Code 7: DUSK

Another month had passed since the incident with the enforcers, with practically no murmur from Xana. Aelita had continued to keep her wings hidden with ease that surprised everyone. Jeremy kept himself busy with programming Aelita's restructure, and for the most part, things were normal. It was now the week before holiday break, and posters had gone up around the school for a holiday costume ball on that Friday.

"A costume party? For Christmas? That doesn't make much sense." Odd muttered at breakfast with his mouth full.
"It does seem a little strange." Yumi added.
"You don't think Sissy may have had something to do with it?" Ulrich muttered while slumped over.
"Yeah, it's probably another of Sissy's elaborate plans to get Ulrich." Odd said with a smile.
"Hello." Zaber said politely as he sat down at the table next to Odd. "So what's the topic of conversation this morning?"
"They're having some kind of dance on Friday." Yumi replied. Zaber frowned.
"Count me out." He said. "I can't dance without arrows."
"I bet I know two people who will be going together..." Ulrich said in a strange tone of voice.
"Aww..." Zaber joked. "Jeremy and Aelita, sitting in a tree..."
"Oh, well that wasn't rude at all." Yumi shot back sarcastically. "You haven't been around as long as we have... you have no clue how close they are."
"I've noticed..." Zaber replied. "It's just both of them are too shy to express their emotions." Zaber sucked most of the milk in his carton up through his straw.

Jeremy was walking down one of the small, outdoor corridors from the dorms to the cafeteria. He was lost in thought. While they're hadn't been any specific incidents that had intensified his worries, the vision of Aelita's murder had continued to reoccur, slowly becoming more and more vivid. Zaber had also been acting strangely... the nocturnal trips that had begun at the start of the year continued... Jeremy still had no clue where Zaber was going and why. There was also the rare occasion where Zaber would disappear after school and shut off his phone, and no one had a clue where he went. When Jeremy had questioned Zaber about it, he had told Jeremy to butt out. Jeremy, hands in his pockets, sighed as he glanced around. Everything was normal, but one thing was new. He stopped in front of the paper poster that had been taped to the wall with duct tape. The poster advertised the costume ball on Friday. Jeremy jumped. This could be his opportunity... and then he slumped again when he realized he didn't have the nerve to ask Aelita out. He had tried many times in the past, but gotten tongue-tied before he could even begin. He sighed as he wandered into the cafeteria, where the rest of the group promptly dropped their conversation about him.

The next day, Jeremy decided he had to try something. He wrote a note, asking Aelita to the dance, which he intended to place under Aelita's door. He had put in almost an hour on it, and he hoped it would work. Aelita was at the school library doing her homework at the time, so Jeremy, on his way to his own room, bent down to slide the envelope under the door.
"You know, that only works in movies." A voice said from around the corner, causing Jeremy to jump. Zaber stepped out from behind the corner, as if he had just come down the stairs.
"Zaber?" Jeremy asked. "What are you doing here?"
"Hey, I'm just trying to warn you. I tried something like this a few years ago, the girl never spoke to me again." Zaber offered. Jeremy was slightly taken aback.
"What do you know anyways? I doubt Aelita would..."
"I know mine's an extreme example, but it's still not gonna work." Zaber said as he leaned casually against the wall. "You can either suck it up and ask her out to her face, or not at all." He said. "Well, you can leave that note if you want to, but I don't want to hear your whining when she turns you down." Zaber said as he ascended the steps. Jeremy stared at the note in his hand, unnerved, and placed it back in his pocket with a sigh.

Jeremy tried several times over the rest of the week to ask Aelita out, but something kept stopping him. He just couldn't do it. He made one last attempt on Thursday, but was still too tongue-tied to do it. Zaber sat on a bench outside as he saw this, and then sighed as he pulled out his cell phone.
"Ulrich... are you doing anything tomorrow?" Zaber asked.
"No."
"Alright... tomorrow morning, we're throwing Jeremy a little intervention." Zaber said with a slight grin on his face.

