Code:Earth

A Code Lyoko fanfiction by Monsignor

Prompts taken from a random word generator. Largely Aelita-centered, but the rest of the Lyoko Warriors pop up.

#1 Bad

"You know, I'm really not all that surprised that you're bad at English," Ulrich told Aelita as they walked out of the class. "It's the only class that Jeremy sucks in, too."

#2 Anarchy

Aelita would spend hours just sitting on the bench in the courtyard by the vending machines, watching the students between classes. "Where are they all going?" she'd ask, incredulous. And it was hard for her to understand when Yumi said, "Anywhere they want."

#3 Falling - 1

It took two weeks of lifting her feet too high and tripping over doorjambs for her sense of balance to really get established. In the meantime she learned about bruises, cuts, and Band-Aids from a patient Jeremy. (So it wasn't all bad.)

#4 Worry

The first couple of weeks they all follow Aelita around like stalkers. Yumi even feels compelled to follow her friend into the toilet, which starts some uncomfortable rumours.

#5 Desperate

Sometimes, after the days where she can't seem to focus and looks as if she's being assaulted every time she walks into a room filled with students, Jeremy finds Aelita hiding under a desk in the computer lab, just listening to the machines humming and buzzing. After a while, he starts to join her.

#6 Want - 1

"Do you think that we can go to Lyoko just for fun?" she asks Yumi hopefully one Saturday morning. The other girl is taken aback, but then she understands and she goes to get the boys. They spend the afternoon racing each other across the Desert Sector, with Jeremy officiating.

#7 Meat

"It comes from what?" she demanded, shocked. She stared at her hamburger like it was still bleeding.

"Don't tell me you're a vegetarian!" Odd exclaimed in dismay, picking up his third.

# 8 Precision – 1

I want you to want me.

Yumi folded up the note, smiling into the air like a loon. "You should have just said so before…"

#9 Arcade

Aelita could beat the computer playing chess, every time. No one in their group was much surprised, but when they took her to the arcade for the first time they almost got thrown out because the proprietor thought that she was cheating. (Jeremy later hacked into the arcade's system and changed all the high-score handles to "Hopper.")

#10 Classics

Halloween was, in the end, an ensemble piece: Jeremy and Aelita had teamed up as an RC helicopter and his operator; Ulrich was a ninja (with a katana borrowed on the sly from the Ishiyamas and paper ninja stars); Yumi was a zombie (Aelita turned out to be great at stage makeup) and Odd had somehow gotten his hands on a glittery purple sexy kitten costume (with totally predictable, totally horrifying results). In the end it made for a great front page spread for Milly and Tamiya's fledgling newspaper.

#11 Pedestrian

The others thought it was funny that she wanted to hold Jeremy's hand when they crossed the street, but truthfully the torrential roar and the acrid smell of the cars always did scare her. At least, initially. After some time on Earth, she lost the fear, but still reached for Jeremy's hand whenever they approached a crosswalk.

#12 Counting

"Do I get a birthday?" Aelita asks suddenly.

#13 Chemical

"No, Aelita, that's bleach, not milk!" She stayed away from anything in bottles after that.

#14 Verbal

"Jeremy," Aelita asks curiously, "why did Ulrich give Yumi flowers?"

He pushes up his glasses, looking thoughtful. "I think," he says finally, "that's it's a new way of saying the same thing they tell each other all the time."

#15 Caveat

"I guess we should have warned you," Yumi said apologetically, "that you'd be materializing right in the middle of puberty."

#16 Ease

Jeremy is brilliant. This is only cemented when Aelita comes to Earth – after living inside of a computer for years – and she can't figure out how to program half the things that Einstein does.

#17 Garbage

One Saturday morning, Ulrich and Odd took her Dumpster-diving in the city. Back at Kadic Jeremy starts to lay into them for their immaturity, but then Aelita hands him the brand-new, not-even-unpackaged portable hard drive she found, and he shuts up. (Ulrich and Odd make a joke about returning favors.)

#18 Want – 2

From her place on the ground, Yumi looks over at Ulrich wistfully. "Do you think we could ever have a fair fight?"

He grins and slides an arm across her stomach. "Not a chance," he says, leaning in.

#19 Colon

"What is it," Odd demanded, "an organ or a punctuation mark?"

#20 Maze

Once, Aelita got lost in the library.

#21 Assortment

The day after her first materialization, Yumi took Aelita to her house and let her raid her closet for all her old clothes. Aelita was never the same again.

#22 Falling – 2

"You know," Ulrich says apologetically as he helps her up, her pride and her bottom smarting, "you should probably just get a scooter, like Jeremy. Use a skateboard and you'll probably end up in the hospital."

"Ooh," injects Odd eagerly, "do it! I could meet a hot nurse!"

"Maybe we should just put Odd in the hospital ourselves," Jeremy suggests testily.

#23 Patch

"I wonder if I could fix your materialization programs so that you never got sick…" Jeremy muses, oblivious to the sudden panic in his friends' faces.

# 24 Neutral

"Aelita, I need you to talk to Yumi for me," Ulrich began.

The pink-haired girl threw her hands up and backed away. "No way! I'd kiss Odd again first!"

Ulrich paused. "Should I go get him, then?"

#25 Ascension

"Come on, Princess! You're in Paris; you gotta go up the Eiffel Tower!"

"But it doesn't need to be deactivated!"

#26 Plasma

Jeremy almost had an aneurism when Aelita put her fingers into the match flame. Later, after he'd frog marched her to the nurse's and back, Odd had a fine time reenacting it. Until Jeremy threatened to reprogram his Lyoko avatar into a small purple kitten with the voice of an eight-year-old girl. "Not that that would make much of a difference," Ulrich pointed out.

#27 Verbal - 2

I need you to need me.

Yumi sighed and got up to go track down Ulrich, tucking the note into her pocket. "Stupid, jealous…"

#28 Attorney

Odd walked out of his career counseling session with the strangest look on his face. When Ulrich asked him how the counselor had responded to his proposed ambition to become an edutainment star, he responded contemplatively, "She thinks I should be a lawyer."

"The kind that loses to the main character in court, or the kind with an actual degree?" Jeremy wanted to know.

#29 Precision - 2

One day, weeks after the supercomputer is shut down, Jeremy walks into his dorm room and Aelita is sitting on his desk chair, legs curled up underneath her, the computer running beside her. "I think this is the best place for me," she says in answer to his questioning eyes. She smiles, and Jeremy puts down his bag and moves forward.

#30 User

"Let me put it this way, Odd. Have you ever heard of the acronym PEBKAC?"

"Is that like a really big spider?"

Thanks for reading!