Twisting the bobby pin carefully in the pathetic excuse of a lock for protecting a door, I bit my lip in slight concentration. Behind the door, I could still hear the dog's high screeching barks, and I believe my eardrums were being destroyed. After a few more twists, the door handle finally gave way and I pushed the door open with a merciless smile on my face.

"Doggy, Doggy," I sang maniacally to the tiny, kind of ugly, animal. The dog halted its barking, which he was barking at nothing, and turned towards me. I bet he thought I was his owner, because he came straight to me. Stupid dog. "Time for a permanent nap."

It wasn't hard to get the dog, because all I had to do was bend down and scoop him up in my arms. But once I had in my grasp, he started wriggling around and yapping like a shrilly poodle. He jerked and scratched, being loud and obnoxious, bursting my eardrums. After a few seconds of holding him down, attempting to murder the dumb thing, the animal managed to break free and bark at a window across the room.

"Hey, Kiwi, what's-" a familiar voice asked, but then stopped.

'Shit,' I thought and slowly turned on my heels with a strained smile. The voice that spoke a second ago was Odd, the supposed cat person.

"Hey," Ulrich confronted angrily and marched past an astonished Odd. "What are you doing in our room?"

"Being annoyed." I stated sourly with a grim smile, and motioned to the still yapping dog. "This dog here has been eating my homework, and is most likely the thing that keeps me up at night. I was doing research on my computer when I heard this thing bark, so I thought I'd put it out of its misery."

Odd pouted and ran to the dog, "You can't do that. He's just scared. Isn't that right, boy?"

I slapped Odd on the back of his head, making sure a lot of pain would register in his mind. If he was the one who kept this dog hidden, even though no pets are allowed on campus, then he has a truly bad taste in animals. It would've been happier if I snuffed out its barking by staring it down. But sadly, that thing just continued to bark on, loudly.

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared daggers at the flinching Odd and his obnoxiously loud, and earsplitting, mutt. "That thing needs to shut up before I-"

And that's when all of our attentions were brought to a crack. We looked up and saw the glass on the window quickly splitting and then shattering everywhere.

I jumped back and covered my face with my arms, but then tripped backwards into the nearby bed. Landing with an 'oof', I grumbled and sat up, wiping a few glass shard pieces off my pants. The dog's bark must've been so high pitched that it broke the window, but that had to be illogical and near impossible by a tiny dog like that. I mumbled a few curses under my breath and stood myself back up.

"Woah," I heard Ulrich say, and then I looked up to see him looking up at the window in astonishment.

Below me, Odd nervously looked down at Kiwi and asked, "Did you do that?"

And, upon hearing that sentence uttered from Odd, I groaned and slapped my face with my palm. I don't think Odd could be any more dense. And of course Odd would have the brains of the mutt to come up with such a stupid and implausible conjectures.

"Look," I finally said as I stood back up and pushed myself out the door. The words only left my mouth before I realized what I was saying. "Keep that thing quiet and to stay away from my stuff, or else I'll send that thing to the Ice sector of Lyoko."

I don't know why I said that, or what it actually meant, but it got the boys to step back and let me rush away. My feet stomped murderously off the ground as I went to the stairs. For all I knew, the glass could have been broken from a rock and Lyoko could be some French video game, so why should I bother. It wasn't like I was going to be caught inside the dorms by Jim if I questioned them. Oh, wait, yes, I would be caught and then given detention.

"Laini, wait!" I turned and saw Odd waving frantically at me from down the hall. He sprinted and made it time in a matter of seconds. "Did you snoop through Ulrich's stuff? How do you know about Lyoko?"

I raised an eyebrow to him and poked his forehead, pushing him back to give myself personal space. "No, I only just got in your room when you came in. As for Lyoko-" I smiled ruthlessly as he was eager to know how I know that word. So I spoke in English, "I'm not one to mess with. I know things. Figure it out how, yourself."

