A/N: Sorry for the tardiness of this chapter. In this one, Sissi, Sam, and Laura get a chance to shine, and lots of relationship talk. And like always, to understand Sissi's character development, re-read "The Theory of Evolution" if you have to, or just re-read the chapter before this one ("Green With Envy"; it sums it all up pretty well, and explains the start of William/Laura).
Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko or CL: Evolution in any way, shape, or form.
Beta read by FP7ETDP43
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~E~V~O~L~U~T~I~O~N~~~!
"The last time there was a dance, XANA attacked, and the gang shouldn't have expected any different. Meanwhile, Sissi drops out of the Beauty Queen contest."
A World Without Danger
Code Lyoko: Evolution Rewrite
Season 5, Episode 10: May I Have This Dance?
The elevator doors opened to the lab, the Lyokowarriors returning from yet another late night mission. The five that were formerly virtualized approached Jérémie, who was rapidly typing away at the monitor. Whatever was on the screen was taking up a good chunk of his attention, which meant it was likely important.
As they gathered around him, Aelita leaned in to get a look at the screen, "So, is the data we retrieved this time worth anything?"
It was a mission to the Cortex in order to retrieve its source codes, the third of what they were certain was going to be many. Jérémie's hacking bug had worked perfectly—according to him, at least—but to avoid alerting Tyron of what they were doing too soon by gathering them all at once, the young genius had advised that they instead fetch the source codes a small bit at a time.
During these missions, the plan was as follows: whoever was at the interface (usually Aelita) would focus on finding source codes that the group didn't have yet, the rest would focus on protecting the interface user from the Ninjas, while whoever was in the lab (usually Jérémie) would focus on making sure Tyron wasn't about to step in and ruin everything.
In response to Aelita's question, Jérémie pointed to a window on the screen. Said window was scanning data. "I'm running it all through an anti-virus program, just in case one of them is or has a trojan horse." Meanwhile, he kept typing with his other hand—apparently, he was working on something really important.
Yumi raised a curious eyebrow, "Is that really necessary?"
"XANA once did the same thing." Right. When it took over the Return in time program. "I wouldn't put it past Tyron at all."
And for their safety, as well as Lyoko's, they couldn't. Everything Jérémie Belpois and Waldo Schaeffer could do with Lyoko and the supercomputer, they had to assume that Lowell Tyron could do them as well. After all, the man had a supercomputer housing a virtual world of his own, both just as complex as theirs.
Jérémie promptly changed the subject, "While you were gathering up the source codes, I was doing some digging of my own alongside you. You guys remember the tower XANA activated on the Cortex?"
"Yeah," Ulrich replied, on behalf of everyone else.
"How could we forget?" William asked. It was the attack—however weak—that reminded them of XANA's new base within the Cortex, and thus told them how they had to defeat the AI this time.
Jérémie pressed a button, and it brought up a video, currently paused and just decoded. "Well, I may have found another purpose for that tower." He pressed another button, and the video began playing.
The video clip was dated 19 June, 2008—a few days ago.
Present-day Tyron was pacing in his private office. With him was one of his workers, dressed in Ninja garb (gender unclear) and trying their best to hide as their boss raved on and on.
"Why the sudden rotten luck with hackers?!" the man was practically growling. "First that kid, and now that virus with the weird three-ringed symbol!" He banged an angry fist on his desk, "I have an IQ of 225—genius level! This shouldn't be happening to me!"
'That kid'? That was referring to Jérémie. And 'that virus' was obviously XANA.
The intern clearly could not give an answer that Tyron would like, so the Lyokowarriors felt bad for them as they hid within themselves further. "Well, the virus copied the kid's technique." Ah, so they were the one that had to break the news to Tyron. "It's very possible, sir, that the kid is...well...smarter than you." Tyron growled, and the intern eep'd and frantically continued, "I-I mean, they're clearly very talented! The codes they used are very well hidden in our database!"
Tyron slowly and threateningly turned around to face the intern, "How the hell did they get in?!"
"W-We don't know, sir. They're too good."
The man growled in frustration, "Again, first the kid and now the virus are so keen on hacking into my supercomputer! Why?! What do they want?!"
"A-Again, we don't know, sir. The kid's technique didn't leave a single trace for us to follow," the intern quietly replied, still having no answer for their boss that would please him. "Why? What data was stolen?"
"No data was stolen!" Tyron revealed, now on the verge of losing his temper and burning his intern in the process. The six teens had to give him credit for controlling himself here. "Only copied! But I cannot figure out what data was copied, because, like you said, the kid is talented! And I must concur, if the virus copied the kid's technique, and not the other way around!"
The video abruptly ended.
"Y'know, XANA has a tendency to copy you, Jérémie," Odd commented, even if to just lighten the tension that had resulted from watching the clip. "Aelita's materialization led to the materialization of its monsters, the Skidbladnir led to the Rorkal, and finally your Translation of us led to XANA's Translation of William on the Ice replica."
"Right," Jérémie agreed. "This is just the latest instance of that."
"How did you get in, Jer?" William asked. "Just out of curiosity."
"Oh, it was easy," their resident genius explained. "The Cortex shares many codes with Lyoko, remember, which makes sense given how Tyron and Hopper were once partners on Project: Carthage, meaning they had to have some link between them to make their respective virtual worlds so similar. But if XANA had to activate a tower on the Cortex in order to copy my technique when hacking into the Cortex's database, it means that XANA doesn't have complete control over the Cortex. At least, not as much as I initially thought."
"Um, translation?" Ulrich asked.
Fluent in the language of Einstein, Aelita promptly translated, "XANA's tower on the Cortex was never meant as a means to attack us, but rather hack into Tyron's supercomputer."
"It still used the tower to bug up our school's computer system, though," Jérémie added, "in order to strengthen itself without us knowing. That was its mistake." That mistake was what caught Jérémie's attention, after all.
"You sure?" Yumi asked him.
"Yes. I carried out a full check afterwards," Jérémie confessed, "and the timeline of this video matches up with that system alert."
William then asked an important question, "Do you know what XANA was looking for? Or if it even found it?"
"Nope. Not a clue."
"Does this revelation complicate the patch for the Anti-XANA program at all?" Yumi added.
Jérémie reassured them, "Not really. XANA is still connected to the Cortex if it's able to create a tower there and then activate that tower for its own use. It just means that XANA's control over the Cortex's supercomputer isn't as strong as I thought it was. Tyron is still in control, though, and that's still bad."
"Because you consider Tyron as our enemy," Odd finished. "Why? The video shows that Tyron didn't like XANA hacking into his system any more than he liked you doing the same thing."
Aelita sternly answered for her boyfriend, "I thought we already told you, Odd. Yes, XANA wants to destroy all of humanity, but Tyron is an enemy of my father, and thus our enemy as well." She was glaring at him, not pleased at the crazy-haired blonde continuing to question Jérémie's intuition.
"Agreed," Yumi cut in before an argument could break out. "Can we go to sleep now? It's getting late."
Jérémie checked his watch and seemed to snap out of his reverie, "Of course. Sorry for the long explanation." He nodded his head at the open lift as he got out of his chair, "Let's go."
No one objected to the idea of sleep. After all, they had a big day tomorrow.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
The next morning found Amelia 'Milly' Solovieff and Tamiya Diop inside Kadic's administrative building, in the hallway right outside the auditorium.
Tamiya turned on her camera, as Milly asked, "Are we rolling?"
The redhead was in the shot, yes, but she wasn't oriented the correct way. "Yeah, but we're upside down," Tamiya replied. "Hold on." She then fixed it. "Now, we're good. Go ahead."
Milly began her reporting, "Good morning, fellow students of Kadic Academy. It's your ace reporters, Milly and Tamiya, here to bring you an exclusive for today's news, though we're sure you already know. Tonight is the annual end-of-year dance."
Tamiya moved the camera so that it focused on the nearby auditorium doors. "Right in there."
"Yep, the dance will take place inside this room," Milly agreed. "Unfortunately, our cameras weren't authorized to film the site where the festivities will take place," Tamiya focused the camera back on her friend, "but we can make out from where we're standing the girl who might be crowned our Beauty Queen tonight, just as she was last year. I mean, of course, our headmaster's daughter, Sissi."
Said elder girl began walking towards the exit.
"Let's see if she's willing to answer a few questions for us," Milly said, as Sissi neared them. "Sissi, would you like to give a few words to our audience before the big night, as Kadic's resident Beauty Queen?"
