Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

It was almost 3am before she walked back in the gate of Kadic Academy. Normally, she'd be in deep trouble for coming in so late; but tonight, Aelita Stones had a get-out-of-jail-free card.

It started a few weeks ago when she had won a competition to be the guest DJ for the SubDigitals concert in Paris. The drummer, Chris, had visited Kadic Academy earlier, looking for new talent as well as visiting his uncle, Jim Morales. Aelita had submitted a demo to Chris, which he liked so much, he had her come down to their studio for an audition. She went, and the rest of the group liked her, so she got the gig.

Of course, what actually happened wasn't quite as simple as all that. Aelita Stones had, well, a different life. She and her friends spent just about every free moment they could fighting an evil computer program called XANA, which was trying to take over the world, destroy it, or something bad bad like that. The teens had been fighting it for the past few years, and for the most part, held their own. During both Chris's visit to Kadic, and Aelita's audition with the band, the rogue program launched an attack, trying to eliminate the threat the group posed. They were able to thwart the assault, and life went on as normal.

Then came the rehearsal. Aelita was overwhelmed by the mixing board she would have to command, and had to spend a lot of time with Simon the sound man to learn her way around it. But, by the end of the session, she was working the massive mixer as well as the one she was used to.

Of course, XANA didn't stay quiet through the rehearsal. It had possessed several of the roadies and tried killing Aelita with various heavy objects. She managed to dodge the objects and escaped to the factory, where she helped her friends shut XANA down.

The concert was set for Saturday night. The young ninth grader was going to be the opening act for a capacity crowd of sixty thousand people, and she wanted to share the moment with her closest friends. So on Friday, she went around and asked them to come. Her first stop was Yumi Ishiyama. She caught the tenth grader as she was walking out of her last class of the day.

"Yumi," Aelita began as she fell into step with her friend, "would you like to come to the SubDigitals concert tomorrow? They gave me tickets and backstage passes for my friends."

"Are you kidding? I'd love to!" Yumi replied, "after what we've been through the last few weeks, wild horses couldn't keep me away!"

"So, who're you going to ask to go with you?" Aelita asked next.

"Go with?" Yumi stuttered, "well, gee... I'm not sure..."

"Aw, c'mon," the pink-haired girl said, "I bet if you ask, Ulrich would go with you. Do you want me to ask him for you?"

"No, no! That's okay!" the Japanese girl quickly replied, "I'll... see if my brother wants to go."

"Okay, Yumi," Aelita said, figuring she'd teased her friend enough, "you ask your 'brother' and let me know. In the mean time, I'll see about Odd."

Odd Della Robbia was a lot easier.

"Heck yeah, I'll go!" he immediately said, "I'm sure I can get Camille or someone to go with. Don't worry, by showtime I'll have the prettiest girl around on my arm!"

Even though she said she wouldn't, Aelita next asked Ulrich Stern.

"Well, yeah, I'll go," he told her, "but I don't know about a date, or anything like that."

"Well, I happen to know that a certain young Japanese girl is coming," Aelita said, "I'm willing to bet she wouldn't mind having a good friend on her arm when she went backstage."

Ulrich blushed just a little at that.

"Heh, heh, yeah," he said, "we'll just have to see."

That left one person left to ask, the one person Aelita really wanted to be there. She found him exactly where she thought she would, busily typing away at his computer.

"Jeremie; um, do you have a moment?" she asked as she entered his room.

"What's up Aelita?" Jeremie Belpois replied as he continued typing, not even turning his head.

"Well, I was wondering... would you like to come to the concert Saturday night? I've got tickets and passes and..."

"I really can't," he replied, cutting her off, "I've got to keep working on the Skid's program. I need to find a way to increase the quantum energy available to it when it's in the Replika XANA created. I'd be a disaster if XANA destroyed the ship, 'cause that'd cut you all off from the supercomputer. I don't want to lose you g..."

"Jeremie," Aelita said, "no matter what you do, there will always be something more, some little threat that you didn't quite account for. And it will still be there Sunday. Saturday is very important to me, and I want to share it with all my friends, but especially with you. Please, can't you put XANA aside for once and come with me?"

