A/N 4-13-10: It's been a while. What can I say to defend myself? I feel guilty and irresponsible? That I experienced periods lacking motivation, writers block, and complete stress and mayhem? That I'm a senior in high school applying to, visiting, and choosing college while trying to get good grades? If you believe me I started this chapter back in December because I was so pumped with my update for HTBD and I wanted to update RMH so I could update HTBD sooner, but well, it is April now. Enjoy!

Chapter 9:

First thing the following morning Riley saw his sister, Sakura, hanging over Dante's shoulder demanding blood.

"Kill them! Track them down and kill!" she growled.

Drew appeared behind Riley. "She's demanding human sacrifices already?" he asked and shivered dramatically. "Remind me never to mess with her laptop."

Riley shrugged, and he watched the scene. Dante worked his magic restoring Sakura's laptop, and Sakura ranting. "She's a bit high strung."

"Of course, this is Sakura we're talking about," Drew agreed. "She's only rational when she has to be." A smile quirked across Drew's face as he thought about how little he saw the serious side of Sakura. If she wasn't baying for blood she was some other emotional extreme.

"Who does she want to kill?" Hallie asked, popping up between Drew and Riley, and barely containing her curiosity.

"Oh, so now you're talking to us," Drew quipped. If Hallie heard she didn't deem his question worth a response. She just kept watching with rapt fascination the scene playing out in front of her.

"I'm guessing the pathetic soul who sent her computer that virus." Riley said.

"Yeah," Hallie agreed, and she cocked her head to the side. "She was ranting into the night about what she'd do once she found the creep who almost killed her computer," she replied casually as if Sakura's loose temper was normal. Which when the group paused to ponder, it was.

"Any graphic R-rated descriptions?" Riley asked.

"No, actually," Hallie said with just a hint of surprise coupled with delight merging in her tone. "Just the regular venting."

"She's improving then," Drew remarked dryly. After all, how many times had Sakura blown up at him? Thousands, but he'd deserved it, mostly. He had a bad habit of stepping on toes when he chose to, and he decided to employ that gift and step on some toes, Hallie's toes. "Still mad at Dante?" he asked Hallie.

The quick narrowing of Hallie's eyes and swift change in disposition from rapt attention to dour pondering answered his question.

"Uh, duh," Hallie replied. "After what he did, of course I'm—,"

"Is what he did any different then what you did to him?" Drew cut in, subtly referencing Hallie's role in secretly implanting program exorcism into Dante's Lyoko form.

The utter look of disdain that Hallie threw at Drew would have terrified lesser men and wiser fools. Clearly the topic of conversation Drew was broaching was the highest of all faux pas and taboos in her world. Never suggest one of her past decisions was the wrong one. No one likes seeing the ugly sides of themselves after all, or being told they're wrong.

"Look Drew, there are no similarities between my and Dante's—,"

The fire alarm decided to go off then. For a moment all the students took a moment to just stare at the flashing lights on the ceiling visually alerting them to the fire alarm's activation. Then with a hesitant air, the student population began exiting the building like the well trained lemmings their teachers and supervisors had bred them to be all the while wondering whether their principal had turned unexpectedly cruel (well, with Principal Delmas you never could tell what her definition of cruel was precisely. The student body had learned to tolerate a lot of her more eccentric behavior. Fire drills before the first class of the day wouldn't be that out of place on the list of her quirks), some brilliant genius had pulled the alarm for jokes, or if it was an actual, bona fida fire.

The break in conversation seemed to be exactly what Hallie was looking for, an escape. "I'm going to class," she snapped slipping into the crowd of students leaving the building.

"But it hasn't even started yet!" Drew's voice carried over the curious chatter and speculative murmurs. "What are you even going to do?"

"Wait outside and study!" she shouted back, and by then any attempt to follow her proved futile as her pink mop vanished from the crowd.

Drew growled. "You'd think we'd get a break from odd behavior, or XANA's meddling," he grumbled as he shoved his way through the crowd of students.

"That wasn't XANA."

