Hi Everybody!! So this is my first fanfic so be nice :) I do not own alex rider or any of its characters and the amazing song Don't Stop Believing belongs to the amazing Journey!!! So have fun reading and review!!! - :)

Don't Stop Believing

"Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world, she took the midnight train going anywhere. Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit. He took the midnight train going anywhere . . ."

Alex lay in his bed listening to the radio, trying to calm down. His bed sheets were twisted up and his blonde hair was matted with sweat. His heart was racing and he was gasping like someone who was near drowning. Alex's nightmare took him back to Venice and his encounter with Nile and a certain canal that will always hold bad memories for him.

No sense trying to go back to sleep now, Alex thought as he rub what little sleep he had out of his eyes. He rolled over and turned on the radio, the song Don't Stop Believing by Journey was playing. This took him back to another memory, though this one was not unpleasant.

5 Years Ago

11 year old Alex Rider was at his weekly karate lesson that Ian insisted that he take. Right now he wasn't too happy as any kid would be if the didn't get something right the first time. He was paired up with a Sean, a dark haired kid with rich parents who always made fun of Alex when the master wasn't looking. They were all trying to flip their opponent, and Sean went first without asking. Alex managed to get out of his hold, but Sean tripped him when he got up so Alex was now on the cool wood floor.

"Haha little 'ole Alex can't stay up by himself, why don't you go ask for mommy" Sean sneered. " Oh wait, she's not here haha"

Alex could feel the blood boiling in his veins with rage as he listened to Sean make fun of his mother. At the time he thought his mother and father had both died in a car crash, but all that was going to change with the day Ian didn't come home.

With accuracy only accomplished by controlled anger, Alex had Sean on the floor in a matter or seconds. Sean was trying to wriggle out and being the bigger boy (probably lay off the junk food, man, it's not good for you), he had an advantage.

"Twist his arm back," Alex heard someone call out from the crowd that had gathered. Good idea thought Alex. He twisted Sean's arm behind his back and Sean stopped moving, whimpering because his arm hurt.

"Alex, let go of Sean's arm," said that calm voice of Alex's karate master.

Alex let go and stepped back. Sean rubbed his arm and stood up trying to look cool, not like he was just pinned to the ground and surrendered to a guy smaller than him. (Nice try, not working though).

"Did you see what he was he was doing!!! He was trying to kill me with no reason. He can't be let here any more. My parents will hear about this, Rider!"

"Mr. Liverstein (what kind of name is that) I suggest that you leave immediately and never come back, or I may just to turn my back for a few minutes and let you have a private spar with Mr. Rider. I think he round house kick has gotten better." The karate master said this all in a deadly quiet voice and his black eyes were daring Sean to talk back. Unknown to the both boys, he had heard all their talk and he heard all of Sean's bullying and enough was enough.

Sean's face turned beet red and he was spluttering words. He looked at the masters, paled visibly and made a run for it, leaving behind a smirking Alex, a girl who was trying to hold in laughter but not really succeeding and a karate master with a ghost of a smile on his face. He smoothed out his face and turned to Alex, who had always been one of his favorites, who wiped the smirk off of his face like it was never there.

"Let's hope that roundhouse is as good as I think it is or you won't be getting anywhere that black belt I had in mind," the master said.

After the lesson was over, Alex was getting his stuff together when he felt a presence behind him and he turned. There was the girl who suggested he twist Sean's arm and tried to hold back her laughter when he ran out the door.

"Hey, I just want to say that was a nice move there. I'm glad he got kicked out, he kept annoying me I almost took him down. Nice to see someone beat me to it.," she smiled as she said this.

"Thanks. My name is Alex."

"Hi, my name is Elizabeth, call me Liz," she said with a grin as the beginning of Don't Stop Believing came onto the loud speakers in the room.

5 years later

Where are you now Liz, I need you thought Alex as he listened to the last sounds of the music as it died out.

*Don't Stop Believing*Hold Onto That Feeling*