Sissi immediately hid within herself, to their surprise and concern, "U-Um...about that..."
Hervé suddenly came into frame and forcefully grabbed Tamiya's camera, to her dismay, "How dare you make Sissi uncomfortable?! Don't even talk to her!"
"Cut it out, Pichon!" Sissi, of all people, cut in. Hervé immediately backed off like a dog. "They didn't mean to!" She then turned towards Tamiya's camera. "Actually, I'm dropping out of this year's Beauty Queen contest."
"Do you mind explaining why?" Milly asked, a bit surprised as this revelation.
Sissi rubbed her forearm, nervous, "A bit, yes."
Milly and Tamiya shared a glance, "Okay," and the latter promptly turned the camera off. If Sissi didn't want to continue the interview, they weren't going to force her.
The elder girl was relieved, but Hervé wasn't as pleased, "What are you two brats still doing here?! You heard Sissi, so get lost!"
"Hervé, stop it," Sissi, once again, sternly interjected.
But said 'brats' had comebacks of their own, as Tamiya calmly retorted, "Mr. Pichon, rest assured, we have the integrity of reporters."
"Which means we can't have our opinions stain our work," Milly added. The two then turned back to Sissi, "Thank you for helping us pick out our dresses."
Hervé could only watch, feeling helpless, as Sissi smiled brightly (she'd never offered him that smile). "You're welcome. Do either of you have partners for the dance, or are you going alone?"
Unlike the last time, Sissi wasn't asking them this question to be mean. There was no shaming, for lack of date or for their age. She was only asking out of curiosity, to make pleasant small talk. Everyone else saw this as proof of her becoming a better person. Instead of being a bully, she tried her best to give genuine responses and advice.
"Yes, I asked Hiroki," Milly revealed. "He's surprisingly very shy."
Tamiya giggled before adding, "I'm going with Johnny as friends. That way, we can tease Milly and Hiroki for their lack of courage together."
Sissi giggled in amusement, as Milly shot a playful glare at her friend, "Hey! Like you two don't steal glances at each other when the rest of us aren't looking!", prompting a blush from Tamiya.
"Th-that is so not true, Milly," Tamiya tried (and was failing) to save face. "Now, come on. We gotta go. The boys should be done printing out all the copies of today's issue by now." She grabbed the redhead's hand and began pulling her towards the exit, "Bye, Sissi! See you later!"
Sissi waved back, "See you later!"
Soon, the two younger girls were gone, off to check on Hiroki and Johnny, and help them pass out the copies of today's edition of the Kadic News. Now, it was just Sissi and Hervé, and the atmosphere had now grown to five times as tense than it was before.
Hervé couldn't take his eyes off of her fond smile in the younger duo's direction, even though they were long gone. "We're alone now, Sissi. You don't have to pretend to be nice."
Said smile quickly turned into a frown, "I'm not pretending, Hervé. I'm being sincere. Or trying to be, at least." She then sent him a glare, "Stop. Speaking. For me. I do not appreciate it."
She then walked away, leaving the nerd alone and flabbergasted.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
Since today (28 June) was the dance, it was a half-day. Jérémie exited his last class of the day (Italian class) and was heading for the cafeteria, ready to have lunch with his friends, when he heard Laura call out to him.
"Jérémie! Wait up!"
He obeyed her, turning to face her as he slowed down. Once she caught up to him via jogging, he asked her, "What's up?"
"You know the dance is tonight," she awkwardly replied, rubbing her forearm nervously.
His answer was automatic, "I'm already going with Aelita."
But Laura scrambled to clarify, "I-I know that! I just want to know if William is going with anyone..." There was a light pink blush dotting her cheeks, which was not lost on him.
Jérémie raised a curious eyebrow. "William?" She wanted to ask William, and not him? Interesting.
"Y-Yeah," she continued, averting her brown eyes to the ground. "And since you're friends with both of us, I was hoping you could tell me."
"Well, I don't know who he's going with," Jérémie replied with the truth, "but I do now that he does plan on attending. He's one of the DJs." So was Aelita, but William was planning to go by himself and interact with the group. Unless Jérémie was mistaken. "If you want, I can ask him."
Laura's nervous expression brightened into a hopeful smile, "Yes, please. That would be great! Thank you so much, Jérémie!"
She then walked away, towards the vending machines, a noticeable spring in her step.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
As Jérémie entered the lunch line, the rest of the group was at their chosen table, with William just sitting down to join them. Odd looked nervous, while Ulrich was wearing a smug smile.
"What's wrong?" William asked, intrigued by his friends' behavior.
"Oh, nothing," Yumi answered, an amused smile on her face. "Odd wants to ask Sam to the dance, but he's too nervous."
Sitting in between his roommate and his girlfriend, Ulrich nudged his roommate's shoulder, "C'mon, just go for it."
"He's right," Aelita agreed. "Sam told Yumi and me that she was waiting for you to ask her." Yumi nodded in confirmation.
"What if I mess up?" Odd asked, though mostly to himself. "What if I stumble on my words and call her a beetroot or something?"
William barely nipped his laugh in the bud, "You've said weirder stuff than that, good buddy."
Ulrich, on the other hand, didn't hide his laugh at all, "Yeah! Besides, you could always amend it with a compliment, like 'there's no other beetroots more scrumptious than you'!"
Shaking her head in amusement, Yumi calmly added, "It'll be fine, Odd. Just go ask her. She's waiting for you. Do you really want to keep her waiting?"
Odd sighed, "No, I don't." Finally, he relented and got up from his seat and approached the girl of his affections.
Sam was sitting with Priscilla Blaise, Anais Fiquet, and Emilie Leduc (the latter of whom she had formed an unlikely friendship with). They were all chatting about tonight's dance, more specifically dates, about who was going with who.
Once he was standing next to her, he cleared his throat. "Hey, Sam?" She turned to him, expectantly. "Y-You know there's a dance tonight." C'mon, he could do this. "Would you like to, um..."
She finished for him, "Go with you?" She was smiling broadly. "I'd love to."
"Great!" He quickly covered his mouth, realizing that he had yelled that out loud, before clearing his throat. "Sorry," he repeated, now talking at a normal level, and ignoring the collective giggles of the three girls seated with Sam. "That's great. I'll pick you up at your house at seven."
"See you then," she winked, "beetroot."
His face immediately turned as red as the aforementioned vegetable. She had heard that?
But he was smiling as he returned to his seat. His blush remained as Aelita commented, "See? We told you she was waiting."
Fortunately, Odd's saving grace from their teasing arrived in the form of Jérémie, who sat down in that moment next to Aelita with his lunch tray.
"Hey," he greeted. "What did I miss?"
"I just asked Sam to the dance," Odd boasted, as if Sam didn't finish his sentence and ended up asking him. The others rolled their eyes in amusement.
"Congratulations, Odd." Jérémie quipped, "And it only took all week." Aelita giggled in response.
Odd playfully pouted, "Don't get sassy, Einstein. I'm still way more suave than you."
Said genius just smiled, "I'm the one with a girlfriend, Odd, not you." Odd's pout quickly became real, as the others laughed. Jérémie continued, "Speaking of the dance," he turned to William, "Laura was wondering if you were taking anyone."
It was William's turn to blush, "Sh-She was? Are you sure she wasn't kidding?"
"It's not a joke," the blonde reassured him. "Her body language when she asked me spoke volumes. I'm not an expert, but I think she likes you, William."
The raven-haired boy's cheeks got even redder. "Wow, okay, um..." The others were struggling not to laugh here. "Could you, maybe, ask her if she's going with anyone?"
To this, Jérémie gently rolled his eyes, before calling out to the blonde-haired girl that just entered the cafeteria for lunch, "Hey, Laura!" She turned to him, and he promptly waved her over. She obeyed, walking over to their table. "William, stand up." He also obeyed, just as Laura reached the table.
The two possible lovebirds connected eyes and immediately grew shy. Feelings were definitely there, but they were obviously clouded with uncertainty.
"If you two want to know who the other is taking to the dance," Jérémie softly told them both, an amused smile on his face, "then just ask each other directly. Don't use me as your go-between."
William and Laura's respective blushes both deepened, as the raven-haired boy asked her, "Why don't we, uh, talk outside? If we talk here, these guys will definitely be teasing us the entire time." He sent the others a playful glare, which was met with five identical innocent-looking smiles.
