Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko or any of its characters. They are merely the tools that I'm borrowing to craft the products of my imagination.

Chapter Four: Revelation

Yumi blocked a shot from the manta. The Lyoko warriors were outside the celestial sphere, guarding Aelita who was working at the interface. The aforementioned monster came closer and got a tessen fan in the back for its efforts. The manta screeched in pain and swooped past, exploding into pixels.

Yumi caught her fan and turned to Aelita. "I've got a bad feeling about this, are you almost done Aelita?" "Yes, almost," replied the elf, tapping at the interface. A manta dove towards Ulrich who dodged, then carved a path in the monster's back. It screamed and flew towards Odd, mad with pain, who fired three laser arrows at it. The manta was finished off by an energy bolt from Victor.

"Careful, another squadron of mantas is headed your way," Jeremy warned. Aelita gave a last swipe and looked up with a satisfied smile. "Done, the controls are all yours Jeremy." The genius entered some commands and the three vehicles appeared, joined by a forest green, crescent shaped jet. Victor was first onto his Overjet, followed by the others. They dodged the mantas attacks, headed for the gateway.

The dataflow between the celestial sphere and the rest of Lyoko dimmed, then faded away. "Alright," said Jeremy. "The passage is open." Once his team were safely out, he heaved a small sigh of relief and devirtualized them.

xXoXx

"So," Aelita began when Jeremy from the supercomputer's terminal. "Anything good?"

"I wouldn't call it good," the genius replied. "More like amazing. With this, I bet I can crack the code of Franz Hopper's diary."

"The only problem is that I'll need a supercomputer to process such a large amount of data," Aelita mused. "I'll have to activate a tower or two."

Yumi frowned. "Uh, that didn't go very well last time. X.A.N.A hates it when we play with his toys."

"I know," Jeremy replied. "But we don't have a choice."

"Right, can we go eat now," Odd said, rubbing his hands eagerly. "It's mashed potatoes today."

"You can have mine," the genius offered. "I better stay here to prep the mission. That way you can set out after lunch."

-PROFILE CARD: JEREMY-

The lunch lady dumped the greyish looking mess onto Odd's tray and made to move on. "Jeremy's not coming. He said I could have his portion too, Rosa."

Rosa studied him, then added some more with a smile. "With everything you put away I don't see how you can still be so... Scrawny."

"I am not scrawny," said the acrobat. "I'm svelte." And with that out of the way, Odd seized his food tray and marched eagerly to their table.

"So come on Ulrich, stop holding out on us. What was your overall average?" Asked Odd, taking a generous helping of potatoes and shoving it into his mouth.

"73, for the term," replied the samurai grumpily.

"Really, I got 75," Odd replied, talking another helping. "I beat you."

"Only because you made up some points in art class," Ulrich snapped. "What about you guys?" This was directed towards Victor and Aelita who had been observing the exchange with puzzled amusement.

Aelita swallowed her potatoes. "95.2"

The two boys stared at them in shock. "But it's only because of Math," Victor clarified.

"Still," Ulrich began, impressed. "You must have gotten good grades in all your classes. That's great Aelita, considering..." He paused, suddenly aware of what he had almost said. "That's okay. I know I'm not really human," Aelita said. "But still, what with my dreams and everything, it all feels so familiar. Like I've lived here before. Weird huh."

The others had nothing to say to this statement and simply shrugged and went back to their meals.

xXoXx

As the team were exiting the cafeteria after lunch, Odd's phone beeped and he got a text. "Hey, looks like a girl wants to meet with me in the woods." "Really?", Aelita asked surprised. "Who?"

"The number's masked," Odd replied. "Anyway, its obvious it's just another girl who's too shy to admit she's crazy about me."

"Don't go," Victor said at once. Odd frowned. "Why?"

The African looked around at them. "Am I the only one who thinks that this is just a little bit suspicious?"

"But Victor," Aelita began. "There hasn't been a X.A.N.A attack in months..."

"My point exactly. I think its a trap."

"Well, I think," Odd scowled. "That you're just jealous."

"What," said Victor, stupefied.

"When was the last time a mystery girl called you?"

"What girl in their right mind would ever call you?"

"Goodbye," Odd said firmly, stomping off.

Victor's face darkened but he said nothing and went away. Ulrich and Aelita stared at each other. "What just happened?"

