Chapter 1: Secrets

Author's Note Part 1: So welcome to my newest plot bunny guys! Granted, this one is a re-written version of my "Code: John" story that I wrote a while back, for a number of reasons. So really, I'm not adding onto my stories, so much as replacing one. The first reason this is a rewrite is the fact that over the past few years of writing, I feel like I've managed to advance in the field as I continue, and because of this I realize that many of my previous stories lacked a lot of things. A few key points being description and detail, making conversations more realistic, and of course the spelling and grammar that was present in them.

Not only that, but complete lack of backstories for my characters was present too. And I don't mean the kind where their story is revealed to you over time like I now have a tendency to do. No, I mean that my characters lacked backstory completely, since I had absolutely no idea what made them who they were. That especially applies to my previous version of this, since my backstory on my character went as far as, "He's adopted by parents that don't really want him, and because of this he lives alone while going to Kadic and being obsessed with the zombie apocalypse, all the while thinking that Aelita may be his long lost older sister from his adoptive family he had when he was young."… Yeah, not a very good backstory, is it?

Anyways, another thing about the previous version of this. Again, focusing on my character and his role in the story. See, when writing out the previous version, I had my character paired with Yumi, which as you can tell from the summary, I'm doing again. However, I realized as I starting writing out the former version of this re-write (which I didn't post) that I made my character too OP for no reason. What I mean by this is that as explained earlier, I had no "real" backstory for him, and thus it made it so that for all the "power" he had in the previous version that was posted, he had no explanation for just how he got that power.

Because of that, I've changed the story a bit, mainly my OC, and as a result, I've gotten a version that's pretty similar to the previous story, but has a lot more detail and description present, along with a few more twists and turns. Not only that, but I plan to have my character contribute more to the story than my previous version, since all he really did in that one was take the place of different characters at different times, and basically paraphrase what they would've said, or even state the same lines word for word. So, with all this being explained, I suppose that I can give you a brief summary of what's going on in this story, just to go over it, as well as explain some things that I haven't said yet in an easier way.

- All the Lyoko warriors (and main character students) are going to be 16 (With the exception of my OC who's 18 for reasons, as well as those two reporter girls, since they're just gonna be a few years older than canon to make things work.), and present in their Sophomore year in Kadic Academy, even though Yumi is going to mainly have different classes than the others, except for a few that she shares with either the rest of them, or just a few.

- Yumi and my OC will already know each other from freshman year and hang out with each other from time to time.

- Ulrich will already have a "girlfriend", although the most you'll hear about her is in passing when Ulrich mentions her to his friends… Although after reading another Fanfiction, I might actually make it so that he gets with Emily or whatever her name is… I'm gonna need to watch through Season 1 again.

- Because of how the episodes in the first season go, I will be changing their order around quite a bit, especially when it helps to advance the plot in a way that I like it, as well as to keep things going in a way that's understandable.

(For example, that episode halfway through the first season when it says that the Lyoko Warriors had been helping Aelita for a year already, and then for the rest of the series, only around another year and a half or two years passes. With that being said, I'll probably make the first season last a year, and then have the others take place over the course of around half a year each.)

- As you can probably tell from the categories that I've placed this in, my character will have seen some shit. And that shit started when he was 14. So, the timeline of that canon will have changed slightly as well so that it takes place during the modern times instead of six years into the future… I'm sure this also explains why he's 18 but only in sophomore year…

- Lyoko Physics will apply to this story. And by that, I mean a more nerfed version of Anime Physics, since even though Code: Lyoko is pretty good on keeping things realistic, there are still those few situations that occur in the "real world" that wouldn't be possible if the show wasn't an anime. So, with that in mind, expect a few "unrealistic" things to happen in this while they're still on Earth.

Now, I've actually placed down a lot of information in this summary, so don't be surprised if you end up reading this paragraph in confusion because there are only a few lines. Chances are that I'm gonna end up moving half of this to a separate work to remember the ideas, but not spoil them for you yet. With that being said, I guess that concludes this first Author's Note, which has reached over 1,000 words in length (the current version at least).

So, without further delay, I give you the first chapter of "Code: Start!"

P.s. After starting to write this out, I realized something. For now, it seems like the focus will be on the other Lyoko Warriors. Though with my writing style, don't be surprised if soon enough I focus more on my OC…

P.s.s. Another thing that I just thought of that I probably didn't think of when I wrote out my last version. In canon, the Lyoko warriors are in 8th grade, which means that they're presumably 13 (With the exception of Yumi, who would be 14). Now, I'm currently 18, which is part of the reason that I've made them older, since it will help me have a better mindset while writing them out. However, I've now made them 16 and 18, meaning that they've already gone through (or are nearly done with going through) puberty… Yeah, I probably should've thought that out, since that's going to affect their physical appearance a quite a bit, especially when it applies to Yumi, Sissi, Samantha, Emily, Aelita and a few others… Oh well, guess I'll just have to burn that bridge when I come to it.

P.s.s.s. Alright, one last thing that I only just noticed about the show. Despite it being an anime, all the characters have the dot-for-pupil eyes, at least while they're on earth. Because of this, I'll be changing it around slightly, and giving each character an eye color that I feel works with them, unless I find out they have an actual eye color on the wiki. And because Code Lyoko is "more" of an anime than SAO due to the fact that Code Lyoko can have unnaturally occurring colored hair, as shown by Aelita, the physical appearance of a few characters from SAO are gonna be a bit different as well.

3rd person POV:

If there was one thing that could be described as the bane of existence for every living being, it would have to be the morning. The feeling that every human being on earth gets when they hear the loud blaring of an alarm clock going off in their ears to wake them up, tempting them to simply pick it up and throw it into the wall so that it would shatter instead of giving off its constant alarm and making them attempt the nigh-impossible task of waking up immediately.

