A/N: Here is the next installment of my Jerlita Roleswap AU. Hope you all enjoy it~
Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko in any way, shape, or form.
Note: Remember, any episodes not mentioned either as the inspiration for a chapter or just in passing are not part of the AU, mainly because the roleswap makes them useless, and those only mentioned in passing are just filler and/or would be the same no matter who has what role.
Beta read by swordsdownforreview
!~~~J~E~R~L~I~T~A~~R~O~L~E~S~W~A~P~~A~U~~~!
"XANA has sabotaged the supercomputer but a dorm inspection ends up wasting precious time, forcing Jérémie to take drastic action."
Episode 42: Sabotage
(Based on Sabotage)
XANA's tower was in the Mountain Sector today. It had chosen two Tarantulas and two Krabes to guard it.
Aelita flew around in the air to dodge one Tarantula's lasers. Once she found an opening, she formed an Energy Field and threw it, only for the monster to move its head at the last minute. The angel growled in frustration.
Yumi jumped into the air, avoiding the shots of a Krabe in front of her. While in motion, she threw a fan, but her weapon only grazed the eye. She slid to a stop, before glancing back at the boys.
Ulrich was Sprinting around the second Tarantula, using his katana to block the shots from the monster. While in motion, he asked, "Odd, how are you doing?"
The cat was dealing with the second Krabe. He blocked a shot with his shield, before firing two Arrows. "I'm just about through with Norbert! Just give me a minute and I'll come help you!"
"Odd, don't tell me you're still giving them stupid names!" Ulrich groaned, as he moved behind his opponent, before moving again when it turned its head, to keep out of its sight.
Jérémie was using a large rock as his cover, waiting until his friends cleared the passage. "Please don't fool around, Odd. We don't know what kind of attack XANA has planned."
"With a bit of luck, we're onto it faster than XANA anticipated," Aelita reassured him, still flying around to dodge lasers.
"That's right!" Odd exclaimed. "When Odd checks in, XANA checks out!" After firing an Arrow, he jumped into the air.
But he immediately froze.
Not a physical reaction like fear or shock, but freezing as in a glitch one would find in a video game.
"Hey, that's not fair!" he groaned. His avatar was flickering, but it seemed that he was still aware of his surroundings. "Guys!"
Aelita stopped her dodging. She turned to him, and was immediately baffled, "Huh?! What's going on?"
"What's wrong?" Ulrich asked, looking in Odd's direction, while blocking shots with his katana.
"I don't know," Odd replied, still frozen. "I can't move."
"Hang on, I'm coming!" Ulrich cried out, before running towards him, "Super Sprint!"
But he also froze. Unlike Odd, the samurai immediately teleported to the area in front of the Tarantula he was fighting. Ulrich quickly returned to normal afterwards, but it was too late.
The monster shot at him, and he was devirtualized.
"What the–?!" Jérémie exclaimed. "This shouldn't be happening!" It shouldn't. His parents were perfectionists when it came to projects. They would never oversee a glitch like this.
"What do you think the problem is?" Aelita asked, still flying around to dodge lasers.
"I don't–" He cut himself off when he saw her wings glitch out. They quickly disappeared, making her fall to the ground. "Aelita!"
The pink-ette glanced up in time for her own Tarantula opponent to shoot at her, devirtualizing her as well.
Meanwhile, the Krabe Odd had dubbed 'Norbert' slowly approached a still frozen Odd.
Knowing what it was about to do, the cat attempted to plead, "Norbert? You're not gonna..."
It promptly shot at him, devirtualizing him.
All four monsters then turned to face Jérémie and Yumi, the latter of whom then started to bug out like the other three did.
"Oh no!" she cried out.
Fortunately, the glitch didn't last long, and she was able to move again.
Once she was back to normal, Yumi made a choice. "I'll try to distract them away from you, Jérémie!" She then ran in the opposite direction of his rock cover.
The elf watched as the geisha threw a fan, but it too began glitching. If not for it, the Krabe she was aiming for would've been destroyed—instead, it phased through the monster.
Yumi held out a hand to catch the fan, only for yet another glitch to make her freeze up again.
Jérémie was horrified as he watched her get devirtualized immediately after. But he knew what he had to do.
He made a break for the tower. He had to hurry before the same thing happened to him.
The Krabe that Yumi was facing reached the tower before he did, making him halt in his tracks. It faced him, guarding the tower.
Sure enough, Jérémie began to glitch out. But so did the Krabe—and that was likely the only thing that prevented him from being devirtualized too.
"The Krabe's bugged too," Aelita told him, from the lab. "Go for it!"
She was right. He took the chance, slipping into the tower by running underneath the Krabe.
He was grateful that the bugs did not stop him from phasing through the wall, or from ascending to the second platform, or from logging into the interface.
JEREMIE_
CODE_
LYOKO_
"Tower deactivated," he announced through his relief.
"Great job, Jérémie," Aelita replied. "I'll bring you in now."
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Jérémie remained heavily troubled by the time he returned to the lab. The five of them were gathered around the monitor, with Aelita now leaning against the chair, the earpiece resting on the keyboard.
"That was so weird," Yumi commented. "As if everything bugged up."
"I don't know what could've happened," Aelita softly admitted. "Of course, that might have been XANA's attack. But at the moment, we'll have to wait for an hour to know for sure."
"That's all you can come up with?" Odd asked her. "I think you'd better start working on your A-game!"
"And I suppose that was your A-game against your pal Norbert," Ulrich retorted.
Odd immediately frowned, pouting. "Hey, I was doing just fine until those bugs started!"
