight.
But Ulrich was alerted to a Krabe behind them when it shot at them.
The samurai stopped and unsheathed his katana, before letting Yumi and Jérémie both leap over a gap in the path. As they hid in a hollow tree trunk up ahead, Ulrich faced down the Krabe.
He wasted no time, leaping up using Super Sprint and immediately piercing its eye with his katana.
He sheathed his weapon as it exploded, signaling its defeat, but quickly ran to meet Yumi and Jérémie in that hollow tree trunk as he heard another Krabe on the way.
He leapt over the gap with no problems, and landed on the other side, before sliding his way into the other two's cover.
But the Krabe also jumped over the gap, landing right in front of the opening of the trunk Ulrich was looking through, who jumped back when it did.
The Krabe immediately began firing its laser, with the three Lyokowarriors trapped inside dodging them. And before they knew it, two more had joined it.
"XANA's pulled out all the stops!" Ulrich exclaimed, after dodge-rolling to avoid a laser. "Aelita, how are you doing?! Because if this keeps up, we're not going to last much longer!"
"Hang on just a bit longer!" Aelita urged them. "I'm almost there!"
They were waiting for her to debug Jérémie's profile, so Jérémie could enter the code safely. That was what they wanted, what they were hoping and working for, but it was the exact opposite of what XANA wanted.
Outside, one Krabe was shooting lasers, the second was trying to claw its way inside, while the third was patrolling the perimeter.
Jérémie cried out when one of those lasers hit his shoulder, but Yumi blocked the following shot aimed at him with her fan.
"Hold on! I'm downloading the patch now!"
Ulrich and Yumi both saw Jérémie glance up at the sky, where Aelita's voice was coming from, but the elf didn't speak a word.
What was going through his head?
But Yumi didn't address that, "Just in time, Aelita! Things are getting kinda hot around here!"
A beat of silence as Ulrich and Yumi dodged and blocked lasers from the three Krabes surrounding them, before...
"NO!"
"Aelita? What's wrong?" Yumi asked.
"There's still a bug somewhere!"
Another shot was fired, which Ulrich quickly dodged.
Jérémie clenched his fists in determination, before getting to his feet. "I'm going to deactivate the tower now."
Two pairs of eyes and all three pairs of ears immediately turned to him. They knew he'd been rather quiet since meeting up with Ulrich, but they weren't expecting those words to be the first ones he'd utter.
But deep down, they did. Jérémie was the one who always told them it was safer shutting the supercomputer down with him still inside to secure the world's safety.
"Jérémie, you can't!" Aelita immediately protested.
"I don't have a choice, Aelita," the blue elf was oddly calm. Apparently, he was quiet because he was contemplating this the whole time. "I'm the only one who can counter XANA's attacks, so the responsibility rests on me, and it always will. Odd is in danger, and so are you, along with all of your schoolmates and teachers, so any further delay will just guarantee their fate." Ulrich and Yumi saw him swallow a lump in his throat. "I understand why you guys don't want me to deactivate the tower right now, and to be honest, if our roles were switched, I'd feel the same way. But you guys are only in this position because of me. I know what I have to do."
"Y-You sure?" Ulrich was quiet as he let all of that sink in.
"Yes."
"Just wait a little longer, Jérémie," Aelita pleaded. "We'll start over again!"
He gave a sad smile, "It's too late for that. Don't get me wrong. I want nothing more than to be with you guys, free from Lyoko and free from XANA. But if XANA wins, it won't be worth it."
Yumi and Ulrich both glanced down at the ground upon hearing this.
'If XANA wins, it won't be worth it.'
Aelita sniffed, "Jérémie, please...please, don't do it..." The inflections in her voice made it clear that she was crying.
"I'm sorry, Aelita. I really am. But I'm very glad to have met you," Jérémie softly confessed, almost in a whisper.
Aelita paused, before sniffing again, "So am I..."
"Just remember to tell Odd." Jérémie smiled before turning to Ulrich and Yumi, "You two ready for one last run?"
Despite that this was what they were desperately trying to avoid, the two both stood up, his earlier words echoing in their minds and hearts. Because he was right. If XANA won, then all their hard work trying to free Jérémie wouldn't mean anything.
Yumi spread out her fan, ready to fight.
Ulrich unsheathed his katana, "I'll hold them off."
Jérémie smiled, as the pink-ette in the lab tried vehemently and through her tears to fix his profile before he reached the tower.