"Dante," Riley acknowledged.

Drew sighed (well not a sigh but a gusty releasing of air hemmed with exasperation and worked with frustration). "Then some brilliant genius pulled the alarm?" he voiced, and he glanced at the surrounding student body as if holding each and every one of them responsible for pulling the alarm.

"Indubitably," Dante replied.

All three sobered to a degree. There was a mixture of feelings pulsing amongst the three—admiration at the courage of the stunt, sheer wonderment at the utter lack of brains the inconsiderate dunce possessed for pulling such a stunt, annoyance at the dreaded lectures that would come from their principal, and then minor euphoria at the thought of sitting outside, basking in the sunlight, and not being in school while the whole mess got sorted out.

The student body spent an hour outside, an unproductive, idle hour for most. Many were content to recline in a field of clovers and laugh merrily as an unfortunate pair of senior girls seemed to find the mothership for all the school's nonvenomous spiders and shrieked accordingly. Sakura had melted, all stress washed away as, sunglasses on, she soaked up the sun. Riley had found a neighbor in the dorm with a soccer ball and was partaking in an impromptu scrimmage, and Drew was showing off his pigskin to Dante and all other curious onlookers. A game of catch had developed—a violent game involving keep away, running, tackling, huts, manly grunts, and battle cries.

But then of course all good things come to an end. Stress returned with the shouts of teachers beginning to herd the students indoors. A hideous and eardrum deafening lecture about respecting school property, yourself, and your peers followed, and all of the school skipped ahead to their second class of the day. Giddy about the strange occurrence, or at least one normal odd occurrence than usual, the students adapted to the new schedule and proceeded with their education.

And collectively throughout the building disbelief in its purest and most undiluted form arose with the third class of the day—coinciding with the first lunch of the day. Many students in the middle of a test pondered the inadequate content of information in their head, or the complete lack of content in the silent, stifling atmosphere of their classroom. Silence reigned, and all students knew the silence, a silence only marred by the scratch of pencils, the thuds of brain dead teens, and the silent taps of not so subtle cheaters.

And the fire alarm went off, again.

The thirty students in Hallie's history class jumped out of their skins at the sudden obnoxious wailing of the fire alarm. Some of the students cheered. Some of the students booed, and some of the students looked ready to leap out of their seats and strangle the fire alarm and the nitwit who caused it to go off again and caused their concentration to be utterly ruined.

The second retreat outside didn't hold as much joy as the first break, but there were always the cheery few who were happy to miss any chance of learning that ruined their groove. Other more crafty folk who'd been disturbed mid test were covertly comparing test versions and answers well out of earshot of their teachers.

"Who's the guy who spread the plague by hurling dead, plague infected bodies over the city's walls when he was attacking?" Sakura asked. She too shared Hallie's history class.

Hallie's brow furrowed. "That's not a question on the test."

Sakura shrugged. "I know. I was just thinking about one of our old lectures."

"Genghis Khan."

"Ah, so what do you think about the fire drill then?"

"Stupid," Hallie muttered. "I still have adrenaline shooting through my veins. I jumped like a foot in the air when that stupid alarm went off."

"Which for you is saying something," Sakura said. Hallie shrugged dismissively. "Hey," Sakura said, and she gently placed her hand on Hallie's shoulder. "How're you going?"

Hallie grimaced and pulled a garish face reminiscent of the time she'd eaten a lemon whole. "Fine," she muttered, and she shrugged off Sakura's hand.

"Still mad?" a grunt accompanied with an eye roll answered Sakura. "Yeah," Sakura echoed, "that was a stupid question."

"He just makes me so mad!" Hallie said suddenly, and she swung around coming face to face with Sakura. Flinching, Sakura took an involuntary step backward at the sudden swing in her friend's behavior. The look of heat and pure loathing on Hallie's face was almost frightening.

"He had no right! He has no right to keep me from Lyoko. And just because I "forced" my program on him for his own good back in April does not mean I shouldn't be grouching. There is no comparison.

