Chapter 49:
Hallie was running through Sector 5. She wasn't being chased nor was she running from anything. Hallie was simply running for the love of running.
As she ran through the corridors she followed a gut instinct which told her exactly which direction to turn. She was deep inside the sector not at the core, but at a place close to it.
Left, run down the long corridor; take another left, three consecutive rights, run down the other long corridor. Stop. Slowly turn around. Bingo.
There it was. It was beautiful. It was exactly what Hallie had been looking for, for so long. If this is a testimony of my memory returning, I won't be clueless forever.
It was a door way, minus the door, to a room. What was inside the room was what Hallie had been searching for, for years. It was a 3-D holographic map of Lyoko exactly like the one in the super computer control room. This map was more then a map. It was a search engine. The question she wished to typed in cycled through her mind.
How to devirtualize the prodigy.
A screen popped up for typing things, like questions, in. Hallie placed her hands on it.
Do I really want to give up so easily?
That thought gave her pause. True, blasting Dante to bits repeatedly without the target disappearing (except for when he moved) was fun, but ineffective seeing how she couldn't hit him, but did she really wish to have it all end this soon?
No more experiments. No more driving Dante batty or trying to beat the tar out of his lightening quick iron hide. Am I really read to give that all up?
Hallie considered before typing into the search engine her question. The writing screen disappeared; an hourglass appeared showing the search engine was thinking/ gathering data. The results and the map spun to life. The answer caused Hallie to take a double take.
"What? That can't be right."
"Hallie," a masculine voice intoned before her.
"EEK!" Hallie squealed in shock spinning around and releasing an energy wave. She blinked in shock. That was different.
000
She was just as Dante remembered yet different. She was older and jumpier, but her aim still needed improvement as before. He dodged her light pink wave of energy with ease just out of habit.
Yes, she was Hallie. There was the pink hair and the wide green eyes. Why hadn't he seen it? Simply, he wasn't looking for it and then ignored all obvious clues such as the sudden appearance of a Stern he did not know of, her nightmares, the code Lyoko, and of course, the rare random energy outbursts like the one he just witnessed.
Before Hallie had "moved", she had great control over it, but caught off guard things went…kablooie like cesium meeting water. The energy outbursts in itself were based off of the heart of Lyoko chafing to XANA's presence on Lyoko.
Dante frowned. Hallie's card was fixed meaning she had her original offensive and defensive capabilities save the shape shifting abilities drained from her. That could prove troublesome if she continued having emotional outbursts of untamed power. She'd end up devirtualizing all of Lyoko if she sneezed wrong.
Yep, Hallie the ticking time bomb. Her outbursts were overshadowed solely by Sakura's temper. After Dante finished mentally knocking his head against a brick wall with several solid thumps over how clueless he was, he focused on the task at hand or really the person in front of him.
Hallie had the same outfit from when she was first scanned into the supercomputer nearly two years ago. Her hair was its natural bubblegum pink; her leaf green eyes were still wide with shock over Dante's announcement of his presence, and her reaction to it. Her pants and half shirt were a soft baby blue, the undershirt a gauzy white and offsetting her pink hair was a blue headband.
Dante realized he just might have been staring at her for an excessive amount of time.
000
Why is Dante staring at me? Or is he staring behind me? No, he's definitely looking behind me.
Indeed Dante's attention had averted to the screen behind Hallie to the typed question Hallie had submitted and the answer.
Where is Dante?
There the map had kicked in and highlighted the two dots in the room. The typed answer was:
Behind you.
Hallie had been expecting it. Deep down she had, but she was shocked none the less when Dante had arrived.
What do I do know?
000
"Hey Dantes," Hallie said a bit unsure of herself. Another clue for Dante although it was a little known fact. The old Hallie's nickname for him was Dantes.
"Uhm," she hummed uncertainly shifting on her feet, "what's up, doc?"
Dante stared down his nose at her with a disapproving look on his face.
"You lack control?"
Hallie blinked at him.
"Excuse me?"
Dante shot a bolt of lightening at her. Hallie dodged hitting the dirt. Looking up she saw Dante standing over her with a red crackling ball of electricity hovering above his hand framing his face in shadow. He looked creepy when he did that.
All of a sudden the roaming energy had manifested into a hovering sphere the lateral area made up of tiny sparks jumping in and out holding the spherical shape in strange movements.
"You do it," he commanded her.
Hallie stared at him in confusion. The dots did not connect. The red ball of electricity disappeared, and Dante rephrased his command.
"Make your own energy ball,"
Hallie looked down at the floor with a sudden sense of shame.
"I've forgotten how," she whispered.
Dante sat down on the floor Indian style and motioned for Hallie to do the same.
"You're a quick learner, Hal. You'll relearn this quickly."
A realization dawned over Hallie.
"You knew me," came her soft reply.
Dante could see the soft Hallie coming up to surface. The sharp, intelligent, but shy person she had been when they first met two years ago.
"Yes,"
Hallie turned her pink haired-head to look at Dante who was sitting next to her. Dante was staring straight ahead of her lost in thought.
"We were friends," she added with more confidence. For a minute she experienced a flash of uncertainty due to Dante's prolonged absence of speech. He finally spoke but continued staring straight ahead avoiding her eyes.
"Correct."
Hallie felt relieved. Deep down she had always innately trusted Dante, except with the Scyphozoa and that was a notable obvious exception, but somewhere deep down she wondered if Dante considered her a friend like she did him. That one moment when he delayed in speaking one of her deepest darkest fears almost came true.
"It's frustrating forgetting things. The answers are on the tip of your tongue. You know the answer, but it simply doesn't come, and that makes it all the more frustrating that no matter how hard you work or what you do the answers do not come."
Silence draped over the room with the blue hues characteristic to Sector 5. Dante finally spoke.
"Raise your right hand," Dante told Hallie, "And draw on the memory that triggers the energy."
Dante walked Hallie through the steps until when she looked at her hand it was covered with a ragged pattern of light pink dancing sparks of electricity. Dante observed her progress.
"It's a start."
