September 2, 2024, 3:30 pm

Factory

The group huddled around the Super Computer, with Martin sitting in the Computer chair. Alex and Violet leaning on the chair on the right, with Stuart sitting on the top part of the Holomap. Martin had his arms and legs crossed giving the best death glare he could at the monitor in front of him. Stuart felt uncomfortable, fidgeting with his hands. Where as Alex and Violet had huge grins, they are very interested in the mischief that's being caused right now. Though in Martin's mind he's just peeved that Liam has been avoiding every question they've been asking so far, for the past hour.

After classes today the whole group high tailed it to the factory to ask questions before the chance of an evil program could interrupt them. Liam was dead silent after the previous question that was asked. "Who was the previous group that fought XANA?" This made Liam stutter out an attempt of an excuse to get out of this question like he has with previous questions but stopped right as he started.

"You could at least answer one of our questions." Martin said annoyed as it felt like nothing was working.

"This is a question I am unable to answer to keep their anonymity. It's for their protection and yours. Most I can reveal as that was a team I was briefly part of." That is all Liam could muster, as he felt bad not being able to answer any of their questions. Even if it answers part of the question, it keeps what he likes to think is his friends safe. This brought up a memory from the other day. When he was part of a Video Meeting with the previous lyoko warriors.

September 1, 2024, 9:47 pm

Elsewhere

On the window screen of Jeremy's laptop were pictures of his friends who he had unfortunately included with the devastation that XANA had made them experience over and over as teens. As they are all adults now doing their own thing, but brought back together as the Super Calculator turned back on and XANA has reared his ugly face once again.

"What the heck Jeremy? I was in the middle of a Skate contest with Aurelien Giraud, and I was this close to beating him! Then a return to the past happens and now I have to do the contest again, then I loose!" Odd says enraged and frustrated. Instead of the Odd, Jeremy remembers, Odd still has that purple streak in that spiked hair of his. He constantly wears a t-shirt that has a logo from his skateboarding company he started a couple years after graduating. Odd became a popular skateboarding figure from France. He tried a couple times to skateboard for the Olympics but failed against Aurelien Giraud. Which made each other rivals.

"Odd, shut up that's not important right now. We need to get what idiot decided to leave that damned computer on even after the message that was left. They did watch it right Jeremy?" Said the older looking Ulrich. He has much shorter brown hair, it was a regular cut and kept at a certain length. He was visibly wearing his suit as he got off from his office job. He is in his car pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant.

"Yes, William confirmed the video file was opened and watched. What I regret to inform but I feel like it's important to the situation. It's our son Martin." Jeremy says with a tone of disappointment in his voice, masked with a more monotone voice he was trying to manufacture.

"You don't mean." Yumi said with a gasp of shock. She also looked different from her younger self. She has longer hair, but she puts it up into a bun. She has a career in martial arts. Back in her youth she was top of her class. Which helped her make her way into professional martial arts tournaments and some movies as a stunt actor. She seems to be wearing an outfit mostly resembling a traditional white Gi but with a Japanese symbol of a flower and her last name in Japanese. A logo of her own Martial Arts school.

"Yes, we have footage of him in the factory dismissing the video after watching it." Responded Aelita. Rubbing the temples of her head, a habit she got from her husband in high stress situations.

"I am doing all in my power to keep him and the friends he has brought along. But Jeremy has put me in charge of them. As he is currently busy with his work, as all of you are. You all know about my imprisonment with XANA. I am using that information to keep these kids safe from his clutches." William said, he as well grown up but because of what had happened in the past with the other lyoko warriors, it was hard to keep their trust. They always kept him at arm's length. His black hair was a lot longer and didn't look well kept. He is wearing a dark green jean jacket with a black shirt under.

"No offense William, but I feel like we should all just get back there and get that super computer shut down. We've done it once already, we can do this again. We can't endanger these kids like we have. The one difference is now that we are adults, and we know what's going on. Those kids should not be alone!" Ulrich said, raising his voice. Ulrich still has a grudge against him all these years as someone who stole Yumi away from him. But Yumi as an adult didn't choose either of them.

"And that's what William here is there for. He is to keep them safe from XANA's clutches. Since William has a solid connection to the Super Calculator, I can work on a new program to wipe XANA out completely this time. And unfortunately, since we are all around the world and not local, those kids are our best option." Jeremy says firmly. Trying to build a wall for William. As he felt that he deserved a second chance that his friends won't fully commit to.

"I have a photo shoot close by the factory here in the next couple days. I was going to stop by for nostalgia sakes." Odd added at the end, he wants to help best he can as he's also about to be local for a bit.

