The mad shoe1 - I have put thought into it, thanks for noticing and I'm glad you like it.
Kitty Bridgeta - Thank you. A quote I heard once: No plan survives contact with the enemy. It's bad and William and Sissy aren't going to make it any better but that's in the future.
FrodoandSam12 - You are right, I need to be more careful and re-read my work before posting. This chapter should be better.
--
Yumi's house, Yumi's Room, Wednesday 5:45 PM: Yumi went up to her room after dinner and sighed deeply as she opened her bag and pulled out the day's homework. After finishing her homework she took out a set of binders, each containing notes and assignments from the previous courses that Jeremy and Aelita had taken with Ulrich. Even without math, physics, and chemistry there was a lot of material, far too much for her to simply go over it all. Looking at the collection she decided to skim over the classes that Ulrich's plan said he needed the most help with. She could mark the stuff that she needed a refresher on and skip what she already knew. Once the most important items were highlighted she would start to study in detail. Happy with her plan she set to work.
As the evening stretched on her thoughts drifted over to Ulrich and the fact that he could be alone with Sissy. She squashed that line of thought, hoping and choosing to believe that he wouldn't risk their tenuous relationship that way. Briefly she wondered what Ulrich envisioned her doing right now. She squashed that line of thought as well and forced herself to return to her studies.
Shortly afterwards her mind wandered again, this time to what Jeremy and Aelita were doing. She actually hoped that they were out on a date because if what she had in front of her was any indication this was going to be a long, boring road. She frowned knowing that neither Jeremy nor Aelita would be out doing something completely fun, they both owed Ulrich too much to just forget about his problem even if it was just for an evening. Again she forced thoughts of her friends out of her mind and forced herself to return to studying.
By the time she went to get ready for bed she was sick of school work. "Ulrich, you had better be worth all this effort," she muttered to her pillow.
--
Kadic Academy, Ulrich and Odd's room, Wednesday 6:30 PM: Ulrich entered his room in a bad mood, having just watched Jeremy and Aelita leave campus, presumably on a date. Adding insult to injury was Yumi heading home early after not even talking to him the entire day. At lunch she had sat with her little brother and his friends rather than the gang. Odd, of course, had told him to "cheer up" and that Yumi wouldn't be ignoring him forever. Odd was right, Yumi had promised to help him study and she was always true to her word. The knowledge did little to help him feel better. She wasn't here and that meant, no, he stopped himself. He wasn't going there, though he couldn't help but wonder what she thought he was going to do with his last free evening. Tomorrow would start his tutoring sessions and the terrible plan was: he would skip it, going to Lyoko where Jeremy and Aelita would have a lesson prepared for him. Once it was over they would launch a return to the past, and he would go to the staff run tutoring session. They would repeat this until he was caught up. This was going to be hell.
Pushing that thought away and seeing that the room was empty he took out his homework and got started. As he worked he found himself wishing for a XANA attack. Unlike the geometry problem he was currently working on a XANA attack had a clearly defined and easy solution. Ulrich smiled at that thought, wondering how many other people would think that risking one's neck fighting a demonic program with real, life or death, consequences was a good substitute for math homework. He returned to his work and considered calling Jeremy to ask for help. After looking over the pile of work in his bag he thought better of it. Jeremy would have insisted on explaining the whole thing rather than just giving him the answer and he just didn't have time for that. Shelving the assignment for later he reached into his pile and pulled out the next one.
At about 7:30 there was a knock on the door and in walked Sissy. "Oh Ulrich dear," she said in a high and annoying tone "what's the matter. You look awfully lonely, all your friends abandon you?"
"I've got homework, leave me alone," Ulrich answered harshly.
Sissy sighed and turned to leave but had second thoughts and turned back towards Ulrich. "Do you need any help," she asked in a concerned voice.
"From you?"
"Yes, from me," Sissy replied in a slightly aggravated voice, "so I'm not exactly one of the Einstein's, I can still manage to do my homework."
"Sissy, I know what you're trying to do and it's not going to work. Just leave ok?"
