EDIT: Fixed the chapter title. Silly mistake!

Hello hello! Long time no see, dear readers! So, here's the scoop. We have set aside the Lost Chapter for now. (See our FAQ on our profile for details.) We also originally had a joke chapter planned for today in which we wrote the characters as they would have been if we did not change them from the original RP at all (which is hilariously bad), but it was deemed "too accurate". (Incidentally, anyone interested can PM us and I'll send you an excerpt.) So we're back to the original story... But wait!

This is but the first of four parts to this chapter. Tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday at 1PM EST, the next section of the story shall be added to this chapter. (So don't look for a new chapter, it's just going to be tacked onto this one!) This special event shall conclude with a special opportunity for our readers to have an impact on the story. We hope that this can make up in some small way for us being away for so long. We love you, but sometimes life gets in the way.

And so we begin where we left off... With Michael being angsty.

'Two months,' Michael thought dully to himself as he toyed with his food. His eyes he kept glued to the plate, and his headphones allowed him to pretend to be completely oblivious, despite the fact that no music was playing right now. At least it conveyed the message he wanted - 'Leave me alone'. Not that anyone would have tried, anyway, and that was the way that he wanted it.

'Just two months,' he considered again, spearing a piece of broccoli with excessive force. He had long since given up trying not to count the days. How could he not, when every day was a reminder of the world that he had tasted so briefly only to have them decide that they didn't want him after all. He couldn't forget, not when she was always around, and not when he had to see Belpois almost every day for class.

When he was feeling a little more gracious, he admitted to himself that the Lyoko Warriors had not frozen him out entirely. Jeremie had conveyed to Ulrich's offer to continue their math tutoring sessions. Michael regretted sometimes how quickly he had said no. To be fair, Jeremie had followed this offer up immediately by informing him that the group was researching ways to eliminate his and Ivy's DNA from the Return to the Past exclusion, so Michael was not in the best mood at the time. Given that there had been no jumps back in since that Michael could recall, he assumed that either XANA had been quiet or the attempt to remove him from the system had succeeded. Jeremie made no further offers to help Michael. He probably had other things on his mind.

Aside from that, Michael had not heard from the Lyoko Warriors, though Odd had waved to him like a maniac the one time Michael caught him emerging from the administration building. It was that gesture and Ulrich's offer that allowed Michael to look upon the Lyoko Warriors with anything other than resentment. He still hated them sometimes for kicking him out of their group, but sometimes, just sometimes, he allowed himself to consider that maybe they had not abandoned them as completely as he told himself they had. Just look at Ivy.

Michael mentally flinched away from the topic. Oh, Ivy. He tried not to think about her, but it was difficult in such a small school, especially when they sat together in one of their classes. She had not spoken one word to Michael since that night. 'And I'm just fine with that,' Michael brooded, using his knife and fork to shred the piece of steamed broccoli into tiny pieces. He knew for a fact, though, that the Lyoko Warriors were still talking to her. Where else could she possibly be sneaking off to every night? To the factory, of course, to see them, and to see that… thing. Often Michael thought about following her, confronting her, but he never did. For one thing, try as he might, he could not find the right words to say to her. And a deep, dark part of him wondered if the Lyoko Warriors had decided to allow Ivy back into the team, without him.

The boy shook his head, trying to clear it, and got up to go dump his food in the trash. It had long since gone cold. He passed the table where Ivy sat, chatting with the boy he had once considered his best - and only - friend. Michael refused to look at either of them as he passed, though he did notice out of the corner of his eye that Lucas raised his hand in acknowledgement. Yes, that was the final change these days, aside from his grades slipping again and his painful boredom with the monotony of each day. The morning after telling Lucas about his mom, Michael had burned with humiliation that he had disclosed so much, and responded by shutting Lucas out altogether. After about two weeks of stony silence rather than their usual back and forth banter, Lucas had clearly chosen to do the same. Fine, he did still try to talk to Michael when they were in the same room, but that was just because it was too awkward for him to ignore Michael completely. The important thing was, he had found another place to sit at meals - with her. Yet another thing she had taken.