The next morning, Jeremy was in for a rude awakening.
"JEREMY, WAKE UP!" Zaber screamed. Odd smashed a pair of symbols together right next to Jeremy's head. Jeremy began to spew incomprehensible gibberish as he snapped out of his drowsy state. As he slipped on his glasses, he found Zaber, Ulrich, and Odd encircling him.
"What's going on?" He asked. "Is there a tower?"
"No Jeremy... this is an intervention." Ulrich said.
"What?" Jeremy responded, dumbstruck.
"You can't admit your feelings for Aelita." Odd said with a grin. Jeremy began to turn red, closed his eyes, and scratched his head, grimacing slightly. He tried to speak, but couldn't come up with any response to Odd's accusation that wasn't a complete lie, only a string of stuttering words came out. "See?" Odd finished.
"But..." Jeremy tried to speak, but was interrupted.
"Let's get down to brass tacks." Zaber began. "You don't know the first thing about dating..."
"But..."
"So the three of us are gonna put our heads together and teach you everything we know..." Ulrich said.
"But..."
"And then you're going to take Aelita to that dance!" Odd finished.
"WAIT!" Jeremy yelled as he stood up. "Don't I get a say in this?!?!"
"No. That's why it's called an intervention. Now sit down, shut up, and pay attention!" Zaber said.

There was no school that day, so Aelita slept in. She was awoken by a knock at her door.
"Who is it?"
"Yumi!" A voice rang from the hallway.
"Come in!" Aelita yelled outside as she sat up on her bed, grabbing the wing harness from her bedside table and restrained them as Yumi came in. "What's up?"
"I just thought I'd swing by and see if you wanted to do anything today. You know, since there's no school." Yumi said casually, as Aelita slipped her hoody on over the wings. Aelita yawned as she brushed some loose white feathers out of her bed and into a box that she pulled out from under her bed.
"I suppose. What did you have in mind?"
"I don't know... hang out at the mall, go to a movie, something like that."
"Alright. That sounds good."

An hour and a half later, Zaber, Odd, and Ulrich stood in the isle way of the mall conversing casually. After they had been there for about twenty minutes, Zaber began to tap his foot impatiently.
"I think he ditched us." Zaber muttered.
"How, we've been watching the door?" Odd said.
"I'll go talk to him." Ulrich said as he crossed the isle way and entered the public restroom. "Jeremy?" Ulrich called.
"What?" Jeremy's voice came from one of the stalls.
"Are you coming out any time soon?"
"No. I can't do this."
"Come on, Jeremy! We worked really hard to set this up. Yumi's going to be here with Aelita any time now."
"What part of "I can't do this." Do you not understand?"
"Alright. Fine." Ulrich said as he walked out and back to the others. "He's spiraling."
Zaber slapped his hand to his face.
"OK. Tell him this..." Zaber said, whispering the continuation to Ulrich. Ulrich grinned and walked back to the restroom. Odd looked at him dumbstruck.
"You probably shouldn't have done that... you won't like Einstein when he's angry..." He said.
"What, is he going to turn into Hulk?" Zaber said.
"Jeremy?" Ulrich asked through the door.
"I said I'm not coming out!" Jeremy said through the door.
"Look... I don't want you to freak out or anything... but Zaber said that if you're not out here when Aelita gets here HE'S going to ask her to the..." Before Ulrich could finish the sentence, he was whacked in the face with the stall door, which burst open, as Jeremy burst out, a crazed look in his eye. He dashed out the door and ran up to Zaber, grabbing him by the collar.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Jeremy screamed in his face, causing quite a scene.
"I figured that would get you out here." Zaber said, as he undid Jeremy's grasp on his shirt. "Now suck it up and ask her out or next time I won't be joking." Zaber said slyly. Jeremy gritted his teeth, but backed off with a jerk. Ulrich stumbled out of the bathroom, rubbing his sore forehead, which Jeremy had unintentionally whacked.

