Slipping

"C'mon Ulrich, hurry up!" Odd shouted at his best friend as they rode through the sewers to the old abandoned factory.

"I'm going as fast as I can, Odd!" Ulrich shouted back with a frown. There was something wrong with his skateboard, that or he was losing his touch.

"Well it's not fast enough! I won!" Odd shouted as he reached the ladder.

Ulrich sighed and when he got there Odd was already waiting at the top for him. Today wasn't his day. First, embarrassing photos of him got to Milly and Tamiya and so everyone was laughing at him all day. Odd swore up and down he didn't do it, but laughed with the rest of them. Then, he got chewed out by Mrs. Hertz for the second or third time that week. Not to mention after that he slipped in the cafeteria and his food landed all over him, so he missed lunch. If only to taunt him more Kiwi decided today was a good day to think of Ulrich as a fire hydrant.

Ulrich knew that Odd was just teasing him, but it didn't mean that it didn't bother him. Listening to Odd talk about how he should wear red from now on and just stand in front of their door didn't help make his day better either.

"Alright everyone, we need to get some information from Carthage. I want Ulrich and Aelita to go first and I'll keep Odd here as back up while we wait for Yumi. I don't expect Xana to just sit back and watch us while we get the information either, so be on high alert," Jeremie said, turning back to the computer.

All three nodded and went to their respectively locations.

(*)(*)(*)(*) Later in Jeremie's dorm (*)(*)(*)(*)

"Ulrich, you're sure you're alright?" Jeremie asked for what seemed to be the hundredth time that day.

"I'm fine, Jer. Nothing happened," he replied, same as the last times.

"I'm making sure. You never know what can happen when the materialization program bugs up like that."

Ulrich nodded and looked at the ceiling again. He had nothing better to do, so he ended up hanging out in Jeremie's room to try and get some homework done, though that was the least of his worries. Why am I screwing up so bad lately? I couldn't protect Aelita from those monsters, I can't win a race against Odd, and everything else just seems to be slipping as well. Something's not right….

"Your friends are leaving you in the dust…."
Ulrich looked around quickly, trying to find the source of the voice. He didn't see anything and Jeremie didn't seem to notice it at all.

"You're not getting stronger or smarter and so they're leaving you behind."

"Jeremie, did you hear anything?" Ulrich asked, not even bothering to look around this time.

"Other than the sound of your foot tapping against the floor? No. Aren't you supposed to be working on your homework, Ulrich?" Jeremie asked, turning around and giving him a quizzical look before returning to his work.

Ulrich let out another sigh and closed his book. "Nope, I get done."

"Ulrich, if you don't step up then you're gonna end up being left behind," Jeremie told him as he left the room.

"He's right…. They're just going to leave you behind and then you'll be alone."
Ulrich shook his head and went back to his and Odd's dorm. Surprisingly enough Odd wasn't there. Normally at this time of night Odd was in their dorm listening to music.

He laid down on his bed and commenced staring at the ceiling again. It helped him think. What if I am just nothing? What if I have just reached my limit?

-
He stood in front of a tower, seemingly waiting for something or someone to come out.

"Ulrich, what do you think you're doing? … You've done it now! Aelita's been devirtualized!" Jeremie's voice rang out.

Almost instantaneously he was back in the scanner room.

"Way to go, Ulrich," Odd said, sitting inside a scanner looking thoroughly beat up.

"What did you think you were doing, standing there staring at the tower?" Yumi snapped, glaring daggers at him.

"This has been happening too much lately, Ulrich. You're not getting things done, you're falling behind everyone, and you can barely protect Aelita," Jeremie said as he entered the room from the elevator.

Ulrich couldn't say anything, because he knew it was true. His friends were surpassing him….

"Aelita would have been better off on her own out there," Yumi stated, arms crossed against her chest.

"Even Odd did better than you, and that's saying something," Jeremie stated, walking over to close the half-circle his friends were making. It felt like they were closing him in.

"Hey, even I've never been that bad, Jeremie," Odd stated, looking over to the other blond and then over to Ulrich.

"You can't protect Aelita anymore…."
"You're not getting any better…."

"You're worse than Odd used to be…."

Voiced jumbled in his head in a flurry of sound and images. Every failure that he'd ever made, every mistake he'd done, every accident that lead to something bad…. All of them were flashing before him.

"You're never going to be strong enough for them, Ulrich…."

Ulrich jolted awake. He looked over at the alarm clock and groaned. He'd fallen asleep, slept through dinner, through the night, and part way through first period.

"Great, just great," he mumbled, hurriedly getting dressed and racing to class.

(*)(*)(*)(*) Courtyard (*)(*)(*)(*)

Ulrich looked up through the tree leaves to the sky. He had a detention this afternoon for being tardy, Odd had laughed at him, and his friends seemed to be avoiding him. He'd finally given up and sat out here….

You can't find something that doesn't want to be found…. Or someone, in this case….
He was starting to get accustomed to the voice in his head. Maybe it was words of wisdom he never knew he could think up. Truth of the matter was, though, that his friends were nowhere to be found, they weren't answering his texts or calls, and he was left sitting alone underneath a tree while other students walked by and called him names. No one was going to let those forged photos die….

A/N: Not a lot to say. xD Next chapter will be mostly, if not all, in Ulrich's point of view. =3

Hopefully I can do better with updating…. -_-"""" Though that all depends on whether I can get Microsoft Word will work... -_-""" I only have two more chapters done other than this one. Wish me luck! =D

~MoonlitxAngel