Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Code Lyoko still going strong in 2025! It's amazing that we have a vibrant community for a show that is 20+ years old! 

The calendar prompts are from long-time Lyoko Warrior semie78, found on their Tumblr and Reddit.

This is my first CodeJuly and my first attempt at a fan challenge as a writer. I made a self-imposed rule that chapters will be drabbles (exactly 100 words), partly because I want to do something different than a longfic, and I'd like to actually succeed at posting within the 31 days. 

Any and all feedback is welcome, but please be kind!

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1980s-ish

A girl with pink hair opens his box. 

They play together for hours and years.

One day, she sets him down in the dark.

2000s-ish

She picks him up. Though too much time has passed for normal humans, she is still a girl. He wonders why. 

She talks to him every night, about nothing and everything. One day, she sets him on a shelf in the sun. 

2020s-ish

A blonde girl opens his box.

The woman with pink hair smiles with tears in her eyes. “His name is Mister Puck. He was, and will always be, a good friend.” 

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“Jeremie, am I your waifu?”

Lemonade shoots out his nose. Several deep coughs. “M-my what?!”

“Your waifu,” she enunciates.

Much blushing. “You’ve been watching too much anime.” He surveys the circuitry for water damage.

She waits. Jeremie answers any question she poses, eventually.

Satisfied the tech is dry, he moves to change shirts, keeping the closet door wide so she can't see his body. She’s read that girls and boys have different physiologies, but she wonders exactly what differences exist between waifus and husbandos.

He returns, staring with wide eyes. “Waifus are fictional. You're real, Aelita.

Beat.

“Are you sure?”

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XANA is gone. They get to be normal together for the next two years. He’s finally going to do it.

He watches her approach campus. Her hair is longer, and she’s changed up her style, but she’s stunning as always, and he’s ready.

“Hi. How was your summer?” 

“Good. Could have been longer. Yours?” 

“I’ll tell you about it, but first, I have something I want to say.”

“Okay.” 

“Yumi, I like you. I’ve liked you for a long time. Would you want to go out with me?” 

Her smile is as bright as the sun. “I’d like that, Ulrich.”

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They have to make it to the boiler room. The GPS system won’t be able to track them underground, though XANA will then likely shift targets to the factory. To Jeremie. But they've yet to lose anyone, and a few seconds can mean all the difference, has always been enough to stall out until a Return to the Past.

She just has to run.

Odd goes first, then she’s sprinting.

Another darkening of the sky. She pushes herself faster, only to lose her balance and overcorrect into a trip.

Sprawled on the Kadic field, Yumi screams as the laser approaches.

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“Do you ever think about what life would’ve been like if Sissi had joined us as a Warrior?”

Odd glances over. “Not really. She’s cute and all, but a total brat. We would have found a way to kick her out eventually anyway.”

“She has her moments,” Ulrich shrugs.

Body tingling in earthly Future Flash, Odd changes what he was about to say. “Not enough to make up for all her bad ones.”

Ulrich stares at the sky. “We need another soldier. Yumi said no to William… I can’t imagine anyone else except for her as part of the group.”

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“Ta-dah!” Odd removes his hands from her eyes.

Jeremie’s bed is covered with… food. She spies labels for chips and caramels, but there are many brightly colored packages Aelita doesn’t recognize.

“Today is the day you figure out what snacks you like,” Yumi grins.

“Don’t eat more than one or two of each before you’ve tried them all, okay?” Ulrich smirks.

She turns to see Jeremie smiling softly, but he doesn’t speak.

“Dig in, Princess.” 

“Alternate between savory and sweet. Things taste better that way.” 

“And don’t think of hiding it when something turns out to be gross. It happens.”

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“You’re as stubborn as a fool!” 

“It’s stubborn as a mule!” 

Ugh, whatever. He’s the one being a jerk, but still has the nerve to correct her? So rude.

Aelita stomps away from Jeremie’s room. Months ago, when she was still a supercomputer entity, she wondered why they never got into fights. She’s figured it out now. It’s because they weren’t living together in the same realm. 

But now they get to share air, to truly exist as part of the same beautiful world, and she supposes that the occasional tiff is a small price to pay for being human.

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He loves all types of games. Video games. Play pretend and imagination. Board games. Flirting and seduction. Card games. All games are fun games in his book.

Though there’s always an exception to prove a rule.

As much as he likes Lyoko, loves the acrobatics and the Laser Arrow target practice and tricking out on his Overboard, life and death games are decidedly not fun. XANA toys with them too often - makes them forfeit valuable time and energy, forces petty stalemates when IT can’t do anything else.

Given the option, Odd would take a hard pass on the XANA games.

