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1. Hmm... I think Matt may... hmm... idk...

2. I honestly have no clue...

3. Well, I think Zaber's the one who put him in that correctional facility place. That's why he totally lost it when he saw 'red hair'. 'cuz it reminds him of Zaber. Or maybe Zaber just did something to piss him off?

4. I'd bet 10k in gold the leader is Zaber XD

Well, I'm pretty sure even if none of them are Zaber, he has a link to them somehow...

Alright... MiaIkumi's #3 speculation... ding ding ding! Winner!

Alright... I honestly need to stop spoling my own plot points. However, it goes a bit deeper than that... so you'll just have to wait and see.

Alright... remember a while back when I set I was going back to do some heavy editing to Code ANGEL? Well, that's still on. I need to go back and make the changes NOW, or it's going to cause some problems here in the sequel. Anyways, after this chapter, posted below, Infinite Crisis is going on a temproary hiatus while I make the Code ANGEL revisions, but as a nice bonus, you'll here in the last part exactly what's going on in those revisions. I hope you look forward to them... it's gonna add a whole new element to Code ANGEL.

Infinite Crisis - 3 - Complicated

Ice. That's what Matt felt like his whole body was made of when he awoke. He found himself lying in a bed in a white room... and his whole body felt like ice, despite being covered in several blankets. He sat up in the bed with almost no effort... the last thing he remembered was being shot by the sniper, and then loaded onboard the craft by Ulrich...

"You're awake." Ulrich said from his chair near the corner, currently holding a magazine. Matt whipped around with surprise. "For a while there... we weren't sure you'd make it." He said matter of factly. It was then, that Matt suddendly noticed... he had gained extra apendages. The source of this radiant cold he was feeling... came from a pair of blue, scaly wings protruding from his back just below his shoulder blades. The wings were so cold... they were covered in frost. Thus began the natural human reaction of freaking out.
"What? Where did... what the..." Matt exclaimed as he rolled out of the bed, feverishly twisting his neck to get a better look at the wings.
"Calm down. Your wound has completely healed." Ulrich told him. "You... basically died... we brought you back with something called Code ANGEL... and those wings are a side effect." Ulrich frowned. Matt's impromptu induction into the group had been his fault in every way... HE had accepted Matt's offer to get them to the park quickly. HE was the one Matt had taken the bullet for. HE was the one who said he'd take full responsiblity for the boy once they used Code ANGEL to save his life.

Jeremy stared intently as his computer... so angry a vein was nearly visible pulsing on his forehead. It was around 2:00 AM now... twelve hours ago... they had been a tight-knit group of 5... and now it seemed the Lyoko warriors was an open-enrollment thing. But this wasn't the reason for his anger... it was failure to gather data on Code ANGEL... again. The truth was... they never really had discovered the origin of Code ANGEL. The program had appeared just in time to save Aelita's life... then dissapeared. Franz Hopper had no knowledge of it's existence what-so-ever. After the reset, it was still not present. When Aelita had suggested they use the code, he told her that it wouldn't work... that the program didn't exist in the system anymore. But, in the panic and adrenaline of Matt's peril, he went ahead and fired the code off without thinking to run a program to analyze it. The code had appeared from thin air yet again... and then dissapeared once it's job was done. To him, the most pressing question was simple... who made Code ANGEL? If Franz Hopper didn't make it, then who did? Was it Xana? But why would Xana make a program that's only function was to save the lives of his mortal enemies? Or was that the only function? Dozens and Dozens of questions piled up like domino's in his mind as he leaned back in his chair. What a day.

"Did you see those things? They looked so freaking cool... way cooler than your's were Aelita..." Odd said as he sat on a couch in the lounge room near the kitchen with a bag of chips in his hand. He was sprawled out over most of the couch, while Aelita sat compactly on the couch opposite him, with a small table between them.
"Yes Odd, I saw them... and how cool they look isn't the point." She snapped slightly. "What matter's is that he's OK..." She stared at the ceiling. Using Code ANGEL was a long shot... she wasn't sure if her mother COULD or WOULD intervene again, especially for someone who was practically a stranger. She had never told any of them about meeting her parents meeting her in the after-life or her mother's explanation about the source of Code ANGEL and Jeremy's visions. It wasn't just that she doubted they'd believe her and write it off as a hallucination... but it was just too deep of a personal matter... one she didn't want to share with anyone. In truth... she wouldn't have believed any of it herself... except that divine intervention of some sort was the ONLY logical explanation for both Code ANGEL and her coming back to life after her wings were severed.
"Still..." Odd shoved a handful of chips in his mouth, and continued with his mouth full. "I never thought we'd see Code ANGEL again. How'd you know it would work?"
"I didn't. Like I told Jeremy, there was no harm in winging it."
"Pun!" Odd exclaimed. Aelita raised an eyebrow at him, and then continued.
"I'm just glad it works. At least now that we know it works, if anyone else get nearly killed, we can save them."
"Still... I think it should be called Code WINGS, or something like that." Odd grinned. "I mean, angel worked for you, but those things look more like something you'd find on a dragon or something. Do you think it just bases itself on the person's personality?" Odd asked an unusually intellectual question.
"Interesting idea... why'd you ask?"
"Oh, nothing... I'm just thinking about getting myself shot next time, so I can see what kind of wings I get." Odd said with his usual sarcasm before chuckling. Aelita frowned intensly.
"Don't even joke about stuff like that Odd." She berrated him. "Code ANGEL's an absolute last-resort. Who know's if it'll suddendly stop working? Then what?" Odd frowned.
"Jeez Aelita, I was just kidding..." Odd tossed the bag of chips onto the table, and then propped his feet up, laying down on the couch. "Wake me when Einstein figures out our next move..." He muttered as he yawned and tried to fall asleep.