Yumi nodded in agreement, "He does have a point, Ulrich. The bugs were out of our control, after all."
Jérémie had been quiet until now. "I don't think the glitches were the attack. If they were, the Krabe wouldn't have been effected too." The others turned to him, eyebrows in a mixture of confusion and curiosity. He paused, before sitting in the chair and starting to type in commands into the monitor, "I need to run some routine checks, just to be sure. For my own peace of mind, if nothing else."
"You sure?" Aelita asked, slightly concerned.
"I'll be fine," he reassured her, not taking his eyes off of the screen in front of him. "Go on and eat without me. I'll catch up."
Odd excited asked, "Can I have your portion?"
Jérémie nodded with a light hum.
"Fantastic!" the crazy-haired blonde cheered. He ran towards the elevator. "Shepherd's pie tonight!"
"Yeah, and it's also dorm inspection night," Ulrich added, stern with his reminder. "So, don't be too long, Jer."
"This will just take a few minutes," the blonde in blue replied.
Ulrich, Yumi, and Aelita joined Odd in the elevator, the latter of whom was kneeling down as he pet his dog.
"No, Kiwi," he softly said. "You need to stay here tonight. The last thing we need is for Jim to find you. My little diggity dog." Kiwi whined. "Sorry, but you can't stay with 'Lita either. Her dorm's being inspected tonight by Ms. Hertz." A pause. "Nor Yumi. Her dad doesn't like dogs."
After a couple minutes of trying to tell Kiwi that the factory was his place of rest tonight, the four teens finally closed the elevator doors and left the factory, leaving behind a dog waiting for his master to return and a very troubled son of two talented creators of a virtual world.
There was no way this was just a result of overuse, like the nuclear battery. No way...
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Dinner hour was at 7 PM, and the collective dorm inspection was scheduled for 9 PM (one hour before lights out). That's how long Jérémie had been gone. It was time for the inspection—every boy was standing out in the halls with their doors open—and it didn't seem like Jérémie was going to arrive any time soon.
Jim was walking down the hallway. "Now then, let me remind you that your rooms should be in impeccable order! Keeping your room neat and clean is a cinequa...uh...si-nee-qua-tuh...what do you call it? Cine–"
"–matography?" Odd offered, Jim having reached his and Ulrich's room by this point.
"Right! No, that's not it..." Jim shook his head to clear it. "Anyways, it's an important part of a good night's sleep. He who sleeps well lives well. And that's why a man wasn't meant to live in a garbage dump! 'Cause you can't sleep well..." He trailed off, having reached a closed door. "Wait a minute..." He glanced around, looking for the missing boy. "Where's Belpois?!"
"Uh...in the bathroom, Jim," Ulrich spoke up, he and Odd having made up an excuse earlier at dinner just in case.
"What? You mean all this time?"
"Shepherd's pie doesn't agree with him," Odd replied, causing Jim to raise an eyebrow in intrigue.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
A few hundred meters away, Jérémie was still in the lab, checking every single inch of Lyoko's programming. On his lap lay Kiwi, curled up and almost asleep. However, the dog cracked an eye open when an alarm sounded.
"What now?!" Jérémie growled in frustration, typing in a couple of commands to see what was beeping at him.
It turned out to be the scanners. One was offline, as shown by its bars being turning red.
"Uh oh, it's getting weirder..." he muttered.
Right as he said this, all three scanners were offline. Something was wrong...
He grabbed Kiwi and held him in his arms as he got to his feet, "C'mon, Kiwi. We have some investigating to do."
The dog didn't struggle, just letting himself be carried to the elevator and then down to the supercomputer room. Once they arrived, Jérémie set Kiwi down, needing to use both hands.
He walked up to the massive machine and pressed the first button he saw. A panel slid out, and he inspected it. Nothing seemed to be wrong with it. So he put it back.
Going to the other side, he checked another panel, only to be horrified to see it blackened. And it wasn't dirty—no, it was actually burnt!
"I don't believe it. This is sabotage," he muttered, before turning to Kiwi. "Somebody's been in here!
Kiwi's response was an alert position. Jérémie—one of his master's best friends—was upset, and he needed to find a way to make him feel better.
The two headed back up to the lab, where Jérémie brought up today's security camera footage. He had a hunch what XANA's attack really was, so he brought up the footage from the time the group was on Lyoko, working on deactivating the tower.
Earlier that day, in the supercomputer, the camera had captured Michel Roulier (Kadic's groundskeeper) entering the room from the elevator. Jérémie gasped in horror as he watched Roulier take a panel from the supercomputer and electrocuting it with his hand. He proceeded to do the same type of damaging to numerous other panels, before turning around to face the camera, letting the Périns' son confirm his suspicions.
The eye of XANA had replaced Roulier's normally hazel eyes.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Jérémie delivered the bad news to the others the next morning.
"Sabotage?" Aelita asked, alarmed.
"Yes, by Michel Roulier, possessed by XANA," the blonde in blue explained. "That's what yesterday's attack was. And the bugs that prevented us from fighting were caused by the drop in the calculating capacity of the supercomputer."
"What a mess," Yumi commented. "Think you can fix it?"
He took a bite out of his croissant. "Yes, but I've gotta do it fast, or we're gonna be in huge trouble."
"We are? How come?" Ulrich asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.
"Well, the internal circuits have been badly damaged," Jérémie further explained. "Right now, the quantum bytes are collapsing one after the other. The drop in computing speed will become more and more serious right up–"
Ulrich cut him off, barely refraining from rolling his eyes in boredom, "Stop. Reader's Digest version. How much time do we have?"
"Three hours."