"And just what do you think I'm trying to do," Sissy snapped back.
"You want me to get in trouble with Yumi so that I'll be your boyfriend."
"You know, maybe I just felt bad that you were left all alone to work while everyone else was out having fun and wanted to see if I could help." She sounded hurt.
Ulrich bit back the reply he was going to spit at her. She was right after all, Jeremy and Aelita were presumably on a date, Odd was, and he had no idea where Yumi was, though she said she was going home when she left. For that matter he had no idea where William was. He didn't want to think that William and Yumi were on a date but couldn't help it either. The thought of Yumi and William out on a date threatened to put him over the edge but he forced himself to calm down and give her a fair shot. "I'm sorry Sissy, I don't need any help right now. But thanks for asking," he replied in a forced, neutral tone.
Sissy turned and left, saving her disappointment and bitterness until after she had left his room.
--
Factory, Computer Lab, Wednesday 6:45 PM: "Aelita, are you sure your ok to be here?" Jeremy asked for the second time.
"Yes Jeremy I'm fine" Aelita replied, letting just a little frustration creep into her voice. "And if by any chance I'm not I'll tell you. Promise."
"Ok then, let's get to work" Jeremy said, gesturing to the extra chair they had brought down with them. She sighed and sat down, wishing she was sitting in Jeremy's lap. Using her laptop, Aelita opened a connection to the supercomputer and accessed Jeremy's open programs. Together they began setting up a simulation bubble that could be used to teach physics, chemistry , and math. As she worked she came across a reserve of data. Closer examination revealed them to be the type of programs they were there to create.
"Hey Jeremy, look at this." Aelita sent Jeremy a set of memory addresses and he looked over the data, nodding approvingly.
"Do you have any idea how much time this will save us," he asked excitedly.
"Yeah, we need to update some of the lessons and simulation equipment but, most of the work is already done for us" Aelita replied with the same excitement.
"Well let's get to work, you want physics, chemistry or math?"
"I'll take physics, you take math and we'll work on chemistry together," Aelita replied with a smirk and a deep red blush.
Seeing Aelita's expression and blush clued Jeremy in on the other meaning of her comment and caused him to blush as well. "Sounds like a plan," Jeremy replied sounding a little shy.
Aelita chuckled at the tone of his voice "Your handsome when your being shy."
Jeremy's blush deepened as he sheepishly turned back to his consol, and started typing furiously. Aelita simply smiled, the speed of his typing telling her all she needed to know, and returned to work.
--
Jeremy finished the math module and turned to face Aelita, watching as she finished the physics module. When she was done she shut down her laptop and hopped up into Jeremy's lap. Jeremy wrapped his arms around her and she started to work on the chemistry module, Jeremy reading over her shoulder helping her. Luckily for them the chemistry module needed the least amount of work and it was up and running in no time.
True to her word, Aelita snuggled against Jeremy and placed her hands over his. "Let's just stay like this for a little while, ok?"
"Ok princess, whatever you want" Jeremy replied, quite happy with the current situation.
--
30 minutes later: As they got ready to enter Lyoko to test the program Aelita noticed that Jeremy was getting nervous. "Hey Jeremy," she said as she slid off his lap, "why so nervous?"
Jeremy sighed and turned to face her " I'm a little nervous about going into Lyoko with you. I, well, I don't really like my avatar and."
Aelita smiled and shushed him, "Jeremy don't be worried, however you look on Lyoko I'll still see the real you. The one who's brave and strong and handsome." Ignoring the heat that had risen to her cheeks she continued "If you're that concerned about your avatar you should have said something earlier." Her tone changing to flirty she said "if you'll let me surprise you I promise I'll give you a fitting avatar."
Jeremy looked into her eyes and nodded, walking over to the elevator he said "don't keep me waiting too long."
Aelita hopped up into the chair and got to work on altering Jeremy's profile. When she was done she set up delayed transfers for both of them and called to Jeremy on the intercom, letting him know that she was on her way down.
