WARNING: This fic is M for adult mature content. It might be considered a little gory at times. The sexual situation goes screaming off the rails in Chapter 6 (a lemon I guess) and a little in Chapter 7. There's some indulgence in pain being sexy.
Summary: Takes place after the series ended in 2001. Kind of assumes some war is in progress given the last episode. Megabyte is degenerating under an antivirus. He ropes Dot into giving him a hand. Basically Beauty and the Beast.
Author notes at the end of chapter 7.
Please enjoy...
Dot wakes up slowly, disoriented and unsure of where she is. Her memory is hazy, but she has the ache of having been fighting. She looks around, seeing minimal modern furniture sparsely occupies the room. Her eyes adjust, making out a round room with a look between a living room and an atrium. She sits up from lying on a low black sofa. Dim light shines down from a circular window far above. Daylight is fading.
She leans on one hand but pulls back sharply as pain shoots through her side. She looks down at her left arm, seeing a bandage beneath three angry rips through her commander's suit. The bloody shadows of three wide claw marks stain the bandage material. Disjointed memories start to come back. Megabyte's goons knocked her vehicle out of the air during the last of several consecutive fire fights. She has foggy memory of Mouse trying to regain control of their free falling vehicle. She remembers in flashes inhaling smoke and climbing out over wreckage on the ground, maybe passing out once free. Then there's a vague impression of being picked up, barely conscious. A dim memory of the instant Megabyte ripped into her arm flickers in and out of focus with no other context.
A jolt of panic shakes her as she realizes where she must be. The place bears an unmistakable resemblance to the Tor, but smaller and not so industrial. There's a distinct feeling that this place is lived in, home to someone, private. In the back of the atrium there's a narrow hallway that leads off to other rooms. In the front is a long narrow gap in the floor by the only real door, a 'moat' preventing passage out of the only entrance to the edifice.
The door opens and floor tiles rise to form a small elegant path. The heavy prowling of a familiar shadow approaches. The floor tiles fall away after he passes. "Welcome to my humble residence, Miss Matrix," Megabyte purrs. He approaches her.
She stands up to him with composed anger. "Where is Mouse," she demands.
"Don't be so dramatic," he admonishes. "There's plenty of time for that later," he says thoughtfully. He looks down at her. "You're little friends escaped, but you're the only one I need. You'll be here for some time. But don't worry, you'll be comfortable. This is my private residence, you may go anywhere you wish. Anywhere but out. No one knows of this place. Be assured you will not be bothered."
"You're insane," she spits. "What do you want from me," she demands angrily.
He doesn't respond at first, looking away. He turns, showing a vicious rip in his left side just below the ribs. The edges are crystallized, but something shimmers in the dark iron viscera beneath as if it might... bleed? Smaller cracks sprawl in all directions in a radial shatter. "I did not return only with new power. I returned with a curse."
"You are a curse," she snaps.
An unearthly growl rumbles through him. "Until I am rid of this setback, I am -your- curse," he growls violently.
He sighs, taming his temper. "...I was infected by an extremely unorthodox antivirus," he confesses. "It was nothing at one point, but since returning to Mainframe, exercising the Trojan Horse ability, the process seems to have... accelerated the antivirus. I can no longer take another form. Infection is losing effect."
"So you'll be deleted soon," she retorts.
His eyes narrow at her. "Oh, that would be very nice for you, wouldn't it? But, that is not the primary function of this particular antivirus, though it is a possible outcome. This unmakes the very code of a virus, rewriting to assign a new format but only partially. It requires an outside force to complete resolution. Without that force, deletion is imminent. The deficit is specific, not just anything or anyone can complete the gaps."
"...you need me," she says. "You need me to save yourself."
He doesn't respond.
"I'll never help you," she says solemnly.
"I've recently learned there are no absolutes, Miss Matrix," he says, his tone oddly indifferent. "I can think of a reason or two why it'd be worthwhile to you. One way or another, this curse will end... all this ends."
"...What do you mean by that," she asks cautiously.
He doesn't answer immediately. "I have two choices," he starts, his gaze fixed on her like a predatory animal. "I can suffer the deterioration until deletion. Or, I could survive, receiving my 'fate worse than deletion'."
"It's rewriting you as a sprite," she asks in a murmur.
"...Yes, the irony is not lost on me. I have acknowledged being ripped into fragments from the inside out is worse," he says. Something like pain strains his voice. He draws closer to her, within arm's reach. She stands her ground, arms crossed. "I am coming undone."
"...you'd become a sprite like us," she says, obviously not buying it. He flinches. "That... has nothing to do with me. You know you should go to Bob."
He stares into her silently. "Bob was not chosen," he says cryptically.
His tone sends a cold pang of fear through her. "What haven't you told me," she asks quietly.
His swift tentacles dive towards her before she can react, dragging her to him. He holds her close, wrapping his claws around her as he did once before.
He brings his fangs close to her ear. "No one else can do this," he breathes. She shivers inside and out. "The curse burns and tears, filling me with emptiness where war and domination once fueled me. I hunger for something else now... something I cannot satisfy. What I hunger for was familiar to me, not long ago... That time with you." Tears roll down her cheek as his words make her relive the shame she felt when he manipulated her. She tries desperately to push away but his hold is like stone. His touch becomes oddly tender. He sighs into her neck. "This curse relies on it. I need... consummation."
"What!?" She lashes out to no effect. He slithers his tongue down the side of her throat. He salivates tasting her fear. She recoils hard. "STOP!"
A pained animal whimper escapes him. He doesn't let go, but he stops. She reaches around him in a slow fearful caress down his side. She swallows hard as a dark sensual purr trickles out of him. She braces herself. The purr breaks into a violent roar as she digs her fingers into the crystalline fissure in his side and pulls as hard as she can. It makes a damp crunch sound as it gives and rips, covering her hand in a hot black substance with the consistency of motor oil. She feels empty space beyond the first layers of metal and viscera, making him seem physically hollow. The oil and the wound give off black wisps of steam exposed to the air.
He drops her and she scrambles back to the sofa. He thrashes away from her, staggering backward. His eyes become empty red flares. He roars as the rupture sends shattering pain and new fractures throughout him like lightning.
He bellows like an animal before bounding away on all fours, leaping over the moat and out the door into the darkness.
She hears his howling long after he's gone.