"Okay," she easily accepted, and let him lead her outside.
Once the two were gone, Aelita gently nudged her boyfriend in the side, "Look at you, Mister Matchmaker."
"I'm not matchmaking," Jérémie shrugged, turning to his lunch. "It's just that I've seen that dancing-around-your-feelings drama with Ulrich and Yumi, and I don't need a front row seat to a sequel with the exact same story, just starring different leads."
"Hey!" Ulrich gently retorted. An similar glare on Yumi's face told the others that they didn't take kindly to that jab.
"Why are you booing him?" Odd asked the spicy lovebirds. "He's right. I mean, how long did it take for you two to be straight forward and confess to each other after we shut the supercomputer down? For Jérémie and Aelita, it was one week."
Ulrich and Yumi shared a glance, before both sighing, conceding defeat. "Four months," Yumi quietly revealed.
"To confess," Ulrich added. "It was another month before we felt comfortable in our relationship."
"Exactly," Odd finished, as if his point had been made.
"Now, now, Odd," Aelita gently chastised her faux-cousin, "it's not fair to compare. Jérémie and I already knew how we felt about each other. We were just waiting until XANA was gone before we explored a deeper relationship."
"Thank you, Aelita," Yumi gratefully replied. The bond between Jérémie and Aelita could be generally summarized as the same as Ulrich and Yumi's bond (best friends with romance added), but intricately defined, they were different.
"Yumi and I also had some maturing to do," Ulrich added. Yumi nodded in agreement. Now, they were going to the school dance together. They had come a long way since they first met. That was something to be proud of.
"Yeah, no two relationships are the same," Jérémie cut in, addressing Odd. "I'm sure you and Sam have a different type of dynamic than Aelita and I do, or Ulrich and Yumi."
"Oh, we do," Odd replied, his eyes darting over to the entrance to the cafeteria. "And I'm sure William and Laura do as well."
The other four turned around and watched as the latter mentioned duo entered the cafeteria together. They both smiled at each other, before waving and going their separate ways. William returned to his seat with the others, knowing that his friends had questions.
"Well?" Yumi asked, her eyes demanding the tea.
"Well what?" William replied with a knowing smile. "Laura and I are going to the dance tonight, as friends. It's the only thing either of us are comfortable with."
"Congratulations, buddy!" Odd exclaimed.
The eldest male of the group was about to respond, but before he could, the good mood was interrupted by someone slamming down a hand on their table right in front of Jérémie. The poor genius almost choked on his soda in surprise.
It was Hervé, and judging by the expression on his face, he wasn't happy. "Alright! Which one of you dorks made Sissi drop out of the Beauty Queen contest this year?!" His vocal tone was filled with anger and rude-ness, not at all caring that he almost made Jérémie choke or that he had interrupted a conversation about something for which William likely needed some advice. "Spit it out!"
But his news was surprising. The Beauty Queen contest was something Sissi excelled in. It was news enough that she was going to the dance by herself, without a date. But this was certainly the cherry on top.
"What? Sissi dropped out?" Yumi asked, wondering why Sissi would choose not to enter a contest that she looked forward to every year.
"How come?" Odd asked, wondering the same thing.
"I have no idea!" Hervé hotly retorted, as if he blamed them for everything going wrong in his life. "She won't tell anyone the reason, not even me! She's now a completely different person, and it's definitely your guys' fault!"
Ulrich raised an unimpressed eyebrow, "How is that our fault, Hervé? Sissi's free to make her own choices."
"Well, she wasn't like this before you invited her to be your friend last year!" Hervé angrily countered. "One of you must be blackmailing her or something!"
Aelita unamusedly replied with a reality check, "Hervé, Sissi's trying to be nice, and that's on her, no one else. Like Ulrich said, she's free to make her own choices."
"I know that she's trying to be nice!" Hervé complained. "But she's being nice to everyone but me! Why?! What did I do?!"
"It's because you're being mean to everyone else on her behalf," Jérémie bluntly cut in. "And she clearly doesn't like that. That's why she's always telling you to stop."
It was as if Jérémie pressed a button of some kind. Hervé didn't take kindly to that, "Butt out, you geek!"
"You're the one who came to our table uninvited, Pichon, and began yelling at my friends for no good reason," Jérémie coldly shot back. "I'll 'butt in' all I want to."
Hervé opened his mouth to retaliate, and the others tensed up, preparing themselves for the inevitable heated argument between the two nerds. But they were saved by Hervé noticing Sissi enter the cafeteria in that moment, talking to Nicolas about him having asked Naomi to tonight's dance. She looked so happy...
The black-haired nerd conceded defeat by walking away, but not before signaling to the Lyokowarriors that he was watching them, pointing at his eyes before pointing at them with a glare.
Jérémie just angrily rolled his eyes, huffing in annoyance.
Yumi broke the awkward silence by checking her watch, "We should probably get going, Aelita. It's ten minutes after one. We have to get ready for the dance." The two girls had gone dress shopping together earlier that week, and the pink-ette had left her dress in Yumi's closet for safe keeping.
"Right," Aelita replied. She then kissed Jérémie on the cheek, before standing up.
"We'll pick you two ladies up at fifteen minutes before seven," Ulrich said, referring to Jérémie and himself.
Yumi winked at him, "Don't be late," before the two girls left.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
Later that night, Jérémie's watch read 6:45 pm as he and Ulrich, all dressed up, approached the Ishiyama residence for their respective girlfriends.
Ulrich rang the doorbell before patting himself down, as if making sure nothing was out of place.
This wasn't lost on Jérémie, "Are you okay? You look nervous?"
"I am nervous," the brunette quietly replied, adjusting the tie Jérémie helped him with for the twelfth time. "Yumi's parents are watching our every move now that we're dating. They welcome me every Sunday night for dinner as if I'm family, but it's like the rest of the time, they don't trust me."
As they heard the door's lock rustling, Jérémie quickly reassured his friend, "Relax. I'm sure that's not true."
The door opened to reveal Akiko. Her face brightened into a smile as soon as she saw them, "Oh, Ulrich, Jérémie, you're right on time." She then turned back and called into the house, "Yumi, Aelita, your dates are here!"
"Coming!" Yumi called back.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
On Lyoko, XANA was active, as evidenced by pulsations racing through the Mountain Sector. Sure enough, a tower was soon activated there.
However, at the same time, a second tower was also activated in the Forest...
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
Yumi and Aelita had arrived at the front door, and were now standing outside with their respective dates. The elder was wearing a red dress with black floral embroidery along the bottom, while Aelita was wearing a white dress with a pastel yellow butterfly pattern.
The pink-ette bowed respectfully at her friend's parents, both standing in the open doorway, "Thank you for letting me get ready over here."
"It's our pleasure, Aelita," Akiko gave her a motherly smile.
"Have Hiroki and Yumi home by 11:00 pm," Takeho told Ulrich. Hiroki was getting ready in Johnny's dorm. "We're counting on you."
The brunette immediately nodded, "Yes, sir." And he meant it. The dance would end at 10:30 pm, so he would have enough time to get the Ishiyama siblings back home before their father's curfew, but he'd be extra cautious, just in case.
Takeho eased up, offering Ulrich a smile, "Good." The boy had proved himself time and time again to be trustworthy if Yumi's safety and well-being, as well as on good terms with Hiroki. "You kids have fun. In case of emergency, Yumi, you know our numbers."
"Of course, I do," Yumi replied, as the four began walking away. She chose not to tell them that it depended on what type of emergency, though, for obvious reasons. "See you later!"
Her parents waved back, waiting until the four had closed the front gate behind them before closing the door with them inside the house.
"I overheard them talking about a date night of their own while we're at the dance," Yumi confessed to her three companions.
"That's good," Aelita admitted. "They deserve it."
"They do," Yumi agreed, just before a familiar alert appeared on all four transwatches.
Ulrich's eyes nearly popped out of his school in surprise by what the screen was telling him, "A-Am I seeing this right? Two towers?"
"XANA's never done that before," Yumi commented.
"Whether they're oriented like I think they are or not," Jérémie reassured them, leading the path towards the park passage, towards the factory, "we can handle it like we always do."
"And if they are?" Aelita asked, she and the other two quickly following him.
"We can still handle it," her boyfriend replied, "because we have both sets of Keys." He then pulled out his phone. "Hopefully, Odd and William are on their way too..." he muttered as it rang.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
At the same time (about 6:48 pm), Odd had just arrived on campus, linking arms with Sam.
