"I can't wait to tell the others that you're alright! This is amazing."
Aelita smiled up at him as they hurried over to the super computer. "No, Jeremie, the fact that you found me and saved me...that's amazing." Snuggling up to him even as they moved, she stood on her tip toes and placed another kiss on his cheek. Jeremie felt his face turn red, and tried to make his brain work over the blood rushing through his body. The kiss seemed to sink coolly into his skin, sending a shiver down his spine. Standing at the computer, however, he frowned, forgetting the chill, the tiny warning bell that had started to go off in the back of his head.
"Wait...what...they're gone!" Sliding into the chair, he quickly began typing in the codes that would find his friends. Instead, the five sectors shimmered at him, empty. Next to him, her arms draped loosely over his shoulders, Aelita leaned over to look at the screen.
"I"m sure they're somewhere, Jeremie. Why we're waiting, darling, why don't we try that program again?"
Darling? Jeremie blinked in surprise as he blushed again at the endearment. She had never called him that before. Then, realizing what else she had said, he looked at her, his eyebrows raised. "You'd want to try that again? I still haven't had a chance to work out the codes, after last time and-"
"Shhh..." Smiling, Aelita reached over and placed a cool finger tip on his lips. "Jeremie, you can do anything you wish, don't worry. Send me in, or if you still worried, I'll only go in the scanner, not into Lyoko."
Jeremie hesitated, trying to see even though his glasses were fogging up. "Well...even if it doesn't work, you could find the others and-
"Yes, that too," she agreed, already disentangling herself from him and backing up towards the elevator. Smiling, she held out a hand to him. "I'm a little scared to go down there myself after...after what happened..." She bit her lip for a moment, then smiled brighter at him. "Would you walk me down?"
Unable to resist, Jeremie nodded, hating the fact his face was probably going tomato-red by now. "Oh, okay, well..."
His back to the computer, he didn't see the scanner register as two people were devirtualized into the scanners, didn't hear the excited voices chattering. All he knew was that Aelita snuggled close to him again as they stood in the elevator. His heart pounding in his head, he wasn't sure he could move by the time they stopped at the level of the scanners. As the door opened, he looked down at the girl hugging herself close to him, a small smile on her face.
Then he heard them.
"Einstein! We found-"
His head jerked up, and he saw the colorful blurs of Yumi and Odd as they started toward him.
Then, everything froze.
All the breath left his lungs like a fist in his gut.
Stepping out of the middle scanner, her vivid green eyes wide with shock, was Aelita.

"J-Jeremie..." He looked unhurt. His blue eyes wide and staring behind his glasses, he looked as surprised as she felt to see her standing there. And no wonder, she thought, sick fear and disgust risking in her heart.
There was a girl, another Aelita, wrapped around his arm like a snake on a tree. She was looking up at Jeremie, a smile on her face. Then, slowly, she turned her head, and eyed their group. The smile widened, and turned into a leer.
"Well, well, it looks like you guys got stuck with a clone again," the Aelita with Jeremie said, her eyes meeting identical ones currently narrowed in fury and confusion. The voice, so similar to Aelita's own, struck chills down the back of her spine. The leering smile widened to a smirk, and the eyes darkened, narrowing with triumph.
Yumi and Odd, and Ulrich, who had just stopped out of the left scanner and stopped in his tracks at the sight before him, all looked nervously from pink haired girl to the other.
"XANA," continued the Aelita next to Jeremie. "You can give up the game. Jeremie knows I'm the real one, so..." her arms tightening around the blond boy, who seemed to have frozen to the spot. "Don't you, Jeremie?"
For a moment, nothing moved, then slowly, Jeremie turned his head, and looked down at the girl clinging so tightly to him. "Let go."
Never in her life had Aelita heard Jeremie's voice go so cold. The faint blush that had stained his cheeks moments ago had vanished and his face gone pale, his eyes narrowed and bright, like neon blue pinpricks.
When the Aelita he addressed opened her mouth, smiling as if she hadn't understood what he said to her, Jeremie pulled away from her, taking a step back. His lip curled in disgust. Finally, shock and betrayal registered on that Aelita's face.
"Jeremie- you- you can't possibly think that she-" Glancing at the dual image by the scanners, she glowered at him. "How dare you! You idiot, after all I said, don't you see, Jeremie, it's me, I'm Aelita, I-"
"Aelita isn't cold," he said softly, taking another step back, towards the scanners. "She wouldn't call me darling, and she would never, ever be afraid to go into the scanner room by herself. She's braver and stronger than that."
