Odd knocked on the door of his principal's office, ready for a lecture. The secretary, sighing, simply ushered him in, already used to his frequent comings and goings, even though she'd only been there a week. After all, she'd heard the rumors about the last secretary. She didn't want to lose her sanity from one too many secretary jokes.
"Dellarobia, in trouble again?" Delmas sighed, pointing to a straight-backed, wooden chair for Odd to sit in.
"No, sir, actually I was worried about Ulrich," Odd said. He rehearsed this speech for about twenty minutes while Ulrich showered, and he wasn't going to screw up because the principal didn't trust him. "I'm sure you know about his fainting yesterday, and today he acts so out of it, and so messed up, I was wondering how I could help. He's my best buddy and my roommate, so I was wondering if I could know what you said to him yesterday. I think whatever you said really upset him."
Delmas stood, and circling around to the front of his desk, exhaled long and slow. Then he said, "Mr. Dellarobia, I'm afraid what I said to Mr. Stern is confidential. If he had wanted you to know, he would have told you himself, wouldn't he?"
"But-"
"No buts, Mr. Dellarobia! I am sure that he acted different today because he was reserving his energy. Though I have no doubt that my news came as a shock, I am also positive that Mr. Stern has ways of handling it. If you truly want to be there for him, you will give him space. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir." Recognizing a clear dismissal, Odd stood and started to leave.
"Wait," Delmas said, and Odd turned. "Do you know what this is?" And he showed Odd a picture.
XANA's eye.
"Hey, Jeremy," Ulrich said, knocking on his friend's door. "Can I come in?"
"Oh, hey Ulrich," Jeremy said. "Come on in. I'm working on the anti-virus for Aelita, but it's slow going. What's up?"
"I was just talking with Yumi a little while ago, and the conversation led to quitting the team. Do you think it's possible to take someone out of Lyoko's system so that they can forget in return to the pasts and XANA won't target them?"
"Uhhhh..."
"Hypothetically speaking, of course," Ulrich lied.
"Well, I suppose it's possible, but not advisable. I've never really looked for that kind of program in Lyoko's system, or even thought about trying to create one. Why do you ask?"
"Well, it was along the lines of thinking one of us were going to die, and Aelita could never possibly get to the tower in time. So, we take them out of the system, and XANA forgets about them. Problem solved, right?" Ulrich lied further.
"Ulrich, there are two problems with that, and one of them you should know by now," Jeremy explained with slight impatience. "First, XANA will destroy anything in his way. He won't simply forget you because you're no longer a threat. Remember how he treated Jim when Aelita first came? Anyone who knows about Lyoko should be destroyed in his book; you know that. And second, once you were removed from the Supercomputer's memory, you would be unable to return, I think."
"Oh," Ulrich said, thinking it sounded okay to him. "So that's not an option, then."
"At this point, the only option I see is holding off XANA until I can cure Aelita. Then we can shut him down for good," Jeremy said positively. Then drooping, he added, "Even if it takes a while..."
"Thanks, Jeremy," Ulrich said. "I'll call Yumi and tell her what you said."
"You do that," Jeremy said, turning back to his computer to mumble to himself.
Ulrich stepped outside and headed to the bathroom. There, he dialed Yumi's number and waited.
"Hello?"
"Yumi? It's Ulrich. It can be done."
"Hey, Jeremy," Odd said, not bothering to knock. "Can I come in? Thanks."
"Odd, I'm kind of working on something important," Jeremy said. "Can you come back later?"
"No, you'll be working on that computer of yours until dawn. Now turn that wheelie chair of yours around and listen to me," Odd said loudly.
"All right, fine, what?" Jeremy said, turning to face his spikey-haired friend.
"Delmas won't tell me why Ulrich is so messed up, though he did say it surprised him. If he didn't say that, I'd think he was flunking every class. He also said Ulrich had ways of dealing with it, whatever it was."
"So, what, if not grades? Something with Sissi? Is Delmas forcing him on a date with her?"
"I actually thought so, but then he showed me a picture and asked me if I'd seen it," Odd said, still remembering how hard it was to keep his face blank from the first second.
"Well, what was it?" Jeremy prompted.
"It was XANA's eye," Odd replied seriously. "It was as clear as day. I told Delmas it looked familiar at first as a target from my uncle's shooting range, but then said it wasn't."
"But you don't have an uncle," Jeremy pointed out.
"I know that, but Delmas doesn't," Odd pointed out. "I think he was thinking I was thinking about Aelita's dad. You know, because we're cousins? I texted her as soon as I got out of there to make sure she knew the story if Delmas questioned her."
Jeremy stood and started pacing. "It doesn't add up," he said. "If Delmas were XANA, Ulrich would have told us."
"Or would he? He might be possessed or whatever."
"If he's possessed, so are you," Jeremy said. "So are you?"
"No, I'm me," Odd replied. "If you need proof, I'll go get Kiwi. He hates XANA."
"No, it's all right," Jermey reassured him. "So Delmas isn't XANA, Ulrich isn't XANA-fied, is someone Ulrich knows in danger?"
"What do you mean?" Odd asked.
"Ulrich was just in here, asking if it were possible to remove people from the Supercomputer's internal memory, so they don't have to fight XANA anymore," Jeremy explained. "But in order to save someone that way, they would first have to be part of our team, which means Aelita or Yumi."
"It's not Aelita, she texted me back a minute ago."
"Besides, she's connected to Lyoko. She would die without it," Jeremy reasoned.
"Which leaves Yumi, who I just saw talking to William a few minutes ago," Odd said.
"And Ulrich said he talked to her about it, and he couldn't do that if she were in trouble," Jeremy expanded.
"So, no one's in danger, but what if..." Odd trailed off, staring off into space.
"What if what?" Jeremy asked.
"What if Ulrich told Delmas about XANA?" Odd asked, horror on his face.