“Oh my God! Ulrich, how did you do that?”
    “What?” Sissi, the most annoying girl Ulrich had ever known, stared at him in awe. Granted, he was used to this, Sissi had been crazy about him since kindergarten. When he was little, he used to find it flattering, now he simply found her “undying affection” annoying. “What happened?”
    “Are you blind?” Sissi exclaimed, “you just ran around the field so fast I could barely see you!”
    “What?!” just then his cell phone rang.
    “Ulrich?” said the voice on the other end. It was Jeremie.
    “Hey, what is it?”
    “What Is it ever?” said Jeremie sarcastically, “Get down to the factory, NOW.” He hung up without saying a word.
    “Great,” said Ulrich under his breath, “Look Sissi, I gotta go.”
    “Where are you going?” she asked as he began to run away.
    “Nowhere,” he said, and began running faster then he knew.
                                                            *
    What would usually take at least ten minutes to run, Ulrich managed in two. When he finally managed to stop running long enough to grab a hanging rope and swing down to an elevator, he was somewhat startled by the fact that he wasn’t tired at all. Even running normally caused him to at least pant when he was done, this caused no side effects at all. He pressed the “up button” on the elevator and was brought up to the main control room of the factory.
    Anyone, even someone who couldn’t run at the speed of light, could have figured out by looking at the control room that this was not a normal factory. In the center of the room was a large holographic globe, detailing what looked like a large island with four different parts to it. Next to that was a giant computer with extremely complex coding on the screen and a huge moving chair in front of it.
    “Good, you’re here,” The chair in front of the computer turned, revealing a short, blond haired teenager with glasses. The complex coding on the computer could only be understood by a genius, and Jeremie Belpois was just that.
    “Hey Jeremie, I think we have issues,” it was the only think Ulrich could think to say at the time.
    “No kidding,” said Jeremie. He looked stressed, way more stressed than usual. He looked like he had a lot to say, like he maybe wanted to scream, but was brilliantly holding it all inside. Ulrich knew exactly what that felt like.
    “So where is everybody?” asked Ulrich, looking around at the empty room.
    “I just called Odd,” he said, “Yumi’s down in the scanner room checking something for me, and Aelita’s…”
    “Right here,” a girl with pink hair and a pink t-shirt with jeans came walking over from behind the globe/map. Ulrich was surprised, as Aelita normally wore something completely different.
    “What’s with the outfit?” he asked.
    “It was getting annoying having to run to the factory and back in a skirt,” she said, “so Yumi loaned me some old jeans of hers.”
    “Great,” said Ulrich, not really caring. He had only asked to lighten the mood a bit, not that he was very good at that sort of thing. Talking was awkward for Ulrich, he would have preferred to not speak at all. “Where’s Yumi again?”
“In the scanner room,” said Aelita, “no wait, never mind,” the elevator doors opened, and in walked a tall Japanese teenager. There were scratches and cuts all over face and what you could see of her arms.
    “Yumi, what happened?” Ulrich asked upon seeing her.
    “Jeremie hasn’t filled you in yet I’m guessing,” she said, “it was an accident with some rocks…and telekinesis.”
    “What?” Ulrich turned and looked immediately back at Jeremie, “Um…Jeremie?”
    “Something’s wrong,” said Jeremie, “VERY wrong.”
    “So I’ve noticed,” said Ulrich, “What exactly is it?”
    “Where do I start?” said Jeremie, “All of us, Yumi, Odd, Aelita, me and you, we all have two different identities. There’s the normal one we have on Earth, like at school, and then there’s the Lyoko identity, or our Lyoko forms. Somehow, I don’t know how, our two different identities are starting to combine into one constant form.”
    “Um…”
    “What it basically means,” said Aelita, “Is that all our powers from Lyoko, Yumi’s telekinesis, my creativity, they’re starting surface in the real world.”
    “Oh,” said Ulrich, “That explains a lot.”
    “No kidding,” said Yumi, looking down at her scratches and bruises, “so what do we do?”
    “Well for now,” said Jeremie, typing something into the computer, “we just try our best to control our powers in the real world.”
    “Get used to running slowly Ulrich,” said Yumi, “We can’t risk anyone noticing,”
    “Too late,” said Ulrich, sighing, “Sissi already saw me run around the field”
    “Like on Lyoko?” said Aelita, “that fast?”
    "Yep,”
    “At least you didn’t clone yourself,” said Yumi.
    “Yeah,” Ulrich looked down at the floor. In all honestly, the thought of cloning himself right then and there, when he wasn’t just a digital form, was a little odd. Would they look like he did then, in a green t-shirt and baggy pants, or would they look like they did on Lyoko? What would happen if he accidentally cloned himself in class or something? Or in front of his parents…
    “Ulrich?” Yumi asked, “You ok?”
