INVESTIGATION
… anything other than at face value…
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Mrs. Hertz was calling role. It was a bit hard because her class was very loud and obnoxious, like it was everyday. Finally in frustration, she gave up and flipped to the seating chart in the attendance binder. She was going to take role from there without calling out names and losing her voice.
Odd leaned back in his chair and caught the attention of Jeremie sitting behind him and Ulrich. "You talk to Aelita yet?" Odd half yelled. It was too loud to talk in any other way.
"No. Why?"
"I don't know. I just want to know what's up. Tell her hi from me when you do."
"Since when were you all interested in when I talk to Aelita?"
"Since…today?" Odd said, looking as if he was thinking. "I don't know. Just tell her I said hi." Jeremie nodded and rolled his eyes when Odd turned back around to face front.
Ulrich wasn't talking or looking out the window in a dreamy fashion for once. He was bent over a piece of paper and a pencil, scribbling away. Odd noticed his friend's peculiar behavior (not like it was anymore weird than what had just happened that morning) and poked his friend on the arm a couple of times. "Ulrich, Ulrich, Ulrich, Ulrich…what are you doing?"
Ulrich shook Odd's poking finger off. "Stop it, Odd. You're going to mess me up."
"But what am I going to mess up, hmm?" Odd leaned over Ulrich's shoulder to inspect the piece of paper. Then he sat back with a sly grin. "Are you writing a note to…Sissi?"
Ulrich didn't look up. "So what if I am? What's it to you?"
"Nothing," Odd said, shrugging and slumping down in his chair. "I just never thought I'd see you do that either. It was enough that you said she was pretty…"
"Odd," Ulrich said, finally turning to look at his friend. "I'm just going to apologize to her for whatever happened this morning and ask what it was that bothered her. It's not like I'm asking her out or anything."
"But she likes you too, you know. And if you like her now, then you should go out with her. At least you should ask her out to somewhere."
Ulrich sighed and stared out the window briefly. "She doesn't like me, Odd. She's way too good for me."
Odd didn't hear. He was busy trying to find his portable CD player in his backpack.
After a while, Ulrich resumed his hunched position and concentrated on writing his note. Who knew that writing a note like this was so hard? He couldn't seem to find just the right words. He looked up when he heard Sissi's ringing laughter. She was talking to Herb and Nicolas in loud voices. Ulrich felt a twinge of jealousy. Those good for nothing twerps didn't deserve her either and yet they stuck to her like they had been super glued. Ulrich's left hand clenched into a fist by instinct. Then it relaxed and Ulrich's eyes widened. His mind had finally turned on. What am I doing? I'm jealous of…Herb and Nicolas? WHAT?
"Hey, Ulrich. Ulrich?" Jeremie was tapping him on the shoulder. Ulrich turned around, trying to control his confused mind and thoughts. Jeremie was looking at him with a nervous smile on his face. "You would probably know better than anyone…what does Yumi like? Flowers? Jewelry? Stuffed animals…what?"
Ulrich looked Jeremie oddly. "Why…?" he asked slowly, unsure if he wanted to know the answer.
"Oh, I just wanted to get her something."
"Why…?"
"Well, I don't know, I just feel like it. She's just such a great warrior and all and she works so hard when she goes on her missions in Lyoko and she's just so beautiful and so full of grace that I felt the need and felt compelled to get her something as a thank you present."
"Uh…" Ulrich was taken aback and trying to find the words when he was speechless. Jeremie was practically swooning. "Do you like her now or something?"
"Oh, no, of course not! How ridiculous. Why would you think that? That's insane!" Jeremie said in one breath, everything coming out in a jumble of mumbles. Ulrich's eyebrows rose.
"Okay. Well if you are so sure that you don't like her, then just get her flowers or something," Ulrich said and turned back to work on his note…
"Well, Ulrich, what if I do like her? Then what should I get her?"
Ulrich sighed. "Flowers."
"Oh, okay then. Thanks a lot, Ulrich!"
Ulrich didn't grace Jeremie with a response. He turned back to his note, his mind totally off track. This is weird. I like Sissi. Jeremie likes Yumi. Odd probably likes Aelita. Who does Yumi like now?
And the odd thing was, he felt no jealousy, no anger, no agitation. That is, until he saw Herb put a hand on Sissi's shoulder because he was laughing too hard at something or other. But he felt a little satisfaction when Sissi brushed the guy's hand off like it was something unclean. Ulrich turned back to work on the note, more determined than ever.
And so the class started.
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"Hey guys," Yumi said nervously, glancing at Odd edgily as she sat with them in the cafeteria. "How were classes?"
Odd grunted disapproval, which Yumi laughed at, a little harder than usual. Ulrich gave her the why-are-you-even-bother-asking-they-sucked look. Jeremie was the only one that beamed at her and said, "Although we still learned about fascinating things today, I even thought it kind of laborious, you know, considering we learned it all last time around."
Yumi gave Jeremie a little smirk. He was always on the academics' side. "Well, I slept through the whole history period."
"Yeah! Go Yumi!" Odd said, holding up a hand for a high five. Yumi immediately gave him the high five, blushing as she did. Ulrich caught the exchange and his heart went all suspicious. Aw, look, Yumi likes Odd! But then his mind went nuts. YUMI LIKES ODD? WHAT THE HECK?
"Hey, Jeremie," Ulrich said hesitantly. "Have you talked to Aelita?"
At the mention of Aelita's name, Odd turned away from Yumi excitedly. "Yeah, yeah, did you talk to her?" Yumi frowned at Odd's sudden turn of interest and decided to brush it off as concern. She turned to face Jeremie was well.
