This odd experience began life as a short Sparx and Chuck convo, but somehow or other it's formed itself into a potential multi-parter. I don't usually post fiction as I write it, so I can't guarantee the speed of this one's updating. It's just that in this case, I felt like making an exception. I hope it's okay, as I don't have much of an idea where it's going. The quote itself, may be removed, and the title is also subject to change, dependant on how well it works itself in with the final plot. Suggestions, anyone?

Disclaimer: Do these words sound like they belong to a famous and entertaining television show producer who knows about computer graphics to you? No, so I don't own these guys.


"Technology is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other."
- Carrie P. Snow

Decisions of the Eighth Level.

Scarab Dynasty.

One.

'You sure you didn't just… fall asleep at the computer again, Chuck?'

That's what Mark said, but Chuck was pretty damn sure it hadn't happened like that. No. Couldn't have done.

She's a few feet in front of him. She's got her sword out and that music on that she actually kinda hates. He thinks it's that Tai Chi stuff that Ace used to get her doing. Only she's not being steady and gentle like you're supposed to be so much as she is sharp and… and spunky.

Yeah. That's a pretty good word for her. Spunky. The music doesn't fit her at all.

'You… you're leaving now, right, Sparx?'

She turns around, sweeping her sword back into… well, wherever it goes when she makes it vanish like that. It's some weird programming thing that he's never been able to figure out. Not that he's tried. He always just thought the whole fact of them being here was kinda sorta cool enough. He didn't have to read into it.

'Yup, sure am.' Sparx's reply snaps him out of his thoughts. 'Soon anyways. Gotta get going, right? Places to go, people to save…'

He stabs at the keypad, feeling uneasy. He hasn't told her yet.

'I guess…. Um. Go where?'

'You think I know?' Sparx shrugs like it doesn't really matter where she's going or where she'll end up. 'You never do until you get there... Don't look like that, Chuck, it's not so bad. It's a buzz, I guess. You know, never knowing which butt you're gonna be whupping next. I mean Zombie, Yokel, Buzzbeast, Harpix… hey, take your pick.'

Zombie, Harpix, Buzzbeast… He's met the owners of those names in the videogame and they always make him feel queasy. Buzzbeasts –they're those nasty critters you run into in the Silicon Mines with the… the saws on their tails and the energy blasters and all those nasty… teeth. The Harpix –they've got those ugly dudes guarding the gate into Magery City, and he's never been able to bust through them. And as for the Zombies? Don't even go there, dudes. Run-in's with those guys are always a bad experience. How can she sound so damn… excited about it?

'I see…' he tries to sound like himself.

'Hey,' she sounds a little quieter, but he figures she isn't the kind of person to notice when someone else is bummed. 'There's butt to kick in the next dimension, kid. Evil to destroy, Amulet pieces to find… again, yadda, yadda. You get the idea.'

Next dimension? Does that even exist, dude? Do you have any idea what really comes next?

What if you go… and there's nowhere TO go?

'So what's up, Chuckdude?' she turns off the stereo by wrenching the plug out of the wall. He's given up showing her where the "off" switch is. She doesn't really care. 'You look like you lost your lunchbox or something.'

Chuck feels his stomach turning again. 'Nope… Worse than that, dude, way, way worse…' Ace never actually told her the truth, did he? Chuck wishes that he had. Who she is, where she came from… she doesn't know any of the facts. In truth, he doesn't want her to know. None of them do.

I don't want you to vanish… Maybe Mark didn't mean it to happen like this. I mean, when he said he wanted them not to worry anymore, surely he didn't mean…

Damn you, Mark. Damn. Why'd you have to leave me to sort all this? This is SO not easy!

'Nothing, it's just… I mean, does this happen every time?' he stares at her frowning. 'I mean the… the leaving? The moving from one level to another, the amulet pieces getting scattered?'

He doesn't know why he's asking. He already knows the answer. Heck, he's chmug3. The president. Numero Uno… well, duo. Nobody knows more about the game than he does. He gets the game plan by now.

And that's what this is, right? A game? Just another level? There's gotta be an ending to it…

'Sure it does,' Sparx says. 'Why? Should it be any different?'

