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flydotnet · 6 years ago

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Hidden Guardians of Humanity

VRAINS Rarepair Weeks 2018 - Day 7: Other YGO series crossover/Other Fandom AU

Summary: Six teenagers regularly save the world from the misanthropic virus-like AI XANA on a virtual world. This is their story through one of these missions against humanity's greatest danger yet.

Fandoms: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS/Code Lyoko Ships: Hireshipping (Ema/Akira), Entrustshipping (Takeru/Kiku), Zinniashipping (Miyu/Aoi)

Wordcount: 3.8K words

Notes: "On ira, on saura, sauver notre existence, Se donner une chance de tout dépasser. On ira, on saura, sauver notre existence, Afin de faire, Un monde sans danger !"

I was stumbled at first with what to do for today. All the crossover ideas I had weren't very good... until I thought about Code Lyoko and how it was a perfect fit with VRAINS. A virtual world? Check. Keeping stuff secret from other people? Check. A recurring theme of AIs? Check. I rediscovered CL this year by watching the episodes now all up on YT (I think that's only for the original French dub, though). It's been a big part of my childhood and I surprised myself to like it even more as an adult. It was pretty messed up if you think about it: a bunch of teenagers ranging from 13 to 15 saving the world in secret on a daily basis while risking their lives to do so? That's dark for a kid's show dude. The series wasn't hiding it anyway: I can't count the exact number of ways XANA (a big bad virus-like AI) tried to kill the protagonists in. Anyway.

I changed a few settings. Kadic is supposed to be a middle school (collège), but since it's supposed to be a high school too (funny enough, the school it's based on, the Lycée Lakanal, is where I set a part of my original work), well why not. It fitted much better with the VRAINS cast too. I also took some liberties with the original 2003 run of the show to provide more modern technology like smartphones.

This story is, in short, a love letter to Code Lyoko and to my VRAINS OTPs. I may have forgotten to put the romance into that fic though.

PS. The quote in the beginning is the chorus to the Code Lyoko opening, "Un Monde Sans Danger" (A World Without Dangers). That song has been burnt into my soul ever since I was a kid.

Event hosted by @vrainsrarepairweeks

AO3 version available here.

It was yet another day of class at Kadic High School, Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine. Nothing out of the ordinary, for once: boring Physics lessons, typical teenage drama, rumours going through the school about teachers and students alike. In that, it made no difference to any other day before it and any other day that would come after it. However, the routine was only a façade in this school near Paris.

Very few knew about the shortcut in the heater room of the dormitory or the one in the school’s park leading the abandoned factory nearby, resting in an island in the Seine. Most people would have just assumed that place was, well, abandoned and empty. The fact was that: that was wrong. That fact was proven untrue by the presence of a bunch of teenagers going there to save the world on a daily basis.

However, today was a tranquil day in class of rumours and drama. There was always Naoki Shima spreading some kind of rumour on his idol, an e-sport player named Playmaker, which was mostly talked about by fangirls of him around the campus. Meanwhile, a little group of six students was gathering in their usual spot: near the coffee machine, on a bench, waiting for bell never to ring the beginning of classes.

They had formed this little group of friends of theirs in unlikely circumstances. It all started when Ema, from the twelfth-grade class majoring in computer sciences, discovered a way to access the abandoned factory in the river easily after a boring day of school. She apparently had to drag with her Akira, her classmate and a friend since middle school, there. Afterwards, they accidentally dragged with them Aoi, Akira’s younger sister in tenth grade, when she followed them to the factory on one day and stuck with them ever since. With Aoi came her own classmates Takeru and Kiku, who followed suit after they themselves found out about the factory by being friendly to the otherwise isolated Aoi.

“Hey, guys,” Takeru opened the conversation as he looked at the other students in the courtyard. “It’s been a while since XANA last attacked… You think he’s going to come back soon?”

“I hope not,” Kiku replied with the most honesty in the world. “He almost killed sent everyone to space last time… We were lucky you were competing in the martial arts tournament that time, Takeru!”

“XANA will always come back until the Supercomputer isn’t turned off, I’m afraid,” Akira stated as he came back with two cups of coffee in his hands.

