Partial Answers

Karen

The entire gang stood in Odd and Ulrich's room, looking at Odd, still asleep. He woke up for a minute, saw that they were ready for P.E., and asked Aelita to cover for him with an excuse. She tried, but Jim threw his back out during the class and had to go to the infirmary. There, he discovered that Odd hadn't been up that day and both Odd and Aelita got detention. The two of them were mad at each other all the way until time to explore the new world. They went to the scanners and…blue.

Later, Odd and Aelita made up their fight.

I opened my eyes. Now, here was something to avoid at all costs: Odd and Aelita in a fight. I leaped out of bed, pulled on my P.E. uniform, and shook Aelita awake to get Odd up.

We all stood in Odd's room. By my sight, Odd was a dragon that wasn't about to move. He did…kind of. "Why are you all dressed like that?"

Ulrich didn't directly answer. "Take your time. It'll come to you."

Odd closed his eyes for a second or two. Then his eyes snapped open in dismay. "Oh, no: P.E.!" Then he rolled over so that his back was to us. "Aelita, make some excuse so that I can sleep longer."

Aelita asked, "What do I tell him?"

Odd was asleep again.

I told her, "If you have to say anything, say that he needed to go to the infirmary. You all go on ahead. I'm going to try one last shot at getting him up."

They all walked out. Ulrich hesitated at the door. "Just don't hurt him too badly, okay? He may be a dork, but we need every fighter against Xana."

I rolled my eyes as the door shut. Then I stalked over to the sleeping brown dragon and heaved him up by the neck.

As he stared at me in bleary-eyed horror, I snarled, "Would you like to know the sequence of events for the day if you stay in bed? Aelita's going to use the infirmary excuse, Jim will throw his back out by accident and learn you were never at the infirmary, and you both are going to get detention and be mad at each other up to when we go to Lyoko. Do you really want that?"

Odd made some kind of strangled noise and I continued, "I didn't think so. Now get out of bed and get dressed before I treat you like a baby doll."

Odd stared. Then he pulled at my hand enough to gasp out, "You wouldn't…would you?"

"Try me. Just try me."

"I surrender. Let me go and get out of my room."

I dropped him and turned away. But I saw before I actually left: he rubbed his neck with a scowl on his dragon face.

I closed the door and stared at my hands. Did I scratch him? Are my hands becoming dragon claws for real? No, that can't be it. Maybe my nails need trimming. Yeah.

I ran off to get to P.E. The only thing making me happy was that I wasn't flying.

Yet.

Odd

I sat up and rubbed my neck. That girl really needed to trim her fingernails. I rushed through getting dressed and took off out the door – only to run straight into Jim! And…oh, no, the principal was with him!

Okay, okay, we weren't actually mad at each other after getting detention; Aelita might have been mad at me, but I was madder at myself.

Aelita arranged to meet up with Nikolas, Nikolas after lunch – probably to get me jealous, but it didn't work – and then Jeremie told us at lunch how we were going to explore the computer world that we found. I couldn't help but grin at how Aelita had to tell Nikolas that she couldn't show up.

Aelita

I still couldn't believe that Odd would get in trouble even after Karen told him…something. Once we got to Lyoko and beamed into the Skid, I started it up and we set off for the Replika.

Once we got there, I agreed with Odd about not being paired with each other, but Ulrich, Yumi, and Karen all went off without us! We chose to sit with our backs to each other until monsters showed up. Then I had to save Odd when William knocked him over the edge of the sector.

Thankfully, the others showed up before anything happened to me. Then Jeremie told us that Herve and Nikolas were in the factory looking for Odd and me. Odd called down with an idea. Ulrich devirtualized me and I listened to Odd's plan.

I didn't like it, but it was the only way to get those two off our backs. We got into the elevator and got it going up. Once it reached the level that those two boys were on, it opened. We were pretending to kiss. After they left, we went back down to Jeremie and kind of got a laugh at his expense.

Karen

I sat in my room, with Aelita sitting across from me. I was worried.

"Don't worry, Karen. Odd and I have a plan to keep Sissi from using our game against us."

I looked up sharply. "Hm? Oh, sorry, Aelita. I was thinking about…something else."

Then my cell phone went off, making both of us jump. I swiped it off my desk and flipped it open.

It was my mom. "How are you doing, Karen?"

"Um…not so well. I mean, school's fine and I've made several friends, but…"

"I've been thinking about telling you this for some time, but I kept putting it off, mostly because I wasn't sure you were ready."

I thought about that. Did that mean that Mom was finally going to tell me? "Go on."

"Well, my husband and I used to live in this town. I was rather excitable, and that was even more so when I met a man named Franz Hopper."

I froze. That was Aelita's dad.

"Anyway, he showed me to this lab of his, and he let me – this is hard to believe, but he let me enter the computer that was there."

My mom had virtualized before. That was just too incredible.

"This was while I was still pregnant with you. We moved right after that, but I couldn't stop thinking about what effect the virtualization process would possibly have on you. Once you old enough to tell me about your dreams, I knew exactly what the effect was. For a long time I thought that your hair was the only effect." She laughed nervously. "I hope you don't mind that I've waited this long to tell you."

I smiled. "I don't mind, Mom. In fact, I'm glad that you told me at this time. Well, I've got to get to bed. 'Bye, Mom; I love you."

"I love you too, darling."

She didn't usually call me "Darling." I felt like crying as I hung up.

"Are you okay, Karen?"

I looked at Aelita. And I noticed that the scales were starting to fade. Had that been all that was wrong with me? That I didn't know where my dreams came from?

"I'm okay, Aelita. I'm okay now."

A/N: Sorry about how vague and fast this chapter is during the William attack. It's been a while since I've seen this episode.