This was especially true for teenagers that were still students, many of them failing in their task of keeping their eyes open, and being forced to rush to get to school after they sleep in. However, for a few hundred select students, the task was that much more difficult. This included one student in particular who was currently making his way to his first class of the day at a slow pace as he dragged his feet along the tiled floor.

The teen was wearing black shoes, black jeans, a dark grey T-shirt, as well as a black zip-up hoodie that was currently unzipped. Slung over his shoulders was a dark grey backpack with a small black symbol present in the middle that was related to a certain game he played. He had slightly pale Caucasian skin, cobalt eyes, and black hair that was styled into spikes. Looking at his arms, you could tell this teen wasn't very muscular, but he wasn't skinny either. This teen was Alexander Kirigaya.

The skin under his eyes was discolored, revealing that he was still attempting to wake up. The reason for his sleep deprived state was because of two reasons. The first was how he'd stayed up until midnight on a the same video game that the symbol on his backpack was from, while the second was due to his inability to sleep for more than an hour at a time. This was caused by the nightmares that had been plaguing his mind lately, and as he sits in his seat in science class, he drops his bag to the floor, before slumping over his desk in exhaustion.

Another teen sits beside him, surprisingly alert at this hour, despite his own lack of sleep the night before. This student is wearing black shoes, tan pants that end just before their ankles, a blue sweater-like shirt, and large round, black glasses. He has Caucasian skin, blue eyes, and blond hair that was neatly styled. Just from his legs alone you could tell that he was fairly skinny, and didn't have much muscle or fat on him. This teen was Jeremy Belpois, Alex's roommate, and one of his few friends at Kadic Academy. As the blond takes his books out of his bag and places them on the lab desk they were sitting at, he looks at his roommate and sighs. "The usual?" He asks with sympathy towards his friend, the response he gets being a nod.

Jeremy felt horrible for his friend. After all, quite a few people at the school knew what happened to him seeing as he was the only one of "his kind", as the other students called him, to move away from the country he lived in so that he could attend this school. Needless to say that Alex was less than liked on campus, with a select few being his friends. In fact, only a few teachers bothered to have the patience to help him when he had trouble, while the others ignored him, all the while shooting glances at him that proved just how much they disliked the boy.

Jeremy could count the number of teachers that actually gave a damn about him on one, maybe two hands. The main ones that came to mind being their current teacher Ms. Hertz, the principal Mr. Delmas, and the gym teacher Jim, who was actually similar to Alex in the way that only a select few students actually liked him. In fact, Jim wasn't even counted as a teacher to Alex, but instead as a friend.

Unfortunately, Jeremy could think of one person in particular that had their focus on Alex, along with another sort-of-friend of his, Ulrich Stern. And as he places the last book of his on the desk, his eyes travel to the doorway, where another student was walking in, before their eyes locked onto Alex. And speak of the devil… Jeremy thinks to himself as the most popular girl in the school heads towards their desk.

This girl was wearing pink shoes, purple pants, a flat pink skirt, a pink shirt with a yellow heart present on her chest, a yellow headband, and yellow hoop earrings. She had Caucasian skin, long black hair, and ebony eyes. This was Sissi Delmas, the principal's daughter. Sissi was the "school's hottest girl" according to most guys, and almost every one of them wanted to be with her. Unfortunately for them, Sissi was only interested in Ulrich and Alex.

However, this was unfortunate for the two of them as well, due to Sissi's personality. Luckily for Alex, Sissi saw how he was practically asleep, and although she wanted to get his attention, she chose the teen that she'd been focusing on ever since she saw him in pre-school. Ulrich Stern was sitting a couple desks away, and currently had his chin resting on his hand as he looked out the window to his right, attempting to ignore the teen beside him. Ulrich was wearing white shoes, dark green cargo pants, a greenish yellow shirt, and a green vest. He had Caucasian skin, brown hair that was brushed into spikes pointing to his right, and brown eyes. His arms were slightly muscular, but not much, showing that he at least worked out in some way, shape or form.

Sitting beside him was a teenage male that was wearing yellow shoes, purple pants, a dark pink shirt, and a purple long sleeved shirt. He had Caucasian skin, blond hair that had a few purple colored strands in the front, and brown eyes. This teen's name is Odd Della Robbia, a new student at Kadic, who the principal had assigned as Ulrich's new roommate. Unfortunately for Ulrich, even though he was ignoring Odd, Sissi either didn't get that he didn't want to be disturbed, or she thought that she was important enough that he would pay attention to her anyways. And knowing Sissi Delmas, it was the latter of the two. "Hi there Ulrich sweetheart. I've got something very important to tell you." She tells the brunet teen as she holds her science book behind her back. At her words, Ulrich turns away from the window to face her.

"Important like, uh, "I lost my mascara" or, "my pink T-shirt ran"?" He asks her sarcastically, and a few feet away Alex manages to snort despite his current situation of being half asleep, before lifting his head slightly and turn it in the direction of his friend.

"Of course not Ulrich, it was more likely something like, "I got some new clothes and need your help choosing between hot pink and dark purple"." He says, making Jeremy attempt to cover his mouth as he chuckles, while Ulrich snorts. However, Sissi's response wasn't one that Alex had been looking for.

"Of course not Alex Dear, it wasn't anything as serious as that." She says, making Alex lose the look of amusement on his face as the joke dies while Sissi turns back to Ulrich. "It's something about you and me Ulrich. If you want to know more, come by my dorm tonight at eight." She tells the brunet, before turning and starting to walk away while Ulrich looks away from her as he starts to ignore the raven haired girl. "I'm counting on you." She tells him in a sing-song voice, completely missing Herb as he laughs lightly when he looks at her, before turning to glare at Ulrich in hatred. One could see from his attitude that he was one of the many other guys that had a thing for Sissi.

