#when aelita floats up in the towers

[lecliss]

Got full access to my bff's Netflix account finally and I started watching Code Lyoko and its kinda baffling to me how the theme song and the iconic reused shots and little sound effects activated neurons in my brain that have been dormant for almost 2 decades. It's like the same effect that the ps2 start up sound has on me. And the theme song is so good that the nostalgia hit is actually making me emotional.

[mythandlaur]

Code: July Day 2 - Dreams

So this one's kind of cheating--I actually wrote this quite some time ago, but I only shared it privately with four friends. I think it still counts because I probably wasn't going to post it on its own unless I was given a reason to. Technically this had to do with the verse me and said friends are roleplaying in, but it stands well enough on its own, just assume the timeframe is sometime season 3 mid-"great googly moogly it's all going to shit"

...

When the dream starts, Jeremie is lying on his back, staring up into the sky. The sky is...wrong, in some way, as is the ground behind him, and it takes him a few seconds to realize he’s on Lyoko.

Mountain sector, he notes as he sits up, rubbing at his forehead. He doesn’t hate Lyoko itself, not really—his senses might work strangely and the virtualization process isn’t exactly pleasant, but the digital world is fascinating to him, not to mention it can actually be quite pretty. He just doesn’t usually get to enjoy it because he’s being hunted down—the only thing XANA seems to hate as much as Jeremie playing with its stuff is Jeremie coming into its domain, so his trips tend to be...short.

Jeremie picks his hat up from beside him and puts it on, pulling the brim low on his forehead and casting a shadow over his face. He checks for his weapon, relief flooding through him when his fingers curl around the baton still at his belt, and he starts walking. He’s not sure where he’s going, he can’t see any towers nearby, but he decides he might as well look around while things are still calm.

He’s not sure how long he spends wandering aimlessly before he hears the singing.

The voice is beautiful, angelic, Aelita’s, reverberating throughout the virtual space and backed by a chorus that seemingly emanates from the world itself. Jeremie stops, slowly turning this way and that, but he can’t see her, and it’s hard to tell exactly where the voice is coming from. So he gives up, and simply stands there, and listens.

...The song turns strange. He has heard Aelita sing to Lyoko before, and it’s always in a major key, but this melody shifts into something...not exactly sad, but firm, and final. The chorus changes as well to fit, less ethereal and more haunting. It sends a shiver up his spine that Jeremie knows is entirely psychosomatic, though that makes it no less of a warning.

Jeremie looks around for Aelita again, this time turning in a full circle—but he freezes when he sees what’s behind him. Not a creature like he’d feared, but off in the distance, the floating landmasses that aren’t part of the contiguous terrain are disappearing before his eyes, draining of color, fading into wireframe, crumbling into so much digital dust. The song rises and the disintegration spreads faster, onto the terrain proper now, flowing towards him in an uncaring wave of destruction.

“Aelita?” Jeremie calls out, still fruitlessly searching about for her. Is her song doing this, unmaking Lyoko as easily as she can create in it? He backs up one step, then two as the ground near him starts to fall away—and then he turns and runs, because there’s nothing else he can do.

His feet sound like they’re crunching against stone and gravel, though there’s no sensation under his boots besides pressure, causing a disorienting dissonance that forces him to check if his feet are still on any ground at all. Lyoko falls apart around him, not with the dramatics of the mountains crashing down and the false earth caving in, but with the cold certainty of simply being erased out of existence, as if it had never been here at all. And still the song continues, pushing against his digital envelope—and he wonders, for a moment, if it’s trying to erase him, too.

Jeremie finally catches sight of a slightly elevated patch of rock in the middle of a larger plateau, and on that makeshift platform, a figure in pink, with her back facing him. His brain tricks him into thinking his heart jumps. “Aelita! Aelita, stop!”

She’s sitting on the rock in a meditative position, legs crossed and hands loosely in her lap, but her face is turned towards the sky as she sings that dire song. Though as Jeremie draws near, she does stop, slowly pushing herself into a kneeling position and turning towards him.

Jeremie stumbles to a halt, catching the breath he knows he doesn’t need. “Aelita, the sector’s disappearing, we need to—”

His words catch in his throat when he sees her face. Aelita’s expression is calm, but not in a comforting way—it’s empty, and so is the faint smile she gives him as she holds out her hand.

His body moves on its own to take it.

