Code Lyoko: Reincarnated, twenty years later

Chapter 19- Powers

The next morning we officially handed Ruby's papers to the Principal. "My! She looks exactly like Ruby! It's crazy what genes can do."

Ruby forced a smile. "Thank you. My aunt speaks highly of you."

"Really? I didn't even know Ruby had a sibling!" Principal Sissi Delmas laughed. "Anyway! I welcome you to Kadic Academy. You'll be living with the Belpois family, right? Then I hope Mia makes you feel welcome. Feel free to ask her anything, Skylar."

When she had enrolled I for he Academy, she went by her original name: Skylar Thorn. "I suppose I should call you Skylar from now on?"

She sat next to me in maths class at the back of the class. We had a different substitute, not Mrs Hertz. "So. Green Phoenix. What do we know about them?" I asked quietly.

"Not too much. They sort of just... came upon the Lyoko Warriors. There was no way to find them."

"Then let's make a mind map, note everything down."
Skylar pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote the words 'Project Carthage' in the middle. She wrote some other words: like Waldo and Anthea, Men in Black and Green Phoenix.

"Let's see..." she began. "Both Green Phoenix and the FBI want to use Lyoko as a weapon. So Waldo ran away with Aelita and created Lyoko, with XANA as its guardian."

"XANA is its guardian?!" I retorted. "Then why is it attacking us?"

"Um..." Skylar thought hard. "When Aelita and your grandfather went to Lyoko, XANA was trapped there too. And like your mother, it lost its memories. It probably thinks that we'll kill it."

"Woah." I hadn't thought of XANA as an ally before. Neither did my parents. "So to find grandma, we find green pheonix. And to do that, we need XANA."

"Exactly. It'll take us years to search the entire network. But XANA? It'll take it minutes."

I gulped loudly. XANA wasn't the enemy anymore, Green Pheonix is. "How do we contact XANA?"

She smiled at me. "We go to where XANA lives, the Cortex."

*********

Our parents were pretty lenient with us. Mum and Dad were looking around the house for any more documents. Ulrich was with Yumi and Odd was telling most of the kids at the school about his career as a famous movie director.

We took our skateboards and scooters to factory, and immediately ran to the scanners.

I fell to the floor when I was virtualised. Kyoko, Skylar and I looked around as we waited for the boys, before we headed to the skid. "It's funny," Skylar said. "Did you know that XANA used to live in Sector 5? Though, he escaped when he got Aelita's memories."

"That sounds so cool!" Kyoko said. "Our parents really ought to tell us about their adventures!"

"Maybe another time," Alex said from outside Lyoko. We each stood on our platforms and we energised. I piloted the skid out of Lyoko and into the digital sea.

"Woah!" Skylar and Daze said in unison. I remember my first time it the digital sea.  Alex directed me to a hub where I straightened the skid, before diving in it.

"Cortex in sight," I said. We approached the sphere. We opened the core entrance and entered.

The sky was a beautiful golden colour whilst the ground was a sort of teal. We parked the skid at the edge. "Here are your vehicles." The three vehicles appeared. As always, Kyoko, Rick and I got on the overwing, overboard and overbike respectively. Skylar got on behind me.

"You can join me," Kyoko gestured. "Rick hasn't gotten used to the overboard yet."

"Give me a break!" Rick said. "I bet none of you could ride it if you got on!"

"Yet you ride a skateboard perfectly fine," I said as I accelerated. "Aren't your parents really good at skateboarding? I heard they always participated in competitions back in the day."

"That wasn't carried over in my genes," he argued. Unlike the first time, we went relatively slowly. The ground trembled a little which made us wary as it started to move. "Look! The core!"

Skylar leaned forward to get a closer look, almost falling off. "That's the core? This seems more like a dream everyday."

We stopped just outside the core. "Now what? We've never been inside without mum. She was the one who opened it last time," I said.

"So this mission is a complete failure if we don't have Aunt Aelita?" Kyoko seemed disappointed. "Should we go back and get her?"

"I have an idea," Skylar said. We looked at her eagerly. She didn't like all the attention. "If there's a tower here, maybe we could try to find out what our powers are."

"How?"

"Alex is the computer genius. He'll figure it out."

"You flatter me," Alex said. "But I'm no Einstein like Mia's father."

"You'll do fine. But first, direct us to the tower." We all got on the vehicles and raced to the tower, slowly. I went in first. The tower left a ripple like effect as I entered.

"Mia? Go to the second floor," Alex directed. I did as I was told. When I arrived, a tab oped and I wanted to access the tower's information but he prevented me from doing so. Instead he told me to place my hand on the interface and wait.

A few waves of digital energy flowed through my hand, all around my body. "What was that?"

"Give me a second. You can let go now." I let go and massaged my wrist, even though I wouldn't be able to feel it in mg virtual avatar. "I've figured it out!"

"Figure what out?" I said as I left the tower.

"Mia your power is Pause."

"What? Pause things? In midair?"

"I think so, you'll just have to try it out."

I groaned as I turned to the others. "Who's next?"

Skylar wanted to confirm her power so she went next. Her power was indeed Invisibility.
Kyoko's power was Interface. She could programme and create new codes from within the supercomputer.
Rick's power was Shortcut, truly benefitting someone like him.
The most useful power was Daze's Observation. It allowed one to see the attributes of any part of a virtual world and modify it.

"We'll do your thing," Kyoko said as we stopped in front of the black sphere.

"I have no idea what to go," he commented.

"Just give it a go," Skylar encouraged. "Try placing your hands on the sphere and... try to focus all your energy on opening it."

He placed his hands on it and emitted a white aura. The entrance roared as it opened. I gulped loudly, but I the concept was impossible in my virtual avatar. "Let's go."