Asten stepped out of an ebony scanner with a groan. The black haired young man who was their "leader" was sitting in the center of the dark room, in front of a terminal with many screens... his hands flying across the keyboards as if he wasn't even human.
"I see you failed to stop them from reaching the tower... not only that, you ran away." William said to him emotionlessly.
"He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day." Asten answered. William rasied an eyebrow.
"You humans and your proverbs... I'll never understand you." William said. "Well... it doesn't really matter anyways... after all, you were only meant to be a distraction." Asten glared at him behind his back. "Thanks to that, I was able to get all resources online before the enemy could track us. William hit a key on the keyboard, and lines of green light spread from his terminal across the room, illuminating it. In addition to the terminal and single, ebony scanner, there was also a window in the front, but it was pitch black outside, so nothing could be seen. Three small terminals were currently offline, and a door led off into an equally dark hallway. A set of controls were present at a seat right in front of the window. William only glanced at one of his screens and a window with a TV feed appeared. Naturally... the panic of the crisis was still in effect, although it was beginning to set in. Jeremy's face appeared in a B-roll clip, his image having been captured during his overridden broadcast. William hit a key and it paused. William stared at the image intently. "Belpois..." He muttered. "Anything you can do... I can do a million times better..." He glanced at the only remaining person in the room, another of the boy's he had freed from juvee. "Pilot... take us to Paris. There's two more people I'd like to try to recruit." The boy nodded and grabbed the controls... the knowledge needed to pilot the ship already implanted directly into his brain by Xana.

"I hearby call to order this meeting of the Majestic Thirteen." John Doe said as he sat at the end a rectangular table. Twelve additional members sat on the two sides of the table, in a dimly lit room with a single pendulum light to light it. The low light concealed their faces... but all wore dark suits. "CIA director Innes... what have our spies uncovered?" A tan, burly man, with a shaved head and tinted glasses, cleared his throat to prepare to answer.
"Our mole in the French Bureau of Intelligence has given us all the information they've gathered. The immediate families of the group were taken in for questioning, but none of them seemed to have a clue. They couldn't legally hold them, but they're being kept under surveillence in the event one of them tries to make contact. School records indicate that one of them, the girl identified on the broadcast as "Aelita Hopper", was attending under the alias of "Aelita Stones", using a forged identity as a foreign student from Canada. Just to be safe, we ran up an inquiry up there, and it came back "no such person"."
"Big effin surprise." Another man further down the table said.
"Copies of the forged documents used to create this identity were recovered from the hard drive of another member of the group, Jeremy Belpois. His identitiy is legit though. Also, on the topic of the hard drive, our mole managed to send us a copy of it, and our agents have managed to crack further into it than they have. We're slowly recovering portions of some kind of "log book" file, that seems to document all this group's actions over the last several years. It should provide a clear explanation for all of this once it's recovered..."
"You mean we're actually having TROUBLE recovering the files off a 15 year old boy's computer?" One man at the table asked in surprise.
"Yes. He uploaded all his data onto a portable hard drive, and then deleted it from the terminal. He cleaned the system and defragmented it a dozen or so times... and then ran some magnets over it for good measure. The kid must have known what he was going."
"Move along." Doe said. "What sort of information have you recovered from the logobook?"
"During his broadcast, Belpois mentioned some kind of "time travel". We've figured out it's something called a "Return to the Past", which lets them travel back in time by 24 hours. They use this to undo any damage, human or collateral, caused by what they call "Xana Attacks". In addition only those who are "scanned" are able to remember anything from before the time jump. Everyone else's memories are erased."
"Has anyone found out what "scanned" means?" One asked.
"No. There's a man named Sanderson in a secret division of the French FBI who says he may know someone who might know... but it's a sketchy lead at best."
"Follow up on it anyways. Who knows, it may develop." Doe told him.
"Andrews... what's the current status of the ship?"
"They left French airspace three hours ago. They've moved out into international waters, and are currently flying circles in the middle of the Atlantic." A man on the far end of the table answered; "They seem to want to avoid confrontation. but... although the media's being kept under control, we've intercepted reports that their was a brief fire-fight between the ship and the police force of a small sub-urban town near the French east-coast. Apparently, they were trying to stop three of the members from re-boarding a small fighter plane, which had been landed in the middle of their park. They tried to run the blockade, and then all hell broke loose when "a boy in a cat-suit started shooting lasers at us."" Several of them raised eyebrows. "That's a quoted statement from one of the officer's involved... although we can't be completely sure, since he did get kicked in the head by the asian girl..." Doe nodded.
"I understand." Doe said. "Orson..." He turned to the FBI director from before. "You were assigned to gather information online, correct? What have you found?"
"Obviously nothings that classified." Orson frowned. "A huge number of websites about this have sprung up in just the last few hours. Most of them are just BBS's, but we expect they'll expand once more information breaks. As far as any messages placed online by any of them, nothing yet. However, we did find some more background information on a couple of them. Apparently, the girl Aelita once performed as an opening act for a major techno-band... I was able to find a magazine article about her, although obviously any information about her past in it must be falsified. Also, Odd Della Robia has a MySpace, which he, curiously enough, neglected to take down. It's been flooded with traffic since his name went up during the broadcast." Doe turned to one of the men, the one who has said "big effin surprise", and gave an order.
"Go apply pressure to NewsCorp. Make sure they don't shut that page down, but if anyone logs in to it, we must know. They may be planning to use it to release information." The man nodded, got up, and left the room.
"It's strange, isn't it? The one boy did all that to his hard drive to clean his tracks... but the other one... it's almost like he left it on purpose. Is it supposed to be there for something, or is he really that stupid?" One of the younger men in the group asked.
"Based on what I saw ON his MySpace..." Orson nodded. "Stupid."