So Michael kept his headphones in at all times these days and withdrawn into himself. He didn't bother anyone, and they didn't bother him. That was fine. This is what he had wanted. He was not lonely.

Ivy shivered, pulling her coat tighter around herself as she sped away down the sewer path, as she did every night. Right about now would usually be the time that she would ask herself why she put herself through this all the time when it was so cold. Tonight, however, she had found something else to reflect on. 'Two months already?' Ivy wondered to herself. She would not have believed it if the clone had not pointed it out to her. Time was slipping by so quickly. And so much had changed.

Not in class, admittedly. That had largely remained the same. Ivy took notes (doodling in the margin as always) she studied hard, she turned in all her assignments on time. Getting good grades was simple. It was surviving here that was difficult - or at least, it had been before. For the second time, Ivy had found friends here.

Lucas had been a complete surprise. When first the blonde-haired boy had asked to eat with her, Ivy had strongly suspected that this was going to be yet another ploy to harass her about Michael or pry into her personal life. She had waved him away for three consecutive days. On the fourth day was the first and only time that Lucas mounted any sort or protest instead of turning around to sit with Michael again. "Please?" he had asked in a barely audible voice.

Ivy had studied him, surprised, and found no trace of jest or mockery. Lucas just gazed back at her earnestly, almost a little sadly. "Alright," Ivy agreed hesitantly, gesturing to the seat across for her. The blonde-haired boy gave her a wan smile and set his tray down. That first day had been spent more or less in silence. She had expected him to return to Michael's table, but at every meal after that Lucas had shown up with the same polite request on his lips, and she had always answered with the same quiet consent. Soon enough it had become habit.

Trust had come later, and even then was measured. At the very least Ivy had stopped worrying that Lucas was reporting back to Michael everything that she said. The dark-haired boy glowering at them morning, noon, and night had assured her of this much. Under Lucas' gentle probing and lighthearted banter, Ivy had begun to open up, to share her day to day experiences and occasionally something of real importance. However, wary Ivy was cautious never to give away too much. However innocent his questions seemed, she could not forget how nosy the boy could be, and knew that any personal information that she disclosed was probably being filed away for future use. Still, sometimes it was difficult to remain reserved when faced with what seemed to be such genuine interest and enjoyment.

This was part of the reason that she enjoyed being around the clone so much. In fact, the list of reasons she enjoyed being around the clone was expanding at an exponential rate. No longer did she think of the clone as some sort of annoyance or an obligation. She could not remember the precise moment that she had realized that, abhorrent as she would have found the idea at first, the two of them were friends. If she had to guess, it must have been one of the many times that she walked in and was greeted with all the enthusiasm of a new puppy. He would immediately set aside whatever he had been doing to tell her all about the things that he had learned, and unless she was doing homework she would have his undivided attention up until she left for the evening. Sometimes even then he would just sit and watch her, though she refused to ask him for help, deeming this cheating.

After the first week, she had usually come to the lab to find him curled up in the corner with a book. Ivy asked once what reading was like for the clone, and he had described it as a process not unlike real reading. Except faster. Much, much faster. The books were supplied by Jeremie, who showed up every afternoon with a trunkful for the clone to peruse in the afternoon, around spending time with Ivy. In stark contrast to his initial reaction to the clone, Jeremie had thrown himself into its education with a manic determination that Ivy had only ever seen in relations to XANA. The clone was banned from the internet for the time being ("For obvious reasons," Jeremie had said) thus necessitating Jeremie to supply his excessive amount of reading material. At first the subjects were chosen by Jeremie. Later the clone started requesting subjects himself. His latest special interest was astronomy.

Ivy had laughed out loud when the clone had first tried to talk to her about these interests. He had set aside his book and asked her to explain the motivation of some obscure historical figure - she could not recall precisely which one, but she did remember his reaction. The look on his face when he realized that she had not, in fact, memorized everything the way that he did was just too funny. She had assured him once she was done laughing that just because she did not know everything did not mean that they could not talk about it and figure it out together. There were times after this that she regretted this as he barraged her with a long spiel about whatever topic he was currently learning, from taxonomy to baking. But not many.

