AN: Good lord even Digimon Re: Adventure didn't have a delay as badly as this. Guess it's time to get off my ass and work harder with this effectively multi-chapter dump to make up for a severe drought of updates for this particular fic. Honestly the big question that was ringing in my mind since the last update is the driving force of this entire arc up ahead, and I intend to make answers swift and brutal. I was also originally going to post this chapter as part of the aforementioned multi-chapter dump, but I decided to upload this particular one early as a sneak preview for what's to come next, and most importantly to reassure my readers that this fic isn't dead.

Reflection Code Chapter 7:

Noise, noise irritates me. It irritates me a lot. Especially when the maintenance crews examining me are late to attend to the power cells to my stasis room. Oh how they would like to know, however, as to just how much complaints I'm willing to file towards this entire facility.

They think of me as unimportant nowadays; just yet another lab rat in a cage. A feeling of such utter disposability that fills me with an unyielding rage towards my being, not that they'd care; for who am I to speak the nature of my mission to these fleas?

I wasn't born with a purpose, I was made with a purpose; I wouldn't have been placed on this foregone conclusion knowing that my story was insignificant in the end. I am all but too humble to play my part in this inevitability of it all; these games of "life" as the fleas call it. When will they not realize I'm doing them a favor? That my desire to wake up and face reality is something they need to have happen soon?

They won't wake up; they're too disillusioned by their king to understand; their prized salaud that they listen to everything and anything that so much as crawls out of his seals. One has to wonder what exactly these microbes are being fed by the Hannibal to truly understand why they don't even realize their own deception. They seek security from him for all of their worth, only to forget when real trouble begins to brew.

Incoherent babbling upon whining upon uproarious rage that has me perpetually awake; do they not understand my irritation to noise? Do they not even remotely have a clue what happens when I'm surrounded by too much noise? They should know by now; if you so wish, father Franz, I will remind them of the meaning of our mission to salvage this dying dream, and restore it to reality as you had wanted of me to see.

This world is not safe for my sensitive hearing to comprehend; I feel at risk, I feel depressed; this sickening noise? Does it ever stop?! Even for a mere instant?! Do they not realize the joys of creation they've long endured?! Perhaps they need a reminder of something, very, very loud and clear...

A tremendous force shakes the confines of the entire facility from the lowest known floor; the Ultimate Form is stirring, and from his computer desk, Megalodon is at least alert enough to know that this is the case. After all, he's nearly 50 meters above where the Ultimate Form is stationed.

Yet the room he's in shook with every bit of force the Ultimate Form threw at its containment wall; a haunting realization that perhaps extracting it's blood to use to experiment was a bat shit insane move on his part. Did he care? 'So long as the results don't disappoint', he thought.

Megalodon turns his attention back towards the monitor, all the while briefly glancing over the tired, captive Odd and Ulrich, overlooking how easily they've worn out from their fight with a real Diatrex; he does not fear them, but he doesn't realize that perhaps his own tests worked too easily.

"See? My results with my experiments on your two boys; they've proven so successful that it's now boring me; they've run dry on energy, meaning I'll have to forego further testing before I can truly evaluate how strong this serum is." Megalodon details to Keiko on the other end of Odd's phone, as Keiko could be heard mumbling in an attempt to curse out Megalodon's smug face.

"UGH! Forget it, I'll just have to hack into your system my way, in that case, you'd better watch your back in case your little experiment was hastily concluded." Keiko yells towards Megalodon; the frustration of her voice has Megalodon raise an eye, as Megalodon hears what could only be described as a gunshot emerging from behind him.

Turning around, Megalodon spots a bullet hole in the glass between his room and Odd and Ulrich's cell; however, the source of the bullet hole had him even more stumped; it was one of the other employees.

"Ken Kirigaya? What brings you here to my station? I'm kind of busy here." Megalodon asks, as the presence of the man clothed entirely in black, with silver hair and red eyes moves to glance over towards Megalodon with a glare; he raises a revolver towards him, casually dumping the bullets within off to the side.