"I'll let you know if that's necessary. The reason I brought everyone together was to address the elephant in the room and explain the return to the past. And now we have a new generation of lyoko warriors. I am currently working on a new program to put XANA away for good this time. It's just to get everyone on the same page." Jeremy said clarifying and summarizing the meeting. To keep everyone on the page. This has become a habit with all the presentations he had to do within the last few days.

"I agree with Ulrich though, we can't put kids through what we went through. This should be our responsibility, not theirs! But I also have to understand the circumstances you gave Jeremy. I want to believe in you William, please don't disappoint." Yumi said. Ulrich was blushing a bit during the first part of Yumi's discussion. Then it disappeared and a visible anger appeared for a split second before disappearing as well. If Yumi noticed this she didn't show it.

"Thank you Yumi, that does mean a lot." William said with a small smile appearing. With the circles under his eyes, he had a long day with the attack he had dealt with earlier. With that thought he logged off the video meeting after saying good bye to everyone.

September 2, 2024, 3:34 pm

Factory

"I suppose that is an answer." Martin sighs. "Anybody have any questions that you have?"

"Can we see what you look like at least?" Violet asked innocently. She wasn't trying to be malicious as she was genuinely curious.

"I need to keep my anonymity as well. This may be a bit frustrating. I also agree but there are rules I have to abide by." Liam explained quickly.

"Rules? Who are you following the rules of?" Alex said as if it was a 'got you!' moment.

"Again, I couldn't tell you if I wanted." Liam said a little annoyed he has to repeat himself. This made the group sigh in unison after feeling like they're going in circles for a while now. Martin looks up into the sky to try and keep the frustration in. He desperately needed answers, and it seems like they're friend is not going to give that to them. With a new sense of resolve. Martin quickly opens a couple windows and starts typing stuff into a command prompt.

"What are you doing?" Stuart says as he noticed the scary look Martin had on his face. It wasn't exactly anger, it was more of the face of someone who has to do something he may regret.

"Just creating a remote link from this computer and my computer in the dorm. Its just to be able to run remote scans, send and receive files and running stuff just more remotely. Just to make things easier." Martin said, it was the partial truth. In reality he is going to monitor when their 'friend' is away and not monitoring the computer so Martin can really dig in. If there were others like them, there has to be some evidence left by them.

"It's starting to get late. I don't want Coach Poliakoff to kick me off the team for sneaking out." Stuart said getting his stuff ready and heading out. Alex and Violet agreed with a nod and started gathering their things. Martin on the other hand didn't respond and continued writing scripts and sending off commands.

"You don't want to get into trouble again dude. Listen to our buddy here and skedaddle out of here before it gets too dark out." Alex said with a hand on Martins shoulder. Martin stared at him for a moment, he sighed and got down from the chair and began to grab his things.

September 2, 2024, 10:35 pm

Dorms

Martin sat there at his computer, he had opened the connection to the super computer and waiting for that log out message. It seemed that Liam is very much a night owl as he stayed on for quite a while. Though not doing much. Martin thought a couple times that maybe he was away from his keyboard, so maybe he could start his search. But every time he moved his cursor towards the window to input commands on the super computer, a voice at the back of his head told him it's better to wait.

With bags under his eyes, he sat at his computer and just waited. He dozed off a couple of times, after that he came right back up and checked the logs again to see if he missed anything. After a while of waiting, he was about fed up until an alert came through, Liam had logged off.

Martin cracked his fingers before starting to get to work. He started searching for folders and subfolders. It took a while, but he found something. A script for something called a 'Skidblanir'. It seemed to look like some sort of ship, with a cockpit and multiple different smaller individual pods that had the ability to also move around individually when not docked to the primary ship. It was like the shape of a needle with an arc for wings.

'Is part of this taken from a Tom Clancy book?' It is what Martin thought, in one of his history classes he took a year ago he remembered having to study from a Tom Clancy book, only thing he could think of was the games, and not as Tom Clancy being an actual war author. Martin shook his head and dug more into the code. That's when he saw it, he saw a name he wasn't expecting. One part of the code seems to implement his mother's name. His heart began to race. His eyes darted around the code to make sure he wasn't just delirious with the amount of sleep he needs. But it keeps coming back clear, it comes back as 'Aelita'.

A beep then comes from his computer as it appears Liam had logged back in to the Super Computer, this made Martin panic as he closed all the windows, he had open. He knew with his panic of learning his own mother has something a part of this, he didn't close them quick enough. He finally closed the connection to the Super Computer, turned around in his computer swivel chair.

