Athor's Note 1: I do not own any part of Code: Lyoko, the original characters, or anything else. The only thing within that I claim as my own are the created characters Aurora and Spire Xion. I also claim the person that appears in the middle of this fic.

Author's Note 2: This fic takes place a few weeks after "First Time Again". Spire has a confession to make, and there's only one person he can make it to. Aurora will research the details of her Great-Grandfather's Military Project. Now, both are revealed...

Author's Note 3: The italics are dream sequences.

Xion is XANA

Aurora streaches and yawns, noticing that her roommate was gone, like she almost always was, even on weekends like this. She rolls over, looking at the wall, when a knock comes at the door. "Hey, sis. Can I come in?" Spire's voice comes through the door.

"It's open." Aurora calls as she rolls over to look at the door. Spire enters, and Aurora's shocked to see him in the clothes their parents had given him for 'special occasions'. "Well, well, well. Who is it?" She sits up.

"I just wanted to ask a few questions." Spire sits on the end of his sister's bed. "How would you want a boy to ask you on a date? When should he do it and where should he take her?" the words spill out of Spire's mouth.

"First off, every girl is differant, how I would like could be such an extreme as to, say, Sissy." Aurora pause, and notices the downcast look and blush on Spire's face. 'Bingo.' she thinks. "You should ask her as soon as possible. Where not many people will hear, if you want. And it all depends on the girl where to take her, but most like to go shopping, and you DO still have the two hundred mom and dad sent last week, right?" Spire nods. "Good. Offer to take her shopping and, if she won't let you pay for anything, then at least carry most of it for her. That's all the advice I can give." Aurora playfully kicks her brother off the bed. "Now, if you don't mind, let me get dressed." Spire nods and leaves. "My little brother is growing up." she sighs and removes herself from the bed towards her dresser, picking out the silvery-silk skirt and matcing blouse that her parents had given her for 'special occasions'.

Aurora makes her way quickly to the cafeteria, planning on making good on her deal with Odd. She bursts in and spots Odd, alone, stuffing his face with three breakfasts. "The others gone already?" Odd nods, his mouth full of food. "Want to know something more important than food?" Odd swallows, wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and speaks.

"More important than food? There's not much..." he stops mid-sentance because of the tight hug Aurora gave him. "Ok. So what do you want to do?" he pushes away the food and she giggles.

"First, I want you to get out of those purple clothes. Then we can go into the city."

"What, you want me to go naked?" Odd asks, drawing more giggles from his friend. Aurora drags him from the table and down to his room, into, and over to the dresser.

"Let's see... oh!" she had pulled out Odd's bottom drawer and Kiwi jumped into her lap. "Aww, he's so cute!" Aurora hugs Kiwi, who licks her face. She sets the dog down and goes through Odd's other drawers. "Let's see... purple, purple, purple, what's this?" Aurora pulls out a black shirt with a red & silver tribal-style design. "Now this I like." She tosses the shirt to Odd and goes through his pants, looking for something that matches. After a few seconds, she pulls out a pair of black pants with tribal-style designs on each knee. "Wow, a boy after my heart." Aurora pulls up her blouse, revealing a similar tribal-tatoo around her belly-button.

"Did it hurt?" Odd asks, Aurora, ignoring his question, lets her blouse drop to how it was and puts the pants on his head and over his face.

"Come out when you're done." She leaves the room and sits next to the door, waiting for her friend, letting her head nod.

"My child..." a voice says. Aurora looks up, quickly looking around.

"Who said that?" she asks worridly. A glowing symbol comes into her view. A circle with two circles within it, three prongs at the bottom and one prong on the top.

"My child... You are here." the symbol's glow pulses with the words. "You are mine, my one and only." the symbol comes closer to her.

"Who, who are you?" the girl asks. The symbol's light becomes red.

"I am that which was destroyed many a time. I am that which was destroyed long ago. I am that which you destroyed not long ago. I am that which destroys all that destroy me. I am XANA, and you are my one and only, Aurora, Princess of Lyoko." the symbol flares a bright reddish-yellow.

"Aurora!" Odd shakes her, not softly but not too hard either. Her head snaps up quickly, banging into the wall.

"Ow ow ow!" she holds the back of her head. "What was that?" she looks around for the floating symbol.

"What was what?" Odd asks.

"N-n-nothing." Aurora stammers, smiles, and stands with Odd's help. She grabs his arm and snuggles against it. "So, where to?" she leans her head against his shoulder, trying to forget the strange dream and the symbol that called itself XANA.

Odd and Aurora stop in front of the local movie theatre. "Wanna see a movie?" he asks her and Aurora nods, lifting her head from his shoulder. She looked at the posters and pointed to one of the posters and Odd leads her in.

Spire stands outside Sissy's room, his hand up to knock, but he couldn't bear himself to do it. He drops his hand in defeat. "I'm hopeless." he sighs and leans his forehead against the door with a soft thud. He hears the shuffling of feet and barely removes his forehead before the door opens.

"Oh, Spire." Sissy says. "I wasn't exspecting anyone this early." Sissy was still wearing her nightclothes.

"Good morning, Sissy. I was wondering.. that is.. would you like to..." he stops.

"Would I like to what?" she asks.

"Would you like to go into the city with me?" Spire blurts, his words leaving Sissy temporarily speechless.

"Well, I guess so. Can you give me a minute to change?" Spire nods and Sissy closes the door.

"Did I do that well?" he says softly, wishing that he had written down what he wanted to say. After a minute, Sissy opens the door wearing her usual clothes.