He hesitates. 'Well… wasn't it different this time?'

When he says that she gets this… look on her face. The kind she really doesn't get a lot. The kind which means she's actually thinking. 'Yeah, I guess it was, kinda. I mean, no two places are the same. There was this one time in the Magery City where…' she pauses, screwing up her face in thought. Chuck waits for an answer he's not going to get. 'Um… yeah, hang on, it'll come to me.'

'Nah, it's cool dude. You don't have to try and remember.'

No sense in remembering something that never really happened, right?

He knows he never really thought enough about this beforehand. That day when Ace said that there were "other dimensions to deal with" and that Lord Fear would be "ready for them when they reached the next level", he never gave it much thought. He hadn't figured that it would eventually come to this, and that now, she'd be the only one left. The last one in this dimension. Last one in the real world… and she doesn't even know it.

'Yeah, but I want you to know this stuff. You never know, you might end up there too someday. Lightning Knights have to stick together, right?'

Chuck shuffles uneasily. He has no intention whatsoever of ever getting back inside that game. He doesn't know how it happened and he doesn't want to know.

'Yeah.'

'Well… you're a Lightning Knight.'

Chuck smiles a little even though he doesn't reallywant to. All of sudden, he's starting to get why Mark never liked being called that.

'Sorta. It's just… weird, dude. You're leaving. And you won't be coming back.' I'll never see you guys again...

'No kidding I won't be,' Sparx laughs. He knows what she means. Coming back here would mean getting wiped out in the "next level", or so she believes. 'They'll have to blast me back first and that ain't gonna happen, Chuckdude. Um... no offence. I mean, cool world and everything, but the bad guys suck around here. There's never any action.'

Action? He'd never complained about that, not since they got here, anyway. But then, he's had a taste of the game from the inside, so he figures Sparx's idea of "action" is probably way different to his. Their life isn't the same as his. It keeps resetting itself over and over, whenever something bad happens. She'd have to die to get back here once she'd left. And yet a part him wishes that would happen.

'Would you freak if you knew I thought like that? Sure you would. You'd probably hate me or something…'

'…But I'll be okay, wherever I am, Chuck.' He looks up at her, surprised at her tone. It's like she really believes what she's saying. She turns and looks at him. 'You'll be okay too, right?'

'Yeah. Sure I will. No sweat.' He's lying.

'You mean it? I mean, you'll have Mark, y'know. You guys can... watch out for each other, can't you?'

'Yeah.' I hope...

'Cool. And I'll have Ace… and Lugnut. Sorta.'

Random too? How can you say that, Sparx?

She must have seen the look in his eyes. 'Look, he's whacked, okay but it's not like he's totally bad. It was an accident, Chuck. Besides, he was aiming at Ace.'

She's never looked at him like that before. To be honest, he wonders if it's more the fact that he never looked deep enough.

'He still made... one hell of a mess.' Chuck's voice is almost a whisper when he speaks.

She sighs, goes back to her sword, and doesn't say much else for a while. And he just sits there watching the blue and green numbers on the screen, until something else happens.

It starts with him not being able to read the laptop screen properly. It trembles in the dull light inside the Thunder Tower and he thinks maybe he's just not sleeping and has started seeing things, and then he realises that it's not just the words on the screen that are shaking. It's the computer, and the desk, and the room all around them. Sparx staggers out of a block. She looks up, gritting her teeth in a grin.

'Great! Looks like we've got company, Chuckdude.'

'Oh… yeah… great.' Chuck groans, scrambling for the –Mark's, he reminds himself– wrist cannon on the desk. 'Wonderful, that's all we need. Who…'

He cuts himself off. There's no point in finishing his question because there's only one thing that could make the building shake like that anyway. There's a spasm, sharper than any other, a burst of energy as Sparx powers up her sword. 'This is what we need alright, Chuckdude, a little action around here! Why should Ace get all the fun?'

He barely has time to yell at her that he doesn't exactly call this "fun" before the ground seems to smash open in several places all around him. Something clutches his ankle and drags him off his feet and he hears Sparx yelling as he hits the ground with a thud.

This is the point when he wakes up.


Crit is appreciated.