Ello! ^^ Thanx for reading! On with the story!

To the forest sector-

If you had told Ulrich about a month ago, when Xana attacks were down to once every few weeks that Yumi would be kidnapped and that a specter would be sent to torment the group: He would have laughed in your face. As a matter of fact he might have even hit you for daring to say that he couldn't protect her from the dangers of Lyoko.

That being said as he leaned to the left to dodge another jab from the green eyed specter he realized he was an idiot. He watched as the specter in front of him moved, a punch here, a kick there, her jumping out of the way to avoid a half hearted hit on his part. She was one fluid offensive motion, never stopping to calculate his next move and never taking her eyes from him.

When they first met she had told him that her parents had thought she was weird and she only had herself to practice with, that was why she loved sparing with him, he could teach her the defensive tactics.

He turned with her as she tried to circle him and find an opening in his stance, the glare in her eyes thick with irritation. As he watched her he tried to figure out a way to catch her off guard and subdue her for them to question, he began to notice odd things about her.

The way she moved: how she threw her leg out to rip his feet from underneath him and then twisted around back into her original stance, or how she narrowed her eyes in concentration. Every time he threw an arm or a leg at her she would just float out of the way like it was natural and suddenly a thought struck him hard.

You can't program this. He had played all different types of video games and despite the growing graphics the characters were always sloppy, moving in chunky motions, never quite looking natural. He ground his teeth in anger and confusion how could this 'Specter' of Yumi understand the fluid motions that Yumi had spent most of her life teaching herself?

Distracted by his thoughts he almost didn't dodge a fist coming straight for his face and had to stumble back a few steps but that only encouraged her and she came at him faster. With every swing and every near hit he was becoming worried, he wasn't sure how much longer he could just continue to avoid her before she would begin to notice that he wasn't putting up much of a fight.

Another fist came at him again and this time he reacted on instinct catching the opposing wrist in his hand and holding it tightly in place, she froze.

All form of expression drained from her face and her other hand fell to her side. She stared at the wrist he held and then looked back to his face. She looked at him an for several long seconds just staring almost as if she had forgotten they were fighting just moments ago. His heart beat in his chest trying to break its way through his rib cage and in his ears blocking his thought process and then, all at once, everything stopped.

Her eyes were black.

He dropped her wrist out of surprise at the sudden familiar color as his mind short circuited trying to understand what was going on.

Her blank expression melted away to pain and then she screamed. It wasn't a scream he would ever expect to come from her. High and shrill the sound slammed into his senses and his world spun, it felt like an ice pick had been lodged into his ear and had gotten stuck between his eardrum and his brain.

He retreated a few steps in response to the excruciating sound he hadn't been expecting and the specter crumpled to the ground. Forcing his eyes to stay open he was determined to get answers from her so he clenched his teeth and removed one hand from over his ears to reach for his sword.

When his hand came in contact with the familiar hilt he pulled it from its sheath but before he could make a move to do anything he was hit hard in the side and went flying.

Only after he bounced off the ground several feet away and his sense of virtual gravity returned did he realize that she had stopped screaming. He shook his head and got up to see a tarantula standing between him and the Yumi specter who was still on the ground holding both hands to her head.

He paused as he remembered something Jeremie had told him this morning when he explained about the specter breaking into his dorm.

'The fan seems to be a part of her. That's why she was so desperate to get it back. I scanned the Fan before I gave it to you to hold and a fraction of Yumi's DNA structure was infused in it. That must be how Xana is keeping this Specter alive part of Yumi exists within the specter aside from her outcast emotions. I was wrong we aren't fighting a shell Xana has created to harbor Yumi's feelings we are fighting a specter that was stitched together with her DNA sequence and folded around the parts that were removed. That explains why she can recognize us and why she has Yumi's memories because she is a part of her she is actually reading twisted versions of her own long forgotten memory!'

At the time Ulrich didn't understand a single word of that so, of course, he turned to Aelita.

'What was that?'

She grinned at him, she had always loved explaining what Jeremie thought was common sense.

'In other words: There is a piece of Yumi in the specters body that has her memory and part of her DNA which allows her to fabricate lies and use them against us.'

'Riiiight'

As Ulrich stared at the figure not too far from him a crazy thought occurred to him. What if that little piece of Yumi was trying to take over the specter?

'Yumi!'

The specter jolted forward like she had been hit in the back and with both hands on the ground she turned to give him the fiercest glare he had ever seen.

First he saw the acid green, but then he realized that it was only in one eye, the other one was as dark as coal just like he remembered.

He took a step forward, half expecting the tarantula to shoot at him but it didn't move from its defensive position between them.

She struggled to her feet and leaned heavily on the tarantula.

'How could you do that...?'

It was so quiet he almost didn't hear her say it and confusion settled in his thoughts.

'Do what?'

'Trap me in the tower! I thought you were my friends! Your all going to pay for what you did to me!'

She took a step forward and collapsed to the forest floor. He responded immediately running towards her but the tarantula moved protectively over her and shot at him before he could respond.

The familiar feeling rushed over him and he was waking up in a scanner with a pounding headache. He stumbled to the elevator and leaned against the back wall for support, for some reason he felt drained of energy. When he walked into the super computer room Aelita appeared asking if he was ok and he just smiled at her saying he was tired.

'What happened in there? After her scream the screen went blank and I couldn't contact you.'

Ulrich looked away from Aelita and over to Jeremie scanning Odd and William's expressions as he did so and took a deep breath before answering, completely ignoring the question.

'Jeremie we have a big problem.'

He raised an eyebrow at him. ' What's the problem?'

'That wasn't a specter that was the real Yumi.'

'What!?'

'Her eyes changed back.'

Aelita looked at me with a concerned expression.

'Are you sure?'

I steeled my expression and nodded at her.

'I'm positive.'

A/N: I own nothing

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