"Because of Dante those stupid scanners won't scan me because some stupid computer has been given orders no to scan me in when I'm alone, and I can't find any stupid loopholes in that ridiculously, asinine, vituperative program he conceived—,"

"Hal," Sakura started, concern lacing her voice.

"—and put up to keep me off Lyoko, and I can't get on—,"

"Hal," Sakura said, fear creeping in alongside the concern.

"—and I have to, but I can't because of him—,"

"Hallie,"

"—and he's so infuriating because I have to get on—"

"Hallie!"

"because it hurts!," Hallie finished matching Sakura's desperate, frantic vocal force. "I can't get on Lyoko, and it's physically hurting me. I'm feeling real pain—that's why I'm so grouchy and random today—and I have to get on but I can't, and I have too." Her voice cracked finally under the tide of repressed emotion spilling out. "Sakura, I have to get to Lyoko. I don't know why, but all I know is something is calling me there, and not going hurts."

A single tear streaked down her cheek. "I hate Dantes right now. I don't want to hate him, but I do, and I hate the way I'm feeling, and I don't understand what's going on, and I hate that." A shaky laugh fell from her lips as if Hallie had realized the verbal emotional ramble that had spilled out quite unintentionally from her lips. "I'm way messed up, aren't I?"

Sakura looped an arm around Hallie's shoulders and just hugger her friend, and for a moment the world around them ceased just long enough for comfort to be offered and accepted. Then Sakura's soft voice broke the spell.

"Maybe," Sakura hesitantly started. "We should talk to Dante."

Hallie roughly pulled away and shook her head. "No. I don't want to talk to him."

"Hallie," Sakura entreated, "he can help."

"No, he started this mess, and he'd only try to stop me." Hallie said. For a moment Sakura considered going behind Hallie's back, but Hallie's stubborn face morphed into a more hesitant look. "Sakura, sis, I have a favor to ask."

"Ok," Sakura warily replied as she eyed Hallie trying to decipher the new mood. "What is it?"

"Don't stop me." Hallie said, and she gazed at the tree line across campus and over the hundreds of kids shouting and groaning and laughing. "When I make my move, please, don't stop me."

Sakura opened her mouth to reply, but never did. The teachers appeared looking irate and grumpy, and the Principal made an appearance with a look of utter distaste engraved onto her face and a megaphone in her hand.

"Alright, back to class. If you were eating lunch, return to the cafeteria. Let's move people. If anyone is caught in the halls without their teacher's permission, you will receive a week of detention. Back—,"

The fire alarm went off again. Principal Delmas's megaphone fell from her mouth in shock, and her other hand flew to a radio receiver in her ear. Even though the megaphone was away from her mouth, the megaphone was still on and thus caught and projected Principal Delmas's words for all to hear.

"What do you mean technical difficulties? I have on good authority that our system will by no means malfunction. Yes, I can hear it. Ooh…" she yanked the megaphone back to her mouth and growled with repressed fury. "Dante Millard report to my office. Day students gather in the courtyard by the gates. All boarding students are to return to their dorms. Teachers this is the Alpha lockdown, I repeat, this is an Alpha Lockdown."

Sakura glanced over at Hallie as Principal Delmas pointed her megaphone and began yelling at a pair of particularly sluggish students dallying behind the moving crowd, and she raised her eyebrows, a clear question. Hallie raised her hands defensively as she turned toward the dorms.

"I've done nothing,' she said, and she glanced over her shoulder at Sakura, "and you can't prove it."

"What makes you think I'm accusing you of doing anything?" Sakura asked, and the two left for the dorms.

Out of all the kids that had cowered and cringed in anticipation of the inevitable doom looming before them, Dante was the bravest as he stared down Principal Delmas. He was also one of the few fearless, the small group of students who weren't called to the principal's office for doing something wrong, but for doing something right. The Principal's office and the surrounding offices were hives of activity as the Principal and her staff dealt with all the technicalities of the fire alarm repeatedly going off.

