Chapter 4

At seven o'clock in the morning, Odd knocked on Jeremy's door. Last night's attack was another one where they had no idea what XANA had been doing, so no doubt Jeremy had spent all night scouring the internet to try and figure it out. But with a night like that, if Odd didn't fetch Jeremy in the morning no one might see the Einstein until well after lunch.

"It's open!" Jeremy called.

Odd strolled in, glancing at the bed. It was still made from the day before, and Jeremy sat fully dressed at his computer. The blond sighed. "Y'know, growing boys need their sleep."

"And you know this is more important," Jeremy said.

Odd just shook his head. "Well did you figure out what the attack was?"

"No," Jeremy said. "But there has to be something."

"Well maybe we deactivated the tower in time," Odd said.

"Wait, what's this?" Jeremy said, leaning closer to his computer and completing ignoring Odd. "'Possible Murder?'"

"Possible murder?" Odd repeated. "What are they not sure the guy is dead?" He walked up to the computer, leaning over Jeremy's shoulder.

Jeremy clicked on the article and started reading. "'Last night at six o'clock a shop keeper viscously attacked a teenage boy. Witnesses in the store say that Joe Carrol collapsed behind the counter just before running out of the store and wielding a knife against a teenage boy. No one witnessing the attack knows the teen. The boy tried to run away from his attacker, but Joe Carrol pursued. Carrol was later found in an apartment stairwell with a bloody knife and blood streaks on the wall. The whereabouts of the boy are still unknown. Carrol, when asked, claimed he has no memory of the attack.'"

"Six o'clock," Odd said. "That's right when the tower was activated."

"And if this man has no memory of the attack, then this is probably what XANA was up to," Jeremy said.

"But he's never gone after a teenager before," Odd commented. "They've always been middle-age."

"Why would XANA feel threatened by a teenager?" Jeremy mused.

"Oh, there's a video," Odd said, pointing to the link.

Jeremy clicked on it without a word. They watched the attacker carefully, seeing the stiff patterns of a possessed person that they were all too familiar with.

"Definitely XANA," Jeremy said.

The boy he was attacking suddenly made a dash for the person holding the camera, running right past them to get away.

Odd jumped forward, his eyes wide and his mouth falling open. "Go back!"

Jeremy glanced up at him and then Odd just rolled his chair away and did it himself. "Wha, hey!"

Odd rewound the video and stopped it right when the boy's face was in front of the camera.

Jeremy's eyes widened as well, and he wondered how he'd missed it.

The blond hair dye did little to disguise the face of Ulrich Stern.

The news couldn't wait for lunch when they'd all be together. Jeremy and Odd sent out texts to everyone and had them all there within half an hour. Breakfast was not as important as this news.

Yumi was the last to get there. She closed the door behind her, and then Jeremy clicked play on the video and had them all watch.

Odd paused it at the end, and mouths dropped. The girls' eyes watered.

"He's alive," Yumi said, taking a deep breath.

"I knew it! I knew he had to be alive!" Sissi cheered.

"Actually," Jeremy glanced at Odd. "They don't know if he is or not. No one knows what happened to him."

"Couldn't that just be because he got away and hid?" Nicholas asked, scratching the top of his head. "I mean, I would hide if I got the chance."

"It might," Jeremy conceded.

Odd wrapped an arm around Jeremy's neck. "C'mon Einstein. This is Ulrich we're talking about. He's fine."

"Where did this happen?" Aeilita asked. She rubbed her eyes to get rid of the tears.

Jeremy checked. "Tangelic, Hungary," he said.

"And what are we supposed to do with this information?" Herb asked.

"Go after him," Yumi said.

"When?" Herb asked. "Hungary is hours away by bus, and in case you forgot, we still have class."

"Not to mention we can't just leave XANA to do what he wants," Jeremy reminded.

"Well we wouldn't all go, just two or three of us," Yumi said.

"And how are you going to find him once you're there?" Herb asked. "A town name isn't as much to go on as you think. He could be anywhere in that town."

"Plus, with the dyed hair, it looks like he's trying not to be found," Jeremy added.

"We should still go after him," Sissi said. "I want to know why he left in the first place, and if he ever plans on coming back."

"And with what money are you going to go?" Herb asked. "A bus ticket or a train ticket to Hungary isn't cheap, not to mention a way back and food. And if you don't find him in a day, what about hotels?"

Yumi clenched her fists, fighting back tears. "Fine. If you want him to stay gone so bad then you can just sit there."

She stormed out of the room, slamming Jeremy's door.

