Mourning
By Cybra
Warning: Spoilers for the end of Season 3!
A/N: This is actually near the end of what would be the Switch universe’s season three. I was re-watching the end of Season 3 and couldn’t get the image out of my head. As for why I gave Odd gray eyes as opposed to something exotic like purple? I thought it’d be fun irony that the most colorful character in the group had such colorless eyes.
Disclaimer: Code Lyoko belongs to the French.
Jeremy dove, baring his talons. His cry mixed with the scream of the eagle form he’d taken. “Touch that sphere, and I’ll kill you!”
Just a few more minutes. He might not be able to save the virtual world that had once been his home, but that’s all Aelita needed to at least bring back Franz Hopper.
His father.
The man he was only recently starting to completely remember.
No way was XANA going to take his father away from him a third time. He’d already lost his mother; he wasn’t losing Hopper, too.
XANA looked surprised as talons came in contact with its current host’s face. Its enormous sword dropped to its side as it tried to fend off the crazed bird.
A sharp pain in the blond eagle’s back alerted him that, yes, the creepers were still around. He screamed, pushing off in an attempt to put some space between himself and his target so he could circle around and continue the attack.
Another hit. And another. XANA reached out to grab his leg to prevent him from going far.
He felt the materialization process before he even heard Aelita tell him she was activating it. Jeremy gave another scream as he broke apart.
It was over.
Odd winced as the virtual boy grasped his arms with enough strength to cause bruises.
Wide, desperate blue eyes bored into his gray ones. “Tell me she got him!”
He opened his mouth to speak, but Jeremy had already bolted to the elevator, slapping the button with more force than was necessary. Cursing, he ran after the other blond only to have the doors close in his face.
Turning around, he raced to and up the ladder leading to the super calculator room, actually beating the elevator from what he could tell.
“Aelita…?” Odd asked, rubbing at one particularly sore spot where it felt like a thumb had pressed itself between his bones.
A mechanical churning faded into the background as the pink-haired girl bowed her head. “Lyoko is gone. So is Franz Hopper. I didn’t have enough time to bring him in.”
“No.”
Everyone turned to where Jeremy stood in the now-open elevator. His body was shaking, and tears started to pour down his cheeks.
“It has to still be there!” The virtual boy was at the keyboard before any of the other Lyoko warriors even realized he’d moved. His fingers didn’t tap the keys so much as slam down on them. “My father’s…My father’s…!”
Odd stared in numb shock as Aelita carefully wrapped her arms around her virtual friend from behind, leaning her face into his back.
“I’m sorry, Jeremy,” she told him as he continued to desperately type. “I tried.”
That seemed to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Jeremy didn’t sink to the ground; he collapsed as his knees seemed to just give way. His hands somehow remained on the keyboard as he leaned his head against his arms like some sort of supplication to the soulless machine. Odd thought he tried to say something, but the virtual boy’s sobbing rendered the words incoherent.
Aelita went down with him, never losing her grip. She whispered something as one of her hands slid back behind him to rub comfortingly just below the shoulder blades.
“Rrrrragh!” Bam! Ulrich’s fist met the metal wall, the owner standing frozen in place. The purple-clad boy thought he could see the beginnings of a dent.
Meanwhile Yumi sank down onto one of the useless bundles of cables. She had a thoroughly baffled look on her face, as if none of what had happened had fully sunk in yet.
He wanted to move, to at least crack a joke to lighten the mood, but all he could do was just watch as an invisible wall seemed to cut him off from reality.
There wasn’t even the holomap to provide light anymore.