"Oh, cut the attitude Mr. Millard," Principal Delmas scolded. "You know you're not in trouble. I just need you to run through the coding for the fire alarm and check for bugs."

Dante nodded. "What about hackers disrupting the system?" he asked casually as he slid into a chair in front of a computer screen. Behind him an authority figure, male cleared his throat. Dante's eyes casually flicked between the two as the power struggle started and the computer screen in front of him.

"Principal Delmas, a student should not have access—,"

"Mr. Millard's a computer genius Mr. Hackney," Principal Delmas interjected. "And I'd rather have him here where I can monitor him and have him look after the programs."

"And you'll let him into the system?"

Dante smirked at Principal Delmas's world weary response. "If he had wanted to topple the system, he would have done so a long time ago."

Which was very true, Dante reflected as he began tracking down the online rabble-rouser. He was probably one of the few that could bring the school's server seamlessly crashing down between the school's unsuspecting ears without a trace leading back to him.

"We've disconnected the power from the fire alarm systems," squawked an assistant principal to the general vicinity.

"None of the security cameras have found any evidence of the fire alarm being pulled," shouted another AP.

"Great, we have a ghost on our hands," Principal Delmas muttered under her breathe. "Millard, give me good news."

"I've blocked access to the school computer network and primary functions such as water, AC, the phone lines, and—," The room plunged into darkness and every computer screen flickered off simultaneously, "—the electricity," Dante finished fingers belatedly hitting the enter key, and he tapped the keyboard experimentally trying to coax some life out of the electronic device. No response or sign of life. "Power's gone, all across campus."

Only the light filtering from the windows behind the Principal's desk illuminated the room. Principal Delmas groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose in a vain effort to fight off her migraine.

"Principal Delmas," an adult's voice said in what Dante could almost classify as a definite whine.

"Millard, out!" Principal Delmas snapped.

"Yes ma'am," he replied and made his escape out of the warzone. It didn't matter that the power was gone (well, maybe a little). The important thing was he had managed to track the hacker back to their home terminal.

Back to the factory and Lyoko.

Hating the genius architects who designed the dorm hallway in the girl's dorm without windows was an easy task for Sakura. One minute she'd been lounging in her room catching up on homework, and the next the power was gone. Now her poor toes were screaming bloody murder at Sakura. Apparently digging around her dorm in the dark for a flashlight can be a particularly painful process. What had possessed Raven to keep barbells in their room?

"Hey Hallie," Sakura called as she knocked on her friend's door. "Never fear, flashlight girl is here to illuminate your world. Hallie?" Trying the door Sakura gasped in surprise when the door opened without any resistance.

"Oh, Hallie," Sakura sighed in dismay as her lone flashlight beam revealed the empty room. Closing the door Sakura pulled out her cell phone and dialed a very familiar number.

Sitting in a scanner her casual posture giving off an air of lazy indolence, Hallie waited patiently for Dante's appearance. Slipping out of the dorm had been easy in the confusion following the loss of power, and the decision to go to the factory had been an obvious choice. As an experienced Lyoko Warrior, Hallie could read and interpret the Signs well. Weird fire alarm happens, loss of power, missing school, and an unreasonable urge to go to Lyoko all led to one conclusion: something was going down on Lyoko.

Usually Hallie would be on Lyoko raring to go and getting down to business, but stupid Dante and his stupid program had her trapped on earth powerless. So she waited, patience perforced.

When Dante appeared out of the elevator, she clucked her tongue in disapproval and leaned forward.

"Now Dante, don't tell me you're going on Lyoko all alone," she simpered, patronization dripping from her tone. "That's against the rules."

"You're not going," Dante said firmly as he strode across the room to a scanner to Hallie's right. Cue eye roll.

"You can't go on by yourself," she mimicked switching her tone from dripping poison to the voice of reason. "You're not all powerful anymore."

"And neither are you." Dante easily replied. The scanner doors slid shut.

"Yeah, but together we're a team, a formidable pair, nigh unstoppable," her voice filtered through into Dante's scanner.