Aelita and Yumi had been wandering the mall for almost an hour, and went into one last store before they were to go to lunch. Yumi's phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Yumi, are you ready?" Ulrich said.
"Yeah. We'll "meet" you in the food court in a few minutes."
"Alright." Ulrich hung up his phone. They all arranged what they would get, and all of them but Jeremy got in the food line while Jeremy sat down at the table, twiddling his thumbs trying to figure out how to ask Aelita to the dance. He was startled when...
"Hey Jeremy!" Aelita said, as she saw him sitting in the food court as she walked in with Yumi. "What are you doing here?" She said. Jeremy realized that he had been set up. Yumi winked at him behind Aelita's back.
"Uh... nothing." He said, but we could already feel himself turning red.
"Aelita, I see Ulrich and the others over there. I'm going to go talk to them." Yumi said.
"Oh... I'll come with you." Aelita began.
"Wait, Aelita!" Jeremy said, outstretching his hand and grabbing her wrist. "...Uh... can I talk to you for a second?"
"Sure." She answered. Jeremy let go of her hand as she sat down and Yumi walked off.
"Aelita... I've been meaning to ask you this for a while now... I just kept getting too nervous..." Jeremy scratched his head and turned even brighter red. "But... will you go to the dance with me tonight?" Jeremy rushed the sentence, in an effort to get it out before he lost his nerve. Aelita jumped for a second. She had almost been expecting Jeremy to ask her sometime during the week, but after he hadn't yesterday she had pretty much given up.
"...Sure Jeremy. I'll go." She responded.
"Yes!" Jeremy leapt from his seat in an uncharacteristic move. Aelita looked at him skeptically, as Jeremy tried to regain his composure. Across the room, Odd looked over at them.
"So did he actually use anything we taught him?" He muttered.
"No." Zaber said. "He just needed a nudge."

Later that evening, Jeremy improvised a costume for the masquerade dance. He was wearing a simple black outfit, with a black hat with red feather. He was traded off his glasses for a zorro mask. He wandered out into the hall to meet Aelita. She was wearing a burgundy dress, and was walking around with her wings in plain sight, a golden halo made of tinsel was wrapped around her head.
"Aeltia! What are you doing? Someone's going to see!" Jeremy said as he tried to hide her.
"Relax Jeremy. Everyone just thinks its part of my costume." She said. Jeremy smiled, and scratched his head. He apologized, but inside his mind he was banging his head on the wall for being so stupid. Jeremy closed the door as the two walked towards the gym. But Jeremy made one mistake. He was so nervous, he left behind his laptop. And shortly after they had left, a tower alert was activated.

When the doors opened for the dance at 8, people flooded in, with Jeremy and Aelita towards the back of the crowd. While most of the school had coupled up, many had gone solo. Yumi, dressed in a formal Japanese robe, and Ulrich in a samurai costume were kind of pseudo-going together but neither would admit it. Odd and Zaber were simply on their own. Zaber hadn't even tried to find a date, and Odd couldn't find a girl left in the school who he hadn't crossed at one time or another. The main part of dance was in the gym, but two other rooms were open for hanging out which also contained the food. Jeremy and Aelita awkwardly took to the dance floor during a few songs, but both were nervous and unable to really enjoy it. Yumi and Ulrich were much more open, but stayed out of any of the dances that could be considered romantic. Odd simply stood in one of the food rooms, gorging himself on the snack bar, having simply triggered his scanner to give himself a costume. Zaber stood in one of the corners, leaned up against the wall, without a costume on at all. He wasn't having any fun... he hadn't even intended to come but had gotten dragged into it by everyone else. Zaber glared at Odd with disgust. Odd's pigging out was shameful... it was the only reason Odd had come... that and the hope he could pick up a date at the dance.
"Someone remind me why I came?" Zaber muttered as he slapped his forehead.
"What are you talking about Zaber? Free grub, that's why!" Odd said to him with his mouth full.
"If I wanted food I'd go to a buffet."
"But it's free!"
"That's it. I'm out." Zaber muttered as he walked out of the room. Odd just shrugged before reaching for another plate. Zaber wandered into one of the interior hallways of the gym building, heading for the exit at the front of the building, which was closest to the exit.

