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
Jeremy: So, you can erase her memory?!
[All three turn to Jeremy who has appeared from the side of the house where Yumi and William just came from. Graven's full attention is on Jeremy. Graven walks out of the house toward Jeremy, away from the stairs to the basement.]
Graven: What are you talking about? That was your excuse.
Jeremy: It's the truth, but if you didn't do it, you're never going to believe me. It doesn't matter though. Aelita can't come right now. So, give your terms to me. Now.
[Girls are watching Graven and LW. From the brushes outside the Hermitage.]
Sissi: What is this place?
Laura: Yumi, William, and Jeremy are there, but I don't see Aelita at all.
[They overhear Graven give the blackmail about giving Deckard the Lyoko Supercomputer.]
Graven: [far away] … give me the location of the Lyoko supercomputer and we will preserve her identity.
Sissi: I've heard Odd and Ulrich talk about 'Lyoko' before. What is it?
Laura: I think it's a quantum supercomputer. Why do they have a quantum supercomputer?
Diva: [surprised. Fast talk] Why do you say quantum? He didn't say that?
Laura: I dunno. [clutches her head] It sounds…right.
Diva: Let's just wait and see what happens. If it's a backdoor deal, then you might be able to learn something that could make you indispensable.
Laura: Hmm, that's actually a clever plan.
Sissi: [grumpy] Exciting things always seem to happen around those guys. You ever feel like a back seat driver in life. Like you have no control and are just taken for the ride by other people that get to make all the choices. Like, like…
Diva: [deadpan] Like you're a secondary character and you only matter when the main characters happen to be around you.
Sissi: [excited] OMG someone finally put it into words. Yes, that's exactly it!
Laura: Sshhhh. And no, I'm pretty in control of my own life.
Graven: If you turn over the location of your supercomputer, we are willing to allow a meeting between Aelita and her mother. We don't have a reason to deny you after we get what we want. It's just good business.
Yumi checks her watch.
Codes remaining 4%
Pixelation: 2%
Yumi: We don't have time for this. We're in danger here.
Graven: From what?
Yumi: From… [can't think of an excuse]
Jeremy: XANA.
Graven: I already heard all about XANA from her. She had no proof it held any threat beside wild accusations.
Yumi: You don't have any proof because we're doing our jobs. We've stopped every one of its attacks.
Graven: How convenient for you. You're so proficient that there's no proof of its existence. Now you're all coming with me. You know something about the gunshot. It's for your… safety.
William: Oh drop it already. There's nothing legitimate about you, Tyron or Deckard Inc. The deal is a farce. You'll take what you need and you don't care what you leave behind. We already know Deckard sent Grigory after us and you both tried to get our supercomputer's location with that weird memory gauntlet.
Graven: [voice catches in his throat. Stutters] -he. How do you, never, I DID NO SUCH THING!
Yumi: Well that's convenient for you.
[notices a flashing on her watch.
Codes remaining 4%
Pixelation: 0%
William: [glances at her watch] Well so much for dog man.
Graven: Dog? He really is here?
Jeremy: [sarcastic] That's just great. [normal] But the others could be devirtualized any minute. [He starts to take off back the way he came.]
Graven: Don't move!
[Now he has a gun out. And is pointing it at them.]
[Cut back to the forest sector backup. Ulrich and his orange colored copy are super sprinting through forest of wooden spires using the wooden paths made by the branches to try to gain a height advantage on one another. They're running up collapsed trees and jumping from branch to branch. Ulrich is trying to cut, jump and slash the double. In midair, Orange twists to avoid a thrust, grabs Ulrich's hand, and kicks back at him knocking him to the forest floor below, the force twisting the hilt of Ulrich's saber out of his hand and into the double's. Ulrich loses his other saber in the fall.
Orange jumps down to and dashes at Ulrich for the finishing stab. Everything slows down. Ulrich catches the blade between his hands and yanks it out of the double's hands
Or at least he would if a red blade didn't stab through Orange and into Ulrich's side, stopping the motion.
Ulrich LP: 170 - 160
[The Orange clone shatters revealing the original behind it with Ulrich's blade glowing red.]
Orange: Why are you surprised? Jeremy even said that XANA never makes the same mistake twice.
Ulrich: Twice, when did I… the time we activated a tower to decrypt Franz's diary?
Orange: And the time your mind and body became decoupled. Since I already had the practice of copying your fighting from then, I was the most efficient asset for the job.
Ulrich: You talk like you're not XANA.
[Orange doesn't answer him. He just smiles.]
Orange: The only thing you will ever hear from me is exactly what I want you to know and nothing else.
Ulrich: SUPER SPRINT! [He snatches up his dropped saber]
Ulrich stabs at Orange. Orange parries it and brushes Ulrich past him.
Ulrich: Since you're so talkative, what exactly are you here for?
Orange: Well, I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to shatter your precious little world.
Ulrich: What do you know about me?
Orange: [gestures to his own face] Are you serious? Well let's see. I know you're an arrogant, dual wielding swordsman, who takes on every challenge by himself, and attracts every girl within a 30-meter radius while only having a surface level relationship with your hot Asian girlfriend-
BOOOM
[Orange takes Ulrich's sonic boom level super sprint attack…
…with a "meh" face. He takes a half step back and parries Ulrich's blade, and bumps Ulrich with his elbow in one motion so Ulrich's own speed trips him over into the ground.]