In her scanner Hallie bit her lip wondering the outcome and uneasily coiled into a tighter ball hugging her knees. She hadn't been lying to Sakura. She did hurt, and as she heard the scanner next to her begin to hum she muffled a strangled cry and savagely banged her head against the side of the scanner in frustration.

Mission failed. Dante wouldn't take her onto Lyoko. She'd have to get on some other impossible way.

But then the scanner doors in front of her slid shut, and humming indicating the scanner booting up immediately boosted Hallie's spirits. On Lyoko she dropped to the ground gracefully and looked at her surroundings gleefully before she proceeded to hug Dante happily.

"Thank you," she whispered before disengaging and smiling at Dante for the first time since she'd been "grounded". She examined herself from tip to toe, from her robin's egg blue ballet slippers led to gossamer blue pants and a matching long sleeve shirt. She touched the tips of her long elfin ears and shook her head feeling her curly ponytail wag back and forth.

It was so good to be back. An instant calm had fallen over her when she'd touched down on Lyoko. It was so natural being here, being in this form. Sometimes, she never wanted to leave this place. She wanted to stay here forever.

Wait. What? Where had that come from?

"Ok," Hallie said. "We need to go—,"

"This way," Dante and Hallie said together both pointing in opposite directions.

"No," Hallie said, a slight frown forming on her elfish face. "It isn't." Her voice trailed off, and she turned her head toward the center of Lyoko. "There's something…coming."

Unwittingly she turned and took a step toward the center of Lyoko. Dante followed her gaze, and together they felt the ground shudder and saw the shockwave. Off on the horizon a star shone in the dark sky of the ice sector. It shone and enlarged, a shooting star streaking low on the horizon straight toward

"Hal, get down!" Dante shouted as with one hand he pushed Hallie behind an him and with another cast out a flood of red energy into the form of a barrier surrounding both him and Hallie.

The shrapnel came first, forerunners for the storm at its heels. Chunks of ice bombarded the shield driven by a strong wind which tore through the sky and across the land blowing with a ghastly wail.

The bright star once shining in the sky joined the blizzard's swirling intensity and yet did what the blizzard did not, triumphed where the blizzard failed. The white light shot straight through Dante's strongest barrier, straight inside of Hallie, a shot sent straight to her heart.

Hallie gasped, and her eyes burned white as a luminous glow surrounded her body, and she shone like the star had in the night sky, like a star in the universe as her blue attire slowly turned white.

"Help us," she said.

...

Dante wasn't sure how long the snow storm raged outside his barrier. All he knew was that the blizzard wailed on, a continuous background roar, while he talked face to face with a possessed Hallie.

"You're out of line," he blandly told the Heart of Lyoko. Hallie smiled, an eerie sight with her glowing pupil-less eyes and the white energy aura surrounding her.

"That's beside the point."

"She's not supposed to know you even exist," Dante countered, a bit of his hidden ire revealed. She in particular wasn't a hard identity to decipher. She was Hallie, and Hallie's conscious self wasn't in control of her body. Some would have considered it odd that everyone in the current group of Lyoko warriors knew of the Heart's existence and the Heart's phenomenal physical resemblance to Hallie except Hallie. For her the Heart was a voice in the center of Lyoko that only she seemed to hear and nothing more.

"Again," the Hallie replied, "that's beside the point."

"What's the point then?" Dante asked. "Why did you decide to meddle with Kaddic's electrical system and trip the fire alarms repeatedly?"

"XANA's attacking," the Heart said simply, and Hallie's luminous eyes bore into Dante's. "And you can no longer tell."

"XANA's been attacking for two days. He's hypnotized your friend, Riley, through a computer program "accidentally" piggybacked in on his computer and downloaded, and the virus is spreading through emails from computer to computer. At any second Riley and countless others could go berserk."

