The next week flew by, and before the Wolves players knew it, the time had come to pack their bags and head to nationals. Alex threw his stuff together, knocked on Jeremy's door and stepped in. "Einstein, remember the scan pads. You know, just in case last repeats itself." Jeremy nodded "I've already got them packed and ready to go."

Alex gave him a thumbs-up. "Alright then, meet you at the gate in 20 minutes. I'm gonna see if the others are ready to go." He left Jeremy to finish packing and stepped over to Odd and Ulrich's dorm. Odd was in a panic because he couldn't remember where he put his jersey or his jacket. Alex stopped him, looked his friend dead in the eye and told him to go check his gym locker. Odd jogged off and Alex left the room.

Downstairs in the girl's dorms, Aelita had just finished packing her bag and went to see if Lily was ready to go. She walked down the hall and knocked on Lily's door.

Lily opened the door, "Hey Aelita. I am almost ready."

Aelita nodded "Alex texted me, he says the limo will be here in 20 minutes, we need to meet him and the others down at the gates before then."

Lily nodded, "Ok I can't wait to see Alex."

Aelita slung her bag over her shoulder and headed down the stairs, exiting the dorm building and jogging down toward the gates. Alex and the guys were waiting their, bags in hand. Alex explained that they would pick Yumi up at her house and take off for Paris. The limo pulled up, Alex opened the trunk, everyone tossed their bags in and climbed into the limo.

Alex spoke to the driver in Greek "We're waiting on one more before we pick up Yumi." The driver nodded and the team waited on Lily. William looked to Aelita "You told her we're leaving soon right?" Aelita nodded "Yeah, Lily will be here soon."

Lily came down dragging Kai, "You are coming to the game whether or not you like it Kai."

Kai sighed, "Sis I'm not into sports. You know that."

Lily glared, "Doesn't matter." Kai sighed he had a book in his hand and something in his pocket.

"Lily, let Kai stay at Kadic. Give him his freedom. Remember the video? Odd's still got it."

Lily said, "He needs to support his friends. Besides he isn't doing anything and I know he wants to be there for a certain someone." She smiles and looks toward Aelita.

Alex looked at her "Lily, let it go. Kai is an independent young man here. Let him stay that."

Lily sighed, "Fine but only because you said so."

Kai smiled, "Thanks Alex. Besides I have a math test to study for tomorrow."

Alex looked at Kai and smiled "Anytime buddy, that's what friends are for. Just know that the teachers will be projecting the televised broadcasts of the national tournament during class. 8 teams are going in, 2 will get to the finals, 1 will become champion. Anyway, enjoy your alone time man, we have to get on the road."

Alex tousled Kai's hair, the group said their goodbyes to Kai, and the limo pulled away.

Alex opened the mini-fridge. "Anyone want a soda?"

Lily nodded, "Yes please. I bet you're excited for the game. I know you guys will do great. I need to apologize about Kai's actions. He never really had friends at his old school."

"Lily, relax. Kai is cool dude. He fits in perfectly with our little group. He likes being around us." Alex started handing out sodas "You guys remember the hotel we stayed at last year? We got it again. Just a couple of suites for us. So, the girls can all room together, William, Odd and I will take another room, Ulrich and Jeremy can take the last room. That cool?"

Lily replied, "Sure. You guys want to know why I acted the way I do around Kai?"

William shrugged "After we pick up Yumi."

She simply nodded.

The limo stopped, Alex slid up the L-Bench seat to open the secret door and let Yumi in. Shutting the door, Alex looked to his friends, "That's everyone, we have 6 hours until we're in Paris. We've got movies and video games, plenty of snacks, and there's an intercom to the front to let Galen know if one of us needs a bathroom break or just to get out and stretch their legs. The limo rolled off out of town and Alex leaned back in his seat. "Everyone relax until we get there."

Lily smiled, "Right ready for a story?"

Alex wasn't paying attention, he and Odd had decided to fire up the tv and play some video games. Odd looked through Alex's collection of games "A lot of stealth action and first person shooters here."

Alex chuckled "My favorites Odd, go ahead and pick one." He turned to the others, "We'll let you guys chat." Alex pulled on two small straps near his head and a black privacy curtain dropped down.

Yumi turned to Lily "Let those two do what they love. The rest of us will listen to you."

Lily sighed, "Its about Kai and his odd behavior."

Jeremy looked up from his book "This sounds intriguing, go ahead."

