Code Lyoko: Reincarnated, twenty years later

Chapter 21- The Mirror

Skylar led us to the mysterious white room again, this time she was carrying a small stool that barely fit through the narrow passageway. "Stand back," she warned. "I hope I'm right." She launched the stool at one of the walls. It shattered like glass, revealing another hollow room.

"Another secret room?" I asked. "How did grandpa make this all? With the senior warriors?"

We stepped inside. The room was fairly dark, with a large scanner and a mini supercomputer. "Knock yourselves out," Skylar said, stepping out of the room. "We'll be here if you need us." She sat down beside Rick and Kyoko who had moved the sofa to make room for lots of documents.

"It's crazy how your parents don't suspect anything," Daze said.

"Yeah, well..." I began, "The Lyoko Warriors are slowly reintroducing Yumi to Lyoko, and their trying to go to the network to the cortex and try to destroy the cortex."

"But that would kill XANA! Don't we need it to find your grandmother?" Daze screamed.

"Don't worry," Alex said from his seat. "Mia was able to extract a copy of the Cortex's keys and put them in Lyoko. All I had to do was to make a programme allowing XANA to live in Lyoko. Unless he gets the keys from Mia or her mother, it shouldn't be able to escape."

"We're so close, I can feel it!" I went. I stepped into the scanner. "See you on the other side," I winked to Daze. The boys nodded at me as the scanner door closed. No matter what I asked, Skylar wouldn't tell me anything about this supercomputer or "the mirror." She told me to look for a box which should be able to control the time in the box, I don't get it.

I fell to the floor. Unlike Lyoko, the ground wasn't pastel. Nothing was. It was pitch black. I was still in my knight get up, but there was nothing else. By my feet was a box with a bunch of buttons. As Daze appeared in front of me, I proceeded to press on of the buttons. 

The space around us morphed into a dream like area. We were in the middle of a street the box displayed a date. June 3rd 1994. We were in the middle of town so we ended up walking to the Hermitage. It seemed more livelier than it is in our time. "This is the Hermitage in 1994? It looks so... green," Daze noted.

A car skidded past us. Two men in black stepped out, they broke down the door when no one answered. They didn't attack us. "I don't think they can see us," I said.

We followed them inside, grandpa and a child version of mum froze at the sight of them but soon ran down to the basement. "I think this is when they're going to Lyoko for the first time." We followed them down but the men in black lost them by the passage. I tried to open it, but my hand went right through. "What happened to your hand?"

I pulled the handle, which glitched a little as it formed into a separate door in my hand. "What the heck?" I screamed. The door was duplicated, with the same scratches and marks. "We can't move through matter, but whatever we touch will be replicated," I noted putting my hand on the original door. "Should we go to the factory?"

"Nah," Daze said, taking the box from me. "Let's keep going." He pressed the forward button, making our surroundings move at a faster pace, like an old recording. When we stopped, we saw Mum and Grandpa in their respective scanners in the scanner room.

"See you in a bit, daddy," mum smiled.

"See you in a bit, Aelita." The scanners closed.

Daze pressed the forward button again, taking us to Lyoko. Mum had just been virtualised. "Daddy?"

"I'm here." Franz Hopper was a beacon of light, split into many little smaller spheres, whilst mum wore a different getup than her current one: an elf. "Here, we'll be safe. Forever." Mum walked into the tower and the surroundings went dark.

"We've reached the end. This is the furthest of grandpa's memory. Let's go back, see if we missed anything."

I took the box from Daze and went back. It was worth it. "So your father implanted the programme for the programme Code Down into your mother's brain as a child. And the programme will destroy Lyoko?"

"Not the whole programme. There's some in here. Also, didn't the Lyoko journal mention something about Brussels. A prototype supercomputer? There might be something there too."

"We need to get out of here," Daze shivered. "This is beginning to get dangerous and confusing."

"You were warned when I muttered. "Let's go back some more, we might find out something new."

"-llo?" a static voice called. "Can you hear me?"

"Alex!" Daze mumbled. "Thank God I can the voice of someone who isn't part of the Schaeffer family! Can you get us out of here?"

"Theoretically speaking, yes. Practically, maybe. I'll try." Daze faded into blue pixels like on Lyoko. A moment later, I was brought back as well.

I fell out of the scanner gasping. "Air sweet air!" I gasped. "What did I miss?"

"We came up with a theory!" Kyoko screamed from the other room. "And we cleaned the mess made from the broken wall."

I focused on the wall, which seemed to be bigger and refined. "How long were we in there?"

"A couple of hours."

"Hours?" Daze and I questioned in unison.