DETAILS CHANGED IN LIGHT OF SEASON 3!
Greetings to all my adoring fans! XD (a tomato is thrown at me) Anyway...
SamandMax0569 - Intellegence of a supercomputer + maturity of a 6-year-old pure chaos. Just ask Ulrich. XD And, Ricky and Roki as friends is certainly the end of Yumi's world as she knows it.
purplelover - Glad to be giggle-inducing.
Mewberries - Thank you for your comments and pictures. Well, I can tell you one thing: when you're smart enough to know how to do anything and immature enough to try anything, things can get pretty crazy.
lyokobattler - I have updated.
625: Hey, genius, she said A.S.A.P., and you still took two or so weeks?
Shut it, or I dehydrate you in that. (points to the instant dehydrater)
Princess-RainbowRose - Hmm... what kind of Hiroki fics have you seen around here?
Japanime Girl - Neither would I. XD
Samiria - Patience is a virtue, grasshopper.
625: Look! Up in the sky! It's a hoagie! It's pastrami! No, it's Super Hyprocrite!
Ricky: (giggles) You're funny.
625: (a la Elvis) Thank you. Thank you very much.
My Cousin, Ricky
Chapter 4: Double Trouble
"By the way, Roki, did you know that he collects model helicopters?" Ricky asked his new friend, later that day in the Ishiyama residence. They had been playing video games for a couple of hours, but grew bored and were now talking about his foreign exchange partner, Noah Davis.
Hiroki laughed and said, "Everyone in our class knows that! He even has a model of the CMM news chopper!"
"I know; I saw it," laughed Ricky, along with him. "From the sounds of it, Noey may be the nervous type, but he'll probably still kill me if I cause any harm to any of them."
"Ricky," Mrs. Ishiyama came into the room. "Mrs. Davis is here to pick you up."
"Oh, OK," he said getting up. "Thanks for letting me come over, Mrs. Ishy!" he said as he passed by her.
She smiled. "You're welcome, Ricky."
He waved and called, "Bye, Roki! Bye, Mrs. Ishy! Bye, Cousin's girlfriend!" With that, he sprinted out the door.
Yumi moaned and went upstairs to her room. It was bad enough when Hiroki bugged her about it, but when Ulrich's little cousin was introduced, it was double trouble. Her mother noticed this and went up to sit by her side. "Yumi dear, what's wrong?"
"I'm sorry, Mom. It's just that..." she paused to collect herself. "Well, of all people to become friends..."
"Well, that's what happens when two people who have a common interest meet," her mother stated plainly. "They become friends."
"It would be fine with me, if their common interest wasn't..."
Mrs. Ishiyama interrupted, reminding her, "Hiroki and Ricky's common interests are more than just their belief that you and that young boy, Ulrich, are to be together, you know. You'll just have to learn to ignore the things that they do that annoy you, and I'm sure everything will work out just fine."
Yumi thought about this and smiled up at her mother. "I'll try, Mom."
As Mrs. Davis drove Ricky back to his temporary home, he looked out around the town. He was never really in this part of the country before, and he was going to need to get to know it if he was going to be there for a couple of years.
"So, how was your first day at your new school?" she asked.
"Oh, it was pretty good," he replied. "Kind of boring, but what do you expect when you put a genius in grade school? Ms. Curie told me I'm a genius in book smarts, but that's not enough to get me into much higher grades." He snapped his fingers. "Oh, and I made a new friend! Roki Ishy!"
"Hiroki Ishiyama?" Ricky nodded. "Noah never really took a liking to him."
"I don't see why," said Ricky. "Oh, and I got to see my cousin! And, I learned all about his friends, Odd and Jerry, and his girlfriend! Oh, and that annoying Lizzie, who keeps trying to steal my cousin from her. Oh, and did you know that Cousin's a pro in European football? We call that soccer in our country. I stink at it, but we all stink at something, right?"
"Is there anything else Ulrich and his friends do?"
Ricky thought for a moment. "Well, Odd likes making music videos, Jerry's a whiz at the computer, Cousin practices this one kind of martial arts, called Pencak Silat... I don't know, I think I may have missed something... or maybe he isn't telling me something... and I think it's something big..." Truth be told, Ricky, at this point, had no idea he was talking out loud anymore.
"Something big, he said?" asked Mr. Davis.
