We all huddled around the white room as Daze and I explained what we saw. "That checks out our theory then," Kyoko said. "We think that Anthea's living somewhere in the digital sea, like Franz Hopper once was."
"But she would've needed a scanner or an interface to get to Lyoko. She didn't come here, did she?" Daze asked.
"The cortex also has scanners," Rick explained. "That's how the ninjas went to Lyoko."
"Are you saying that the ninjas are actual people?" I asked.
"Scanners, digital entity, everything seems to fit together," Alex said. "Only question is... why? Why now? Why not twenty years ago?"
No one had an answer, except Skylar. "She may have lost her memory. You remember what happened to Yumi and I, right? Her memory was stolen in the novels too."
"And how did she get them back?" Alex continued.
Skylar shrugged. "Your guess is an good as mine. My guess is that she just found the memory snatching machine and used it on herself after seeing that some of her memories were kept in there."
We all nodded, but nothing felt right. We were missing something. How did grandma know so much about me? And why us?
"As for the messages," Skylar continued. "She's activating towers somewhere, maybe an undetected replika that doesn't need a complex supercomputer or maybe on Lyoko. We don't know."
"We just need to wait for XANA to analyse the digital sea." We sat in silence as we waited. I stood up.
"Let's go to the factory, our parents are there. Something interesting might happen." No on argued so we all went to the factory. As we pulled out our scooters and skateboards from the pathway's sidewalk, a ring was heard from my electric watch. "Oh it's XANA. It's messaging me from the computers main interface." I remembered who was at the interface. "Oh no. It's XANA. My parents will see the message! Let's go!"
The shrill of the wheels against the pavement was deafening and the panting in my heart made it worse. We hadn't thought this far. When we reached the ladder to the factory above, Alex stopped me. "We need a plan."
He was right. We couldn't just storm in with no plan or idea. "What do we do?" Kyoko asked.
"There's a big chance we'll all get grounded, so we need to hide that secret scanner in the white room," Rick said.
"Then if we distract them for long enough, I could activate a tower and create an illusion to make it seem like there's not a hole in the wall."
"Activate a tower, like XANA?" Daze questioned.
"Yeah," Skylar nodded. "And if anything goes wrong, launch a return to the past, alright?"
"That wouldn't do anything," Kyoko said. "Except buy us some time. And then what?"
What to do... my mind couldn't come up with an answer. "Should we... should we tell our parents everything? Everything but the secret scanner?" I didn't know what else to do. I looked over to Skylar, who was deep in thought.
"You sure?" she finally asked. "This won't end well, you know. They may have already destroyed the cortex."
"It's worth a shot," Alex nodded. We all headed down the ropes as Skylar and Alex were left behind in the sewers. When the lab doors opened, we were greeted with a cold stare.
"Mind telling us why you're communicating XANA?" he asked, getting straight to the point. "Actually, save it til your mother comes back."
"Dad... XANA's been helping us search the network for grandma."
"Way to sugarcoat the situation," Rick whispered.
"Do you think that XANA wouldn't betray you?" he asked, standing up from his seat. He didn't seem to care that Skylar and Alex were missing.
"It won't betray us," Kyoko interrupted. "We made a deal. We went to the cortex and-"
"You went to the cortex?!" Dad retorted.
"Will you just listen to us?" I screamed. "Let us explain! We're doing this for mum! We want her to see grandma, and I'm willing to do everything I can for mum!"
Kyoko and Rick seemed to pick up on the tense atmosphere. They charged towards Dad, punching him in the stomach and knocking him out with great force. Daze and I watched the screen as the screen docked. We de-energised them, in case something went wrong then, "Return to the past, now!"
A flash of white light filled the room before we find ourselves back in the white room.
We immediately rushed around. The activated tower was already in affect as the wall was no longer broken. We put everything back to it's original place, hiding our trail before heading back up to the main living room. To make things even for believable, we grabbed all our notes, the Lyoko diary and the board with all of our clues back up, lying it clearly in hidden view. We hid them just so it looked like we were in a rush and slipped up.
As the parents all crowded in the living room, we were all agitated. I was an expert at getting out of situations, so was Alex, but the others? Not so much. Though Skylar seemed to be a pro at acting.
"Explain yourselves," Odd went.
"Dad," Rick began. "We already have. We're simply looking for Anthea Schaffer. But we need peace and quiet. Is that too much to ask?"
"Yeah, it is," Ulrich went.
"But... we have a lead! We think Anthea's on a virtual world somewhere and she activated a tower to get in touch with Mrs Hertz!"
"She got in touch with Mrs Hertz?" Mum questioned.
"Whoops. I forgot we didn't tell them that either. I think we should start over and tell them everything. Right guys?" Kyoko eyed us.
"Sure..." Skylar nodded. She definitely had some sort of plan. She pulled out the giant board we had hidden. "This is everything we know. Feel free to ask any questions."
Dad seemed skeptical to trust her, probably because despite the same appearance, Skylar and Ruby were not the same person. Ruby had morals, Skylar didn't.
"As you can see, we promised XANA that he would find out about itself if it found Anthea."
"You think my mother has the answer?" Mum asked.
"No. I have it. I know exactly who XANA is and what he is to Lyoko. But as always..."
"You won't reveal anything," Odd finished. They all frowned. Yumi hid behind Ulrich, which made me almost forget that she was here.
"But we do know where the memories are," I blurted out. "The men in black have them. The FBI. If we're lucky, we should be able to get them back through Major Steinback or Mrs Hertz."
"She went back into hiding though," Kyoko nodded. "So this is the only plan we have. If Anthea was able to get in touch with Mrs Hertz, then she may be able to do it again, if we get lucky."
"Are you sure that it'll work?" Ulrich asked. It seemed as if he didn't fully understand, but seemed on board.
"Absolutely," Daze confirmed. "Please believe us!"
They seemed worried but ultimately said: "sure, but we'll be splitting tasks, and you're all grounded." Skylar shrugged. This was all part of her plan, whatever it was.
YOU ARE READING
Code Lyoko: Reincarnated, twenty years later
Science Fiction(This is a part two- but you don't have to read part 1 if you don't want to.) Never thought there would be a part two. It's been twenty two years since the Lyoko Warriors shut down the supercomputer. I was a reincarnated Lyoko fan who got live out...
