Wow, I'm sorry for not updating. I've had this chapter ready for a while, but I didn't realize that it's been over two weeks since I last posted. I have too many things going on at once. I left you at a cliffy last time, so i'm going to hurry up and get on with the story. This one is dedicated to anyone who has this story on their alert list! That's like... 16 people. Thanks to you!

(Ulrich P.O.V.)

"Aelita, what's going on?" I ask. A red exclamation mark appeared on the screen, flashing violently.

"Oh no!" She stares at the screen for a couple minutes. "Odd is stuck!"

"What?" I ask as if I don't believe it.

"There was some kind of error during rematerialization, Odd is stuck in between Lyoko and Earth, kind of like Jeremie that one time!"

"Can we do the same thing as last time?"

"No, it's not the same." I remember Macas and quickly go downstairs to see what happened. I find him lying on the floor of the scanner unconscious. He looks normal again, which is a relief.

"Aelita, Macas made it back alright. It looks like the program worked!" I yell and carry Macas back upstairs. I set him on the floor against the holomap and go over to Aelita. She's sobbing uncontrollably in the chair.

"Aelita!" She turns to me and wraps her arms around me. "Don't worry, we'll get him back."

"N-no. We can't. This is out of our control, only X-XANA can access the files needed to save him." I just stare blankly at a wall.

Odd….

"We have to do something, we can't just leave him there!" Aelita says when I don't respond.

"We will do something." Macas says quietly from the floor.

"Macas!" Aelita runs over and hugs him.

"Hey Aelita." He says hoarsely.

"But… what can we do?" I ask.

"I-I don't know. But we'll figure out something. There's no way we can let Odd slip away. Not after what he did for me."

"How do you know what he did for you?" Aelita asks.

"I was conscious the entire time. XANA prevented me from moving at all or speaking." At that time, Yumi happens to walk in.

"How's it going?" She asks, then she sees Macas. "Macas!" She runs over and hugs him just like Aelita had. I offer my hand, which he accepts and stands up. He's kind of wobbly, but he can still stand.

"What happened?" Yumi looks at me. She notices that Aelita looked like she had been crying. After a moment, I realize I was too. The tears had come with out me even noticing them.

"Odd is gone…." I say. Yumi looks bewildered.

"W-what? He's gone? How could he be g-gone?"

"He sacrificed himself to save Macas." She looks surprised and hurt at this.

"Wait a minute… start at the beginning." I tell her the whole story. When I get to the part about Odd, she begins to cry too.

"No… he can't be gone!" She hugs me and I hug her back. I rub her back as she cries into my shoulder.

"Don't worry Yumi. We will find a way to bring Odd back." Macas says. He hobbles over to the computer and sits down. He looks at the computer and his face twists with anger. "Shit."

"What?"

"XANA has programmed a count down. Unless we can find a way to get Odd back within 7 hours, he's gone. Deleted forever." Everyone's eyes widen.

"I'm going to find a way to fix this. I promise." He says. He stands up and tries to walk over, but he stumbles. I catch him in time.

"You can't help us right now. Right now we need to get you to the infirmary so that Dorothy can check you out." I help half-carry Macas out of the factory and we head for the school. We enter the school and head for the infirmary. We reach it and open the door when I remember something.

Macas was supposed to be sick, how do we explain how he ended up with us?

Unfortunately, Dorothy walks out of her office and looks at us.

"What happened? Mr. Stern, I came back and Mr. Keloly was not in his bed! Now you come back with him? Tell me what happened!"

"Uh…" I say. I have no clue what to say to get out of this. Macas stands up straight, he seems to have recovered a little bit.

"I think it was my fault." He says.

"Your fault? How could it be your fault?"

"I woke up and I think I was delirious. I can remember walking out of here and trying to get away. I think I stumbled into the woods. After that, I collapsed. Ulrich found me and brought me back here." Dorothy takes him and sits him down on the bed.

"You look better." She says. "How do you feel?"

"Just tired." She spends a couple minutes checking him out.

"Well, there are no signs that you're still sick anymore… so I guess you can leave. If you feel nauseous or pain at all, come back here. I'm letting you take next week of school off to recover."

"Thank you." He stands up and walks with me outside.

"How do you feel?"

"Better."

"That was a great cover up story."

"Thanks. It just popped into my head on the way here."

"Can you run?"

"I think so."

"Then let's go. We need to find out some way to get Odd back." We run, but at a fairly decent pace. Macas isn't going very fast, but I'm not going to rush him. We eventually get back to the factory to see Yumi and Aelita looking at the computer.

"What's going on?"

"Odd is slowly being deleted…." Aelita says. Both of the girl's eyes are red and puffy, showing that they have been crying.

"Don't worry Aelita. I'll find a way to get him back." Macas says. He gently lifts Aelita out of the chair and she hugs me. Macas sits down and closes his eyes.

"Macas, what are you doing?" Yumi asks.

"I'm thinking." He replies without opening his eyes. After a minute, he opens his eyes.

