It was dark inside of dread's secret lair. Nothing was really to be seen, except for a computer with a picture of a bikini model on it. There was silence, unknown if anything was even in the area. Soon the door opened up, and Jason peaked outside. He was trying to make sure dread wasn't around to see him with a black eye. How did he get it you ask? Take a wild guess. If you say he got in a fight with goku right before Goku went super sayian, as awesome as that would be, it's false. As you probably guessed, He had once again had lost to Max Steel. This wasn't the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last. He was scared that dread would kill him (literally) so was trying to be quiet. He was hoping dread wouldn't see him, which is why he was tiptoeing.

"At this point Dread is going to have a heart attack if he found out I failed again" Jason said as he tip toed backwards. "Maybe if I'm quite he won't-" He soon bumped into some something. Something big. Something metal. Jason turned around in fear and noticed dread standing right behind him.

"dr-dr-Dread! Fancy meeting you here" Jason said, terrified as heck.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you didn't want to run into me" Dread responded.

"Funny you would think that"

"But riddle me this: If you were, would it have something to do with your eye?" dread asked. Jason knew that dread was on to him, so he thought of the first lie he could come up with.

"Oh, the eye, it's nothing to major. I just… ran into a poll. Yeah" Jason said with a small grin.

"Even you don't believe that" Dread said, obviously not buying it.

"Well, you caught my bluff. I lost in another fight with max steel. Such a shame. Well, I better go watch that new episode of south pa-" Furious, dread grabbed Jason's neck.

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Dread asked. "I asked you to do one simple thing, and you screw it up!"

"Hey those ultralinks you asked me to work with were defecti-"

"I don't want excuses!" Dread said, tightening his grip. "I don't know why I keep trusting you naught. You do nothing but disappoint me!"

"Hey, how was I supposed to know XJ9 would turn on you like that?!" Jason asked, referring to a different story I wrote.

"Maybe you're replacement won't be such a disappointment" Dread said. He started charging up a small attack in his other hand, which he was planning on using on Jason. However, before he can kill Jason, he clutched his chest in pain, which caused him to drop Jason. He then collapsed onto the ground, without any warning. Jason got up and saw dread on the ground, and poked him, to see if he was okay.

"When I said he was going to have a heart attack, I meant metaphorically" Jason said to himself. He started thinking. If dread had just died, then he was free. He wouldn't have to work with Dread, makino, Exstroyer or anyone anymore. He could take that project they have been working on and make it his own evil device. One that would crush max steel. But then Jason thought of something. Dread wouldn't go down that easy. So, he got an idea. An evil idea.

"Someone, get a doctor!" he shouted with a grin. Several drones came and took dread's body to a medical bay. In said bay, they place dread on a table, and start scanning him. It took about three hours to find something. When they did, it something interesting about dread.

"We have to tell Jason right away" One of the drones said. They walked out of the room with the notes as Jason was listening to "Paint it black" By the rolling stones. They tapped him on the shoulder, trying to get his attention, but he kept ignoring them. So one of them scrambled the IPod he was listening on and changed it to Baby by Justin Bieber. After Jason shrieked, he took out the head phones and gave the drones a very angry look.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" He shouted at them. One of the Drones gave him the notes and when Jason read them, he was thrilled.

"My god, that's really depressing" Jason lied, pretending to be upset. He walked to the room where dread was laying down, which was right when Dread regained consciousness.

"What happened?"

"Uh, dread, I have same bad news" Jason said, trying to sound upset.

"What is it, Naught?"

"Sir, I'm sorry, but you exposure to the shield generator inside makino's ship has caused the turbo energy inside you to… uh, how do I say this…" Jason said. For some reason he can sell being upset about this off, and yet he can't lie about where he got a black eye. Strange, isn't it?

"Spit it out, you moron" Dread said, quickly losing pacentince.

"One: ow, that hurts in here" Jason said as he pointed to his heart.

"Keep going, you twit"

"Oh yeah. The second thing: due to that exospore, the turbo energy you absorbed from Max Steel that was keeping you alive, is, well… how do I say this-" dread had a very angry look on his face. One that was scaring Jason. "-It is now slowly killing you"

"WHAT?!" Dread shouted. He shouted this so loud you could hear him in Japan.

"I'm sorry sir, but that's what the scans came up with"

"Impossible"

"But-" Jason made a fake sniff here. "It gets worse" He tried to sound like he was going to burst into tears.

"Well, get on with it"

"Well, Since this happened five months ago, it's almost done it's job! According to the scan, you only have a few hours-maybe days-to live. Maybe you can try destroying Max Steel one more time? Or if that's not an option-" Jason said.

"SHUT UP!" Dread shouted.

"Oh, sorry. Have you always been this cranky?" Jason said.

"There's got to be a way to reverse this. Have you tried to find a cure?" Dread asked.

"There's nothing they can do" Jason said. Basically he's like prime starscream here. If you're not a transformers fan, then I'll tell you what I mean by that. In transformers prime, Megatron was killed in episode five. Starscream took this opportunity to become the leader of the Decepticons. Upon hearing that Megatron could still be alive, Starscream sabotaged Megatron's life support, making sure that he remains leader of the decepticons. Jason was kinda like that here.

"This has to be a mistake" dread said.

"I'm afraid it isn't" Jason said. "So you're going to die, but don't worry, I'll make sure that our latest project kills max steel. If you excuse me, I have to make sure it's ready" Jason said as he walked out of the hall.

If dread dies this would be great! I can make project darrkus into my own pawn! Jason thought as he walked away. Little did he know dread had a backup plan. He got up and pressed a few keys on a keybord, and summoned something. A little bug thing came by and flew into his hand, and dread looked at it with delight. The bug ejected a cable out of its butt (don't laugh) which dread grabbed and put on his fore-head. Little lights flicked on the cable to show it was working. He then took it off, and the cable retracted into that bug's butt. What he did, I don't know.

"If I'm going to die, then I must get my top priority strait" he said as the bug flew out of his hand. "Time to start my master plan" He then made an evil laugh.

…

Somewhere in copper canyon, Max is walking down to his apartment while humming "Animals" by Maroon 5 to himself. He was really disappointed, and for a good reason. Why was he? Well, he went to this awesome party with Kirby and Sydney, but he left Steel behind on accident. Now all he could think about was trying to make an excuse for that mistake. By this point, he had scrapped a few ideas. Most of them were stupid, so that was a good thing.

No really, "I was going to grab him but that annoying "All about that bass" Song distracted me?" That's one of the dumbest things I ever heard!

"Okay, what excuse for mom and Steel?" he said to himself. "Umm, I thought I brought Steel, but it turns out I didn't? No, she wouldn't fall for that one. How about I got the backpack and I thought Steel was in it? No, I don't have the backpack, so she won't fall for that one either. Maybe-" Suddenly something started buzzing in his ear.

"What's that noise?" Max said. He tried swatting it away, but it wouldn't stop annoying him. He rushed away from it, and soon the noise stopped. He shrugged and kept walking, not noticing that the bug was still following him, just silently. He was trying to think up some more idea when suddenly it injected a cable into his brain stem. Max screams as falls to the ground, and loses consciousness. He had no idea what had just happened, all he knew was that this could not be a good thing.