“Then that means you need to find the program to materialize Miyu soon!” Ema enthusiastically added as she thanked Akira for the cup of coffee. “It’s on me next time.”

“I’m doing what I can, but it’s going to take longer than expected. Last night was a fluke again,” he sighed as he rubbed his eyes with the hand not busy holding a cup. The yawn would be for another day.

“It’s fine, big brother,” Aoi simply said as she looked at him with a tiny smile. “You’re already doing your best, and Miyu has told us that before.”

“Your sister is right, Akira, don’t overexert yourself for that! I don’t want to recover your unconscious body on the floor of your room again and almost get scolded by Jim again for sneaking into the boys’ dorm for that!”

Takeru and Kiku simply giggled at the anecdote despite how many times Ema had already told them about it.

During Maths class, as usual, Ema was on her phone during yet another boring lecture from the teacher. There had to be someone watching over Lyoko when nobody could be at the factory in case an activated tower, XANA’s gateway to their world and all the potential damage that would always bring with it, showed up in the virtual world. That was a nice way to spend time: instead of sitting through a painfully tedious session of mathematics, she could just chat with Miyu and whoever else was online. It was funnier to be there and occasionally see Akira stare at her to be serious during a class for once.

He only didn’t ask her to stop on the spot because she otherwise could refuse to lend him their philosophy lessons whenever he’d simply stop understanding most of it. The confusing words and concepts didn’t work very well with his arithmetic brain. It was a fine compromise, though.

Right when she was about to point out something funny Aoi had said in the chatroom with Miyu, she heard a strange buzzing sound. The neon over their hands started flickering ever so slightly, before the infection spread to the entire ceiling of the classroom.

“You know what this means?” she asked Akira in a whisper.

“A XANA attack. Did Miyu tell you about an activated tower?”

Her eyes immediately darted to the screen, only for a message to confirm their fears. Akira didn’t add anything more.

“Then what excuse do we throw?” she asked again, eyeing the little app she had on her phone she had freshly finished programming in her spare time (or whatever was left of it these days).

Before she could ask anything, the bell rang. Their eyes bolted in different directions, checking for two different parameters: hers to the teacher, his to the hour on his phone. The former didn’t have a watch, the second didn’t match the time class ended at. As everyone was packing their things together to change classrooms, another ring resonated through the corridors: the fire alarm.

“Okay, it’s definitely a XANA attack”, Akira stated the obvious. “Warn everyone to meet together at the factory before we can get spotted by teachers or monitors.”

“Roger that.”

It always took some time to reach the factory and gather everyone. That was why they had this habit of only meeting in the main computer room instead of in front of the factory, giving them more time to fight against whatever XANA had to throw at them on Lyoko. Akira and Ema had arrived first and launched themselves in the elevator to the main rooms before getting joined by Aoi shortly thereafter.

“Takeru and Kiku will be a bit late,” she told them, “I think they had class on a higher floor and had more troubles exiting the school.”

Moments after, the three had taken their respective spots: Akira at the main computer, Ema and Aoi in the cylindrical scans on the floor under the computer room. He had never been a man of actions and was the only one with a real knowledge of how to use the technical beast that was the Supercomputer. Meanwhile, Ema had always loved the thrill of action: fighting creatures on Lyoko was good way for her to exhort her thirst for a way to break away from the real world, even if it was just for a few minutes. Aoi was calmer, but still followed through when she learnt this could help both her brother and the friend she had found in Miyu.

“Are you ready to get virtualized?” he asked them as they set foot in the room, footsteps resonating on the iron floor.

“Of course!” Ema replied with thrill in her voice.

“I am,” Aoi responded more seriously.

“Then let’s get on with it.”

Four scanners presented themselves to the two girls. Each climbing in one, the virtualization process didn’t take more than thirty seconds anymore. They were used to it: getting transferred inside a virtual world wasn’t painful, at best it was dizzying the first few times. Soon enough, Aoi and Ema found themselves in a forest-like environment, all changed up to battle attire. It wasn’t just for show: if Aoi had wings, it was because she could use them to fly. Ema, who hadn’t design herself in her subconscious mind to get those, was kind of envious.

