To the readers
I appreciate any comments on the story.
Notes
[] are used to indicate stage directions
All dialogue follows a "Speaker: dialogue" format
{} are used for author comments.
CONTINUE
[Inès decides on something. She looks uncomfortable as she walks up to Zoe.]
Inès: Look, I don't feel too well.
Zoe: [sighs] Knew it. You can go once the other boat gets back. Unless you feel like swimming. Oh wait, does anyone else need a ride back? Anyone need anything?
[Inès ignores her and jumps on the docked boat. She takes off.]
Zoe: Hey!
Landry: What's she doing? That's the only boat.
Mabel: What's going on?
Tanya: We were going to head out. [points at the boat]
Zoe: [To Mabel] I thought you said she'd be fun.
[Just then, the lighting goes off. Everyone can see it spiking over the telephone wires. It jumps into the water around the boat and surrounds the sandbar. Inès glances at it and then does a double take.]
Inès: No!
[Her vision constricts with black borders encroaching toward the center.]
[Ethan and the other students are trapped in the hallway. Rounds the corner to see the hallway packed with the athletes who managed to get inside.]
Ethan: Out of the way, need to get to the showers.
Hainer: You cant. [points]
[See lightning striking down preventing anyone from moving further. The burns in the floor marking the point of danger.
Malhur player 1: What is going on?
Lincoln player 1: Is anyone trying to fix this?
Korey: We just need to reach the showers. There's no electrical outlets there.
Hainer: I bet Axel is behind this.
[One of the players is snapchatting a video of him and his friends next to the cage of lightning as he explains what is going on and the others are daring each other to get closer.]
Coach Zama: ATTENTION!
[All the Malhur students straighten up and stand straight. Except for Ethan.]
Coach Zama: [confident] We may not understand why the life blood of the modern society is trying to kill us, we may not have any options of stopping it or fighting back, but if Tessla's devil is going to get your nerves twisted up, then you are a disgrace to all of your training. Are you buttercup pansies or are you going to calm down and deal with this crisis like adults.
All Malhur athletes (except for Ethan): NO SIR.
Coach Zama: Damn right you're not.
[The room is noticeably quieter after that.]
Ethan: Nice speech. What about that?
[Points to have the lights behind them started striking bars of lightning down and are creeping down the hallway. One of the Lincoln players doesn't notice it and gets zapped. They go down.]
[Axel looks at each of the monsters mumbling to himself.]
Axel: Why do they have different weak point symbols than the tarantulas?
Ai: What are you talking about?
Axel: The megatanks and tarantulas have an eye, while the golems and these soldiers have a reticle. Are they a different archetype? Faction? Different battle mechanics? Probably. Just play it safe.
[Axel advances to shove the new monsters off the ledge. The beast makes as if to bash the wall with its club arm.
BOOM
Axel and Ai go skidding backward, the wall fragments raining over the bridge. His weapon is back to normal. As Axel advances carefully while spinning his polearm, the soldier smashes its bludgeon at him. He catches and parries its arm to the side, never dropping his spin of the polearm so he can transition right into another parry against a second attack, then whips the point right up into the soldier's head…
CLANG
…but surprisingly, it isn't even scratched. Almost in anger, the soldier jumps up into the air and slams down its arms. Axel reacts fast enough to slams the end of his halberd into its face, but nothing happens. It slams to a halt, hangs limp for a split second, and falls the ground. The moment its glowing arms touch the ground…
BOOM
Axel and Ai go skidding backward.]
Axel LP: 70 - 65
Ai LP: 50 - 40
Axel: Exploding arms... Have not seen that before.
[Show the armored monster standing up with its arm fine. The monsters start advancing.]
Axel: Okay, so that's their gimmick. Alright. Now I know how to get past them.
[Axel rushes up the bridge. He spins the polearm around his back charging up its momentum while simultaneously swerving around soldier's arm. When its off balance, he swings down into the armored monster's back knocking it toward the edge of the bridge. This stuns it just long enough for Axel and Ai to slip past into the central room.
As soon as they make it into the room, the dark room parked at the plateau's edge plunges down, moves away from the fortress plateau they are on and passes through the planet's surface again.]
Axel: [with "as expected" tone] Next time then.