"You're always so early, Della Robbia," she commented as they approached the administrative building (where the auditorium was). "You said seven."
"I-I know," Odd replied, a light blush dotting his cheeks. "But I kept you waiting with my invitation. I didn't want a repeat for arriving at the actual event."
"Don't worry, I've already forgiven you for that," she reassured him. "As long as you let me call you 'beetroot' from now on, that is."
Despite him finding said nickname a tad embarrassing, Odd smiled, "Deal." He then muttered, "I just hope I made a good impression on your parents."
Sam laughed. "Don't worry about that either. Yes, Papa was protective and Maman had lots of questions for you, but they know we're not dating." Yet, went unspoken.
For all that Odd liked to tease his friends for being too shy about speaking their feelings aloud, he was no better. While William and Laura had an excuse—which was uncertainty due to the feelings being fairly new—Odd didn't. He loved Sam, and he had known that ever since the aftermath of the first Lyoko's destruction (Ulrich had helped him), but was currently too shy to confess that to her face. And it had gotten harder to hide it now that she was attending Kadic too.
They met William and Laura right outside the entrance. Their arms were also linked, and on their faces were identical soft smiles. Odd had never seen that smile on Laura before (it was beautiful), while it felt really good to see it on William—the elder boy looked like he was finally at peace (and deserved nothing less).
"Hey, Odd," William greeted. "Hello, Sam. Aren't you early? You said pick you'd pick her up at seven."
Odd smiled in jest, "I'm not early, good buddy. Everyone else is late."
Laura raised a confused eyebrow, not understanding. An amused Sam quickly reassured her, "It's a joke."
The blonde girl seemed to understand, but they didn't know for sure. She opened her mouth to say something, probably to ask a question, but the quartet was interrupted by the beeping of the two guys' transwatches.
Sam was about to ask what that beeping was, but a disconcerting groan—a much louder sound—cut her off.
They turned in the direction of the sound, towards the treeline, where the groaning continued. Other students outside with them quickly copied them, frightened by the strange noise, as well as the fact that it wasn't stopping. As it got louder, Jim emerged from within the building.
"What in the world is that sound?!" the man asked, dressed in his formal best but his expression reading annoyed and defensive (of his students).
Sissi quickly followed him, and behind her were numerous other students. "What's going on?" she asked.
The groaning continued to increase in volume, before immediately jumping to a level that made everyone cover their ears, caused by the sound's source suddenly multiplying. Odd and William shared a concerned glance, both aware that this was obviously XANA's doing but unsure as to what its angle of attack was this time.
Odd spotted a red dot appear within the darkness of the treeline, quickly getting brighter before growing in size—it could only mean one thing.
"Get down!" he called out as he tackled Jim to the ground.
Fortunately, the boy was quick enough, with Jim safely on the ground, but the spot where the man was just standing had been reduced to a smoking crater.
Odd shot yet another knowing look at William, who then promptly turned to the other students, "Everyone, get back inside! Now!"
The duo's fears were confirmed when the street lights finally revealed their attacker, or rather attackers. They were all uniform, all snake-like creatures, with brown hunched torsos, mechanical lower bodies, two thin legs they were using to crawl forward, and thick lip-like mouths with a familiar emblem where their eyes should've been.
Creepers. XANA had materialized Creepers to attack the dance. A whole army of them.
The students who were outside (whether they already were or they had come out to see what the commotion was) began pouring into the auditorium, frantically and for safety. William's phone rang, and he pulled it out to answer.
But Laura's sudden hand on his arm made him pause, "William, please. What's going on?" Briefly glancing up, he saw that Sam and Sissi had also remained.
Odd noticed as well, "Guys, listen, William and I have to go. You three go inside and barricade the building so that the creatures don't get in."
"I'm not leaving you behind, you stupid beetroot!" Sam quickly retorted. "It's too dangerous!"
"We have to!" the Italian boy pleaded. "We have no choice!"
"Why?" Laura asked.
"Do you know how to stop it?" Sissi asked. Her calm expression caught the other four by surprise, and it caused Odd and William to realize that she knew. Maybe not the details, but she knew about their secret.
"Yes," William replied. "But Odd and I have to go." His phone, in that moment, vibrated twice, indicating that he had missed the call, but received a voicemail. He glanced at the caller I.D., and saw that it was Jérémie who had called. Remembering their rule about cellphones, he said, "Sorry, but I have to make a call." He then promptly dialed Jérémie's number.
The blonde picked up on the first ring, "William?"
"Yeah, it's me. Sorry I didn't answer the first time. We're being faced with a crisis." Yeah, the entire school being attacked by materialized Creepers was definitely considered as such.
"What kind of crisis?"
"XANA sent Creepers to the dance. Apparently, it was angry about not getting an invite." He knew a joke wasn't the best choice here, but he was hoping to diffuse the tension. "What should we do?"
"The others and I are on our way to the factory right now." Jérémie briefly paused, clearly rattling something off in his brain. "Wait...is Laura with you?"
William turned his head to said blonde girl, who just gave him a confused expression in return. "Yes. Why?"
"You and Odd get to the factory right now, and bring Laura with you."
"What? But we can't leave the school undefended!" William reminded him. Without any of the Lyokowarriors there, the other students didn't stand a chance! The danger was too great!
"We're not. I have an idea," Jérémie replied, "but to make it work, we need all hands on deck." William went silent as he contemplated his friend's words. "Do you trust me?"
The answer was immediate, "Yes." Jérémie's ideas may have been often beyond the others' understanding, and sometimes out-of-this-world, but they worked most of the time. This current idea of his must've been a battle strategy, and those always worked. Of course, William trusted him.
"Good," the genius sounded pleased. "Now, hurry up before somebody gets hurt." Right. Timing was crucial. Every second that passed right now was a second wasted.
"Got it." William then hung up, and turned to the others as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. "Odd and I have to go, and Laura, you're coming with us."
"Okay," Laura replied, though still confused. "But where to?"
"You'll see," Odd calmly told her, quickly catching on, before turning to William. "But what about the school?"
"Jérémie said he had an idea," the elder explained. "He didn't say what it was, but I get the feeling that we'll be back soon. In the meantime, Sissi, Sam," the two perked up, "would you two be willing to protect everybody else until we return?"
Sissi immediately nodded, "Of course."
Sam pointed a shaking finger towards the Creeper army still approaching, "Protect everyone from those things?"
Odd swiftly and sternly nodded. The two connected eyes, and seeing the earnesty in his eyes gave her the confidence and courage that she needed.
"Okay. Leave it to us. C'mon, Sissi, let's go get some weapons," Sam then raced to the doors, quickly escorting a couple of students along the way.
Sissi turned to follow, "Good luck, guys," before doing so.
Odd and William both smiled in relief before taking off and leading Laura in the opposite direction.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
The unlikely trio had reached the factory after narrowly side-stepping a couple of Creepers on their way to the much safer gym passage. They slid down the ropes to the sight of Ulrich and Yumi using an axe and crowbar, respectively, on materialized Creepers on the factory floor. Judging by the number of Creeper corpses on the ground, as well as how few living ones that were left, the two spicy lovebirds didn't need any help.
"They're here too?" Laura asked, justifiably afraid, referring to the monsters.
"This is where they're coming from," Odd explained to her. "And this is where we can stop them at the source. To do that, we need your help." Jérémie had asked them to bring her here for a reason. Assumedly, it meant that he had a plan that required her talents.
Though still scared, Laura nodded, "Right." But she was clearly questioning how she could help them, considering her talents did not consist of fighting or anything physical.
Yumi stabbed the last Creeper in the area with her crowbar, before pulling out her phone, her expression one of slightly exhausted accomplishment, "Jérémie? All Creepers have been taken care of." A pause, during which she snuck a glance at Odd, William, and Laura. "Yeah, they're here." She then listened to whatever his response was.
This is when the trio realized that she was barefoot. She obviously took off her shoes (red flats) to avoid them getting in the way of her fighting.
"You guys okay?" Ulrich asked them, though mostly addressing Laura. He had taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves, for the same reason as Yumi and her shoes.
"Yeah, we're fine," William replied, while the girl closely at his side nodded.
"We should hurry," Odd sternly added. "Not sure how long Sissi and Sam can last."