".900 magnum; that is how much the glass of these walls can sustain and resist damage from." Ken points out, before looking towards Megalodon, as he reloads his revolver in hand very quickly, before pointing and taking aim at Megalodon.

"Now then, if you'd be so kind, get on the ground and tell me how big those particular bullets' magnum I discarded are." Ken orders to Megalodon, as Megalodon's eyes widen, before hastily moving to get on the ground, hurting his back in the process due to his large frame and the sudden movement, as he moves to carefully grab one of the bullets and examine it.

".357 m-magnum, b-boss… W-What of-" Megalodon is interrupted by Ken dropping a calendar down at Megalodon's face, with the various days of the week labeled.

"'Structural integrity does not wear down until Maintenance upon any Friday of the week', is that not what this says, Mitch?" Ken asks of Megalodon, as Megalodon "Mitch" looks up towards Ken with concern.

"But today's Tuesday, so what are you implying?" Megalodon points out, as Ken moves to grab Megalodon by the scruff of his neck, before lifting his entire body –all six feet of it– to face Ken in the eyes.

"We've gone back yet again, as you seem to misunderstand my son's friend on that phone." Ken points out, vaguely, as he moves to grab Odd's phone from Megalodon's desk, and put it on speaker.

"Do you not understand, Megalodon? You're being careless as to what powers you've been meddling with. You've made our organization enemies with a group who controls one of his machines. Do you not understand?!"

"Wait, "his"? "His" as in who, exactly?" Keiko decides to ask over the phone, upon hearing Ken's voice, as Ken leers towards the window behind with Odd and Ulrich inside the cell, as Megalodon trembles in Ken's grasp.

"K-Ken, I can explain-"

A piercing, powerful gunshot can be heard piercing the room; the mere sound of it completely shatters the glass of the containment cell Odd and Ulrich are in, causing the alarm to be raised.

[Warning. AI breach in the facility. Threat Level: 9. Warning.]

"I've heard that alarm ring in my ears seven times within the span of what was allegedly the same 24 hours on Friday; now I'm hearing it for the second time on Tuesday, at the exact same 11 AM in the morning. Do you have any idea what that means, Mitch?!" Ken scolds his colleague, as the sound of an echoing, monstrous sounding roar enters the air of the facility; practically drowning out any and all other sound present in the room. While Ken and Megalodon are experiencing recoil from the blast, Odd and Ulrich jump into the small room they're in and head out the nearest door; their escape is so hasty that Ken actually did manage to see it, but doesn't seem to care at all about it.

"Time has been reset at least 9 times trying to prevent the events that unfold next; take up arms or run like the beta you are, because I'm going to stay and fight; this time her silver sheen will not pierce my gaze any further." Ken tells Megalodon off, before dropping him to the ground, and moving to rapidly run out of the room, trying to catch up to Odd and Ulrich.

"Odd! Can you hear me now? Just what was all of that going on?" Ulrich asks, as he prepares to speed up to hyper speed; Odd rapidly latches himself onto Ulrich's backside, before Ulrich suddenly speeds up to the point time around the duo seems to slow to a crawl; before their eyes, they enter another observation room with the glass shattering; the glass' fragments appear before them, still in movement, but very subtly moving to hit the ground in an absurdly slow rate.

To everyone else, Odd and Ulrich effectively disappeared into thin air, but from their end, time is moving so slowly because they're currently moving superfast in comparison to their surroundings.

"Heh, good thinking, Ulrich, taking us both to hyper speed so we can think this out." Odd remarks, as he jumps off of Ulrich's back to look around.

"Don't get used to it; I just bought us some time to recover, some time to learn our surroundings, but more importantly, what the hell was that entire lecture that Ken guy was going on about?" Ulrich asks, as Odd thinks about it for a moment.

