Code Lyoko – Whims of Death: A little too early

I made this some years ago, and I decided to put it up! It's tweaked a bit with the introduction of Evolution, but is generally the same.

Jeremie Belpois was a nice guy. So when he snapped at Ulrich, it drew natural curiosity to the small teenager. Ulrich was pretty good at shadowing people, but he lost Jeremie before they even left campus. He groaned, pressing his head against the wall. He'd always thought that he and Jeremie were fairly good buddies, but now he wasn't so sure.

The next day, Odd arrived. He was loud, boisterous . . . and a hell of a stalker. No matter what Ulrich tried, he could not shake Odd off long enough to go after Jeremie. Finally he told Odd what he was trying to do, and Odd simply gave him a dark smile and told Ulrich to leave the shadowing to him. Ulrich was naturally curious as to how his loud roommate could even dream of shadowing Jeremie, but had relented.

Sitting on the park bench, Ulrich realized it was going to rain. He thought about telling Jeremie and Odd that, but decided against it. So he watched as Jeremie left, giving him a narrow-eyed stare, even as his eyes never left the book he was studying (Chemistry ought to die a painful, slow death.) A few seconds later, he caught sight of . . . something or other leaping from one building to the next. He dismissed it as a cat, but when it reappeared, he realized it was his crazy roommate who landed on his feet, bursting into the covered entryway with a shiver. He eyed the blond as Odd grinned, squeezing out water from his jacket. Okay, so appearances were deceiving after all.

They were waiting for Jeremie the next time he showed up at the factory. Jeremie stopped and scowled at them both.

"What do you want?" His voice was slightly rough, signs that the 13-year-old was finally hitting puberty. Ulrich didn't answer him, instead offering him some of his favorite food as truce.

"I want to help." Ulrich said to him. Jeremie scowled, but allowed them to come with him.

Aelita sat on the strangely-shaped disc, bouncing to her feet when the familiar screen appeared, displaying an aggrieved Jeremie with two guys. She raised an eyebrow and smiled.

"So, this is the first time you've brought friends over to see me," Aelita drawled, grinning wickedly at him. Jeremie flushed like the cute boy he was, and she turned her attentions to the other boys. "And who are you?"

Odd swore quietly under his breath as he struggled to tame his mess of curly hair. Ulrich watched behind him, amused by his quiet swearing. He finally managed to make the untamed mess lie flat, and bounced out of the door after him, locking it securely. They passed by Sissi and Yumi, both of them arguing over something meaningless. When they passed, Yumi managed to get away by citing homework, using them as cover.

Jeremie had been frustrated at the addition to their numbers, but had wisely refrained from saying so, insisting that they enter Lyoko. Ulrich, however, was pleased that the blond would not be his only backup. They each stepped into a scanner, the warm light passing through their bodies and re-imaging them into another platform.

Yumi landed on her feet, taking a good look at her clothes as she did so. She was dressed in red and black leather from head to toe, thin lines of yellow forming little flower patterns on her hips, and an obi wrapped around her waist. She wore a pair of sharp tessen fans on both hips, and what looked like a staff. Checking her shoes found her pulling out a nasty-looking dagger out of the boot before replacing it. Nearby, she caught sight of Ulrich, dressed in an amber-colored shirt under a black leather vest with a set of cargo pants in dark green. He was wearing a pair of black sneakers under that, and a set of lovely Katana were set parallel to his hips, the hilts red and black.

Odd was the unusual one. He looked like a purple/blond Dante before they gave him that sucky remake, thankfully with a shirt on. Along with a set of cat ears and a tail, he had handguns and knives and hand grenades, much to his great pleasure (Yumi would never tell him this to his face, but the thought of him with explosives put her in a cold sweat every time she thought of it.)

She pulled down the hood of her jacket, before blinking at the looks Ulrich and Odd gave her. Ulrich gestured at her face.

"You've got a tattoo," Ulrich said calmly. "It's a dragon on your right eye." He gestured to his own arm, where a thick, winding web of white and black detailed out a dragon of his own, in spiraling, sharp numbers. Odd has a unique one, a tapering set of codes, winding up his face from white to purple. Yumi shrugs and they're off, searching for Aelita. They cross paths with her, and Yumi gets a good look at her for the first time, rather than the brief explanation she got in the boiler room after she demanded to know what's going on. Aelita is dressed in a pink mini-dress and sheer white tights with a cutout on the back displaying the center of her tattoo. As they watch, she slays a disgusting-looking thing that screams as it dies. Her tattoo is a set of binary codes all over her body in black, but at the kill, they glow a dull red. All of them stared at her in disbelief. She manages a smile, though it is thin and vanishes rapidly.

By the time they rescue Aelita from the supercomputer, they have paid the price with their innocence.

Yumi's grown her hair out, and has taken to wearing black turtlenecks that are wider at the top than at the brim to hide the scars on her neck. Ulrich is by this point the tallest boy in his martial arts class, and he no longer smiles, resentful of all those happy memories. Jeremie is silent and rude, with a cold with a bitter aura. He's the second tallest of the group. Odd is the shortest, but still technically 'tall'. He looks gorgeous, always keeping up with social fashion, and he hides his misery with bright smiles and fashion shows and music. Aelita is a block of ice poorly masquerading as a burst of sunshine. She wore Daisy Dukes and cropped t-shirts with thigh-high converse and smiles with a sharp edge. As the days went on, they were sick and disgusted of the world, and it seemed like nothing would ever make this world right again.

And then they met him, someone so sweet and untainted by them that they all wanted him for their own.

Inevitably, however, he is broken beyond repair, despite all the things they did to protect him.

And it's all their fault.