Sissi sighed and wiped tears off her own face. "I'll go after her." She caught up to Yumi on the stairs, grabbing her arm. Yumi pulled it out of her grasp but didn't look back at her. Sissi rushed forward and wrapped her arms around Yumi, hugging her from behind.

Yumi stopped and reached hands up to Sissi's arms.

"I want him back too," Sissi said. "But Herb was right. We don't have money to go after him. We're just going to have to trust that he'll come back to us when he can."

"Sometimes that just isn't good enough," Yumi stated, letting tears fall.

Sissi just hugged her tighter.

Xx

They set out early in the morning. Mellie packed them food so they wouldn't have to stop for any. Jake added Ulrich's things into his own pack so Ulrich wouldn't have to. Ulrich's shoulder and arm still hurt terribly, and he was keeping his hand in his hoodie pocket so he wouldn't use it.

The bus ride was agony. It was long; never-ending. And the jostling only bothered Ulrich's shoulder more. But they were on their way. One more big battle, and XANA would be gone. They would all be safe.

It was mid-afternoon when the bus reached their stop. Ulrich practically ran through town, leading them to the factory. It was just as he had remembered it. Nothing had changed.

Ulrich paused at the edge of the bridge.

Jake and Mellie glanced back at him. "Everything okay?" Mellie asked.

"Yeah…" Ulrich said. "Just…a lot of memories here."

So many times he'd ran across this bridge, both to save people and to be saved from things chasing him. So many times he'd raced his friends to see who could get to the elevator first.

He shook his head and kept walking. Jake and Mellie glanced at each other before following him. He stopped again just inside the factory and glanced at the two of them.

They were eying the ropes and the ground fifteen feet below.

"You're kidding me," Mellie said. "We have to jump to reach the rope and hope we don't miss?"

"And then slide down without giving ourselves rope burn?" Jake finished.

Ulrich smirked. "If my arm wasn't busted, I'd prove it, but even I can't get down that way right now. So we go this way." He led them to the stairs and they walked down to the main floor and to the elevator.

The elevator inspired more memories for Ulrich, but those were cut short when the doors opened again to the lab. He beckoned for them to follow as he stepped off.

Their eyes were wide as they looked around at everything. Ulrich picked up the notebook Jeremy kept there and then hoisted himself into the chair. The holographic map of Lyoko showed up in front of the computer, and the other two occupied themselves with that.

Ulrich pulled the disc out of his pocket and took a deep breath. The notebook, for now, was behind him on the chair. "Alright, let's hope this works."

He inserted the disc into the computer. Hopefully that was all he had to do. He didn't actually know anything about how to code on a computer.

A little window popped up on the screen, strands of code flashing by. For a few moments, Ulrich just held his breath and waited for the computer to sort itself out. Mellie and Jake came to stand on either side of him.

After five minutes, a single image was left on the window. Ulrich looked at it closely, finding he recognized it. Or at least part of it.

"That's the core of Lyoko," he muttered, pointing to the bottom half of it. The red lined room was directly above the core. "I'll be damned."

"What?" Mellie asked.

"It's just…we've been in this room dozens of time, and we never knew he was that close," Ulrich said.

"So you know how to get to it?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, but once we're inside I can't get us the vehicles we'll need to get to the core," Ulrich said.

"Well can you program them now, so they'll be waiting for us?" Jake asked.

"I can try," Ulrich said. He debated within himself for a moment and then reached behind him to get the notebook.

Finding the page of notes he needed was easy enough. Pinpointing the exact coordinates he would need to use was harder, and then he had to actually type up the code. To Ulrich's surprise, there were more vehicles than he remembered, but he only programmed the overbike and the overboard.

"Alright, assuming XANA doesn't destroy those before we get there, those should be alright. Now I just have to set up the virtualization process."

He took careful care in setting this up, double-checking everything. If things went wrong, there would be no one to know. Or maybe Jeremy would figure it out when he was back in the chair. For all Ulrich knew, an alarm had already gone off on the Einstein's laptop, warning him that someone was using the supercomputer. He wouldn't put it past Jeremy to do that.

"Okay, the countdown's started," Ulrich said, jumping out of the chair. "Follow me." He led them down to the scanner room and went for a cabin. "Just step inside and wait."

"You sure this is safe?" Mellie eyed the cabin dubiously.

"No backing out now," Ulrich stated.

She shared a glance with Jake and they stepped inside.

The doors shut, and the scanners hummed as they came to life. Ulrich took a deep breath of contentment as the process ran through.

Xx

At the academy, a laptop beeped. The gang was hanging out on their usual bench, and Jeremy reached down for it.

The others groaned.

"Not another attack," Odd complained.

