What We Know

When Sissi explained the whole thing, Aelita's green fire blew away. After a few weeks, Sissi was sitting next to Yumi on a bench. Of course, her head napped on Yumi's shoulder. The Japanese girl prodded Sissi up, "Uh, Sissi, are you okay? Sissi? Sissi!"

"Wha, huh? What happened?" Sissi mumbled. "It's morning?"

"Geez, Sissi. Why are you so sleepy?"

"Well, after saving the supercomputer from shutting down and saving Aelita from dying, stopping Einstein from wrecking his brain (again), fighting giant Krabs in the real world without my new cane, escaping an attack of XANA zombies, making sure that my father didn't fry you guys, making sure that you and Odd's bodies got switched back, and trying to construct a new device, I'm pooped!" Sissi sighed, plopping into Yumi's lap. "Oh, what I wouldn't give for my ignorant days of being popular," She theatrically sighed. Yumi rolled her eyes as Sissi rolled off. "So I'm a little tired."

"I could see that."

"How does Jeremie sleep? I mean, even with the jumps back in time, I'm still losing sleep."

"Why don't you let Jeremie help you with the inventions?" Yumi asked, propping her leg over the other. Sissi blew her hair out of the way and crossed her arms with high-pitched 'hmph'. "Is he acting edgy?"

"More like stubborn. Geez, I never met someone so brilliant and so dimwitted. He actually reminds me of Odd." The girls giggled. "But still, I can't have Jeremie switch from one stressor to another. His brain can only handle so much without flying off the rails." Sissi said. She looked at the cloudy sky. The sun's rays soothed her nerves, swirling her head in that familiar dozy feeling. She gave a big sigh. "But I guess it's for the best. If Jeremie didn't have any stress in his life, I think he would become a supervillain."

"Or become a jerk like William."

"Yeah. Whatever happened with you and William?" Yumi's eyes glanced away as she pulled at her top. "Come on, Yumi just tell me."

"It's... complicated."

"Okay, let me ask a different way. Why did he and Ulrich fight when the crabs attacked?" Sissi asked. The air flew silently between them. Yumi's lips pursed together as she kept her eyes away from the Mechanist. Sissi grumbled under her breath like an annoyed puppy. "Yumi," She said more firmly, "It's a simple question."

"But it's not a SIMPLE problem. Just... just leave it alone, okay?" Yumi said. The principal's daughter stared at her for a long time. There was some kind of emotion in her eyes that Yumi couldn't pick up on. Finally, Sissi threw up her hands and stood up with the aid of her cane.

"Ok, I'll see you later," Sissi said, coldly walking away. Sissi shook her head. Why? Why on earth was this girl so pig-headed? Then again, maybe she wasn't asking the right question. Was Yumi was too childish or she too mature? With her previous history and fighting against XANA, the young mechanist definitely changed. She felt disconnected from her reality a bit: She interacted with the people, but for the first time in her life, they can not connect with her. What could she do? Try and find the closest substitution, people who can actually connect with her?

Sissi shook her head. The others weren't a substitution, but it was a great temptation. Sighing, she decided something like that would need to be done later down the line. The others weren't ready for it. And truthfully, she wasn't either.

Yumi sighed as she tried to read her book, but what Sissi said couldn't get out of her head. Sissi walked up to her dorm and tossed her cane to the bed. She plopped into her desk chair, put her goggles on, and grabbed some black wires. Just as she was about to work, a soft knock at the door called her attention. "Come in."

"I hope I'm not interrupting," said a light angelic voice. Sissi chuckled a bit.

"No, no. Come in." Aelita sat quietly on the bed. "What's up?"

"Nothing, I just saw you and Yumi talking. I was going to say hi when you suddenly left. It looked like you two got a little... upset at each other." Sissi grumbled under her breath as she picked up the next tool. "What happened?" Aelita asked.

"It's nothing, really. She's just being stubborn," Sissi sighed. Suddenly, she spun around and looked at Aelita with a small smirk. "Actually, you could tell me."

"Hmm?"

"Do you know what happened between her, Ulrich, and William when the krabs attacked?" Aelita shook her head. "Crud. Okay, when we were attacked by zombies, you guys seemed on edge around William. What happened?" Aelita, crossing her arms, stared at the ground with a small narrowing of the eyes. "Did he do something to you guys?"

"He was just a big jerk to us. We were trying to get to you guys, but he wouldn't let us out. And he wasn't afraid of bossing us about to 'keep us safe'," Aelita huffed. "That's why we weren't too eager to have him around."

"Hehe."

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing. Repeated history."

"Huh?"

"You guys don't have to treat him differently just because I don't like him around Yumi, you know?" Sissi clarified. "He was trying to help the best he could."

Aelita wrinkled her eyebrows, "He has a funny way of doing it."

"Yes, he does. But don't hate him for it, okay? He's a thrill-seeker, but he's still a good... ish person," Sissi said, putting away her tools.

"Why are you defending him?"

"Because Yumi did the same thing with me to you guys. Well, with the others, not you, but still. The point is don't be hard on him," Sissi sighed. She held up something into the light of her desk lamp. It looked like a thick black stretchy armbrace. "Okay, let's get Jeremie and try this thing out."

"What is it?" Aelita asked.

"Hopefully, not something that will kill me."

"What!?"

"I'm kidding, kinda," Sissi chuckled uneasily. They grabbed Jeremie from his computer and dragged him to the factory. Near the elevator sat an old crash-dummy with no head on it. Jeremie slapped small stickers onto the dummy's body with wires that hooked to his computer through a small boxy adaptor. Sissi slid the armbrace on and tugged at the end, wrestling with the fabric. "Hmmm, why aren't these things coming... oh, it's backward."

