Code Lyoko: Reincarnated, twenty years later

Chapter 20- XANA's offer

We slowly headed in, Daze, Rick and Skylar walked in front, wit my curiosity sparkling in their eyes. Skylar skipped to a hexagon shaped platform. She digitalised and disappeared. "Skylar! Alex, what happened to her?"

"She's fine, she just teleported to somewhere else. You'd better do the same."

We all stood on the platform and teleported. "Took you long enough," Skylar smiled. "Look." She pointed over the ledge of the platform. Floating in the middle was a glowing pink and white sphere, supported by these grey structures.

We were standing on the highest platform. Flowing Skylar's point we followed her gaze, to see a platform with a circular interface. She jumped down on the platform to the left of us. "What are you waiting for? An invitation?"

Daze stared at his hands again, then her places them on the floor. He glowed white and a light blue bridge of light connected the platform we were on with the platform with the interface. He reluctantly stepped on it.

We did the same and followed him down. "This is so cool!" Kyoko the yellow ninja said.

"That's cheating!" Skylar screamed, stomping her foot. She jumped down to another platform.

I placed my hand on the interface. "What do you see?" Alex asked.

The interface expanded and I began to get to work. "This is incredible..." I muttered. "This supercomputer is a lot like Lyoko!"

"Figures," Skylar said when she finally arrived. "Tyron was your father's assistant. And we got some company." She took out her axe. "A tarantula, krab and block. Keep working on the interface, Mia."

I turned back and dug around for anything. "I can't find anything that can help us! This is not going to work."

"We need another plan!" Rick screamed. "Has anyone ever tried talking to XANA's monsters?"

"XANA! We just want to talk!" Kyoko shouted at the tarantula in front of her. The monster stopped firing. She let out a sigh of relief. "We have a proposal to make, so just hear us out."

In the distance, I saw that Rick had placed a hand on the block and somehow teleported back to the platform Daze and I were on. "Oh. I get it. Shortcut. It made a shortcut from there to here. I love this. I can now take shortcuts from one place to another!"

Daze cleared his throat. "Anyway, XANA. We're willing to tell you all we know about you in order to find Anthea on the web."

The monsters didn't do anything. "I'm getting a message from XANA," Alex informed. "I know. I was created by Franz Hopper," he read aloud. "But I don't know my purpose. Who am I?"

"XANA sounds almost... human," Kyoko noted.

Skylar's face became rigid but I didn't bring it up. "You were originally created to protect Lyoko."

"Why am I attached to this world then?"

No one had an answer. "Anthea Schaffer probably has the answer." We all turned to Skylar. "If you help us find her, we could both get answers."

"And what if she doesn't have the answers?"

"Then I'm willing to jump into the digital sea. And you can get rid of me for good."

We all stared at her. "What? Are you out of your mind?" Daze screamed.

"You have a better idea? No one knows an awful lot of about XANA to give it anymore information." No one said anything. "So, XANA, do we have a deal?"

"We do," Alex read. "But I won't let you go to Lyoko if that's your intent."

"He's right," Rick said. "We're more than willing to shut down the supercomputer if you intend to jump into the digital sea. Right, Mia?"

"Yeah. I want to find grandma, but we'll find some other way."

"That settles things then," Kyoko said, crossing her arms. "XANA will find Anthea. And we'll do some more exploring at the Hermitage. We're bound to find some answers."

"We will." We all turned to Skylar once again. "There's one more secret of the Hermitage that I can absolutely confirm it's existence. The only question is, should we tell Aelita?"

We all exchanged glances. "This again?" Rick groaned. "Of course we should tell her, it's her house!"

"Will it reveal anything new?" Daze asked.

"Not really. But it will show the story from Franz Hopper's perspective. I want some of us to look into that. I also want some of us to look into how Anthea is in the network, and how she was able to get in contact with us and Mrs Hertz."

"Do you think she activated a tower?" Daze asked.

"No, the superscan would have picked up on that."

"What about a replika of mine?" Alex read aloud.

"You still have some replikas?" Skylar questioned. "I suppose we'll have to search them. Do you... by any chance, happen to have a replika in snowy places? Like Switzerland and Canada?"

"Yes."

"Then that's where you should start. The Schaeffers used to live in a snowy region back in the 80s."

"I will do that."

"Then, Daze, Alex and I will go to the Hermitage," I volunteered.

"That leave us with figuring out how Anthea contacted us." Kyoko and Rick nodded at Skylar. "We're not going to let you disappear."

"I now we have to go home, we have a lot of work to do. For starters, we need to go back to the top platform," Rick said. As if on cue, he glitched away.

"Rick!?" Kyoko screamed. "Where'd he go?"

"I'm over here!" A voice called from above. We saw that he was standing on the top platform.

"How'd you get up there?" I asked.

"He took a shortcut to another place," Alex noted, remembering Rick's power.

"I'm loving this more and more!"