Jeremie was just about to speak when Sissi's hands were placed delicately on the edge of their table. "Ulrich," Sissi said sweetly, not looking at anyone but the boy she was addressing fondly. "I just wanted to say that…" she looked down bashfully but Yumi didn't miss the haughty look Sissi shot at her, "…that I really appreciated your note. I forgive you." Then she turned on her heel and left.
The four of them were speechless as they all watched Sissi walk away. Ulrich was blushing immensely and he had a faint trace of a smile on his face.
The silence was broken when Yumi said in a dazed voice, "And I'm not even jealous."
"Okay," Odd said, clapping twice to snap his friends out of their trances. "Jeremie, talk to Aelita. Tell now."
"Well," Jeremie said hastily. "I did talk to Aelita and yes Odd I did tell her you said hi. But Aelita said that nothing strange has been acting up in Lyoko. Everything is as it should be after we foil one of Xana's plans. She said she would check for us in the database, however, to see if Xana messed with anything other than at face value. I should check the super computer as well as soon as possible."
"Okay," Odd said, "here's the plan. I'll go with Jeremie to the lab now and if we go past lunch and into classes, Ulrich you have to cover for us."
Yumi frowned, wanting to spend as much time with Odd as she could. "But why can't we all go during lunch?"
"Jim," the three boys said at the same time. Yumi sighed and sat back, giving up. They were right and she couldn't argue, although her heart was screaming about how unfair it was. Her mind agreed with them.
"All right," she said as Odd and Jeremie got up to leave. "Have fun and be careful."
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"So, what exactly are we looking for?" Odd said in a bored voice, eating a bag of chips he had snagged from his lunch before he had dumped the tray.
"Anything out of place, anything unusual…" Jeremie said, eyes scanning code after code.
"Are we going to get to talk to Aelita?" Odd asked hopefully. After all, that was why he had come in the first place.
"What is it with you and this obsession with Aelita lately?" Jeremie asked, annoyed that Odd kept on interrupting his concentration.
"I just…like her, okay? I like her," Odd finally admitted, smashing up his empty chip bag as he said it.
"Who do you like, Odd?" Aelita's voice suddenly said in a joking tone. Odd gaped and scrambled up at the same time also slipping and tripping over his own feet as he struggled to get to the computer where Aelita had just appeared.
"Hey, Aelita," Jeremie said kindly, ignoring his immature friend. "You find anything?"
"Hey, Aelita!" Odd said perkily, practically out of breath from trying to get to the computer.
"Hey, Odd," Aelita said with an amused look. "And yes, Jeremie, I found something interesting. You'd better take a look."
Suddenly, Aelita's window moved to the side and another window that covered one half of the screen, top to bottom, popped up to the right of Aelita. Odd waved at her while Jeremie scanned the codes that Aelita had sent. Then he leaned back and whistled. "Wow, what a mess." Aelita nodded in agreement.
"What? What's happened?" Odd asked, immediately wanting to get in on something if Aelita knew about it.
"It seems that Xana hasn't really done anything, this time. Well, let's say he didn't play the major role in it. What really caused all this to happen was you three warriors."
Odd staggered back as if he had been hit. "What!"
Jeremie and Aelita nodded at the same time. "It seems like the return sequence was somehow marred, or disturbed, or interrupted with a disturbance when Aelita punched in the code at the activated tower," Jeremie explained, turning back to read the code again.
Aelita backed Jeremie up. "Yes. I do remember feeling the tower shake when I punched in the code."
"Oh, wait," Odd said, holding up a finger while racking his brain. "I remember now! Ulrich, Yumi, and I all accidentally hit the tower at the same time! One of my laser arrows had missed, Yumi's fan hit while curving back to her, and Ulrich's sword had clanked into the side by accident." Odd looked pleased for a second for his detective work. Then he realized that what they did hadn't been a good thing. "Oops."
"Oops is right, Odd. I'm afraid that once Xana realized that the return sequence was already disrupted, he decided to go ahead and use it to his advantage by trying to take over our minds. But instead he missed and took control of…"
"…our hearts," Odd said, the intelligent part of him coming out for once and suddenly understanding why everything was so wrong.
Jeremie nodded. "It seems the only way we can fix this is if you three go back to Lyoko and help Aelita go back into the tower so we can go back in the past again, without disturbances this time."
"Another day of the same boring classes? God, Xana is definitely getting smarter at finding ways to kill us," Odd mumbled off to the side as Jeremie mulled over his plan.
"But, Jeremie, we can't do that without an activated tower. And right now everything is normal," Aelita said worriedly from the screen.
"How disgustingly ironic: the one day we want Xana to attack…he doesn't," Jeremie said with a little resentment in his voice. Suddenly, he sat straight up in his chair. "Aelita, you yourself are part of Xana and can hack into Xana's database, right?" Aelita nodded slowly, not sure about what Jeremie was thinking.
Jeremie's eyes gleamed behind his glasses as he had found the solution. "Can you hack into it for me one more time?"
Author's note: All righty, I hoped you enjoyed that. Thank you so much to American-Kitty, aZn sIsTeR 92, Doggiegal, Vic92091, Angels 'n Dreams, Moonlit Sea, and aZn dReAmEr xD! You guys reviewed my new story, so mucho thanks. Most of your guesses are correct (it isn't that hard to tell), but no, American-Kitty, I did not forget about Aelita. You'll just have to see about her later in the story (like, almost towards the end). And also, just a warning that I may not be able to update my stories as quickly as I used to because my dad is restricting my internet time to one hour a day (GRRRR...I'M SO ANGRY) because he's a stupid head like that. So, please don't be mad. This also goes for all my stories. But nevermind that now. Pwease review and I hope you enjoyed it!