"Are you absolutely sure that the whole thing will be destroyed?" Aelita asked.
"Definitely," Jérémie answered. "It's already lost a lot of speed. I even tried to launch a Return to see. No luck. I need to pick up some stuff from my room, but I'm going to skip most of today's classes to fix it. As for my absence, you'll have to think of some phony excuse." He took another bite of croissant.
"Good luck," Yumi stood up, a frown on her face. "I gotta go now. Chardin is taking the twelfth graders to see an art exhibit. Keep me posted."
"Okay," the blonde in blue replied, as she ran out of the cafeteria.
"Belpois!" Jérémie immediately froze, recognizing Jim's voice. "Belpois, I've been looking for you!"
The boy cringed and turned his head towards his friends, as if that would hide him from Jim. "Oh no, the inspection!"
"You forgot?!" Odd whispered in surprise.
"I've been busy!" Jérémie replied through clenched teeth. With XANA most of all, but homework came in a (surprisingly) close second.
"Did you, at least, have time to clean your room?" Ulrich quickly asked.
"You mean...since last week?"
Well. That was a big fat 'no'.
Jim reached their table. "Belpois, I let you off the hook last night, but you should be feeling better today, given how you're eating breakfast like it's your last meal. Yours is the only room I haven't inspected, so get up! Come on, on your feet now!"
Jérémie had no choice but to follow Jim's orders.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
On the way to his room, Jim leaned over and asked Jérémie, "So, you can't eat shepherd's pie, either, huh?"
What? But he decided to play along. "Uh, no." He then turned to Ulrich, Odd, and Aelita—all of whom where following him and Jim—and whispered, "What's he talking about?"
"Never mind," Odd whispered back. "Just go with it."
Of course. It was the excuse they used last night when he failed to show up for the inspection. Realizing this, he said not another word about it.
By this time, they had reached Jérémie's room, and Jim let the boy unlock it before opening it himself. Jérémie cringed as he remembered the state he had left his room in.
It was a total mess. Clothing, books, CDs, paper (mostly lecture notes), and magazines were scattered everywhere. There were a couple of boxes near the door, empty soda cans on the desk, and even a pair of briefs on his laptop's keyboard. The walls were the only thing exempt from the messiness, being completely bare save for his window and the corkboard filled with photos of him with the others (including the very first photo strip they had taken together). His bed was also bare, save for his pillow, blanket, and Mister Pück doll.
Nothing in here was illegal or against school rules. It was just in complete disarray.
"What on Earth do you call this, Belpois?!" Jim demanded.
Jérémie blinked. "Um, my room. What else would I call it?"
He heard Ulrich and Odd barely hold back some snickers behind him, to his confusion. Why were they laughing? He was being completely serious.
Jim walked into the room, "An excellent student like you? You oughta be ashamed of yourself." He held up the pair of briefs that had been resting on the laptop. "I didn't find even a single cobweb in Stern and Della Robbia's room!"
Jérémie blushed in embarrassment, from both the underwear (Aelita was right there!) as well as being called out. "I-I'm sorry, Jim. But last night, I was too...busy...to worry about cleaning up."
"I know," Jim replied. "That's why I'm not going to give you detention this time. But you are not leaving this room until you make it one hundred percent spick and span."
While the man's back was to him here, Jérémie quickly and discretely handed Aelita the two boxes that were by the door, pressing a finger to his lips to tell the others not to say a word. His three friends all stiffly nodded.
"Do you understand?" Jim finished.
Jérémie turned back to face him, at attention. "Yes, sir."
"Good." Jim's eye caught something hidden under the mattress. Magazines. "And what are those?! They better not be what I think they are!"
The man lifted the mattress, revealing what the magazines' topics were. He blinked in surprise, too flabbergasted to speak.
"They're just computer magazines," Jérémie told him, not understanding Jim's reaction. "Nothing special. I'd keep them on a bookshelf, but as you can see, I don't have one." His room didn't come with one, which was a shame, because he loved to read.
"You really are a geek, aren't you, Mr. Einstein?" Odd asked, a teasing smile on his face for some reason.
Confused, Jérémie asked, "What does that mean? What did Jim think they were?"
Odd's expression immediately turned into an embarrassed one, as his, Ulrich's, and Aelita's cheeks all turned a bright red—all of them realizing that Jérémie's naivety, in this case, was genuine.
"We'll tell you later," Ulrich quickly answered.
The brunette's outburst caused Jim to finally acknowledge the others' presence, "What do you three think you're doing here?"
"Well, we thought Jérémie might be able to use some help," Ulrich replied, calmly this time.
"He's gonna do it himself without anyone's help!" Jim shouted at them. "Go your classes right now and double time!"
The trio had no choice but to leave, with Aelita still carrying the two boxes.
They only felt safe enough to talk once Ulrich opened the door that led to the staircase. "There's no way Jim's gonna get off Jérémie's back until he's done cleaning up."
"Yeah, and in three hours, it's 'adios, supercomputer'," Odd agreed.
"Maybe I can try to fix it in his place," Aelita suggested. The boys turned to her and were surprised when they found her smiling. "Actually, I bet that's exactly what he meant when he gave me these boxes." She held up the two boxes that Jérémie had slipped into her arms while Jim's back was turned.
"Do you think you can do it?" Ulrich asked.
"I'll do my best to limit the damage," Aelita replied. "Besides, we don't really have much of a choice."
Odd hummed in agreement.
She continued, "You two go to class like normal. Tell the teachers I got sick from...the shepherd's pie. I'll call you if I need you."
"Okay," Odd said, as his cousin ran down the stairs.
"I'm off."