“Miyu should be nearby waiting for backup,” Akira’s voice arrived from the sky of Lyoko’s Forest territory. “Be careful to monsters, XANA has been waiting for us.”

“As usual,” Ema sighed, amused. “Let’s do this, Aoi.”

As they ran to their destination, a tower with a red halo, a girl with long pink hair in pigtails and blue eyes joined them. Aoi’s eyes started to shimmer as soon as they noticed her coming towards them, changing her sprinting direction to directly meet up with their friend. They had a habit of hugging each other as soon as they saw each other too. They had gotten more and more physical when meeting up in Lyoko, to the point of holding each other’s hands nowadays when seeing the others. Ema was certain that, would Miyu know about love like any other girl (despite being a sentient AI that was, frankly, more human than some actual humans she knew), they would already be dating. She remembered overhearing Aoi train herself to declare her love to her friend in her dorm room, after all.

“I’m glad to know you’re alright, Miyu!” Aoi told her as they went back to reaching the tower.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Aoi, Ema! XANA has sent three Bloks who are guarding the tower, we need to be careful!”

Turning her eyes away from the two friends, Ema noticed one of the Bloks shooting at them.

“Out of the way!!”

Pushing Aoi and Miyu out of the line of fire from the creature sent to them, she took a direct hit to the shoulder from a laser beam, falling to the ground. Trying to shoot back with her own laser arrows at the creature, she was at least relieved to see Aoi and Miyu had made it behind a tree to find a way to shelter themselves from the incoming attacks.

“Ema!!” Aoi’s scream was accompanied by the mirror of Miyu’s mirror reflecting the hit the older girl was about to take, which would have certainly devirtualized her. The Blok took the hit right in its eye, exploding shortly after.

The commotion from this encounter passed, the three girls hid behind the very same tree. There were mock Bloks in the area, almost twice as much as they had first expected. As she watched from behind their little hiding spot, Ema could only notice this would be harder than expected with Miyu virtually unable to fight for herself and herself having taken a hit already.

“That was such a close call!” Miyu sighed in relief. “We really need to be more careful…”

She was holding onto Aoi’s hand as she said so, her sceptre in her other hand. Nobody knew where that weapon came from, really, but they had brushed it off as a mere way to self-defend against XANA’s monsters who, as it turned out, mostly used laser beams with long ranges to attempt ending her own life.

“Let’s be more careful until Takeru and Kiku can get here,” Aoi decided, with the two others nodding in agreement.

“Sorry we’re late…!” Takeru said as he entered the main computer room, breathless.

Akira immediately turned around, his one-ear headphone-microphone still on, a smirk drawing on his face. Backup was finally here.

“Jim tried to prevent us from reaching the factory when we tried to go through the heater room shortcut,” Kiku further explained.

“I see. Ema and Aoi required backup, there’s apparently too many monsters for them to deal with.

She glanced at her childhood friend whose back was against the wall, still not recovering his breath.

“Are you okay, Takeru?” she asked with concern all over her tone, hands on her chest.

“I… I’ll be fine… Let’s get to the scanners quickly, I’m sure Aoi, Ema and Miyu need our help…”

Even if nobody added anything, Akira turning back to the monitor to make sure this wasn’t a burning failure yet, Kiku remained worried. As the elevator went down another floor, she couldn’t get her eyes off Takeru and how flimsy his breathing was. He had never had a pristine health record, and that despite how good he was at martial arts, which made it so she was always concerned in some degree for his condition.

When the doors opened to reveal the scanner room, she handed her friend her help. He gave her a slight smile, a quiet way to tell her not to worry, as they climbed into their own cylinders to get virtualized. There was no time to lose and no time to get concerned for Takeru when there was a tower to deactivate and XANA going on a rampage to make everyone deaf by the end of the day through abusing ringing systems, ringtones and speakers.