In the morning, after everyone (except the overly excited Matt) had gotten a bit of sleep, Jermey left his terminal for the first time since boarding to hold their first strategy meeting. They had been through too many chaotic ordeals since they took off to have one, but it was necessary, and they needed to take advantage of this temporary lapse in activity to regroup and organize. The eight of the nine gathered in the "strategy room"... a standing room only room with low lights and a titanium interior, with a large table in the center. The center of the table contained a lens that aimed up at the ceiling, with a keyboard and set of controls on one side. The lens projected holograms, and was currently displaying the Lyoko holo-sphere. Jeremy stood at the terminal and shifted the controls, and the hologram changed from the holosphere to a globe, with a blinking cursor representing their current location, just within international waters in the Atlantic. Several Xana marks were scatter around the sphere, in various countries.
"Alright... we need to decide on our next course of action." Jeremy told them. "First, before we can do anything else, we need to get the countries to... hey, where's Odd?"
"He said he was gonna make some popcorn." Tamir told him.
"What does he think this is, some kind of movie?" Ulrich muttered. Jeremy frowned.
"Alright... like I was saying... we need to get countries to accept us... and to do that, we're going to need to be upfront with people about everything. Mille, Tamir, I'd like you coordinate with Aelita, Yumi, and Odd to create some kind of press package we can put out. Information about the nature of Xana attacks, the way in which we combat them... that sort of thing. You can talk about how Xana was created a little bit, but don't go into extreme detail." Aelita nodded in response to the last bit. Her and her father's... bizzare... private history in the matter didn't need to be disclosed. "Hiroki... I want you to help me prepare for another broadcast and write up a script and some stuff. Ulrich, I want you to bring Matt completely up to speed. We don't want anyone lagging behind in the learning curve." Jeremy turned to the world map in front of them, and began to move the mouse, causing it rotate.
"So what are the Xana marks there for?" Yumi asked.
"They're replika supercomputer's we've detected using the deep-scan." Aelita answered. "They'll be much easier to destroy now that we're in the open... we can just drop by and bomb the places. The problem is, their all located in countries that are still afraid or distrusting of us... like this one..." Aelita pointed to the hologram. "It's located in an abandoned military factily on this island... but the facility belongs to Spain, so attacking it without explanation would be like declaring war on them."
"And like Aelita originally suggestted..." Jermey added on at the end, "Once we get the countries to trust us, we might be able to coordinate them to help us destroy the supercomputers."
"Jeez... I thought we destroyed all the replikas... what's the deal?"
"The multi-agent system did destroy them... but Xana's been building new ones since then while we weren't paying attention." Jeremy frowned. "Destroying them won't kill him, but it will weaken the strength of his attacks. After all, the last thing we want is for the Kollosus to materialize in London or something..."
"So..." Odd said, having walked in the room about a minute earlier with a bag of popcorn when no one had been paying attention. "Jeremy, if the xana marks are replikas, why is that one moving?" Jeremy glanced at him and blinked a few times.
"What?" He asked with confusion.
"There." Odd climbed up on the table and jammed his finger into the hologram on the mark in question. Jeremy zoomed in on the location, and then watched the mark shaped cursor intently. Sure enough... it was inching across the map, away from Paris, and towards them.
"Oh damn." He muttered. He switched off the hologram and brought up an interface, hacking into a sattelite camera.
"What's wrong Jeremy?" Ulrich asked as he stepped behind him. Jeremy aimed the camera at the supercomputer's current location... and the image was clear as day in the cloudless sky. A black ship, almost identical to their own, but with a massive Xana mark across it's roof.
"Xana's such a freaking copycat!" Odd yelled childishly.

"ALERT! ALERT!" An alarm sounded from a speaker system that ran through the whole ship. The voice was synthetic, generated by the supercomputer to sound like Franz Hopper. "Intruders on the bridge. Defensive lockdown is now armed." Jermey gapsed for breath. The security system he and Aelita had designed had taken him by surprise... he hadn't been expecting it.
"Intruders? How'd anyone get up here? Aren't we at 10,000 feet!?!?" Hiroki exclaimed.
"Two possiblities." Jeremy told them as he rushed out the door, gesturing for them all to follow. "One... some country sent in some kind of elite paratrooper unit who broke in through the bridge... or more likely..."
"A specter!" Yumi exclaimed.
"However, when that alarm was tripped, it locked the bridge from the outside. We can get in, but whoever's in there can't get out." Aelita told him.
"Ulrich, go get those weapons I materialized for us and meet us at the bridge entrance." Jeremy ordered. "Either way, it's gonna be a battle."

About two minutes later, Ulrich dropped a heavy metal case onto the floor. He undid the latch, and a row of handguns on a rack were revealed inside. Jeremy was the first to reach for one.
"Uh... Jermey, don't you think this is a little extreme?" Millie asked him nervously.
"No." Jeremy answered. "If it is paratroopers... they'll have plenty of guns, and they'll shoot first and ask questions later. If it's a specter, then this kind of firepower will make things a lot easier than hand to hand." Jeremy leaned up agasint the wall, his hand reaching for the keypad he would use to unlock the bridge door. The intruders seemed to be making no effort to break out. "Hurry up." He told them. They hesitantly took one each, and then lined up against the sides of the door frame, ready for anything. Jeremy, hand shaking, dialed the disarm code for the security system onto the keypad. "Now!" He shouted as he hit the last button and the door swung open, they all stepped into the doorway, aiming their weapons.

