Fanfic / Code Grid

Code: Grid is a fanfic by Flameal15k. It is a crossover between TRON and Code Lyoko.

Keeva Flynn didn't know what to expect when she went to attend Kadic Academy. True, her parents had decided to enroll her there while handling a business deal in France, but it was still a big change. But maybe she could learn to get used to it and - what's this about a Supercomputer?

There's a digital world in it? And an AI that wants to rule mankind?

... So this is what her grandfather had to deal with.

It can be read here, here, and here.

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Tropes found in this story include:

• Adaptation Expansion: Canonically, Jérémie fully restores Lyoko with minimal effort early in Season 4, such that most of the restoration happens offscreen. Here, this is expanded to encompass the first few chapters of the story, with Keeva and Aelita helping him start the process on-screen.
• Artistic License – Economics: Downplayed example, but Keeva says that she's attending boarding school at Kadic while her parents sort out business in France. Her father, Sam, is the majority shareholder for ENCOM, and while that certainly is an important part of the company, it isn't the kind of position that should be involved in business deals. The prologue, however, indicates she's actually in France for safety reasons, and it's also revealed that Sam is helping Alan, who as Chairman of the Board is someone who should be involved in business deals for ENCOM.
• Canon Welding: A small bit, but it's revealed that the Master Control Program apparently tried to access Project Carthage in the past. When it did so, though, the MCP found that Carthage was massively incomplete (canonically, Project Carthage was still being worked on in the nineties), leading to it ignoring the system and focusing on other, more useful ones.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Keeva is initally introduced wearing blue clothes, though this seems to be subverted in regards to symbolism. On Lyoko and the Grid, however, she has a white theme, fitting for being both part ISO (who naturally have white Tron Lines and were treated like gods or angels by Flynn) and also for how she is a User, making her a Physical God on the Grid.
• Cutting the Knot: Noted and subverted in New Allies, New Enemies when Ulrich suggests that since the Lyoko Warriors now have access to the Grid (which XANA just added towers to while attempting to subvert it for himself), they could just move operations there and shut down the Supercomputer. Jeremie points out that Keeva's laptop, which houses the Grid 4.0, likely doesn't have the software or hardware to run the Return to the Past function.
• Dead Guy Junior: Keeva is named after her paternal grandfather Kevin, who is (apparently) deceased.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • The Lyoko Warriors always expected threats to the factory and the Supercomputer to come from XANA. The one possibility they did not consider was that someone on Earth would just buy the factory to refurbish.
  • They also never knew that other digital worlds unrelated to Lyoko existed, much less that the New Transfer Student that accidentally found out about Lyoko is familiar with one such world.
    • The Lyoko Warriors (Keeva included) never considered the possibility that XANA would attempt to attack the Grid.
  • XANA's attack on the Grid fails due to not knowing just how powerful users are in the Grid.
• Dramatic Irony: The Lyoko Warriors initially keep Keeva at a distance because they believe she wouldn't believe them about Lyoko and that she might tell her parents. Keeva's family, being the Flynns, already have experience with virtual worlds, with her mother actually being a native of one such world.
• Experienced Protagonist: As revealed in Grid 4.0, Keeva has been helping her parents and the Bradleys recover programs from the Grid with the intention of eventually restoring it, and has faced her own challenges along the way.
• Expy Coexistence: It's heavily implied in New Allies, New Enemies that Hannibal Mago from the Code Lyoko novels and Professor Tyron from Evolution both exist in this continuity. In fact, it's implied that they're actually friends, or at least working together.
• Foil:
  • Keeva is this to Aelita. Aelita and Keeva are both girls who have family members that created digital worlds and A.I.s that betrayed them, and who have spent significant amount of times in said virtual worlds while possessing unique powers there. Aelita, however, spent decades within Lyoko and eventually lost her memories due to inhabting it for long, while Keeva spent a few years in the Grid that weren't continuous and thus retained her memories. Additionally, while Aelita didn't age inside Lyoko, Keeva did age within the Grid, such that her Grid Avatar is an Older Alter Ego. Keeva also remained with her family while in the Grid, while Franz Hopper abandonded Aelita while in Lyoko to draw XANA away from her. Finally, while Aelita just has the ability to interface with Lyoko's towers, Keeva's User abilities on the Grid make her a Physical God.
  • Keeva is also a foil to William - both were chosen to be the Sixth Ranger of the Lyoko Warriors and are much more powerful than their teammates when they arrive in Lyoko. William, however, was swiftly brainwashed into subservience by X.A.N.A. while Keeva has retained her freedom. William is dressed in black spandex while Keeva wears a white dress on Lyoko. William wields a BFS while Keeva uses a spear. Finally, while William relies on brute force while fighting (though is by no means Dumb Muscle), Keeva tends to hold back and exploit her spear's ranged capabilities to keep enemies at bay before getting up close and personal.