He was alone in the hall, which was dark, the only source of light being moonlight through the windows. As he rounded the corner, he encountered Jeremy, who was sitting in one of the chairs that sat outside of each room, his hat in his lap. He was in the process of cleaning his glasses in his shirt, and glanced up at Zaber.
"Hey." He said to Zaber.
"What are you doing out here?" Zaber asked him, cutting right to the point. He was expecting Jeremy to stick to Aelita like glue the whole time.
"Oh... nothing..." Jeremy muttered. "I just... couldn't go through with it." Jeremy said with a sigh. "I just lost all confidence in myself." Jeremy said as he put the glasses back on his face.
"As convincing of an impersonation of Jeremy as that is..." Zaber said as he pulled his gun out and pointed at him. "You've got details of his appearance wrong. Jeremy left his glasses in his room tonight, Xana." Jeremy glanced at him with a glare, and his pupils fluxed into Xana marks.
"Very perceptive, Zaber Ocrist." It was just another polymorphic clone.
"Of course I'm perceptive." Zaber said. "I think of everything."
"You didn't always." The specter said casually. "If I recall, you used to not think at all."
"What are you blathering about?" Zaber asked him, still training his gun on the clone.
"Oh, I've had my eyes on you for a long time." The specter muttered. "I know far more about you than you can imagine. I'm always looking for pawns to bend to my will. William was one of them... and you're on the top of my list."
"So that's why you sent a specter to lay in wait for me rather than use it to start attacking people." Zaber said calmly. "But what makes you think I'd ever join you? You're plan is full of holes."
"Oh... I have leverage." The specter said. "I know you've been looking for a certain... someone... for some time now...name starting with an H..."
"How do you know about that?!?!" Zaber yelled as he clicked his gun.
"Let's just say I... know him." The specter said casually as it placed it's hands in it's pockets. "Join me, and I'll tell you EXACTLY where to find him. You can avenge your sister..." The specter began to shift form, and the camera angle shows only Zaber's face, which grimaced severely. The form the specter has taken cannot be seen on camera, and is visible only to Zaber. A soft, female child's voice rang as Xana's. "What'll it be?" Zaber trembled, his gun at his side.
"You... how dare you impersonate her!" Zaber fired his gun at the specter, which fazed through the bullet, instantaneously shifting back to Jeremy before it came back into view.
"Temper temper... you'll never get my information like that." The specter said to him as it ran it's fingers over the bullet hole behind it in the wall. "Really, what was the point in that. Now people are just going to come running because of the gunshot and you'll be exposed." The specter said casually.
"I'll ask you one more time... how do you know about my sister?!?!" Zaber interrogated him angrily.
"If you do as I say, I'll tell you. Until then, I'll just let it gnaw away at you." The specter said cockily as it put on a wicked smile.
"Wrong answer, Xana!" Zaber unloaded the rest of his ammo clip at the specter, and the bullets simply phased through it, striking a pipe running along the wall.
"You missed again." The specter said emotionlessly.
"I wasn't aiming at you." Zaber smiled. The pipe behind the specter that had been struck with the bullets erupted with a huge gush of water, which struck the specter. The specter cried out in agony as the water rushed over it. "Since specters are made up mainly of electrical energy, I'm guessing you're at a bit of weakness to water." As the water pressure decreased, the stream weakened and the clone ceased it cries and stood up, phasing slightly.
"Hmph... I expected something like this from you. If only you could have thought on your feet like that back then, then your sister might be alive."
"I know what you're doing..." Zaber said as he pulled out his scanner. "You're playing on my emotions to make me angry and careless."
"Well it's working isn't it?" The specter said with a grin.

"Zaber!" Odd shouted as he ran down the hall. "I heard shots... what's going... what happened to Jeremy?!?!" Odd questioned him.
"It's not Jeremy, it's a specter." Zaber said quickly and calmly. "Go find the others and get to the factory. I'll hold him here."
"I can't let you do that." The specter said.
"You've been watching movies again, eh Xana?" Odd joked.
"Go Odd... now." Zaber said as he triggered his scanner and assumed Lyoko form. Odd, already in Lyoko form for his costume, bounded off on all fours back down the hall, back in towards the dance. The specter stared at Zaber with a grin.
"I had originally intended... simply to draw you to my side... but since you seem so resistant... I might as well cause some havoc." The specter said as it turned into a black shadow on the wall, zipping past Zaber along the floor towards the dance.
"Damn it!" Zaber chased after the shadow.