But that was only the first line of attack and the least obvious, the more subtle attack. The other more obvious attack was the attack causing the blizzard warring around them, and the Heart's flight for refuge inside of Hallie. A mental stretch to touch the link between Dante and XANA left Dante standing in front of a mental Berlin Wall cutting him off from XANA. Normally, such a discovery would have pleased him, for XANA's meddling influence had darkened his life in the past year. But now the wall solidified the Heart's claim. Dante's contact with XANA had been cut off including the link that alerted him to active towers. Dante opened his eyes, his black eyes.

"What's the damage?" he asked as levelly as possible.

"XANA had the wall crawlers attack me. I waited for you, for any of you to appear, but none of you did, so I started reaching out and calling for you, specifically Hallie. When I made contact with her Lyoko automatically went wild: blizzards in the Ice Sector, sandstorms in the Desert Sector, and avalanches in the Mountain Sector. The trees became animated in the forest Sector, and there are tsunamis' in the Digital Sea, and quakes in Sector 5.

"The upheaval gave me enough of an edge and cover to place some temporary shields around the core of Lyoko before I left. Then I whipped up some chaos at school to get someone's attention on earth, and for Hallie to slip away."

"You can't stay," Dante said, and white eyes blinked at him.

"I know. They're other things I must do," The Heart's voice faded and sounded remorseful. "And don't worry. She won't remember my presence. Even the pain she felt on Earth when I called her will fade from her memory."

Dante shook his head. No use dwelling on the past. "Why does it always have to be Hallie?" he mused aloud.

A smile spread across Hallie's face as the white glow slowly began to fade as the Heart prepared to leave her host. "It's not about Hallie. It has always been and always will be about you." Before Dante could question her further, the heart breezily pushed ahead. "I require your services in Sector 5. Just you," she added. "Hallie needs to shut down the active tower."

Dante quirked an eyebrow. "By herself?" he challenged. Cue sigh and eye roll.

"She's never been safer. All of Lyoko has fallen into a state of hyperawareness in order to fend off XANA. But since I knew you'd ask," The Heart waved her hand, and the storm abated around their shield. Through the dying wind and Dante's red energy shield he could make out an orange-garbed, cat-tailed Lyoko Warrior.

"Drew will escort Hallie," the Heart concluded. "But Dante, keep this in mind. This matter of grounding must be resolved quickly or Hallie's irritation towards those who "hinder" her will cause Lyoko to lash out at her wardens."

And the light coiling around Hallie rose up and into the air. Hovering, the light reformed to show a figure made of light. Dante let the red shield around them fade only when he had verified Drew's presence and saw the dazed look in Hallie's now green eyes begin to clear.

"Let's go," he murmured to the Heart, and the two left before Hallie fully came back to her senses.

Red light faded. The inner bright, shining light withdrew, and Hallie's mind ached in response the hasty removal. The ground and sky faltered spinning on its axis, and for a moment all Hallie seemed to see were stars, but when she stumbled forward a strong arm and a familiar presence steadied her.

"Whoa there, Hal," Drew said as he grabbed the swaying girl's elbows. "Did you nip too much at the sugar?"

"No," she mumbled thickly, and she came enough to herself to steady herself without Drew's hold. "What are you doing here?" she asked bemusedly.

"Well," Drew's voice snapped her back to attention. "My roommate's acting strange, plus the school's technical and electrical malfunctions, and a phone call from Sakura pretty much spelled out XANA attack to me. So, as always, when danger calls I come running." He smiled an affable smile that melted the hearts of the female student body on campus, and charmed a smile out of everyone else. "Although, I must ask, what's up with the weather?"

Around the wind still howled its offense, a high-pitched wail cold enough to chill all the nerves in the spine. But strangely no angry gusts tore through Drew or Hallie. Instead the wind blew gently caressing the air that surrounded them, but neither snow nor sleet nor hail nor breeze disturbed them.

"Lyoko's angry." Hallie said.

A crack of thunder rattled the sky, and freezing rain began to pour. Nervously, Drew unsheathed his claws and eyed their surroundings warily as the rain and sleet obscured all visibility. Inside their calm bubble Hallie turned and strode towards the southern part of the sector.

"The tower's this way," she called back to Drew.