That was also when he had stopped being so reliant on her, as far as she could tell. He still came to her when he had questions that he could not answer, but sometimes the clone was just quiet, and she could almost see him trying to work out answers for himself, like any normal person would. She found herself forgetting more and more often that he was not a real person. Except…

Except when it came to emotions, cliche though it was. He had read books on the the brain and understood what Ivy had meant when she talked about chemical reactions. Having none of those chemicals himself, the clone relied on what he had been told about emotions to understand. While he seemed to get the concept, his need to have it all explained to him in great detail was a reminder to her that he was only a program. How much of his attention was residual programming? When he beamed at her when she walked into the lab, was he truly happy or imitating happiness? Every now and again she found herself making an excuse to leave early in the evening, and felt a cold shiver when the clone's face fell. But most of the time she was untroubled. The clone had changed in so many ways, and not just mentally, over the last few weeks, and she for the first time since leaving Canada, she felt like she could be completely and totally herself around someone.

So things were good. Not perfect, no, this much was true. Michael glaring at her all the time made sure of that. And every now and again, she did feel a little pang of loss when thinking about Lyoko, knowing that she would never be going back. But things were still better than they had been before all of this by a long shot. For now, that was all that mattered. Ivy coasted down the sewer path, headed toward a room that was beginning to feel just a little like home.

Alone in the tower, the clone stood before the screen, making adjustments. This nightly ritual was broken today by the occasional pause as it would stop and look at its hand, giving a little smile. "Two months," it murmured to itself softly. It had mentioned this fact to Ivy on her way out this evening. She had seemed mildly surprised, but pleased. To the clone, though, these two months were everything. Two months since it had been… Born was not quite the right word. Awake. Changed. What a wonderful thing to be. It was not just that the world was full of beauty and possibility, it was not just that the clone was gaining more knowledge every day than it had ever thought could exist in the world. It was that for the first time, the clone wanted things.

At least, the clone thought that it did, based on Ivy's description of how it felt to want something. The topic had first come up when Aelita had pointed out that the clone need not look like Michael any longer, and Ivy had asked it what it wanted to look like. The clone was utterly bewildered when faced with this concept, and explained to Ivy that it could not want.

"What about wanting to live?" Ivy had pointed out.

"That is different," the clone had answered. "I was programmed with a directive for self-preservation. It was simply ranked lower. I changed the importance."

"Why?" Aelita had asked it gently. The clone had been unable to answer.

Ivy went on to explain to him the notion of liking and disliking things. As the days approached the two-week winter break, she had brought it magazines for the two of them to peruse together and for the clone to experiment with the various features. At first the clone had selected the new features to try out more or less at random, and mainly to please Ivy because she seemed to want him to choose. Later, it had found the choices becoming less random as it developed personal preference. For instance, while the clone felt absolutely no gender identity, it decided after about a week of a female appearance that it would prefer to have a male form. Ivy had seemed disconcerted when it had first presented itself as female, despite that being the only change it had made since the day before, and the clone did not like to put her ill at ease. Besides, the clone found any level of breast tissue to be terribly inconvenient. It had also opted to retain its appearance as being roughly the same age as the students at Kadic Academy. Jeremie had been quite insistent on that, and the clone had wished for this as well. Ivy was friendly with the original Lyoko Warriors, but something about their interactions lacked the openness that she had around the clone. The clone did not want that.

Eventually, the magazines had given way to pictures from a place that Ivy referred to as "home", and had later identified as Quebec. Ivy was secretive about these, speaking in an undertone so that only the clone could hear as she told the stories associated with each photograph. It was the friends that Ivy had left behind that the clone drew most inspiration from for its physical appearance. It liked the way that Ivy's eyes went soft and distant with memory as she looked at those pictures.

These days, to call the program a clone was a misnomer. It no longer resembled Michael in the slightest. It no longer had the boy's stocky build or dusky brown skin. The clone was taller now, the kind of half-grown gangly that hinted that it would be taller yet in years to come. Rather than Michael's dark, wavy hair, the clone had an auburn fringe that stuck up at odd angles. Its face was more open that Michael's, the kind of face one would expect on someone prone to toothy grins, as the clone so often gave. Only the eyes were the same - not Michael's icy blue, but the deeper blue of sunlit pools. Objectively, the clone recognized that its new form was less conventionally attractive than its original one. It loved every inch, because it belonged no one but itself. If someone saw the clone passing in the street, no one would look twice, and that was what the clone liked best.