"We're on our way." Yumi hung up, "The elevator's back online." Jérémie must've shut it down to contain the Creepers. "Let's go. Jérémie and Aelita are waiting for us down in the lab."
On the trip down, Laura—to her credit—maintained a calm facade, despite clearly wanting to freak out at the current situation, nor did she ask any questions, despite looking like she really wanted to.
Jérémie was typing away at the monitor, with Aelita at his side, both intently studying what was on the screen. A window was open, and it was studying the two towers that had been activated. A smaller window was open beneath that one, showing the three scanners' status and indicating that one was offline.
Aelita turned to greet them when she heard the lift doors begin to open. Once she saw them, she offered a smile, "We've limited the Creepers' materialization to one scanner. It's been deactivated for the time being." Like they suspected.
"So that just leaves the army at school," Odd said, he and the others approaching the monitor.
Laura remained behind in the lift, understanding staring at everything in awe, "Woah...what is this place? A NASA research center?"
"No," Jérémie replied, leaning back in his chair as he turned around to face her. "It's sort of a particle physics lab, but better."
"I don't think I understand," she was shaking her head. "Who are you guys? Secret agents or something?"
"Nope," William answered, wearing an amused smile. "We're just simple students, like you."
"Ever heard of artificial intelligence?" Aelita asked.
"Of course," Laura replied. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, because ours is a real problem," the pink-ette explained. "Thirteen years ago, my father created this supercomputer and the virtual world housed within it." She pointed to the holoprojector, which was showing the said world—Lyoko. "He also created XANA, an artificial intelligence that eventually gained sentience. It now wishes to destroy humanity, and my friends and I are the only ones who can stop it. In order to stop those creatures and save the school, we need your help."
She needed Laura to understand the dangers here. Fortunately, the blonde girl seemed to understand, "Okay. I'm prepared to help however I can. But...what do you need me to do?"
"XANA gains access to our world by activating towers on Lyoko," Jérémie was the one who answered her. "Shutting them down is our best hope of stopping XANA's attacks. This time, it has activated two at once, which is unusual. As I suspected, the two towers are linked. They're relaying one another to make it impossible to keep them deactivated if we attempt it one at a time."
The others began to understand. That meant Jérémie and Aelita would both need to be on Lyoko at the same time, meaning the lab interface had to be left unattended, something Jérémie never liked doing.
"There's also the danger at the academy," the boy genius continued. "We can use the Skid to dock at a tower on Lyoko and translate someone over there to protect our classmates. But we'll need to split up—Aelita and I at the towers obviously, two translated at Kadic, and the other two protecting the Skid. The problem with that plan is that leaving this monitor unattended is too dangerous. That, Laura, is why you're here."
"To attend to the monitor in your absence," she finished, understanding.
Jérémie and Aelita both nodded in confirmation. They had discussed it amongst themselves while waiting for everyone to arrive. They had decided to use this as an opportunity for Laura to prove herself to the group, for everyone to build up their trust in her. Hopefully, one day, they would be comfortable enough redoing the initial vote to bring her in, the one Aelita herself had sabotaged by running the Return to the Past herself.
Aelita wanted to trust Laura. She didn't like being jealous, but she couldn't help it. Now that Laura was no longer chasing Jérémie romantically, it was easier to try, at least. So this was her first attempt at correcting her mistake.
"What do you say?" William asked her. "You willing to help us out?"
Laura paused, thinking over everything she was just told. "Yes."
The six Lyokowarriors all smiled, pleased with her answer.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
"Virtualization!"
Odd's avatar appeared in the sky of the Sector Five Arena, before dropping down and landing in front of Yumi, Ulrich, and William. He stood up as the wall opened up, "Let's go!"
The four promptly made their way through said wall, before taking the lift up to the Skid Hangar. Once they arrived, they quickly made their way to the teleporter pad, with Odd claiming the middle, and largest, one.
Once everyone was on board, the cat piloted the Skid up through the opening in the ceiling, before using Jérémie's directions to find another opening nearby. When he descended through said opening, he found himself in the chamber where Sector Five's tower was.
It was the neutral white, which was fortunate. This wasn't one of the towers that XANA was using, which meant the teens could use it for their plan. Good. Timing, right now, was crucial.
Once Odd had maneuvered the Skid into place, before mooring it to the tower, he said so, "All done, Einstein. Do your stuff."
"Roger that," Jérémie replied. A few seconds later, the tower's halo turned from white to green. "Alright. We're all set. Ulrich, Yumi, you guys ready?"
"Ready," the two answered in tandem.
"Okay. Good luck. Translate Ulrich. Translate Yumi."
The two promptly disappeared from their respective Navskids. Meanwhile, Odd and William were disembarked, the two teleporting down to the platform in front of the tower. They faced the only entrance to the room with their respective weapons ready.
Their job now was to protect the Skid tower.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
"Alright," Jérémie said, as he got out of the chair. "It's your turn now, Laura. You ready?"
"I think so," she replied, approaching said chair. "A-Are you sure I can do it?" She couldn't deny that being at the helm of a quantic supercomputer was rather intimidating. Awesome, but a bit scary. What if she hit the wrong button?
"Of course," he reassured her. "I'm confident that you'll pick it up quickly." She had done so once, after all. So he knew this from personal experience. "But if you ever feel lost," he held out a very thick notebook, "here's the manual."
Which he had to write himself. Franz Hopper didn't leave one, so Jérémie had to learn how to operate everything through trial and error.
Laura took the manual with a grateful smile, "Thank you. Now, I send you and Aelita to a different tower, not the same one, right?" The other two both nodded. "Does it matter which one?"
"Nope," Aelita replied. "We'll be able to deactivate either one. We just have to make sure we deactivate them at the same time."
"Okay." Laura then took a seat in the chair and faced the monitor, before placing the earpiece within her left ear. "I'm ready. Good luck."
Jérémie offered her one last reassuring smile, before following Aelita down the side ladder to the scanner room.
She could do this, Laura told herself. One tower was in the Mountain Sector, and the second was in the Forest. Aelita had volunteered to be virtualized first, the scanners not being able to send people to different places at once.
Laura selected the Mountain Sector, before selecting Aelita's ID card, "Transfer Aelita." Her avatar began loading, "Scanner Aelita." Once her avatar finished loading, Laura pressed enter, "Virtualization!"
Aelita's avatar formed in the sky of the Mountain Sector, before dropping down on a small platform connected to a narrow walkway. At the end of said path was another platform, then a gap, and then a circular walkway, in the middle of which was the activated tower, sitting on a smaller, disconnected platform that was constantly revolving.
She'd seen this tower before. And thanks to her wings, it would be easier to reach.
"I made it, Laura," she relayed.
"Okay, good. I'm sending Jérémie over now," Laura replied, before selecting the Forest Sector and then Jérémie's ID. "Transfer Jérémie." His avatar began loading, "Scanner Jérémie." Once the loading was complete, she pressed the 'enter' key, "Virtualization!"
Meanwhile, Jérémie's avatar formed within the sky of the Forest Sector, before dropping down. The tower was in sight, being situated on a small platform only accessible across a bridge of tree trunks.
"You did it, Laura," he told her. "I can see the tower, but I think we have a problem." He tapped on his bracelet, opening up the comm system, "Aelita, is your tower acting strange?"
"Yes, actually," she replied, staring straight ahead at her tower, speaking into her own bracelet.
"What's going on?" Laura asked, concerned.
Bright red pulsations were going up and down the entire length of both towers. Bottom to the top, then back to the bottom—at which point the halo's color switched—then back to the top, and then back to the bottom—and the halo's color switched back to the other.
And said colors were red and white.
"I think they're constantly being deactivated and then reactivated," Aelita observed, worried as she watched her tower. "It's weird."
"It's likely a side effect of them being linked together," Jérémie explained.
Laura took a moment, "It is, according to what I see on my screen. But when one is activated, the other isn't. Then, they switch."
"Great," Jérémie muttered. "Thank you, XANA, for complicating things..."
"Yeah, how will we deactivate them both at once?" Aelita added. She didn't want to waste any more time. Creepers were attacking the school, after all.
"Actually, there is a window where both are active at the same time," Laura told them. "But it doesn't last long."
"You're the only one of us, Laura, that can see everything that's going on," Jérémie told her, reminding her of the holomap. "So it's up to you to determine when that window is."
She sighed, "I'll try my best."