-PROFILE CARD: ODD-

Jeremy was interrupted by the superscan prompt. "Oh boy, just what I needed, an activated tower." He dialed Ulrich's number.

The samurai picked up the phone. "Yeah Jeremy. Oh okay. We're on our way." He cut the call and turned to were Aelita and Victor were sitting. "X.A.N.A's attacking, you tell Yumi, I'll tell Odd." Aelita nodded and produced her phone from her pocket.

xXoXx

Odd ran through the woods, an eager expression on his face. Despite Victor's jealous warnings, his enthusiasm wasn't the worse for it at all. He knew it was only a matter of time before a girl realized and appreciated his unique qualities.

The purple haired boy came to a halt at the crossroads. "Hello, are you there? its me, Odd," he called, looking around. His phone beeped once and Odd glanced at the text. "S.O.S X.A.N.A? No way, not now!" He complained. A shadow darted past suddenly and Odd turned round quickly, but there was nothing there. He looked around warily, Victor's warnings suddenly seeming much more serious. The shadow slithered silently towards him, then lunged.

xXoXx

The elevator door opened and the rest of the Lyoko warriors appeared. "Where's Odd?" Jeremy asked.

"He went to go see a mystery girl," Ulrich answered.

"What mystery girl?"

"Does it matter?" Victor snapped. "He's not here either way." Jeremy raised an eyebrow, to which the rest of the gang shook their heads at, like 'stay out of it.' "I hope he won't be much longer. Not only do you need to decode Franz Hopper's diary, you also need to deactivate the tower."

The genius turned back to the supercomputer terminal as the others descended and tried Odd's number again, but there was no answer.

"Odd's not answering, forget him for now."

"That's the best thing you've said since we got here," Victor sulked. "I'm launching the program now," Jeremy went on, ignoring the African.

"Transfer Aelita"

"Transfer Ulrich"

"Scanner Aelita"

"Scanner Ulrich"

"Virtualization"

Victor and Yumi were just entering the tubes when the door opened and Odd entered. He headed straight for the free tube, ignoring his teammates.

"Odd, thank goodness. Where were you?" Jeremy asked.

"I was busy," said Odd, his voice strangely detached.

"Well, okay then, Transfer Yumi,"

"Transfer Victor,"

"Transfer Odd,"

"Scanner Yumi"

"Scanner Victor"

"Scanner Odd"

"Virtualization!"

Suddenly an error message appeared around Odd's icon. "Odd?" Jeremy called worriedly.

"Everything's okay, I'm on Lyoko," said Fake Odd, landing gracefully on the mountain sector.

"There was a bug during the transfer," Jeremy complained. "No way." And as if to add on to Jeremy's confusion, the tower deactivated itself. Jeremy alerted the gang.

"Huh, are you sure?" Yumi asked. "The superscan shows all clear. As if X.A.N.A has called off his attack."

"Well that's one less thing for us to worry about," said Ulrich. "Right Odd?"

"Right," said Fake Odd with unconcern. The samurai stared at him strangely. What's up with him? Is he sulking or something?"

"Maybe his rendezvous didn't go well," Aelita suggested. Victor scowled and turned away from the acrobat. "Looks like there's two of them," Yumi observed.

"Here are your rides, the tower I've chosen is 72 degrees south and 55 degrees west." The heroes took off and soon caught sight of the tower. It was surrounded by rock on almost all sides. They disembarked and Aelita ran to the tower. She floated up and brought up the interface. "Okay Jeremy, I'm ready."

"Alright, I'm activating the tower... Now"

A new window popped up, cycled, then started loading. On Lyoko, the tower turned green.

"Yeah! Its working," Jeremy cheered. "The decoding of the diary is underway, but it might take sometime," Aelita said, working on her interface.

"No problem, whenever X.A.N.A leaves us in peace, everything's fine." The genius paused. "To think, we could have decoded this long before, if we had thought to use the supercomputer." He was interrupted from his musings by an alarm. Three monster icons were rapidly approaching his team.

"Heads up," Jeremy warned. "X.A.N.A's monsters headed your way."

The gang turned around to observe the trio of tarantulas charging at them. "Wow, X.A.N.A's pulled out the big guns," Ulrich commented, unsheathing his katana. Yumi produced her fans and Fake Odd took aim at the monsters.

Just as Victor was preparing to launch an energy bolt, laser arrows slammed into him, and a split second later, Yumi and devirtualized them both.