"So what did you have in mind?" she asks.

"I really haven't thought it out that far." Spire sheepishly answers, drawing a short laugh from Sissy. She grabs his hand and leads him out of the school building.

"We'll find something to do." Sissy says.

"Well, I should've exspected this." Spire had been towing several of Sissy's bags around for a while and his arms were getting tired. "Sissy, think we could rest for while? Maybe get some lunch?"

"I guess so. It IS getting about noon." Sissy leads Spire into a small restaraunt. He dumps the bags on the floor next to him and moves to pull the seat back for Sissy to sit in. "Thank you." She sits and he takes the chair opposite her.

"Sissy, there's something I've wanted to tell you for a while..." he pauses.

"Go on." Sissy listens attentively.

"I, think I love you." he says and quickly looks down intending for Sissy's voice to show him her answer.

"You cannot escape me." the symbol appears in front of Aurora again.

"No, please, go away." she tells it.

"Go away? No. Your blood created me, I will not leave." the symbol flares a bright, burning white.

Aurora screeches, but lucky for her, the movie she had chosen was a horror, and several other girls had screamed. "Hey, what's wrong?" Odd looks over to her.

"Nothing... nothing." She squeezes her eyes shut, still feeling the pain from the white light. "I'll be fine, I just need some fresh air." Aurora stands and leaves Odd, and she passes a person near the back of the theatre with large pupils the same shape as the symbol that called itself XANA. She shudders and gulps in the outside air. Someone lays a hand on her shoulder, and Aurora sees Odd when she turns. "Odd, I'm sorry, but I need to be alone for a while. I truely wish we could stay together for the rest of the day. I just need to find something. I'll give you a call later?" she kisses his cheek and runs off. Aurora is out of breath when she reaches her room. Entering, she searches her side frantically for her black clothes. Finally finding them, she changes them with her current clothes and walks to the school library, the cape she had dorn lightly flapping in the air conditioned building.

Upon entering, she immediately spots Jeremy at one of the tables. Somewhat avoiding him, she finds all the war encylcopedias she can that start with 'X'. She proceeds to Jeremy's table and dumps the seven books next to him, not very quietly. He looks at her angrily. Aurora pulls back her hood and sits across from him. "Jeremy, I need your help." she pleas.

"What with? Class research?" he looks at the stack of encylopedias next to him.

"Search those for information on Astra Xion. He's my great-grandfather." Aurora pulls half the books over next to her and she begins searching. Jeremy shrugs and begins helping with the stack she had left at his side. Aurora shortly finds something of interest, because she pulls out a notebook and scribbles something down. Jeremy, on the other hand, goes through two of them, and finds a very interesting section on Astra Xion. He reads the entry softly, barely loud enough for Aurora to hear.

"'American Scientist, Astra Xion, has been commisioned for the past several years to work on a way to defeat the Nazis that controlled France. To his credit, he created a super-computer that he named Yashin Kokka Kyushu Suru.' What does that mean?" He looks up.

"Loosely, it means Ambition Nation Assimilation...." Aurora gasps. "XANA!"

"Huh?" Jeremy's face takes on a puzzled look.

"My great-grandfather always named things after himself, and the rest of the name in Japanese. Xion Yashin Kokka Kyushu Suru. Xion's Ambition for National Assimilation, or XANA, he had called it. Why did I not remember until now?" her eyes well up in tears, while Jeremy reads on.

"'Scientist Xion was turned over to the Nazis near the end of the World War after three of his assistants were killed by YKKS, and he was believed to have been executed. No proof for or against this has been discovered.' The Nazis. How terrible." Tears stream down Aurora's face.

"Great-Grandpa died while my grandfather was still two, leaving him alone with his wife." she says through sobs. "But Grandpa knew all about XANA. He always believed that Great-Grandpa was still alive. He could be, if I heard XANA right."

"Did you just say you talked to XANA?!?" Jeremy's eyes widen in shock. Aurora nods.

"Twice. After breakfast this morning, and not too long ago at the movies with Odd." she says. She remembered the pain from the second encounter.

"How? The only time that we've talked to him was when he captured Yumi, Ulrich, and Odd in the Artic Region of Lyoko." Jeremy replies.

"I didn't see him, though. I just saw that symbol that was on those monsters."

"You saw THAT? And it TALKED to you?" Jeremy asks. Aurora dries her tears and nods. "We need to talk to Aelita. XANA may be up to something." Aurora follows Jeremy to his room.

"Aelita, are you there?" Jeremy asks as he puts on his earpiece. Within moments Aelita's face is on the screen. "Have you noticed any pulsations recently?"

"No, why?" Aelita shakes her head.

"I've seen that symbol of his twice. It talked to me!" Aurora says, not remembering that Aelita couldn't hear her.

"How about this, Aurora: I'll take you to the scanners. We'll get Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich to come and we'll all try to figure this out together, on Lyoko." Jeremy removes the earpiece and Aelita dissappears from the screen. "Let's go." Jeremy pulls out his cell phone and calls the others.

Spire was relieved. Sissy had not given him a definant 'no', but he didn't recieve a 'yes' either. They had long since left the restaurant and headed back for the school building. "Hey, Sissy, do you feel like you're being watched, or is it just me?" he asks, trying to walk faster with all the bags he was carrying.

"No, why?" Sissy turns around.

"I've had this feeling that someone's been following us since we left the restaraunt. But it might just be something else." Spire shrugs.