"Wait, what did you just say?" Odd asked nervously, confirming my suspicions of his grade in English, but all he got to see with his probable wide eyes was the view of me skipping up the steps and hurrying away from scene of the crime. "Laini!"

'That's what he gets for hiding an animal in the building that got on my nerves.' I thought happily as I shut the door behind me with a smile on my face. Hopefully that dog will be quiet from now on.

But now I had the problem with this Lyoko place, because Odd questioned how I knew it like it wasn't supposed to be known.

'Maybe it was never released in the States, so that could be why they are surprised.' I pondered before taking my seat at my desk, getting ready to start a new search that could be considered illegal in most places. 'But that doesn't equal why I can't find this 'Lyoko' anywhere.'

My fingers flew across the keyboard, pounding each letter, number, etc. In seconds folders and links to each of 'that' group popped onto the screen. I smiled and opened the first folder and saw Odd, his smiling face on a digitally uploaded passport with other documents, such as birth certificate and school admissions papers.

I sifted through pages, scrolling and clicking at slow paces. I read, reread and absorbed each detail just trying to find some key piece of information that could be different from the norm. It seemed that the only school classes that Odd bothers to pay attention to are the artistic subjects, in which he particularly excels. Having himself been born into a family of world-renowned artists, it is only natural that he would have inherited from his parents the curiosity and awareness that for him are so characteristic. No wonder he wears rose purple clothing. He is also the youngest, and only, boy with a number of sisters.

Next was Ulrich, who was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Stern and only excels in athletics, no academic achievements to be even happy with. His father is high up in some company that's hard to pronounce and his mother is a stay at home, which sounds kind of boring. And upon further scrolling, it seems he has the ability to get an F+ in a subject when there is no such thing. But hey, at least it shows he tries.

Yumi is Japanese, if that wasn't noticeable enough, with two parents and a younger brother. She is both smart and athletic, but not the greatest of the great. Her family lives in France because of her father's job, so maybe that could raise red flags in my mind, but her dad has nothing to do with anything of 'materialization'. And also her family could easily be sent back to Japan if her father's job doesn't stick; not something someone would do if he/she held important information.

Lastly was Jeremy, or as it is written on his Birth Certificate, Jeremie Belpois. I'll stick with Jeremy for my American roots. But, anyway, he almost marked as genius if you didn't look at his foreign language skills with Latin, but who could blame him? I clicked through many more pages and wondered why he was only at some regular boarding school rather than somewhere more prestigious. He is also the only child of his family, with distant cousins I could out with one hand.

I was about to give up on this folder with Jeremy when I found one interest in his admissions folder; Robotics and Computer technology. Going further, I saw that he was quite skilled in making robots and entering them in competitions all the time, but he soon slowed in his competitions shortly after entering this boarding school.

"Interesting," I murmured to my self and scratched my chin thoughtfully. Materialization can be linked to computers and building technological stuff close to miniature fighting robots.

Maybe that was the connection between the group. Jeremy may have figured something out about materialization and returning to past instances, but in the process this loner genius (This is an hypothesis, but I'm certain it's true) gained this odd group of friends. Somewhere in that unlikely group had them connected, and it's more than some small gossip group. They are close, just like friends, but act so different. I leaned back in my seat and took a deep, tired breath. Standing up, I yawned and scratched the back of my head and got a brief glance of outside the window.

And that was how I got the quick blur of a couple familiar figure running into the woods. It was only two of the misfit group, the goth and brunette, but a nagging suspicion told me this was more than a make-out session in the trees. I lean over my seat and crane my head over the screen, but they duo easily slip into the trees and only give me a direction of where they are heading. I only think further for a few seonds more before I step away from my desk and shrug on a black hoodie.

"Let's see if you guys are really innocent kids." I said as I flipped my hood up and hurried out the door.

~'~~

Ok, so I guess some of you expect me to go in third person or another person's P.O.V to see what the Lyoko gang are thinking about Laini, but I rather we all find out together along with Laini.

Sorry about that! (Okay, not really!)