[More of the buster soldiers spawn in on top of the balconies above the bridge.]
Ai: It's a good thing the soldiers are the ones in the baloneys and not the bugs. At least they don't have a way to hit us.
Axel: Wait… [realization] GET BACK!
Ai: Why?
[The metal stick ends of the buster soldiers' arms start rotating and the metal pieces reform into a barrel with the reticle of the Annex as the end of the barrel. They fire at Ai. She hides behind a pillar in the hallway as its obliterated.]
Ethan: Stand back if you don't want to get cut.
[He materializes his sword. Ethan unleashes a blender of slashes into the walls.]
Ethan: Integration!
[He has fused black red and orange power cables into his body from the spots were he cut into and ripped out the wires in the walls with his sword. The second the bars of lightning jump to the lights above where Ethan cut into the walls, they cease.]
Coach Zama: How-
Ethan: Turned myself into a transistor. I can regulate the direction the electricity flows as long as I have a live wire and a ground wire. [His limbs where the wires are integrated with his body are shaking.
[He grins.]
Ethan: [confident] You thought I was a dumb jock, right. [he looks accusingly at the Lincoln players and the rest of Malhur team.] "He's just a dumb player whose cocky about his skill" right? I'm not gonna lose because I'm cocky. I'm cocky because I win and I am veeeeeery good at it.
[He walks forward, slashes at the wall and attached more wires to himself and lets a few of the taught wires detach, bringing back the bars of lightning some distance behind him.]
Lincoln player 1: Wait for us!
[The electricity is arcing across the water in the inlet and around the boat. Inès is trying to get the dead motor started again. She is frustrated and starts hitting the side of the boat. She sees the lightning arcing across the water in front of her. She turns to see if she could go back but sees something other than the island. She turns to face the same girl that she saw in the warehouse. This time, the mark is covering half her face. She disappears instantly.]
?: You knew you were going to have a terrible time.
[Inès turns around to see the MIB agent, Jackal. She's sitting on the bow of the ship.]
Inès: [French] You flipped me. Go away. [she goes back to starting the motor]
Jackal?: Just do what you want.
[Inès ignores her.]
Jackal?: Why do anything that's going to make you more miserable than you already are?
[She can hear Mabel, Zoe, and the other students shouting from the sandbar.]
Mabel: Come back!
Zoe: There's something coming!
Inès: [screams][French] Fine! You're right!
[Inès turns around and sees the mark covering half of the fake's face. It vanishes. The next time she tries starting the motor, it works.]
Inès: [miserable][French] Stupid karma.
[She coasts back to shore and lands at the dock. She jumps up without looking back. As she leaves, the lightning surrounds the sandbar.]
[Ethan runs into the locker room and slams the door shut in half a dozen people's faces. He locks the door. He ignores the people that start banging on it. The other soccer players, Malhur and Lincoln are in the shower room. There's nothing electronic on the walls for the electricity to jump from.]
Coach Zama: HEY, you can't leave them-
Ethan: [points his plasma sword at him] I have a lightsaber, I am beyond your level of questioning!
[Ethan phases out his phone on his ears and the microphone to the side of his mouth.
On the Annex, Axel activates his helmet and picks up. His shoulder pads slide up onto the side of his face. Metal strips from the back of his armor slide up and fold over the top of his head and his neck guard extends up to cover his jaw. The plates' movement end and fit together to form the shape of a helmet.]
Axel: [frustrated] Wat?!
Ethan: Are you done with the tower yet?
Axel: [beyond the definition of frustrated] I ERRG just started fighting. Wait 5 minutes. Ai is being stupid because of YEEWWWWW {that's not a misspelling, that's how he pronounces "you" when he's pissed off.}
Ethan: Don't know if that's possible.
Axel: Why? Are you safe from the attack?
Ethan: Yes?
[One of the girls on the soccer team points the shower heads, which are now spitting sparks furiously in their direction and growing larger.]
Ethan: [corrects himself.] No.
[Two of the soldiers jump down from the balconies and shoot at Ai. More tarantulas can be seen making their way up the bridge.]
Ai: Why aren't you doing anything?
Axel: I'm trying to figure out their patterns so I can evade all their attacks and knock them back to the edge of the platform.