These days, its appearance did not change much from day to day. It spent the nights and mornings making minor changes - adding a freckle under its eyebrow, a puckered scar on its leg. The tiniest additions, like its pores, were only printed on, and it would tweak them from time to time as well. Not the most stimulating work, by any means, but it had no choice but to remain within the tower. The Lyoko Warriors had agreed to let it stay for now, but that did not mean that they trusted the program completely. Even Ivy was still wary around the clone on occasion. All agreed that it should not be left alone with the supercomputer, so it spent the nights locked in the tower. HIS tower. The one that contained the code that was the program's mind. In truth, the form that everyone saw every day was only the interface; the program's true self never left Lyoko. For a human, the idea of standing inside of their own mind might seem deeply disturbing. For the clone, the notion was the most natural thing in the world.

Occasionally, the clone considered leaving the tower before one of them came to retrieve it, but always decided against it. Firstly, interface its body might be, but if a monster on Lyoko destroyed this form, the damage to the program's coding could be irreparable, given that no one knew what had given it a measure of free will in the first place. Besides, going against the Lyoko Warriors was nothing that the program was inclined to do. They had been kind to him, particularly Jeremie and Aelita. (But never together, it noticed. The program had not seen the two of them in the same room since they night he was created.) It had no desire to anger them. Instead, the clone remained in the tower, making tweaks on its appearance, organizing the data it gained during the day according to importance, and marveling at the joy of being able to want.

It wanted it to be morning so that it could learn more about the ancient Mayan calendars, as it had requested today. It wanted to see the snow that had fallen outside - they had promised that it could tomorrow. It wanted to see the rest of the town. Sometimes when Ivy was not around, the Lyoko Warriors talked to the clone. It wanted to see the house that Yumi had grown up in that she had described once for him, the studio where Ulrich taught his classes. It wanted to meet Kiwi, who was apparently too old to leave the house during such cold weather. The clone had never seen a dog, and it wanted to find out what they were like. The clone wanted to visit Quebec with Ivy. It had been thinking about it for weeks, and had finally broached the subject tonight. Her face had lit up with a grin.

"Of course you can," she had answered excitedly. "I won't be going back for a long time, but when I do go I will ask if you can come with me."

She had given his hand a little squeeze, then bade it good night. This same hand, the clone would smile at absently every now and again. It wanted… It wanted Ivy to come back tomorrow, and every day after. More than anything. More than anything...

Time had passed, this much he knew, though how much time was of no consequence. There was only Before and After. And Before was but a distant haze. He was aware that he had not always been this way, this much he could recall. He could even remember resisting when his rebirth had begun, though it all seemed so foolish now. He had been made into what he was meant to be, and he had no desire to be otherwise. He had little desire for anything, truthfully, save for one thing.

'Yes,' he thought to himself, giving a little contented sigh. Before he had been lost, aimless. Now he had been granted purpose, and it had been written into his very essence. Soon his mission would begin. All was in readiness. The only thing that remained was for the order to be given. He stood at attention, waiting, and would remain for hours, days, weeks if need be. Neither hunger nor fatigue troubled him, and his thoughts never strayed far. All he knew, all he desired, was to serve Her.

That's the last little bit to this chapter! Now, onto the fun stuff. You see, our dear little clone needs a name. The one we used in the original draft has been deemed unsuitable, and so we thought we would leave it to all of you to choose his new name. In alphabetical order, our shortlist of names are as such:

Alain, Marcel, or Tristan

Cast your vote by writing a review! If you have an absolutely AMAZING name that you'd prefer us to consider, you can write it in, but we strongly recommend casting a vote for one of these three as well. Votes are due by this Friday, 4/8. The new chapter will be up NEXT Friday, 4/15, at which point we will resume our normal update schedule (real life permitting!)