Jeremie said nothing; he just continued his typing. Aelita wanted to scream; she wanted to whack him upside his head to knock some sense into him. But what she did was to quietly turn and leave his room. She went back to her own room and settled down for the evening. All the while, she did her best not to shed the tears that were threatening to fall.

Saturday finally arrived, and the campus was abuzz with gossip about the concert. Those who were going were all excited about going, and those who weren't cast envious glares at the ones who were.

When it was finally time to go, Aelita left her dorm room, and almost immediately ran into Jim Morales, the school's gym teacher.

"Whoa! Sorry there, Aelita!" he said, "Chris is waiting downstairs; so I told him I'd come up and fetch you. I take it you're all set for tonight?"

"Yeah," Aelita replied with a sigh.

"Now waitaminute," Jim said, "you're going to be performing before all those people tonight and you look like someone just shot your pet kitten! You ought to be pumped up for tonight!"

"I am, Jim, really," Aelita replied, "it's just..."

"Lemee guess, Belpois," the PE teacher said, "you asked him to go and he wouldn't budge from that computer of his."

Aelita just nodded her head in the affirmative.

"Tell you what," he said, "you get yourself downstairs and off to the concert. Maybe things will work out before the night's through. Which reminds me, I've got to take care of somethin' before I leave!"

With that, Jim strode off. Aelita just turned and went downstairs, met up with Chris, and went to the concert.

Jim, on the other hand, went down to the boy's dorm level. He quietly made his way to Jeremie's room, then leaned against the door and listened carefully to the boy as he typed on his computer. Occasionally, he heard the blond genius mutter something under his breath. Satisfied that he understood the situation, Jim left the boy's dorms and made his way down into the basement.

"Now, where is that panel..." he muttered to himself as he looked about.

Finally he found the panel he was looking for, the phone panel. He opened it up, looked carefully at the wiring inside, then pulled four wires. Next, he went over to the electrical panel and opened it. Once again he carefully scrutinized the wiring before tripping one of the breakers. He then closed the panel up and snapped a lock on it to make sure no one else could mess with it.

As he walked back upstairs, he made a call on his cell phone.

"Hey, Mike, Jim," he said to Michael Roullier, the groundskeeper/handyman, "do me a favor. If you get a call from Belpois about his power and phone line being out, tell him it will be at least Monday before you can get to it. What? Well, I just have this feeling that he's going to be having problems in the next few minutes, get me? Yeah, thanks a lot, Mike; I owe ya."

Jim had just made it back to the boy's dorm level when he ran into Jeremie Belpois, muttering to himself.

"Hey, Belpois! Watch where you're going!" he said to the boy.

"Oh, sorry, Jim," Jeremie replied, "say, could you help me? The power and phone just went out in my room, and I was working on something important for class Monday."

"No can do, Belpois," Jim said, "the last time I went messing with the electrical panel, I almost got myself electrocuted. Principal Delmas said he would fry me himself if I ever messed with it again. And I don't know a thing about the phone lines; we'd have to call the phone company about that."

"Great," Jeremie said, "I'm hosed; I can't even go to..."

"Go to where?" Jim asked.

"Oh, nowhere!" was the quick reply.

"Well, since you seem to have time on your hands now, you can give me a hand," Jim said, "I've got something I need to do tonight, and I could use some short help."

"I can't, I've..."

"Let me put it another way," the gym teacher said, with just the right hint of menace in his voice, "you can either help me out tonight, or you can do three weeks of detention. I'm thinking you need to work on that upper body strength of yours, and maybe spending three weeks on the rock climbing wall would do the trick."

"You wouldn't..."

"Ask Della Robbia what I wouldn't do," Jim said, "you're dressed, so get your butt in gear and move it! We've got places to be tonight!"

Aelita sat in the backstage lounge with the rest of the band, looking dejectedly at the floor. People would come by and shake her hand and make small talk with her. When they did, she'd smile a fake smile and nod at the appropriate moments, only to return to her gloom when they left her alone.

"Say, Aelita, is there something wrong?" Chris asked her at one point, "you've been quiet ever since we left."

"It's nothing," she assured him, "nothing at all." Chris shrugged at her response, then turned back to the others.