"Ulrich, sweetheart?" Odd asks with a slightly teasing tone in his voice as he turns to the brunet teen as Sissi walks to the back of the class and sits at her own desk. "Who's the good lookin' babe?" Odd asks his new roommate as he puts his hands on the back of his head while a smirk makes its way onto his face. Ulrich turns to the blond with a slight scowl on his face.

"Sissi, she's the principal's daughter. Guys flip over her, but she's only flipped over me and Alex." He says, gesturing to the raven haired male rubbing his eyes in an attempt to wake himself up. When he hears what Ulrich says, he turns to face the two with a frown on his face.

"And I truly wish that she wasn't flipping over either of us. As much as I don't want her flipping over me, I'd feel bad if you were the focus of all her attention." He tells his friend with a smirk, making Ulrich give one of his own in response.

"Thanks, that means a lot to me, truly it does." Ulrich says in a slightly sarcastic voice, making Alex chuckle as he finally starts to pull his books out of his bag to get ready for class. As he does this, Ulrich turns back to Odd as the blond teen leans forwards.

"Why not, from the looks of things, I'd say it's pretty cool that she's flipping over you two." He says, getting two sighs of annoyance in response.

"You'd think that since you've only seen how she looks." Alex mutters just loud enough for Odd to hear.

"But she's totally brain dead and a leech as well." Ulrich groans as he places his hand on his head. When he says this, Odd leans back in his chair as he places his hands on the desk in front of them.

"Well, I guess in that case, it's pretty lame." He concedes, getting a slight chuckle out of Alex in response.

"You don't know the half of it man." He tells the blond, before everyone has to quiet down as the bell rings to signal the start of class. After going through class and learning more about atoms and the science behind how they form together to create molecules, the teenagers are all released from the room and sent off to their next classes. Odd and Ulrich end up heading off to French class, Jeremy has a free block and uses his time to head towards an abandoned factory he found a few nights ago to meet up with someone he met that same night, while Alex makes his way to Japanese class.

As he walks along the halls, he slowly starts to wake up and a small smile makes its way onto his face. Japanese was one of the few classes that he actually liked, for two reasons. The first was because it helped him communicate with his family better, while the other reason was because of another friend that he had in that class. As he walks in the door, he's waved towards the back by the friend in question. The smile on his face widens slightly as he waves back while making his way towards the desk beside them, placing his bag on the floor a few seconds later as he turns to face Yumi Ishiyama, one of the many female friends that he had. Granted, Yumi was pretty much the only one that was a friend of his, while the others were all his friend because they were friends of his brother first.

Yumi was currently wearing her usual clothes that consisted of black combat boots, black pants, a black long sleeved T-shirt, and a black vest. She had Caucasian skin, brown eyes, and black hair that reached down to her neck. Yumi was actually Japanese, and the only reason that she was taking this class was for an easy A, while at the same time she figured that if she tried to take another language and add it to the two she already knew, the work would add onto the other school work she had and make it a bit overwhelming. Another reason she took it was so that she could be in the same class as Alex.

"So how was gym?" Alex asks as he starts to take his materials out of his backpack and place them on his desk. Yumi's response is to roll her eyes at his question.

"The same, nothing was really difficult, although I get the feeling that Jim is gonna start to make the class a bit harder than usual soon." She tells her fellow raven haired teen. Alex's response is to smirk as he places everything on his desk and closes his backpack.

"Just what I'd expect Jim to do with you guys. Seriously, he's taking it pretty easy so far." He tells her, making her raise an eyebrow at his words.

"What do you mean by that?" She asks him in confusion. However, Alex just raises a finger and waves it back and forth in front of her.

"Ah-ah-ah that would be telling. If you want to know, just ask him." He tells her with a bit of a teasing smirk on his face. Yumi huffs at his suggestion and turns away, making Alex chuckle. Everyone in school had gotten used to Jim's trademark response when they asked him personal questions.

"I'd rather not talk about it."

Those were the exact words that he would say if anything started to get too personal, or if Jim simply didn't want to talk about it at the time. Out of everyone in the school, Alex seemed to be the only one that Jim opened up to. While the bell rings and the class quiets down as the teacher walks in, Alex's smile becomes reminiscent and slightly less happy as he subconsciously listens to the teacher while remembering the reasons that him and Jim were close.

Most saw it as the two being friends, which confused them since Jim didn't really seem like the kind of guy you'd want as a friend. However, for him, Jim was more like that one uncle that everyone likes to have in their family. The one that always knew how to have a good time, even if some of the activities were "out of date" in the modern times. As he continues to think about his favorite teacher at Kadic, he can't help the tiny frown that makes its way onto his face when he remembers just why the two of them were so close, that being the darker pasts that the two were able to empathize with each other about.

However, he's brought out of his musings when he starts to pay more attention to what the teacher is talking about, and begins to take down notes on what's already been written on the board, making a mental note to ask Yumi about looking over it later on to make sure he was getting the notes right, or just asking his brother.

A couple hours later during lunch period Alex, Ulrich and Odd are standing in a little alcove that has a couple vending machines set up for the students, with the raven haired teen giving a small smile and wave to Yumi as she buys a drink and walks back towards the lunch room. She returns the wave as she goes, and as Alex takes a drink from the Sprite can in his hand, Odd speaks up from his place next to Ulrich. "Hey Ulrich, you know what I was thinking? You know your girlfriend there, Sissi?" He asks the brunet teen, making Alex nearly choke on his drink from the question while Ulrich turns his head to glare at Odd.