Orange: Wow, I wasn't even trying to be offensive. That was just the truth.
Ulrich: Yeah yeah, I'm basic. That's an old insult.
[Ulrich attacks Orange, but he dodges again with barely any effort.]
Orange: Hey it's old, but a good one. Stereotypes are the standard for a reason. Let's go a level deeper.
[tosses his saber up into the air and attacks Ulrich with his one arm as he starts a Silat elbow, knee, kick combo, the sword matching their pace as it arcs above them.]
Orange: You're afraid to change what you have, as imperfect and frustrating as it is, because if you mess it up, you'll never will be able to go back to what you had before. [Ulrich ducks the kick and sweeps Orange's legs with a low ankle bite slash.] Or at least, that's what you think. [dodges Ulrich with a one-handed cartwheel and catches his saber.] I know that you hate yourself for never having the resolve to ask Yumi out when the supercomputers were shut down. And when you finally did, William got in the way. Like he always does. [squints] Strange, your Life Points are the same despite all that emotional damage.
[Ulrich launches a quick series of slashes that Orange parries without even looking. Then when Ulrich tries a desperate lunge attack, Orange punishes him with a pirouette and backhanded slice that catches him on the shoulder blades and knocks Ulrich down on the ground.]
Ulrich LP: 160 - 150
Orange: Am I more or less EXACTLY ON POINT?! By the way, there is a reason you're failing Trig.
[Ulrich just looks at him with a "whaaat?" face]
Orange: You forgot about the second clone.
[The second clone drops down behind Ulrich and strikes. Ulrich deflects that one by turning around and parrying its blade to the side, but Orange kicks him in the back and he goes flying over the edge to another plateau below.]
Ulrich LP: 150 - 145
[Orange and his clone super sprint away.]
Ulrich: OWWW. … [realization] The tree! Super sprint.
[Aelita and Odd walk through the door they had just exited. They both do a double take in confusion. The room had changed. Now it was a scene of Aelita's parent's working with several other researchers in the same lab as before.]
Odd: Didn't we just leave-
Waldo: Will the CRT be ready?
Anthea: I don't know if we can generate a proper visualization. The principal behind it is sound, but that's not going to convince them. What's the point of a visualization if we can't prove it exists?
?: Excuse me, could I have a word Waldo?
Waldo: [warm] Absolutely. Anything for a friend.
Odd: Who is she talking to?
Aelita: Its's WAIT? Is that?
[They see the man talking to Waldo has a familiar puff of impish hair.]
Tyron: I was wrong. I apologize. Me and everyone else were wrong to question you about the visualization method. If it's the only way to control energy wavelengths-
Waldo: To establish communication lines.
Tyron: Y-yes oh course, another way of putting it yes.
Waldo: Honestly its fine. We often have to take roundabout ways to reach our goals in science. The solution comes on the roundabout way we take to solve the problem.
Tyron: Yes, I guess that is the case.
Waldo: Try to keep your "memory" of that realization accessible. You never know what "random" moment you'll need it.
Tyron: [pause for moment before he gets the nerd joke.] …haha. … yes. Still, I would watch out. Erikson is still questioning if you're reliable.
Waldo: Really? Where did you hear that?
Tyron: [startled] Just rumors around the mess hall. Listen, I would be interested to see how you managed to change the test data to achieve those stable results.
Waldo: I'll explain while I finalize the demonstration preparations.
[They leave the room, but just as Aelita and Odd begin to follow, the door slams shut in front of them.]
A screen pops up.
Aelita: You have got to me kidding me.
Odd: What?
Aelita: A test. We can't follow the flashback until we answer a question on what we just saw.
Odd: Aelita… your dad hasn't been a teacher for 13 years and he's still giving out homework.
Aelita: I know.
[Aelita tries using creativity to see if she can just bypass the locked door directly. It fails. The screen reads "What is most important to Waldo?" She types in "making a reliable communications system for general use."]
It shows "correct" in green text.
The purple flames surround Odd's left eye again. He yelps in alarm.
Aelita: Odd?!
Sissi: Who's Tyron and Grigory?
Laura: Tyron owns Deckard Inc. and the other one, I don't know. Did you hear what he said something about XANA being a threat?
Sissi: Wait, he knows about XANA?
Laura: You know? What is it?
Sissi: I don't know. Ulrich and the others have mentioned it a couple of times.
Diva: Will you be quiet. Someone is going to-
CRACK
[Grigory dashes out from behind a tree in the direction of Sissi. He activates his gauntlet. Laura spots the gun that Grigory still has in his hand. He hasn't raised it yet in favor of whatever he was going to do to Sissi with the gauntlet.]
Laura: RUN!
Sissi takes off. Diva circles to get behind Grigory. She swings the guitar case off her back. Diva appears to have Grigory's attention.
And then Grigory whirls around to back hand Sissi with the gauntlet. She goes down hard. Grigory crouches down to use the gauntlet on her. Diva sparks up her hand and prepares to ignite her guitar into a magnetic battle axe again.
…Until she notices that Laura didn't run away. Laura kicks Grigory away from Sissi before he can close the gauntlet on her head.
When Grigory tries to shoot her, she twists his armed hand away from her and slams her palm into his nose.
CRACK
[Grigory's nose is broken. Sissi looks up from the ground in awe.]
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