--
Lyoko, Ice sector, Wednesday 8:37 PM: Jeremy fell onto the ice surface and was helped up by Aelita who then took a step back and admired her handiwork. She led Jeremy over to an ice formation whose face was acting as a mirror. Jeremy saw himself, modified with elfin features much like Aelita's. He was wearing a tight fitting blue mages cloak with short sleeves. His arms and legs looked more muscled than his human form but were not badly exaggerated. Continuing his inspection he turned around and looked back allowing him to see that the back of his garment held a picture of Albert Einstein. On his right wrist was a device that looked like a watch. It's face however, held a computer icon instead of the time. Experimentally he tapped the watch and saw it blossom into a holographic interface that went up his forearm. A closer look revealed that it held all the commands for accessing the tactical map of Lyoko, profile cards, an array of debug functions, and several interfaces he didn't know existed. "What are all of these commands for" Jeremy asked.
"I'm not entirely certain myself. Some of these interfaces allow very low level access to our characters. Some allow access to the world physics engine. Some allow access to the wider network" Aelita answered.
Touching the watch again caused the display to collapse back into it. "All of that could come in handy but it looks like a lot to learn. In the meantime what do I have for a weapon?" Jeremy asked.
"Hold out your hand and concentrate a little, imagine a ball of energy forming there and."
Jeremy did as instructed and a blue ball of energy popped into existence in his palm.
"Ok now throw the ball at the ice formation opposite me."
Again Jeremy did as instructed and the ball flew from his hand, shattering the targeted object. "Good," Aelita said, "your profile also allows you to de-activate towers and do pretty much anything I can do. Some other time we can work on manipulating the computer from the inside but for now we have a program to test."
"I look forward to that, and I love my new form. Thank you," Jeremy said as he took her hand. He instantly regretted the lack of feeling as the warm, soft, delicate hand he so loved was rendered as a perfectly hard surface with no texture. His mind filled in some of the missing details but it was a long way from feeling the real thing.
Aelita turned towards him "Funny how our mind tries to fill in the blanks that Lyoko doesn't provide. Now come on, if this goes well we'll still have some time to enjoy the real thing before we have to be back in our dorms." Neither Aelita nor Jeremy blushed because the computer simply didn't simulate that.
Together they ran the short distance to the simulation bubble. Stopping and then pushing into the dome they were instantly transported into a chemistry lab equipped with everything the school's chemistry lab had and then some. Aelita walked over to a large periodic table and tapped on the entry for carbon. A display of the carbon atom popped up along with a set of options for dispensing the element or looking more deeply into its properties. Satisfied, she waved the display away.
While Aelita tried out the table of elements Jeremy ran a simple experiment, combining hydrogen and oxygen to form water. He tapped the microscope icon and watched as the computer displayed the reaction on a molecular level as well as a readout of the reagents consumed and energy released. Impressed, he waved away the display and turned to Aelita "wow, this worked better than I had expected. Your father must have planned to be here a long time to cram in all of this study material."
"I don't know Jeremy. He never told me much about his plans for Lyoko, only that it was somewhere we could be hide and be safe" Aelita replied sadly.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean."
"No that's ok, But no more of my father for tonight. Ok?"
"Ok" Jeremy replied softly "then let's check out the other labs."
--
Factory, Computer Lab, Thursday 6:45 PM: Yumi glared daggers at Jeremy and Aelita, upset that they had not reconsidered their plan and were not going to shut down the supercomputer. "What do you mean you're not going to turn it off," she yelled.
"Look Yumi, I know how you feel about the supercomputer but the technology can be used to give Ulrich an edge in his fight to stay with us" Jeremy replied calmly.
"You know how I feel" she retorted. "That thing has nearly killed us more times than I care to count. We got very lucky to defeat XANA so many times given its advantages. And now you want to risk everything to help Ulrich do what he should have been doing the entire time."
This time Aelita answered: "No, he doesn't. XANA is gone and even if it wasn't it can't come back to this supercomputer. And if XANA ever does come back this supercomputer is the only way we have to get advance warning and the only known weapon against XANA. It has to be left operational."