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
The entire student body of Kadic (at least, everyone at the dance) was holed up the auditorium, with all of the doors barricaded. Jim stood in front of the large group, ready to protect his students, but Sissi and Sam were closer to the door. They both had weapons—a cheerleading baton and a pair of boxing gloves, respectively—and were ready to fight the Creepers.
But Odd and William had said they would be back. They just had to stop somewhere first. Where were they?
A laser shot suddenly fired and broke one of the building's windows. Glass shards fell to the ground, and people cowered in fear before more shots broke the other windows.
Through the now open windows, the Creepers crawled inside the building...
Sissi and Sam stood their ground, inwardly scared but putting up fairly strong poker faces, as Jim frantically searched the large room for a way out or someplace safer. Maybe the library...?
Out of nowhere, a glowing tessen fan zoomed through the air and took out the two Creepers in front before they could charge up their lasers. Said creatures' now-dead bodies collapsed to the ground, flopping as if they were drama queens. It would've been funny if the situation wasn't so scary.
Yumi Ishiyama—of all people—leapt through one of the broken windows and landed in between the monsters and the students, catching the fan on the way.
The Creepers immediately reacting, turning to her with angry-sounded roars. One charged up its laser to fire at her, only for it to be attacked from a katana from behind.
"U-Ulrich?" Sissi asked, surprised. She knew her friends had a secret, but the fact that Ulrich (her childhood friend) was secretly a samurai superhero wasn't what she was expecting, at all.
Ulrich turned to her, "Yep, it's me. And yes, that really is Yumi." Said geisha was busy using her dual fans to block various shots from the Creepers that continued to pour into the room.
"My sister's a superhero?" Hiroki asked, awed at the sight of his sister expertly taking out the enemies in front of them. "So cool..."
"Stern!" Jim approached the brunette boy. "Explanation! Now! Why are you two dressed like that?!"
"Sorry, Jim," Ulrich was apologetic, "but the explanation will have to come later. All you need to know is that Yumi and I are the only ones who can take those things out." He nodded at the Creepers. "You guys stay back and leave them to us. Sissi, Sam," the two girls perked up, "keep standing guard. Make sure no one gets hurt. Okay?"
"Okay," Sam replied, as Sissi just nodded, tightly clutching her baton closer to her chest.
He offered them a warm, reassuring smile, before, "Super Sprint!", taking off in a flash of yellow towards his girlfriend.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
"Odd, William? Do you read me?" Laura asked, a bit hesitant due to being new to all of this.
"Yes, we read you," William replied, briefly glancing up at the sky. "What's up?"
"Um, there are three monsters heading your way," she replied.
He and Odd were still guarding the Skid tower. Everything had been quiet up until now. So it didn't surprise either of them that XANA was ramping things up now, once it was aware of its enemies' plan.
Sure enough, three Mantas flew into the room through the open doorway, one at a time.
William jumped off the edge of the platform and activated his Super Smoke, using it to travel up to one, chasing it for a couple of seconds before successfully landing on it. He stabbed its eye with his Zweihänder before traveling with Smoke to a second.
Odd fired a trio of Laser Arrows at the third and last Manta, as William stabbed the second—thus destroying both of them.
William landed next to Odd, resuming his human form, as the cat commented, "Too easy. C'mon, XANA, what do you got for us?"
"I-I think you just jinxed it," Laura cut in. "More monsters are on the way."
"Don't worry, Laura. We're counting on it, actually," Odd reassured her. "Because it means that XANA's taking this seriously."
Even though it was a little weird hearing her voice over the comm instead of Jérémie's.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
Three Bloks virtualized in front of Aelita with red wireframes, before dropping down, effectively blocking the path to the tower.
The center-most one shot a laser at her, but she managed to avoid it by ducking, before forming and firing an Energy Field while close to the ground.
Her weapon hit the one on the left (her left, that is), destroying it. She then activated her wings and took off into the air, using the speed they gave her to dodge fire rings and ice beams from the remaining two Bloks.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
Jérémie ran towards the tower with a sinking gut feeling that only one monster was waiting for him. When he got closer to the tower's base, sure enough, he saw the Scyphozoa guarding the tower by hovering right in front of it.
And it was looking right at him.
He gasped, before quickly ducking into the nearby hollow tree trunk. He peered out to see where his enemy was, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the jellyfish hadn't moved. Apparently, it had not seen him after all.
Good. He had dodged a bullet, but he still had a problem.
How was he going to get past it?
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
Ulrich blocked a few lasers, before leaping up into the air and landing the middle of a cluster of Creepers. He swiftly began taking them out with his dual katanas.
Meanwhile, Yumi backflipped to avoid a couple of shots, before throwing one of her fans. It hit its target just as another shot at the rafters above. She quickly took that one out as well, but the surrounding Creepers seemed to catch on to the idea.
Their grouped lasers fired at the rafters made a steel beam fall from above, towards a small group of students the two Lyokowarriors were protecting. Yumi began to panic when she saw her brother in the group in danger.
"No!" she cried out before concentrating hard, closing her eyes. She hadn't used her telekinesis in translated form, but Jérémie had once told her that she still had it. Hopefully, that was still true one year after shutting off the supercomputer...
She felt her mind immediately become strained. Behind her, she heard Ulrich protecting her from the lasers of the Creepers as she sensed her presence around the steel beam that had just been shot down. It was in her grasp now.
She opened her eyes and immediately breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that she had successfully stopped the beam from crushing anyone.
Hiroki met her eyes—he was scared, but his awe at seeing her in action was beginning to outweigh it now. She offered him a reassuring smile, before bringing the beam closer to her.
"Ulrich, duck," she whispered to her boyfriend, who was still guarding her backside.
She promptly threw the beam at the cluster of Creepers Ulrich was facing, with the samurai quickly ducking so that it didn't hit him by accident. Her attack took out a good chunk of the Creepers.
As Ulrich stood back up, he was smiling with pride, "Nicely done, Yumes."
"Thank you. But we're not done yet."
The two charged at the remaining Creepers—now few and far between thanks to Yumi's attack with the beam—as they ignored the awed, speechless expressions of their classmates behind them.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
"It's weird," Odd commented, after taking out another Manta. "XANA's sending monster after monster at us."
William destroyed three Creepers with a spin attack. "But they're pretty easy to beat. I know what you mean."
Odd quickly blocked numerous lasers from two more Creepers by the door with his shield, as William did the same with three more Mantas behind them with his Zweihänder.
"Its weak attack power could indicate that it's diverting said power somewhere else," Laura cut in, trying to be helpful.
"Or it's trying to avoid devirtualizing us while also keeping us busy," Odd replied, before shooting a flurry of Laser Arrows. One Creeper down. "But why?"
A pause. "Aelita and Jérémie," William breathed. Realization began to dawn on the other two.
"XANA wants to keep us from helping them," Odd finished.
Aelita and Jérémie were both alone on Lyoko, being in separate sectors, while the other four were preoccupied with their plan to protect the school. So XANA had managed to exploit a weakness in their strategy.
Well, they expected no less from the AI, but it was still stressful.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
Laura was never so grateful for her ability to multitask as she was right now. She had to keep an eye on Ulrich and Yumi mostly because of the translation timer. She also had to keep an eye on William and Odd mostly because of the respective energy levels of both the Skid and the tower. Then there was making sure that the one scanner Jérémie had confined XANA's materialization program to remained offline.
But her most important job was keeping an eye on Aelita and Jérémie because of the two towers.
She was studying them intently, like her life depended on it. Because it kinda did...
"Laura, what's the update on the towers?" Aelita asked, as the holomap showed her taking out one of the two Bloks facing her. "We're running out of time!"
She was right. Ulrich and Yumi's timer was down to five minutes and thirty-four seconds, and counting down. And while the Skid was fine, the tower's protection energy (that Jérémie had borrowed from Sector Five) was down to eighty-four percent.
"I think I almost got it," the blonde replied. "Just give me a minute." C'mon, think, Gauthier. Think! She found herself muttering, "XANA is an artificial intelligence, and all AIs follow the parameters of their programming. There has to be some amount of logic here. A pattern. Some kind of sequential repetition in the way the towers are switching on and off..."
Jérémie's arrow was still hidden within the hollow tree trunk, "Of course. Find the pattern and we determine the window."
That's what she was trying to figure out. She just had to hurry and find it before her classmates turned into Creeper food.
She studied the holomap, "Two...three...five...seven...eleven..." That's when she figured it out. "I got it! I found the pattern! Two, three, five, seven, eleven—XANA's using prime numbers!"