  • Keeva has yet another foil in Yumi. Both are female transfer students to Kadic that are older than the rest of the team barring Aelita, but while while Yumi is physically older than her friends, Keeva is mentally older due to the time difference between Earth and the Grid. Both have feminine forms in Lyoko but Yumi's is a Geisha while Keeva's is a princess. Both also use a weapon that can function in melee and at range, but Yumi uses a set of Tessen fans while Keeva prefers a more straightforward spear. Lastly, while both are in possession of mystical powers in Lyoko/the Grid, Yumi just has telekinesis while Keeva is a Physical God.
  • Lastly, Keeva has yet another foil in X.A.N.A. - Keeva is a Half-Human Hybrid, with the non-human half being an AI (in this case, an ISO) while X.A.N.A. is a full AI created by Franz Hopper. Continuing with color-scheme choices that were present with William, X.A.N.A. tends toward Dark Is Evil while Keeva tends toward Light Is Good. X.A.N.A. relies on minions in Lyoko but can directly affect the Analog World via activating a tower while Keeva has limited options to fight in the Analog World but can directly harm X.A.N.A. in the Grid via her User powers. And while X.A.N.A. has Reality Warper abilities in the Analog World when using a tower, Keeva is a Physical God on the Grid.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Being the child of Sam Flynn and Quora, Keeva is half-human, half-ISO.
• Javelin Thrower: Keeva's main weapon on the Grid is a spear. In a manner similar to Draupnir, it can be thrown and teleported back into her hands, leaving behind a copy that can be remotely detonated to either harm enemies or heal allies.
• Last of His Kind: Keeva acknowledges that Quora is the last of the full-blooded (coded?) IS Os, while the IS Os as a whole only survive through Quora, Keeva, and Keeva's currently unnamed younger brother. Keeva is very bothered by this, as it means she's spent most of her life without knowing about her mother's entire social sphere, who were wiped out by Clu - who, as Keeva notes, was functionally her uncle.
• Lethal Lava Land: Lyoko is revealed to have a hither-to-unknown sixth Sector (which somehow managed to survive the destruction of Lyoko's core) that is described as looking like the Mountain Sector, but is absolutely filled with Lava. The area also contains (so far) two unique and very dangerous monsters - the Volcanoid (a bizarre tripedal monster covered in armor, with its weak point being found on its underbelly) and the Tarasque (which is noted to look like a six-legged reptile, and which is intimidating enough that Jeremie and Aelita immediately flee upon seeing it even though it is too far away to see them).
• Intrigued by Humanity: Inverted - Jeremie shows quite a bit of interest in Keeva after learning she is half-ISO. Aelita is displeased.
• Ironic Echo: When Keeva first visits the factory and asks Jeremie what's going on, he tells her that "It's a long story and I'm not sure I have enough time to explain it to you right now". Keeva promptly asks if it involves finding a virtual world with an evil AI in it, something her grandfather had experience with. Her reponse when Jeremie asks her how she knew?
  Keeva: "That is a long story that I certainly don't have time to explain to you right now."
• Mythology Gag: Tons.
  • From TRON 2.0: Jethro Bradley is mentioned, with it being revealed that he's friends with Kevin (they had a falling out prior to the events of TRON: Legacy) and also that he married and had a son named Zeke during the time between Legacy and this story. F-Con also exists and has been trying unsuccessfully to buy out/merge with ENCOM.
  • From TRON: Uprising: Beck and his efforts to create an uprising in Argon City are mentioned when Keeva explains the history of the Grid. Beck, Able, Zed, Mara, and Paige later show up on the Grid 4.0 after Keeva repairs their code.
  • From Code Lyoko: Evolution: When XANA invades the Grid 4.0, the towers he creates there use the Evolution tower design. New Allies, New Enemies, meanwhile, features a cameo from Professor Tyron.
  • From the Code Lyoko novels: Eva Skinner is mentioned by Keeva, with the two apparently being friends. New Allies, New Enemies has Professor Tyron talk to someone known as Magician, who's implied to be the novels' human Big Bad, Hannibal Mago.
• Named by the Adaptation: Dido from the Code Lyoko Chronicles novels was never given a name. Here, it's revealed to be Emily Hodges.
• New Transfer Student: Keeva is a recent arrival at Kadic, owing to her parents enrolling her while they visit France to finalize a business deal. Programs on a Foreign Grid also implies that she was enrolled because Future Control Industries was starting to resort to less than legal methods to pressure her family into merging ENCOM with their group.
• Nothing Is Scarier: When discussing the newly discovered Volcano Sector, Jeremie and Keeva note that it being deliberately sealed off from the rest of Lyoko means that it probably contains something very dangerous, with both raises the possibility that whatever it is, even XANA doesn't want anyone to find it.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: During the events of "An Unexpected Threat", the Lyoko Warriors handle an attack by XANA completely offscreen, with the only things shown being what XANA used for the attack (a swarm of cockroaches) and the Return to the Past.