Aeliita pulls him up onto her makeshift stage, grabbing both hands tightly in hers, and raises her head in lovely, eerie song. The chorus surrounds him, and he feels like he’s lost control of himself, unable to move, unable to look away from her, only able to see the destruction rushing towards them on all sides through his peripheral vision.

As the ground beneath their feet—the last ground in the mountain sector—finally vanishes, Aelita pulls him in and puts her arms around him. At first, it’s loose, just as empty as the rest of her body language...but then she buries her chin in his shoulder and her grip grows tight and desperate, as if he’s her only lifeline.

Together, the two of them fall, helpless, towards the clouds and the Digital Sea below.

[ciestessde]

SOSW Halloween: Lyoko Portal

SUMMARY

In an attempt by the evil A.I. “X.A.N.A.” to destroy humanity, it brings several beings from other dimensions to a certain junkyard-of-a-college. Chaos ensues.

This is a "Special One-Shot Wednesday" for Halloween 2019 and includes requests from: "ghostboy1225″ @liam21134 on twitter, "GirlFish" on fanfiction.net, and several anonymous requests given through the OSW polls. (Vaguely connected to the OSW "Behind the Curtain")

Aelita and Jeremie, the two transfer students, were setting up the finishing touches on the project they'd come all this way to complete. Aelita only needed to finish entering the coordinates, and then…

Aelita paused in her typing. She turned to Jeremie. "Do you really think this is going to work?"

Jeremie only had eyes for the screen in front of him. "You want to get back to Lyoko, right?"

"Of course I do-" "Then it'll work." Jeremie reached his hand out toward the activation button.

"Jeremie, NO! Don't activate it yet!" Aelita screamed.

… But it was too late.

Before either of them could react, the portal on the wall of the university's lab whirred to life, screaming a terrible high-pitched whine and filling with unfamiliar energy.

The room was drenched in a blinding white light.

~~~ * ~~~

Harley and Bat froze, turning to look down the stairs to their left.

After a few moments, Bat looked at Harley, who was still staring. "... Don't even think about it."

Harley didn't move, still focused down the stairs. "Bat, someone could be hurt." "And if they are, it's their own fault. You know which lab that is, right?"

"... You don't." "Should I? Since when is there-?"

"Why must you gain courage at the most inopportune times?!" Bat sighed and explained, "It was designated a private lab last month. Transfer students. That's all I know. I thought maybe we could recruit them to get more funding for the club, but it… didn't work out," Bat turned and continued walking, "Whatever they're doing down there isn't any of our busi-"

He heard heavy footsteps and turned. Harley had run down the stairs.

"DAMMIT, HARLEY!"

Against his better judgement, Bat ran after him.

~~~ * ~~~

"Oooh… What happened?" Beetlejuice rubbed his head, floating up off of the ground. Wherever he was, the entire room was full of smoke. "Where's Lyds?" He cupped his hands around his mouth, "LYDIA?! YOU OK?!"

A strange moan came from his left, and further inside the room he heard a girl call out, "Jeremie! Are you alright?" "Yeah… Yeah, I'm ok."

Then… it processed: "This is the World of the Living. I'm… I'm free!" And with a shout of "WAHOO!" Beetlejuice was released upon the school.

But there was a far more pressing issue the students would have to deal with before the poltergeist.

'So… Hungry… There was… light… pulling, and then- '-Wait. This smell… 'Smells… smells like… human, but… Me?'

Danny opened his eyes- -And saw himself.

Except, something was wrong. It… it wasn't him. It couldn't be, because… The face he was looking at - was the face of a corpse.

And it… He… 'I'm just so… so… HUNGRY.'

The other Danny, having regained consciousness, stopped moaning. It smelled like Livings here… Not good. And even worse, was that… himself?

Suddenly, other-him lunged mouth-first at him! And the guy was strong. WAY too strong!

He grabbed the clone(?) by the shoulders. He was managing, just barely, to hold him back - but it was hard to focus with the two Livings on the other side of the room-!

"Ugh…" There was a Living boy - teenager? - lying not five feet from them. Great. Just… Just PERFECT!

But then, somehow, it got worse. Other Him - grew tentacles?!

They grabbed Zombie Danny around the middle, lifting him into the air and SLAMMING him against the floor! They dragged him across the linoleum, leaving deep gouges as they went - miraculously not hitting the Living Boy.

Planting his feet, Zombie Danny used all the inhuman strength in his decaying flesh to TEAR the kagune off of him.

At that, Ghoul Danny apparently decided to go after the easier prey: the Living Boy.

Who finally woke up. Will was grateful, at first, to not be in the Upside Down anymore- -But that gratefulness didn't last long.