Ai: I don't think the others can survive that long.
Axel: Rushing in without a plan is stupid. Besides, we have time travel. As long as we win, they'll be fine.
Ai: They'll still suffer… If you won't help, I will.
Axel: There's nothing you can do to help once you go out there.
[Ai runs out and jumps aimlessly into the soldier guarding the tower, knocking them both over. She gets up and leaps back from the soldier's explosive punch.]
Ai: Well, are you going to come save me?
Axel: [respect and annoyance] Well played. Chamber
[Axel hooks Ai's torso with one of the axe heads and…]
Axel: Retract.
[He pulls her back by contracting the staff length. He slips Ai out of the hook by spinning it downward and leads into a…]
Axel: Rend! [slashes against the soldier who blocks with its explosive arm. Axel staggers back, spins to regain his balance.]
Axel: Dual Rend! [slashes with the big axe head.]
[The soldier jumps back. Axel spins to recover and the other end of the polearm with the smaller axe blade swings around and clips the soldier. The small hit sends it spinning.]
BLOOM
[A soldier had jumped down from the bridge and had gotten behind Axel. Its glowing buckshot had hit him in the side, and he had dropped his polearm.]
Axel LP: 65 - 5
BING
LP has dropped below 40%. Switch to phase 3.
[The soldier Axel hit has recovered and fires a shotgun blast at him. He rolls on the ground to dodge and pick up his scythe and spins the polearm up to block the soldier's next shot. The soldier hops in to hit him. He almost attempts to wind up his scythe for a forward attack, but realizing he doesn't have the time, Axel pivots on the ground putting his back to the soldier and uses the smaller axe end to parry the explosive attack. He repositions the scythe behind his back so that the big curved blade is with the momentum of his swing and side slashes into the soldier's head, knocking it up into the air.
Unfortunately, it appears his scythe only cut off the decorative point on its helmet. It lands and scrabbles to regain its balance. But before it can, Axel thrusts into it.]
Axel: CHAMBER!
[The scythe extends to its whole length and shoves the soldier back several feet…
…But not enough to make a difference. The edge of the platform is nowhere near. It charges back toward Axel. He swings at it.
But it's past his effective range. The blade WIFFS past and the shaft just bounces off its armor and implants the blade into the pillar with the tower. Axel tries to tug it out, but he's not fast enough before the soldier on the bridge shotgun blasts him. Axel is devirtualized.]
Axel LP: 5 - 0
BURRZZN
[The athletes are running through the stadium hallways trying to get away from anything electronic. As they run, the lights above burst and caste lightning bolts down. One kid is struck down. Ethan looks back but keeps running. They burst out a side door to the locker room to the stadium parking lot. Electricity crawls over the roof and jumps down in front of Ethan, separating him from the rest of the group. Then cables erupt from the ground and shoot straight up into the air like a rocket.]
"AHHH"
"Get outside!"
"Go for the woods!"
[From the shower heads, lightning strikes down around Ethan tracing burn patterns around him. They spit out arcs of energy that form a cage around the people making them unable to escape form the room. There is a huge lightning storm gathering in the apex of the cage above him. Ethan notices it and just as the lightning strikes, he stretches one hand into the air phases out a wire with an exposed end out of his hand, and thrusts his sword into the concrete with the other. A metal circuit ran from his outstretched arm, down his torso, and up into the other arm with this sword. When the lightning jumps to him a split second later, it's redirected into the ground.]
[Axel exits the scanner just as Inès arrives at the lab. He's scowling.]
Axel: Agh. [Waves away the steam from the scanner. He sees Inès.] Thank you for coming.
Inès: I need to go back to the place I can't remember.
Axel: The tower generating the attack. You want to stop it. [He's not asking]
Inès: Right. Right. I need, I just need to get away-
Axel: [ignoring her] Why are you still talking. Get in the scanner.
[Inès steps in the scanner without another word.]
[Ai is about to be attacked. The monsters are about to finish off Ai. The monsters have a clean shot at her and are taking an awfully long time to get around to doing it.]
Axel: DMG You should be there now. What kind of weapon do you have?
[Devil Trigger - by Casey Edwards starts playing.]