Martin practically jumped out of his chair and started pacing back and forth in his room, hyperventilating. He was fiddling with his hands, he felt like his heart was going to burst from his chest. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. That's all Martin knew at that time. He now had more questions than answers, what could his mom have anything to do with this?

Then another beep came from his computer, his back was against the screen of the computer. It was a beep he was familiar with. It was an instant messaging application. He felt like his heart stopped for a second. He was still alive but felt like his heart stopped, even though that one second it felt like eternity. He didn't want to see. He knew that Liam saw what he saw. Maybe he could play it off and say he was just curious what other programs were in the Super Computer that could help them out on Lyoko.

He had to be brave, he couldn't hide away from this. He had to face this fear and talk to Liam about what he had saw. Even if it's a lie, especially if it's a lie. If Liam couldn't trust them with any information, why should Martin give Liam any?

He pulled his chair back after calming down for a second. Sat down and looked at the message. It wasn't Liam, in fact it was just Alex. This made Martin let out a very heavy sigh, he was so stressed out for nothing. He laughed a bit at himself before opening the message.

"Can't sleep, want to head to the factory and to Lyoko?" Alex messaged bluntly. This did make Martin confused, but he groaned at the annoyance.

"Weren't you the one earlier trying to get me to come back to the school so we wouldn't get caught by the coach again?" Martin responded to Alex's question.

"Well gee, no one was saying anything and thought I should say something at the time. At the time I really just wanted to come back and play video games. Realized I didn't want to play any of the games I had." Alex messaged in response.

"So, you want to play a new game you can't play in your room?"

"You get it! Alright I'll meet you at the factory!"

"Slow down there buckaroo, we can't do that. This time we really could get caught by Poliakoff."

"You're no fun. I hope you know that."

"Someone has to be responsible here. This is something we can't let out of the bag. Especially if we go together, people will get suspicious."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right, you're still no fun though."

"Suck it up buttercup, don't forget that in 3rd period we have that test. Hope you studied."

"Sorry I don't understand that last word, could you explain it in gamer terms?"

"Good night, Alex."

"Night Nerd."

After the conversation had ended, Martin had felt better. He felt a whole lot of calmer, with this uncovered truth that he had found earlier. This may need to be kept to him. There's no way the others can know this information, as he doesn't even understand it himself. His own mom has something to do with this. Maybe he could subtly hint something towards her and see how she reacts. No, that would be a dumb idea.

Martin turns to look at his bed, no he wasn't focused on that. It was the poster, that damned poster. He thought this poster was dumb, for once he thought he couldn't agree that this poster felt important. This poster had given him an idea, which is weird how its just a poster of Einstein sticking his tongue out.

Moving towards his bed, he forgot he had already changed into his pjs. Took his glasses off and placed them on his desk and fell onto his bed. He knew what he needed to do. There was no way that his mom knew how to code, as she just was a musician. His dad on the other hand, he is the one who knows about Lyoko.

His dad the CEO of a big tech company, he is a giant nerd. Placed some sort of tribute or reference to his wife. That's the only explanation. Martin was going to do something he was going to regret, but knew it had to be done.

A/N: Howdy Ya'll! (Yes, let's bring some southern up in here (I am not southern.)) I am happy to say that I have kept my promise partially. I brought you guys another chapter in this series! I apologize for no action really this chapter. I felt like we haven't had any time with the original group. So, I did make this chapter more dedicated to them. And also answer any questions you guys might have in my iteration of their future.

So, I want to do something a little different here with my notes, so this is more of me speaking my thoughts and ideas of the chapter. So, for those who don't care much for these or don't want small spoilers (if there are any.) Go ahead and ignore this.

So, I've had an idea for a while about bringing Odd into this story somehow. He is one of my favorite original cast. I also always felt like in the future he turned out to be like Tony Hawk, though of course I couldn't just name drop Hawk into the story as it wouldn't make sense as Code Lyoko takes place in France and Mr. Hawk is in America. So that's kind of just what made me bring him back, at least for a chapter or 2.

One thing I do want to bring up. Something I've noticed with a lot of fanfic's I've read, they are LONG! Like multiple years of adding chapters. I don't feel like I have that much story to tell here. If you guys would like this to be a long series do, please let me know. Otherwise, I've just had like a definitive end for this, I'm not saying in like a couple chapters this thing is going to end. It might only be shorter than most fanfics. Plus, I would like to take my hand in other types of crossovers and make a story from those.

I don't know if this just feels more of like a ramble, for those who read this far, I appreciate you so much! This is my first fic in a very long time with the knowledge I have now on writing. With that I think that's the end of this chapters ramblings.

Thank you all so much for reading! Let's Get Virtualized!