Zombie Danny blocked Ghoul Danny's kagune just in time. But that brought him very close to Will. And Ghoul Danny wasn't the only one who was hungry.

It was like he could smell the contents of the boy's head all the way through his skull. Maybe he could - it wasn't like there was a guidebook to his situation!

Zombie Danny's options were running out. If he didn't eat a brain soon, his body really would die this time! He'd become a full ghost, not just half.

And he… He couldn't let that happen. But… And he didn't know these Livings. He didn't know what was going on. But…

But.

He couldn't just let them die, either!

So. Danny forfeited his secret - and transformed.

By the time Bat and Harley made it to the lab, they froze. What else were they supposed to do when faced with such pure chaos?

Some of it was expected - like the two transfer students huddled and madly pressing buttons in the back of a room filled with smoke. Some of it wasn't too unusual - like the teenager panicking on the floor. Maybe he was just here to study, or was someone's younger brother, or… something.

But then there was a glowing teenager holding back another guy who had TENTACLES COMING OUT OF HIS BACK, WHAT THE HELL?!

Zombie-now-Ghost Danny screamed at the typing students, "Look, I don't know exactly what's going on, but you two seem to be the cause, and I just want you to know - I can't hold this guy back forever!" "I'm working on it!"

"Jeremie!" Aelita, her face terrified, pointed at a screen where a weird, almost target- or eye-looking symbol was glowing a bright, ominous red. Jeremie froze. "Oh no…"

Snapping out of it, he looked around the room - panicked for a moment - then started barking orders. "I don't know any of you, and you don't know me, but we don't have much time. If we don't fix this, the entire world - multiple worlds - will be doomed! So, like it or not, we need your help-!"

"Yeah whatever!" interrupted Ghost Danny. Ghoul Danny growled and, stabbing his kagune into the ground, pulled them both forward a couple feet toward the still frozen-in-shock Will. "Just tell me what to do before I lose my grip!" "Aelita! They'll need to go inside Lyoko!" "Right!"

The pink-haired girl pulled out a handful of… buttons? "Not the ghost - OR the kid!" said Jeremie, setting up a complicated-looking laptop display. "Got it."

Aelita placed one of the buttons on her head, then threw one onto Ghoul Danny's stomach. Before they could snap out of it enough to protest, she'd already thrown one onto both Bat's and Harley's heads, as well. "Transferring scan data!" Jeremie said, and the buttons glowed. The light spread through each of their bodies. "Virtualization!"

And like that, Jeremie, Ghost Danny, and Will were the only people left in the room. Danny just floating, Will looking around confused, and Jeremie still furiously typing.

"..."

"... Ok… That was different," Danny said in his echoey voice.

Jeremie seemed to finish, or at least paused to look at him and say, "There was another… guy- that flew off earlier. It's not really my place to ask, but-"

"-Hey, um…" Will stood up, trembling. Danny and Jeremie turned to look at him. "Where… am I?"

"That's…" 'Why didn't I think to ask that?'

"..." Something beeped, and Jeremie looked down at one of the screens in front of him. Typing again, he responded, "It's hard to explain, but you're basically in an alternate reality. The portal we were building- … Glitched." He paused to look Will (and Danny) in the eyes. "We'll get you back home. I promise." Looking back at the screens and typing again, he added, "But I'd really appreciate your help in the meantime."

Danny looked at Jeremie, then down at the shivering Will. "..." He floated down so his feet touched the ground. "Hey, uh. My name's Danny."

He held out his hand. At first, Will just stared at it. But after a couple moments… he took it. "... I'm… Will."

Danny put on his best smile. "Nice to meet you Will. Hey, um… How do you feel about helping me catch a ghost?"

