Aelita got up with a weird feeling. She couldn't put her finger on what was wrong, but she felt something was up. As she was waking up, she started gaining more and more awareness of her surroundings, and that's when it clicked.
She was not in her dorm. She was standing in a pink room, in a large bed with mr. Puck at her side.
AELITA - Where am I ? How did I end up here ? And how is mr Puck with me ? None of it makes any sense.
As Aelita was starting to panic, she decided to get dressed and explore her surroundings. That's when she saw she was no longer a 12 year-old teenage girl. She was a grown adult. Fortunately this room seemed to contain clothing that fit her new body. As she was clumsily putting on a pink dress with pompoms hanging on the left side, she was trying her best not to succumb to the panick.
And then her phone rang. A phone, she was not completely sure it was her own since she never saw it before. Still her usual password let her answer the call so it had to be hers, right ?
JEREMY - Aelita ? Are you also, you know ? Grown ?
She could feel Jeremy's hesitation, he was probably has shaken as she was.
AELITA - Yes I am, what's happening ?
JEREMY - I'm not sure, but there is a tower activated on the mountain sector. I think it's XANA playing with the return to the past.
AELITA - He can do THAT now ?
Aelita went from anxiety to anger when hearing these words.
AELITA - Please tell me you can revert it ?
JEREMY - I'm sorry I have no idea, I'll have to look at the supercomputer to know.
AELITA - Anyways a tower is activated, right ? Let's call the others and meet up at the factory.
Then a thought crossed her mind. She still didn't know where she was.
AELITA - Em, Jeremy. Not that I want to bother you, but, do you have any idea where I might be right now ?
JEREMY - Give me a second, I'm triangulating your phone.
AELITA - Thanks Jeremy.
After a few seconds, the results came in: she was in the middle of the forest. More precisely she was in a fully-renovated hermitage.
Aelita rushed to the factory while calling Yumi and Odd. Jeremy did the same with William and Ulrich.
Not only did all of them grew up, it looked like everyone did.
YUMI - So, Einstein, any news ?
JEREMY - It looks like XANA has altered the return to the past function and sent all of us to the future.
YUMI - And can you fix it ?
JEREMY - Yes, and no. It looks like the program is roughly the same size so it's probably a small change, but I can't do anything right now.
AELITA - Why ? What's happening ?
JEREMY - The program is constantly being encrypted. I could use the supercomputer to decrypt it, but it's being re-encrypted too fast. Looks like that's the attack XANA launched too, I doubt he could encrypt so fast without the supercomputer.
ODD - And in french ?
AELITA - We need to go deactivate the tower if we want things to go back to normal.
JEREMY - Yes, if they can be reverted that is.
ULRICH - If ? Do you mean there is a possibility we are stuck like that ?
JEREMY - Yes, but do not worry, I doubt this will happen. I think as long as you deactivate the tower I can bring us back with a probability of 90%.
ODD - Great way to boost the morale, Einstein. Let's go then.
JEREMY - Ok boys, you go first, the ladies will follow you.
Fortunately on lyoko things had not changed much for the band. Their avatars were exactly like they used to be.
AELITA - It feels so good to be back to normal, somewhat.
Odd wanted to make one of his usual jokes, but the only ones coming to his mind involved Aelita being stuck on lyoko for years, so he hold back not to hurt his friend.
JEREMY - Great that everything is fine for you, but there is a tower to deactivate, remember ? It should be to your south. Also be careful, there are things in your way.
WILLIAM - You mean monsters ?
JEREMY - Well, kind of. I think. The truth is, I've never seen these, but they do look like monsters.
ULRICH - And how many of them ?
JEREMY - It looks like there are 3 of them.
ULRICH - Three ? That's too easy XANA.
YUMI - Be careful, we don't know what these are capable of.
But Ulrich and Wiliam were barely listening. They were already charging up.
YUMI - Of course they would...
Standing in front of Ulrich and William were 3 creatures they had never seen before. They looked like giant ladybugs, except every black spot on their back was an eye of XANA. As soon as the boys saw those they started rushing in.
Ulrich approached the creature quickly and jumped on its back. "Impact" he yelled as he was thrusting his sword inside the ladybug's body. He hit the center of one of the eyes with astonishing precision. The creature however, barely seemed to notice. As Ulrich jumped back from the creature's back, anticipating an explosion, the ladybug fired a laser right at him and devirtualized him. The monster was still standing.
WILLIAM - Eh, looks like I win then.
William willed his sword into existence and rushed to the ladybug Ulrich had attacked to slice through it. His zweihander was stopped on the bug's hard shell and didn't slice through anything. He quickly jumped away as he heard a laser being fired. Unfortunately the bug had fired exactly where William would jump and he was devirtualized as well.