"There has to be another way. Find it." Yumi yelled back.
"No" Aelita yelled out "Your home country still exists even though it attacked Pearl Harbor and started a bloody new theater in World War two. Ulrich's home country still exists even though it gave rise to Hitler who slaughtered millions. Should you and Ulrich not exist because of the past sins of some of your country's leaders?"
Yumi gave Aelita a furious look "You of all people should know just how wrong this is. Your father imprisoned you in Lyoko with a computer virus bent on exterminating all of humanity. And now you." Yumi stopped as Aelita collapsed into Jeremy who started shouting.
"Enough! Franz gave his life right here to save all of ours. And I'll grant that he died saving all of us from a mistake he made." Jeremy paused for a few seconds then continued more softly "I understand that the supercomputer is a risk and a big one. But we all agreed to save Aelita no matter the cost. Once XANA got into the internet that cost was our eternal vigilance. If XANA does come back we can destroy all of the information contained in the supercomputer save for the files needed to understand and defeat XANA then make an anonymous call to any branch of the military. But we have to know if XANA reappears and this hardware is the only thing powerful enough to monitor the entire internet."
Yumi looked at Jeremy who was holding Aelita against him, her head buried in his shoulder. "I still don't like this. There are too many bad memories here."
"Yes, and the worst are mine" Aelita replied, sounding like she wanted to cry. "Watching all of you willing to give your lives for mine. Watching Jeremy suffer as he worked to free all of us from XANA. Watching my father die saving our lives. But this is as much my home, as much a part of me, as Japan is to you, Germany is to Ulrich, Italy is to Odd and France is to Jeremy."
Jeremy continued "None of you want to destroy your own homelands because of their past sins, nor do you want to destroy each other's homeland. This is no different."
Odd looked over to Jeremy "I agree. The Italy has had its fair share of problems and bad history but its home and I wouldn't want to lose it."
Ulrich looked over to Jeremy then at Yumi "They have a point Yumi. Perhaps we can use all of this equipment to build a better future, mindful of the memories trapped here."
Yumi surveyed her friends. Aelita was now standing close to Jeremy, her eyes still holding the glimmer of unshed tears. Odd looked slightly hopeful and she wondered if he was hoping to get another chance at fighting XANA. Ulrich looked hopeful as well, clearly wanting the computer to remain on. "Alright," she said in a stern voice, "we can leave the computer on but at the first sign of trouble we delete our info and turn it over to the government."
Aelita went over to Yumi and hugged her saying "Thank you Yumi. For whatever else it is Lyoko is very much a part of me, some of it embedded into my very DNA. It's also the closest I'll ever get to my father. With the pictures from the hermitage being so badly damaged," her voice trailed off.
Yumi hugged back "I understand. It's your legacy and if you and Jeremy want to make something good of it then I'll let you." She released Aelita and her voice grew stern again, "But if this thing becomes a threat I won't hesitate to turn it over to the authorities."
"Thank you, Yumi" Jeremy said sincerely, "I promise we'll use this hardware well."
"You had better Jeremy, that goes for you as well Aelita." Yumi replied.
With that settled Jeremy hopped up into the chair and began preparing transfers while the rest headed for the elevator. "Ok, you guys go ahead, Aelita and I will join you shortly" Jeremy said as they entered the elevator. Both Ulrich and William took up positions next to Yumi and she shoved both of them away after they tried to get too close. Both spent the rest of the ride down glaring at one another and upon arriving at the scanner room they headed for the outside scanners while Odd got into the middle one. "We're ready for the transfer" William called out. Yumi remained behind after deciding that she would rather be virtualized with Jeremy and Aelita.
After Ulrich, Odd and William had been transferred to Lyoko Yumi heard Jeremy's voice over the intercom saying: "Ok Yumi get into the right most scanner, Aelita and I will join you shortly."
"Your actually coming," a surprised Yumi asked Jeremy when he stepped out of the elevator.
