Chapter Text
The Hermitage hadn’t changed since the day they had found it. It reeked of a musty odor coming from the layers of dust that build up over the years. Furniture was tipped over, books still scattered over the grounds, and wallpaper was faded and peeling. Even with it’s disheveled state, it made the perfect place to discuss Lyoko matters far away from prying ears. Jeremie had taken a spot on the loveseat, laptop nestled in his lap, the rest of the group seated around him. Ulrich included.
“Any progress?” Odd asked, seated on the floor, body slumped over his knees.
Jeremie readjusted his glasses. “Not yet I’m afraid, but I came up with an idea to get the police off of our back for a while.” He paused. “And it would give Ulrich a body to use.”
Ulrich perked up.
“You said that Xana had Ulrich’s body under lock and key,” Yumi said, narrowing her eyes.
“Well… Yes, Ulrich’s body is still under Xana’s control, but, remember how last year Xana sent us that clone of Yumi?” Jeremie said, “That means the supercomputer can make a genetic copy of a being within it’s database. It’s likely that’s how Xana was able to materialize the Kankerlats, and Krabes in the past. If I can find a way to mimic what Xana did with the Yumi clone, I may be able to make a clone of Ulrich’s body for him to possess.”
Ulrich stared at Jeremie. A clone. A clone he could possess . Granted it wouldn’t be his body, he still wanted that back, but at least he would be able to touch things again, to be heard, to be seen . It would all be over. It would all be over.
“I’ve already begun digging around last night,” Jeremie continued.
“Anything we can do to speed this all up?” Yumi asked, waving her hand around.
“I’m afraid not,” he said, shaking his head. “I promise though I’ll be working as hard as I can.”
“And don’t forget I’ll be lending a helping hand. I might not be as good as Jeremie, but I still know the ins and outs of the supercomputer. Literally and figuratively,” Aelita added.
“Hey Jeremie, do you think you could find some way to let Ulrich talk with us while your at it?” Odd spoke up. “It’s not exactly fair to be discussing all of this without him,”
“And I’m getting a little tired of talking to myself all the time,” Ulrich snickered.
“Why don’t you try an Ouija board!” Aelita joked, “He’s practically a ghost anyway, who knows it might work!”
Ulrich rolled his eyes. “It hasn’t been more than a week and you guys are already acting like I died or something.”
“You know… That’s not all that bad idea…”
“Come on Odd, You can’t be seriously considering it!” Ulrich sneered.
“Anything else you need to go over or are we free to go?” Yumi asked, crossing her arms.
“Actually… There has been one thing still on my mind,” Jeremie said, rubbing the back of his neck, “We… might need to consider bringing someone else into the group.”
“We already went over this. William isn’t joining-” Yumi fought.
“It doesn’t have to be William,” Jeremie argued back, “just someone that can fill in Ulrich’s shoes.” Jeremie got to his feet. “Don’t bother lying. I know we’ve all felt Ulrich’s loss on Lyoko. The three of you aren’t built for the close combat that Ulrich specializes in. Sure you guys are great against Creepers, Hornets, or Mantas, but what about Krabes or Bloks? And now with Xana having Ulrich’s body—we need to face the facts. We need another member.”
“And who exactly do you have in mind? Sissi?” Yumi sneered.
“Oh god , do not make Sissi a Lyoko warrior,” Ulrich groaned, “I get pestered by her enough in the real world, I don’t want to deal with it in Lyoko too!”
“We don’t have to decide right now, it’s just something to really start thinking about,” Jeremie said.
“Anything else you want to say and waste more time?” Yumi asked.
“No, that's it.” Jeremie raises his hands in mock surrender.
“Good. My free-period is almost up, and Delmas is cracking down on me about my tardiness,” Yumi said, rolling her eyes, “He’s making me help out the photography club after school for a week as a punishment.”
“That sounds like it could be a little fun,” Aelita said, with a smile.
“Not when a certain Casanova is in the club,” Yumi groaned, “The last thing I need is him making goo-goo eyes at me the entire time.”
“Yeah, now that Ulrich is gone William is going to have to be working over time,” Odd quipped.
“Odd! ” Ulrich snapped, flushing scarlet.
Yumi snatched the threadbare throw pillow from under her, hitting Odd over the head as hard as she could.
“Hey! Aelita, Jeremie, she hit me!” Odd protested.
“Children, can we please behave?” Aelita asked, her voice flat.
“Yumi started it,” Odd mumbled under his breath as Yumi sank into her seat, arms crossed and rolling her eyes.
“Come on everyone-” Jeremie said, standing up from his seat, “-we need to get back to Kadic.”