"Jeremy," said Ulrich. "X.A.N.A's taken over Odd."

Fake Odd began to fire rapidly at the samurai, who expertly blocked all of the shots. He leaped over the acrobat and took off with his Overbike.

xXoXx

Water trickled from an open tap, down into a drain where the real Odd lay unconscious. He woke up with a start and looked up at the grating above him. Then, with a grunt, Odd started to climb. But the walls were too slippery and wet, and he came crashing back down. Odd sighed.

Assuming he got out of this alive, he'd never hear the end of it from Victor. This, of course, was also assuming that the African would even talk to him again. The thought bothered Odd a lot more than he thought it would. Well, he thought. Only one way to find out.

Gritting his teeth, Odd attempted the climb again.

-PROFILE CARD: ULRICH-

The three tarantulas went to the tower and took up positions there, leaving Ulrich to the polymorphic spectre. "Ulrich," said Jeremy suddenly. "Its a trap. The spectre is trying to lead you away from the tower on purpose."

The samurai dodged another attack by the pursuing Odd. "But why?"

"Jeremy," Aelita interrupted. "What's going on?"

"Abort the mission Aelita. Stop decoding and come back to earth. X.A.N.A's trying to take over the tower." Jeremy called Victor. "Where are you two?"

"We're in the woods. No sign of Odd yet," the African replied. "I managed to hack one of the emergency telephone lines closest to Odd's phone," the genius began.

"You can do that?" Victor asked, amazed.

"Of course I can. Anyway, if Odd still has his phone on him, then he's in the northeast corner of the woods."

"That's near the Hermitage," said Victor, beckoning Yumi to follow. "We're off."

"Jeremy, I can't stop the decoding program," Aelita said. "Its taking up too many resources. Its out of my control."

"Bad news. If X.A.N.A manages to take control of the tower now, he'll be able to gain access into the restricted part of the supercomputer. I could lose all the data in Franz Hopper's diary."

"Not to mention everything you've programmed in yourself. Our combat gear, the vehicles, the transfer codes... And my materialization program."

Jeremy looked horrified. "Ulrich! X.A.N.A's about to take control of the tower. You have to stop it."

"Right," said the samurai. "Okay. But how?"

"You have to isolate the tower. Try and cut the cables. Hurry!"

Ulrich made a hard turn and charged straight for the tower. The tarantulas attacked, unleashing a storm of lasers; but Ulrich blocked them all and back flipped off his Overbike, crushing one monster with it. He landed on the head of the second one and stabbed it to death.

The samurai jumped off and made for the cable, but was stopped by laser fire from Fake Odd. "You're wasting your time X.A.N.A, Odd has never beaten me in a fight yet."

Fake Odd considered this, then in a flash of light, turned into Negative Ulrich. Ulrich was stunned. "Yeah, well... Okay... Yeah, that... Changes things," he stuttered.

Negative Ulrich smirked, then charged forward and the two swords met, sparks flying.

xXoXx

Victor and Yumi got to the specified location, but seeing no signs of Odd, dialed his number. It started to ring, and they found it lying abandoned on the ground. Victor face looked incredibly worried. "Odd?!"

xXoXx

The tower slowly stared to turn red. Jeremy was fidgeting badly. "Aelita. Is there anything new?" He asked, biting a finger.

"There's no way to stop the program," said the elf sadly, tapping the stubborn STOP icon. "Everything's buggy."

xXoXx

The tarantula started to fire and to avoid fighting a battle on two fronts, Ulrich supersprinted away. But Negative Ulrich had the same ability and he gave chase. And so what followed was an incredibly fast and acrobatic battle that was awe inspiring to watch. The two came down from an aerial sword clash and stared each other down.

Negative Ulrich rushed forward, dodged a slash from Ulrich and snatched the sword from him. Ulrich back flipped away and stared at his suddenly empty hand. "Hey! No fair!"

xXoXx

The water had now risen to a much higher level, and it had lifted Odd to the grates. He made an attempt to lift it, failed and started calling for help. Victor and Yumi heard something, then started running towards the Hermitage.

-PROFILE CARD: AELITA-

"X.A.N.A's about take control of the tower. Ulrich. What are you doing?" Asked Jeremy waspishly.

"I just got..." replied Ulrich, dodging Negative Ulrich's slashes. "One last little thing to take care of." He leaped forward for a surprise attack, but Negative Ulrich kicked him away.