Lily began, "My brother has never had a good experience in his life. It made him close himself off from the world. I am partly to blame for this."

From the other side of the curtain came the sounds of explosions and gunfire. William laughed "Sounds like Odd and Alex are playing Halo 4." Then he looked to Lily, "Ignore them though, please continue."

She continued, "You see ever since Kai was in 4th grade, Bella and I hated having a girly brother and we spread rumors of him being transgender we were hoping he would run away. Kai just took it straight to the face. He eventually retreated to himself and just getting himself absorbed into video games. At one point he actually tried to make a portal to the video game world trying to escape the real world."

Yumi took this all in "That explains why Kai took a while to get comfortable hanging around with us. He must have thought we were going to judge him. I think since he started hanging out with us, he's been slowly getting back in touch with reality, I know he's not fully there but that's fine. We just want him to know that he has us if he ever needs us. We're his friends, it's what we do."

Lily shook her head, "He will never be back completely into reality and it isn't just you guys. He has a certain someone he wants to impress."

Ulrich shrugged "Sounds like every guy. We all have someone we like, we do what we can to impress them in hopes of getting to be with them. It's just the way a guy's brain is hardwired. We do what we do usually out of love or sheer stupidity. More often than not, it's often times the latter."

Lily smiled, "Oh its more than stupidity and do you want to know who that is? In his diary he acts like if she dies its end of the world."

Odd's laugh came from the other side of the curtain "Kai keeps a diary? Wow! That takes guts. I admire that."

Ulrich shook his head "Ignore my roommate Lily, he's one of those guys who tries to impress someone out of sheer stupidity." He chuckled to himself. Yumi looked over "You keep Kai's crush secret, we'll just try and figure it out as time goes on. It's almost Valentine's Day, maybe he'll try for a romantic gesture, we can see then."

Lily smiled, "Not likely. My brother is amazing at keeping secrets. He won't make a move he is way too timid."

William pulled out his phone before saying "He's gonna do something, we probably won't know. Honestly I don't care, just leave Kai alone when it comes to this. Let him gain his confidence by himself. If we're really his friends, we'll allow him that much."

Ulrich agreed before getting up and slipping towards the curtain. "I'm going to go see what Alex and Odd are up to. Have fun back here you guys." He opened the curtain, proceeded forward and let it drop behind him.

Six hours blew by and the limo pulled into Paris. Alex opened the sunroof and stuck his head out. "We're in France's city of lights guys. I'm so glad to be back."

Lily smiled at him, "And City of Love."

Alex didn't hear that, he was too busy admiring the lights. He looked around and ducked back in, in his best tour guide voice he said "If you folks look on your right, out the window you will see the Eiffel Tower. And before you ask any questions, yes we will swing by sometime before the national tournament has ended."

The limo pulled up to Hotel de Crillon, the driver parked, opened the doors and let everyone out. Alex grabbed his bag and let the group inside. After grabbing the keys he looked to his friends "Okay guys, we got the same rooms as we did last year. My parents felt generous. Let's get upstairs. Guys in the Louis XV suite and Girls take the Bernstein Suite." Ulrich decided he would take one for the team and stay with the girls. Being the trusting friends they were. Aelita and Yumi allowed it.

After getting settled into their rooms, Alex looked over at his friends "You guys up for a little walking tour of the city?" His friends nodded. "Awesome, I'll go tell the girls." He stepped out into the hall, walked down to the girl's and Ulrich's room, and knocked on the door.

Lily was sitting on the bed texting Kai making sure he was ok.

Kai texted back, "I'm doing fine Lily. Just finished studying playing some Fire Emblem: Awakening."

Lily texted, "Alright be careful Kai. Don't want you get hurt and upset Aelita"

Kai texted back angrily, "YOU READ MY DIARY!"

Lily smiled, "Yup don't worry I won't tell them."

Alex knocked again, in the back of his mind he was thinking "I figured at least Ulrich would have come to the door by now."

Lily opened the door, "Hey Alex. What is it you need?"

"The guys and I are going out to walk around town, we were wondering if any of you girls or Ulrich wanted to tag along."

Lily said, "I'll go."

Ulrich came up behind Lily. "We'll meet you in the lobby."

Alex nodded and headed back to the room. As he closed the door, he looked to the others "Everyone's in. Tonight, we have fun, tomorrow, we play basketball." The guys agreed with them and they went down to the lobby. Ulrich and the girls met up with them and they went out to explore the city. After dinner and sightseeing, Alex and his friends returned to the hotel and turned in for the night.

