Dragon Sight

Karen

Karen walked down the hall, considering how best to help defend the new internet submarine, codenamed Melanie, when Jeremie and Aelita were both stuck on detention. She already knew that Xana was going to attack it, but how would she save it?

Yumi virtualized Ulrich and Odd, while Karen sat back and watched. Then finally, Yumi called her little brother and asked for assistance. After the call was made, Jeremie and Aelita came to the factory and she, Yumi and Aelita all stepped into the scanners and…blue.

Later, they were all sitting at the Hermitage, talking about what the submarine's name could be. Then Aelita came up with the perfect name.

I opened my eyes and sighed. Well, I knew what was going to happen, but ever since those two – or was it three? – return trips, I have been seeing human beings in my dreams, and when I was awake, well…

"What's the matter, Karen? You look like you just learned that Jeremie and I were caught together last night."

I looked at Aelita and grinned. Or rather, I looked at her bed. Now all I saw of her was a pinkish-gold dragon, as I had seen for three days straight. By now, I had mostly gotten used to it. "Caught. In the same room? Oooh, you're both busted, aren't you?"

Aelita sighed. "I guess that's not the reason you sighed."

I stopped smiling. "I'm sorry, Aelita. I shouldn't be laughing, especially since this is an extreme problem. There's going to be an attack on our new little computer project today, and Yumi will have to virtualize the boys on her own."

"Oh. But what about you?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say I hadn't wanted to trust Yumi to virtualize me properly. And before you ask, I have no idea how you and Jeremie get away from detention."

Thinking about the assumed reason for why Jeremie and Aelita would both be in the same room led me to think about last night. Ulrich and Yumi had both fallen asleep against the wall of the factory, and they were leaning on each other. At least, I think that's what they were doing – my dragon sight had them curled around each other; it was really sweet watching them. Yumi woke up first, and she jerked away as soon as Ulrich made some sign of waking up. I'll have to ask her about that someday. But not today; she was going to be stressed enough as the day is now.

Aelita

Detention? That wasn't good, especially if there was going to be an attack by Xana.

"Well…just tell everyone else about that dream, and maybe we'll come up with something."

Karen's fast, all right. She immediately came up with a suggestion. "Um…you and Jeremie do get away from Jim, thanks to a phone call that Yumi makes. You don't have to worry about that. Maybe Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and I could all go down to the factory right after lunch to get ahead of the game!"

"I like that idea! And that way Yumi can get instructions from Jeremie so that she feels more confident in virtualizing the boys."

Jeremie seemed much calmer after I told him what Karen had said. He even seemed all right with getting detention – which confused Principal Delmas and Jim. Oh, well. Being calm about something bad is an extremely good thing, Karen says.

Yumi

We all walked calmly to the factory after lunch. I was so glad that Karen had that idea to get ahead of the game; now we wouldn't be panicking and trying to get there last-minute.

And I also had the instructions for virtualizing the boys. Karen was going to wait until Jeremie and Aelita got back.

I punched in the coordinates. "Transfer Ulrich; transfer Odd. Scanner Ulrich; scanner Odd. Virtualization."

I heard Odd on the other side. "Two arms, two legs, one head, one tail, yeah, everything's accounted for."

Karen laughed behind me. "Odd just doesn't trust you, does he?"

I ignored her. "Get to Melanie, you guys."

I could hear the battle through the earphone. Then suddenly Karen asked, "Odd's been devirtualized, hasn't he?"

I sighed. "Yes. Now what do I do?"

Karen walked over to me and answered, "You call Hiroki and ask him to spring Jeremie and Aelita."

That startled me. "How did you know my little brother's name?"

"Yumi. Just call, okay?"

I sighed again. I probably already knew the answer to that. So I made the call through the supercomputer.

Hiroki told me that he would help…if I did all his homework for a month.

"You're a real crook, Hiroki, but okay." I looked at Karen. "We'll be seeing them pretty quickly."

Jeremie and Aelita showed up in pretty good time, and Jeremie ordered us girls to the scanners. Karen looked worried, but her dreams can't see into Lyoko, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

When we got there, Ulrich was already gone. William was ready to make the final blow to our poor submarine. I launched a fan and set him off-balance; then Karen threw an ice ball and actually froze his sword! I didn't know that her attack would do that! Then Aelita formed the biggest energy field yet and whipped him!

"Nice work, girls. Now you can all come back."

Karen answered, "Good thing. I'm not entirely sure I like virtualizing."

Odd

We were all at the Hermitage, just sitting around. Karen looked a little bummed, but I think she was only bummed because her dream went exactly as planned this time.

Meanwhile… "What do you mean: we can't call the sub Melanie?" I didn't know what to think.

Ulrich told me the problem. "Odd, Melanie's the perfect name for a girl, not for a submarine."

Aelita came back into the room, holding a book. "This might have some ideas."

Jeremie read the page that Aelita showed him as she explained about whatever he was looking at. Then he actually read the name: "Skidbladnir?"

I missed the name. "Huh?" Okay, I did hear it, but I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to pronounce that. "Um…how about 'Skid' for short?"

Yumi asked, "What about Jim? Were you put on detention again?"

Aelita smiled brightly – a good look for her. "I haven't seen him since we left. I think he forgot all about it."

That got Karen to laugh, at least. Come to think of it, that got all of us laughing.