"Can't be the supercomputer, I don't think; I only recall it ever having been able to set back time by 24 hours at most, never any further. Our experience on Lyoko, meanwhile, allows us to keep our memories of what originally happened… somehow." Odd tells Ulrich his two cents, as Ulrich raises an eye.

"Or perhaps this could mean that not only is the supercomputer just a supercomputer, one of many just like it, but that perhaps this other supercomputer has a better grasp on its own version of the Return to the Past program." Ulrich tries to figure out, as Odd looks around within the observation room they're stationed in. Something seemed oddly… cozy, about the observation room they're in, as in it looked too comfortable to be within for its own good.

The room looks like it's straight out of an old fashioned room from somewhere else in Europe, approximately 90 years ago, and even though it looks so old fashioned, it doesn't appear as though the room has aged a day ever since it was made. In addition, judging from the Christmas decorations all set up and prepared for Christmas Day, the room seems more than beyond temporally misplaced; as far as Odd and Ulrich are aware, Christmas isn't for another 3 months, and yet this room is fully decorated and ready, all the way down to the Aluminum Christmas Tree that occupies the room, befitting of the era this room must've originated from.

Odd looks warily around the oddly comforting room; Odd can feel as though he's walked into a completely different time period, as does Ulrich, but neither of them can make heads or tails of what exactly is the reason behind this containment room looking like this. That is, of course, for this room being literally just that; with the observation room completely unseparated from the containment room proper.

"Ulrich, by any chance was there a sign saying which AI this room contains before we got in here?" Odd asks, as he can't help but notice the observation room and the containment room of this particular specimen are actually merged together; there are no barriers keeping the duo from attack from whatever AI is contained here, and right now Ulrich panics with the implications, as he frantically looks around for any signs of life; moving about the room, from Ulrich and Odd's perspectives, everything is still moving so slowly because they're in hyper speed, but some hairs rising on the back of Ulrich's head is trying to tell him something.

Despite that they're both in hyper speed, something is very much in the room right now, and even though Odd and Ulrich should technically still be incapable of being seen right now, something has its gaze locked exactly onto Ulrich's position. Odd, noticing the same sensation of being watched, slowly readies his gauntlets to prepare to fire upon anything out of the ordinary, but Ulrich raises a hand, signaling for him to lower his weapons.

"H-Hello?"

A voice speaks out from somewhere within the room; upon further investigation, the room does indeed have a few other noteworthy traits that can be examined; a small calendar reads the date as "December 25th, 1945", and the clock on the wall reads "3:30 AM". Ulrich and Odd, both aware of how the Return to the Past works, realizes it could not physically be 3:30 AM anywhere outside of this room; based off what they could hear from Megalodon and Keiko, it was the exact time of day that William first showed up prior to the Return to the Past, and it was almost lunch by that time.

"… Hello?" The voice speaks out again, as Ulrich's focus is turned back onto the mysterious inhabitant of this room. He can feel that whoever is whatever is speaking, that it appears to be very close in proximity.

Ulrich turns to face whatever was there next to him, but for some reason he couldn't see anything despite its shadow appearing in the lighting. Odd, looking more carefully at the shadows of the room, notices the entity's figure is rather petite, and somewhat feminine looking from the appearance of small curves prominent in certain spots, and as far as Odd can tell, is very much a human girl in appearance.

Still, the question remains; why can't Odd and Ulrich see her? Ulrich thinks about it to himself, as he tries to rationalize with how this entity is trying to make first contact in seemingly impossible conditions.

"Ulrich, we appear to be dealing with a human girl we can't see for some reason."

"Shush, Odd; listen carefully…" Ulrich snaps rather harshly, as Odd can tell this is getting serious for him; Odd hasn't seen Ulrich act like this unless he was showing a sign of being super protective of someone, and Odd knows the feeling too well to see Ulrich simultaneously angry and calm in such a self-contradictory state; after all, he's known him for years.

