Chapter 15: Introduction to Your New Add-On

"Hello there Aelita, I am Wolf. I am very happy to meet you."

The group was stunned. Only moments ago, they thought the robotic being incapable of speaking to them. Now, it seemed as if the being was giving them a friendly greeting. Jeremy was stunned. He could not believe what he was seeing—a being such as what he was looking at created entirely out of code—and the only thing that kept him in his seat was him recalling that they had run into virtual beings before.

Aelita stuttered, "H-how did you know my name?"

"I scanned you for your profile. I look through the database to find your name and information in the programming."

"This. Is. Incredible." Jeremy squealed in his excitement. He pushed his hair back and fixed his glasses, "The W.O.L.F. program created a fully weaponized, virtual being."

Mason sighed rolling his eyes, "And this one seems interested in helping us."

Ulrich pushed his way in between Wolf and Aelita with his sword drawn and pointing at the stranger, "Get back Aelita! It might be another trap from X.A.N.A.!"

Wolf looked at the end of the blade and then back up at Ulrich, "What is the signal for surrender?" Ulrich raised an eyebrow and eased his grip on the katana. It's English seemed somewhat off to the Lyoko Warriors. It sounded as if the words were processed through a computer and no attention was paid to pronunciation or good sentence structure.

Odd put his paw on Ulrich's weapon and pushed it towards the ground, "Now hold up Ulrich, this thing…it doesn't want to harm us if its willing to surrender."

"It could be trying to trick us! Waiting for us to let our guard down before it attacks!"

"Odd's right Ulrich." Aelita pushed past Ulrich and nodded towards Odd, "It deactivated the towers and destroyed X.A.N.A.'s monsters. It would have tried to destroy us if it had any bad intent. Not to mention it would have tried to kidnap me at this point."

Wolf moved its head to look back and forth to Aelita and Ulrich while keeping a mannequin-like stature. Aelita smiled and stuck her hand out for Wolf to shake, "Hello Wolf, it's nice to meet you as well."

It shifted its head down to look at Aelita's open hand in front of him, "You're supposed to shake it. It's a form of greeting and is meant to be friendly."

Wolf tilted its head and raised both arms towards Aelita. It suddenly grabbed Aelita's hand with both hands and shook furiously, "This is how shaking hands works, yes?"

Aelita couldn't help but laugh while the Odd couldn't help but chuckle at the sight. Ulrich had even laughed. He couldn't believe he got so worked up over such a naïve creature, yet he knew better than to let his guard down entirely. Jeremy was watching the entire spectacle happen right in front of him. He couldn't help but smile at the scene taking place in front of him. Yumi and William seemed amused as well, but Mason stood back and watched expressionless.

"Where did you come from, oh metallic one?" questioned Odd, tapping the chest plate of Wolf.

Wolf shifted its head from side to side, "I do not have enough information to respond to your question."

Aelita gasped, "You don't know?" It reminded her of when she was on Lyoko without her memories.

"No sufficient information is available at this time to access," Wolf replied.

Aelita felt bad for Wolf. It now definitely reminded her of her time when she was stuck on Lyoko. She remembered how lonely it was all by herself on Lyoko and only had the X.A.N.A. attack to look forward to. Only because it was when her friends would come visit her. She began to gather feelings of pity towards the virtual being. As far as it knew, or even she knew, its only purpose was to be on Lyoko to make sure X.A.N.A. didn't cause any trouble. It probably didn't even know the consequences of X.A.N.A.'s actions to the real world; It probably didn't even know what the 'real world' was.

Aelita mustered a smile, "Well that's alright, you'll figure it out in no time. We'll be here to help you figure it out as well."

"Ahem!" Odd coughed to get Aelita and Wolf's attention, "You seem to be forgetting about the two gentlemen currently here Princess!"

"Oh!" Aelita realized she had forgotten something, "I would like to introduce you to Odd and-"

"Ulrich Stern," finished Wolf.

Wolf looked over at Odd and quickly scanned him as well – as seen by the orange aura that appeared around Odd—Wolf looked back towards Aelita, "I scanned Ulrich Stern when I moved him out of the vicinity of the threat. I now just scanned Odd Della Robia to get his information."

"Is that what he calls it…" though Ulrich rolling his eyes.

Ulrich suddenly remembered a crucial detail about the whole experience he just had. It slipped his mind with the sudden introduction of Wolf, but it suddenly came back to him as he remembered how it picked him up to scan him. It used his abilities. Wolf had scanned him and then used his super sprint to destroy X.A.N.A.'s monsters.

"Wait, wait, wait! Hold on one second here!" barked Ulrich.

Everyone turned to look at Ulrich who was nearly red in the face. With widened eyes, he pointed at Wolf, "This all very interesting but…you used my super sprint! You took my ability and used it!"