"We just had one last night," Herb said.

Jeremy opened it and his eyes widened. "It's not an attack," he stated.

The girls' narrowed their eyes and glanced at each other.

"Someone's using the scanners," Jeremy said

"That's…even more concerning, actually," Yumi said.

"Yeah, we'd better go," Jeremy said.

Nothing else was said before they raced off to the park.

Xx

On Sector Five, three shapes materialized in the air. Ulrich dropped down gracefully, landing in a crouch. The other two fell on their butts.

It didn't take Ulrich long to realize he was no longer a samurai, and his hair was brown again. Instead, he wore a yellow and black jumpsuit, his sabers on his back. It looked more battle-worthy. He had to wonder when Jeremy had the time to do that, and why he'd bothered with Ulrich's.

Mellie looked like a medieval knight. She had armored shoulder pads and chainmail, with lots of belts looped around her waist. She had flared capris and armored boots. Wrist guards were clasped on her arms, and red hair was held back in a high pony tail. Strapped to her back was a double-headed ax.

Jake looked more like a ninja. He had a black tunic and black leggings, even a black hood hanging on his back. His right hand had a clawed glove, but his left hand was bare.

"Alright, Mellie, straightforward enough. You have an ax. Jake…try shooting something from your glove."

He held his hand out and flicked his wrist. Thin strings shot out, nearly wrapping around Mellie.

"I'm supposed to fight with string?" he asked.

Ulrich shrugged. "Lyoko is weird like that."

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Jake demanded. He kept flicked his wrist, and to his surprise controlling the strands wasn't that hard. They followed the movements his hand made, like an extension of his arm. Shooting his arm out towards Mellie and then wrapping his arm in, he found the string did the same thing.

"Hey!" she complained.

"Sorry! I'm trying to figure this out!"

Ulrich frowned. Bringing novices into a final battle was not ideal. They barely even knew how to handle their weapons. And chances were, once XANA knew they were there, the two of them wouldn't even make it to his hidden location. That would leave him fighting alone, which was even less ideal. And he couldn't just bank on Jeremy and the others stumbling upon them and providing backup.

But he was already on Lyoko. There was nothing he could do about it now but hope for the best.

"Alright, let's get moving," Ulrich said. He dashed off for the narrow hallway, leading them through to the cavern on the other side.

At the moment, they had the advantage. XANA hadn't been aware of them coming, so monsters weren't yet waiting for them. They made it through the cavern without incident, and Ulrich led them all the way to the elevator.

"Get ready and jump when I say so," he said, watching carefully.

Mellie and Jake did as they were told.

"Now!" Ulrich said, jumping forward.

The two did the same, and they made it onto the craft. From there it was easy to get to the outer rim where the vehicles were still waiting for them, completely unharmed.

Xx

Jeremy didn't fail to notice his notebook propped up on the computer screens. He yanked it away and looked at the data carefully. There were three cards on the screen, displaying who was on Lyoko. Two of the people he didn't know. The third made him gasp and reach for the headset.

"Ulrich? What the Hell are you doing?"

The gang gasped around him. "Ulrich?"

"What was that?" a female voice asked from the computer.

Ulrich's unmistakable laugh came next. "That was just Jeremy. It's good to hear your voice man."

Yumi grabbed the headset from Jeremy. "What are you doing? You think you can disappear for almost a year and then show up to take your new friends on a joy ride through Lyoko?"

"Well she sounds mad," a male voice commented.

"Gee, I wonder why," Sissi muttered.

"Uh, we're not exactly here on a joy ride," Ulrich said.

"Then what are you there for?" Yumi demanded.

"To defeat XANA once and for all," Ulrich stated.

Jeremy grabbed the headset back. "And how exactly do you plan to do that?"

"We know where he is. That window should still be up on the screen…he's right above the core."

Jeremy had no trouble finding it. He also wondered how Ulrich had found it.

"Hey, what are those?" the male asked.

Ulrich cursed. "Mantas. Look, guys, I get you're mad at me, but we could really use some back up when we go in to fight XANA. These guys barely know what they're doing, and I don't think I can take him by myself."

On the screen, the three blips that represented the teens were moving towards the blips that represented the mantas.

The gang glanced at each other.

"If this is a way to end it for good, then I'm going," Aeilita stated, heading towards the elevator. Odd followed without a word, as did Nicholas. Herb debated only a moment longer before following.

Sissi and Yumi glanced at each other. Their inner war was mirrored in each other's eyes. Part of them wanted to refuse Ulrich on principle, since he'd run out on them before. But the other part recognized that some things were more important than principle.

They followed the others down to the scanners.

...

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