Drew hesitated a moment, and a smack on the crown of his head from a piece of hail sent him leaping after Hallie.

The trip to Sector 5 went smoothly, or as smoothly as such chaotic conditions would allow such a transfer. Sheer turmoil rocked the blue sphere. Blue squares used as the external covering for the sphere whirled around in the empty air chasing down flying mantas and flowing in a steady stream from the surface of the sphere to the core chamber.

"This way," called the Heart as she materialized into a wispier, transparent form in front of Dante. "I'm trying to use Lyoko to the best of my ability, but the crawlers are still—," she gasped, suddenly cut off and flickered dangerously between a stable(ish) version of Hallie to an explosion of pixels. Shuddering, her form lost its shape before resolidifing.

The air was torn with a scream as Lyoko resonated and carried the echo of another pink haired girl's scream from the Ice Sector to Sector 5. Cracks began breaking across the surface of the sphere.

"They got through the shields," gasped the Heart. "Dante—," she started futilely and flickered out of sight into a cluster of white light which zoomed toward the core chamber. Jumping onto his newly materialized hover board Dante zoomed toward the core.

On the Ice Sector Hallie was doubled over with a hand clutching her heart in pure soundless shock at the knifing pain which had torn through her chest moments ago. Drew hovered at her side, a fountain of words, exclamation, and worry as she remained frozen in all but thought. The storm around them fizzled for a moment, halting, and then roared back to life with a stronger and more ferocious fury then before.

Eyes sightless to the scene in front of her, Hallie missed Drew's quick spin on his heel and deployment of an airborne projectile out into the storm. She missed the eye of the storm collapsing around them and the frozen rain and sleet pounding into the air dividing her from Drew, and she missed Drew's return bent over against the wind and looping his hand in hers. And she let herself be led because for the moment her eyes saw images and scenes not present in front of her, but from a place farther away. She saw through a memory and the connection the call had traveled through.

Crawlers surrounded her, torturing the air with their battle cries. She was hovering in midair above a long drop, and she heard a great, repetitious, grinding sound of a multi-hinged door opening and closing far below her. Red light and explosions lit up the air around her, burning her ears as she tried and failed to safely absorb and process the signs of a warzone.

Where was she?

And then Hallie saw a very strange sight as she hovered in the middle of the battlefield. She saw herself clothed in white hovering in front of her.

"You shouldn't be here," Hallie heard.

This was so familiar, Hallie thought, so much like the time where she had fallen into the digital sea. Her reflection, her white clothed twin had been there that time too.

"You need to go back."

Confusion, a sense of hesitance and lingering doubts.

Her twin's voice turned sharp. "Hallie, if you don't go back, you'll be bound here again, forever. I'm already starting to sound more like you. Go, Go!"

But something's wrong, Hallie though, and she reached out to the image and beckoned it closer. What's wrong?

A sharp slap to the face snapped her back to the Ice Sector. For a moment, all Hallie could see was swirling white, but tell tale orange bled through. For the first time Hallie felt a split between two places, and a sense of incompleteness and emptiness that hadn't been there before. Even now consciously back in the Ice Sector she still felt that tug that would take her back to Sector 5 in spirit if she so chose.

Even now without choosing to see the blue sector, if she peered at Drew just right, stared him straight in the face, peripherally she could see the exchange of red laser fire, even as she focused on Drew's orange jumpsuit and shaggy blonde hair.

"Hallie, come in Hallie," she heard, and she snapped back to the Ice Sector marveling at the sudden change of scenery. "Right," she said collecting her thoughts, "tower ahead," she paused for a moment to double check the tug in her mind indicating the possession of the tower. "100 yards."

And the hail pelted the raging winds and snow, and somehow Hallie managed to keep her attention from straying to Sector 5. 15 yards away from the tower Hallie and Drew had been forced to turn and fight simply because of the sheer numbers of kankerlots seriously swarming the tower. XANA's security had decided to show up, kankerlots all huddled together to shield themselves from the frozen projectiles swirling through the air.

