Author's Note: I updated quickly, no? (Do me a favor and say yes.) Anyway, hello my lovely readers and reviewers! I love you all, don't you know that? You just make my day. If you have read any of my other stories, you would know that I am a very slow and detailed writer (slow meaning my story's pace is usually relaxed and full of vital info, not slow meaning I type slow, cause I type hella fast). So please be patient with the Xana attack. It will come, obviously, and it will be a major and big one, with some weird little gists, I think. I'm pretty sure that's how it will turn out. Anyhoo, thank you, scarf, for your compliment. CBIzumi, I am honored that your first fic you read was mine! I feel so loved. There's a lot more better fics than mine, though, so go and check them out. Otherwise, thank you to everyone who reviewed or anyone who just read my story. I welcome that too. Read and enjoy!

"Settle down, now kids."

For the second time in two days, Angela found herself sitting with all the rest of the students in a building waiting to hear a speech. But this time, she found Cynthia on her right, Charlie on her left, and Ian and Lori behind her. I'm surrounded by friends…well almost friends.

This time they were in the gym, since the whole school was present this time. The little stage the gym featured had a few chairs on it to the side, seven to be exact. The center of the stage was empty except for the principal. Angela was tempted to jump up onto it and burst into singing. She almost laughed at herself out loud for her absurd thought.

Then she noticed the two people standing to the side of the stage. They were chatting with a few of the teachers lightheartedly, sometimes laughing and sometimes serious. Angela could barely see them from where she was sitting because they were partly blocked by the stage, but she could see that one lady over there had a heart shaped face and unique vibrant pink hair.

The chatter of the students instantly quieted when a blonde haired man with black-rimmed glasses stepped onto the stage along side the principal. He had the pink-haired lady at his side. The man and the principal exchanged slight smiles and the principal and the lady went to the chairs to sit down. The man turned to face us. Angela could place very evident nervousness in his face.

"Hello, students!" he said happily. A few bold people echoed a hello back to him. The man smiled, more bold than before and gaining confidence quickly. "All of you are lucky to be able to be here at this school…"

While Angela listened with attentiveness all over her face, Ian maintained his bored expressions. I'm not lucky. The only thing that seems to be remotely interesting at this school is that warehouse place, which isn't even on school campus. He sighed and gazed next to him at the brown haired girl, bored already.

Her face was a mask of emotions but she seemed to be mostly paying attention. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and her arms were hugging her knees tightly. He studied her face, her brown hair blocking most of it, however. He had suddenly a temptation to reach up and tuck her hair behind her ear. He was mortified by his feelings and resisted it, but not without difficultly as he turned his eyes away to stare at Charlie's back. Why did I just think that????

"And now," the man was saying, "I would like to introduce to you my friends who just happened to walk in the door at this very moment!"

All eyes turned to the double doors of the gym and they settled on three people, two men and a woman. They froze and looked at the crowd for a second, poised, almost looking like they were going to flee. Then they walked in a composed manner to the stage to join their blond haired friend. Their friend smiled widely and made way for them.

Another blonde haired one with a faded peculiar purple streak in his hair shuffled toward the microphone, looking very much like a young boy. He gave a little wave. "Hey, um, I'm Odd. Nice to meet you all. You are all very fortunate to be here…and…" He faltered and looked back toward his friends. The black haired woman shot forward to his rescue.

"I'm Yumi, and Ulrich, Jeremie, Odd, Aelita, and I all used to go here. Ah, the good old days." She paused, as if she had sunk into good memories. She got an appreciative quiet laugh or snort from some in the audience. Then she snapped back to life and beamed. "But I'm sure the school is much better than what it was from the good old days and I'm sure you will enjoy it much more than we did." She shot a sly smile toward her friends behind her. "We all recommended you study hard and not cut class although we, unfortunately, had a tendency to do so. And, I'm sure that if all of you have time to look hard enough, you'll probably find surprises that are more that you bargained for."

"Like what?" some guy yelled out in the crowd. Yumi looked thoughtful, however, and not phased. Then she smiled mysteriously.

"You'll just have to look and see." She winked and then stepped back to rejoin her friends. This action of stepping back to join her friends made her miss out on the looks that passed between a certain group of five students.

