Episode 1, Part 2: Enter Solana

Solana? Solana? Solana, are you there? Solana? Solana?

I woke up with a startled, but hushed, yelp at 7:04 am. I dreamed that my mother was calling me again. I know she's out there on Xanadu, I just don't know where yet. I got up and looked at the picture of my mother, Olivia Valentina Stern. Maiden name: Zaitsev. "Don't worry, mom," I said while holding the picture. "I'll get you back soon. I promise."

I decided to walk to Kadic today, seeing as though it's a relatively nice day out today. There were much fewer students here than yesterday, but I just shrugged this off and went to the cafeteria.

When I walked in, I couldn't help but overhear the group's conversation. "I also saw a girl in the dream, also. She too was calling out my name. She also looked just like me." It was Aelita's voice. Wait… she couldn't have possibly been talking about Kai, could she? Maybe Kai was trying to contact Aelita. Without thinking, I said, "Whoa, freaky."

The others at the table started to look at me, which started to make me feel embarrassed. "Sorry for eavesdropping, guys."

"Oh no, your not doing so at all." Aelita reassured.

That's a relief, I thought.

"So," I sat down next to Ulrich. "What was it you were talking about anyway? A nightmare or something?"

The table was silent for a little while. But who could blame them? They probably couldn't say anything because they might tell me about XANA.

"I saw a girl in my dream," Aelita spoke out. "She looked exactly like me, and she was calling out my name."

I felt my eyes widen. It definitely was Kai who was trying to contact her. She was probably in danger somewhere on Lyoko.

"Maybe it's a sort of a twin telepathy thing." Odd tried to predict. "Maybe this chick in your dream might be your sister."

"Yeah, then again it just might be something you saw is all. Or maybe it was another one of Odd's horror stories." Jeremy turned his face to Odd with a dead serious look on his face.

"Who? Me? Why, out of all people do you decide to pick on me for the cause? I would never think of doing that to Aelita!"

"Keep speaking for yourself, Odd." Jeremy sighed.

For a strange reason, I felt like defending Odd in his case. Not only was he right, but whenever I was around him, things just felt instantly right for some unknown explanation. But I didn't and decided to keep silent.

"Aelita, whatever you saw in that dream might not even be real at all."

"Yeah, maybe it's your gut trying to tell you something." I decided to speak up. "Like your conscious is trying to keep you from doing something you'll regret."

"Thanks , guys." Aelita thanked every one of us for the advice.

Then, the school bell started to ring.

"Hey, Aelita?" I asked when we were out of the cafeteria.

"Yes?" Aelita said.

I was going to ask if she might have known who the girl in her dream was, but I backed out at the last minute.

"Uhm… never mind, it's not important right now." And with that said, I left for Mrs. Meyer's class.

LATER:

"I don't believe this! A C+ on that math test? I thought for sure I'd get it!" Odd complained as he waved his math test in each of our faces..

"Chill out, Odd," I said.

"Yeah, maybe if you would have-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, 'studied more'. Ugh." Odd cut off Jeremy in an annoyed voice. "Mrs. Meyer has something against me, I can tell."

"She does not." said Ulrich.

"Yeah, you just get on her nerves is all." Jeremy responded to Ulrich's comment. I secretly giggled at the humorous remark.

But then, I couldn't help but notice something: there were less students than there were when I came here in the morning. The whole campus was just like a ghost town now.

"Hey, why's the school so empty?" Yumi wondered.

"Hey, now that you mention it, we seem to be the only few students here." I said, looking around.

"We' red everyone go?" Odd asked, then looked behind him. "And where's Aelita?"

Wait, were was Aelita? I looked around harder. No sign of her anywhere. Both mine and the other's faces were in shock.

I could tell that they were thinking about XANA at this point. The group all looked at each other, then back at me.

"Solana," Yumi came up to me. "Can you keep a secret?"

I knew it.

"Yumi, what are you doing?" Ulrich said in an obviously hushed voice.

"Ulrich, we have to consider the fact that XANA has come back. And besides, she's going to end up finding out anyway."

"Yeah, but-"

"Ulrich," I came up to him and put my hand on his shoulder. "Whatever's happening right now, I trust you. And I'll help in any way I'm able to. Now, in response to your question, Yumi: yes, I can keep a secret."

"Good," Jeremy said. "Then come with us." I then proceeded to follow the others to the factory.

LATER:

"So, what you're saying is that XANA is going after Aelita right now?" I asked, pretending to gather as much information as I could, which I already knew about Lyoko to begin with, so all in all, it really didn't surprise me.

"Yeah, and she's on Lyoko right now as we speak," Odd said while running.

We all then climbed up the ladder which lead to the factory enterance. "Guys, looks like we have company." Ulrich observed the surroundings and pointed to two beings. But they weren't beings. They were polymorphic specters.

"What do we do about those guys?" I wondered.