    “Yeah, I’m fine.” He looked at his watch, “So are we going to Lyoko or anything? I kind of have a soccer practice in ten minutes…”
    “No!” said Jeremie, “No soccer! What if you accidentally super sprint across the field or something?”
    “I’ll be careful,” said Ulrich.
    “It’s probably not a good idea,” said Yumi, “I mean look at me, I wasn’t thinking and accidentally sent some rocks crashing down with my mind.”
    “Fine,” said Ulrich blankly, “no soccer, but can I at least go back to my room? I need a walk.”
    “Go ahead,” said Jeremie, “Just no running.”
    “You sound like a lifeguard,” said Yumi.
    “He sort of is,” said Ulrich, quietly, “we all are.” He turned, before they could respond, and walked into the elevator. Behind him, he could hear his friends still speaking
    “Jeremie…how-“ was the last thing he heard before the elevator took him too far away.
                                                           *

    When he got back into his room something was up. His roommate’s dog, Kiwi, looked up when he came in, but didn’t rush up to him like usual. Instead, the dog was curled up at the foot of his master’s bed. His master, Ulrich’s roommate, was in the midst of what looked like an extremely fitful sleep.
    “Odd?” Ulrich ventured.
    “ULRICH!!” Odd sat strait up, eyes wide. “Ulrich!” he said, panicked.
    “What is it?”
    “You’re going to stub your toe on the side of my bed!”
    “What?”
    “You’re going to stub your toe on the side of my bed,” said Odd, no longer panicked, with his normal mischievous smile.
    “That’s stupid Odd,” said Ulrich, walking over towards Odd’s bed, “How would you – ow!” he stubbed his toe on the bed post of Odd’s metal bed, “precognition, right.”
    “Told you!” said Odd, “It’s been happening all day. This morning I was walking to the shower and had a vision of William slipping on a bar of soap, sure enough when I got in there, SPLAT! William slipped, just I like I saw.”
    “Wow,” said Ulrich
    “Yeah, and the weird thing is it kept happening! After I left the showers, I had a vision of Sissi bumping into me and about five seconds later, she did! By lunch it got so bad that I couldn’t look at anyone without seeing exactly what was about to happen to them. So, I did the only thing I could think of, I came back here to take a nap, trying to clear my head, but I kept having this recurring vision of you stubbing your toe,” he stared off into the distance for a moment, “And now, or actually, in a few seconds, you’re going to trip over my sneakers, fall back onto your bed and hit your head against the wall.”
    “No I’m not…” said Ulrich, who then proceeded to step backwards, trip, fall, and hit his head. “Ow! Stop doing that!”
    “It’s not my fault!”
    “You’ve been seeing things constantly?”
    “Yeah, all day. It’s weird because on Lyoko it almost happened. I think I’ve had maybe six visions in the two years we’ve fought there, and now they’re coming to me so much it’s annoying.”
    “It’s happening to everyone,” said Ulrich, “Yumi almost killed herself by telepathically dropping a rock on herself or something…”
    “Ouch,” said Odd, “So Einstein knows? Did he say what to do?”
    “For now,” said Ulrich, lying down on his bed, “we’re just suppose to learn to control ourselves until he thinks of something to do.” He sighed and said, “which means I can’t go to soccer,” under his breath.
    “Don’t worry,” said Odd, “Things will get better, and I would know!” Odd smiled, but Ulrich paid no attention. The thought of having to explain to his parents why he suddenly couldn’t go to soccer anymore preoccupied him far too much to be cheered up.
                                                           *

When Ulrich woke up he was alone. Odd had apparently been up to going out to at least the factory, or so said the note left on his bed. The rest of the group was probably down there too, cheering up Jeremie or trying to figure something out. Ulrich really wasn’t in much of a cheering up mood, not that he ever was. He sighed and checked his mobile phone. There were four messages, one from his soccer coach, one from his parents who had no doubt been called by his soccer coach, and two from Jeremie. He opted not to listen to any of them. Instead, he walked down the hallways of the dorms and out the doors to the Kadic Academy campus.
Ulrich had always figured that by going away to boarding school, he wouldn’t have to deal with his parents anymore. With no one around to have to please, he could just be himself, whoever that was. As it turned out, his parent’s were still there. The “checked up” on him more then anyone else’s parents, they had regular “chats” with his teachers and coaches, and they were never pleased.
Ulrich kicked a rock and took a deep breath, holding his emotions inside. It was a practice he had gotten used to over his years at Kadic. He had always thought that showing his frustration with his parents and himself would do nothing. All it would get him was more concerned looks. It was better to just hold it all in and look like he didn’t care, about anything.