Aelita's arrow showed her hiding in mid-air behind a small mountain, with the last Blok on the other side, waiting for her to peek her head out. "You mind explaining? Jérémie and I can't see what you're seeing."
Made sense. "XANA activates one tower, then the other," Laura explained, confident that the two would understand her. "One plus one equals two. Then it turns them both off one second, and activates one and then the other, and then comes back to the first one, which makes three. And so on until it gets to eleven alternate rounds of activation. That's when it gets interesting. After eleven rounds, it restarts the sequence and keeps both towers activated for a few seconds, just enough time for you two to slip inside and deactivate them."
"Thirteen seconds," Jérémie replied. "That's how long the window is, isn't it?"
"Yes." After all, thirteen was the next number in the sequence.
"Keep track of the sequence," Aelita said. "It's up to you to tell us when to go. Remember, Jérémie and I have to be perfectly synchronized."
"Okay." Laura then began counting.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
The last two Creeper corpses fell the ground, and Ulrich and Yumi stood over their handiwork, feeling accomplished.
"Mission completed, Laura," Ulrich relayed to their (temporary) mission control. "You can let the timer run down."
Out of nowhere, however, Sissi suddenly rushed up to him before striking down something behind him. He immediately turned around and was surprised to see that she had knocked back another Creeper, of all things.
"Behind you, Sis!" Hiroki called, scared, and Yumi turned around in time to see Sam punch the face of a second Creeper sneaking up behind the geisha.
The broken windows were quickly becoming re-populated with even more Creepers. A second wave had arrived without warning.
Mentally thanking her brother for the warning, and Sissi and Sam for the back-up, Yumi asked her boyfriend, "How are they still coming?! Jérémie deactivated that scanner!"
"Laura?" Ulrich asked, seeking answers. She should've warned them.
"I don't understand either," the blonde girl replied. "The scanner is still offline, and the other two remain uninfected."
The samurai stepped in front of Sissi, guarding her from the Creeper the two were facing together with his body, before stabbing it in the eye. Instead of its corpse falling to the ground, the monster instead flickered like an image, before disappearing in a brief and dim flash of light.
"I see," Ulrich commented. "This new wave isn't materialized. They're being translated, like us!"
"Great..." Yumi muttered, as she pulled out her fans. "I guess the fight continues..."
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
"Five..." The two Einsteins heard Laura muttering to herself on the other end. "Seven...eleven..." A pause. "Now!"
In the Forest, Jérémie finally emerged from his hollow tree trunk. The Scyphozoa quickly spotted, though, making him run in the opposite direction of the tower.
But the moment the jellyfish floated past that trunk, the real Jérémie peeked his head out and smiled. While the clone he had created kept the monster occupied, he made a break for the tower.
Hopefully, they weren't too late...
In the Mountain, Aelita formed an Energy Field before emerging from her own cover. She flew straight at the Blok, avoiding the shots it was firing at her, before charging through it with her Energy Field like she was a knight at a jousting tournament, destroying it.
She only landed at the base of the tower, on the platform that was still rotating.
The two entered their respective towers at the same time.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
Yumi blocked a shot with her fan before throwing the other one. The Creeper she was aiming for, however, just deflected it with a laser, sending it off to the side. The fan landed on the ground, now useless.
JEREMIE_
Ulrich used his twin katanas to deflect a few shots, before a laser made its way past his defenses. His torso was hit and he was sent to the ground, with his torso flickering with violet light.
AELITA_
Yumi attempted a break to grab her fallen fan, only to be shot in the shoulder, sending her to the ground as well, as her shoulder also flickered.
CODE_
Back at the Skid tower, Odd and William were being cornered. Things weren't going well here either. XANA didn't want them devirtualized, or breaking away to help their brainiac friends, but that didn't mean that it wasn't loading them with monster after monster to keep up the pressure.
How much longer until those towers were deactivated?
LYOKO_
The Manta right in Odd's face suddenly turned away from him, glancing in the direction of the open passage. Apparently, something had happened, something that alarmed XANA.
Then it flew away, with the other Mantas and Creepers following.
"Is it over?" William asked.
"Yes," Laura replied, sounding accomplished. "The two towers have been deactivated."
Odd and William promptly shared a high-five of victory.
Back at the school, everyone breathed heavy sighs of relief when they saw the Creepers all de-translate, all of them within the span of two seconds.
"I-Is it over?" Milly asked, straightening up after cowering against Hiroki and Tamiya the entire time.
Yumi and Ulrich both offered their classmates relieved smiles. "Yes," Ulrich replied. "It's over."
Sissi ran up to them, a worried expression on her face, "Are you two okay?"
They both got back on their feet. "Don't worry. We're fine," Yumi answered. "Barely a scratch."
Though the building wasn't so fortunate. It was half-destroyed thanks to the Creepers, but fortunately, no one was hurt. Mostly because the Creepers were focused so intently on Ulrich and Yumi, once they arrived.
"What will happen now?" Sam asked.
"Don't worry," Yumi calmly told her. "You all just wait five minutes and none of you will remember any of this."
Everyone was confused, judging by their expressions, but Jim was the only one who voiced it aloud, "Hey, what are you guys talking about?! If you think you can get away with erasing our memories and gaslighting us–"
Ulrich and Yumi's translation timer (set at fifteen minutes) finally counted down to zero. Here, they translated back in the middle of their teacher's sentence.
"Hey! Get back here right now!" Jim called out, despite receiving no answer. "You owe us an explanation!"
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
From the platform below, the Skid still connected to the tower, Odd and William glanced up at the windows of the Navskids.
Ulrich and Yumi were both back in their respective pods, napping away the exhaustion from their translation.
"Ah, there they are! Must've knocked each other out like they always do!" Odd joked.
"Um, what now?" Laura asked.
Odd and William shared a knowing glance, remembering not only the final step of Jérémie's plan, but also what they usually did. "Hold on, Laura. William will tell you exactly what will happen next."
Before Laura could respond, the cat then shot at his partner with a single Arrow, devirtualizing him.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
Laura turned to the elevator as it opened. Once she saw who was arriving, her face broke out into a smile, "William! You're okay! Your card began to disappear, so I was afraid that you..." She trailed off, but he understood what she meant.
"I'm okay," he reassured her, as he approached her. "I was just devirtualized."
She was still sitting in the chair in front of the monitor. "So what do we do now?"
"Well, I do this." He then began typing in a sequence that was listed in his Lyokowarrior handbook.
"What are you doing?" she asked, before turning to the window that opened up on screen in that moment. "'Return to the Past'? What does that mean?"
He sadly smiled, "Sorry. It means that time will be rewinded to the start of the dance, but only the six of us will remember what happened."
"So I will...forget...everything that I did here?" A pause as she digested that. "Everything?"
"Everything."
"But I don't–..." Her vocal tone indicated her disappointment. "I don't want to..." She tightly clenched her hands together in one big fist. "I finally feel...like a normal kid..." Like she belonged. Like she had friends.
"Trust me, I know how you feel." He really did. According to the others, the initial vote to bring him into the group failed because Yumi had voted against him, not Ulrich like he expected. "But don't worry." He gave her a smile that he hoped was reassuring. "We will remember."
"You will?"
"We will," he promised, "and we will never forget."
She finally smiled, pleased with his response. He then pressed the 'enter' key, causing a bright white bubble to envelop everything.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
Like William had said it would, time rewinded to the start of the dance. Since XANA didn't attack this time, everyone arrived without delay or interruptions. No one else but the six Lyokowarriors remembered the Creepers or Laura figuring out the window of the towers.
William was DJing, and showing Laura the ropes, so to speak. Aelita had pulled Jérémie to the dance floor, and Ulrich and Yumi quickly followed. Meanwhile, Odd and Sam were chatting a kilometer-a-minute by the refreshments table.
Sissi was watching everyone at the dance with a fond smile on her face. As long as they were all having a good time, she could live with the criticism that she still got from people who didn't quite believe that she had turned over a new leaf. She didn't care about their opinion, to be honest. They could think whatever they wanted to think. She wasn't changing for them, but for herself, after all.
On top of that, Nicolas had found some sparks with Naomi, and Sissi was glad. She could only hope that Hervé would find someone that he shared sparks with himself. She was kind of worried about him lately. He was very defensive of her in a way that she was not proud of, always aggressive and lashing out at others...