Morning came and Alex was the first up among the guys. He was showered and in his game day clothes. After everyone else was up and ready, they grabbed a quick breakfast and made their way to the athletics center. Odd looked to the girls "We'll see you after the games ladies."

They split up and the guys went to change. The team played extremely well, advancing to the finals against a team they knew all too well. The Paris Private Academy Fighting Spartans. Jim looked to the guys. "Listen up boys. The Spartans are seeking revenge for losing to us last year. Let's get out there, play well and win this again. Break it down."

Alex and the guys started the slow clap picking up the tempo. "Ready breakdown!"

"Let's go Wolves."

"1...2...3!"

"Break!"

The wolves grabbed basketballs from the cart and went to shoot around and warm up. Over on the sidelines, Aelita was looking out at the Kadic crowd. She saw a lot of students from the academy, Ulrich's parents, Odd's mom, William's dad, Jeremy's dad and Alex's parents. She smiled, "Nice to see the guy's parents here." She pointed out Alex's parents to Lily "There's Alex's parents. We can't thank them enough for adding some additional funding so we could stay where we are."

Yumi looked up at the scoreboard, '15 minutes to game time, I'm going to get us some waters." She stood up and walked off. Sissi and Herb came up and sat with the other cheerleaders. "Hey guys. Sorry we weren't here for the other games" Herb said as he took off his jacket. "We would have been here sooner, but Sissi was driving and she got us lost."

Aelita looked over at Herb "Alex did offer you the limo and a room, why didn't you take it?"

Sissi's response was flat and snooty as always "We chose not to join you because we can't trust Alex."

Herb slid his glasses up his nose "You mean YOU can't trust Alex. He's my friend. Unlike you, I think Alex is a cool guy."

Sissi's jaw dropped, she tried to say something but couldn't. Aelita turned to Lily

Lily was smiling it was nice to have Sissy being stood up against. She was still stubborn about the things she did at school to embarrass Kai.

The final game got underway and the Wolves were on fire from the start. Their unpredictable strategies keeping the Spartans guessing. Halftime rolled around and the guys were just heading off the court when the heard a panic. Alex turned his head "Not again." He looked to the others. Jeremy and I are heading back to the hotel. Ulrich, you and Aelita are coming too. Odd, you and William are going to stay here and keep the specters at bay. Keep them away from Lily, Kai would kill us if something happened to her."

Alex grabbed his team, threw his warmup jacket on and they left the gym. Odd and William had a brilliant idea. Make this look like a halftime show. Two specters possessing the shooting guard and center for the Spartans.

Their plan went well. Everyone started calming down and enjoying the show. Meanwhile, Alex, Aelita and Ulrich had just been virtualized. They took off across the ice sector, Aelita on the Overwing, the guys on their Overbikes.

Alex watched over his shoulder. He knew that both he and Aelita would have to disable a tower. Ulrich sensed the coming danger before Alex could. He jumped off his bike, drew his swords and looked at the both his friends. "You guys go. I'll stay behind and keep the monsters at bay."

Alex and Aelita understood and rode on. Ulrich was protecting his friends. He'd always done that. They pulled up to the first tower. Plain tower, this was Aelita's. She went in to disable it. Alex rode on. Ahead of him was a road block made of blocks. He abandoned his bike and let it crash, wiping out half the road block. The rest began to attack. Alex duplicated and finished them off.

He fused with his clone and ran into the dark tower. Quickly disabling it he spoke to Jeremy. "Okay man. We had a game in progress and I'd really like to see how it ends. How about a return to the past and we can get back to basketball."

Jeremy activated the return trip and time reverted. The Wolves defeated the Spartans 76-38 and reclaimed their national championship title. "We did it guys. We are the champions again!"

The team returned to the hotel with high spirits. They took to their rooms before Alex looked at them and said "I'm thinking we go out for dinner and then we'll call it a night."

Dinner came and went, the team turned in for the night, and the next morning they took off for Kadic. Spirits high and everyone happy.

A/N:

Ulrich-Stern3277- Hey guys. This chapter took a while mostly because of me needing some inspiration. The next chapter will take a while as well. The reason behind that is because I just became a dad and I'm needing time to transition to the role of a father.

Icy: Yeah so the story won't be updated for a while. Wish him luck guys.