"Aelita gave my profile an upgrade." Jeremy answered as he entered his scanner.
--
Lyoko, Ice sector, Thursday 6:59 PM: Everybody looked over Jeremy's new form. After giving him an approving look Odd turned his attention to Aelita, "Your doing princess?"
"You like it?" She asked sweetly.
"I like everything you do princess." Odd flirted.
Unable to resist to opportunity to get a little revenge for all of Odds teasing, Aelita stepped closer to Jeremy and whined "Honey I don't like the giant cat." "Could you do something about that," she added with a pout.
"Anything for you." Jeremy replied with an almost evil grin. Bringing up his hands he shot a couple of energy balls at Odd, sending him off running. Then he tapped his PDA and quickly assessed the newly available debug functions. Choosing one he tapped a few commands and watched as the computer stopped running physics calculations on Odd's avatar. The result was Odd freezing just as he was going to fire his arrows.
"Hey no fair" Odd called out.
"That's what you get for trying to flirt with Jeremy's girl" Aelita said playfully. After a short pause she continued "promise not to shoot my boyfriend?"
"Yes fine, just let me go." Odd pleaded.
Jeremy smiled and tapped a few commands into his PDA then banished the display with a wave of his hand. "Sorry Odd, that was just too tempting to resist especially after Aelita asked. Friends?"
"Ok, friends." Odd replied as he walked over to Jeremy and extended his hand. "But only because you're too in love with Aelita to say no to her."
Jeremy took his hand to shake it and Aelita put her hand on top of theirs. "Sorry Odd but I wanted to demonstrate and you just gave me the perfect opportunity. See, I gave Jeremy all of the Lyoko access codes as well as upgrading his avatar to make it more suitable. He can access towers, use the computer to affect the real world and de-activate towers."
"You should have done that a long time ago" Ulrich said once he stopped laughing at Odd.
"I couldn't," Aelita replied "I didn't have all the access codes or interfaces I would have needed."
"Ok, let's see this program of yours," Yumi interrupted, still a little unsettled at being in Lyoko.
Jeremy pulled up his PDA and then launched the simulation, creating a giant white dome in the ice sector. Everybody followed Jeremy and Aelita inside and were amazed at the replica science lab. After receiving the grand tour of all three programs Yumi couldn't help but be impressed. "You did all of this in one evening" she asked.
"Not exactly, my father had much of this material already programmed in. All we had to do was complete the interfaces and alter some of the lessons. He had planned to make this our safe haven and probably wanted to be prepared in case we had to spend a long time in here." Aelita replied, her voice colored with just a bit of sadness.
"So what made you guys come up with this?" Odd asked.
"Remember yesterday when you said that it was impossible to learn from equations on a black board because they put you to sleep?" Jeremy asked.
"Yes" Odd replied.
"Well we thought maybe a more visual and hands on approach would help both you and Ulrich. Now you can see how the equations match what happens, hopefully that will help you understand math, physics and chemistry" replied Jeremy.
"Shall we get started" Aelita asked, doing her best to imitate Ms Hertz.
--
Factory, Computer Lab, Thursday 11:15 PM: "Ok, everybody ready to re-live today?" Jeremy asked.
Receiving a full set of affirmatives he typed in the necessary set of commands and hit enter, saying "Return to the past. Now." A white column appeared in the center of the room and expanded until it had engulfed everything.
--
Kadic Academy, Jeremy's room, one week later (18 days due to returns to the past), Friday, 9:00 PM: Sissy was passing by on her way back to her own room when she stopped, hearing a heated argument going on in Jeremy's room. The door was open barley a crack but it was enough to let her hear some of the fight Jeremy and Aelita were having. She caught bits and pieces about school work, course material, experiments, she even thought she heard Ulrich mentioned. After five more minutes of fighting with nothing being said that helped her make sense of what she was hearing they stopped. Thinking that Aelita was going to come storming out of the room and remembering the murderous look in Aelita's eyes from just over a week ago Sissy pulled away from the door and headed towards the stairs as calmly as she could manage. Half way to the stairs and still not having heard the telltale slamming of Jeremy's door she turned and quietly walked back. There was no sound coming from the room anymore, leaving Sissy to wonder what was going on in there.