"She's not my girlfriend." He tells Odd in annoyance, most likely due to the fact that the blond teen still thought that was even a possibility after what he'd told him earlier. That, or Odd was just intentionally trying to push his buttons.

"Cool!" He exclaims as he crumples his Styrofoam cup, and attempts to toss it into the trash. Unfortunately he misses, and it bounces off Alex's head as the raven haired teen continues to try to get over the coughing fit he was having a few seconds ago, before the cup falls into the trashcan beside him. When this happens, Alex manages to raise his head slightly to send a glare at the blonde teen standing a few feet away, making Odd chuckle in slight nervousness and rub the back of his head as Jeremy walks by them. "Anyways… That means that she's available, right?" He asks Ulrich, turning towards the brunet in an attempt to ignore the glare that Alex was giving him.

Unfortunately for Odd, Ulrich rolls his eyes at his question as he brings his own soda can up towards his mouth. "I'm telling you, she's lame. Plus, no offense, but I don't really think that you're her type." He tells his new roommate as Jeremy starts to look through the selections on the vending machine for what he might want. Alex finally gets over his coughing fit as Odd shrugs in response to Ulrich's words.

"Oh yeah, I hear that a lot-" However, he cuts himself off as Jeremy finally makes his selection on what he wants, and presses the button to choose it. However, not a second after he presses the button, his entire body is suddenly covered in electricity, and he yells in pain as the surge of pure power goes rushing through his nervous system, his glasses flying off his face as he jolts, before his body locks in place a second later. Luckily, his jolt removed his hand from the vending machine, so the electricity dies down after a few seconds. Unfortunately, after the sudden surge of pain, Jeremy's body starts to fail him, and he slumps forwards against the glass of the vending machine, before slowly sliding down to the ground.

"Jeremy!" Alex and Ulrich exclaim as they throw their respective sodas away without a second thought and rush towards their friend. While Ulrich helps Jeremy onto his feet as he throws the blond's arm over his neck, Alex bends down and picks up the glasses that had flown off his friend's face. As he does this, he motions for Ulrich to head towards the nurse with Jeremy, making the brunet nod in response. While Ulrich heads towards the infirmary, Alex turns towards Odd, who'd frozen for a few seconds after seeing Jeremy get electrocuted.

"Why don't you head towards the principal's office to tell him about what happened? That way we won't be marked up for our next class." He tells the purple-clad teen, making it so that Odd is able to focus again, and give Alex a nod in response. "Thanks, I'll talk to you later, right now I've gotta go give these back to Jeremy and make sure he's alright." He says as he starts to head in the same direction that Ulrich went a minute ago.

Unfortunately, while the three of them are pre-occupied with making sure Jeremy is alright, they miss the logo that flashes across the displays on the vending machine. A logo that Jeremy might have been able to recognize if he hadn't been electrocuted, and was still there. When Alex reaches the infirmary, it's to find nurse Yolanda checking his blood pressure while Ulrich stands nearby.

"It's nothing too serious. Just a minor electrical shock and some superficial burns." She tells them, and Alex sighs in relief at the damage being minor, while Ulrich turns towards the door.

"You wanted some juice, well you got some." He says with a slight smirk, attempting to make the mood lighter after finding out that nothing too bad had actually happened. When he says this, the nurse manages to chuckle a bit at the brunet teen's way of taking away the apprehension that was present, while Jeremy turns to Ulrich as he rolls his eyes.

"Ha-ha very funny Ulrich. But thank you all the same." He thanks the teen as the brunet opens the door to walk out, before turning around for a few seconds to give the blond a smile.

"Don't mention it, I'll come by to check on you tonight after my martial arts class." He tells the teen, making Alex smirk as he walks over to stand beside Jeremy and place the blond's glasses on the table beside the infirmary bed.

"Eh, I wouldn't worry about that Ulrich. With any luck, Jeremy will be out of here shortly after school lets out." He says, getting a nod from the brunet teen after he thinks about it.

"In that case, I'll talk to you both later." He says as he waves to them, getting a nod from Jeremy, and a two-fingered salute from Alex as the brunet closes the door behind him after he leaves. When he does, Alex turns to face Jeremy with a small frown on his face.

"You sure you're alright?" He asks, getting a light chuckle from Jeremy in response.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Like you said, I should be out of here within a few hours." He tells Alex, making the raven haired teenager smirk in response.

"I guess you have a point there. In that case, I'm gonna head back to class. I'll talk to you later Jeremy." He tells his friend as he opens the door and waves to his friend, getting a nod in response just before he closes the door. Once he's done this, he heads towards the class that he currently has, making a quick detour to the alcove he was standing in a few minutes ago with Ulrich and Odd to grab his bag, before continuing his trek to the classroom.

Later that night Alex is messing around on his laptop in the dorm that he shared with Jeremy since he'd finished his homework shortly after school was over, and he had the time to spare. As he continues to mess around on it, the door opens and Jeremy walks into the room looking no worse for wear after the incident earlier in the day. At the sight of the blond teen walking into the room, Alex closes his laptop and smiles. "Well, I guess it took longer than I guessed." Alex admits, making Jeremy chuckle as he sits in front of the desk at the back of the room, and turns on his computer that was sitting on it.