The rest of the group, even the ones outside of Lyoko at the time, suddenly remembered this detail. They were shocked how they could have forgotten despite how Wolf demonstrated using Ulrich's super sprint successfully. This thing had taken abilities from a Lyoko Warrior and the issue had to be figured out, and dealt with, immediately.

"That's right," gasped Aelita, "you used one of Ulrich's abilities and adapted his weapon as your own!"

"Yes, but it was necessary to eliminate the threats." Wolf looked over at Ulrich, "It was only temporary."

Ulrich's eyebrows shot up in surprise, "Only…temporary?"

Wolf tried to imitate the abilities that he had borrowed, but was unable to use them. After numerous attempts, it looked over at Ulrich and flung its arms in the air with defeat. It walked back over to Ulrich and explained, "I cannot the files in my archive that are to activate the abilities taken from your profile. However, it is in my history that this ability had been activated by me. At this time, I am unable to execute the procedure needed to use the super sprint. That is how I came to the conclusion that the abilities I scanned were only to be borrowed."

"Well, what about the fact that you can actually talk to us now?" asked Odd.

Wolf turned to Odd, "When I scanned Ulrich Stern, I found information about his language preferences. I used files in my archive to develop a program that would apply linguistic abilities to myself."

Aelita rubbed her chin, "So why can't you do that with Ulrich's abilities? Couldn't you just scan him again and permanently keep his abilities?"

Ulrich glared at Aelita, "Don't encourage it!"

Wolf looked between the three Lyoko warriors, "Do not have sufficient information at this time."

All Jeremy could do was sit back in his chair and watch what was happening in Lyoko. At that moment, he was almost tempted to virtualize himself onto Lyoko to ask more questions. However, a red message popped up on one of the monitors; a countdown initiated starting from twenty.

Wolf began to grow translucent and the warriors gasped. Odd was the first to speak up, "Hey! What's happening to you?"

Wolf looked at its hand as it slowly began to pixelate and fade, "I am going into hibernation mode. I will remain in hibernation mode until another threat appears."

Aelita stepped towards Wolf, "Will we see you again?" Will you remember us?"

Wolf shook its head up and down before fully pixelating and the pieces fading away. Aelita stood there staring at the spot Wolf had vanished from. She sighed and then turned to the others standing behind her, "Good job on today's mission guys!" she smiled.

Ulrich and Odd smiled and then gave each other a fist pound. The others cheered for their success, despite what at first seemed as a turn for the worst. Jeremy cracked his knuckles and began preparations to materialize those remaining on Lyoko.

After materialization, the remaining warriors took the elevator up to where Jeremy and their defeated friends waited for them. Jeremy's excitement was easily identified by his large smile. No one in the group could remember a time Jeremy was this excited since he materialized Aelita. Yumi and William seemed impressed by what had happened, but Mason had a frown on his face.

"Guys, that was better than what I had imagined!" Jeremy spun in his chair, "W.O.L.F. actually adapted a form capable of handling X.A.N.A.'s monsters!"

"My question is," stated Yumi, rubbing her chin, "If it can just deactivate the towers without a virtual presence, when why does one exist?"

"Hmmm, maybe to get rid of any enemies in Lyoko?" Jeremy drummed his fingers on his chin, "It'll have to be something I look into later. In fact, there's a lot that needs to be looked into with Wolf."

William pumped his fist in the air, "I don't care about any reason, that thing was amazing! I wasn't even there and I could see all the damage it did!" he smiled.

Jeremy nodded with William's statement, "Yes, and this new ally of ours might solve one of our problems!"

"What do you mean by that Jeremy?" asked Yumi raising an eyebrow.

"Wolf can prove to be extremely helpful on Lyoko by cutting down the amount of time it takes to deactivate the towers. Heck, if everything goes right, Wolf can be fully synced to the supercomputer manage Lyoko while we go about fixing this mess!"

"Hold on, can't it already control Lyoko?" William questioned.

"Well, yes and no," began Jeremy typing on the computer, "When Wolf disappeared, I went digging around a little more into the data. Based on that and what it said while on Lyoko, I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't have full access to a lot of the parts of the supercomputer Aelita had when she lived there. To put it shortly, it acts as a program on the computer without administrator privileges. Sure it can deactivate towers and do some minor modifications, it is essentially powerless to the control I, or even X.A.N.A., has over the supercomputer. By giving it full control, there could be a chance it helps us get out of this mess. It could find the answers of our problems while we play along with Mattock."

The group seemed, in one way or another, interested in Jeremy's idea. Ulrich grimaced and shook his head, "I don't know guys, this seems like a bad idea to me."

Everyone paused to look at Ulrich. Jeremy couldn't believe what he was hearing, "What are you talking about Ulrich!"

"Listen Jeremy," Ulrich started, "this thing is capable of "borrowing" our special abilities. It took my abilities and used them to kill the monsters. That's really scary; it's a lot of power for something to have, even without control of Lyoko."