"Hey, Sissi!"
She turned to her left to see Milly walking up to her, with Tamiya right by her side. The elder of the three quickly put on a smile, "Hey, you two. Having fun?"
"We're having a great time!" Tamiya replied, an excited grin on her face. "Now, Hiroki and Johnny are off getting drinks for us, so we decided to come by and see how you're doing."
"Yeah, are you having fun?" Milly asked.
Maybe not 'fun', but she wasn't unhappy. Sissi softly smiled, "I am content." Her smile faded, "Listen, I wanted to apologize for bullying you two before. Actually, that is the reason I dropped out of this year's beauty contest..."
"Oh?" The younger two were intrigued.
She explained, "To be honest, I'll probably drop out of next year's, too. That contest...only reminds me now of how badly I treated everyone else, whether in the name of vanity, my former crush on Ulrich, or some other reason." She turned back to them, "In any case, I'm sorry, both of you. I didn't tell you earlier at the interview because I wanted it to be off the record."
And Hervé was right there. She didn't want him jumping in to misconstrue her words or claim it was a lie somehow.
Milly and Tamiya shared a look, before giving her identical bright smiles, and speaking together, "We forgive you."
She blinked. They did?
"Yes, it hurt," Milly admitted. "And it still does."
"But whenever you're nice to others now," Tamiya added, "you don't ask for any type of reward."
"And that tells us all we need to know," Milly finished.
Tamiya glanced back at their dates, "We gotta go now. The boys are waiting for us. But don't be afraid to go out there and dance yourself, Sissi. You've earned it!"
The two then walked away, practically skipping the whole way.
They were right—Sissi decided. She was afraid, though, to be selfish just this once, because she was afraid of relapsing into her old self. The way she was now, she was finally at peace with herself. And she didn't want to go back.
She was so absorbed into her own thoughts that she didn't see Theo Gauthier (not related to Laura in any way; Gauthier was just a common surname) approach her.
"Hey, Sissi."
"Oh, hello, Theo. Can I help you?"
"Yeah," he replied with a soft smile. "I've noticed you by yourself. Would you like to dance?"
A light blush dotted her cheeks, as she smiled, "Of course."
She took his offered hand, and let him lead her to the dance floor. Aelita had once said something about karma, about how it applied to good deeds as well as bad ones. Perhaps, this was hers.
Four Lyokowarriors were watching that exchange from afar. After the fast-paced song was over, William had replaced it with a slow song. Not long after, Ulrich and Yumi found themselves slow-dancing alongside Jérémie and Aelita.
Aelita had noticed first, watching Milly and Tamiya's exchange with Sissi, and Jérémie was too curious to ignore it. Ulrich and Yumi had noticed how distracted they were, resulting in the watch party.
None of them caught what exactly was being said, but it seemed to put Sissi in a good mood. Milly and Tamiya were also skipping away, and Theo himself wasn't at all hesitant to approach her. But no one left unhappy, so the heroes weren't really worried.
The pink-ette's voice was low when she spoke up, "As I understand it, Sissi's initial expulsion from the group was because she told someone outside the group about Lyoko. However, she only did so because she was concerned about your safety, yes?"
"Yeah," Yumi softly confirmed.
"It's more complicated than that," Jérémie's voice was almost at a whisper. "I had no idea what the exact parameters were for the Return to the Past when I first ran it. It was a moment of desperation and I had a chance to back to a time where I was the only one who knew about you, Aelita, so I took it. But while I had friends to help me remember what happened...Sissi didn't."
"But she broke the pact," Ulrich added. "We all promised to keep it a secret, and she didn't honor that."
"You also broke the pact, though, by telling Yumi, didn't you?" Aelita asked the brunette.
"That was my fault," Yumi confessed. "I was too stubborn to let him go without an explanation. But Jérémie's right: it's more complicated than that. Sissi breaking that pact is the reason we didn't brief her like we did with Jérémie. We felt like she couldn't be trusted."
Aelita sighed, "I understand that. After all, the vote to bring in a new member must be unanimous." It was the same once with William being voted against by Yumi, and Laura by Aelita herself. "But Sissi's grown so much during the past year. I feel like she's earned the right to know."
"I agree. She's always helped us," Ulrich said. "She saved me from that Creeper, y'know." With a simple cheerleading baton as her weapon, no less. She certainly had guts.
"So did Sam," Yumi added, before getting an idea. "You know, Odd promised Sam to tell her about Lyoko when it's all over. What if we added Sissi to that list?"
Aelita nodded in agreement.
Six people directly in the line of fire was enough. Jérémie and Aelita, as Lyoko's new royals (so to speak), had an obligation to stop XANA. Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd's loyalty was too great to leave the two by themselves. Meanwhile, William wanted to prove himself trustworthy. They had recruited him, after all, to fight against XANA, not be used instead as one of the AI's tools (there was also revenge).
They didn't want to put Sissi in danger, or anyone else for that matter, but they would tell her one day.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~E~V~O~L~U~T~I~O~N~~~!
Inspiration: CL's "Teddygozilla", CLE's "Rendezvous"
Up next: Episode 11, Rendevous - "Aelita falls into a XANA trap by a spectre masquerading as her lost mother. The only way to save her is by deactivating the tower."
A/N: Chapter Meaning: "May I have this dance?" is a phrase common in dances, referencing the school dance in this chapter.
-Additional credit goes to Code Lyoko Beyond on Youtube. There's at least two episodes on that channel that brought to my attention the possibility that was used in this chapter, because it does make sense (teleporting to Kadic), and when seeing those episodes, it made me wonder why the group didn't take advantage of this in canon. My beta reader further informed me that the same thing also happened in Chronicles, Books 3 ("The Return of the Pheonix") and 4 ("The Army of Nothing").
-The tower XANA activated on the Cortex is a reference to "Isolation" (Chapter 8/Episode 103; I told you that I'd come back to it later) and Jérémie hacking into the Cortex is referring to the episode before that, "Suspicions" (Chapter 7/Episode 102).
-My beta reader and I recently had a discussion about the IQs of certain characters, and we came to the conclusion that Franz Hopper's is the highest at 230, Tyron and Anthea's are both 225 (I'll explain Anthea's placement later in the story), and Jérémie, Aelita, and Laura's all around 220. Feel free to give your input on this in a review.
-The TVTropes page for this fic says that the cyberbully is Hervé, and I haven't corrected that, because it's right. After all, 'The Theory of Evolution' isn't shy about the implication or the reasons why (and that's probably my fault; I initially intended to keep you guys guessing). However, the Lyokowarriors don't know who the cyberbully is yet, and they also have bigger issues to worry about, hence why no one makes the connection here.
-The Sector Five tower is (obviously) the same one from "Franz Hopper" and "A Space Oddity" (or a copy of, in the latter's case). The Forest tower is the same one activated in "Cruel Dilemma". The Mountain tower is the same one activated in "The Robots".
-And finally, Sissi/Theo will be on the downlow, because it's not the primary focus of her character, but I liked their dynamic in "Claustrophobia" too much to ignore it or pretend they don't have potential.
~Evolution concepts~
The only one that really needs discussing is Laura taking over for Jérémie, with the first time she does so being in "Rendezvous" (which I'll talk more about in the next chapter). Both times, Laura is at first sidelined before Jérémie makes the choice to have her take his place. In EVO, it's because the group understandably doesn't trust her, given how she forced her way into the fold so to speak, and the Lyoko-TNV has the others either questioning if they can or hoping that she succeeds in helping them save Aelita. Meanwhile, here, Laura has not been recruited, officially or against their will, so Jérémie's idea is what brings her to the factory, and the group gives her this chance to prove herself to them, to decide on whether or not they want to redo the vote from "Secret Admirer". I didn't change much about her performance at the controls, but I did raise the stakes by changing XANA's attack from a relatively harmless spectre to materialized monsters attacking Kadic. Unlike in EVO, however, this moment to shine for Laura will come up again later on.
The 'beetroot' thing is a reference to the canon version of "Countdown", where Odd stumbles on his words following an attack from a spectre, causing him to say random phrases that is only fixed when he's virtualized onto Lyoko. Sam Suares, in EVO, is less than pleased, but Sam Knight is amused and actually turns the tables.
Laura seeing the lab for the first time (from her perspective, at least) is dialogue taken from "Virus". The episode was never dubbed into English, but footage from it was used in a trailer, which was dubbed into English and can be found on Youtube.