"Yeah, first the nurse just wanted to check over me one last time, and then Jim ended up coming by for a little while to ask about what happened. He'll probably be fixing the machine tonight or tomorrow." He tells Alex, getting a nod in response from the raven haired teen in understanding. Jim may have been the gym coach, but he also had a lot of other jobs that he did around the academy. This included being the health teacher, taking care of the machinery, and many other smaller tasks that the other teachers didn't take care of. As Jeremy boots up a program on his computer, Alex turns back to his computer and continues to mess around on it. After the events of the day, he was a bit too tired mentally to play his favorite video game, so he settled for blowing off zombies' heads on the flat, 2D screen.

After a few more minutes however, both of the teens stop what they're doing when Jeremy's screen suddenly starts to glitch out. "Huh? Hey, what's going on?" The blond teen asks as he leans in towards his computer in confusion. While he does this, Alex looks at the computer in confusion, before a red logo appears in the middle of the screen. "Hey, I've seen that logo before…" Jeremy begins, before him and Alex are surprised when the same logo appears in black in the lens of one of his miniature robots, which then shoots forwards towards the blond teen with electricity running across its frame. The reaction is immediate as Jeremy starts to yell, Alex leaping off his bed at the same time as he goes for the closet in their room, only for another robot to attack him.

"Shit! What the hell?!" He exclaims as he attempts to punt the thing away, only for it to fail as the robot somehow manages to grip his pants and keep a hold on them as the electricity runs through it and into the raven haired teen, causing Alex to flinch as he tries to make his way to the closet with the robot attacking him while Jeremy continues to yell in pain as he does his best to get the robots off him. A few seconds later, extra help comes in the form of Ulrich running into the room and seeing the situation taking place. When he sees what's happening to them, he immediately rushes towards Jeremy, and attempts to help pry the robots off him. Unfortunately, this gains the attention of the other robots, and as a result the brunet teen gets hit by a few watts of electricity.

Luckily, the third member of the group is finally able to reach the closet, and swing open the door as he grabs the item that he'd been attempting to get since the beginning. A few seconds later, robot parts are being flung across the room as Alex swings his wooden bokken through the air, shattering all the robots to pieces in a matter of seconds. Once they're destroyed, he remains in a fighting stance for a few seconds in case Jeremy had any more, before finally relaxing as nothing happens, and the logo on Jeremy's computer goes away. "God damn it Jeremy, what just happened?" He asks his friend as he rests his bokken on his shoulder.

"Yeah Jeremy, those things were pretty aggressive. Maybe you should check their settings… After you put them back together at least." Ulrich says, eyeing the pieces of metal that Alex had left behind after taking care of the rampaging robots.

"I had nothing to do with this, they just attacked me all of a sudden." Jeremy says as he picks up his chair, which had been knocked over after he'd been attacked. When he says this, the other two share a confused glance, before turning back to the blond teen.

"Alright, you lost us. Would you mind explaining?" Ulrich asks Jeremy, making the teen sigh in response as he turns around to face his computer again.

"No… Forget it." He tells them, making the two share another look as they raise their eyebrows at his response, before Alex walks forwards.

"Look Jeremy, the three of us were just attacked by your robots, who went crazy after some weird logo appeared on your computer screen. I feel like at this point, the two of us deserve to know the reason that we were just attacked. Who knows, if it happens again, maybe the two of us can help you." He suggests as he places the hand that wasn't holding his bokken on the blond teen's shoulder, while Ulrich sits in the chair that had just been placed on its feet again. Jeremy listens to Alex's reasoning, before sighing in what the other two can guess is resignation.

"Alright, fine. Everything is going crazy, and I'm already in over my head…" He says, before he walks over to the door, and closes it. "But first, do you think that you two can keep a secret?" He asks them, making Alex and Ulrich share a third glance at Jeremy's question, since they weren't expecting him to ask that. As they turn back to the blond haired teen, they give him two nods of confirmation at the same time. Jeremy gives a sigh at their response before walking over to his bed and sitting down on it. "Well, I guess that it started a few days ago, when I went looking for parts to my miniature robots…"

About fifteen minutes later, the three of them are walking across a bridge towards the factory that Jeremy had told them about before they left his room. As they walk, Ulrich glances back at the closed sewer drain that they'd just climbed out of. "That tunnel into the sewers from the gym is a great way to beat curfew." Ulrich says with a slight smirk on his face. Beside him, Alex waves his hand in response.

"Eh, I found one in the forest on campus a while back. I was a bit confused about why the school would leave it there, before I found out that it's been there for a while and they don't actually know about it." He tells his two friends with a smirk, getting one in response from them as they walk through the entrance of the factory and stand in front of two ropes that are hanging from the ceiling, leading to the ground below them. "Um, Jeremy…" Alex starts, making the blond teen turn to look at him.

"Before you ask, they were set up before I got here. I have no idea why there's only a few steps before you have to slide down a rope to get to the ground." He tells his raven haired friend, before grabbing onto the rope and sliding down to the floor. When he does this, Alex shares a look with Ulrich, before shrugging as he grabs onto the second rope and slides down onto the ground beside Jeremy. When he reaches the cement floor, he looks back up to see Ulrich staring down at them with apprehension clear on his face.

"Come on Ulrich, just grab on and close your eyes!" Alex shouts up to him, placing a hand next to his mouth to make his voice slightly louder. Ulrich does as his friend suggests, and a few seconds later his feet touch down onto solid ground. He lets go of the rope with a sigh, before following his two friends into an elevator a few feet away. When Alex and Ulrich step inside, Jeremy presses one of the two big red buttons on the wall, and the doors close, before the elevator starts to move underground. A few seconds later, the doors open again, and Alex and Ulrich are able to see a computer terminal hanging from the ceiling with a chair attached to the ground a few feet away. For Alex, he's reminded of Glad0s from Portal, with the only real difference being the fact that in place of the robot's head, there were three separate computer screens, and a keyboard.