Back in the dance, a romantic song was playing, and Jeremy and Aelita were close to a romantic breakthrough. As the two came together to kiss towards the end of the song, they were interrupted.
"Trouble you two!" Odd said as he popped up practically in-between them. "Zaber's fighting a specter in the hall back there! We've got a tower to take care of."
"An attack, now?" Ulrich said as he and Yumi appeared, having been alerted to something being wrong by Odd's sudden appearance.
"Xana does like to hit us when were trying to have fun." Yumi said. Zaber burst from the corridor, guns in hand.
"Where is it?" Zaber shouted to them. "Where the specter?" A wave of panic swept over the crowd when they saw the guns. Odd spun around, surprised.
"Zaber, I thought you were blocking the specter?!?!" Odd asked him. It was then that a second Zaber burst out of the same hallway, aiming his gun at the first.
"Get away! That's the specter!" The second Zaber cried out to them as he fired a bullet at the first. The first Zaber dodged it and fired back.
"Don't believe him! He's got to be the specter!" Cried the first Zaber. The crowd quickly evacuated the gym in a panicked mob. The two Zaber's locked in combat, Jeremy quickly regrouped the others.
"Let's leave Zaber and the specter to duke it out... we've got to take out the tower!" He urged them as they slipped into the escaping crowd, preparing to escape to the factory. The five of them made a mad dash for the forest tunnel as soon as they broke free of the crowd.

The gunfight continued for almost a full minute with neither fighter being struck. The gym was now empty except for them, and the music was still playing a loud rock number. One of the Zabers was kicked to the floor by the other, and the one that hit the ground groaned. The Zaber still standing grinned as it shifted, revealing it to be the specter. The specter became Ulrich, intact with costume and katana.
"Come now Zaber, this is no fun." Said the specter as it rushed at him with it's sword. Zaber rolled to the side as he drew out Cocystus and fired a shot at the specter, but the blast was blocked by the katana, which quickly iced over. The clone dropped the katana as it shifted again, this time into Jeremy, but with his costume and staff. The specter rushed at Zaber quickly, and Zaber could only simply block the staff between two of his guns, placing them in a saber-lock. Zaber gritted his teeth.
"Really... why do you bother?" The specter taunted him. "They don't trust you. They don't accept you. The only reason they let you get involved was because they thought you'd turn on them if they didn't." Zaber kneed the specter in the chest, then fired a bolt from Lethe which knocked the specter back.
"You said you knew more about me than I could imagine. Like what?" The clone stood up and brushed itself off.
"The murder of your sister by that man..." The clone said, shifting into Yumi. "The death of your mother that left you an orphan. I started keeping tabs on you again four years ago when I woke up. You've certainly developed along the dark path over the last ten years even without my guidance."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You first caught my attention when you were only five. After what happened to you... I knew that with any luck you'd grow up like this... bitter... angry... your heart rooted in revenge. The ideal weapon for me. Unfortunately, the supercomputer was shut down and I went to sleep for a few years, so I couldn't manipulate events in your life to make you that way... but it seems to have happened naturally." The clone shifted to lyoko Odd. "I'm afraid that's the extent of what I can tell you before you join me. So what do you say?" The clone extended it's hand.
"I say "bite me"!" Zaber fired a hail of bullets from Styx... then Cocystus, then Phlegytheon, then Lethe, dropping each to the floor as it's ammo ran out. Zaber panted heavily as the smoke cleared, revealing the specter, injured and shaken standing there, but still quite capable of fighting. "You don't get it... since that day... ten years ago... I had friends... but never a family. That's what it seemed like at first when I came here... that they were just "friends". But I now feel that... they are the closest thing to family I've had since the day "he" killed my real family." Zaber picked up Styx and reloaded it. "As tempting as your offer is... I'll find him myself. I'll find him... and I'll kill him with my own hands." The specter shifted to Lyoko Aelita, wings in all, and hurled an energy sphere, which struck him and knocked him to the ground.
"That's all nonsense. They're not "family". They're not even "friends". They'll get rid of you the first chance they get!" The specter shouted at him. Zaber stood up, wiping a drop of blood off the corner of his mouth.
"I don't believe that." He said as he aimed Styx at the specter.

