For those of you returning, you may want to go back and reread the rest of the story, as I've gone back and updated most of the previous chapters. Hopefully I got them to fit in more with the canon characterizations, and made the portrayals of technology more consistent both with canon and with real life. The first few chapters got the biggest overhaul, while the newer ones I barely changed if at all. From here on out, hopefully a rewrite on this scale won't be necessary.
Also, sorry for the relatively uneventful chapter. This one pretty much exists for the sake of filling the Primus plot hole. If I stick to the plan I have for the rest of the chapters, the next one should have a bit more action in it. Also, don't forget to leave a review about not only this chapter but the updated chapters as well. Just please don't leave suggestions for future plot points anymore; the only ones I've seen are either kind of stupid or ones I've already considered. If you really think you have a good suggestion that I haven't thought of, PM me.

Ben 0

A few days after Zs'skayr attacked, Ben and Ulrich met up again with Jeremie to discuss the rematch race.

"Alright, this time you two are doing it in the desert sector, bec-"

"Because some people can't follow directions easily."

"Shut up, Ulrich. You know I won that one anyway."

"Yeah right, cheater."

Jeremie tried to calm them down. "Guys, could you just-"

"Cheater? You're just jealous because I can go fast outside of Lyoko. XLR8!"

"Warning: DNA sample in temporary memory fragmented."

"What was that about being able to go fast in real life?"

"Hold on, it's never done that before. Stupid watch!" Ben tried dialing to XLR8 instead of using master control.

"DNA sample in temporary memory fragmented. Reestablish link with Primus to access preserved DNA"

Jeremie's curiosity made him forget about the race momentarily. "Primus? What's that?"

"I have no idea. The Omnitrix has never done this before."

"Hm… I seem to remember something about Primus in the Omnitrix code, but I don't remember what it was. Go to the scanners, I'll look through the code again and see if I can find out what's going on."

"Does this mean the race is off?"

"Oh yeah, the race. This is more important right now Ulrich, but as soon as we get this figured out we'll have the rematch."

"So Ben, how's it feel to be brought down to our level?"

"Shut it, Ulrich."

"Just asking."

It took Jeremie only a few minutes of sifting through the code before he figured it out. "It's a database."

"What?"

"Primus – it's a database used to store the DNA of all your aliens. The Omnitrix has a temporary DNA cache, but that memory corrupts once you transform too many times. Its main function is a wireless receiver – the actual, uncorrupted DNA is hosted on Primus."

"Okay, so if I followed you correctly, the watch connects to Primus when I try to transform, and when it can't find a signal, it defaults to the temporary memory?"

"Exactly, Ben. Now, I have some good news and some bad news about this."

"Uh… how about you start with the bad news."

"The DNA of the aliens you've turned into too often here are corrupt, and I have no way of recovering them from the Omnitrix."

"Well then what about the good news?"

"I do have copies of some aliens stored in your virtual Omnitrix. With a bit of work, I can turn the supercomputer into a server that will allow you to transform into those and all the others you haven't used much. Also, going the other way, I can have each of the non-corrupted aliens uploaded to your virtual Omnitrix. Basically, once I'm done, the only aliens you won't be able to turn into are those XANA still has control over."

"Cool! How long is that going to take?"

"About a week, I think."

"A week? Seriously?"

"We're also working on getting you back home, remember? Shouldn't that take priority right now?"

Ben paused for a second, then nodded in agreement.

"Alright. You still awake Ulrich? Now we can get back to-" Before Jeremie could finish, he was interrupted by an activated tower. "Never mind then. You two get down to the… wait a sec, a scanner's been activated."

Ulrich instantly snapped his attention back to Jeremie. "What's XANA materializing this time?"

Jeremie pulled up the camera feed and zoomed way in. "Looks like Greymatter."

"Oh no, he could do serious damage."

"Don't worry Ulrich, after XANA got Ben's aliens I expected this to happen. Ben and I booby trapped all the wiring in the scanner room and the supercomputer room soon after the upgrade incident."

"And what did you do to combat Upgrade?"

"Used XANA's system against him: after studying how XANA kicked Ben out, I built a similar program to keep XANA from ever using him. Sorry Ben, but I'm afraid you won't be getting Upgrade back any time soon."

"Aw man, but, I guess that's okay. After all, I really wouldn't want to fight him on Lyoko. Anyway, is Greymatter…"

Jeremie looked back at the cameras "Yep, he fell for the trap; he should be unconscious now." He pulled out a small plastic box. "Ben, could you go downstairs and get him while I call Aelita out here to deactivate the tower?"

As Ben went down to the supercomputer room, Ulrich approached Jeremie.

"How'd you manage to outsmart that thing? "

Jeremie answered as he navigated to the phone program. "Remember: Ben can… okay, Ben could transform into Greymatter as well. I just had to have Ben pretend he wanted to sabotage the supercomputer and set an electrocution trap at the first few places he went, making sure Ben couldn't notice them until it was too late."

"Did you actually electrocute Ben?"

"No, of course not. The wires weren't live until after I set it up and testing was complete." Jeremie started the call. "Hey, Aelita – XANA's activated a tower, but it's not that urgent. Get here when you can."

"It's okay, I can come right now."

"Alright. Ben, take Greymatter to the scanners; I'll virtualize you both and you can download him with the Scyphozoa. For that matter, You can go too Ulrich, we can finally have that race. At least Ben has access to XLR8 while on Lyoko."

Aelita arrived just as Ben started downloading Greymatter.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing much actually, Ben and Ulrich are in the mountain sector near the activated tower, and Ben's downloading Greymatter as we speak."

"The plan worked?"

"Perfectly. Yeah, I'm as surprised as you; I thought Greymatter would be a lot harder to deal with than this."

"Still, if Upgrade gets out…"

"I know, Aelita. I won't let that happen. Get to the scanner room." Jeremie turned his attention back to Lyoko. "Alright Ben, Greymatter's ready. I'm uploading him to your virtual Omnitrix now."

"Sweet. Hey Ulrich." Ben transformed into XLR8. "Ready to race?"

"Wait until Aelita's deactivated the tower, guys."

A few minutes later, Aelita entered the tower and it turned back to its normal shade of blue as she deactivated it. Ben and Ulrich stood up as she walked out.

"Okay, Aelita, do the countdown. And both of you stick to the path this time."

Ben rolled his eyes as Aelita started counting down. Once again, both of them were pretty much tied for the whole race, but when they got to the end Ben won by a fraction of a second.

"Yes! I knew I was faster than you!"

"Okay Ben, this time you won fair and square. Just try not to rub it in everybody's face all the time like Odd would, okay?"

"I can't guarantee that."

Jeremie materialized everybody before the argument could escalate.