As the three walk up to the computer, Ulrich turns to face Jeremy. "So that's the mega computer that you started up?" He asks the blond teen, making Jeremy turn to face him.

"Yeah, although it's actually a super computer. It's ultra-powerful. And while I was examining it, I found out that it runs a virtual universe called Lyoko. And no, it isn't a virtual reality like you're used to Alex, it's something a bit different." He tells his raven haired friend, making Alex shrug in response to being called out on what he was about to ask his friend. However, Ulrich shakes his head at what Jeremy is saying.

"You know what Jeremy? I get the feeling this morning's electrical shock fried your brain. There's no way something like that would be here, this is probably just the control center for the factory." Ulrich says, making Jeremy shake his head before turning to the screen, typing in a few commands, and then turning to face his friends again.

"Oh yeah, then who would you call this, huh? A program for spray painting doors?" He asks, pointing to the screen where a pink haired girl with green eyes can be seen. At the sight, Ulrich and Alex's eyes widen in shock, but for two different reasons.

"Hello Jeremy." The girl says, making Ulrich jolt a bit when she talks to the blond teen, while Alex stumbles back with wide eyes. As Alex continues to look at the screen, Ulrich turns to face Jeremy in confusion and slight surprise.

"Who's the girl with the pink hair?" He asks the blond teen, making Jeremy turn away from the girl in question to face the brunet and lean against the holographic table set up in the middle of the room, which was currently projecting a map of what could be assumed was Lyoko.

"That's Maya, a form of artificial intelligence that lives on Lyoko. I don't know what she's there for-" However, he's cut off by Ulrich again.

"Don't mess with me. You programmed her, didn't you?" Ulrich asks the blond teen, only to face the screen in shock once again as the girl speaks up, making Jeremy smirk with satisfaction.

"No, I woke up the moment that Jeremy started up the super computer. I don't know who I am. My memory has been erased." She tells the brunet teen, who's still looking at her in surprise. After she's said this, Jeremy turns to face Ulrich.

"Maya has to hide in some kind of a tower. As soon as she leaves it, she gets attacked by monsters." He tells the brunet teen, Maya nodding in agreement with the blond teen on screen, before Jeremy leans towards Ulrich. "You've gotta believe me, I mean, this is an incredible discovery." Jeremy says, before turning to Alex to ask for his support, only to see the raven haired teen looking at the screen in shock, his eyes unfocused. "Alex?" He asks, making the other two focus on him as well. When Maya looks at him, he walks towards the screen, almost hesitantly.

"…Aelita?" He asks in a slightly broken voice, making the three look at him in surprise. The girl was meeting him for the first time and didn't know what to say, Ulrich had never seen Alex this way, while Jeremy had only seen him like this a few times after his night terrors.

"Alex? This is Maya? Didn't you hear what I said?" Jeremy asks his friend, walking towards him, but not placing a hand on his shoulder since he learned the last time he tried to that Alex was fairly easy to trigger while he was like this. Luckily, Jeremy's voice speaking to him seems to snap the teen out of his dazed state, and he shakes his head before turning away with a slightly sad expression on his face.

"No, sorry. I was a bit out of it for a minute there. It's just that… Maya, looks a lot like someone that I knew… Anyways, what were you guys saying?" He asks, looking at the two of them. Ulrich and Jeremy are able to tell that he's only asking to get them off the previous topic, but don't question him about it. After giving a brief summary of what Jeremy had said before, Ulrich walks over to stand beside the chair.

"Anyways Jeremy, let's say that this is a great discovery… What if… What if it's all just some kind of giant video game? Like the kind that Alex plays?" He asks the blond teen, making Jeremy shake his head in response as he gives a quick glance at the raven haired teen in question.

"Then… Well, then it's a pretty dangerous game." Jeremy says as he types away at the keyboard underneath the computer screens, pausing for a few seconds as he knows for a fact that Alex had stiffened up behind him, and allowing the raven haired teen to relax before he continues. "I mean, my robots were programmed to go and fetch a ball, that's it. But they just tried to kill me and Alex, and then when you came in they attacked you too." He tells the brunet teen as Ulrich sits down in the chair, and Alex moves to stand beside the German teen. "What's more, like Alex said earlier that logo appeared on my computer screen just before they started attacking me. The same logo that the monsters have on Lyoko." He tells the two other teens as Ulrich uses the buttons on the chair to make it spin in a circle. After completing it so that he's facing the blond teen again, he places a hand on his chin.

"Better and better. So then do you mean to tell me that the virtual thing that attacked Maya, also wants to kill you?" Ulrich asks as he points at Jeremy, making Alex tighten his grip on his bokken as he stands beside the brunet teen, his gaze remaining on Maya for the most part. When Ulrich asks his question, Jeremy nods his head in response.

"That's what it looks like." Jeremy says to the two of them, making Ulrich turn around in the chair and share a look with Alex, before turning around and facing Jeremy again.

"You know something? If that's true Jeremy, if it's that dangerous, I think you should shut it down and call the police." Ulrich says to the blond haired teen, thinking that after what Alex had to go through in the past, the raven haired teen would agree with him. On a level, Alex did agree with Ulrich, if the thing that attacked them was this dangerous, then it would be a good idea to shut it down. But at the same time, something that he hadn't told his friends was a certain aspect about one of his friends, who was actually more like family, which was making him hesitant to just shut down the computer. Luckily, he doesn't have to worry about it much after Jeremy says his next sentence.

"Okay… But first I want to help Maya understand what she's doing on Lyoko." Jeremy says, making the two teens raise their eyebrows in response.

"Say what?" Ulrich asks the blond haired teen in confusion, while Alex just sends a glance at the pink haired girl the current conversation was about.