To Danny's surprise- -Will's face lit up!

~~~ * ~~~

It had to be the oddest sense of déjà vu Bat and Harley had ever experienced. There was yet another flash of light, and they were… in a desert?

He and Harley looked… Like themselves, but… 'What the heck?!'

Bat looked like a vampire with bat wings. Harley was… a centaur? Aelita - well, she'd already had that weird pink hair before, but now she kinda looked like an elf. Danny, though, looked pretty much the same.

But… his head was clear. He wasn't hungry anymore?

Groaning, he opened his eyes. He could remember what happened, of course, but that just made him more confused. Why wasn't he hungry anymore…?

Before he got a chance to ask, Aelita grabbed everyone's attention, all business. "You see that tower?" She pointed into the distance. A few miles away was a simple, cylindrical tower. "I need to get inside it. Once I do, I can fix the portal and stop XANA."

"Zana?" asked Harley.

Bat was trembling with rage, refusing to look at Harley. Harley noticed, but… Well, they didn't really have time to talk right now, did they? Lives were at stake here!

"It's what's causing all this. It's an AI that wants to destroy humanity. We thought we had defeated it, but we must have reawakened it when activating the portal somehow. But- It's so far away. And we don't have any vehicles…" "Maybe Bat can help." "Huh?" Bat looked around, searching for the source of Jeremie's voice. "It says here you should be able to turn everyone into bats. That should help you all move more quickly."

"And how, exactly, do I do that?" Bat glared at the sky. "C'mon, just try." Bat turned his head. Harley was giving him a pleading look. "..." Bat turned his face away…

… But a couple seconds later, and everyone was flying above the desert.

~~~ * ~~~

Beetlejuice was flying around the school, at a loss for where to even start spreading mayhem! As he passed by, at just below the speed of sound, someone slapped a hand over his mouth and pulled him inside a closet.

He struggled, and the hands released him. "What gives?!"

"Shhh!" Danny held a finger up to his mouth.

But Beetlejuice didn't listen. "Woah. Dude, what's with the glowing? You get bit by a radio-GHOST-ive spider or something? Ha!"

Danny facepalmed, and groaned, "Look, I don't have a thermos on me at the moment. So can we just skip to the part where you give up and agree to go back to the Ghost Zone and torment me later?"

Beetlejuice just laughed, "'Ghost Zone'? Is that a new theme park or somethin'?"

"Huh?" 'Theme Park? Wait… He's not glowing…

'Oh, crud! 'Is… Is he NOT a ghost?!'

"Look, kid, I like your sense of style and all, black and white is always in, but when it comes to tormenting people… The Ghost with the Most is always PENctual!" From out of nowhere, a giant pen appeared in Beetlejuice's hand and sprayed ink all over Danny, blinding him. "But I INK you get the idea! HAHAHAHAHA!"

Before Danny could think to turn intangible to get the stuff off of him, Beetlejuice flew out of the closet- -and met with a face-full of Fenton Wrist Ray.

"I got him!" Will was practically jumping with excitement.

Danny phased out of the wall (and the ink). "Awesome!" He tackled BJ, pinning his arms to his sides much like he had with Ghoul Danny.

BJ struggled, but Danny's grip was too strong to break. "Hey! I don't appreciate being HUG tied!"

"Dude. What's with the puns?" Danny asked, surprisingly casual.

Suspiciously, the struggling stopped. "Oh, nothing really. I just need a breath of FLESH air!" There was nothing Danny could do, then, to stop him.

BJ turned into gas - and slipped straight through his arms!

~~~ * ~~~

"Look out!" Aelita transformed back into her base form, activating her own wings, and tried to shove Bat out of the way of a laser. But she was too late.

Bat fell, everyone else losing their bat forms and landing with, thankfully, only minor damage.

They had only made it about halfway to the tower, but they were surrounded: From the air came five wasp-like hornets and three stingray-looking mantas. Then, bocking their ground-route, were several large, black, ball-like megatanks, the giant cubes-with-eyes bloks, and a few tall, spindly krabs.

There was no time for a complicated strategy. Aelita yelled, "They can't kill you, but they can send you back to the real world. Cover me while I head for the tower!" and flew off.

Bat pulled himself up. He was thoroughly pissed off now. 'First, Harley runs straight into danger - AGAIN. Then these strangers rope us into helping them. And now I get shot from behind by some BUG?!' He glared at the hornet that shot him, the one in the lead, and, acting on instinct, blasted it with a wave of wind.

Harley shot a fire ball at the same moment, and at the same hornet. The attacks combined, becoming more powerful, and all three of the monsters exploded.

Meanwhile, Danny was focused on the ground enemies, dodging their lasers with ease and slashing at them with his kagune. Hunter that he was, it didn't take him long to figure out that their eyes and the eye-symbols were their weak spots.

After that, it took him no time at all to demolish the entire swarm.

The only ones left after only two minutes were the mantas - as, after seeing what happened to the hornets, they had moved too high for any of them to reach without flying.

"Bat-" "-yeah yeah, I know," he grumbled at Harley. He was still pissed, but the only way out of here was to do as Aelita told them. He was backed into a corner.

Which just pissed him off more.

Flying up with remarkable speed, Bat got above the three mantas and blew them downwards into Harley's fire. A few seconds passed, but the monsters didn't die.

Cursing, Bat stopped his wind attack and manifested some knives. He threw them at the eyes on the mantas' backs, but it still wasn't enough.

Cursing even more, he dodged the mantas' lasers, swooped down, and grabbed Danny. "Hey!" "Shut up and just attack," Bat snarled - and dropped him right on top of the lead manta.

Striking and using the momentum to jump to the next one, Danny took them out in less than ten seconds.

And so, before Aelita even made it to the tower, all the monsters were defeated- -only for even more to show up right in front of the girl.