"Good luck, Princess!" Ulrich called after her.
"Thanks!"
As she headed towards the sewer passage, Jérémie's words kept running through her mind: "Lyoko is the result of thirteen years of my parents' lives. I can feel Papa's presence in the design and Maman's in the coding. Whether they built it all for me or not, it's the only piece of them I still have. And XANA's trying to destroy it. It's already succeeded with the Forest, and I can't let XANA claim another piece."
Well, XANA had indeed claimed another piece since then—the Desert Sector—but he was right. They couldn't let Lyoko be destroyed; that's what XANA wanted, because then, it would win, because Lyoko was the only way they could fight it.
I won't let you down, Jérémie, she mentally vowed.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Yumi was standing at Kadic's front gates with the rest of her class. They were all waiting for the bus to arrive, the one that would take them to the museum. And they were all getting rather impatient.
Mr. Chardin arrived, and William turned to him, "Um, sir, did the bus forget about us? It's never this late."
The man surprised them. "There is no bus. We are going to walk there." His students just stared at him, baffled. "Anything for art! Come!"
He then walked out the front gates, and the students had no choice but to follow.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Jim had fallen asleep while waiting outside Jérémie's room. "Straighten her out..." he muttered, talking in his sleep. "You're gonna hover in..." He wasn't aware of two shadows approaching him. "Can't you see you've got one on your tail...?"
"Jim?"
He woke up with a frightened yell at the voice. But he relaxed once he saw that it was just Milly and Tamiya, the former holding a notepad and the latter holding a camera.
"Sorry," he said. "How can I help you two?"
"Um, we heard that one of the male students failed his dorm room inspection," Milly said. "Could you perhaps give us some more details, as in who that student might be?"
Jim got to his feet, scratching his cheek, "I certainly will not! When it comes to our students being the subject of gossip and rumors, I refuse to divulge any names! Especially when we're talking about Jérémie Belpois!"
The two girls just smiled at him, making him realize, sheepishly, what he just said.
Inside the room, Jérémie had heard that entire conversation, but he honestly didn't care. He had to hurry and fix the supercomputer.
He kicked the two drawers—which were full of random items—within his bed frame closed. He then moved to his desk, his trash can in hand. As he put some garbage into it, his laptop began sounded an all-too familiar alarm.
The screen was already open and on, so he could easily see the tower XANA had just activated.
"Oh no!" he muttered, before placing the final empty soda can into the trash can, before setting it down and kicking it away. "Jim, where are you?! I'm finished!"
He closed his laptop to cut off the alarm so as to not alert Jim, just as the gym teacher entered the now-clean room and began looking around. He raised an eyebrow at the boy, curious as to how this room was cleaned so fast.
Catching on, Jérémie explained, "I don't like missing any classes, so I went as fast as I could. Um, is it okay if I go now?"
Jim stepped further inside, only for the closet door to fall open and cover the man in the junk that Jérémie had chosen to stash here. Said blonde cringed at the messiness of his room once more. From the ground, Jim sent a disappointed glare at the boy, who could only respond with a dismayed look.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Since she couldn't carry both boxes on her scooter, Aelita had instead taken Odd's skateboard.
Kiwi looked up from the chair in time to see her arriving in the lab through the elevator. When she heard that familiar alarm, she ran up to the computer monitor and confirmed her fears.
Activated tower in the Ice Sector.
"Sorry, Kiwi," she said, as she placed the two boxes in the chair next to the dog, before slipping in the earpiece and dialing in Ulrich's number.
He picked up right away. "Yeah?" Looking at the clock, though, she realized that class hadn't started yet.
"XANA's on the attack," she relayed. "Let Yumi and Jérémie know. I need to do the repairs."
"We're on it," he reassured her, before hanging up.
Aelita let out a short sigh of relief, trusting her friends to take care of the tower without her. As she took out the earpiece, she told Kiwi, "I'll be back in a few minutes. Behave and don't touch anything, okay, boy?"
She gave him a pet before taking one of the two boxes back to the elevator, which she took down to the supercomputer room.
The box she had taken with her was filled with extra supercomputer panels, while the one still upstairs was filled with chip-boards and tools to fix the monitor and cables.
She pressed all the panel buttons in order to open up their slots. She took one out and briefly examined the damage XANA had done. Yep, completely destroyed. There was no hope of salvaging it.
She inhaled deeply, "Alright, let's get to work."
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
The twelfth graders were walking down the sidewalk, towards the art museum that was a few blocks away.
"Breathe deeply!" Chardin gestured around him, as he led his students to their destination. "Nothing like taking in a breath of fresh air before taking in some fine art!"
Yumi was with Christophe M'Bala and William behind everybody else. But she slowed down when she heard her phone ringing.
"Hello?" Ulrich was on the other end, and he had bad news. "What?!"
Christophe turned to William, "Which part of the museum are you going to visit first, Will? The Impressionists or the pop art?"
"Neither," William answered. "The sculptures. There's just something so interesting about seeing how they were carved." He turned around, "What about you, Yumi? What are you seeing first?"
The two boys blinked in surprise when they saw that she was nowhere in sight.
"If she keeps skipping class like this," Christophe commented, "she's not going to graduate with the rest of us."
"No kidding..." was William's response.
Where was she even going?
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Yumi was running through the forest as fast as she could, heading towards the sewer passage. She didn't know what XANA's attack was, but she certainly wasn't expecting what happened next.
Mid-run, she suddenly tripped and fell to the ground. She glanced back to see what had made her fall, only to be surprised when she saw vines (as in plant vines) wrapped her ankles. They proceeded to snake up her legs.