The others pushed themselves up from where they were seated, and started their trek back to Kadic. “Hey Aelita, do you really think Ulrich might be able to talk with an Ouija board?” Odd asked, walking up beside her.
"I'm not exactly sure. He's not a ‘real ghost,’ so we have no idea on exactly what he can and cannot affect," she explained. "Besides, I was only joking."
She flashed him a wry smile before moving to catch up with Jeremie. Odd watched her walk beside Jeremie, talking in low voices with a slightly sour expression. Pressing his lips together, he opened Google on his phone and started typing away. There was something he needed to look into.
Ulrich followed along silently, watching his friends as they trekked to their classes. He followed.
One by one they began peeling off until he watched Aelita wave goodbye to Jeremie, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the busy hallway. As people stepped through him and he lost sight of his friends, he wondered why he was even following them to class in the first place. He didn't have to go to class.
Ulrich Stern was a missing person after all, and there wasn't a greater excuse in the world to miss class!
(But, what else was there to do?)
Sure, he could go see a movie—no one could see him, meaning there was no one to stop him from entering whatever theater he wanted—hell, he could go wherever he wanted in the city!
(But after seeing the same movie three times, walking through the staff only entrances, and catching a few late night bands in town, it got boring. When you couldn’t sleep, it didn’t matter how busy you tried to keep yourself, you eventually ran out of things to do. No amount of standing watch over his sleeping friends would change that.)
Those things had gotten dull. Ulrich turned on his heel and started walking towards Odd’s classroom, defeated and ready to suffer through another ungraded English lesson, when he felt something like a shock.
It had him frozen in place, incorporeal hands trying to find the place on his chest that had just felt something— oh my god—but couldn’t find anything that seemed amiss. Without anyone to talk to, or literally anything to physically interact with, was he going crazy?
Gasping for air, alone, Ulrich wondered how many sleepless nights and ignored conversations it took before someone went off the deep end.
Instead of walking towards any of his friends’ classes, Ulrich let his feet take him wherever they pleased as he weighed the merits of possessing someone to try and tell the gang that something—something hesitantly good was happening.
He pressed his fist against his chest, trying to chase the echo of that sensation.
Odd slammed down an unopened package on the cafeteria table, a wide smile on his face. "Someone is in a chipper mood this morning!" Aelita chuckled, "What did you get?"
"Well, I was thinking about your idea of using a Ouji board so Ulrich could talk to us!" Odd started, sliding into his seat, "So I did some research last night and I found this-" He opened up the package, pulling out a box-looking device.
Jeremie paused from typing on his computer. "What is that?"
Odd's smile grew wider. "This, my friend, is a Spirit Box. It's what the pros use on ghost hunting shows!"
"Odd, you know those shows are fake right?" Jeremie asked, raising an eyebrow.
Odd scoffed. "Only the ones that have been going on for like, 10 seasons or so. But anyway, all of the ghost hunting message boards I found vouched that this was the best model to get!"
"How does it work?" Aelita asked.
"It cycles through radio stations at a really fast pace so it pauses on a station whenever a ghost says a word or phrase! You press this button to turn it on-" A loud blaring noise erupted from the speaker of the box, forcing Jeremie and Aelita to cover their ears. Odd hurried to shut it off, earning glares from Jeremie and Aelita, along with other students sitting around them.
"Jesus fucking Christ Odd, I don't think she wanted a demonstration!" Jeremie scolded.
"Sorry, I didn't realize the people who made it decided to set the volume to max," Odd winced, rolling his eyes.
"Maybe you and Ulrich should mess around with that somewhere deep, deep in the woods to spare our eardrums," Aelita suggested with a pitiful laugh.
Odd slipped the spirit box back into his bag. He dug into his breakfast, trying to force down dry toast and tasteless oatmeal all while avoiding the gazes of Jeremie and Aelita.
“What was that?” Yumi asked as she walked over to the trio.
“Odd’s newest toy,” Aelita answered. She looked at Yumi puzzled. “What are you doing here? Classes don’t start for another half hour, and you’re never here this early.”
Yumi leaned back in her seat with a huff. “Hiroki told my parents about… him , and now they won’t leave me alone, no matter how many fucking times I tell them I’m fine!” She crossed her arms, glaring out the window. “I’d rather be here than deal with all of that bull.”
“Well… How about we share some more uplifting news!” Aelita suggested, the tension in the air staring to suffocate her, “Jeremie and I got started with on the basic framework for our ‘project’.” She nudged Jeremie.