"I might have one idea." I starts to type steadily. I sit down with Aelita and Yumi on the floor by the wall and we comfort each other. I don't know how long we were sitting there, but it felt like an eternity. Eventually Yumi and Aelita drift off to sleep, but I can't. I keep thinking about how my best friend is trapped and I can't do anything about it. After about a long time, I hear Macas sigh.

"What's up?" He doesn't respond. I carefully extract myself from in between the sleeping girls and walk over to him. He's staring at the keyboard. I look at the screen, it says:

INPUT TRANS-MATERIALIZATION CODE:

I look back at him and notice a small drop of liquid fall on the keyboard. Macas is silently crying. I put my hand gently on his shoulder.

"Hey, what's that?" He sits up and wipes his eyes.

"That's just it, I don't know. This trans-materialization code is something I don't have. Only XANA has access to that file."

"Oh great. Is there anything else you can think of?" I ask. He shakes his head.

"This was my only hope. I'm not very smart when it comes to this. Not like Jeremie." I sigh. If Macas can't do anything, we're basically helpless. Next to Jeremie, he's the best we have. I look at the clock, it's nearly 7:00.

"I'm going to go take the girls for dinner. Do you want to come?" He thinks for a second, then nods.

"Maybe something to eat will help clear my mind." We wake up the girls gently and head back for dinner. I also call Mrs. Ishiyama and tell her Yumi is going to eat with us today. Dinnertime is silent, no one feels like talking. Then the worst thing I need right now comes over.

"Hello Ulrich dear, have you come to your senses and accepted my offer?" Sissi says.

"Sissi, this is the absolute WORST possible time for you to talk to me. So go away before I'm forced to hit you." I growl. She doesn't seem offended at all.

"This is your last chance to reconsider Ulrich. Break up with Yumi now, or face the consequences."

"Sissi, you vile little-." Macas starts to say, but I interrupt him.

"Sissi, I've chosen to answer you in this way. Please pay attention." I lean over and kiss Yumi. "In case you didn't understand, I'll make it even more simple. Fuck off." I say. Sissi looks ready to kill, but she just walks away.

"Macas, Sissi is the one who set up your trial. She is working with XANA, through William. We have to be careful around anyone now, we don't know who could be possessed." Macas just looks angry. After dinner, we go back to the factory. We all prepare ourselves for the worst, that Odd is gone, that something happened. In just an hour, XANA's countdown will have expired. Odd will be gone. We get back inside the control room and Macas sits down in the chair.

"What the…." He looks at the screen. It has a window on it, a message from someone.

TRANS-MATERIALIZATION CODE FOR ODD:

1203-0409-0315-0201

"Is that it?" I ask incredulously.

"It seems to be… but… how did we get it?" Macas asks.

"Jeremie…." Aelita says softly. She says it again louder. "Jeremie."

"But, how?" I ask.

"Jeremie must have broken free long enough to access XANA's files and send us this." She says. She smiles really big and hugs me. I look at Yumi, she has a grim expression on her face, I think she's thinking what I am…

"Macas, I don't think we should use that." I say. Aelita looks at me.

"Why not? Jeremie sent it to us!"

"Booby-trapped data." Yumi says.

"He's done it before." I say.

"Well, I think there's only one way to settle this." Macas says. "We take a vote."

"I vote for." Aelita says immediately.

"I vote against." Yumi says. "I'm only doing it because I think it would hurt more than help."

"I vote for." Macas says. "I have a feeling about this."

"I vote against." I say. "And that makes it a tie. But this time, we only really have four people to vote with."

"What about Odd?" Aelita says.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think-."

"No, I mean what do you think Odd would vote for?" This took me completely by surprise.

"I guess Odd does get a vote. But we can't contact him…." Macas says. I look at my feet.

"Odd would vote for. I know he would. He would rather die because we screwed up than because we didn't do anything." Everyone nods in approval.

"Than that means we do it. Everyone cross your fingers." Macas says. He enters the code into the box. He hesitates pressing the return key.

"But what if…?" He stutters.

"Do it." I say. He hits the return key. A window pops up, it says PROCESSING…

"Everyone hold your breath and cross your fingers. If you believe in God, now is the time to pray." Macas says. I say a silent prayer.

Please God, I don't want Odd to die….

Muahahaha another cliffy! I was going to make this chapter like 3000 words long... but I decided against it. You shouldn't have too much of a good thing. This is actually one of my shorter chapters, only about 1800 words long. If more people review, I could be persuaded to keep my chapters long...hint hint

For the OddxAelita pairing... don't get your hopes up if you like it. I could go either way with it. Expect the unexpected.

And now, another quote(s):

328. Please excuse me, I'm going to have some fun with LIQUID NITROGEN!

13. Roses are red, violets are blue, some poems rhyme, and some don't.

18. Green means go, red means stop. Yellow means go faster before it turns red.

19. Green means you can go. Yellow means slow down. Red means 'I hope you can dodge cars.'

21. Seat belts are not as confining as wheel chairs.

I hope you liked this chapter R&R on your way out! I have nothing else to do today... so I will probably write up another chapter just for you! You can expect it later today or sometime tomorrow.

Review with any ideas you might have for the story, I'll work as much of them in as possible. I take reviews seriously. If you flame me, I will use it to torch my homework. Then I can blame not having it on you! Yay!