SUMMARY: Chuck Bartowski, not-quite-retired master spy, goes on a mission to kill… and gets thrown in an absurd world he needs to escape from in order to survive; but he wouldn't be Chuck if he'd take the straight way out, would he? Brace yourselves for a rollercoaster ride full of fun and adorable nerdiness, and familiar encounters...

A/N: After careful consideration, I decided to declare this a pure Chuck fic and not a crossover, although the scenario is somewhat borrowed... but in a way (I think) the fellow reader (eg. you) may not know from where. If you can bring sound reasons why I should change that, you're welcome to convince me.

Originally I planned on writing this story completely before starting to upload it… but I was so frakkin' giddy, I just couldn't wait. As a result, this is sort of "fresh off the press", aka published without any betas, but more to that later.

For now, enjoy the first part of the ride!

Chapter 1 - Aftermath

"The target just entered the building! Repeat, tango confirmed!" Sarah's voice whispered through Chuck's ear piece.

"Copy! Let's take the bastard down for good this time." he replied.

"Amen to that, bro."

Chuck and Sarah both smiled when they heard Morgan's voice from in the van. The little bearded man was like a little brother to them. Who got into trouble more often than not; just like Chuck in his early Intersect years.

It had been five long years, since the Intersect, and Sarah, had turned his life upside down. He went rogue with Sarah, married her, almost lost her because a crazy ex spy made her lose all her memory of the existence of Team Bartowski, and he kissed her again, which was really awesome but unfortunately didn't bring her memory back.

They joined the NSA together, because they were still one hell of a spy team, even though they currently weren't a couple (yet, according to Chuck). The NSA knew that, which was why they even got their old positions back, working directly for General Beckman. Without Casey, that is. The grumpy patriot was still AWOL, which was semi-officially covered by Beckman as a Black Ops mission to retrieve Gertrude Verbanski. The seemingly stone cold redhead had a heart after all.

The job had its perks, like being on this mission. This special assassination target had really been a pain in the ass of Team Bartowski for far too long. Captured by Team Bartowski over a year ago, the target managed to escape from a high-security prison recently; Beckman had had enough; the team now had an order to kill. Chuck still was uncomfortable with killing and only used tranq darts or hand-to-hand combat, and Sarah liked this character trait. Besides, she was more than deadly enough for both of them.

But not today. Chuck had his gun loaded with live ammunition. He'd still use tranq darts for the guards, but the live ammo was meant for a special villain. Chuck had thought about engraving his target's name into his bullets, but his inner nerd lost this battle.

Now it was time for action. Chuck checked his wrist computer to confirm Sarah's location at the other side of the building and whispered the signal in his mic. The red dot on the display that was Sarah immediately started moving swiftly to the entry, where she stopped, waiting for Chuck.

Chuck did the same on his side, the tranq pistol drawn. He placed a black box on the biometrical scanner and held Yori, Orion's wrist computer, near it. Numbers and rows of code filled the screen, as the trojan he had written uploaded itself via the scanner into the security system. Once the upload was completed, he had access to the whole alarm system.

He mirrored the cameras and looped them, then he cut off the door alarms from the main system, and then, finally, opened the doors for Sarah.

"Ladies first", he whispered smiling.

"Chuck, focus." Sarah sounded serious, but he knew her long enough to know that she was trying hard not to smile.

Just as he wanted to open the door for himself it opened, and a guard emerged. Both were surprised, both drew their weapons. The guard raised his MP5 – Chuck flashed. It was too close for the tranq gun, so he dropped it, and before the guard could even try to fire his silenced weapon, which was futile in such close quarters, Chuck already brought down a vicious roundhouse kick onto the guard's head who was rendered unconscious and fell back into the building.

Before Sarah could ask, he already radioed. "Enemy contact neutralized."

He grabbed the tranq gun and entered the building, shooting the guard with a dart, just to be sure. The tranquilizer would knock him out for at least twelve hours. Chuck worked his way through the hallways without any further surprises, thanks to Orion's wrist computer. He only encountered five more guards on his way, each of them tranquilized with a single dart before they had even known that he was there. He checked Yori for Sarah's dot.

"Person of interest around the corner, Sarah."

Sarah stopped at the corner and listened. Silence. The other person probably stood still. She got out her pen camera to look around, but she didn't get to use it. The other person rounded the corner ninja-fast, grabbed her – and stole a kiss.

"Chuck!" she hissed.

He grinned sheepishly.

"I couldn't resist. The chance was just too perfect."

Her anger was audible, but Chuck knew it was only half the truth.

"You're trained to withstand torture; why couldn't you resist me?"

He smirked. "What can I say? I'm smitten."

Sarah sighed, and a hint of a smile played around her mouth. "We obviously were in love, and I see why former me fell for you."

Chuck beamed on this information, and she reddened slightly, realizing that she let slip something out that she wanted to keep for herself. For now. She coughed once before she continued.

"But this is obviously neither time nor place to talk about this. We have a head to put our bullets through. You know the target; we will get killed if we let our guard down. Your action was reckless. Sweet, but reckless. You endangered us both, and probably Morgan, too."

He gave her his patented, ear-to-ear Bartowski grin.

"You think it was sweet?"

She rolled her eyes, barely able to contain her smile or the urge to bite her lower lip, which was her usual reaction to his grin lately. Former me was smart not to let this man go.

"This is what you got from what I said? Focus, Chuck."

They were now in front of the main chamber. No entry was visible, neither were cameras and scanner devices. Yori didn't come through, either; it obviously had a separate security system. The old-fashioned way to go in it was, then.

The two spies exchanged looks, nodded, and began to work with a creepy simultaneity. Once the sticky mines were placed, they twisted them to activate the timer and took a few steps back. As the countdown reached the last seconds, they started running, guns drawn.

The mines were focused inwards, so most of the guards in the main chamber didn't get to see the stunning spy team leaping into the room, as they were knocked out cold by debris first. The few remaining were tranquilized too fast to realize what was going on.

They secured the poorly lit, concrete-walled room, but their target wasn't there. Suddenly, someone applauded behind them, clapping his hands slowly, thoughtfully. They spun around with their guns drawn, only to get knocked off their feet and smashed into the ground.

The last thing they saw before they passed out was the smiling face of their target... Daniel Shaw.

A/N: You figured that one out before that, right? Anyhow, I'm not a big fan of cliff hangers… unless I can write them myself… te hee… So yeah, Sarah and Chuck in the dirty hands of our beloved hated villain Daniel Shaw… It is so much fun writing this story; I just for the love of Tron can't get a beta :O (btw, did you catch the reference?). If you took pity on me wailing for a beta and/or actually like the story to an extent where you wouldn't consider beta-ing it a torture… yeah, that'd be great.

I just have to warn you, dear reader, this story has a really shitty update schedule… called "whenever the muse strikes". If someone has followed my other story, you know what I mean. I'm an IT student at a university of applied sciences (no wonder I like Chuck so much :D), so yeah, free time is a bitch to find. And now the author's note has a higher rating than the story :D