Yumi, Ulrich and Odd did show up. Pigs must be flying somewhere in the world, because Ulrich actually worked up enough nerve to ask Yumi if she would come with him tonight. Though she never let her face betray her, the Japanese girl was delighted that he had finally made a move. That joy was muted a little by the fact that her mother insisted on accompanying them as a chaperon.

Odd wasn't alone either, but his date was probably the shock of the century: Sissi Delmas, with her father, Principal Delmas, as chaperon. As Odd would explain it later, Sissi had fairly well tracked him down and alternately threatened/begged/blackmailed him into taking her. Since he had no other takers, he relented; especially when she said that she'd see to it that none of his friends would be allowed off campus if he didn't.

Seeing her friends there, even Sissi, perked Aelita up a bit. One of the things that had been keeping her quiet was the fact that she didn't know anyone else here, other than Chris, and him not all that well. Most everyone else was either from the record company, the promotion group, or something else related to the band. Having some familiar faces helped ease the pain of not seeing the one face she wanted to see.

Finally, twenty minutes before she was to perform, the promoters ushered everyone out of the lounge.

"Well, Aelita, it's time," Chris told her, "you've got the music in you; just let it out for the others to hear. Don't worry about all the people out there, just act like you're playing for your friends, or at school. And, no matter what, have fun."

The pink haired girl smiled as she nodded her head. Just then, there was a commotion at the entrance to the lounge.

"Let me through! That's my nephew over there, and I'm going to see him before he goes on!" came the loud voice of Jim Morales.

"Sir! You can't go back there!" one of the ushers insisted.

Security guards were now rushing to the scene to break up a potential fight. They grabbed Jim and struggled with him as he tried to shake them off. The conflagration caught Chris's eye, and he moved to stop it.

"Hey! It's okay; he's with us!" Chris shouted out to them, "he's okay; let him back."

The people holding Jim let go and he straightened himself up and dusted himself off.

"See? Told ya."

He then walked in and over to his nephew, with someone in tow. Jim turned to that person and said, "don't you have someone you want to talk to before she goes out there? Get moving, Belpois!"

Aelita's head snapped over to where Jim was standing and saw Jeremie peek out from behind him.

"Uh, hi Aelita," he sheepishly said.

She ran over and threw her arms around him, crushing him in a big hug.

Aelita's performance was fantastic. Having Jeremie there blew away all of the funk that had been pent up inside her, and she let the joy that replaced it flow out in her music.

All of her friends were sitting in the front row, watching her performance, but the only one she had eyes for was Jeremie. He was off to her left, and she had to crane her head to see him, but every time she looked at the blond headed genius, her mixing got just that much better. When she finally finished her set, the crowd went wild.

After she had finished, she asked one of the ushers to find Jeremie and bring him back to the lounge to join her. He joined her moments later, and they spent the rest of the concert watching the SubDigitals perform on the monitors. She even managed to get him up to dance a few times.

The concert wrapped up at 1am. Yumi, Ulrich, Odd, Sissi and their chaperons were able to get backstage again, and they all stayed with the band and celebrated the success of the show. All of the group came by and congratulated Aelita on her performance, and Sophie, the group's manager, said she'd call the girl in the morning.

The others left at around 1:30, but Aelita, Jeremie and Jim stayed later, finally getting back to Kadic at 3am. Jim escorted the two teens to their respective dorm levels and told them to get some sleep, then wandered off to do the same.

After Jim left, and before she went up to her room, Aelita said, "Jeremie, I'm so glad you came. What changed your mind?"

Jeremie blushed as he replied, "you know, it's just me. I thought about what you said and finally realized today that you were right. I ran out to try to find you, and ran into Jim instead. The rest is history."

She leaned over and quickly kissed him on the cheek, deepening his already deep blush.

"Apology accepted. And I'm glad you came tonight."

With that, the pink haired girl turned and ran upstairs to her dorm room. Jeremie sighed a moment, ashamed he had to lie to her, then turned and went to his own dark room. As he dressed for bed, he thought that it would probably be at least Monday before things got fixed, and he hoped XANA didn't pick tomorrow to launch an attack.