Jeremy cut himself off as he realized that they were now fighting for no good reason. He sat down heavily on his bed and after a few moments hesitation Aelita did the same. Looking at him sadly she scooted over to him and put an arm around his waist, feeling reassured when he did the same. Together they sat in an uncomfortable silence considering what had just happened.
Aelita lay against Jeremy's shoulder considering the fight as well. She wondered why she didn't see the warning signs before it had come down to a fight. They were certainly there, both of them had complained to the other about the boredom, the frustration. How many times had she pulled Jeremy's hands away from rubbing his forehead to relieve a headache and instead brought him an aspirin and some water? How many times had he massaged her shoulders to relieve her tension? Then again that was the answer wasn't it? They had talked it out and taken care of each other, just like they were right now. They really needed a break, but she was shaken out of her thoughts by Jeremy's voice and actions before she could voice her suggestion.
Jeremy recognized, a little late, that the fight wasn't about Ulrich's curriculum. They had gotten one week's worth of sleep for two weeks worth of waking time. Worse, there was hardly any play time in that mix since they were the designated homework helpers, had their own assignments and had to design Lyoko experiments. The Lyoko labs turned out to be harder than they had initially thought since there were no math or chemistry lessons provided, only the simulation engine and raw data was present meaning they had to write every lesson from scratch. The physical stress of their Lyoko transfers, added to the boredom of school work, on top of the lack of sleep was beginning to push them over the edge. This fight was a wake-up call, a warning that things had to change and they had to change now. First though, he needed to apologize to the angel beside him. "I'm sorry. I'm tired and frustrated but there's no excuse for taking it out on you." His voice was low but warm and full of apology. He started to rub her side, blushing heavily and hoping this would help relax her.
"It's ok, it's not like you started this one, and I feel the same way." She laid her head on his shoulder and felt him settle his head against hers. She continued in a soft voice, "It's amazing though. Not five minutes ago we were yelling at each other now here we are cuddling."
Jeremy, still rubbing Aelita's side gently, offered a suggestion based on her statement and his own realization: "Yes it is. Maybe we should spend the rest of the evening like this, in the past two weeks we haven't had any alone time to just enjoy each other's company, you know?"
Purring softly under Jeremy's light touch she replied, "I'd say we've earned it."
"Angel?"
"Yes Jeremy," Aelita answered, now starting to feeling groggy.
"I think we need to back off of Lyoko and the return trips. Our fight might well be a warning sign that we're pushing ourselves too hard."
Aelita couldn't hold back her surprise as she replied, "How did you come to that conclusion." A pause. "Not that I mind or think your wrong."
"What we were fighting over isn't as important as why we were fighting. We were fighting because we could, because we were both unable to debate like we normally do. That's a bad sign, one that I've learned the hard way not to ignore."
"I'm glad you realize it," Aelita said warmly. "Do you mind if I sleep for the rest of the time we have before curfew?"
Jeremy checked that his alarm was set then replied, "Not at all, in fact I might just join you." Jeremy sounded as tired as she felt. She closed her eyes and let the sensation of Jeremy rubbing her side wash over her. Tired and finally able to relax she drifted off to sleep with Jeremy following her to dreamland shortly after.
The entire conversation had been conducted in a hushed tone that Sissy couldn't hear. Growing tired of waiting for something to happen, Sissy pushed the door open very slowly. She saw the two teens sitting together, strangely still. Gritting her teeth she crept into the room and realized that they were sound asleep. Sissy snapped a few pictures with her camera phone, amazed that the noise didn't wake them. She snuck out of the room, turning off the light on her way out. Now she had options, if Aelita didn't leave at curfew she could get them into serious trouble. If Aelita did leave on time, she still had the picture.