The two soon enough ended in the Forest territory of Lyoko, with instructions given by Akira to join back the others. Running on their legs, the virtualization keeping them away from whatever feeling of physical fatigue they’d have felt from that, they soon noticed the group of monsters blocking the way and their friends behind a big tree.

“Oh, looks like XANA did already send a party,” Takeru noticed. “Let’s be sneaky and see if we can end them without Miyu being targeted by them.”

“Agreed.”

“Takeru! Kiku!”

Miyu seemed ecstatic to see them arrive, screaming their names in joy. Only then did she put her hand on her month, remembering XANA’s monsters could hear them. It was easy to make a diversion, but that was it.

“Akira!” Ema yelled to the sky to get their control tower’s attention. “How much enemies are they?”

No response.

“Oh God, that’s bad,” she then spoke to herself. “He must have been knocked away from the main panel.”

“Something happened to my brother?” Aoi panicked immediately thereafter, before clutching Miyu’s hand to keep her calm.

“It may have,” Kiku added as she joined them. “One of us needs to go check.”

They stared at each other, before Ema decided to take the head of things.

“Okay, I’ve got a plan. Aoi, you stay with Miyu to make sure she arrives to the tower in one piece! I’m going with Takeru to face them directly, while Kiku shoots them from the back. I’ve already taken a hit and Takeru has a powerful long-range weapon. Everyone’s good with that?”

“Roger!” Everyone replied in unison as they split in groups.

Ema had in her mind the secret hope of being devirtualized immediately. Takeru had less health point than she did, but she had already taken a hit and was the only one with any knowledge of the Supercomputer outside of Akira who seemed to spend a huge chunk of his nights on it. It was a perfect match for who had to go back to the real world to check on their friends.

She could see Kiku in her white kimono-like robe, braid flowing through the air as she ran and ran, in the corner of her eye running behind Bloks to stab them with her spear in their top eye, jumping on them, braid going up and down, causing their own self-destruction. She was clearly always going for those targeting Takeru, in a nice touch. The boy was himself with her throwing fire at the enemies, either to blind them or critically damage them.

In the corner of her other, Miyu and Aoi ran with their fingers intertwined, the latter with her own weapon out, ready to jump into action if needed. It was a safer solution for them than for Aoi to hold Miyu as she flew over the battlefield just in case she’d get shot in the wings: would that happen, they’d both take considerable fall damage and risk getting devirtualized. The possibility meaning the death of Miyu if it took place, they preferred to stay safe and go a bit slower. Good stuff there.

Because she wasn’t paying all her attention to monsters, Ema quickly found herself to be devirtualized by a second hit in the chest, making her virtual body shatter in pixels before she could resurface in the factory.

Exiting the scanner after getting forcefully devirtualized wasn’t the best feeling in the world, but Ema had no time for dizziness. She ran as fast as possible to the elevator and rushed her hands over the panel to go to the upper floor. They weren’t strangers to XANA using towers to gain access to the real world. In fact, they were even used to Akira getting attacked as to hinder the progress of those on Lyoko. The question was: what had it done to her friend while she was away in the virtual world?

As soon as the door opened, she realized two things: XANA had used a severed electric cable to do its deed, and Akira was unconscious the floor because of it. Her first thought was to rush to his side, to check if he was doing fine. A hand on his wrist, another on his forehead, and her eyes half-focused on the severed cable which now looked as inert as it should be, she let out a sigh of relief when she heard his pulse.

“You scared us again, you idiot,” she muttered under her breath. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to keep an eye on an important mission.”

She gently half-sat Akira against a nearby wall and jumped into the chair facing the screens monitoring everything. Embracing the control tower nature of it all, she picked the headphone and put it on her ear.

“Anyone, you’re receiving me? It’s Ema!”

Everyone or so replied positively.

“Lemme see…” Her eyes deciphered as much information as they possibly could on the monitors. “Takeru, you’re down to 20HP, be careful! One hit and you’re sent back home! Kiku, there should be a Blok behind you! Aoi, Miyu, you’re near the tower, you may be able to fly there…”

She interrupted herself when she saw the cable rise back to life, just as she heard everyone call out for Takeru’s voice. Getting down to her feet, taking a fighting stance, she hoped to be able to fight it back enough to have the time for the boy to reach her room. She knew how to activate the Return to the Past to fix all the damage the buildings around the school must have taken from the excessive sound, if the fact she was able to hear some low-quality rap music from the underground rooms of a factory was any indication, but Takeru didn’t.