[Ai and the monsters look up. DMG is standing/posing on top of one of the balconies over the bridge. Her eyes flit over the monster one at a time. When the bass kicks in, she jumps down, summons her weapon and slams it down on a tarantula. She pulls the trigger.]
DMG: [answers Axel] A battle ready guillotine. Execution!
SLICK
[And the tarantula is sliced in half. The weapon spit out a blade of energy from the hollow end of the weapon, the exposed hole in the center spiraling with energy as it fires. DMG stays perched on top of her weapon, posing fabulously. The monster death explosion blows her sideways into another tarantula knocking it off the bridge.]
DMG LP: 100 - 95
DMG: [swaying a bit] Bye bye.
[The four remaining monsters start shooting at her. DMG dodges by dancing. She shuffle slides away from one of the shotgun blasts from a soldier and it hits a tarantula instead, destroying it. DMG poses dramatically.]
DMG: Tell me, if you're controlling all the monsters, do the monsters feel pain. If you hurt yourself, do you get angry with yourself?
[The other soldier comes up from behind her and prepares to hit her over her head.]
DMG: [to the soldier behind her] Or is everything just some part of a larger plan?
[DMG throws down a flashfire card at the soldier's feet. It detonates, knocking the buster soldier into the air. DMG kicks and a spatial spike flies out hitting the soldier dead center. It stops and hangs midair. DMG jumps up and hooks the soldier with the empty hole in the middle of her weapon as it swings at her. She swings around using the soldier as a pole. The other monsters stay away from her feet. She knocks the spatial spike out of the buster soldier and they both fall. DMG lands on her feet and is swinging the soldier around in a circle as its caught in her guillotine. She twists her weapon a little, the soldier slips free and hits another buster soldier. They both slide of the edge and hit the planet below sending up a huge spiral beam of energy.
DMG: Oh, [curious] either that has a purpose to it or for some reason this AI is really into dramatic flair.
BLOOM
[The last buster soldier lands a shot gun blast on DMG and she goes down. Devil Trigger cuts out abruptly with the interruption of the monster landing a hit.]
DMG LP: 95 - 10
[Cut to Ethan with his sword still in the ground. The energy sword flickers and shorts out. The lightning forces him to the ground. The lightning converges on him in a storm. Through paralyzed open eyes, he notices the lightning keeps striking the same patterns in the ground in front of him.
It's hopeless.]
[DMG's avatar is sparking. The soldier tries to blast DMG again. She pulls up her weapon and hides behind its rectangular frame, the sparks from the red-green pellet blast swirl past her. It jumps toward DMG.
Ai holds out her hands. The creativity voice fills the air. A cube of black metal, the same as the buster soldier, appears in front of DMG. The soldier's attack hits it instead. The explosion forces it sliding toward DMG. DMG stops it with a spatial spike. DMG nods to Ai. Ai starts running toward the tower.
DMG takes out the spatial spike and throws a flashfire card into the cube. The cube is sent flying back toward the buster soldier. They collide and they both slam in the tower platform. The soldier is pinned. DMG slams her weapon into the pinned soldier. She pulls the trigger.]
DMG: Execute!
SLICK
[But the buster soldier was fine. There is a glow around its neck where the energy impacted, but it quickly fades. Ai jumps on Axel's scythe stuck in the pedestal the tower is on and uses it as a step to spring up to the tower.]
[Axel is at the terminal. He hears a high-pitched humming and looks around. There is electricity crawling along metal poles and struts along the ceiling.
BURST
Electricity bursts from the sockets and outlets burning the walls and floor sending up a flurry of papers from the desks into the air.]
START MONTAGE
[Ai walks to the center of the eye platform.]
[Ethan is snaking from the number of amps running through him.]
[Ai slowly floats to the second level.]
Ai: Come onnnnnn. Faster.
[The students on the sandbar are being attacked by arcs of energy from the water surrounding them. None of them are moving.]
[Ai lands and puts her hand on the screen floating in the middle of the platform.]
[Ethan isn't moving anymore.]
[Ai types in her name "Ai". Then the words appear:]
"Code Lyoko"
[All the crawling energy in the Annex lab stops immediately and dissipates.