"Yo!" A familiar face said to them... although it wasn't one Jeremy was happy to see by any stretch of the imagination. He was leaning against the supercomputer terminal almost lazily, his fryed blonde hair shooting in every possible direction. His dark blue sweatshirt and grey pants were loose fitting, and decorated with an eleborate series of zippers. His black eyes stared at them calmly from just above his small, orange tinted rimless sunglasses. "It's been a while Jeremy. But I'm guessing you're not to happy to see me, now are you?" The boy grinned.
"Hyde." Jeremy muttered with disgust. He did not lower his gun. "What are you doing here? Did Xana send you?!" Jeremy shouted at him.
"No, no , no, you've got it all wrong." Hyde put his hands above his head. "I'm through working for that ungrateful b*****d. I thought you'd have figured that out after I went seven whole months without attacking you guys!"
"Actually, we just thought you were dead." Yumi muttered, as she lowered her weapon, and the other's did the same. Jeremy did not.
"What are you doing here then?" Jeremy demanded.
"I want to call a truce." Hyde sat down in Jeremy's chair, but made no effort to touch the terminal. "After our last scuffle, Xana left Xalteia and I for dead. After Hopper reset reality, Xalteia and I struck out on our own and hid from him." Hyde closed his eyes and frowned. "Things were going just great until yesterday... until all this happened. Xana showed up and demaned we either join back up with him, or die." Hyde grinned. "Well... I'm no big fan of dying, and Xalteia feels the same. But I'd rather die than go back to that guy. So anyways... we thought we'd try door # 3 first." Hyde stood up. "We'd like to join your crew. There's strength in numbers... so we doubt Xana will be able to kill us if you protect us. And in exchange, we'll be helping you guys too. That way, when we finally win, we can just go back to our lives and be left alone again." Jeremy lowered his gun, but did not let go of it.
"If you're not working for Xana, then how did you get up here?" Ulrich asked suspiciously.
"This body is prosthetic." Hyde told them. "When it was materialized, I just messed around with the parameters a little bit. He shadow-stepped to the otherside of the cabin to show that he could. "Basically, I've got a lot of the powers of a specter, but I don't need a tower to live. Xalteia made her's the same way." He explained it so matter of factly, but it was really very impressive. "We just jumped up here."
"Where is Xalteia anyways?" Odd asked Hyde. "You keep talking like she's with you..."
"Well..." Hyde frowned. "When we told Xana to stick it where the sun don't shine, he was pretty upset. He came after us... and Xalteia's body get totaled in the fight." He pulled a brick sized hard-drive out of his pocket. "But, we back up our minds on a daily basis, so I'll just need to use your scanner and she'll be back with us in the flesh-and-blood... and apparently scales..." He muttered the last bit as he caught first sight of Matt's wings.
"I don't trust you." Jeremy told him. He glanced back at the others. "But it's not completely my decision to make. Let us talk about it."

They re-locked the bridge and headed back through the ship, arguing over the matter.
"Look... I honestly think he may be reformed..." Odd told him.
"Odd, how many times do I have to tell you?! He's evil!" Jeremy yelled. "I'm Jeckel, he's Hyde! He could kill us in our sleep for all we know, just for kicks!"
"Can somebody please explain what this is all about?!" Hiroki yelled, and the other newcomers nodded in agreement with his sentiments.
"About a year ago, Jeremy tried to do an experiment to increase his IQ, but he messed up and split his personality instead." Ulrich told him.
"Oh! I remember that!" Millie exclaimed. "Was that the week that you were walking around in a leather jacket Jeremy?"
"... yes." Jeremy groaned.
"Hyde got loose inside the supercomputer when Jeremy was virtualized, and Xana gave him his own body in exchange for serving him. In the end though, Xana used him as a sacrifical pawn... so apparently, he's broken away and want's some payback." Aelita explained.
"I suppose the big questions is who does he hate more... Xana or Jeremy?" Yumi said.
"Too bad there's not test for that, huh?" Odd interjected.
"OK, now who's this Xalteia he was talking about?" Tamir asked.
"A clone of me made by Xana as part of a trap for Jeremy." Aelita said simply. "Too bad she was totally psychotic."
"But hot." Odd added, and then got slapped.
"Look..." Jeremy turned to them all. "Hyde was inside my head before, so I know how he thinks. This is all part of some elaborate plot, I know it. They can't be trusted."
"Why not bring them back on a trial basis then?" Hiroki asked. "If we notice anything suspicous, we'll get them out of here."
"Hiroki... you don't understand, because you don't remember any of this, but..." Jeremy took in a deep breath. "Hyde has attacked me, came on to Aelita, tied Yumi to a tree, and set the school on fire, while Xalteia has tried to kill Aelita, duck taped Zaber to a chair and locked him in the broom closet, and nearly turned the entire school into "Xanpires"!" Jeremy frantically rattled off their list of offenses. Aelita cringed.
"Jeremy's right I think." Aelita told them. "They might be helpful in combat and stuff... but it's way too dangerous for them to live here with us." All those who remembered recalled the thing's Jeremy has just brought up, and nodded in agreement. At the time, they had just been thinking of Hyde and Xalteia as a pair of specters being directly controlled by Xana... but they remembered now that the two had actually been in complete control of themselves the whole time.
"Alright then. Let's go get him out of here."

