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

[The three Lyoko Warriors in the real world get back to the secret room just as Ulrich is defeated. They see his player card turning grey signaling his devirtualization.

Yumi: Can you interrupt the process or stall it or something?

Jeremy: Ye.. it . .. it's done. Can't do anything.

[There is silence for a moment.

Then Yumi gets a call.]

Yumi: Ulrich!

Ulrich: [phone] I'm fine.

Jeremy: Where are you?

Ulrich: If one of our scanners is down or being used, and one of us is devirtualized, where do we go?

Jeremy: Well, you're put into queue for the next available scan-You're in the factory!

[Cut to Ulrich in the scanner room at the factory.]

Ulrich: Yep. Hey William?

William: Yeah?

Ulrich: I just teleported.

William: Holy crap we have teleportation technology.

Jeremy: [mad scientist glint in his eye] We have teleportation.

Yumi: [calms the boys down] Okay, but what about Aelita and Odd?

[Orange's saber had bounced off the tree tower without leaving a scratch, stopping before it had a chance to hit Aelita and Odd.]

BING
IMMUNE

Orange: Huh. How did the professor make an object that couldn't be damaged? That should be against the rules. I guess I should just chalk that up to him being the deus ex machina of this world.

Aelita: XANA!

Orange: Huh, so you think I'm XANA too? You killed XANA. Remember?

Aelita: But then it survived in the Cortex.

[Odd activates future flash, tilting his head away so Orange can't see the flames around his left eye.]

Orange: Oh, so that's what you think happened. Hmmh.

Odd: Next you'll say-

Odd and Orange: "It's insulting to compare XANA to something as little as me-"

Orange: [surprised] Huh? Annoying little-

[Orange throws his sword at Odd in the same way he did in Odd's vision (just with more color now) using super sprint. Odd's head is already moving and the sword misses his head by a slim margin.]

Orange: So, you have future flash back.

Odd: And no one is ever taking it away again.

Rama: As I was saying, so I'd rather you call me something different. And I've named myself before Odd can come up with a ridiculous nickname for me.

Odd: WAT?!

Orange: Call me Rama.

[He super sprints away.]

Odd: I don't believe it… HE CALLED MY NICKNAMES RIDICULOUS! What gives him the right to judge my linguistic skills? He would be honored to be dubbed by Odd the success machine.

[Cut to the dining trailer. It's night outside. The Lyoko Warriors are there eating dinner. Odd is digging into his food. Ulrich is sulking after his defeat and picking at his food. Only Yumi doesn't have a tray as she doesn't have a meal plan.]

Yumi: What's wrong? Upset you kicked your own ass?

Ulrich: I would like to see you do better.

Yumi: Oh, I have. [grins] Several times.

William: There she is [as Aelita walks up to them with a smile on her face.] I take it went well?

Aelita: I can stay at Kadic. The evidence Graven had of my real identity "suddenly" didn't exist and a call to "Odd's parents" put any doubts Delmas had to rest.

Odd: ALL RIGHT!

[Nearby tables glare at Odd. He waves them off with a grin.]

Aelita: [To Jeremy] Also, you'll be happy to know I overheard Delmas say the Grigory's weapons were turned over to the police. And they have an investigation open on him.

William: Alright, now we don't have to repeat the day and try to expose him ourselves again.

Jeremy: Right. The less we're involved with him, the better. It was unintentional, but it is the best-case scenario.

Ulrich: [grumpy] So how did you magic the blackmail away?

Jeremy: Aelita and Odd discovered that Project Carthage was initially for sharing communications by taking over electronic wavelengths. From there, I got the idea of making a program that checks all of Deckard's devices and constantly overrides any sort of documents that reveal Aelita's identity.

William: Wait doesn't that mean you can access anyone's data anywhere. Including Tyron's?!

Jeremy: [stops a spoon of soup halfway to his mouth] Yah.

William: Then why don't we just crash all their systems.

Jeremy: Because then we'll be abusing the supercomputer's power. Like what we're trying to STOP them from doing. We're only going to use this power defensibly. And we're going to need it too. You remember those upgrades you guys obtained when you were virtualized onto the backup forest sector?

Odd: OH! [to William] Bro, you'll never believe it. I have future flash back!

[Jeremy looks worried when he says that and Aelita can see the expression. They look at each other. She knows what he's thinking and nods.]

William: What's future flash?

Odd: I can see the future.

William: And why did you lose it?

Odd: Jeremy's tinkering made it not work and he couldn't get it back.

Ulrich: What happened to Odd the great [poses like Odd], the magnificent [another Odd pose], the fighting machine [a third Odd pose] who doesn't need an ability?

Odd: Well I'm not going to turn one down when I know it works.

Jeremy: Put a pin in that for now because we need to talk about that system Franz had in the backup. I looked into it, and it appears to be a way for your avatars to evolve over time. Remember how when you came back to Lyoko after a year, your avatars looked different? You had changed your personalities, psychologies, and other things that make up who you are over time, so the supercomputer changed your avatars to reflect that. This seems to be a similar effect, just with your equipment.

Ulrich: Is that why we have extra virtual energy for abilities now?

Jeremy: You've progressed a lot since your first virtualization so it just applied what upgrades you would have gotten along the way until now.

Aelita: That's not the sort of thing my father would make. He made Lyoko as a sanctuary.

Jeremy: Right, which is why it's strange it was in the backup to begin with. But that's not the bad part. Remember how it said it was spreading the upgrade to all systems? The cortex has the same base as Lyoko. What if it spread to them?

William: So?

Jeremy: What if Tyron's fighters start upgrading their avatars too?

Episode 18 end.

AFTERWORD

The backstory of Project Carthage and Franz's life is based on the novel series, interviews with the show creators, and my own ideas on how the elements of discovering the backstory could tie into Evolution.

To make it easier and for the sake when I actually animate these scenes, I made all the avatars have a physical representation of their VEN meter. Ulrich's is his headbands, Odd has his cat ears, etc.