"Hello? Who is here with us?" Ulrich asks, his tone calm, stern if you will, as he tries to figure out the individual's identity. Odd, paying attention to the shadows, notices a movement from the humanoid entity; she appears to step backwards a bit from Ulrich, to which Ulrich calmly tries to raise his hands to show he doesn't mean any harm to this entity. Ulrich tilts his head towards Odd, trying to get him to do the same.

"Who are you two? I've never seen you two in this facility before. Are you new specimens?" The girl asks, as Odd gives Ulrich a weird look, before Ulrich focuses on the girl he cannot see; as if trying to imagine where she is currently standing.

"I suppose we are; a man named Megalodon used us for combat testing with a few other entities, but we've escaped due to some… commotion going on in another part of the facility. My name is Ulrich, and my friend here is named Odd." Ulrich explains, as he introduces himself and Odd to the unknown girl. Slowly, a bright, pink light manifests into a human outline before Ulrich; the girl's body language, visible now due to this, showcases she is scared, as Ulrich continues to remain calm with what he's seeing.

'First contact indeed…' Odd thinks to himself, briefly, before speaking up, "What is your name, by any chance?" Odd asks the girl, as the girl slowly begins to appear more visible in a sort of holographic phase before them. Pink hair is prominent across the girl's head, as its bundled up like a shrub, as the girl's eyes are a glowing green in color, and she is dressed in a very modest winter coat with pink earmuffs covering her ears.

"My name is Aelita, I am the daughter of Franz. I find it unusual that you're not reacting to me in any sort of negative sense, Ulrich and Odd; where are you two from?" Aelita introduces herself, as Odd and Ulrich both have their eyes widen a bit upon hearing the name of her father.

"Franz? The guy who allegedly created the supercomputer underneath the hermitage? Ulrich, don't you think this sounds highly suspicious?" Odd whispers to Ulrich, as Ulrich shoots him a glare. The nature of the room notwithstanding, Aelita couldn't possibly being referring to that Franz, could she?

"We know next to nothing of the guy; it could've been anyone else, easily; besides, that's a priority for another time." Ulrich whispers to Odd, as he gestures with his hand and mouth to have Odd zip his lips to keep quiet, as Ulrich focuses again on Aelita before him; Aelita's visibility had faded back to a pink outline, as her body language has her covering her eyes with her hands, as Aelita visibly backs away a single step.

"H-Hey! Don't be afraid, we're not going to hurt you… We're kind of scared ourselves to be perfectly honest… Do you know of any way of escaping this facility?" Ulrich speaks to try and calm Aelita down, as he asks the most important question he could think of; Aelita's appearance seems oddly familiar, and if his suspicion is correct, Aelita might actually know a way out, and thus be able to assist him and Odd escape and get back to Kadic.

"Y-You… want to leave? Already? I mean, I can make an exit for you to return to where you originally came from, but why would you want to leave so badly?" Aelita asks, as Ulrich and Odd look at her in confusion.

"Is there a reason that you wish to stay here?" Ulrich asks, as Aelita nods.

"Franz is due to return at any moment now; he's told me to hold the memory of this day forever until he returns, so I dare not leave this spot until then." Aelita explains, simply, as Ulrich's eyes widen. Now he needs to flat out confirm something here, as though the room's contents didn't already speak for themselves.

"Aelita, what year was it when Franz had told you this?" Ulrich asks, hoping it didn't sound too personal of a question.

"1945. Why? Are you from the future?" Aelita asks, as Ulrich and Odd's eyes widen.

"No, Aelita; you're-" Ulrich is nearly about to state that she's from the past, but Odd drags him to the side to have a word with Ulrich first; if one could say Ulrich's harsh protectiveness was only in rare circumstances, then dragging Ulrich off to the side for a private chat was Odd's own similar trait.

"Ulrich, you spill the beans to her that it's 2033, and I'm pretty sure that would freak her out to the point she'll become hostile on us. That's almost 90 years after 1945, so she's bound to snap upon the realization she's been held prisoner here for that long!" Odd tells Ulrich, quietly, as Ulrich glances with his eyes to examine Aelita.