"I really do. And if I'm right, we can materialize her right here on earth." Jeremy tells them, making Alex whip his head so that it's he's facing Jeremy with wide eyes. If he'd been drinking, then there was no doubt that he would've done a spit take then and there.

"Wait, what?!" He exclaims in shock. "But-but how?!" He asks the blond teen, making Jeremy give a small smile as he closes his eyes.

"You'll see. If you follow me, then I can show you." He tells them as he leads them towards the elevator once again, motioning for them to follow him. The two teens do just that, and a few minutes later, they're standing in a room with three metal chambers set up, and Jeremy pacing the room as the other two look around.

"What is all this?" Ulrich asks as he looks around, Jeremy answering his question as he continues to walk around the room.

"Scanners. I still haven't found the program that can bring Maya back to earth, but I managed to dig up the one that can scan, and send someone to Lyoko." He tells them as he steps into the one chamber that was open, and illuminating the room with the light inside. As Ulrich and Alex walk over to stand in front of Jeremy, they listen as he attempts to explain it to them in his own way, completely confusing Ulrich, while Alex manages to understand the gist of it. When Jeremy finishes his explanation, Ulrich raps his knuckles on the side of the chamber, before sighing.

"In English…" He says, making Jeremy sigh before Alex places a hand on Ulrich's shoulder.

"Basically, you step into the chamber there, you get scanned by the computer upstairs, and you're "teleported" into the virtual world. Sort of like Virtual Reality, only on a whole different level. Man, what the developers of the AmuSphere wouldn't give to get their hands on tech like this." He says as he shakes his head. As he says this, Ulrich shakes his own head.

"Jeremy, these things are a bit too advanced. I mean, Virtual Reality, I can understand with how it works. But actually being transported into the virtual world? That seems more like it's in the realm of science fiction to me." Ulrich says to the blond teen. In response, Jeremy thinks for a second, before stepping out of the chamber.

"Well then how about we try it out. That way, you can see for yourself how it works. But, we're gonna need a Guiney pig…" Jeremy says, making the other two think about how they could do this, before Ulrich thinks of something.

"A Guiney pig huh…?" He asks, before turning towards the other two with a smirk. "You guys get this whole thing set up, I'll be back in a little while." He tells them, making the other two raise their eyebrows.

"Where are you going?" Jeremy asks, Ulrich turning around as he presses the top button in the elevator, the doors closing in front of him.

"To get us a Guiney pig." He responds, before the doors close and the elevator starts to head up towards the ground floor of the factory. As he does this, Alex sighs while he follows Jeremy towards a ladder bolted into the wall opposite the elevator.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about that?" He asks Jeremy as they climb up into the computer room.

"…I knew it." Alex mutters as Ulrich climbs up the ladder from the scanner room, having just placed his roommate's dog into one of the chambers so that it could act as their Guiney pig. The brunet turns around to face the two after he finishes climbing, and starts to walk towards them.

"Everything's set up Jeremy, the mutt is in the scanner." He tells the blond, who nods in response as he turns around to face the computer, and places his fingers on the keyboard.

"Okay, let's see how it goes. It's not gonna be a piece of cake." Jeremy says to the two, before his fingers start to fly over the keyboard as he starts typing in different codes and commands to set up the process. A minute later, he continues to type on the keyboard as he starts to talk to the other two again. "Alright, it's all set… I'm starting up the virtualization procedure." Jeremy tells them as he finishes typing in the commands, and presses the Enter key. "Transfer, Guiney pig. Scanner, Guiney pig…" He says, before an alarm starts to blare through the speakers on the computers, making the three look at the middle screen in shock. "Huh? Uh, wait… That's a weird lookin' dog." Jeremy says in confusion, while Ulrich and Alex look at the screen in shock and slight horror.

"That's no dog! That's Odd Della Robbia!" Ulrich exclaims, making Jeremy panic as well.

"Uh, I don't know how to stop the procedure!" Jeremy yells, fear taking over his mind at the implications of what's happening, before another voice echoes through the room, coming from the direction of the ladder leading down into the scanner room and breaking the three out of their panicked states.

"Heeeelp!" They hear a very familiar female voice scream, making Ulrich run to the ladder and climb down into the room below. As he does this, Alex sighs as he places his head in his hands.

"Of course Sissi and Odd had to follow Ulrich here. Will life ever give me a real break?" Alex asks no one in particular, Jeremy looking at his friend out of the corner of his eye in sympathy. While this situation definitely wasn't as bad as most of the others that happened in his friend's past, this was still pretty bad. However, he takes his focus away from his friend, and looks at the screen when he hears Odd talking out loud to himself. As Jeremy starts to explain what's happening to Odd, and Ulrich talks to Sissi about what's happening, Alex has a small rant inside his head about life never giving him a break.

However, he's brought out of his internal rant a couple minutes later when Jeremy starts up the process to virtualize Ulrich and send him to Lyoko in order to help Odd fight off the creatures that were attacking him there. "Transfer, Ulrich. Scanner, Ulrich. Virtualization!" Jeremy exclaims as he presses the Enter key on the keyboard, sending Ulrich to the virtual world and leaving Sissi and Odd's dog in the scanner room alone, while Alex watches the computers as Ulrich is transported to Lyoko. "Odd, hang in there. Ulrich Stern is on his way to give you a hand." Jeremy tells the other blond teen.

"Great, I was starting to get bored here all alone." Alex hears Odd say through the speakers on the computer. As Ulrich is virtualized and appears on Lyoko, his avatar appears on a card on the right screen, and the other two teens idly notice that Odd's costume makes him look like a big purple cat, while Ulrich's seems to have a more Samurai-esque design. As Ulrich looks over his virtual form, Odd complains about the comparison between their outfits.

