Code Lyoko: Revolutions and Evolutions

Chapter 92

AN: This chapter has come after prayer, and I'm immensely pleased with the result. I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and I will see you next time.

Pagliacci-11.

Night had fallen, and Aelita was sitting in the now solitary silence of her room. She looked over at the bunk next to her, currently vacant. It seemed to her, very odd and still. There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary, but something felt as if it was keeping her awake. She tossed and turned as much as her nerves demanded, still to no avail.

Aelita sat up, and she thought about all that had happened in the afternoon. The revelation that another world, another dimension, genuinely existed. One that was just beyond them, ever so close and yet so far out of reach. Aelita contemplated the being she'd seen. One just like herself, one that was colder, more bitter, she didn't care for people it seemed but—Sylvia. Sylvia, Aelita felt in her bones, couldn't be trusted. She's spoken so well about so much, and yet she wished to destroy the earth. All Sylvia's speeches about fairness and a grander vision, needing Aelita to aide her, all of that seemed a distant memory now.

Aelita felt pulled between two forces, one she knew well enough, angry, arrogant, sociopathic, spiteful, no matter how honeyed her words or how she professed noble her intentions were. The other, this Natasha, was different. Aelita could feel it. She could feel this muck, this indescribable vestigial element-like and invisible stringy soot that dripped from her. It was if she could hear the screams of those she'd put in the earth, and yet, not one drop of blood was on Natasha.

From Odd's explanation, from what he'd learned of the mirror world, Natasha was a brutal tyrant who'd used theology as her grounding for actions. By her own admission, Natasha had killed hundreds of thousands, as if miscalculating was a form of insult to her legacy. That bloodshed she wore as her grizzled medallion, her badge of honor. But what did she know of the woman Natasha? Nothing but what history from the other side was said to have of her and Odd's account. They were a mirror universe, a mirrored people.

Aelita's eyes went wide; she reflected on that moment with Yolanda as they packed for Mercier. "Yolanda." She thought, "but—that's impossible." She laughed out loud, but her laughter stopped, "Come to think—she went far for that joke. Too far."

Aelita got up, got modestly dressed for the evening, and went to the infirmary. She was about to knock when she hesitated, "She's the day nurse, not night. Still—" She knocked, and to her surprise, Yolanda answered.

"Aelita, how may I help you?"

Aelita came in and said, "Yolanda, I need to ask you a question."

Yolanda left the door open a crack and sat back in her chair. Taking her clipboard, she said, "Firstly, are you ill?"

"No, ma'am," Aelita replied.

Yolanda put her clipboard up, "Then what's the issue?"

Aelita sat on one of the cots and asked, "That joke, the one you told me about the mirror universe—are you from there?"

Yolanda chuckled, "Aelita, it was just a joke. Call it majorly playing into your adolescent sensibilities at the time."

Aelita nodded, "But you were so precise about it. Methinks thou doth protest too much. The level you put into it—"

Yolanda sat back in her chair, bemused. She was smiling, and unknown to her, Aelita had seen that look before. In Heidi Klinger, when she been caught but was too vain to admit it.

Aelita leaned in, "That's the thing, Heidi. I know it is you. I have you at a disadvantage, mirror lady. I know that face."

Yolanda laughed out loud, "Come now, seriously? Continue on this path Ms. Stones, and you'll be certifiable for sure."