"You're gonna have to fix that," Jeremie said.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Sissi mocked, quickly switching it around. From the end of the armbrace, Sissi pulled four small cables, wrapped them around through the troughs of the dummy's fingers, and connected them on the other side of the armbrace. "Okay, it's on. You have the adjuster ready?"

"Ready," Jeremie said, holding a large knob connected to the arm brace by a long cord. Sissi ran over to their safety zone and grabbed the knob. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah, are the sensors ready?" Sissi asked. Jeremie nodded. "Okay, here we go." She slowly turned the knob. A dull hum buzzed through the air. Inch by inch, Sissi turned the knob and the humming got louder and louder. "Anything?"

"Nothing just yet," Jeremie answered. "How much are you at?"

"Half-way."

"Keep going." The humming grew until it reached a high-pitched tone. Then, nothing. No sound or hum. "Keep going," Jeremie said.

"It's all the way up," Sissi said.

"Really? Wow! That's amazing. The battery's at full capacity and no-"

PFT!

Before he could speak, a small explosion popped from the armbrace. It started smoldering. "Darn it, hit the kill switch," Sissi muttered, running up to the dummy. As Jeremie cut the circuit, Sissi struggled the brace off of the dummy's arm. "Come on, come on. Okay, mostly just a resistor problem. I'll have to reroute another circuit."

"You might not have to. I just looked at the magnetic forces: 2 teslas on half. At full power, my computer started fizzing."

"What? Awesome! You think this will work?"

"It's hard to really tell. You're limiting the magnetism to do the work. Your cane uses an electric field, and this is just a magnetic field," Jeremie thought for a moment. "It should work after more tests."

"In any case, I over excelled," Sissi smiled. Jeremie smiled too.

"What are you guys making?" Aelita asked.

"We're trying to make a weapon to fight against XANA's possessed people using a magnetic field this time," Jeremie said.

"And you're going to give it to us?" Aelita asked.

"Of course! Like I said, if we can fight XANA on earth, we'll be able to force his hand," Sissi smiled. "Of course, if I can fix this prototype in time before XANA's next attack, I should be fine."

"Alright, let's get out of here before people start looking for us," Jeremie said. The three geniuses walked out of the factory with Sissi's small armbrace in hand. "Did you make it waterproof?"

"Not yet. I didn't want to waste time if it didn't work in the first place," Sissi replied. "But until then, I should be fine."

"That's if Jeremie doesn't find a way to defeat XANA first," Aelita smiled charmingly. Jeremie blushed red, clearing his throat.

Sissi rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Guys, get a room." Then her stomach started growling. "Ugh, what's for lunch?"

"Meatloaf, which means that Odd might be gulping down my plate already," Aelita huffed. Suddenly, Sissi's face lit up.

"Right! Odd! That's it! Thanks, princess." Gleefully hugging the pink-haired kid, Sissi ran to the mess hall at Mach-5. Aelita looked at Jeremie who only shrugged.

Odd was just coming out of the cafeteria with Ulrich when Sissi ran up to him. "Hey, your Majesty, what's the rush?" he asked.

"Nothing, uhh, Ulrich is it okay if I borrow Odd from you? I need him to uh be a test dummy."

"What?! HELP!"

"Come on, dog for brains," Sissi shouted, dragging him with her. She marched over to the vending machines, pulling Odd by the back of his shirt. Odd fell to his knees and clasped his hands together, whimpering like a hurt Kiwi.

"Please, Sissi, I'm sorry for everything I've done! I won't call you names, I won't bother you, I'm sorry."

Sissi rolled her eyes and placed her hands on her hips. "I'm not going to kill you, Odd," She said after a long sigh, "I need to talk to you about Ulrich and Yumi." Odd's eyes shot open. "No, I'm not trying to get Ulrich away from Yumi again. I just want to know what caused Ulrich to go off on William when the krabs attacked."

Odd smirked, getting up from the ground, "Oh! So you're trying to be nosy?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I didn't expect you to be so honest."

"I have nothing to hide, unlike other people," She hinted. "Besides, things are ridiculously different. If I don't know, people start getting hurt."

"Well, it seems like Ulrich followed Yumi home when William was there."

"Oh no."

"Wait, there's more. After rejecting William, Yumi came back confused as to why Ulrich-dear was upset."

"He didn't know about her rejection?"

"Nope!" Odd sighed, "Ah, it's times like these that I'm glad that I don't stumble over girls."

A wide evil smile spread across Sissi's face as the malice dripped down her eyes. "Sure, it's only Samantha and me that make you stumble." Odd's heart stopped. He nearly fell flat on his butt.

"Wwwww what? How... who told you about Sam?!"

"Haha, easy, easy. Jeremie keeps a log of diaries on the Supercomputer. I had to watch them for info about Lyoko and XANA. She sounds very interesting," Sissi smirked. Odd blushed like a tomato. Scrambling up his feet, Odd turned away and cleared his throat. "You don't have to feel so upset about it."

"Well, now you know about Yumi and Ulrich. Excuse me, I have to make a call real quick," Odd mumbled as he ran away. Sissi rose her eyebrow. She felt a sudden cool breeze touch her arms. An omen or a bad feeling? Sissh shook her head. It didn't matter. Not now, anyway. She walked over to the dorm only after taking a last glance at Odd.

Continued...