--
Kadic Academy, Outside the Library, Friday, 8:48 PM: "Yumi, I'm sorry." Ulrich was trying, and mostly failing, to keep the tone of his voice civil.
"You're sorry! I work three times as hard as I need to so that I can help you get your grades up. Jeremy and Aelita haven't gotten to go on a real first date because they're too busy helping you. Odd's been laying off the late night gaming and music so that you can concentrate and he's actually been studying to impress your father. All of this so you can stay here and now this! And. Your. Sorry. What the hell is wrong with you, skipping out on a report like that." Yumi made no such attempt at concealing her anger.
"Look, I'll do the damn report tomorrow." Ulrich yelled back.
"Great, you'll do it tomorrow. When? Gym class in the morning? Maybe during your math session with Aelita? No I'll bet you can you can do it while working with Jeremy on chemistry." Yumi's voice was literally dripping with sarcasm.
"Fine, I'll do it on Sunday then." Ulrich spat back. Even with the returns to the past there was too much to do and not enough time. After classes on Saturday he had tutoring with the Kadic staff. Then in the evening Jeremy and Aelita would work with him and Odd on different subjects. The original plan had been to leave Sunday as a day off for everyone.
"Great," Yumi screamed. "We can all give up another day to your stupidity and selfishness."
"You know what, I didn't ask for help. You volunteered."
"What the hell was I supposed to do, let you fail out and ruin our future just to spite your father?"
"At least I'd be happy." Ulrich screamed back.
The statement hit Yumi as if it was a ton of bricks. "Happy," she repeated slowly, " You'd be happy to be gone?" She turned and ran, not wanting Ulrich to see how badly hurt she was.
It wasn't until after Yumi had run off that Ulrich realized how Yumi had taken what he had said. As he retreated back to his own room his head was spinning. "Was this it," he wondered. Had he really just broken up with her? Why? Over the course of the past week, two weeks he reminded himself, he and Yumi had both grown increasingly more irritable. They knew how to push each other's buttons and had been using that to vent on each other. He wished for a XANA attack that he knew wouldn't come. He missed XANA right now. XANA had always given him a way to work off his troubles and pull him back to Yumi.
--
"Yumi, wait up" Odd shouted at the running girl. "Come on Yumi, please wait, I just want to talk" he pleaded.
After being followed halfway home she stopped and allowed Odd to catch up. He was panting heavily and sweating when he finally game to a stop a couple of feet in front of her. "What is there to talk about Odd," she said harshly.
Taking a moment to catch his breath he started, still panting a little, "Your upset and maybe you have every right to be but this hasn't been easy on any of us. Do you remember when XANA took control of the return to the past program?"
"Yes" answered Yumi curtly.
"I think the constant studying coupled with all the return trips is driving us all crazy. Even Jeremy and Aelita are suffering."
"We've used the time program hundreds of times its never affected us this way before."
"Never this frequently. The one time we did we all wanted to sleep for a week. Remember?"
"I don't remember it making everyone go crazy, just tiring us out." She was yelling now.
Odd figured that in this state he had no chance of convincing her that the stress was getting to them but he wasn't one to give up. "We had the adrenaline rush of a XANA attack, it wasn't the same boring routine."
"You know what Odd, I don't care anymore. Ulrich said it himself, he'd be happier gone, so let him leave."
"He doesn't want to leave, he's just upset. He's drowning in work."
Yumi cut him off "So am I. So are Jeremy and Aelita. In fact you're the only one who seems to have any free time."
"That's not. OUCH!" Odd screamed out in pain as Yumi swept his feet out from under him.
"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT ODD. LEAVE ME ALONE BEFORE I BEAT YOU SENSELESS." Yumi screamed at the top of her lungs.
He looked her over, her face was taunt and her mouth curled into a frown. She was holding a fighting stance with her hands balled into a fist so tight her knuckles were white. Her body was screaming power, like a tightly coiled spring waiting to lash out. He could tell that her next response to anything he said was not going to be in words. He ran, hoping he would have better luck with Ulrich.