Avoiding getting tripped by jumping over the cable’s feet, she was relieved to hear Takeru running towards her. He looked a bit out of breath from running so quickly in so little time, but he took his own fighting stance.

“Ema, get to the computer! I’m sure the others need you there!”

Nodding to him as to confirm his decisions, she jumped back into the chair to see the information: Kiku was close to devritualization with a mere ten HP remaining while Miyu was just about to enter the tower. Trying her hardest to ignore how one-sided Takeru’s fight against the cable was becoming in favour of XANA, she focused on the screens. The boy’s pained scream when his back slammed against the wall didn’t help. Before she could entirely redirect her focus, Kiku had been defeated by a last laser beam.

“Aoi, be careful, Kiku just got eliminated!”

“We know,” the brown-haired girl replied from the other side of the screen. “Miyu is entering the tower now, I’ll try to keep back the last enemies until she can deactivate it!”

“Good, but please make it quick, Akira got stunned and Takeru may be injured from fighting a cable. I’m afraid I’ll be the next, not going to lie there.”

Kiku soon joined the scene, judging from the elevator’s doors opening again and her little steps rushing to Takeru’s side.

“Ki… Kiku…” His weakened voice tried to warn his friend. “Don’t… Come here…”

Without a word, avoiding getting knocked back by the giant cable, she kneeled next to him, her gaze soon fixated on her friend rather than the incoming danger.

“Are you alright, Takeru?!”

“I… I think I’ve broken something against it… But it’s gonna be fine, don’t worry… I’m sure Miyu is about to deactivate the tower…” He gave a timid but warm smile to her.

She gently held him against her, a half-felt one on her lips…

“It’s going to be fine. It’s always going to be fine.”

Judging from Takeru’s weak grip, she knew his hand had been broken in his fight against the machine.

Entering the tower, Miyu made her way as fast as possible to the little panel presented in every tower. As soon as she put her hand on it, the system automatically recognized her, greeting her with the ever same and cold protocol.

MIYU

CODE: LYOKO

The entire tower progressively turned empty as it deactivated. From this little virtual pseudo-cocoon, she could only hope as she looked down everything was fine outside.

Soon enough, the familiar energy wave of the Return to the Past resonated through the virtual world, making her smile as she thought that, once again, everything would be fine and that they had all saved the day.

They were back in the same Maths class, which was still boring, still not interesting. A side effect of using the Return to the Past, obviously. At least, she could safely say that

“Hey, do you remember what happened to you before you got unconscious earlier?” she asked trying to hide her concern.

“I got electricized by a cable, that’s all I can remember. It doesn’t matter much anyway, the Return to the Past cancels every injury we could have sustained.”

“Well, that’s fortunate for Takeru, he broke his hand when fighting the cable.”

Akira suddenly looked very pensive, before having a sort of epiphany flashing on his face.

“That makes me think… I should teach you how to use the Supercomputer, Ema, in case this ever happens again,” he whispered to her.

“I’m not against it. I already know how to use it, as you can see, but you could show me your… special tricks.”

The slight innuendo was enough to make him redden in a moment and look to the side.

“D-don’t phrase it like that…”

She grinned at his embarrassment. He was way too easy to tease, but it was always so much fun.

“Oh, by the way,” she added, “your sister is probably going to get a girlfriend soon, and she won’t even be material unless you come up with your program.”

“E… Excuse me?!”

“Miyu. She’s in love with Miyu and vice-versa. It’s just that you’re never here to see them flirt with each other knowingly or not.”

“Oh. That makes sense, when you precise it that way.”

“I know.”

Now, if she had the same modesty as Aoi, maybe she would have the guts to tell him about her ever-growing crush on him…

#vrains #vrainsrarepairweeks #hireshipping #entrustshipping #zinniashipping #my writing

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