"Hey that's not fair. How come he gets to be a samurai? That's so much cooler." Odd states, making Alex and Jeremy share a look, while the blond shrugs before looking back at the screen.

"I have no idea why. Maybe the computer just reads into your own subconscious desires, and projects them onto your digital incarnation." Jeremy suggests, and Alex doesn't hear Odd's response or the conversation that happens afterwards due to the fact that he hears electricity crackling, making him look in the direction it's coming from. The sight that greets him are large bundles of wires sparking, making him raise an eyebrow in concern. From what he learned a few years back from one of the many important people in his life, wires were not supposed to do that under any circumstance, making him wonder if maybe using the scanners without understanding them more was a bad idea.

However, his attention is brought away from the wires when he hears the familiar female voice from earlier again, and turns around to find Sissi standing on the other side of Jeremy's chair, facing the blond teen with a scowl on her face and her hands on her hips. "Who's this Maya? And what is that thing?" She asks him, looking at the computer terminal in front of Jeremy. In response, the blond stutters for a moment, before turning to face the computer terminal in question.

"It's, it's the mainframe of a super computer." Jeremy attempts to explain to her. However, a few seconds later, a bright red logo that Alex was starting to learn meant trouble appears on the screen, making him and Jeremy panic slightly. However, that panic quickly rose to fear when Odd's dog starts barking at the wires that Alex had seen were sparking earlier, making the three humans turn to look at them, only for the large bundles of wire to start writhing and moving, before bursting out of the ground, the ends sparking with electricity. It doesn't take long for Alex and Jeremy to realize that they're being attacked by that electricity monster-thing again, and as Sissi and Odd's dog make a beeline for the elevator, the other two are forced to try and take cover behind the computer chair while the wires shoot out bolts of electricity in their direction.

As they're doing this, they're unable to answer Odd and Ulrich as the two virtualized teens ask for the two of them, leaving the two of them on their own. While Alex and Jeremy attempt to take cover behind the chair, Sissi tries to get Odd's dog to "sic 'em". However, the dog seems to prefer living over trying to attack electrical wires, and instead decides to stick to barking at them as one of the wires lashes forwards, and hits Jeremy away from the chair, allowing another one to grab him and drag him towards the others while the blond teen grabs a metal sheet that had broken off the floor when the wires attacked them. Jeremy attempts to use the sheet as a shield, only for it to backfire as the wires electrocute the metal sheet, and by extension Jeremy. At the sight, Alex grits his teeth, before making a decision as he grabs the handle of his bokken with one hand, while his other goes to the "blade".

Guess there's no use to keeping this a secret anymore… He thinks to himself as he twists the "blade", making it detach from the hilt, and allowing him to throw it away as he rushes towards the mass of wires, unaware of Ulrich and Odd climbing up the ladder since they'd been de-virtualized by a few of the monsters on Lyoko. As he rushes forwards, he holds his bokken, which was actually a katana, so that the blade trails in the air behind him, before leaping so that he can plant his feet on the wall, and then jump off it and slice one of the wires that was about to attack Jeremy in two. Then, he rushes forwards once again, and begins to start slicing through all the other wires. Luckily, he wasn't being electrocuted because of the wooden handle of his sword, which didn't conduct the electricity that raced over the metal blade each time he cut one of the cables.

Finally, most of the cables are cut, when the rest suddenly go slack as the logo on the main computer screen goes away. As the group attempts to get over what just happened, Jeremy limps to the computer with Ulrich's help since the blond had been electrocuted twice today, the second time being much worse than the first. Jeremy then boots up the computer once again, the group sighing in relief when the logo doesn't appear. "Maya, are you there?" Jeremy asks the pink haired AI, his voice slightly weak after being electrocuted, while the rest of the group stands around the chair as a window opens on the screen and Maya's avatar appears.

"Yes. Is everything okay on your side?" She asks them, getting tired, but relieved, smiles in response.

"Well, we're a little shaken up, but it could've been worse." Jeremy admits as the rest of the group nods in agreement. Meanwhile, Alex can't help the flinch that he gives when he sees the pink haired AI, once again reminded of a pink haired girl that looked nearly identical to the one on the computer screen. Memories of a small house, a piano, pink hair, grey hair, and laughter going through his mind as a small frown appears on his face and he looks towards the elevator in an attempt to avoid looking at the screen.

Unknown to the small group of teens, for some of them, this was just the beginning of things to come…

Author's Note Part 2: Well guys, this is the first chapter of my re-write, and I hope you're enjoying it so far! As you can see, I've put a lot more detail into this version than my first attempt at a Code Lyoko story, and I can proudly say that in my eyes, this one is at least ten times better. I mean, seriously, I'm looking back at my last version thinking to myself "Good God, what the hell was I thinking when I wrote this out? The poor grammar and spelling, the horribly minimal detail, the fact that I gave myself outs by making my character faint to completely skip over scenes I didn't want to write out!" So as a result, the chapters in this are gonna be longer, and I'll hopefully be giving more detail, even if I only give brief summaries of episodes where my character wouldn't be present in them for reasons.

Now, with that said, I don't really have much else to say in this Author's Note, since I actually went over most of it in my first one. Not only that, but since this is only episode 1 of the prologue for Code Lyoko, I'll probably give a larger Author's Note at the end of the second chapter and go over what's happened in the story so far at that point. With that being said, I'm gonna get through the rest of my school day, go home, and then go over this chapter one more time to check for mistakes and places to add detail before I post this for your guys entertainment. Thank you all for taking the time out of your day to read this, and I'm looking forwards to seeing you guys in the next chapter!