"That right," she said. "I'm a little concerned, honey. From what I've heard about Ulrich Stern, he's a big mystery."
"You think he may be hiding something?"
"I don't know, but I do know that, as part of the foreign exchange agreement, we promised to take care of little Ricky as if he were our own. Which means, we'll probably have to take measures to be absolutely sure."
The next day, in the Forest Region of Lyoko, a tower at the end of a plateau turned red. Needless to say, X.A.N.A. was active.
At this time, Jeremie typed way at his keyboard. His objective: the usual mission of perfecting the key to materialization. Odd and Ulrich were with him.
Sitting cross-legged and petting his dog, Kiwi, Odd asked Jeremie, "So, when Aelita comes to live with us, what are we going to do about giving her an Earth life?"
"I already have a list of websites to hack to give her things such as a birth certificate, social security number, etc., and we'll also need to give her a last name, birthplace, and family connections," explained Jeremie.
He thought for a moment, "I know! We can say she's my cousin!"
Ulrich smirked and said, "With all the solo missions you've been on with Aelita, you guys kind of are like family."
Right after he managed to get that out, Jeremie input the last string of code. "OK, I'm ready to test it." With a strike of the enter key, the test program ran Jeremie's calculations.
Jeremie groaned. "Aw, man! I was sure I had it that time!"
Ulrich placed a hand on Jeremie's shoulder. "Don't worry yourself about it, Jeremie. You'll get it right some day," he told him.
"Yeah, well, in the meantime, it's Saturday," piped Odd. "And, that means, we get the rest of the day off!"
As the two left Jeremie's dorm room, Ulrich asked, "So, your date with Jeanne is today?"
"Yep," answered Odd.
"How many girls have you gone out with already?"
"Oh, a few," he answered in an innocent tone, before closing the door behind him.
When Ulrich and Odd were gone, Aelita appeared on the screen and said, "I'm sure you'll figure it out one day, Jeremie." He smiled at her positive words. "By the way, I didn't have time to tell you this yesterday, but Ricky was wrong about those odds. It's actually, 8,367,286,904.1539 to 1."
Jeremie chuckled. "If anyone would know, Aelita, it's you."
But, when the two boys were in the hallway, a woman approached them. "Ulrich Stern?"
"Yes?" he asked in an unsure tone.
The woman extended her hand to shake. "Counselor Nancy Clark, or Miss Clark if you prefer. Or, you could just call me Nancy, if you want; I don't mind. Jim did tell me that, if I didn't find you in your room, you'd most likely be here."
"Er, that nice, Miss Clark," he mumbled in an uneasy tone, "but what do you want?"
"Oh, to talk to you and get to know you," she said in a pleasant tone.
"Hey, wanna get to know me?" asked the spiky, blonde haired boy. "The name's Odd. Odd Della Robbia."
"Isn't she a bit old for you?" asked Ulrich with a smirk.
"Ha, ha... very funny, Mr. Mystery," said a sarcastic Odd. "Me starting a pleasant conversation with a female doesn't always mean I'm flirting with her. Now, if you excuse me, Jeanne awaits." With that, he left.
Miss Clark chuckled. "Well, now that we have that settled... hmm-hmm... Odd seems like quite the charmer." Ulrich rolled his eyes, cracking a smile. "Now, let's talk about you."
They began to walk as Ulrich began to say, "Well, I'm a C student, I'm our football team's best player, there's this girl named Sissi who keeps stalking me, my other best friend, Jeremie, is pretty much a genius, which makes it hard to understand what he's saying, sometimes..."
"Anything regarding your personal life that we could discuss?"
Ulrich eyed her and asked, "Don't they call it a 'personal life' for a reason?"
"I'm a counselor, Ulrich," she reminded him. "I listen to young men and women's private lives all the time. It's my duty to keep what I learn confidential, if need be."
Ulrich glanced away. "Yeah? Well, maybe there are some things I shouldn't tell even you."
Miss Clark eyed Ulrich with concern. "Ulrich, you're going to have to cooperate with me. If you're going to act this way, I may have to monitor you more closely."
That was the last thing Ulrich needed.
- Remember that this is Europe, and they call "soccer" "football".
Anyway, looks like we've got double trouble. Hey, that's great. Maybe that could be the name of the chapter!
Ricky: Actually, it already is.
It is? Man, I'm good! XD
625: Oy vey.