DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. I write this fanfiction for no profit nor expect to receive profit.
A/N: I'd blame Lightning Flash for converting me to the dark side of Ace/Sparx, or light side rather, except I haven't been converted. 'Shippers of any persuasion should find this depressing if I've done my job right.
WARNINGS: Character death, angst
Chapter One: Memories and MusingsShe's always been there for him, and vice versa.
I saw her arrive in a flash of light and instantly destroy Anvil, laughing and congratulating herself.
She possessed the ability to openly fight for him, and did so at every opportunity. She was fire and he was air, and they flashed across the sky as I waited below.
From the shadows, I watched, and learned. I have always found it more practical to quietly stand and watch, to observe the light from the cover of darkness.
I fought her many times, and never managed to come to a completely decisive result. I saw her hurt him by mistake–clumsy fool—and saw him wake. Her name was the first word on his lips, and I left soon after that, sped on my way by the fuel of her righteous anger.
There was never a chance to fight her again before she was destroyed on the point of her own sword, a fiery end suitable to her. I was not sorry she was gone, though I was grateful that mine was not the hand that sent her to her doom.
He, on the other hand, wanted nothing but her return. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he sent me away in a swirl of light, and we barely spoke again, not even after I'd saved him.
That rescue brought me nothing but a secret dialogue of blackmail and silence, shadowed like most of my dealings. I didn't bother to tell him anything. Besides, he'd have been unable to help me.
In the meantime, there was more shadow-dealing and shapeshifting for me, and I did my best to please Staffhead and Lord Fear as much as I could. I knew the fate of traitors.
When she returned to him again, I wasn't there and knew next to nothing of it until she flew to the attack again.
She blasted me almost before I noticed her, and I was sufficiently enraged that I would have destroyed her if not for his intervention.
Later, she came to continue the fight.
She was always a hot-headed fool, reckless and fiery and impulsive. I never understood what he saw in her. Perhaps he was the calm to her storm.
I did not destroy her. I knew he depended on her, deluded as he was.
I don't know if I'll ever forgive her for her subsequent actions. In all fairness, she did not know she would bring disaster down on all of us, but she came close to costing me the world.
It was her prompting that caused the Rat to rebel, that caused Staffhead to play the blackmail card and force me to seize the Amulet, laying the path to Ace's doom and mine. By the time Staffhead told me, "You'll be next," I had no delusions left regarding my place as an Evil.
In the end, we all lived—her thanks to me, after I chose to imprison her rather than leave her to Googler's tender mercies. Not, of course, that she ever bothered to thank me. Left weakened by the battle, I disappeared shortly after that.
I'd chosen to hide at the Carnival, in one of my many forms, waiting for my powers to return. I hoped he'd come to search for me, but when I realised he'd never come I left for another part of the human world, a store selling crystals and other strange ornaments, where I worked, watching events from a distance, in a variety of morphs. On more than one occasion, I chose the form of a dog, to wander freely in human territory, though somehow Random Virus saw through that disguise. Likely it was because nonormal dog would consider going near that junkyard.
News came to me of the Hollander family needing a housekeeper, and I did my best to gain that job, searching for the pieces of the Amulet.
I've never been one to refuse power or benefit to myself, and later I was grateful for this. It gave me a bargaining chip to keep myself alive.
Somehow, the arrival of the mortal brat to his home catalysed events. Why so much has depended on that child is beyond me. Random Virus accidentally managed to rescue me from some mortal dog-catchers, and Ace and Sparx—together, as they had been almost constantly since Lord Fear had disappeared into the Sixth Dimension—resolved to send their old friend to his original home.
This plan proved as disastrous as any. Instead of the Virus, both Ace and Sparx were sent to the Sixth Dimension, leaving me isolated in the mortal world.
I may have tried to deny it, but I'd known for a while that it was Sparx he was faithful to. In so many ways they were a perfect couple, all gold and red and brightness, the fearless Knights working to drive back the darkness. My shadows could not hold a candle to such brilliant sun.
