Code: Lyoko

Chain of Memories

The wolf stared, not doing anything, and yet everything.

'Mommy!!!'

The car pulled away

Despite the cold, that moment was seared into Aelita's memory forever.

Mommy's face…

Frozen in fear

Pressed against the back window of the car

Her cheeks still red from being outside just seconds ago

Tears, she was crying…

… Frozen in fear

The car pulled away

MOMMY!!!

It was too late the car was gone Mommy was gone

The little girl lay in the snow, crying

Mommy was gone…

The people with the evil eyes took her

Green eyes shot open, flinging away beads of cold sweat and tears. Rasping for breath, Aelita sat up, disoriented for a second. The next second however, she jumped up, her body tense, ready for what ever XANA had in store for her this time. For surely only XANA could have awoken her, surely it was launching an attack and Aelita was just jostled awake by a Polymorphing specter, an earthquake… or a giant invasion force of flying tuna. With XANA, you never really could classify his attacks as 'sane'. He did whatever works in the end for him.

The following second however, an insurmountable wave of grief crashed down upon Aelita.

"… oh"

XANA was dead… and so was her father. Dead for 3 years now… 3 years since Franz Hopper sacrificed himself to rid the world, both this one and the virtual one, of the virus known as XANA.

Aelita stiffly made her way back to her bed, only to find she would have to remake it due to her thrashing. Her pink sheets were crumpled and untucked; her pillow lay forgotten on the floor. Sighing at the unfairness of life, she stripped and reapplied her sheets. It was autumn for crying out loud, everything was firkin cold! The fact that she wore only her pink over shirt to sleep in didn't help either. She just wanted to crawl back in-between her 5 blankets and her mattress, and try and get a decent nights sleep for once.

Yeah… The nightmares didn't stop. Not have XANA died, not after her father died, not after the super computer shut down. Everything in her old haunted life was either dormant or dead… or a little of both, not even Jeremie could say for sure if it was one or the other. Yet still the nightmares persisted.

It must sound Cliché, but the nightmares were always the same…

"Mommy…"

…Yet, they always seemed new, they always seemed to fit some how.

Somehow, each nightmare seemed to paint a stroke on a canvas, and with each stroke, a picture came into focus. If Aelita had to put it in physical terms, she would say it was a painting… of her mothers face. Frozen in fear, crying icy tears, pressed against the back window of the Nissan SUV.

The pillow, which was seconds away from returning to its beloved spot at the head of the bed, was unceremoniously returned to the floor.

… Nissan SUV? Where… When… What?

… Where did that come from?

… When did I figure that out?

… What the hell is a Nissan SUV doing in the 80s?

No matter what impossibilities she could conjure up in her mind, nothing seemed to make her subconscious drop its iron grip of truth, that her mother was taken by a Nissan SUV.

How did I figure that out?


"Rosa, my sun, my life, my all! You're looking absolutely fabulous this morning! Is that a new Haircut, It's a new haircut isn't it? It's GOT to be a new Haircut! New makeup? You've had a lip? A—"

The rant of compliments was soundly muted as an extra serving of eggs got dumped onto Odd Della Robbia's meal tray. Grinning with satisfaction, Odd he spared a quick thanks over his shoulder and maneuvered himself towards his friends.

Rosa could only wonder how the blond oddity could, even now, have fresh material to con extra food from her. 5 years of extra helpings for all 3 meals meant a lot of original ass kissing.

Seating himself next to Ulrich, Odd proceeded to make a pig of himself, all the while somehow maintaining the lecherous grin. Across the table, Aelita and Jeremie, who finally learned how to not lose his appetite when Odd eats, were talking about… cars, oddly enough.

"Look, I know you know what you saw; but as far as I know, there were no Nissan SUVs back then."

"I don't know, I 'Saw' the logo. I'll have to research models to find out exactly what one it was."

"Even If that wasn't a waste of time, how is the type of car even relevant? I know what your trying to do here Aelita, but… Its over, you shouldn't keep yourself buried in the past. Its time to move forward, look to the future."

"And just forget my past?! For all I know, she could be alive! Why didn't my dreams end after we shut down the supercomputer, where did my dreams lead us when it was still active?"

"They lead us to Mr. Puck, and then to your fathers diary. But that doesn't mean these dreams are going to lead us to another 'important discovery'." Said Ulrich, who had been listening to all of this long before Odd sat down, and actually knew what the hell everyone was talking about. Leaving a very confused Odd the only one at the table out of the conversation.

"They're leading me to my mother."

With that simple sentence, a tense and awkward silence descended on the table, until,

"Uhh…What's going on? Aelita's dreams are going to lead us to a free car? I think that's totally relevant Einstein!"

"Shut up, Odd." Came the terse reply from Aelita, who was in the middle of a stareing contest with Jeremie. The atmosphere became even more tense, more unwelcome and awkward. Eventually, just when it seemed as though some invisible bubble of tension was about to burst,

"Hiya!"

William.


Yeah! My first fic is well on its way! This is the 1st of hopefully many chapters of 'Chain Of Memories', You can find a one-shot based on a future scene of this story here: plan on adding more depth to each character next chapter, AND the reveaing of the main plot! GASP action unfolds! Next time on Chain of Memories!

Remember to drop a review, or I'll run you over with a Nissan SUV! ... By the way, that ... waaaaasss a Nissan SUV in Aelitas dream in 'Distant Memory'... right?

... and they didn't exist in the 80s... right?