So this was XANA's attack. Using vines to keep the group away from the tower.
She only began struggling when vines began wrapping around her wrists, but she couldn't move. The vines were holding her down, trapping her.
Her only hope now was to wait until someone came along and freed her.
To her relief, said hope came along about two minutes after.
"Hey, Yumes," that was Odd's voice, "need any sunblock?"
She sent him a glare, at least as much as she could without accidentally choking herself with a vine or something.
Ulrich was next to Odd, "Cut it out with the jokes, Odd! She needs our help!" He then addressed her, "Hold on, Yumi."
He proceeded to glance around, with Odd quickly following his example, before Italian boy's hazel eyes landed on a shovel nearby (probably Mr. Roulier's). He quickly grabbed it before running over to Yumi and lifting it up to strike.
"Watch out, Odd!" Ulrich warned. "You might hit Yumi!"
"Relax, I'm extremely well-coordinated!" Odd replied, before using the shovel to cut the vines grabbing Yumi's arms and legs.
Yumi quickly scrambled to her feet, "Thanks, Odd."
She and Ulrich turned to their friend, only to see vines sprouting up from the ground and wrapping around the shovel Odd was holding.
Understanding what XANA's attack was now, he turned to them, "Hurry! Deactivate the tower!"
Vines wrapped around his legs, sending him to the ground, where vines began wrapping around his arms as well, trapping him like Yumi was just a moment.
"Go!"
In response, Ulrich grabbed Yumi's hand and ran towards the manhole cover, with her in tow. The vines were chasing them, but they managed to reach the passage and climb inside before the plants could reach them.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Aelita was in the lab when they finally arrived via the elevator. She was working on one of the panels within the walls. On the floor next to her was the second box, opened to reveal its contents being specifically for the monitor and the various cables attached to it.
She turned to the source of the sound that interrupted her work, "Took you guys long enough to get here. I've already replaced all the damaged panels."
"What are you doing now?" Ulrich asked, as he walked towards her. Meanwhile, Yumi remained behind.
"Rewiring the cables so that they respond correctly to the new panels," the pink-ette explained. "In other words, the actual hard part of the repairs." She briefly glanced back at the open elevator. "Where's Odd and Jérémie?"
"Odd's kind of tied up at the moment," Ulrich replied. "By plant vines specifically. We'll have to do without him. As for Jérémie..."
He glanced back at Yumi, who hung up from the phone call she'd been making. "Still no answer," she sighed. "What could he be doing?"
"Well, he got held up by Jim," Aelita explained. "He may not be allowed to answer his phone at the moment."
"Makes sense," Yumi admitted. "In that case, I'm glad I chose to leave him a voicemail warning him about the vines. I don't know when he'll be able to listen to it, though."
"Knowing him, he's cleaning up as fast as he can," Ulrich reminded the two girls. "Now, we can't deactivate the tower without him, but we should still hurry."
"Ulrich's right," Yumi agreed. "Odd's in danger, so we can't wait."
Aelita paused, before making her choice (she was the unofficial leader, after all). "Okay. I still need to finish the repairs, so clearing the passage will be entirely up to you guys."
She began typing in commands, as her two friends headed down to the scanner room via the elevator.
"Good luck, Aelita," Yumi said, as the elevator doors closed.
"You too."
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Ulrich and Yumi dropped down from the sky of the Ice Sector, landing on the glacier below side-by-side. As they stood up, they exchanged a quick glance, before taking off towards an ice rock nearby.
They reached it in no time and peeked out to see what was waiting for them. Up ahead was the activated tower, in front of which were its guards.
"Okay, two Tarantulas," Ulrich commented. "Not exactly the end of the world. We can do this."
"We can do this," Yumi repeated for reassurance. They had to do this without Aelita or Odd's help, after all. "All we have to do is hang in there until Jérémie arrives and enters the code."
"Right," he agreed. "So, two Tarantulas. That's one for each of us."
"Should we use force?" she asked.
"Is there any other way?"
She let slip a giggle. "Our brains?"
"Don't have any," he replied. "Super Sprint!"
He then dashed towards the monsters. Yumi (a little concerned) watched as the Tarantulas opened fire upon seeing the samurai. He dodged lasers left and right by running.
She then took off towards a stalagmite nearby, hoping to catch them off-guard by attacking from the side. But her hopes were immediately dashed when one of the monsters quickly spotted her.
In response, she quickly slid to a stop and pulled out her twin fans, only to start glitching. She could still move, but in this state, she couldn't dish out any damage.
Meters away, Ulrich stopped mid-sprint due to the bugs. "Oh no..." he muttered. Here we go again...
He then teleported yet again, this time to behind the Tarantula that was focusing on him. The interesting thing, this time, was that his avatar was entirely in black and white.
The Tarantula turned around to face him, only to halt in its tracks when he pointed his katana in its face.
"Since I'm in black and white, I might as well fight the old-fashioned way," he saluted with his katana.
He lunged, stabbing the monster in the nose. It quickly backed up, afraid of being destroyed.
"And at the envoi's end, I touch!" he declared, using a line from the Cyrano de Bergerac play Chardin had them rehearsal a few days ago.
But the katana went right through the monster. It was glitching, much like Yumi's fans were the day before. But he kept it up, slicing at the front legs before slicing its torso. The Tarantula, in response, stood up taller, making him back up.
"This time, we've had it," he muttered.
Yumi was forced to back up, stopping when her heel hit the edge of the cliff. She glanced behind her, seeing a long way down to the Digital Sea. She turned back to her opponent, who was preparing to fire at her.
The glitches started again, causing her to cry out, "No, not now!"