Aelita-next to the scanners- went as pink as her hair. "And actually, XANA," Jeremie continued, his eyes now rising to meet Aelita's. "Her eyes are a lot more neon that what you tried to fake. You got the hair all wrong too. And-"
The false Aelita shocked expression slowly melted as he went on, and then suddenly, she burst out laughing. Low and throaty, and some how slightly metallic, it echoed around the chamber.
The sound sent a shudder through all five of the Lyoko warriors, but none took a step back. "XANA?" The fake Aelita murmured as her laughter faded. "Is that really all you stupid humans can think of?"
"Get out of here," Aelita replied softly, taking a step forward.
Slowly, the others began to move forward, even Jeremie, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Odd spoke up, his purple eyes flashing. "Yeah, we can think of a lot of ways delete your fake digital-"
The fake Aelita laughed again, shaking her head. She didn't even seem phased by the fury in their gazes. "Idiotic humans, you flatter me with your stupidity. XANA? I may be my father's work, but I am not him." Her eyes, once dyed to match Aelita's, paled, went white. As they stood their, gaping, circles in thin black drew themselves in a strange set of pupils, like the XANA symbol..and yet
"You're not him?" Yumi snorted, taking another step forward. "That's impossible, XANA would never share his throne with anyone-
"His own daughter," the monstrosity retorted, smirking. "And your downfall, darling," she added, turning back to look at Jeremie. "Isn't that what you wanted?" A shudder went through Jeremie and he took a step back as the woman reached out her hand towards him. "Remember me, darling," she whispered, her fingers inches from his face. "Remember me."
"Don't you touch him!" Aelita shrieked, diving forward.
A loud crash, a deep bark of female laughter, a bellow of fury from Ulrich or Yumi- and then nothing, but a blasted hole in the floor. Aelita lay, face down on the ground, the others all half way forward to help her.
"Aelita?" Jeremie was at her side first, kneeling down. "Please...please, Princess," he whispered, tears welling in his eyes. He reached out, gingerly touching her hand.
A deep gasp came from the pink haired girl, then she rolled over, coughing violently. Relief rolled through Jeremie, and the others, as she sat up, trying to catch her breath. Jeremie pated her on the back, still holding her hand. The others crowded around her, and Yumi helped her stand.
"Well...that was interesting," she squeaked, leaning her head against Jeremie's shoulder, a hand in Yumi's.
"You're tellin' me!" Odd broke out, grinning. "Ya know, I knew that chick wasn't our Princess the second I saw her, no girl'd hang all over our Einstein like that."
"Oh, thanks, Odd," Jeremie muttered, as Aelita quipped wryly-
"So you didn't know it was me while we were in Lyoko?"
As Odd rolled his eyes, Ulrich sighed, looking nervously back at the burnt black hole in the floor where the woman had disappeared. "Who was that, anyway? XANA's...daughter? How is that possible?"
"And how do we fight here, if she's not a clone?" Yumi glanced at Jeremie, her eyebrows raised. "Seemed solid enough." Jeremie blushed and shrugged.
"It's hard to say. I'm guess he created her-"
"Like Frankenstein," Aelita muttered, shuddering.
"But with you DNA," Jeremie added, looking at her. She glanced up at him, then at her friends.
"Then it's my job to figure out how to beat her," she said softly, pulling away from Jeremie. "It's my-" She stopped, feeling Jeremie's warm hand take her own. She turned, and looked back at him, and her friends.
"It's our job," Jeremie said, and the others nodded.
"It's always been our job," Ulrich added. Odd nodded, then grinned.
"To kick Magenta's shapely as-"
"Magenta?" Ulrich and Jeremie echoed, rolling their eyes.
"Shapely?" Aelita and Yumi mimicked, looking at each other, looks of humor and horror on their faces.
"What?" Odd glared at them. "It fits! All we gotta do now is-"
"What we have to do, right now, is a return to the past," Jeremie said quickly, shaking his head.
"And we worry about Magenta later," Aelita murmured, glancing back behind her. Jeremie squeezed her hand and met her gaze when she looked up at him.
"We'll deal with her, Aelita. Together. She may look like you, but she's nothing but a cheap, twisted reflection."

White eyes with circled pupils narrowed as they watched the hazy image of the five teens exit the factory.
"Cheap...hardly," came the whispered voice. Black lips twisted into a smile. "Twisted, most definitely. Father, I will not disappoint you. THe mirror will break, and she, he, and they will be come ours.
Forever."