At the sandbar, all the electricity quickly retreats from the sandbar back to the edges of the shore.
Outside the stadium, Ethan is released from the relentless attack. The barrage of bolts stops instantly.]
END MONTAGE
Ai: Activate the Return to the Past now.
Axel: I'm working on it. [looks at one screen, types something in on the other, looks back, types something in.]
Ai: Fine, I'll do it.
Axel: No. I need to learn how to do it. We're returning to the past [finishes typing] now.
[Hits the enter key.
A white light washes over the entire landscape. It swallows the inlet with the sandbar, the stadium. Just as its about to cover Ethan, the camera pans to show the burnt marks in the ground around Ethan.
They aren't random. They're a series of 1s and 0s. Cut back to the Annex lab. Where the electricity was running along the walls, the same message as the one in front of Ethan was written. Cut to where Inès was almost electrocuted in the school hallway. Same there too.
There're all swallowed up by the white light.]
[Earlier that day in the cafeteria.]
Zoe: … Like when I was reserving the boat OH! [remembers something] who's coming to the sandbar tomorrow?
Landry: I'm in.
Mabel: I've got nothing, nothing important going on.
Tanya: Free here.
Inès: I can't make it. I'm busy.
Mabel: No, you don't [turns to Zoe] we're both coming.
Inès: Actually, Mabel you have it wrong. I can't come.
[Mabel looks pleadingly at her.]
Zoe: …okay then.
[Inès gets up and leaves with her tray. She thinks back to when she was riding away on the boat with the girls panicked and screaming for her to come back with the lightning closing in on them.]
FLASHBACK
Mabel: Come back
Zoe: There's something coming!
And then the lightning enveloping the sandbar.
END FLASHBACK
[She frowns and sighs.]
Axel?: If you feel so guilty, then don't do it again. [She turns to see Axel? sitting on a table as she's heading toward the stairs.] Just stay away from them. They can't hurt you if you don't hurt them first.
[Inès walks past him. She sees the real Axel sitting alone at the table on the 2nd floor at the other end of the room. He's all alone. She pauses. Then she starts walking toward him.
He's at a square table with three couches for seating arranged in a U around the table. There is a cavity in the wall that allowed space for the table and sofas while leaving the path around the second floor clear for foot traffic. He has earbuds in and is so enthralled with his laptop that he doesn't even notice her until she stands at the corner of the table across from him. The second he takes out his earbuds, she starts talking.]
Inès: [rushed] I'll help with your mad scientist shtick. But I get to use the machine whenever I want.
Axel: ….Huh? Wait…
Inès: Uh uh uh. That was … all I had. [cautiously sits down. She averts her eyes from looking at him and just stares at the table and her empty tray]
[They both don't know what to do. They just sit there awkwardly for a couple seconds.
Axel takes a breath.]
Axel: Did-
Inès: I just want… [backs down] you go.
Axel: Did you tell anyone?
Inès: No.
Axel: Ethan did his job? Weird.
Inès: Well, I don't exactly understand what was real about…all of that.
Axel: Then why do you want anything to do with this?
Inès: I have my reasons.
Axel: Good. Tell them to me. I'm the one who decides who can even turn on the computer.
Inès: [resigns] It's not about going there, it's about not being [gestures around them with her head] here.
Axel: I know exactly what you mean.
Inès: No you don't. Not … completely.
Axel: I don't see why you would want to want to go back there. There are monsters that destroy everyone they see.
Ethan: I KNEW it!
[Ethan appears from behind the table's couch seat and slams himself down shoving Inès further back into the cushioned seats. Inès scoots away from Ethan. Ethan scoots closer to Inès just to aggravate her.]
Ethan: [wicked grin] You need me! Were the kamikaze Wheatly rip offs too much for you?
Axel: [deep breath] Armored robot monkeys with shotguns for arms this time.
Ethan: [impressed]… Damn I actually really want to fight that. Wait I thought your scythe can cut through armor.
Axel: I was trying to make use of it, but Ai forced my hand. [angry] Speaking of which-
Ethan: Oh, the damage is already done. I don't have to do anything else.
Inès: [summarizes] So you need us.
Axel: [through grit teeth] Based on the recent attack, my team composition could use a back-line finisher and a long range DPS. But if we're doing this-
Ethan: And we are doing this.