Jeremie looked up from his laptop, adjusting his glasses. “Well, like Aelita mentioned, it's only the basic framework. When it’s complete, we only really plan on it being able to perform basic bodily functions, and respond to basic commands. Y’know, just in case Ulrich needs to leave it for any reason, then we won’t have the clone just standing there in the middle of a Xana attack,” he explained, “It’ll be awhile before I can get it up running, maybe in around four or five days.”
“Can’t you get it working any sooner?” Odd asked.
“Maybe?” Jeremie shrugged. “If I pulled an all nighter, skipped a few classes and meals-”
“So why don’t you?” Yumi snapped, not caring for the shock on Aelita’s face. “You didn’t seem to have any problem doing that when it was to bring your precious Aelita to earth.” She spat out the words with poison, making Jeremie shrink in his seat.
“Well-”
“And it was hardly effective!” Aelita butted in. “Most of the errors we had with my materialization program were ones that Jeremie had made because he was too tired to double check his work!” The red faded from her vision allowing her to see she was practically standing on the table, looming over Yumi. People were staring at them. She sunk back into her seat, avoiding the gazes of her friends. “If you want it done quickly, then it’s best for you to back off and let him do it right .”
Withdrawn from the argument happening only inches away, Odd sat slumped back in his seat. “I hope Ulrich is having a better morning than us…” Odd muttered, lifelessly poking at the unfinished breakfast on his plate. “What do you think he does all day?” he asked, looking at the group.
Jeremie had paused. “I’m not too sure… Without a physical body, Ulrich isn’t exactly able to interact well with anything really.” Shrugging, he added “I’m sure he found something to keep him occupied-”
Odd’s ringtone cut Jeremie off, as Odd fumbled to fish his phone from his pants pocket. When he pressed it to his ear, all of the color drained from Odd’s face. “It’s Ulrich.”
Yumi’s head whipped around. “What?!”
Odd set his phone on the table. “I-It’s on speaker phone, good buddy! Everyone can hear you.” There was a smile on his face that hadn’t been seen since ‘the incident’.
The group crowded around with bated breath. “Ya’ know I wasn’t expecting a party or anything, but the least you guys could’ve done was be there to greet me,” Ulrich said in a playful tone. Ulrich said.
Ulrich said.
The group ignored the shouts of their classmates as they barreled out of the cafeteria.
Odd pounded the ‘down’ button for the elevator. “Come on, come on!” he said through gritted teeth.
“It’s not going to go any faster the more times you hit it,” Aelita chided.
Odd looked away from the control panel. “I just—do you really think it’s him in there?” His voice was soft.
“What do you mean?” Yumi asked, narrowing her eyes.
“We have never had good luck with these things! We finish Aelita’s materialization program, but she’s still tied to the supercomputer. Turns out she was human all along, and Xana escapes the computer. We finally get a bit ahead of Xana with the new program and Ulrich—” Odd stopped, “I just-”
He squeezed his eyes shut as he collected himself. “I’m tired of the rug being pulled out on us. I just want us to get one good thing that stays good.”
Before anyone could really weigh Odd’s words, the elevator jerked to a stop with an unholy clanking of gears. Jeremie’s lips thinned as the doors opened, hesitance now coloring his features. Odd—despite himself—was right. Xana always found a way to get a leg up on them every time something good came around, and getting thwarted at every turn made Jeremie a bit more paranoid than the average person.
Of course he had his doubts about the whole situation: despite that the superscanner had yet to go off, he was half-expecting the factory to be empty. Computer generating a voice Xana had heard a half dozen times? Light work.
The one thing Xana couldn’t replicate was Ulrich though, and if he was truly standing on the other side of the doors Jeremie wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. (It wouldn’t eliminate the fact that Xana would have done them a favor, and that didn’t bode well. If he gave Ulrich back, it meant he had something even bigger up his sleeve.)
Ulrich leaned against the farthest scanner, flashing a lopsided smile. “It’s about time! I was wondering if you guys had forgotten about me!”
Odd took a cautious step forward. “Is it really you?”
Ulrich cocked his head, confusion seeping into his easy grin. “Yeah? Who else.”
In half the time it took for Jeremie to sigh in relief Odd had lunged, wrapping his arms around Ulrich’s neck with enough force to nearly send them to the floor. It wasn’t long until he was choking down tears, trying (and failing) to keep it together.
Though his mind was struggling to reconcile the fact that Ulrich was gone and now suddenly he was back, the smell of the detergent that Ulrich always used, the scar he had gotten from a previous Xana attack, and the hole where he cut his tag from his shirt were all too real. It was him. Ulrich was home. Odd stepped back ruddy cheeked and sniffling, but smiling all the same.