"Our answer is "no" Hyde." Jeremy told him firmly as they filed into the bridge. Hyde, who was still sitting in Jermey's chair, simply shrugged.
"Oh well." Hyde said as he stood up. "I guess we'll just keep running for our lives then."
"Aww... Jeremy... why are you being so mean?" A pair of femine hands with black painted fingernails draped over his shoulders and around his neck. He whipped around breaking free from Xalteia's grasp and backing away. Aelita glared at the mirror image of herself who had just snuck up behind him, who was dressed in a tight and slightly revealing black outfit that sharply contrasted her bleach blonde hair. Aelita's hand tightened into a fist, but Odd put his hand on her shoulder.
"Easy princess... she'll be out of here in just a second." Odd reassured her as she calmed slightly.
"I went ahead and materialized her. I knew you wouldn't mind." Hyde said sarcastically.
"We're going back to land now, and we'll be dropping you off." Jeremy told them both, ignoring her advance.
"Fine. Don't worry... we're not going to go back to Xana now if that's what you're thinking..." Xalteia told him as she crossed her arms. "Seems he's got plenty of other henchmen now." Hyde turned to Jeremy.
"There's something you need to know. Xana's materialzied his own ship. And like you," Hyde gestured to the newcomers. "He's rallying a small army..." Jeremy gasped. Hyde continued as he walked passed him. "He brought a couple with him when he came after us... if you thought fighting me was a b***h, wait until you have to fight these guys." Hyde said with dead seriousness. "Just be more careful. You really ought to make a shield to keep specter's off this ship." Hyde and Xalteia walked towards the front of the bridge, and as they did so, Xalteia waved to Jeremy and stuck her tounge out at Aelita. "In case you change you mind, I went ahead and programmed by phone number into the supercomputer." Hyde pointed to his cell phone, which was in a carrying holster on his belt. "See ya. We don't exactly need to be dropped off." He and Xalteia shadow-stepped, passing right out of the front windshield of the bridge and out into the open air descending at a slow, hovering pace.

(Right now, I'm going to put Infinite Crisis on hiatus. I need to go back and rewrite parts of Code ANGEL now, otherwise, their will be gaping holes in the Infinite Crisis story later. Anyways, the stuff Jeremy was mentioning a minute ago, you'll get to see all that in some of the rewritten chapters. - Z )

Allrighty! Let me know when you're back on IC! In the meantime, I'll check Code Angel every now and then for these revisions.

..fair point... which reminds me, I am now putting Lyoko Rebooted on temporary hiatus. I got my last semester of school with final exams coming, ntm a role in the school production of The Miracle Worker. So i'm gonna be busy busy busy...

And Zaber does it again! You always manage to write such epic tales!

I'M BAAAACCCCKKKKK!!!!!!

Sorry for such a long hiatus, I lost my creative spark and haven't been able to write jack for a long time. (See my dA journal for details.)

So here's the deal... I started two chapters at once... Infinite Crisis 04 and Infinite Crisis: Zaber's Chapter. IC 04 takes place immediately after IC 03 and continued the story, while IC Zaber's Chapter is set in the nine months leading up to Xana's first broadcast, and will reveal the answers to a number of mysteries, such as Zaber's survival, why he didn't come out of hiding, the identities of the hooded gunmen from IC 02, and a portion of Asten's backstory. Both of these chapters will be released in three parts each, and released simultaneously.

Now then... here's Part 1 of IC 04 and Zaber's chapter. (Read them in whichever order you choose.)

Infinite Crisis - Chapter 4 [PART I]

"So..." Hiroki said with hesitation. "Was that as awakward for you guys as it was for me?" He asked Millie, Hiroki, and Matt.
"Uh-huh." Matt muttered, eyes wide after the appearance of the bizzare strangers and their incredible feet of floating down off the airship.
"Think we can trust what they said?" Yumi asked Jermey, who had taken his seat at the terminal.
"Not sure..." Jermey responded, and brought up the satellite window from before with the airship. "But we at least know he's got a ship."
"So what now?" Ulirch muttered as he sat at one of the spare terminals.
"I... don't... know." Jeremy banged his head gently on the keyboard. "This whole plan to go public was a lot less complicated in my head." He stared at the monitor, displaying the other airship's location. "Alright...alright... what kind of press package can we put together in an hour?"

"So tell me Xana..." Asten muttered as he held an icebag to his head. "Who were they?"
"Some old soliders of mine who deserted. I thought I could pursuade them to come back."
"Well, apparently not." Asten moaned as he removed the ice bag and felt the large lump on his head where Hyde had kicked him. "And why did we have to go up to them in a restaraunt? There were knives in there you know. Knives can kill ME."
"Stop whining." William glared at him. "It's one of the things I hate most about you humans." Asten glared back at him.
"Uh... why am I working for you again?" Asten shouted sarcastically. He found himself thrown up against the wall of the cabin, William's forearm pressing on his neck.
"Because if you stop, I'll kill you. Understand?" William snarled. He released his hold on Asten, who fell on all fours gasping for breath. "On a side note, do well, and you'll be rewarded. In addition to what we've already discussed, I can also give you revenge." Asten froze and stared up at William. "The one who put you in that place. You want to kill him, don't you?" William turned and walked away, but continued to talk. "But it's not just because of that. You were always jealous of him. Your life was great until he showed up, and then everything went straight to hell."
"How do you know all this?" Asten demanded.
"When I sent you to Lyoko, I made a copy of your mind and I've been leeching your memories off it ever since." William grinned. "I know everything." Wiliam sat at the terminal. "Get into the scanner. I'm going to upgrade your abilities again."
"With what?"
"I'm going to give you a new power... I beta-tested it on someone else, but I've managed to remove the side effects now..."