Hallie had taken up bowling energy spheres through the kankerlot ranks in order to create a dent in their ranks. But then for a heartbeat while energy still crackled in her hands, Hallie was back in Sector 5 watching the mini-war playing out.

Red lightning bolts writhed across the ceiling striking with deadly precision. Another endless swarm of XANA's monsters had been spawned and appeared in force, and she saw what had torn her here. Hallie saw it mimicked in both the Ice Sector and Sector 5.

One stray shot from the barrage was heading right for her. One shot and she would be gone.

Panic flashed and instinctive self defense kicked into gear. With barely a thought Hallie threw up a shield, a beautiful white and pink streaked shield of energy surrounding her entirely in a wonderful sphere.

Fury passed through her as she saw Drew's Lyoko form burst into an explosion of pixels. This was ridiculous. Pink energy crackled and the ice shelves shuddered. She did not have to stand for this nonsense.

And Hallie created a solid marble burning with pink energy. Bowling her last ball, Hallie spun on her heel and entered the tower. She didn't stay to see the flash of pink energy flashing decimating the ranks of the kankerlots and staining the dark, winter sky.

She rose up to the upper platform, entered the expected code and prayed to the heavens that her world would return to normal, to a world her every step wasn't monitored, and she wasn't banned from Lyoko. A world where storms didn't rage on Lyoko, and a world where she didn't see double.

Down in Sector 5 a heart and an heir sat side by side staring at the core of Lyoko. The sphere spun slowly on its axis surrounded by a shield shimmering with white and pink energy streaks.

"Tower's deactivated," the Heart said candidly as she swung her legs over the edge of the ledge, and she peered down the open space to the spiraling staircase of blocks below.

"I couldn't tell," Dante replied, and he meant it.

"I hope you get the tower scanner up and working again. I can't disrupt your school's regular class operations every time XANA attacks."

"You won't have to," Dante said. "Although, you seem far more lucid then usual, almost human."

The heart shrugged. "Like you're one to talk. Hallie and I have always been connected, so I've always felt strongly for who and what she care for, but after the spring, we both left impressions on each other."

Dante barely managed a nod as his mind strayed back to the incident in April, where the Heart had reached out and sheltered Hallie after her disastrous drop into the Digital Sea. He shook his head, mentally banishing the thought, and he turned to other sobering and dismal thoughts such as his "father's" recent attacks.

First XANA sent out an attack where he ended up brainwashing Sakura and Hallie in the latest teen fad, the Truffel (still a hot novelty item in the teen world), and now acting off lately. But Dante had never dreamed XANA could be involved without an activating a tower. Well, maybe his paranoiac and pessimistic side had dared to dream. Hallie, Sakura, Riley had been hit. The only ones left unscathed were himself and Drew so far.

So far.

Computer viruses and email. Hadn't Sakura said Riley had sent her an email before her computer crashed? And hadn't Riley said he'd not sent her the email? All that meant was XANA had hacked Riley's computer and tried to spread the virus to their email list.

First Hallie and Sakura, then Riley.

"He's going to go after Drew next, then me," he said aloud.

The pinkette beside him seemed unmoved by his statement. She continued listlessly swinging her legs and peering over the ledge in front of her. "Maybe," she finally said.

"Maybe?" he repeated.

"Oh, without a doubt, XANA's going after Drew next, but here's one thing I've noticed. XANA attacks the heart because he knows when the heart dies everything else soon follows.

Dante shook his head. "I didn't take you for an egotistic."

The heart shook her head, letting the pink curls bounce vividly from side to side. "I said it before Dantes. It's not me he wants. It's you."

The return to the past function dragged Dante roughly from his perch back across the waves of time, two nights before Kaddic's world turned upside down, and he reflected over his growing suspicions and over the dark seeds planted in now three of his friends' minds. And finally he had to admit, he'd hoped what he heard on Lyoko certainly wasn't the case.

Dante wasn't quite sure what he would do if it turned out he was the source of his friends' troubles.