A/n: Right, it's taken me long enough to get this thing written. So, here's the first bit (though I suspect some people have read this part already). This is the longest fic I've ever written. I just hope it's as good as it is long... ish. :
The Other Side.
They were losing the battle. And they were losing it fast.
It had been a surprise attack. Kilobyte had swooped in on Fred's back, knocking Ace away from his game of chess with Chuck. Ace had fired back at Kilobyte, the lightning hitting Fred, but doing little damage.
At the same moment Anvil had smashed his way through a side door, immediately engaging Sparx and the Sword of Jacob. Chuck and Mark had ducked down out of the way. Mark's school bag which happened to contain his wrist cannon had been way out of reach.
Now Sparx was nearly out of power and Anvil's blows were pushing her further towards the ground.
Dirty Rat had flown in soon after, once he realized they would probably win, and now held a small crystal ball above Mark and Chuck.
Ace took all this in even as one of Kilobyte's tentacles flung him to the ground. They were losing the battle. And they would soon be losing the war. Ace suddenly noticed Kilobyte had thrown him next to the transformer. He looked back up towards the roof to see that Kilobyte was moving in on him. He didn't seem overly concerned about where Ace was. He wouldn't have enough time to power up anyway.
Not on this voltage at least Ace thought. A higher voltage was risky. They had only set the transformers power up half-way. But if he put it on full he might just have enough to destroy Kilobyte. The others would be easy afterward.
I'll kill myself Ace thought even as his hand grabbed the dial on the front of the machine seemingly against his will. But I'll be damned if I let that squid defeat me again. On that thought he twisted the dial to full power and thrust his hand between the electrified towers on top.
The electricity crackled through his body. Ace could feel his power soar up to one hundred percent. And keep going. He pulled one arm out of the field and fired the energy back at Kilobyte.
"What!" Kilobyte growled just before he and Fred were thrown across the Tower.
Three hundred percent. Ace could feel his energy increasing. It was exhilarating. He turned the blast onto the rat who disappeared almost instantly under the all too powerful energy. Five hundred percent. Then onto Anvil. The heavy rhino was thrown backwards, roaring as the lightning ate away at him before finally making him disappear.
Ace turned back to Kilobyte. Six hundred percent. He steadied his aim to make sure the next blast would totally destroy its target. And suddenly felt his insides tear.
"Ace!" yelled Sparx. His body had been glowing blue as the energy fed its way through him. Now the electricity seemed to break out around him, crackling around his body in blue arcs. Ace doubled over with a cry. He slumped beside the transformer and tried to pull himself away, but the electricity seemed to want somewhere to go. And it had decided it was going into Ace.
"Oh-oh. Major overload, dude," understated Chuck.
Mark ran out from the table he'd been hiding behind. He tried to ignore the electricity spitting out from the transformer in all directions. He just hoped it wouldn't hit him. He got close enough and ripped the cables from the back of the machine, cutting off the flow of energy.
"Well, that didn't seem to go according to plan," muttered Kilobyte, his statement encompassing both parties. The blast of lightning had weakened him, though he didn't show it.
"Get out of here before I blast you!" yelled Sparx waving her sword and stepping between him and Ace.
Kilobyte knew that it was not always a good idea to go after wounded prey. Sparx seemed pretty fired up. Better to leave it to weaken itself. "Oh, as you wish," he replied over politely before flying out through the roof on Fred.
Mark rushed to where Ace was lying on his back. Sparks of electricity still played around his body as he sat up slowly. "Ace, are you alright? What happened?"
"I think I blew a circuit," Ace groaned.
"What'd you go and do that for!" Sparx yelled.
"In case you didn't notice Kilobyte was about to destroy us," he spat out. "I couldn't see any other way. I wasn't going to let him defeat me again."
"Don't worry, Ace," said Chuck, scooting onto the floor with his laptop. "I'll see what's wrong and run a repair program or something." He started looking through stuff on his computer.
Mark noticed Ace was looking pretty worn out. This seemed all the stranger as he'd just powered up. "Ace, how much energy are you running on?" he asked.
Ace paused before replying reluctantly. "Fifty-two percent."
"But you just powered up."
"I realize that," Ace retaliated, harshly.
"You must be leaking energy then, dude," put in Chuck. "I… don't think I have any programs to fix that."
"Chuck, you must have something!" said Mark, his concern showing as anger.
"It's like a hardware problem. His circuits are damaged. Software isn't going to fix it. I'll see if I can find anything on the website. Ace, you might want to try powering up again, you never know it might work. Just make sure you turn the power down first."
"Don't worry, I will," Ace replied.
Sparx did it for him, turning it down even lower than normal, then helping him to his feet.
"I can manage," grumbled Ace, pushing her off.
"Alright!" Sparx let go, though she noticed Ace's shove seemed weak, as if it was hurting him to use the energy to do it properly.