Ulrich charged forward, as Yumi escorted Jérémie to the tower. Neither could cry on Lyoko, but the pain and despair still showed clearly in their eyes.
It showed in Ulrich's eyes as he used Super Sprint to leap and strike the eye of XANA on one of the Krabes.
The monster exploded, signaling defeat, and he landed, right before a second Krabe shot him from behind, devirtualizing him.
It showed in Yumi's eyes as she led Jérémie to the tower, as they stopped at the base and they connected eyes. Jérémie offered her a sad smile and a wave goodbye, before turning towards the tower.
Yumi remained behind, unsheathing her fan when she saw the two remaining Krabes crawling towards them.
She got a running start, before jumping and throwing her fan. It hit the eye of the second Krabe perfectly, and she too landed as it exploded.
But Yumi turned around and saw Jérémie enter the tower.
With graceful acceptance, Yumi spread her arms and let the third and last Krabe devirtualize her.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Kiwi start barking again, and the four students still trapped inside the building huddled closer together as the walls, floor, and ceiling surrounding them began to buckle.
Sissi glanced over at Odd, and she hated the cheerless expression on his face. Yes, he knew what would happen, but there was very little hope in his eyes, and Sissi wondered why.
Outside, the rain kept pouring, and now it was seeping through the cracks in the broken structure.
JEREMIE_
Ulrich and Yumi, both having just emerged from the scanners, tightly clung onto each other as the factory around them shook thanks to XANA's ultrasounds.
Yumi was crying into his shoulder, and Ulrich knew why, but he tried his very hardest not to cry too.
CODE_
"Jérémie?" Aelita asked. She knew what was about to happen. Even through her tear-filled eyes, she could see the holomap reading his position in that tower.
She just needed hear his voice one last time.
"Farewell, Aelita," were his last words to her.
LYOKO_
The building around them finally stopped trembling, and Kiwi began wagging his tail, no longer hearing that awful noise.
But Odd let loose the tears he was holding back this whole time.
Deep in his gut, he knew what had just happened. He didn't need to have his phone on him to know...
In the scanner room, Ulrich had failed in holding back his own tears. Yumi, still on his shoulder, only sobbed harder.
Aelita could just barely see through her own tears as she entered the time coordinates and hit Enter. "Return to the past, now..."
A familiar white bubble enveloped everything, but the despair of four kids still lingered on.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Time had rewinded to this morning. No one else remembered, or would ever understand the depth of the pain they all felt. Only the sky knew, as it was still raining, still crying with them.
Jérémie was gone, and now all that was left was to shut down the supercomputer.
But they just couldn't find themselves to go through with it, to pull the lever. Because it meant that they really had lost a friend, their friend...
And on his birthday, too...
"Aelita," Ulrich was the only one brave enough to speak up, "it wasn't your fault. Jérémie made a choice."
The pink-ette was sitting against the wall, curled into a ball. "Yes, it was!" she snapped, tears running down her cheeks. "It was my fault!" She sniffed, "And all of that...for a strand of hair..."
"Hey, the hair!" Yumi remembered. "Aelita, didn't you say the hair contained Jérémie's entire genetic code?"
Aelita wiped the tears from her eyes, "Yeah. Jérémie even said..." She trailed off as she remembered what Jérémie had said.
"Aelita?" Odd poked her, verbally. "What did Jérémie say?"
"He said that since it contains his DNA, we can use it to track down his original virtual fragments..." she relayed. "He told me that himself..."
"So, it's possible...?" Yumi asked, hope straining against her sorrow. "It's possible to reverse the reformatting he went through and bring him back?"
Aelita immediately got to her feet and reached into her jumper pocket. She pulled out the test tube and gave it to Yumi, "Put the hair inside one of the scanners."
Yumi took it and climbed down the ladder without any further delay. Once she got there, she opened the test tube and carefully pulled out the single blonde hair.
Careful, she told herself, this is the only piece of your friend you currently have...
It gently placed it on the floor of one of the scanners.
"The hair's ready, Aelita!" she called to the floor above her.
Aelita sat in the chair, and Odd and Ulrich huddled around her, watching her bring up Jérémie's ID card.
A window popped up, showing the wireframe of their friend's avatar and the percentage of virtual fragments found on the network, fragments belonging to their friend, and then the gathering of those fragments to their proper place.
None of them took their eyes off this window, not even when Yumi joined them in carefully watching the percentage gradually build up.
99 percent...100 percent.
A gentle beep sounded, alerting them that the program was done gathering all of the fragments.