Orson arrived at the FBI (French, not federal) office in Paris. He had come straight from the Majestic 13 meeting on a secret military jet that could cross the Atlantic in two hours. The meeting had ended with his assignment to seek out "Sanderson", the French agent who claimed to have a lead. He flashed his FBI badge and skipped through security, the meeting already prearranged. He took the elevator to the top of the building, and stepped into a large office with many windows that made up the entire floor. Except for the elevator shaft in the center, there was a panoramic view of the city.
"Mr. Orson, it's a pleasure to meet you." Sanderson said from his desk. "Have a seat." He gestured to an empty chair opposite him. "How was your flight?"
"Look, can we get down to bussiness becasue I know we're both kinda busy here." Orson said coldly. "I came because you said you had a lead about the situation."
"And I do." Sanderson crossed his arms. "Are you familiar with the term 'memory supression'?"
"Yes." Orson answered. "It's a way of creating partial amnesia. It's not very sophisticated, but we do use it to wipe sensitive information from retiring agents. Does that have something to do with this?"
"Yes it does." Sanderson stood up and turned his back to Orson in order to stare out the window. "Imagine a machine so powerful, it could surpress the memory of every person on Earth with the push of a button."
"Nonsense." Orson replied. "That's impossible." Sanderson shot him an annoyed glance from over his shoulder.
"Considering the events of the last twenty four hours, I feel we need to remove that word from our volcabularies."
"Do you have any proof? And what does this have to do with all this?"
"It'll be faster to just show you."

"So that was a specter, huh?" The boy with the black, emo-style hair yawned. "It was so threatening." He added sarcastically as he fell back into a wood chair with cloth padding. As he scooted the chair to align himself with the table in front of him, he glanced at his compatriot who sat on the opposite end. He was busy plucking away at the keyboard, he had no clue what he was working on. "Colonel, are you listening?"
"Nick, call me that one more time, and I'll break your neck." The boy with long red hair glanced at him threateningly.
"Nah, you wouldn't really do that, Colonel." Nick replied with a grin. Zaber groaned as crouched down in front of his laptop screen, removing him from Nick's sight. Nick picked up the hotel room's "phone numbers card", scanning quickly for the nearest pizza place that delivered. "So, I know we're supposed to be in hiding and everything, but could we at least get some Pizza? We haven't had anything since we left Wilder. And while we're eating it, you can give us that explanation you promised..."
"Fine. I want double cheese and pepperoni." Zaber muttered back as he concluded his e-mail, and hit send. "I've just sent a message to Jeremy. We should be able to join up with them pretty soon." Zaber closed his web browser and opened a virtual modeling program.
"And?" Nick implied.
"And I'll explain everything else over pizza. Are you happy?"
"Aye aye Colonel."
"STOP THAT DAMN IT!!!"

"OK... I think that's enough information to keep people happy..." Jeremy replied as he handed Millie and Tamir's "press release" back to them. "We need to get this out as soon as possible to the media to warn people about Xana's ship."
"On it." Millie nodded as she held up a USB pen drive and plugged it into one of the vacant terminals. Jeremy let out a sigh of relief as soon as they were no longer paying attention. The ship hadn't taken any agressive actions yet, but it was headed their way. When that happened, he wasn't quite sure what they would do. Aside from the single gun turret in the front and a shield simmilar to the Skid's, the ship wasn't armed for any sort of combat. He could deploy the navskids as fighters, but they'd be useless against a large ship like Xana's. Hopefully this new release of information might convince a nearby country to come to their aid in someway, but he found that doubtful. It was then he got an e-mail alert. He had kept two e-mail accounts, one for his personal use, and what for Lyoko bussiness, which was registered with fake info. He had mainly used it to move data between him room and the factory in e-mail attachments, aside from the old lyoko warriors, no one knew it. His eyes sharpened when he opened the inbox. A message from Zaber.

Jeremy,
I've got to admit, I thought you guys were crazy when you came on with the message, but I'm glad you did... that RTTP loop was getting annoying.
Anyways, since we're all pretty much out of hiding now, I don't have to stay away from you guys anymore. I'm currently in the costal town of Balancroft, hiding out in a hotel for the moment. Send me a message back so we can make arrangements to pick me up. Oh, and I've got a few friends with me who I think will prove useful in the coming war with Xana. Can't wait to see you all again.
- Zaber

Jeremy fist shook as he clenched his teeth.
"Xana..." He muttered. "How low will you stoop?" This was one of Xana's ploys. Zaber was dead. This was a taunt... and insult... designed to bring the memory back to the front of their minds and distract them during the coming attack.
"What was that Jeremy?" Tamir asked, having heard his muttering, but not grasphing the words.
"Nothing." Jeremy said as he quickly deleted the message before anyone else saw it. There was no reason to have everyone else be taken down by by Xana's trap.