Ace put his hand between the towers. Energy sparked out of them again. He kept his hand there for a few seconds but then pulled it out as if he'd been burned.
Sparx grabbed him again as he stumbled back. This time Ace didn't bother to push her off.
"Chuck, it's not working!" said Mark, once he'd seen Ace hadn't really been hurt more than he was already. "What are we supposed to do now?"
"Hang on I think I might have found something," answered Chuck. "There's some device you can get in the game. If one of the Knights overload you connect it up to a power source and it'll configure and transfer the energy so the damage gets repaired."
"Good, how do we get it?"
"Well it doesn't actually exist…"
"What! Chuck, what's the point of that?"
"Not yet anyway," Chuck quickly explained. "You need to get it built. And the only dude that can do it is Random Virus."
----
Twenty minutes later Mark, Chuck, Ace and Sparx all arrived at the junkyard. While they knew it could be dangerous they also knew they had little choice. Ace couldn't power up and his energy was running out as it was. But neither were they coming unprepared. Mark had his wrist cannon on and was ready to use it if he had to. Sparx floated in behind him on the Lightning Flash. Ace sat behind her with the Shield of Justice. He wasn't going to be firing off any shots but he couldn't afford to be hit either. Chuck simply carried his computer.
"Hello!" Chuck called out. "Anybody home?"
Cars sparked up with bolts of electricity as Random Virus rolled around a pile of junk. His eye glowed red. "Why can't you just leave me alone?" he growled.
"Well sorry, lugnut," Sparx replied. "But in case you haven't noticed we've got a bit of an emergency here."
Random looked past her and seemed to notice Ace. His eye flickered green for a moment and the rage of his evil seemed to drain. "What's going on? Ace, are you alright?"
"Not really. I need your help."
Random glanced away as Ace said that, his eye changing colors rapidly. For a moment, Ace thought his evil would take over again but when Random looked back at him his eye was green. His gaze, however, was far from friendly. Ace saw a quiet anger in his friend's eyes, it was far from the rage his evil displayed, but even so he found it scarier.
"I told you never to ask for my help again," Random said quietly. He turned his back and started to roll away.
"Hey, you can't leave him!" Mark called after him. "If you don't help he's going to go back to the Sixth Dimension."
Random stopped but didn't turn around.
"We just need you to build a machine for us, to save Ace. That's all."
Random turned around. "Alright, this once. But my trust won't extend beyond that. What do you want me to build?"
"I got the whole design right here," said Chuck, rushing over with his computer. He flipped the lid up and showed the screen to Random. "Think you can build that?"
Random looked at it for a few seconds. "Yes, but not out of thin air."
Chuck blinked, before finally realizing what he meant. "Ah, right, I can go and buy anything you can't find here… unless you need something powered by weird crystals or something."
"It doesn't run off crystals," said Random.
"Um, well I guess that's a good thing."
Mark glanced over at Ace as Chuck and Random began conferring. "Will you be all right 'til then?"
Ace looked at Random's back then dropped his gaze. "Yeah."
Mark wasn't so sure.
----
"So you know about the device? Damn kids…" the Master Programmer glared at his screen, the lower half of his face twisted into a scowl. He laughed and the scowl turned into a grin, his face twisting perhaps even more than before. "Not that it'll help…"
His CD tray opened and a disk clattered onto it, the word 'Kilobyte' scrawled across it in black marker.
----
Lord Fear was sitting at the organ when the slam of the Haunted House doors against the walls announced Kilobyte's arrival. He turned around and stood up quickly, eager to avoid giving the mutant any excuse to wrap his tentacles around his neck. "Why Kilobyte! What an unexpected surprise."
"… and uninvited…" added Staff Head.
Lord Fear slapped his hand over the talking totem's mouth. "Shut up!"
"Stop your bickering!" Kilobyte demanded. "It seems Ace Lightning's sidekicks have found a way to stop his energy loss and repair the damage."
"Oh!" said Lord Fear. He wasn't very happy about not being invited to that little party. "How terrible for you! And you'd nearly destroyed him too…"
"And I will destroy him. Right now he is at the junkyard with his sidekicks waiting for Random Virus to build the device that will restore his power. Unfortunately, I am the only one in this dimension powerful enough to keep that cyborg at bay. So it will be your job to destroy Ace Lightning before he can use the device."
"You'll let me destroy Ace Lightning? It would be my honor!" Lord Fear bowed elaborately.
"Don't fail, Lord Fear, or you'll regret it," Kilobyte growled. "Get the Doom Wagon and follow me." He turned and left the Haunted House.
"Oh, I won't fail you…" Lord Fear said aside to his Staff as he followed more slowly. "But when I'm done I might just feed you to that psychotic rust bucket of a Lightning Knight!"
Staff Head snickered. "Oh, how evil of you m' lord!"