JEREMY - Great, 2 down and not a single of these has been destroyed. What even are those ?
AELITA - They look like some kind of ladybug.
ULRICH - They have a lot of XANA's eyes on their backs, and hitting a single one was not enough.
JEREMY - They probably have one of them be their weak point, and the others be simple baits. You will probably need to hit most of those to go through.
AELITA - Do you have any idea how to locate the correct one ?
JEREMY - Unfortunately no, they all look the same to me.
YUMI - I have a plan. I'll be the bait. Aelita, carry Odd with your wings, when you are up there, fire all of the laser arrows you can.
ODD - Jeremy, can I have a preemptive refill, I wouldn't want to run out of these at the worst time.
JEREMY - Than plan is risky, I'm not sure it's a great idea. You are refilled Odd though.
ODD - Thanks Jeremy.
AELITA - Do we have a choice though ? We can't just not deactivate the tower. Especially since we don't know what XANA could be doing in the past, right ?
Here was the thing everybody was thinking about, but nobody wanted to say. The truth is, none of them really understood what was going on, and it is very possible they are in danger in the past.
JEREMY - Ok, you have a point. But please, be careful.
YUMI - We will.
And so the three friends started their plan. While Yumi sent one of her fans and kept the second one to block the bugs' lasers, Aelita started carrying Odd upwards. The bugs started shooting Yumi, who blocked every shot perfectly. She blocked her third shot when Odd started firing. Unfortunately the bugs noticed him and shot him, making him disappear in a myriad blue pannels.
On the other hand, Yumi kept blocking shots, until her fan broke under the lasers and she was sent back to the scanners.
Aelita barely had the time to finish the bug Odd attacked with an energy field before running away. She was alone now.
AELITA - What do we do Jeremy ?
JEREMY - I'm afraid you are alone. I can send you the overwing if you want, but I'm not sure it's going to be so effective against those bugs.
AELITA - No, the are very fast, speeding past them won't work...
Aelita was thinking about a plan, but it was dangerous.
AELITA - Jeremy ? Remember that idea we had if we were in a bad spot ?
JEREMY - Aelita, no, it's too dangerous, we have not tested it yet, and more importantly, even with that I highly doubt you're killing those two ladybugs.
AELITA - Do we have a choice ? Until we deactivate the tower we can't even know what XANA can be doing in the past. We need to try.
JEREMY - And what about the monsters ? What are you going to do about them ?
AELITA - I have an idea, but you'll need to trust me.
JEREMY - Ok, Aelita, I trust you.
YUMI - What are you doing ?
JEREMY - I am going to reroute the energy of a tower to Aelita's avatar. This should make her powerful, but not invulnerable.
YUMI - So you're going to be playing with XANA's own tools ? That seems risky ? What if XANA takes control of the tower like he already did ?
JEREMY - These are not XANA's tools.
YUMI - And about XANA taking control of the tower ?
JEREMY - We'll have to pray...
AELITA - Jeremy, I'm ready.
JEREMY - Ok Aelita, transfer in 3, 2, 1, now
When Jeremy pressed the key, a huge energy started flowing towards Aelita.
JEREMY - Aelita, are you ok ?
There was no answer.
After a short while, Jeremy could hear a voice
AELITA - I'm ok Jeremy, it worked.
Jeremy sighed in sign of relief.
JEREMY - Good to hear that Aelita.
However, Jeremy was not prepared to see Aelita just walk through the ladybugs.
JEREMY - Aelita, what are you doing ? Are you crazy ?
But there was no answer. He could only watch the small point on his screen be attacked by lasers and disappear.
AELITA - It worked Jeremy, I'm inside the tower.
JEREMY - Aelita ? What did you do ?
AELITA - Sorry, I needed to keep my focus in order to fly and generate a clone at the same time, even with the energy.
JEREMY - Aelita, you are a genius.
A few seconds later, Aelita had deactivated the tower and was back with everyone in the lab.
AELITA - So, how is it going ?
ODD - We're still recovering from your little trick, but appart from that, fine I guess ?
JEREMY - I should be able to reverse the process, just a few more things to check and we should be good.
As Jeremy typed the command, everyone hold their breaths.
A few moments later, Aelita found herself back in her room, next to mr Puck, in her bed. It worked. Half an hour later the whole group was at the cafeteria taking their breakfasts.
ODD - Couldn't you have rewound one less day Einstein ? We have a math exam today, remember ?
JEREMY - Sorry Odd, you'll have to take this one for the team. Joke aside, I found something that could be useful while you were on lyoko, it's a fragment of a program to consolidate the skid, I ran a few tests and it should make it more durable if XANA tries to attack it.
AELITA - Nice job, Jeremy.
ODD - I would have liked a program to make me good at math better, but I guess it's better than nothing...