"Codename Carthage." Sanderson told Orson as they entered an elevator in an obscure part of the buidling and headed down. "It was started back in the late 80s to be a weapon for the new digital age. Capable of disrupting enemy communications, and manipulation electircal energy in ways we can scarcely comprehend. For instance, mind control by sending exactly the right electrical impulses through the brain, or using the same principle to surpress memory. It was based on Quantum computer technology, which is far more advanced than most of our current technology."
"If it's more advanced than most of today's technology, how the hell did you build it twenty years ago?"
"That's a national secret with the highest security clearance."
"And how high is that?"
"Higher than mine, for one thing." The elevator doors opened seveal floors underground, into an immaculate, but poorly lit hallway. "Anyways, the technology was so advanced that we couldn't get it working the way we wanted to. The formulas and algorithims involved were to complex for even the most brilliant human mind to comprehend. One scientists on the project came up with the idea of solving that problem by using a computer to do the thinking for us. That worked for a while." Sanderson groaned.
"Then what?"
"Well, what usually happens in a bad sci-fi movie when you create an artificial intelligence that's smarter than you are?"
"The AI that ran Carthage become Xana." Orson followed the line of thought to it's logical conclusion.
"It was obedient at first, but suddendly changed and started to work against us. It took control of some lab equipment and killed a number of the researchers involved. We managed to shut it down, and we were going to destory it. But then one of our scientists, Waldo Schaffer, defected and took Xana and the entire Carthage system with him. We've been chasing him ever since, but his trail went cold 10 years ago. At least, until now."
"So why are we in the basement if Carthage isn't here?"
"Because we're going to talk to one of the men who created it. Project Carthage began with 12 scientists. One of them died of illness towards the beginning of the project, Schaffer defected, and 9 were killed by Xana." They stopped at a door at the end of the hall and Sanderson swiped a keycard, and reached to open the door. "The last one... we've been keeping him here in protective custody for the last 18 years." As the door opened, Orson looked inside and saw the room's cozy arrangement. It had a bed, a couch, a reclining chair, large flat-panel TV, refrigerator, and numberous other amenities. One corner of the room had a dumbwaiter, another corner, a small enclosed bathroom. The TV was one, and turned to CNN, with the news on, but the volume was muted and close captions were being displayed. A man sat on the couch, looking at the TV with a neutral facial expression. He was fairly old, in his late 50s at least, his hair already grey, and grew out wildly along with his beard so it looked as if he hadn't had a shave or haircut in at least a year. He wore grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt, and white socks.
"Protective custody isn't really the right word Sanderson." The man said to them. "More like prisoner." Orson glanced at Sanderson.
"He's been highly uncooperative, and for reasons of national security, we obviously couldn't let him go, especially after he threatened to go public with information about our operations."
"And now these kids have beat me to the punch. Is that why you're here? Can I leave now?" The man continued, not even looking back at the two of them. Sanderson shut the door.
"Not quite Harold. We need your skills. You're the one with the most extensive knowledge of the situation."
"I don't know anything about Xana."
"I know that." Sanderson stepped in front of him in between Harold and the TV and crouched down to come to his seated eye level. "You didn't program that computer... but you did build it."

Jeremy scrambled to program a new weapons upgrade for the ship. Their resoures were almost back to high enough a level to perform reset again, but he feared they wouldn't make it in time. Even if they were stuck on defense during the start of the fight, they could materialize the new weapon mid fight if they had to.
"Jeremy..." Aelita came up to him with her laptop under her arm. Jeremy turned to her.
"What's wrong?"
"I think I have a solution for our weapons problem." She smiled. "I just finished programming something that should let us create our weapons without reseting reality." Jeremy's mouth gaped.
"How?" Aelita opened her laptop and showed him her new program.
"It's called a digital field projector." She explained. "I used some of the basic principles of Zaber's mobile virtualization and expanded the range." Jeremy nodded. Zaber's old "scanners" were based on a simple principle. It activated a tower, which in turn created a specter. This specter then created a field of space around the person, and within that field of space, the laws of the real world didn't apply, instead, the laws of Lyoko were in effect. Once the person's data was rewritten to their Lyoko form, the field dispelled itself, causing the changes to forcibly transition into the material world. "Zaber's version in those little handhelds could only generage a digital field 1.5 meters in diameter. But with this new up-spec version..."
"The range could be as much as 40 meters." Jeremy smiled. "We could materialize something as big as a fighter plane with that."
"And the actual projector is small enough we can materialize it in a scanner." Aelita smiled as she plugged her laptop into Jeremy's terminal. "Once we've set it up, we can materialize the weapons we need."
"Aelita, your a genius. Not that that needed any reinforcement." Jeremy grinned.
"I know." She smiled back. This was one of their first light-hearted moments since Xana had started broadcasting.
"So what kind of weapons did you make?" Odd asked as he popped up from behind Jeremy chair, causing them both to startle.
"Ah... Odd! How long have you been back there?!" Jeremy demanded.
"Long enough." Odd replied with a grin. "So what have you made so far?" Jeremy shrugged and brought up the model.
"It's a five meter rail gun. It uses superpowered electromagnets to fire metal projectiles at mach 9." He pointed to the model on screen.
"Bad-a**!" Odd exclaimed. "Can I fire that?!"

Infinite Crisis - Zaber's Chapter [Part I]

Nine months earlier...

Zaber awoke in his bed in the last place he expected... his old dorm at Wilder Academy.

Wilder was the most recent (aside from Catic) boarding school he'd been shipped off to by his snobby adopted parents. He glanced at the calender, which displayed a date of June 1st. According to his own memories... he would leave the school for the last time on the 7th, after the incident, thus leading to his enrollment at Catic. Now, the question was... what kind of freaky return to the past was this, sending him back such a long time? As if to answer his question, his laptop, which was lying on his desk, beeped. He opened it up, and noticed everything about Lyoko that had been on it was gone. The beep had been caused by his e-mail, which was flashing that he had one new message. He hit the open button.