Ulrich had opened his arms when Odd came barreling towards him, but was regarding the group with a look of confusion still. “Uh, not that I’m not glad to see you guys too, but I get the sense that I’m missing something?”
Aelita was the first to snap out of her trance.
“There was a problem with the virtualization program and you—well. Xana exploited that problem to separate you from your physical body.”
Ulrich stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
“Xana rerouted your physical body, we couldn’t get you back,” Jeremie added. “How are you here?”
“No clue. One second I’m in the scanner, it goes dark for a bit, and then the scanner’s opening,” Ulrich shrugged. “I didn’t even know anything went wrong.”
Yumi took the moment to crush Ulrich into a quick hug, taking Odd’s place. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Cheeks dusted in pink from the sudden hug, Ulrich said, “I mean…I feel fine. I thought it was a normal scan.”
Jeremie shook his head. “But that doesn’t fully make sense. Why would Xana just… give you back? He’s probably planning to do something else, but I don’t know—”
“—Maybe you were just wrong,” Yumi cut in. “It wouldn’t be the first time. You were wrong about Aelita having a virus.”
“We didn’t know better!” Aelita said, putting herself between Jeremie and Yumi.
Ulrich put a hand on Yumi’s shoulder. “Come on guys, let’s just be thankful that whatever you guys did worked, and I’m back,” he said sheepishly. “We might actually want to get back to Kadic. I’m sure the heat on you guys has been pretty bad today.”
“No kidding. The sooner you’re back in class, the sooner the teachers can get off our backs,” Odd said with a laugh, patting Ulrich on the back.
Ulrich let out a mock groan. “I’m not looking forward to making up my english quiz.”
“Dude, you have no clue. It’s been almost a week. We need to stage like, a recovery mission for the cops or something.”
“What?”
Ulrich noted how silent the dorms got once classes started. He probably always knew that, before he had to spend long stretches of time with nothing to do. At least Kiwi was mildly interesting. He was a break in the routine of silence and boredom. Ulrich sat on the floor in front of his bed watching the mutt take a rubber bone, toss it off of his bed (something Ulrich had stopped protesting a while ago, since it was pointless trying to stop a dog without hands), and leap down to bring it back to his previous spot. Ulrich figured it was a game Kiwi often played with himself when they were gone.
“Guess we both do things to keep the boredom away huh boy?” he asked. Kiwi looked up at him, giving a sharp yip in response. Ulrich chuckled to himself.
The door swung open, drawing both Ulrich and Kiwi’s attention. Odd stepped into the room, looking leagues better than the past few days. It made Ulrich feel relieved, but also a part of him deep down felt bitter. Of course he was happy that Odd was doing better, but the thought that it only took—what?—less than a week to move on was sickening.
“Me and the Einsteins will try and get a cover story straight, so you’ll be keeping Kiwi company in the meantime,” Odd said, guiding someone into the room. A chill went over Ulrich’s nonexistent body as he watched himself step through the door.
“What the hell…” Ulrich asked, feeling lightheaded. Jeremie had thrown out the idea of making a clone body for him yesterday—that had to be it. It was weird and unexpected, but he and Aelita must have managed to crack the code faster than they expected. That was it. That had to be it.
For a glorified puppet, Ulrich thought, It moved realistically.
Suddenly Kiwi let out a low growl, his hackles standing on end.
“Kiwi! What are you doing!” Odd scolded, “I know it’s been a few days but you still remember Ulrich!”
The other him flashed a lop-sided smile. His smile.
“He’s probably upset about having to give up my bed,” the imposter laughed, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“He doesn’t normally act this way,” Odd said, leaning down and scratching behind Kiwi’s ears despite the dog’s huffing.
“He’ll come around soon enough,” Not-Ulrich said, plopping down on his bed with a yawn. “Man, I missed my bed. I think those five days are catching up to me.”
Ulrich swore he felt the chest he didn’t have tighten. What the hell was going on?
Odd grabbed his backpack, shoving his half-completed schoolwork into the larger compartment. “I’ve got to go. Hopefully we can come up with something quick, and you’ll be back in class by the end of the day!”
“If that’s the case then go ahead and take your sweet time!” Not-Ulrich laughed, as Odd closed the door. The cheer melted from Not-Ulrich’s face like oil the moment the door clicked. Face blank, he stared at the ceiling before nestling himself into the bed a bit more.
Ulrich shakily got to his feet, his eyes never leaving the copy, as he tentatively approached the bedside. When he was looming over the imposter, scanning every inch of its face for imperfections, for tells—something—its eyes flickered to a symbol he was all too familiar with.
(One he’d only ever seen reflected in other people’s eyes.)
Xana sat on his bed, in his body, and no one had noticed.