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Dancing may not be his thing, but he still loves music, and William realizes he’s in the presence of greatness. If there’s such a thing as an EDM techno prodigy, it’s Aelita. She’s taken Kadic by storm in just a few beats, and he foreshadows that one day she’ll be the most successful DJ in the world, not just France. It’s a privilege to see her now, an average teen in a big city high school making her musical debut, and he vows to himself that even when she’s famous, he’ll remember her just as she is in this moment.

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In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. The Earth was formless and empty, darkness over the surface of the deep, and the Holy Spirit hovered above the waters.

Do you believe in God, William Dunbar?

Does it matter?

You are nothing but an insignificant mortal pawn.

Then. Why. Ask?!

Silence. That’s all that’s left, other than the digital sea churning deep below, whispering dreams and secrets to where he hovers in directionless space.

But apart from the vast emptiness and formlessness of XANA…

The pixelated waters hold his memory of the Earth, all that exists beyond darkness.

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The night was a total success, thanks in large part to their DJ. “Great job handling the music. You were fantastic!”

“It was awesome! Odd was right. You guys are really cool.” The girls look over to where the boys are piling party paraphernalia into trash bags. “You’re all such good friends.”

They just met today, so it’s not like Yumi knows Sam all that well, but there’s a hint of… loneliness in her voice. “I didn’t have any friends at all before them, so yeah, I’m lucky to have them. Do you want to stay the night with us?”

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“Then who’s going to pilot the Skid?”

“Yumi, you can do it,” Jeremie commands. “Don’t worry. I’ll guide you in.”

What? Piloting the Skid? Her? Her and not Ulrich?

She doesn’t play video games like the guys, and even they got lost under the technical jargon when Aelita tried to explain how the ship works.

She’s the least suited for this job. This task lies outside the scope of her usual Warrior role.

But Jeremie is confident in her. If he thinks she can do it, then she owes it to the team to try. “Okay, if you say so…”

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His friends all think he’s a workaholic - because he is one.

But Jeremie does make time for peace, he just doesn’t tell them. Not a soul knows about his quiet time in the Hermitage.

Once a month, Jeremie leaves all his tech (besides his mobile, of course) behind and walks leisurely through the park to the old building to stretch flat out on the floor of the living room and do nothing but breathe. After a while, he gets up and meanders back to Kadic.

The whole process only takes about forty minutes, but it’s all the downtime he needs.

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As much as she prefers skirts - the brush of wind along her fine leg hair is still one of her favorite sensations - Aelita finds herself drawn to jeans and capris this season. The Warriors are constantly traveling between Kadic and the factory, so having something (even just a bit of fabric) protecting her bare flesh against the wild unknown seems like a smart idea. Plus, while Yumi said she would someday get used to “girl posture,” she still finds herself accidentally flashing her schoolmates on occasion. If she’s buying new clothes anyway, she may as well try out some pants.

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She stands in the rain, letting herself get soaked through. 

Stuck without her friends in her dead father’s dead house these long summer weeks has been awful. Perhaps the downpour will wash the melancholy away.

Dirt turns to mud under her boots. Her hair plasters to her head. Aelita shivers.

She imagines their protests. Your phone will glitch from the moisture. Your clothes will be ruined. You’ll catch a cold. You’re being reckless.

But they’re not there to pull her back inside. There’s nothing but a space heater and microwaved soup for dinner. She’s alone. 

Water streams down her face.

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The supercomputer has been shut down for a month before Jeremie realizes he's developed a bad habit.

Aelita isn't answering her mobile, and instead of thinking like a sane person - she'll call back when she can - his first impulse is to hack into the city grid system to track her phone via satellite.

The crimes he committed always had a good reason, but for him to immediately jump to breaking the law and violating her privacy like that…

It's basically an existential crisis. When, exactly, did he become so dependent on the supercomputer? 

He's surprised to have fallen so far.

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“Jeremie, what subjects do I teach?” 

He gawks as though Hertz grew a second head. “Physics and chemistry, ma’am.” 

She levels him a challenging stare. “And yet, though it’s not my primary discipline, I write this mathematics equation on the board behind me before every class. Why is that?”

Jeremie glances over her shoulder at this most basic of operations. It’s so easy to understand that even Odd and Ulrich don't ask for help with this one. “Um, I don’t know.”

“Which is precisely why you need to stop skipping my lectures! You’re bright, but still have much to learn.”

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All seven of them are pitching in for the swanky restaurant reservation, but…

His parents' flight is delayed from Vancouver.

Pauline has her doctoral dissertation due in four days.

Elisabeth caught pink eye from the baby.

Marie is on her honeymoon.

Adele and Louise couldn’t get off work.

And none of them thought he might need a plus one.

…

Odd orders the most expensive dish for each of the seven courses of his birthday dinner, thinks only of his friends as he blows out the candles on the massive cake, nobody but the serving staff there to clap for him.