He wasbold and brave and enraged, and returned flying into the Carnival searching for answers to the emotions that plagued him. I did not kill him. I don't think I could have.
On orders from my villainous superiors, I did my best to prevent her from returning to the mortal dimension. Again I chose to leave her alive, because I knew that if evil won I would die.
She returned in another flash of light, daring and bright and confident, and with her at his side he fought on, as hopeless as that seemed, and together they gained hope.
I asked them for help, once, when I was nearly destroyed by Lord Fear, and it was she who held a sword to my throat while he looked on. I ended up saving them then, too, though I doubt she ever realised the truth behind my actions.
She never did have much of a sense of the subtle, but cunning is after all a quality of evil.
The beginning of the end came with Kilobyte's decision to fight the mortals. She chose to spy on his plans.
I saw a flash of red in that car, but looked away before anyone caught the direction of my stare.
To be frank, I didn't want to know.
She took care of that decision, leaping out and preparing to fight.
Foolish girl—you had a chance to leave while you still could. Well, I have no choice but to step in, and I will enjoy this.
I think she might have cried his name as she fell from the sky, but her voice was faint as she slipped into unconsciousness.
The Lightning Flash fell to the ground in flames. A funeral pyre. How apropos.
When he arrived, it was her loss that caused him to cry out in a voice filled with pain, and to seek revenge on his missing comrades. I only wished he'd do the same for me when the time came.
I chose to take his place at the final battlefield, because I loved him. As I lay in his arms fading into the Sixth Dimension, I thought he might have felt the same for me.
Perhaps he did. I wouldn't know.
- -
The hunt was rather…entertaining. A shapeshifter has so many places to hide, after all.
It took me the better part of four days to find her. She was standing at the edge of a cliff, surrounded by six armoured Clansmen, finally in her natural form.
I waited a while before stepping in to remove them from her. She was less-than-immaculate, wild night-dark hair swirling around her face and a long rip across her bright garb. Though ordinarily I would have backed her against any denizen of the Sixth Dimension you'd care to name, she appeared deceptively weak and slender, on the point of complete exhaustion.
I knew something of her capabilities, and decided not to underestimate her a second time, or to give her the chance of harming me.
She chose not to resist me, but something about the look in her eyes and the angle of her neck gave me the impression she was attempting to defy me.
In general, I approve of courage and of spirit. Even when such is directed against me, it makes for an enjoyable hunt. I cannot deny she was...intriguing.
"I should kill you," I told her. "You should thank me for sparing you. This is the third time I could--and should--see you destroyed."
"You would have already done it if that's all you want," she replied.
"I have a right to change my mind," I said, and activated an energy drain.
She started struggling then, desperately trying to escape me, but I gripped her tightly and held her until she collapsed.
I chose to leave her alive, for the time being. She promised to be quite useful in my plans, though I knew I would have to break her of all traces of disloyal emotion.
For a few days I left her in the cage next to the programmer, until I ordered her to be brought to me.
She came with bowed head and bruised face, a zombie on either side of her, and when she first saw me she made sure to lift her head to glare.
Her defiance was amusing. It was a pity I'd have to break her.
I dismissed the zombies, and began to make sure that she would never try to defy me again.
She wasn't much more than skin stretched across fragile bones, impossibly slender and vulnerable. I could have easily wrapped a hand around her waist or neck, and twisted.
There are no rules for the evil, and no mercy for the traitor. No limits.
It was interesting, her struggles and different tones of noise, soft groan to pleading whisper. I got the impression she was trying not to scream.
From my programming I knew, mostly intellectually, that pain and fear were powerful motivators, and used her to confirm that theory.
When I was finished with her, I wrapped a tentacle around her neck, and made sure her programming contained an overriding command of absolute loyalty to me.
Before we left the Sixth Dimension, I set her against the same minions who had originally brought her in, and watched her destroy them all.
She had always been competent when she wished to be, which was after all why I had chosen to spare her.