But she and Ulrich both blinked in surprise when the two Tarantulas, this time, were affected by the bugs much more than the teens were. While Ulrich's avatar reverted back to color, both monsters were frozen.
The glitches stopped, and Ulrich smirked, "Cool."
Seeing her chance, Yumi pulled out a fan from her obi and threw it at the Tarantula in front of her. Her fan hit her target right in the eye, making it cry out. It wasn't destroyed, thanks to the bugs, but it allowed her to escape.
She caught her fan as she and Ulrich regrouped at the ice rock from earlier. Meanwhile, the two Tarantulas themselves regrouped at the base of the tower.
"What just happened?" he asked.
"Nothing special," she shrugged. "The bugs just also effect the monsters."
He smiled in relief, "Thank goodness. That kinda makes things even for once."
She couldn't help but nod in agreement.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Odd knew he was in trouble when the roots wrapped around his arms began to recede, only for the ones tied around his ankles to begin dragging him away from the manhole cover.
He tried grabbing a low-hanging branch to stop his momentum, which worked for only a few seconds. The branch broke not long after, allowing XANA to drag him farther into the forest.
But he only really began to panic when he noticed the upcoming naturally-occuring fissure in the group up ahead.
He frantically grabbed onto a nearby rock to prevent himself from falling in, and he succeeded. But the fissure below him was filled completely with possessed roots...
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Jim closely watched Jérémie place the last box on his top shelf, using his chair as a step-stool.
When he was done, he turned around to face his gym teacher, who said, "Alright, that's good enough. Now, get to class and hurry it up."
"Thanks, Jim!" Jérémie replied, happily jumping off the chair. "See ya!"
Jim let slip a little smile as he watched the boy leave...only for the closet to fall open once more and making the floor not clean yet again.
Jérémie stopped when he heard stuff falling from his room, and knowing what that meant, he quickly ran towards the exit. He couldn't be dragged into more cleaning—he had a tower to deactivate, after all.
Jim burst out of the boy's room, a box over his head like a hat, "Belpois! Get back in here right now!"
But Jérémie was already gone.
Jim grunted in frustration as he watched the swinging doors close.
On the way down the stairs, Jérémie quickly checked his voicemails, having felt the vibrations earlier (but unable to answer any calls due to Jim not letting him). Yumi had called him no less than three times, probably to warn him about the tower, but left only one voicemail.
"I don't know why you're not answering, Jer, but go through the boiler room passage. The park is filled with wild roots."
End of message.
Wild roots? That was probably XANA's attack. Knowing this, when Jérémie emerged from the dorm building, he turned in the direction of the gymnasium, choosing to take her warning seriously.
Hopefully, he wasn't too late.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Ulrich was blocking laser fire with his katana. It was all he could do, given how his only weapon was constantly glitching out, preventing him from ever going on the offensive.
A few meters away, Yumi was doing the same—as in blocking shots with her fans. She then saw an opening and threw her fan, only for it to glitch out before it could hit the monster, making it phase through it instead (just like yesterday).
She held out her hand to catch it, only for her bugged-up weapon to strike her hand. Sparks emerged from the injury as she wringed it out and stared at it. That had not happened before.
The Tarantula in front of her then shot her in the leg, causing her to fall to the ground.
"Yumi!" Ulrich cried out, before Sprinting to her side. He stood in front of her, using his katana to block lasers. "How many lifepoints do you think you have left?"
"Definitely less than you."
He wasn't fairing any better, though. Despite the bugs effecting both sides, the teens were still losing. He called out, "Triplicate!"
His body lit up like it always did, but no clones appeared next to him. His katana glitching out immediately after just made it worse—the Tarantula hit him in the chest, and he fell to the ground right beside Yumi.
As he sat up, he asked her, "Any last words before we both get devirtualized?"
Before she could respond, an ice rock began forming above the Tarantula. It was glitching just as badly as they were, but it succeeded in forming. It then fell on top of the monster, destroying it.
The two teens turned around to see Jérémie standing there—virtualized.
A relieved smile immediately broke out on their faces. "Jérémie, you made it!" Ulrich exclaimed.
"Sorry I'm late," the elf softly replied, before noticing the second Tarantula assuming its firing position. "Hold on."
He then concentrated hard, not stopping even as his own avatar began to glitching out, and a large ball of ice formed in front of him, not touching the ground. Yumi understood what he was doing, so she quickly took over. She picked the ice ball up with her mind, ignoring the bugs that appeared within her own profile here, before throwing at the second Tarantula. The ice ball knocked the monster into the base of the tower, destroying it.
Jérémie promptly rushed towards the tower now that the passage was cleared.
He prepared himself to phase through the wall, only for him to glitch out just a second before he could enter. Ulrich and Yumi both winced as the bug caused Jérémie to bounce off the tower wall, before running up to him out of concern.
"Jérémie!" Ulrich called out, he and Yumi coming to a stop at both of his sides.
"You okay?" Yumi asked the elf as he rubbed his forehead.
"Stupid bugs..." he muttered. "Aelita?"
"Sorry," she apologized, "but the supercomputer is just losing more and more power. I'm afraid you can't deactivate the tower until after I reboot the system."
"How much time do you need?" Jérémie asked.
"Five more minutes," the pink-ette replied. "I'm almost done."
"Okay, we'll hold on for as long as we can," Ulrich promised, as all three of them began glitching out again. "But don't drag your feet. Everything's bugging up more and more. And we still haven't heard anything else from Odd."
"I'll do my best. You guys just worry about that stupid tower." She then went quiet, indicating that she can gone back to the repairs.