My dear son,

I'm sorry for everything I've put you and Aelita through. You've heard the story before from Jeremy, so I won't waste your time repeating it. Just realize that everything I did... I did for the love of my children and your dear mother...
What you are experiencing right now is something called "Reset Reality". This super-powerful return to the past is able to even raise the dead... which coincidentally, in why you're even reading this. However, it's also sent you back by several months, so I know you're at Wilder rather than Catic right now. Listen closely... whatever you do... don't try to contact the others. The Men In Black are watching you. They've been watching you since the day Aelita and I dissapeared and your mother died. As far as they're concerned, you're the only living link to the Hopper legacy, and that's why they're keeping tabs on you. They aren't onto Aelita and the others yet... they became alerted when you met them at Catic. Even without Xana's interference, they would have eventually found out about Aelita and the supercomputer and... I don't think I need to remind you of what happened last time the MIB got ahold of Jeremy and her.
For now, the only safe thing for you to do is to not contact them. Act like nothing is wrong... return to your previous life. I can send you protected e-mails like this now and again, but anything outgoing that you send with phones, e-mails, instant messaging, forums, or anything else can be tracked and monitored by the MIB. I know it will be hard... I'll see if I can't create some kind of decoy to distract them so that you can communicate with them, but it's going to take a little time. I'm afraid the reset has left me without a body again... so I'm just floating around the network at this point. I'll let them know that you're alive and well, and I'll send you another message once I've regained enough of my strength to act on my own again.

Your loving father,
Waldo Schaffer

Awkward. That's how Zaber suddendly felt. First of all... he had to consider wether or not this was a trap. Was this something his father would actually write? In his whole life, he had possessed two perceptions of his father.
1. He was a homicidal lunatic who killed his sister, thus driving his mother to suicide.
2. He was a mad scientist who accidently created the digital version of the anti-christ.
In terms of how well he actually "knew" his father... that was even worse. Their first meeting had been the shouting match in the apartment with him aiming a gun. Their second, a baffling, brief conversation in a garage. And their last conversation had been just before he went to Lyoko. Total Conversation time... around 30 minutes. Not quite enough to get to know someone.

Aelita would be in a much better position to authenticate this letter than he was... she had the full ten years of him as a father-figure to go off of. But, if this letter was true, he couldn't ask her without literally handing her over to the Men in Black. Zaber shut his computer and groaned falling back onto his bed.
"This sucks!" He shouted to no one. "I'm pinned down and can't make a move!" He groaned, and then mellowed slightly, frowning as he stared at the ceiling fan, which was on low. "I'm pinned... and I can't make a move... by Sanderson. Wow... that is sad." Zaber muttered, recalling the squirlly, wimpy MIB agent who had actually gone into the fetal position during the endgame attack. The shear thought of him actually being in a position of power over him made him sick.

"YO! COLONEL!" An obnoxious voice shouted through his locked door. Zaber leapt up from the bed.
"Oh damn... not this again..." Zaber got up from his bed and headed to the door. He slammed his back up against the door and yelled through it.
"What is it Nick?!" He asked with some annoyance.
"We're gonna be late to gym, colonel!" The voice shouted agian. Zaber undid the deadbolt on his door, and leaned back as he pulled the knob, falling backwards onto the floor in the hallway in the door opened. He pointed up at the owner of the voice... a teenage boy with greasy black hair in the "emo-rock" style.
"For the seven... millionth... time... stop calling me COLONEL!!!" Zaber shouted at him. The boy stared down at him curiously.
"Uh... pointing like that isn't exactly threatening when you're lying on the floor, colonel." Zaber smacked himself in the forehead.
"Just when I thought I'd finally gotten rid of you..." He muttered to himself.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" He asked almost angrilly.
"Nothing." Zaber replied as he got up. If he was going to help Aelita keep her cover, he had to act like nothing was wrong. This conversation with Nick was a whole new level of deja vu.
"Well hurry up. Jeez." Nick walked off towards the gymnasium as Zaber shut the door. As he headed for his closet, he was struck by another severe deja vu... this one far more unpleasant. He realized that he'd been brought back to before IT happened. The school shooting that had taken the life of the boy he'd just been talking to, along with a dozen others. The shooting spree he had used his gun to end.

As Zaber, Nick, and the rest of his class ran their laps around the outdoor track, Zaber kept a watchful eye over the soon-to-be killer. The boy was very thin, with short black hair that he wore in spikes. He was an invisible to most. Though his parent's were wealthy, that wasn't anything special at Wilder; it was an elite boarding school. He got sub-par grades, didn't have many friends: the stereotypical profile. The thought struck him that if his judgement hadn't been clouded the first time, it would have blindingly obvious. As per the reason his judgement was clouded... Zaber had spent a reasonable amount of time with him. They were, at least legally, brothers. Zaber was the Ocrist's adopted son... Asten was their real one.

That evening, Zaber lay on his stomach on his bed, his laptop in front of him. As the clock on the computer struck midnight, and the date changed to the 2nd, he pondered his options. When the shooting had happened the first time, he'd been caught off guard. By the time he had heard about it, Asten had already built a body count. Asten had turned his weapon on him... he had shot back... and it was over. Too late to save anyone. But this time, he had a week. His options were as follows.
A. Involve the authorities, effectively preventing the whole thing. But this would expose him to suspicion as to how he found out.
B. Try and talk Asten out of it. But if Asten knew that he already knew about his plan, he might snap even earlier.
c. Go vigilante once the incident begins.

Zaber harbored no ill will towards Asten... but Zaber had been one of Asten's intended targets from the start. The ideal would be to end this with no casualties using option A, or to succsessfully talk him out of it with option B. But to do that, he would need to "learn of the plot" in some other way, besides having his knowledge of future events. Asten's room was right down the hall... Wilder was ritzy enough that no one shared dorms. He supposed he'd just wait for an opening and then go snooping.

HEEEEES BAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!

The story is great, seriously better than your best. There's just one thing that really scares me... Odd with a mach 9 railgun? I'm suprised Jeremy even showed it to him. That kind of firepower is best kept out of the hands of imbeciles (sorry Odd fans but even the Majestic XIII think he's stupid, it says so in Chapter 3.)