Chapter 1: Something Very Odd
He held her shoulders frantically. "Yumi, speak to me! Are you okay?!"
She opened her eyes. "I'm a bit shaken, but not stirred."
He was relieved. So he decided to pick up his phone and share the good news. "Yumi's good here. How's Odd and Kiwi doing?"
He heard Jeremy's response, and started to get worried. "Yeah, alright, I'll be right there." He looked at Yumi and told her, "Jeremy said that we need to go see for ourselves how things went. He says it's hard to explain."
Yumi staggered onto her feet and replied, "Let's go see, then." Following Ulrich, Yumi slowly limped behind him. As they walked her condition improved, limping less and less the closer they got to the elevator. "What'll we do about the bikers when they wake up?"
"Something tells me Einstein's got a plan," Ulrich stated flatly while pressing the button that caused the elevator to ascend.
They were in the computer room. The first thing they heard was a sad whimper, like some kind of helpless animal in pain. Odd was cowering on the ground next to Jeremy's seat like said animal. Jeremy seemed upset and frantic.
"Did it not work," Ulrich asked, trying not to sound worried.
Jeremy sighed and clasped his forehead. "The program failed."
"What's that supposed to mean? Odd's gonna be a dog forever?"
"Well, not unless I can find a way to fix it."
"You could return to the past," Yumi suggested, now perfectly stable on her feet.
Jeremy shook his head. "I thought of that. Turns out the program disabled the return-to-the-past function. It's only temporary, until I can fix it."
"Then what do we do about Odd?"
"The good news is that although the program didn't work and disabled the return-to-the past function, but it did manage to pause Odd's transformation for a few weeks."
"How long," Odd managed to blurt out in the midst of his dog-like whimpering.
"I can't say for sure, but I have to figure out a way to turn you back before those weeks are up."
"Why?"
"When the time is up, the rest of the transformation will occur all at once, and after that I will only have 50 hours before you are permanently in the body of a dog."
"This is terrible! I can't be a dog forever!" Odd tried to suppress his whimpering, but failed for the most part.
"Don't worry," Aelita said, trying to calm him down by gently patting his back the way you would to a dog. "I'm sure Jeremy and I will figure something out. Until then, you'll just have to deal with what you got."
Ulrich just remembered something. "Oh! Jeremy, what are we gonna do about those biker idiots?"
Odd, after an unsuccessful attempt at standing on two legs, began to growl. "Grrr….let me have 'em! I can scare 'em off like I did the first time!"
They all exchanged glances, waiting for someone to say something. "It's worth a shot," Yumi finally agreed, breaking the awkward silence.
So they pulled the men and their motorcycles out to the front entrance and waited for them to awaken.
"You ready, Odd," Jeremy asked his somewhat canine-brained friend. Odd growled intimidatingly in response, and lunged out at what seemed to be the leader.
It didn't take long to chase off the goons. One even left his bike he was so frightened. "That'll do," Odd smiled, satisfied.
They managed to get Odd onto his feet so nobody would get suspicious or weirded out, but keeping his behavior in check was a different story.
The whole way there, Ulrich kept making dumb jokes about Odd's condition, which only made Odd more and more upset, more angry.
But he kept it in, even if he wanted to bite Ulrich. Couldn't do that.
At the academy, they all went their separate ways to their dorms, and Yumi left earlier to her home.
Odd and Ulrich were in their room by themselves. Alone. No Kiwi to come and ruin their sheets or lovingly lick their faces(which in my opinion is actually pretty gross).
Ulrich could tell that Odd was sad. "Hey, Odd…"
Trying to make it seem like was nothing, Odd said, "I've suddenly got this strange fettish for dog food."
Ulrich just rolled his eyes and gave a small smirk.
"I wonder what dogs dream about."
"Let's hope you never find out. If that happens I'll be rooming with a dog. As if it wasn't annoying enough with Kiwi, you and Kiwi combined is even worse."
They turned out the light, and Odd crawled under his blanket and closed his eyes.
They both slept surprisingly well that night considering the circumstances. In fact, Odd didn't feel like getting out of bed.
"C'mon Odd," Ulrich sighed. "Do you want to miss breakfast or something?"
The word breakfast seemed to click in his brain, and he got dressed potentially faster than humanly possible. Ulrich was just laughing really hard at this situation. They headed off to the cafeteria, with Odd struggling to resist the urge to get on all fours and sniff his way to there. Instead, he just kept scratching his head.
"What's going on? You've been scratching your head the entire morning so far."
"Just got something irritating me."
"I bet you got fleas."
"You take that back if you don't want to get bit!"
"I wouldn't want to do that. I'd risk getting a horrible, incurable disease."
"I'm trying really hard not to bite your face, Ulrich. The least you could do is show some simple courtesy."
Ulrich smirked, and opened the door into the cafeteria, and they both entered.
"What's going on, Odd," Aelita asked after seeing Odd continue to uncontrollably scratch his head.
"I don't know, something's bothering me."
In a smart-alec tone of voice, Jeremy gave his solution. "I think I can guess what your problem is: fleas."
Ulrich could not stop howling with laughter. "What'd I tell ya?!"
Meanwhile, Jeremy was pulling out his phone. "Just need to make a quick call." He did so, and not long after Yumi approached the table with a plastic bag in her hand. "Did someone call for a flea collar?"
Odd growled menacingly. "You are not putting that thing on me! I'm not a dog yet! And I don't have fleas!" I didn't help that he resumed scratching his head immediately after stating this.
"It's small enough that we could probably fit it around your wrist," Aelita noted. "Cover it up with your sleeve and nobody will know."
"You are NOT getting that thing on me!"
Ulrich grabbed his arm and straightened it, while Aelita and Yumi restrained Odd's squirming body, and Jeremy quickly placed the small collar around Odd's wrist. "There, that wasn't so bad." And everyone let go, watching Odd instinctively try to bite it off.
Please read and review. Currently trying to find my fanfiction nitch, see if I have any talent for writing Code Lyoko fanfics, so constructive feedback welcome. Nothing offensive please.
The plot-bunnies attacked me in my sleep the other night, making the creative portion of my brain vulnerable to being possessed by their leader. Please send help. -KAM000