He landed hard, then bounced to his feet, making a come hither gesture with his hand. The spectre raised an eyebrow, then charged. Like lightning, Ulrich snatched back his sword and proceeded to absolutely stab the clone to death.

Ulrich sheathed his sword and supersprinted back to the tower. "I'm all done Jeremy."

"Make it fast," said the genius. "We're almost out of time."

The samurai stopped, then raised his katana in a motion to slice through the cable. He never did. He was struck several times by the last tarantula and faded away into wireframes.

"Ulrich!" Jeremy screamed, then hung his head in defeat.

xXoXx

"Odd!"

"Yumi, Victor I'm here!" Odd shouted.

The duo frowned, hearing nothing, but when they turned to leave they noticed the running water. Victor turned off the tap, then noticed Odd's arms poking out from the grate.

"Odd? Odd!"

The African ran to the grate and tried to wrench it free, but it stubbornly refused to cooperate.

xXoXx

The elevator opened and Ulrich stepped forward, exhausted. "X.A.N.A's about to steal all my data," Jeremy said despondently. "We're done for."

And suddenly, the tower turned white.

"Hey!" Aelita said, when the bugs vanished from her interface.

"What's going on?" Asked the genius, new life entering him. "I don't get it."

"It looks like X.A.N.A has lost control of the tower."

"Franz Hopper," said Jeremy in sudden realization. "Franz Hopper's helping us. What's going on your side?"

"The decoding program... Is going full speed," Aelita answered smiling. The window representing the program began to load at an astonishing rate and the supercomputer glowed with power.

xXoXx

Yumi hurried forward and between the two of them, pried open the grate. Odd was seized by the neck and dragged out to dry land, where he began to take great gulps of life saving air.

"You know, no girl has ever kept me waiting that long," Odd croaked. Victor smiled. "I'm not a girl."

Yumi frowned. "What am I, invisible?"

"I'm really sorry for what I said earlier, forgive me?" Odd asked, smiling roguishly as if Yumi hadn't spoken. Victor stared at him, then smiled at little. "Yeah, I'm sorry too."

Yumi was watching them with a smile. "You know, you two are really cute together."

Odd blushed, but he didn't take his eyes off of Victor's, who was staring right back. And even though his heart was behaving strangely, the acrobat didn't care about that at all.

xXoXx

The tower turned green and the glow faded after the decoding finished. The tarantula screamed, then walked dejectedly away. Aelita watched the data streaming through her interface. "Amazing," she said.

Jeremy called Yumi. "Yeah I've got Odd. How about you?" She asked.

"The decoding is done."

-PROFILE CARD: JEREMY-

The gang was gathered in Jeremy and Victor's room. "Franz Hopper was the creator of X.A.N.A," Jeremy began. "In his diary, he wrote down everything that happened in the creation of Lyoko. Everything."

"That means you'll be able to find the antivirus," said Aelita.

"Yeah. It does. But there's something more..."

"What? Come on, spit it out," Ulrich demanded.

"Well, before Franz Hopper virtualized himself on Lyoko, and before being taken prisoner by X.A.N.A, he lived here on earth."

"We already know that," Yumi said.

"Yes, but... What we didn't know... Is that he a child... A little girl." Jeremy looked around the room, but only Victor seemed to have made the connection.

"Really?" Said Odd. "What became of her?"

"He virtualized her on Lyoko at the same time as himself."

"And?" Yumi urged. "Did she fall victim to X.A.N.A too?"

"No," said the genius. "She stayed on Lyoko."

The gang made wondering sounds, but Aelita frowned. "But that's impossible, if Hopper's daughter were on Lyoko I would have definitely known... I..."

Aelita's outburst seemed to have been the catalyst the rest of the gang needed to catch on. Aelita was thunderstruck.

"I'm... Not..."

Jeremy smiled and nodded.

"Huh..."

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Like and Review?

Update: It just occured to me that some of you might be waiting for my permission before sending me a PM and/or leaving a review with your suggestions for the story. And if you are, that's incredibly silly of you. I would love to see your ideas, and I would definitely use them as long as it dosen't clash with the vague path I am envisioning for this story.

So what are you still waiting for? Send me your ideas at once!

P.S: It also has the side benefit of reassuring me that anyone is reading this story and is becoming invested in it.

In the meantime, peace, from Africa.