They heard the Megatank seconds before they saw it roll up to the trio as they stood at the base of the tower.
"Here comes another mega-problem," Yumi commented.
Jérémie rolled his eyes, "Doesn't XANA have anything better to do?! We have enough problems to worry about!"
The Megatank stopped in front of them before opening up its shell and firing its circular laser. The trio dodged it by leaping to the side. While Yumi and Jérémie were safe behind the ice rock the elf had created earlier, Ulrich was alone with no such cover to help him. This alone warranted the Megatank to follow him instead of the other two.
To make matters worse, mid-run, the samurai froze up due to the bugs, much like Odd yesterday. "Oh, come on!"
XANA made its choice to fire at Ulrich, but before the laser hit him, another ice rock created by Jérémie appeared and blocked the laser.
As the elf and the geisha ran over to the samurai, his avatar returned to normal, and he ended up collapsing on the ground, face-first.
Yumi offered him her hand. "You okay?"
He took it, letting her help him to his feet, "I'm fine. I just hate these bugs so much."
"Join the club," Jérémie bitterly replied, not taking his eyes off of their enemy.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Odd struggled with all of his might to pull himself back up and out of the fissure, but XANA was intent on what it planned to do with him.
"Help!" he cried out. "Anyone out there, please help!"
But to no avail. These woods were, at the moment, completely bare, save for himself.
Just as he feared, his grip on the rock he was desperately clinging onto gave out. But the scratch marks on his hands now were the least of his concerns, as XANA dragged him down into the fissure.
He hit several branches along the way, falling down several meters, before landing on a large one. His only response was groaning in pain...
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Aelita did not know how she was not on the verge of a panic attack as Ulrich called out to her from the monitor, "How are you doing, Princess? We're getting killed here! We can't take a single step without bugging up!"
Kiwi was sitting at her feet, watching as she connected the final set of wires. "I'm almost there," she promised, as she headed back to the monitor and sat down into the chair. "All I have to do now is reboot the works."
On the holomap, Jérémie's ice rock shattered to pieces before disappearing—likely from the Megatank firing at it.
"Better step on it," Yumi warned.
Aelita typed in one final command before pressing the 'enter' key. Please work, she mentally pleaded.
Things seemed promising at first, as the scanner window showed all three scanners back online, only for them to turn red again a couple seconds later.
Dread began filling her entire being.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Then came the words the others were hoping Aelita wouldn't say, "Oh no!"
"What?" Ulrich asked, before the trio began bugging up again. This time, the Megatank was unfortunate enough to be effected too.
"We don't have enough energy to reboot the supercomputer!" she revealed, sounding increasingly panicked with every second that passed. "If we deactivate the tower, I could use its energy to restart the whole system."
"That's fine, Aelita," Jérémie reminded her, "but earlier, you said that we couldn't deactivate the tower until after you rebooted the system."
"Oh..." The pink-ette sounded dismayed. They didn't blame her.
Translation of all of this: They were now at a stand-still. Or so it seemed.
Now back to normal, the Megatank fired another shot, but the trio dodged it. They then began to run to somewhere else, any place where they had better cover.
But Jérémie only understood the true reality of the situation when he spotted a way tower in the distance, to his left. Only then did it hit him what exactly XANA wanted—making him halt in his tracks, as he stared at this tower with regret.
Because he had already made his choice.
"There is a third option," he said, making the others stop.
"Go on, I'm listening!" Aelita immediately replied, as Ulrich and Yumi rejoined him.
He swallowed the lump in his throat, "Destroy the Ice Sector..."
"What?!" Ulrich exclaimed, surprised.
"Are you serious?" Yumi asked. "You're joking, right?"
He just shook his head—no, he wasn't. There was no hint of a smile on his face, no matter how much he wished it was just a joke he was making the lighten the tension.
"Jérémie, that's crazy," Aelita cut in. "That's exactly what XANA wants!"
He knew that; he was well aware that XANA set it up this way on purpose.
"I know!" he growled out. His fists were tightly clenched; he was fighting himself in order to not go back on his resolve. Because he wanted to. Badly. "But I don't have a choice! It's the only way to recover enough energy to avoid total destruction of the supercomputer! And if that happens, Lyoko disappears and us with it!"
"Wait," Yumi softly cut in, "would deleting the sector also deactivate the tower?"
"Technically yes," he replied, mentally reminding himself that she was right. Odd was still in danger.
Aelita sighed, "Well, that settles it. Go on, Jérémie. Do it."
The Megatank caught up with them, but the trio was already running towards the way tower.
"Now, when I restart the system, I won't be able to materialize you right away," the pink-ette warned them. "You'll have to manage on your own."
"Got it," Ulrich replied, as he and Yumi came to a stop, both pulling out their weapons as they prepared for the confrontation with that Megatank.
But Jérémie kept running, forcing himself to phase through the tower wall.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Odd came to after a few minutes. He was still in pain, but when he saw the vines slinking towards him, his eyes widened. He was about to feel even more pain...
The Megatank opened up vertically and fired. Ulrich and Yumi leapt over it and landed safely on the ground, before turning back to the tower.
Jérémie walked up to the interface and reluctantly logged in, this time fully in control of himself.
JEREMIE_
CODE_
Odd's hazel eyes widened in horror, being unable to see the sky anymore...
XANA_
The tower immediately began to disappear—it seemed as though XANA was ready. Because it was.
Jérémie fell from the top platform that was now gone. Quickly regaining his bearings, he ran towards Ulrich and Yumi, the ice disappearing behind them. "Come on!"
The trio left the Megatank behind, and soon after, it fell into the Digital Sea, a burst of blue light erupting to signal its deletion.
