Sanders Sides (and more) One Shots

Solitude in Sector 5

Virgil landed on his high heeled feet and he looked around to see multiple plateaus of ice and then some. He noticed that there weren't a lot of smells for him to experience and he wasn't as fatigued as he would usually be. He missed what solitude in the real world and the Imagination had to offer, but he was as curious about the scenery Lyoko had to offer as Roman was. Ever since that time Thomas conjured up their own version of Lyoko for the sake of teambuilding for the Sides, Virgil has wondered what else Lyoko had to offer for someone who wanted to be alone or, as Logan expressed it as Thomas was binging the series, "I wonder what were Aelita's experiences before she was materialized".

Luckily for Virgil, he was still technically in Thomas's mind, so he made sure no monsters were around to attack him as he was taking a stroll. It was funny how he ended up virtualizing himself into the Ice Sector without much thought and Roman claimed he had ice inside his soul; then again, Roman was right by Virgil when he was singing "Jar of Hearts", though, but it felt like it was more than a coincidence. There wasn't too much interaction that Virgil could witness compared to a nature walk. He picked at the hoodie fused to him for a good while and even sang some songs that people would usually associate with him being another side doing a horrible job at pretending to be him. He tried his best to not let his inner demons get to him and, whenever they did sneak up on him, he would imagine the other Light Sides keeping his spirits up and reminding him that things would be okay.

Before Virgil could really notice, he ended up at the edge of the Ice Sector. He looked ahead of himself at the "horizon" and tried to see if it led anywhere different. Suddenly, he remembered that there was some sort of transportation orb that would stop by there and take the people at the spot to a completely different sector where the core of Lyoko was located. Virgil remembered seeing that there was a lot more excitement in that sector, so he decided there wouldn't be too much harm done in going to a place where a lot of excitement happened that wasn't caused by drama and arguing. He walked around in little circles kicking his high heels trying to remember how to access the transportation orb. At one point, he almost fell off and shouted "Holy Scipio!" before regaining his balance. He stepped back as he heard the orb headed for him, but relaxed as he remembered that was what he was waiting for.

After some time, Virgil found himself standing in the middle of a giant XANA eye while inside a giant dome. He didn't feel queasy, but he knew there was movement. As for his experience taking the ride to the sector, if anyone were to ask him, he'd describe it as a delayed version of himself appearing out of nowhere. Virgil looked around until a wall opened up to reveal a wall and he lightly jogged his way through into what he remembered was called the Core Zone. By the time he made it there, there were platforms popping in and out of walls and different sections of the ground under his feet were were moving up and down as if he was on a bouncy castle and everyone else was bouncing around him. He also saw several laser beams that he immediately ducked and dodged and every time he was dangerously close to a laser, he remembered that there was a button/key he had to find in the room in less than three minutes. He resorted to leaping from platform to platform and even screamed in his demonic voice several times before he found the key at a high part of a wall. He used his claws to grip onto the wall and climbed without daring to look down. He pressed the key into the wall and the room calmed down before he took a leap and landed on all fours. Once he saw another hallway form, the emo kaka decided to walk through rather than lightly jog.

Virgil found himself at another edge and was taken aback as a moving platform attached to the wall in front of him zoomed past him. He listened out for when it was near enough and found the right time to leap onto it. He gripped onto the platform while on all fours due to the concern that he'd fall off and took in the fact that he was inside a dome. Just as he was wondering what it looked like from the outside, he felt the platform slow down in front of another threshold. Without much thought, Virgil walked through and found himself at another edge, but it looked as if he was surrounded by a horizon covered in 1s and 0s.

He muttered to himself "What is this place?" and heard the voice of a familiar nerd say "It's canonically referred to as the Celestial Dome" that was too clear to have been from Virgil's imagination. He turned around and was surprised to see a familiar-looking cyborg approach him with a small smile.

"When did you get here?" Virgil asked.

"Well, I don't have a watch on my body, but I glimpsed at some movement in the Core Zone a good while ago, so more than 3 minutes ago, I suppose," Logan tried to explain.

"Oh, so what brings you to this place?"

"A few things, really: Lyoko intrigued me while Thomas was bingewatching the series, putting up with Roman and Patton's antics became exhausting after some time, and I somewhat missed the feeling of containing some robotic abilities while keeping some of my human anatomy."

Virgil chuckled and sat on the edge of the platform. Logan sat right next to him and looked like he was trying to duck under something.

"You know, if not for our tampering with the area, the bottom of an interface that would usually allow Aelita access to the sector's data would've somewhat touched our foreheads," Logan explained to the cat man.

Virgil chuckled as all the excitement made him nearly forget they could manipulate the environment around them.

"The wall consists of binary, right? Must be a nerd's wet dream," Virgil joked.

"I'll admit that the view is exquisite for the center of a virtual world, but a light breeze and maybe some colors in the sky from an upcoming sunset wouldn't hurt anybody," Logan responded in an attempt to change the subject.

"Aren't there other rooms here?"

"Yes, two of which involve the housing room for the Heart of Lyoko and the garage for the Skidbladnir, where I just came from, actually."

"Don't tell me we have to navigate through moving platforms and booby trapped rooms again," Virgil proclaimed in a joking tone.

"Who says we can't make up our own rules here?" Logan remarked with a decent amount of sass.

The cyborg used his organic hand to help him whistle and a manta materialized from within the binary wall before approaching them. Virgil recognized it as one of the enemies in the show and prepared to attack until Logan placed a hand on his shoulder gently.

"It won't attack us, Virgil. It'll be our ride. Besides, Thomas doesn't have any dilemmas right now, so we've got a lot of time to explore the rest of the inside and outside of the sector."

Virgil smiled at Logan as a sign of trust and the cyborg escorted him on the manta. Once they were both on, the manta flew around the area giving them a better view of the sector. It felt more exciting to Virgil that he was able to be alone with someone who got him.