Yay, more chapters! This chappy is super-officially dedicated to LadyKyra13. Again. She was my 50th reviewer. It is sub-dedicated (if that's even possible) to Fox Kitsune because she gave a long review which was also kind of creepy. See people, if you give a longer review, I might dedicate it to you!
(Odd P.O.V.)
I walk into the cafeteria. Everyone in the line notices that I arrive. They immediately stop talking and start trying to get through the line as fast as possible. They know it's a bad thing to get between a hungry Odd and his food. I think I surprised them all by turning and walking towards the table. I spot everyone sitting at our normal table, including Avery.
"Hey Odd." Ulrich says as I sit down.
"Hi guys. Anything new?" Jeremie leans over to me.
"We might have found a way to get XANA to stop attacking." He whispers to me.
"Really? That's cool. Fill me in on the details later okay?" I say back. I look over at Avery. I mouth did you tell them? She shakes her head. Ulrich sees me looking at her and seems to remember something.
"Hey Odd, where were you this morning? When I woke up, you weren't there."
"I woke up early and went to go take a shower, uh… we must have missed each other."
Well, it's kind of the truth…"Oh… okay." I think he noticed that I didn't want to talk about it.
"Hey Odd, where's your breakfast?" Aelita asks.
"I'm not hungry." I say casually. Unfortunately, everyone immediately catches on.
"Odd, this has got to stop, you've got to start eating again." Jeremie says.
"What? Odd hasn't been eating?" Avery looks stunned. Actually it's true. Ever since Avery came I haven't been eating as much, or skipping meals all together. I just haven't been hungry.
"I don't think I've seen Odd eat a full meal for at least two days." Aelita says.
"Come on Odd, I'm getting you something to eat." Avery says. She grabs me and pulls me over to the line.
"Avery, come on. I'm not hungry."
"I don't care. You're getting something to eat."
"Avery…." She turns around and looks at me. "You know as well as I do that you haven't been getting much to eat either." She doesn't say anything. "Did you get something to eat today?"
"No, not really…."
"I'll get a meal and eat it, even though I'm not hungry. But you have to come and have breakfast with me. Deal?" I offer my hand.
"Deal." She smiles and shakes my hand. I still get goosebumps, but I ignore them. We go through the line, every once and a while Avery makes me get more. We go back and sit down, I start eating like I promised. Avery eats a little bit, but at least she's eating.
Well, at least I can still talk to her like normal….
The rest of the day, in fact the rest of the week goes uneventful. XANA wasn't attacking, he was still trying to get past Avery's firewall. I have a feeling that when he does get past, he's going to hit us with a big attack. He's gonna be super pissed. Saturday rolls around, I have no idea what Avery has been doing during school. When I ask, she just tells me that she finds stuff to do. She starts school on Monday.
I'm glad our friendship hasn't suffered because of me. She shows no signs she even remembers the entire ordeal. The problem is, I just can't get past her. I've been waking up every night from nightmares, about what could have been. I can't sleep anymore, and I think it might be starting to show. The entire week, I've been reclusive. I haven't talked much, all my teachers say it's a big improvement. Everyone is concerned about me, but I tell them it's nothing. Only Avery seems to know why, but she doesn't say anything. I haven't told anyone what happened between Avery, but I think Ulrich may have figured it out. All I told him was that Avery and me aren't going out.
On Saturday, we decide to go to Lyoko for some training. Avery has only had one real battle, and that doesn't really count. As we head for the factory, Jeremie tells us about Avery's character.
"The computer picked completely random, I'm surprised it came up almost exactly the same as Odd's. Since you weren't exactly conscious, I saved the data in the computer's memory. For now, that is your character, but we can still change it." He says.
"No. I'm fine with my character."
"Okay good. Now I've been looking at what happened on Lyoko the other day and I think I know your powers. From what Odd has told me, I think you have a 'force pull,' and probably a 'force push.' You killed all those monsters with what I think we'll call a 'force explosion.' So you have the power to push and pull objects or people, and the ability to wipe out all enemies within range. Unfortunately, your force explosion takes up life points and a lot of energy. When you used it last, you had 25 life points left, but you were exhausted and you passed out. When you did, you were devirtualized."
"Okay. What about weapons?" We enter the factory and swing down. We go into the elevator and head down to the control room.
"You'll find out the rest of your weapons when you get there."
The door closes and the rest of us go down to the scanners. Well, everyone except Aelita, she stays with Jeremie.
"Why did Aelita stay with Jeremie?" Avery asks.
"First off, it's Aelita and Jeremie. Of course they want to be together. Second, Aelita doesn't have any weapons, so it's be pretty useless to have her try and train you. Third, well… I can't think of a third reason. But I know there is one." I say. Once the elevator stops, we head out into the scanner room. I suddenly remember what happened to Avery last time.
"I hate being in an enclosed space. I started involuntarily hyperventilating while I was in there."
"Avery, are you going to be okay in the scanners? I mean, your claustrophobia…." She looks at me.
"Don't worry Odd, I'll be okay. I know what's going to happen now, I'll be fine."
"In that case, your scanner is waiting madam." I say and bow. She walks past me into the scanner. Ulrich and Yumi occupy the remaining scanners and the whole process begins again. Pretty soon it's my turn and I get in. I get dropped off in the desert sector, where everyone else is waiting for me.