• Older Alter Ego: Unlike most Lyoko Avatars or Grid Avatars, Keeva's avatar is actually physically older than she is on Earth - Word of God puts it at around fifteen while Keeva is about twelve. Keeva is mentally thankful that while said avatar has nice feminine curves, it doesn't have the weight or hormone issues associated with said curves.
• Outside-Context Problem: Lyoko and the Tron System are this to each other.
  • The Lyoko Warriors and XANA never knew that there was another virtual world in existence, or that said world was inhabited by multiple artificial intelligences and operates on different principles than Lyoko. They're also completely flat footed by just how powerful humans are in said virtual world.
  • ENCOM and its members, in turn, are shocked to learn of Lyoko, the Supercomputer and XANA, who have abilities that are outright impossible with any software or hardware they possess.
• Physical God: The power of the Users is shown much more heavily here than it is in Tron and its sequels - when XANA attacks Keeva's iteration of the Grid, he creates twenty one towers on it and activates all of them simultaneously. Keeva uses her User powers to deactivate all of them in an instant.
• Rule of Three: Applied within the context of the whole Lyoko storyline, but Keeva is the third person to be inducted as the Sixth Ranger of the Lyoko Warriors, and unlike with Jim and William, her membership sticks.
• Setting Update: Code Lyoko is implied to take place roughly around the time it was broadcast (the Turn Of The Millenium), but this story takes place in 2022 per Word of God, and at the very least, this shows with regards to how technology has advanced - Keeva was able to create an iteration of the Grid on her laptop, while also receiving a portable version of the laser needed to access it.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Able was not derezzed in this universe, and is eventually moved to the Grid 4.0 alongside Beck, Paige, Mara and Zed.
  • Kevin Flynn and Clu both managed, somehow, to survive reintegration with each other, though this apparently damaged them both enough that they needed roughly twelve years in the Analog World - about six hundred years in the Grid - to restore themselves, and Flynn indicates that they still haven't fully repaired themselves.
• Technology Marches On: Per Word of God, the story takes place in 2022, and this has noticeable effects regarding Lyoko, the Lyoko Warriors, and the Grid.
  • The supercomputer housing Lyoko is now thirty years behind the curve for technology, and is explicitly noted to be behind the Grid - just to name one example, it doesn't have programs on it the way the Tron System does. When Mu interfaces with Lyoko, she explicitly notes how old it is. More generically, Lyoko only supports sight and hearing while the Grid can also simulate at least touch.
  • As shown in "Assault on the Grid", continuous updates to the Grid now allow it to support simulated animals in addition to the programs.
  • Regarding the Programs themselves, the ones in Keeva's iteration of the Grid are far more expressive and capable of functioning outside of their designated parameters than the ones in the original grid. Word of God indicates that this is both due to the ones in the Grid 4.0 using Keeva's part-ISO code as a base and because computing has simply advanced that much since the time of Legacy.
• Unseen No More:
  • Jeremie's Lyoko avatar is never seen in Code Lyoko. Here, it debuts in Assault on the Grid. Initially, it has its novel appearance (which looks a lot like Peter Pan), but after interfacing with a program on the Grid, it becomes shifts to become a mixture of Wizard Robes and a Labcoat.
  • After being The Ghost in Code Lyoko with his only representation being polymorphic specters, XANA is finally shown physically here. He takes the form of a program with a face obscuring helmet, a cloak, and red Tron Lines.
• Wham Episode:
  • New Allies, New Enemies. Franz Hopper visits the Grid 4.0 and finds out that Kevin Flynn is still alive, having managed to survive merging with Clu in Legacy and slowly put himself back together over the past twelve years. Flynn's comments also reveal that Clu is still functional and trying to do the same. XANA encounters the restored Master Control Program, who offers an alliance. Dido from the Code Lyoko novels is revealed to exist in this universe, and has learned that someone (read:Keeva) was searching for information regarding Franz Hopper. Finally, said search was also noticed by two individuals known as "Professor W4tss" and "Mag1cian", heavily implied to be Professor Tyron and Hannibal Mago.
  • A Sixth Sector?: It's revealed that Lyoko has a sixth sector that somehow survived William destroying the core of Lyoko, which contains never before seen monsters and, implicitly, something that Hopper and possibly XANA did not want it escape.
  • The Path to Coalescence. As revealed in this chapter, Dido's superiors are actually the Federal Bureau of Control, who are investigating not just the Supercomputer, but several other paranatural events, in the process making this story a crossover with Shifters of Flesh and Metal, Primeval Paradox, Prehistoric Park: Returned from Extinction, and The Baleful Bureau.

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