"You're point? Aelita doesn't appear to be anywhere older than 16 be it physically or mentally, considering the fact she's more afraid of us than she has any reason to be. I mean after all she's kind of shorter than Jérémie for goodness sakes!" Ulrich tells Odd, as Aelita's hearing perks up.

"You know Jérémie? In that case, I can help you two get back to where you need to go, if you could promise me to deliver a message to Jérémie for me."

Ulrich and Odd's skin runs cold as their eyes both widen as to hear that name of all things be spoken by Aelita; as far as Odd and Ulrich were both concerned, Yumi had strict orders for the two of them to stay away from Jérémie and leave him be, but Yumi herself never understood why since Jérémie likewise avoids everyone for the most part. How does Aelita, who hails from wherever this facility is, know of Jérémie when Jérémie is perhaps the biggest social recluse they know of, to the point that he couldn't even talk to a girl such as Aelita, and even then, Ulrich didn't know for certain if Aelita was referring to the same Jérémie.

"Um, Aelita, is the Jérémie you're referring to blond and wears circular glasses?"

"That's correct, yes."

Odd's question to Aelita has Ulrich looking back towards Odd to nearly say something, but before he can, he realizes the fireplace is starting to burn at a normal speed, which wouldn't be out of place, had it not been for Ulrich and Odd being in hyper speed.

"Odd, time's running out; we need to get out of here before our hyper speed runs out and Megalodon catches wise to us being in here!" Ulrich states, as Aelita gasps with horror as she quickly manifests a portal with her hands to the exit; the exit that Odd and Ulrich look through leading into what appears to be someone's dorm in Kadic, and the clock visible showcases everything to be the way it should.

"AELITA?!" Megalodon can be heard screaming at the top of his lungs in a muffled tone, indicating he was still quite a distance away, but his voice was no longer slow from Ulrich and Odd's perspective.

"Time's up!" Odd says, as he jumps through the portal and lands in the dorm, as Odd quickly examines his surroundings and looks outside; thankfully, Aelita knew the proper time of Kadic to send them to, even if this doesn't appear either his or Ulrich's dorm, but Odd is more concerned as to why Ulrich doesn't just jump through the portal now.

"Ulrich? What are you waiting for?!" Odd asks, as Ulrich looks at the portal, then at Aelita.

"Are you coming with us?" Ulrich asks, to which Aelita is startled and nearly backs away, with the portal's stability trembling in and out of existence, "… I'll take that as a no, but don't worry; I'll deliver your message to Jérémie for you. Though, what was it you wanted to get through to him?" Ulrich asks, as loud, powerful knocks on the door to Aelita's room could be heard.

"Aelita?! Open this door this instant!" Megalodon's voice angrily shouts, as Aelita quickly gives Ulrich an envelope, as Ulrich hastily takes it and heads out through the portal Aelita is keeping stable for him to quickly escape, before it quickly closes behind him, and Aelita is back alone in her room.

"Pray for me, please…" Aelita mumbles, as Megalodon forces the door open, slowly opening it as he stares down at Aelita with his immense height compared to her own. Megalodon is breathing heavily, a bit exhausted as well as angered.

"You stirred him awake, didn't you?!" Megalodon asked, as Aelita steps away and shakes her head no, before Megalodon glares as he moves to toss aside a nearby lamp and grab Aelita by the neck and lift her up in the air, as Aelita lets out a scream in terror, as Megalodon's harsh grip on her has his small, beady eyes seem like glowing pinpricks to Aelita from what she could make of him from the lighting of the room.

"You don't intend to hide behind that Ultimate Form forever, do you?"

An loud, rush of air can be heard blowing through the hallways, as a powerful, intense gale of cold wind enters the room, Aelita screams at the harsh wind blowing in her face, but Megalodon is otherwise unfazed, except for what the alarms were beginning to blare this time around.

[Warning. Unidentified entity invading the building into the lower floors. Threat Level: 4. Warning.]