Aelita's hand was shaking as it hovered over the 'enter' key. On the holomap was the Ice Sector being deleted, and seeing this for herself (for once), she was horrified by what she was seeing.
The trio came to a safe spot, and Ulrich stopped first, unsheathing his katana. "Right, listen up. Jérémie, you take care of Yumi. Yumi, you hit me. And I'll take care of Jérémie. On three. Ready?"
The other two nodded, before Yumi held up her fan, ready to throw it in Ulrich's direction, while Jérémie formed a dagger in Yumi's.
"One, two," Ulrich counted, poising to strike, "three!"
Thankfully, the trio all hit each other at the same time, all devirtualizing right before the ice below their feet just were was deleted.
This left everything up to Aelita. She waited until the entire sector disappeared, which included the activated tower. "Alright, here we go! Reboot system!" She hit the 'enter' key.
On her screen, the energy gathered from the Ice Sector's deletion was enough to reboot the entire supercomputer (not just the scanners), with some energy still to spare.
"Yes!" she cheered when she saw the green plus-sign flashing. The three scanners were showing themselves to be occupied as the others returned from Lyoko.
Back in the forest, it took a while, but Odd finally managed to climb out of the fissure by himself. The vines had stopped trying to suffocate him, and he knew then that the others had done it. Somehow.
He gave a weak smile amidst the deep breaths he was taking.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
It was later that evening when the five Lyokowarriors reconvened in Jérémie's room. Odd was all scratched up, and he was lucky he had no broken bones that they could see. He was sitting in Jérémie's desk chair as Ulrich and Yumi used the first aid kit they kept in here to treat his injuries.
"The repairs are only temporary," Jérémie explained, "but they should hold up as long as the supercomputer doesn't take another hit like that." He was lying down on his bed.
Aelita was sitting on the edge of his bed. "We managed to save the supercomputer. That's the important thing."
She was trying to cheer him up, because it was obvious that he was sulking over the 'choice' XANA had forced him to make earlier. He had destroyed a piece of his parents' most important project while he was still himself and not under the control of XANA—something he had vowed to never do as long as he lived.
"Thank you, Aelita," he softly told her. Her choosing to take up the repairs in his place meant the world to him. "For everything."
She just sent him a sweet smile in response.
"He's right. You did great, cuz," Odd said with a grin. "It proves that your Mrs. Einstein nickname is appropriate." Aelita's cheeks turned pink with the praise.
Yumi chimed in, "I hate to be all negative, but don't forget that today's adventure cost us the Ice Sector this time."
"Yeah, that is a shame," Ulrich agreed.
"Don't worry," Aelita reassured them all. "I'm almost done with the code that will virtualize us directly into Sector Five. I need to run a few more tests first, though, to be sure."
"See, Prince Charming?" Odd said. "It'll be okay. As long as the Mountain Sector stays together, there's still hope."
"Yeah, but for how long?" Ulrich asked. "We need to be careful."
Aelita nudged Jérémie's side. "Odd's right, y'know. So are Ulrich and Yumi."
"I know," he said, his voice almost at a whisper. "I'm just wondering if there's a way to rebuild destroyed sectors." His hands were behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling.
"That's something we'll have to ask your parents once we find them," she replied. She winked at him, "And that program's almost done too. Just hang in there, okay?"
He finally glanced at her and gave her a soft smile—his way of promising to do so.
Meanwhile, Yumi closed up the first aid kit, as Odd stood up and stretched. "Thanks, guys. I feel better already."
"You're welcome," Ulrich replied. "But if at any point during the night you show signs of more serious injuries, I'm taking you to the nurse."
Odd shrugged, "Okay, okay." He glanced towards Jérémie's shelf. "Hey, Jer, I didn't you had the game guide for Bug Fighters! That's my favorite childhood game that I was never able to finish!"
"Well, I spent a lot of time at home by myself," Jérémie softly explained. "I forgot I even had it until Yumi and I began cleaning up the Hermitage. If you want to borrow it, go ahead."
"Thanks!" Odd reached towards the shelf.
"Just be careful not to knock anything other," the blonde in blue quickly added. "Jim is coming back tomorrow morning to do another inspec–"
He was cut off by the boxes falling off the shelves and onto the floor. Fortunately, none of them were carrying anything heavy, so Odd wasn't hurt more than he already was. But Jérémie's dorm was now just as messy as it was this morning.
A box on his head like a hat, Odd turned to him, "Sorry about that. Um, you were saying?"
Jérémie just sighed, defeated, and rested his head back on his pillow, "Forget it."
Today really wasn't his day, was it?
!~~~J~E~R~L~I~T~A~~R~O~L~E~S~W~A~P~~A~U~~~!
Next Episode: 43 - Overworked / Aelita's finally found a way to virtualize directly into Sector Five, but Ulrich's having a really bad day.
A/N: This episode's probably my favorite of Season 3, so I didn't want to change it much. That being said, I had to amend some lines for a few reasons as well as Yumi being attacked by the vines. Also, the photo strip I call out is the same one from 'A Brand New World'; if you want to see it, check out my DA (same penname as here).
Jérémie explaining that he could use the deactivated tower's energy to reboot the system and Aelita's following response ("That's fine, but over here, we can't deactivate the tower unless you reboot the system.") sort of came out of nowhere (correct me if I'm wrong, though). Jérémie failing to enter the tower (like in 'Vertigo') was just a set up to that line.
Other than that, not many changes to this one, except for the end scene, which has been somewhat rewritten to foreshadow the next couple chapters. Stay tuned.