"Okay guys, lets start the training. Avery, you've got the basic laser beams you had before. Pretty simple, just point and shoot. You've also got a small shield, like Odd's." Jeremie says from above. After that we work with Avery on skills. She has a hard time with accuracy, but she is okay with it. I work with her on her agility, and she is awesome. Yumi and Ulrich think she's better than me. She does backflips, cartwheels, side lunges and everything else. She works with Ulrich on dodging blows, and with Yumi on controlling her powers. She hasn't been able to pull off an explosion yet, I think it might be something that is controlled emotionally. She's really good with everything else, she learns fast. After a while, Jeremie decides it's time for the fun to stop.
"Okay guys, that's enough. It's getting close to dinnertime, we need to go back. I'm devirtualizing you now." I feel a familiar sensation come over me and my whole world goes white. I find myself curled up in the scanner, with Avery and Yumi just coming out of the others. I quickly run over and give them both a hand up, which Yumi accepts. Avery just stands up on her own. As soon as we're all out, we head upstairs and meet Jeremie on the bridge.
"Well Avery, I think you're going to become a very promising Lyoko Warrior. I officially give you the Cat-boy seal of approval." I say and bow again. Avery squeals in fake delight as I present her with an imaginary medal.
"I accept it with great honor. Oh just great, there's cat hair all over it!" Avery says and we all laugh. We head back to the school, while Yumi heads back home.
"I don't know Odd, I think Avery might be actually better than you."
"No, not yet. But she very well could be eventually."
"I dunno, it was kind of funny when she was tossing you around with her force pushes. I'm surprised they're so powerful, they must have lifted you up at least thirty feet in the air." Avery laughs again, that musical sound that feels like heaven to my ears….
No! Don't think about that now!"Well, it was funny to you because you were safe on the ground." I retort.
"And that's where I intend to stay." He says as we head into the cafeteria. I'm glad I was able to spend some good time with Avery today.
She looked so graceful when she was doing all those gymnastics moves… No. I can't think about that anymore. She doesn't love me and that's final!
As we go through the line, Avery makes sure I get an adequate amount of food. We walk over to our table and sit down.
"Avery, I've got to hand it to you. That firewall you made is keeping XANA at bay, while we take a much needed break."
"That's what I do. I actually took out another virus yesterday. It wasn't very powerful, but it was just bugging me."
"I'd like to see how you do that, it's probably pretty cool." I say.
"Okay, the next time I find one, I'll bring you over and show you how I work."
"I'd like that." I say through a mouthful of food. I accidentally spit some crumbs on the table.
"Well, Odd is back to normal now… when he starts spitting crumbs, he's okay." Ulrich says.
"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. So I'll take it as both."
"Good ol' Odd is back." Avery says as she lays her head on my shoulder. I feel myself blush and try to ignore it. I put my arm around her shoulder.
"Yup. And I intend to stay." I take another bite. "Nothing like a good trip to Lyoko to cheer you up."
"Oooh, what's Lyoko? Is it what you guys have been plotting together?" I glance at Ulrich, he's scowling at someone behind me. I already know who it is before I turn around. Sissi is looking at Avery and me in disgust. I stand up and look her straight in the eye. Then I smile.
"Yup. Lyoko is a virtual universe where we go to fight a demonic artificial intelligence that wants to take over the world. It attacks the school and causes massive amounts of damage by possessing objects or people. The whole reason you don't remember is because we go back in time and fix all the damage done by it." I smile again. Sissi just looks at me like I'm insane.
"Della-Robbia, you get weirder every day." Sissi says. She walks away without another word.
"Odd, why did you just tell her the truth?" Avery asks.
"Sissi has been to the factory tons of time, but she doesn't remember it because of the return to the past."
"What? You can return to the past?" She asks, we all stare at her bug-eyed.
"We never told you that?" Ulrich asks.
"No."
"I guess we didn't, did we?" I smile sheepishly and sit down again. "When XANA does damage to the school or us, or basically whenever someone would think something is wrong, we return to the past. It's a program on the supercomputer that I have no idea how it works. When we do, everything returns to the way it was before XANA attacked. No one else remembers because of some other reason I don't know."
"We haven't had a need to return to the past ever since Avery got here, maybe that's why."
"Can we go do one now? I want to know what it feels like."
"Uh, no. Every time we do it, XANA gets stronger."
"Okay, you lost me. How could he possibly get stronger?" Jeremie launches into some complicated explanation about quantum physics and Avery seems to understand. I just stare off into space like I always do when Jeremie starts talking computer talk. Unfortunately, I happened to be staring straight at Avery. I snap back to reality when she waves her hand in front of my face.
"Odd? Hello? Earth to Odd!" I snap out of it and blush a little.
"Oops, sorry." I mumble. Avery looks at me strangely and blushes too, but just slightly. I see Ulrich smirk at me in the corner of my eye but ignore it. I know Ulrich is going to give me hell about how Avery really does love me, but I don't really care. She told me how she felt, I'm going to go by that. I trust her.
Okay R&R people! I shall leave you with one quote:
298. 4 out of 5 doctors don't recommend Chuck Norris as a solution to most problems. Also, 80 of doctors die brutal, enexplained deaths.
I will put another quote on the next chapter for every person who reviews, maybe that will be incentive for you people. I will update soon, I promise!