"I'll distract them while you guys head for the factory," Ulrich said while getting ready to fight.

"But Ulrich, what about you?" I said, very scared. It's a relapse from the past: just like my mother's fate.

"I'll be fine. Just get to the factory."

I felt my eyes widen and water a little, but I nodded and followed the others through one end of the enterance, while Ulrich distracted the specters while waving his arms around. I turned around quickly to see him fighting the specters. That made me even more scared.

Odd, and Yumi quickly made their way down to the scanner room with Solana following them from behind while Jeremy made his way to the lab.

"Solana, get in one of the scanners." Yumi instructed. I then entered the one on the left.

I then felt the scanner doors close in front of me. Then, rays of light traveled upward along with my body and hair. Then, a bright flash of light.

ON LYOKO:

I then felt my body cooling, then dropping to the ground. Thankfully, I had managed to land feet first. I then looked around at my surroundings: blue as far as the eye could see.

I then looked at my outfit: a miko type outfit consisting of mainly white, red, and blue. I also noticed that my hair was shorter. Normally on earth, my hair is down to the middle of my back. But here, it was short and down to the middle of my shoulders. There was also a ring on my right hand. Maybe this will be of use to me someday.

"Man, this place brings back memories," Odd said. I looked at him and noticed that he was essentially a purple cat. He was wearing a full body suit with highlights on them. He also had cat ears in addition to his human ones, face markings, and, to complete the cat motif, he had only four fingers and claws. The feeling inside me earlier started getting more intense, so I looked away before he could notice.

"Odd, you can reminisce all you want later, right now we have to find Aelita." Yumi said seriously, obviously acting like the leader in this situation. I looked at her, and she looked like a techno Japanese geisha. She was wearing a form-fitting pink and purple body suit with flowered shoulder pads with a yellow sash.

She also had weird pill shaped objects above her eyebrows.

"Alright, the activated tower is 190 degrees northwest." a voice said.

"Huh?" I looked around. To see where the voice was coming from. "What was that?"

"That was Jeremy," Odd explained. "We'll explain everything to you later, Sol."

Sol? Since when did he start calling me Sol all of a sudden?

We then ran toward their given destination, and we managed to find Aelita, but she was swamped with XANA's monsters.

"Huh, that's strange, Creepers in the Ice Sector." Odd mumbled.

"Aelita!" I pointed.

"Solana, you take care of Aelita, we'll take care of the monsters." Yumi instructed while taking out her metal fans.

"Alright," I said before taking off.

I then managed to find Aelita hiding behind a glacier. Her outfit consisted of a pink form-fitting suit. She also had elf like ears with one small earring dangling on her left ear.

"Aelita, are you alright?" I asked.

"Don't worry, I'm fine," she said. "All I have to do is deactivate the tower."

"Let's look for an opening first," I instructed, looking around at the surroundings.

I then discovered that more monsters were starting to go down.

"Okay, let's go." We moved forward.

But as we started heading for the tower, I noticed behind me that a Krabe was getting ready to aim at Aelita.

"Aelita, watch out!" I called out, pushing her out of the way, thus having myself take the two hits.

"Solana, you just lost 80 life points. One more shot, and it's over!" Jeremy said.

I groaned in pain and put my hand to her stomach. Usually to me, we got around 2 to 300 life points. This is definitely not like Xanadu at all.

"Solana, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine Aelita. Just make your way to the- Ahh!"

BACK TO EARTH:

I felt myself falling back down, only this time, I was back in the scanner room. I was back on Earth. But wait.. What about Ulrich?

Once up, I quickly got up the stairs and noticed that the fight between the specters and Ulrich had started further below the ground. I then noticed Ulrich lying unconscious, with specters from every angle getting closer to him.

"Ulrich!" I called out. No, not again. I'm not going to let this happen. Then I began fighting as many specters as I could, hurling every punch and kick I knew to my knowledge. But then, I felt a volt of electricity coming from behind, and soon, I was down on the ground, fearing the worst. I then started to black out…

RETURN TO THE PAST:

I was back to today. I guess a Return to The Past must have occurred while me and Ulrich were unconscious. All of the students were back, too, which was a relief.

We all sat together at the same spot we were originally. Then they explained to me more about how Lyoko works, and I was eating it up.

We then noticed William and Sissi at the end of the cafeteria. William waved to us, and me and the others waved back.

"Should we put him back in the group?" Aelita asked.

"Not right at the moment," Jeremy then turned to me. "But Solana, since you've been entered into the super calculator, you've now become one of us."

"Really?" I asked.

"Sure, but we'll have to give you a fighting tutorial on Lyoko first, so you can fully figure out what your abilities are." Jeremy explained. "That is, if your cousin will let you."

The others and I then turned to Ulrich. "Okay, fine. She can stay."

The school bell wrung to go to class.

"Ulrich?" I called out to him.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. For everything." I said.

"No problem."

We then both exchanged smiles before heading to class.