His phone rang, suddenly, and when he answered it, all he heard was white noise. “What the-“ he began. There was a rustling in the bushes before he could finish. Sissi and one of her “cronies”, Herb, came stomping out of the bushes on either side of him. Normally, this wouldn’t intimidate him, but this time, it wasn’t actually them.
“Great,” he said, “X.A.N.A,” X.A.N.A, the demonic artificial intelligence bent on world destruction and domination, had the ability to possess humans and objects to do his bidding. His main goal at the moment, was to kill Ulrich and his friends for finding and protecting Lyoko. They were the only one’s that could stop him. X.A.N.A.’s mark, the eye of X.A.N.A., shone in Sissi and Herb’s eyes as they lunged towards Ulrich, zombie-like. He ran, in what he assumed was the blink of an eye, far away from the clearing he was in. When he stopped, he was greeted by Jim the janitor and William Dunbar, both of them under X.A.N.A.’s control. He wanted to run, but as he looked for a clear exit from his situation, he noted that anyway he ran, someone would see him.
X.A.N.A-Jim held his arm out towards a supply shed near the road. Purple electricity surrounded his hand and shot towards the shed. The door swung open and metal gardening pitchfork, surrounded by the same purple electricity, came flying out towards Ulrich.
“Slow,” said a voice, and suddenly the purple electricity became a green glow. It slowed down until it looked like it was floating in mid-air. Ulrich looked behind him and saw Jeremie standing, arm outstretched, with his palm flat as if he was telling the pitchfork to stop. His had glowed the same green color as the pitchfork.
“Jeremie?”
“Grab the pitchfork!” he said. Quickly, Ulrich grabbed the extremely slow moving pitchfork out of the air. X.A.N.A-Jim and William looked momentarily confused, but soon went strait for Jeremie. He held up his hand, which started glowing green, and said, “stop.” Both X.A.N.A.-Jim and X.A.N.A.- William froze.
“Uh…Jeremie,” said Ulrich, “what just happened?”
“Odd told me you were here,” said Jeremie, “he had a vision…again. Anyway, X.A.N.A. is attacking us to try and get us to use our Lyoko powers in front of someone, he’s trying to expose us so we’ll get hauled away for “testing” or something, leaving Lyoko and the world completely defenseless!”
“No, I mean what did you just do?”
“Oh, right. I froze Jim and William in time, and slowed down time around the pitchfork,” Ulrich looked at him confused, “I do have a Lyoko form,” said Jeremie, “you’ve just never seen it. On Lyoko I have chronokinesis, or the ability to manipulate time.”
“What do you look like?”
Let’s not talk about that,” he said quickly, “we need to get to the factory, NOW!”
“Right,” said Ulrich, “I’ll meet you there,” he started to speed towards the factory, but felt himself being slowed down. He looked behind him, and saw Jeremie’s hand glowing.
“No running,” said Jeremie, “someone might see, it’s just what X.A.N.A. wants.”
“Good point,” said Ulrich, “but next time, will you let me know before you slow down time around me…or whatever it is you do…”
“Will do,” said Jeremie, “let’s go.”
*

    When Ulrich and Jeremie arrived at the control room, the were immediately met by panic.
    “Thank goodness you’re here!” said Aelita. She was on the floor with what looked like an unconscious Odd. Yumi beat her to the door.
    “Odd’s out cold,” she said. Ulrich rushed over to Odd on the floor.
    “What happened?” asked Jeremie.
    “I don’t know,” Yumi said, “he was going on about Ulrich or something and then grabbed his head and yelled in pain and fainted.”
    “He was talking about me?” Ulrich asked, “What did he say?”
    “Ulrich don’t you think there are more important things to be worrying about then what Odd was saying?”
    “Yumi, I just want to know.”
    “The world doesn’t revolve around you Ulrich!”
    “I didn’t think it did, I just wanted to know what he said!”
    “It doesn’t matter Ulrich! We have worse things to worry about right now so just…shut up!” she turned away.
    “Yumi, I…”
    “What?” There were so many things Ulrich wanted to say. It was moments like this where Ulrich’s policy of keeping his emotions private got the better of him. He had become so used to acting unfeeling, that he when he wanted to show his emotions, to even express himself, he couldn’t.
    “Nothing, Yumi…nothing at all.” Aelita stood up, desperate to change the mood.
    “We should go to Lyoko,” she said, “is it alright to leave Odd?”
    “I’ll take care of him,” said Jeremie, “go deactivate the tower, maybe whatever’s happening to us is the result of a tower activation.”
    “I hope it’s that easy,” said Aelita.
    “Aelita,”
    “Yes Jeremie?”
    “Be careful.” Aelita walked over to Jeremie and kissed him on the cheek.