~~~ * ~~~

"Jeez this kid is tough!" Beetlejuice muttered, hiding behind the door of the Principal's office. Danny had flown by a few times, and a few of those times had almost caught the poltergeist again!

But BJ's plan was working out, so far. Soon, he'd truly be free! Free to explore the Living World without ever having to return to the Netherworld! … Free to spend his life with his best friend.

"All I have to do is get rid of that stupid portal, find Lyds, and I'll be set for my afterlife! And speaking of the poor fool…"

The Principal walked into his office, closed the door - and Beetlejuice possessed him. "Time to go fire some transfer students!"

Unfortunately for BJ, Danny knew an overshadowed person when he saw one. Grabbing Will and shushing him, he followed BJ back to the lab - right where Danny wanted him.

Mission complete and XANA defeated once again, the Lyoko group devirtualized RIGHT before the "Principal" walked in.

Ghoul Danny's hunger returned with a vengeance - but he held himself back. He only needed to last long enough to get back home…

"What's going on here?!" Principal Beetlejuice said.

Jeremie froze. "Um…" "It's not him," said Danny, turning visible behind BJ and setting Will down. "How long before the portal's ready?"

Aelita hit a few buttons, "It's ready whenever you are."

Danny reached an intangible hand inside the Principal, "Then NOW!" and pulled out the poltergeist. The portal came on with a soft whirr - Beetlejuice made one desperate last attempt, "UnHAND m-!" - and Danny LAUNCHED Beetlejuice through it.

The Principal was swaying back and forth, Ghoul Danny chewing on his own hand and his kagune twisting. Ghost Danny flew over and turned him and Ghoul Danny invisible. The Principal, slowly, blinked back to consciousness.

"Wh-what…?" He looked around at the burn and scratch marks all over the walls and floor. "Oh my-!" "Sir," Harley said, walking up to him, "You came down to investigate the explosion, right?" "Explosion?!" "There's no need to worry. No students were hurt. It was just a…" Harley stopped, at a loss for how to get out of this. The Principal's expression was turning into a glare, and Harley started to get nervous.

"-A slight miscalculation with the startup charge," interrupted Bat, "Turns out it didn't require as much energy as expected to open the portal, and that excess energy is what caused the explosion. Thankfully, no one got hurt. And, more than that, as you can see…" He raised an arm to wave at the glowing gate behind him, grinning, "The experiment was a success."

The Principal stood there, staring wide-eyed at the portal to another dimension in his university's lab, for a solid minute. Of course, Bat being down here was extremely suspicious, given his reputation, but… Grinning like a cheshire cat, the Principal went around shaking everyone's hand and congratulating them.

This probably would've continued if Jeremie hadn't expressed the desire to "continue perfecting the experiment that night." "Yes, yes, of course, carry on," the Principal said, "The pursuit of knowledge takes precedence…!"

After he'd left, the Dannys turned visible. Ghoul Danny's kagune were starting to scratch at the floor again. "Alright! Hurry up and open the portal to HIS dimension!" Jeremie did so, and Ghost Danny threw Ghoul Danny into it.

And, for a moment, there was peace.

"Well…" said Harley, "... I guess that all worked out." Bat stomped up the stairs without a word.

"..." Harley ran up after him. "Hey-"

Bat, halfway up the steps, spun around. "WHAT were you thinking!?" Harley froze. "You-... You just-..."

"..." Glaring, Harley walked up the steps between them- -grabbed Bat by the collar- -held him there for a few seconds: "I was saving people. But-" -and hugged him.

"I'm sorry I scared you."

"... "No you're not. You liar."