As the principal came back on to intercept the mike, the body of students, as a whole, seemed to shift out of focus. And as whispering slowly started becoming abundant, Angela, Charlie, and Cynthia chose this time to turn around. Their meaningful glances conveyed enough for them not to use complete sentences. "You think?" Angela stated.

"Possible," Ian said back, amazed that he had actually understood the short question.

Suddenly a throat clearing its voice could be heard and everyone became hushed once again. Cynthia, Angela, and Charlie spun around as one.

The original blonde-haired one was speaking again. He smiled widely again and pushed is glasses up his nose a little. "And if you have anymore questions, we will be happy to answer them. Unfortunately, we can't stick around for long so Aelita and I have prepared a little sheet about this school and I'm sure you will enjoy it. On it has all of our email addresses if you have any more questions. Have a great day!"

The students' chatter instantly started back up again. Cynthia, Angela, Charlie, Lori, and Ian all shot each other looks. Email. As one they got up and started for the table whichhad the sheets. Many students were filing out already, some totally ignoring the sheets that had been provided. Ian gazed at them all a bit contemptuously. Ignorant losers.

As they each subtly reached out for one of the crisp white papers, Angela caught site of the speakers off in one huddled corner off the stage. Three of them were gesturing wildly and two of them were trying busily to explain themselves. At least, that's what Angela interpreted it as. And she was very good at interpreting things. She was almost always correct.

She gazed back at them one last time before they slipped into the crowd.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You gave them our email addresses?!"

"Jeremie, are you nuts?"

"No, he's not nuts. He's INSANE."

Jeremie backed up against the wall that the side of the stage made. "I'm sorry!" he said innocently, flailing his arms about and making bewildered motions. "I didn't know you guys would have a hissy fit."

Yumi's hands went straight to her hips. "Jeremie, do you know how much my computer cost? No, forget that. Do you know how much time it took to save up for that piece of crap? Now that you have so kindly provided my email to the masses, I'm going to get so much crap in there that I can't even get out of it! I'm going to get viruses, Jeremie! VIRUSES!"

Jeremie sighed and placed one hand on each of Yumi's shoulders to calm her down. "It's okay, Yumi. They are ninth graders. I'm pretty sure they can be mature."

Yumi snorted. "Were we mature?" Odd opened his mouth to speak but Yumi's head whipped around to face him. "Don't answer that," she snapped at him. Odd closed his mouth again.

"Besides, Yumi," Jeremie said soothingly, "if there are viruses, just give me a call. I do recall that I am the computer whiz around here? Besides, think of the bigger picture. We need to know if any of them know about Xana. That is the number one priority."

Ulrich exhaled sharply. "You sound like my dad. Whenever I see him, this is the speech he gives me."

Jeremie faced the group and shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said sincerely.

"We forgive you Jeremie," Odd said happily, forever the slap-happy one. "But one thing I won't forgive you for is if we don't go zooming off to Lyoko soon, or at least to see if its still there. I still get that weird urge sometimes to just virtualize myself and start killing monsters left and right."

Aelita laughed softly. "I feel just the opposite. I feel thankful all the time that I'm not living there anymore, with the constant fear of Xana and monsters driving me crazy."

Jeremie laughed with her and grabbed her hand to squeeze it. "No, Aelita, you no longer have to worry about that. Now you just have to worry about cars, guns, bombs, arson, murder and the list goes on and on."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jeremie. It just all talk with you. Let's go to the warehouse!" Odd said with eager excitement.

Yumi gave him a severe look. "Odd, stop being so…well…childish. We just had our big reunion. Shouldn't we go to some fancy place to have a meal first or something?"

Odd almost started bouncing up and down at that. "Even better! Forget about Xana! I'm all for Yumi's idea! I'm hungry."

Ulrich slapped Odd on the shoulder, hard. "When were you ever not, Odd?" As he said it, the group started walking toward the doors. The gym had cleared out fast and now it was almost empty. The five of them made their way to the doors slowly, as if savoring every moment they had together.

"Well," Odd said, looking very immersed in thought. "Um…uh…I know I wasn't hungry once. I think it was that one time…"

Yumi gave out a ringing laugh. "Give it up, Odd. You're not going to be able to remember. Now let's just go."