Aelita took a deep breath, before softly calling, "Jérémie? Are you there?" He should be. The holomap said he was in the tower he just deactivated.
His interface popped up, and they saw his face again, "Hello, Aelita. Yes, I'm here. I'm glad you're all okay."
His relief turned into slight confusion when Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi suddenly began cheering.
"It worked!" Yumi exclaimed before sobbing tears of joy into Ulrich's shoulder. Ulrich tightened the embrace, not bothering to hold his own tears back.
Odd and Aelita also shared a tearful hug, which was interrupted by Jérémie asking, "Why is there water on all of your faces? Did I miss something?"
"I'll tell you later, Jérémie," Aelita reassured him with a smile, wiping away the tears of joy leaking from her forest green eyes. "This time, we only missed...by a hair."
Jérémie softly smiled as the other four all laughed at Aelita's joke, as he himself understood it.
It meant that his sacrifice was worth something, something much bigger than the entire world, something XANA could never destroy. What did Odd call it again?
Friendship? Yeah, that was it.
Outside, the rain stopped pouring, and the clouds parted to reveal the bright morning sun.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
A few hours passed, and Jérémie remained in the tower. The others had to go to their classes, this time without worrying about the threat of their school falling apart, without worrying about the threat of possibly losing one of their own.
According to the interface in front of him, it was sometime after their classes had ended for the day, when Aelita called out to him again, "Jérémie, you there? We have a surprise for you."
Jérémie pressed a window on the interface, activating his interface and soon, he was able to see his four friends, all in Aelita's room, in front of her computer, with Ulrich and Odd holding something behind the sheet Yumi was holding up.
He was very confused. "I don't understand. What's going on?"
"It's something from our world," Odd explained. "Something to help people properly celebrate birthdays."
Oh, okay. He understood now, remembering Aelita explain the concept of birthdays and why they chose today as his. "I see. Are you going to show me what it is, or do I have to guess?"
Aelita turned to the others, "Here we go. Three, two, one."
Yumi removed the sheet, revealing a cake that had the very words that the four of them spoke aloud next written on top of it, "Happy Birthday, Jérémie!"
Jérémie felt the radiance of his smile. "Thank you. Now...am I supposed to do something with it?"
"Yeah," Odd replied, "save me a piece of cake!"
Yumi rolled her eyes, "Glutton!"
"Don't listen to him," Ulrich told the elf. "He's a walking stomach!"
"And I embrace it!" Odd defended himself.
"That, you do," Aelita admitted, before turning to Jérémie. As Yumi began slicing the cake into smaller slices, "We know that you're not here to enjoy this cake with us, but the first thing you eat once you're materialized is a slice of this cake. I promise."
Jérémie maintained his smile, "I'd like that very much." He immediately added it to his list of things to try.
They thought his biggest wish was to be materialized and live with them, and they were right. He wanted that more than anything.
But he was perfectly content with settling for knowing his friends were safe for another day.
"Odd, chill out!" Yumi cried. "The cake's not gonna run away!"
"Well, around here, you never know!" was Odd's response.
"Oh, stop it!" Yumi rolled her eyes again.
"Sorry, but I'm hungry, okay?"
"So is everybody else!" Aelita told him.
"Give me my slice, Odd," Ulrich added, darkly. "Now."
Because he meant it. If XANA won, moments like this wouldn't be worth it.
!~~~J~E~R~L~I~T~A~~R~O~L~E~S~W~A~P~~A~U~~~!
Next Episode: 16 - Cain and Abel / Jérémie is suddenly left all alone when XANA traps the others in a simulation bubble.
A/N: "Just in Time", by itself, holds up pretty well in canon, I have to admit. But here, I felt it was appropriate to sprinkle in the birthday plot from "The Trap". I don't know where it came from, but I like how it turned out. Also, I added some lines here and there to better connect some scenes and give certain characters some more depth, especially Jérémie's sacrifice at the end, to show just how deep the Lyokowarriors' bond has become.
In literature, a rain storm is often an omen of bad luck. Here, it also adds to the tension because do the students want to be safe but have a cold, or get out of the rain but be trapped inside of a crumbling building?
It still bothers me to this day how the revived Aelita, in the canon episode, is actually a clone, yet they don't treat her any differently (which is probably a good thing). Here, however, the hair is just used as the strand of DNA needed to track down all of Jérémie's original virtual fragments. So, this Jérémie is still the original, not a clone.