"Come on Ulrich!" chimed in Odd. "It already explained that it could only have any of our abilities for a short amount of time. There's nothing to worry about!"

Mason decided to join in on the conversation, "Ulrich is right. This thing has a lot of potential of going wrong. Remember what happened last time we trusted a random being from Lyoko? I almost died! The last thing that needs to happen is have another issue to worry about besides having to deal with the public. It's also important to mention that we don't even have return to the past working yet. I don't think it's a good idea to add something new on our plate without looking into it some more."

"Mason does bring up a good point," agreed William, "Even though I wasn't there, from what I've heard, the last time virtual beings were around, it didn't go so well. Despite how awesome this thing is and all that it can do, I don't think it's a good idea to trust this thing right away."

"Hmm," Yumi mumbled as she tapped her fingers on the back of Jeremy's chair, "I can't have an opinion yet until I learn more about our newcomer."

Aelita sighed at what was going on. It was the situation with Mattock all over again. Yet again the group was split on a major decision. She just wished everyone could come up with a decision without having to argue. Her face lit up when she came up with an idea, "Jeremy I have an idea, if you'll just hear me out."

Everyone looked towards Aelita, "Sure thing Aelita, what is it?" asked Jeremy.

"How about we don't allow Wolf to have control until we unanimously decide that it is not a threat."

Jeremy's heart stopped, "But Aelita-"

"We're all in this together Jeremy. We have to consider all our options, yet be cautious about them. Everyone brings up a good point one way or another. I feel that if we are to move solely as a group, everyone needs to approve. We need to put time into trying to understand the new information in front of us before we can make a decision."

Jeremy sighed, knowing that Aelita is right. He can't make this decision for everyone, especially one that could change Lyoko on such a large scale. He took of his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and sighed, "You're right Aelita, we need everyone to approve before we can allow Wolf any further access to Lyoko. As of right now, who wants to give Wolf control?"

His hand immediately shot up, followed by Odd's, "Okay," nodded Jeremy, "it's a rough start, but over time you'll see that this is for the best!"

Yumi raised an eyebrow when Aelita did not put her hand up, "Hm, I'd think that out of the people who weren't sure yet you wouldn't be one of them."

"I know Yumi," sighed Aelita, "but I have small feeling that something isn't quite right."

Mason smirked and put his hand on Aelita's shoulder, "That's alright Aelita! You have plenty of time to make up your mind! What's important is that you did a great job finding a compromise for everyone."

Aelita looked towards Mason, "Really?"

William nodded in agreement, "Yeah! Without you, we'd probably still be arguing in the supercomputer room about what to do! Despite what you think Aelita, you're very helpful in helping the team reach an agreement and we all appreciate it!"

Aelita smiled as the two boys raised a thumbs up to her. She was grateful for having the friends that she did—those willing to help and support her—and she wouldn't trade them for anything. She giggled before turning to the rest of the group, "Well! I think there's been enough excitement for one night!"

"Yeah! I'm bushed!" Ulrich cupped his hand over his open mouth and yawned, "We have to get up early to visit our new boss."

"When you put it like that you make it sound like we have jobs!" laughed Odd, "Don't make it sound like it's difficult. We might as well enjoy the time we have now and take in all he benefits."

Ulrich chuckled, "What benefits? Besides managing our publicity, I have yet to see any benefits come out of working with Mattock!"

The group walked over to the elevator and pressed the up button which returned them to the ground floor of the factory. After checking their surroundings for any passersby, the group walked out into the forest.

"Well this is definitely an interesting development," admitted Yumi brushing the hair out of her face.

"Yeah! We actually might have a way out of this mess!" replied William.

"You bet! The best part is that right now there is a deep scan analysis running that will show me all that Wolf is capable of doing in the case we give it full privileges!" grinned Jeremy.

"Jeremy," sighed Aelita. The worry in her voice cause Jeremy to immediately turn around, "I know that we've been working with the supercomputer for a long time now, but I don't think doing this much poking around in something we don't know very much about is a good idea. What if we poke a little too hard?"

"Nonsense Aelita!" replied Jeremy, "This is the best way to get as much information on Wolf as we can before we allow it to help us!"

Aelita sighed. She was afraid that Jeremy, in his excitement, didn't quite understand what she was saying. The girl smiled when she realized that her genius was only amazed by the new discovery and decided best to let it go, "Alright Jeremy, whatever you think is best."

Jeremy blushed a little knowing that the person he cared so much for had so much trust in him. He couldn't help but smile a little as they walked back towards Kadic. The group talked and laughed together as they headed onto the campus past the iron gate.

Meanwhile, back at the factory, the deep scan was putting in work trying to unlock the secrets of the guest on Lyoko. File after file was shown on the screen being opened a looked through before another window opened repeating the process. Suddenly, the eye of X.A.N.A. flickered on the screen and the words "Process Overridden" appeared. The supercomputer shut down and after a few minutes, turned back on with an error sign on the screen.

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