    “You too,” she said smiling. Jeremie blushed and fell back into his chair. Ulrich looked at Yumi. He wished he could be as open with her as Jeremie and Aelita were.
    “To the scanners!” said Aelita.
                                                        *

    Ulrich had always loved going into Lyoko. After holding himself in all the time in the real world, fighting in Lyoko was where he was finally free to just let it all burst out. In Lyoko, he could run as fast as he wanted to without being seen, he could get out any frustration or anger simply by killing a few of X.A.N.A.’s monsters. It was here, he thought, that the true Ulrich Stern came out.
    His outfit in Lyoko was modeled off of a samurai, complete with the sword. This, combined with his already advanced martial arts skills, made him a force to be reckoned with among the monsters of Lyoko. Yumi, whose Lyoko outfit was modeled off of a geisha, had skills that matched Ulrich’s in every way but speed. The more he fought alongside her, the more he wanted to open up to her.
    “Jeremie?” said Yumi, during a quiet moment in between attacks by krabs,             “How’s Odd doing?” Jeremie, from the control room’s microphone answered.
    “He’s still out, I’ve got him hooked up to the supercomputer for some tests, so hopefully we’ll be getting some answers. By the way, you might want to look out, krabs coming at you.”
    “Aelita,” said Ulrich, “run to the tower, Yumi and I’ll hold them off!” Aelita nodded and ran off in the direction of the desert sector tower. The krabs attacked a second later, lasers shooting in every direction. Yumi and Ulrich fought fantastically together, though completely silently. It wasn’t until they were completely surrounded that Yumi finally spoke.
    “So you had something you wanted to say to me?” she asked.
    “Uh, Yumi, is this really a good…”
    “It’s a perfect time,” she said, blocking a laser blast with a fan, “and by the looks of things we’re going to be devitalized before you have to actually say anything anyway. So go ahead, talk.” Ulrich blocked a laser blast with his sword and managed to kill one of the krabs before replying.
    “I…Yumi…” He tried desperately to just speak his mind, to say what he had been hiding for so long. “I…”
    “You’re not going to say anything, are you?” she said. He shook his, sadly. “You never do.” A laser blast hit her in chest, and she disappeared before his eyes.
    “Yumi…” he said, not sure who he was actually speaking to. The krabs around him suddenly disappeared. Aelita had deactivated the tower. Suddenly, Ulrich was alone, standing in the vast emptiness of the desert completely by himself.

    By the time Ulrich was materialized in the scanner, he so depressed he could hardly stand it. Maybe he really was the idiot his parents thought him to be. He had completely insulted Yumi three times in one day, once virtually. He had had about enough of himself, and knew there was only one thing left that he could do.
    He took a deep breath as he walked into the control room. Aelita, Jeremie and Yumi were all gathered around Odd, who was sitting up on the floor next to the computer screens. There were wires taped onto his head that were connected to the supercomputer. The screen next to Jeremie showed Odd’s vital signs.
    “Yumi?” Ulrich went and tapped her on the shoulder.
    “What?”
    “Can you come over there with me for a second?”
    “Why?”
    “Just…please, can you?”
    “Fine.” They walked over towards the door of the control room, far away from where Odd and the others were. “What is it?” demanded Yumi, once they were alone. Ulrich didn’t answer. Instead, he grabbed Yumi by the shoulders and kissed her, a short but still passionate kiss. He let go and started to walk off. “Wait!” Yumi said after him.
    “Yeah?” She came up to him and kissed him back.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    “Anytime,” said Ulrich, nervously. They walked back to the others, hand in hand.     The doubt they had had between them was gone.
    “Hey, lovebirds,” said Odd. They blushed.
    “We’re not love birds!” they said at once.
    “Don’t worry,” he said, “I saw everything, I had a vision. I won’t tell these two though,” he pointed to Jeremie and Aelita.
    “What exactly was wrong with you?” asked Ulrich.
    “The activated tower was making his visions come too frequently,” said Jeremie,     “with the tower activated, it gave him too much connection to Lyoko which made his Lyoko identity even more powerful, too powerful.”
    “So is that what happened with us?” Yumi asked, “The activated tower made us suddenly gain our powers from Lyoko?”
    “No, that’s something I still haven’t been able to figure out,” said Jeremie, “But the good news is, that after one over exposure to an activated tower, Odd’s body has gotten used to it meaning he’ll never get too overloaded by visions again.”
    “That’s good,” said Ulrich, “I’m not sure if I could stand hearing about every little injury I’m going to have in our room.”
    “So we still have our powers then,” said Aelita, “we still have to figure out how to control them in the real world.”
    “Right,” said Jeremie.
    “I’m sure we can handle it,” said Ulrich, winking at Yumi, “At least, I hope we can handle it…”
The End

(Maybe)