Reluctantly - and, he'd stress, only because they were alone - Bat hugged him back.

~~~ * ~~~

Back in the lab, Will addressed Jeremie and Aelita, "So, uh… That's an interdimensional portal."

Jeremie grinned. "Sure is!" Aelita noticed Will was shaking again. She tried to reassure him, "We can send you right back to where you were, don't wor-" "Actually," Will stammered, "I, um… Can you send me- back home?" "Huh?" Jeremie said, "I mean, that's what we were planning on- wait. You mean, you weren't-?!"

Will was shaking even more now. Danny rested a hand on the kid's shoulder. He looked to Aelita. "How hard would it be to send him home?"

The two students thought for a few moments.

Jeremie answered. "In theory, we can get his dimension's coordinates from his body's frequency, but… If we get it wrong," he shook his head, "We won't be able to fix it."

Will's shaking got worse for a second. Then stopped. He looked up. "Then…" He swallowed. "... Just send me… back where you found me."

"Are you sure?" Danny asked him. Will trembled a little, but smiled. "I know I'll get home. Someone will come for me. I'm sure of it."

"..." Aelita and Jeremy recalibrated the portal. And, with a small wave, Will walked through. Then, with one final adjustment, Danny went home, as well.

Now alone again, there were a few moments of silence.

… Aelita started giggling. Jeremie looked at her, confused, for a second.

She was looking at the portal- -the fully-functioning, interdimensional portal- -that they had built.

… He starting giggling himself.

Before long, they were hanging off each other and laughing hysterically. Aelita gasped for air. She turned to Jeremie, grinning. "We did it."

He sat up, grinned back, and just said, "Yeah. "We can finally go back."

~~~~~

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{This is part of my “OneShot Wednesday” project - I’m trying to write a one-shot every week that other people have requested! Original Requests one week, and Fanfic Requests the next.

While I will try to keep track of all the requests I receive regardless of how they’re sent, the best ways to send them are: A. Through the current poll. B. If it’s a Fanfic Request, through the pinned tweet on my Twitter C. If it’s an Original Request, through either my email (CiestessDE@gmail.com), my Patreon (if you’re a patron), or my Ko-fi.

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[souljellied]

teeny little oddlita for @semie78 who requested ‘oddlita, him keeping her company on Lyoko’ <3

The hollow sky of Lyoko rings loud with Odd and Aelita’s laughter as they chase one another across the desert.

“Come on Odd, I thought you were supposed to be quicker than that,” Aelita turns and winks at him, picking up speed.

 “I’m just warming up, Princess,” he says, dropping to all fours and springing lithely from rock to rock. His tail streams out behind him as he gains speed, the pace carefully kept so that Aelita doesn’t fall too far behind.

 It’s nice to embrace the thrill of a chase that isn’t about life or death but eventually they come to a halt at an oasis, chests heaving, giddy with exhaustion and elation.

 Aelita swings herself up onto a rock and watches as Odd contemplates a moment, paw thoughtfully placed on his chin.

 “Ah, I know!” he says at last, eyes lighting up. He starts gathering stones, then snaps a thin branch from the nearby tree, and soon he is teaching Aelita to pitch and swing, and they are playing baseball, watching with amusement as stones soar high over Lyoko’s horizon.

 He’s been doing this for a few weeks now; following Jeremie to the factory and keeping Aelita company on Lyoko as Jeremie inevitably falls asleep mid-programming. With just the two of them and no monsters to fight, and sensing Aelita’s frustration at the emptiness of Lyoko, he always comes back with new ideas and new games to play.

 Last time it was hide and seek in the forest. Before that, he climbed mountains with her. All the while, he never stops talking and Aelita laughs like she hasn’t in ages.

 They throw rocks until there are no more left, then lie shoulder to shoulder on the ground, staring up at the sky.

 “I’m going to tell Einstein to programme some real weather in here. That way we can find shapes in clouds when we’re chilling out like this.”

 “Clouds?”

 “They’re big white fluffy things that float in the sky. You’ll love ‘em.”

 Aelita smiles wide and brushes her hand against his. “I can’t wait.”

 Odd cannot sit still for long and presently they are on their feet again, Odd thinking aloud as he plans their next misadventure.

 “I know! Let’s go visit the Ice sector! You ever been sledding? No wait, of course not!” Aelita clambers to her feet, helping Odd to his, soaking up his rambling narrative about the French Alps and snow and winter sports.

 There is a way tower in the distance, too far away for Aelita’s liking. She turns to Odd, raising one challenging eyebrow.

 “Race you again? Unless you’re scared you’ll lose of course.”

 Odd grins, teeth white and sharp and feline.

 “Bring it on, Princess.”

 They set off at a sprint. As long as Odd is around, Aelita thinks, how could she ever be bored?