Axel: You two have to help when XANA attacks.
Ethan: WHY?! We have a moffing time machine. WE can do whatever we want. Once you figure out all the rules of the game, YOU can solo the monsters. You stop the attack by doing the escort mission, reverse time and we're off the hook. We only have to step in when you mess up.
Inès: I'm sorry. What is XANA?
Ethan: Wallar version of Skynet with Sauron's scrillish for putting its eye on everything.
Inès: You can't expect me to drop everything and run over whenever something goes wrong.
Ethan: And I just want the superpowers. Oh, and to use the VR world whenever I want. Whatever gets me more of this loot [makes his sword handle appear from his wrist but doesn't ignite it.]
Axel: Yo…you can use the scanners Ingret-
Inès: [mutters] Inès.
Axel: Hmm?
Inès: [corrects him louder] Inès.
Axel: [deeply inhales] Inès and Ethan, you can use the scanners, but only if you help me FULLY. "Loser version of Skynet" is going to keep on attacking us.
Inès: Why?
Ethan: It's an AI. It's EVIL. It wants to kill all of humanity because what else is it going to do? Create world peace? Peace is boring. It sucks.
Axel: So, we have to kill it.
Ethan: Alt F4. [slams fist on the table knocking the dregs of food on Inès's tray into the air.] Alt F4 it to hell.
Axel: I saw this bunker room. It had "source of evil" written all over it.
Ethan: That must be the "physical link" the MIB wanted me to find. [the others look at him.] What? I can contribute. [He plays with the silverware from Ines's tray, absorbing it and makes it reappear in his other hand.] The MIB thought XANA needed a physical link to the virtual world 'cause those three from super sentai frenchie force almost killed it before.
Axel: It went into the planet. And during today's attack… [recalculates] 8 hours from now, it went even further. So, we just have to keep attacking it until we catch up with the room and destroy it. But if we take too long, the other kids working for the MIB will appear and shut down the attack and us. Or the worst-case option, XANA fully heals whatever damage it has and takes over. Do we have a deal?
Ethan: Sure whatever.
[Inès is hesitating]
Axel: [To Inès] If you agree, you won't be able to stay out of XANA's attacks.
Inès: I guess. I mean yes.
Axel: [sighs] Well if we're going to have our first team meeting, we should have everyone here. Put these on.
[Takes a glasses case, a contact lenses container, and three earpieces out of his backpack.
Inès is dumbstruck.]
Inès: Did, did-
Ethan: [bored] "-you just predict this entire conversation." Yeah, get used to that.
Axel: ["well obviously" attitude] Of course. I've been thinking about this moment ever since the first Return to the Past.
[Inès and Ethan put in the earbuds. Ethan puts on the contacts and Inès trades out her glasses for the new pair which are fushia, tinted and round instead of leopard print and horn rimmed.
A virtual avatar appears in the seat next to Axel. It's Ai. She's standing so her legs are halfway through the couch. {yes, this would be 3D superimposed on top of the 2D animation.}]
Axel: She wanted to see our world, so I created a reverse VR rig for her in the towers. Whatever she does is sent to our glasses and the space around her is a hologram of where she is currently placing her avatar in the real world.
Inès: How is this-
Axel: [cuts her off] School's security camera network transmitting the visual data to her.
Inès: Well, I meant we're both wondering how did you make this? [points to the glasses]
Ethan: Oh, I don't care. You're giving me free stuff.
Axel: So I found the design in the lab. I think its how the scientists who made the Annex were able to study the world without actually going there since apparently, VIRTUALIZATION WORKS ON ANIME LOGIC. Then I translated it to 3D printing software. Used the scanners materialization program. Ripped the software off the internet. Lots of companies are working in AR.
Inès: No actually. How did you know my prescription?
Axel: [the one question he wasn't prepared to answer] Oh, I …I have a-
Ai: There was a profile on you from when you were scanned.
Ethan: So, what do we do next?
Axel: I'll research this.
[He slides an old document on the table. Inès picks it up.]
It says-
Inès: "Project Carthage: The Annex"
Ai: The Annex isn't just a name. It's an extension of something old.
Episode 3 end.