Meanwhile, everyone else arrived on Lyoko, dropping into the ice sector. Jeremy had gotten them very close to the tower, but it was heavily guarded by megatanks, tarantulas, and mantas. They had been struggling with them for sometime now, but Aelita was steadily getting closer to the tower. Back in the real world, the specter changed form again, into William, Zaber dodged and rolled, trying to get away from the massive blade as the specter swung it fiercely. The specter jumped high in the air and lunged at him, but Zaber slid to the ground and kicked upwards, striking the specter in the face and sending it's sword flying. Zaber snared the katana the specter had dropped when it had taken the form of Ulrich and held it against the specter's throat.
"Yield." Zaber said. He was in position to strike the fatal blow. The specter changed shape again, and once again, the form of the clone is not visible, only Zaber's expression.
"Zaber..." Rang a sweet, motherly voice. "Don't hurt your mother..." Zaber's eyes widened at the form the specter had taken.
"Mom..." Zaber said with shock, but the specter easily relieved him of the sword and slashed him across the chest. Zaber screamed in pain as he collapsed to the ground, his Lyoko form shattering. The specter shifted back into Ulrich, and aimed the sword to thrust at him. On Lyoko, Aelita ascended the tower. She waved her hand across the panel, entering Code Lyoko, and the specter froze. It disintegrated, the katana in it's hand clanging to the floor loudly. Jeremy launched the return to the past, the wave of white light striking Zaber in the gym as he took a deep, shuddering breath.

After the return, Jeremy found himself in his bed around 4 A.M. He smiled as he leaned back. Not only had the run been routine, and for the most part, a cakewalk, but now he would get to take Aelita to the dance twice. He dozed back off and awoke a bit later than before, the rude awakening he had suffered before failing to occur. As he slipped his glasses on, he found that Zaber was gone. Jeremy drew out his phone, dialing Zaber. Zaber picked up.
"Hello?"
"Zaber, where are you?" Jeremy asked him.
"I just went out. Everything's fine, just go ahead and go to the dance later. I'm afraid something's come up." Zaber said as he hung up. Jeremy pondered his words for a moment. What could have come up AFTER a return that didn't come up BEFORE it?

That night at the dance, nothing went wrong. Everything played out perfectly. As the dance ended, the five of them who had attended conversed as they crossed the grounds.
"I wonder what happened with Zaber? He never did show up..." Yumi asked.
"He said he had something to do..." Jeremy said. "Although I can't really come up with what that might be."
"He probably just didn't want to come." Odd said loudly, slightly hyper from too much soda. "He wasn't having much fun at the dance before, he was just leaving when the specter showed up."
"I suppose that makes sense..." Aelita said. "I've just got a weird feeling there's something else too it."
"Me too." Jeremy said. "But what it was we'll never know."

In the local cemetery, Zaber stood in front of a grave. It had been snowing a little bit, and a good part of the grave was covered in snow, many of the details were concealed. Three details of the grave were visible. A set of dates on the left hand side read "November 18, 1952 - August 7th, 1997" and a second set on the right hand side read "February 6, 1986 - August 7th, 1997" A quotation was carved in cursive italics near the bottom of the stone. The inscription read, "Sometimes god calls his angels... too soon." Zaber's fist shook as he stared at the stone, as he had been doing for nearly an hour.
"Mom... sister... when I find that man... the man who killed you... I will use this power I have been given to avenge you." Zaber said as he drew his scanner out of his jacket. "Somehow... Xana knows where to find him. That man... that monster... is going to die when he crosses my path." Zaber replaced the scanner in his pocket and drew out his gun, clutching it in his shaking hand. "I'm coming for you... Franz Hopper."

Code 7 - DUSK... END