There were two heroes in the Thunder Tower, Ace bent over the transformer while Random adjusted the television aerial.
"Sparx was right, Ace," Random said to his friend. "She's not your responsibility."
She'd placed a hand on Ace's shoulder, the two of them flickering red and gold in the dim lighting, using those exact words, trying to comfort him, telling him to let the woman go, that he had other responsibilities, that Lady Illusion could look after herself. She'd kept her arm around him until dawn, when she'd decided to go on a morning patrol, and he'd stayed, still weak from the battle the previous day. Random had just stood there, unsure of how to help his wounded friends except by fixing the Flash. It didn't look like either of them had needed him anyway, absorbed in each other, bound by shared emotions and experiences and a quality Random, despite the several electronic dictionaries that were a part of his memory banks, could only define as light
"Kilobyte said he controlled her. Except I don't think I know which her any more. Random, I…I loved her. Love her," he corrected himself. "And I know she needs help."
"Let her go, Ace. Maybe she's always been evil. Either way, there's nothing you can do." Random himself couldn't do much more to help his friend than repeat Sparx' words.
He'd had a chance to destroy Lady Illusion, one of her anyway, yesterday, and probably should have, but somehow one of those explosions had shaken him, and he'd found his evil side taking over. He hadn't killed her, because she'd been stronger than he'd expected, but he thought he'd come to regret that decision. She'd only won by a trick, distracting his evil side with talk of strength and weakness then knocking him out. He couldn't afford to let his evil side take control again.
"I don't know if I can. These feelings, the emotions…it hurts, but I can't stop them. And sometimes I don't know if I want to. It's hard to explain, it's like a tide sweeping through and carrying me with it, sometimes the wave lifts me somewhere amazing and sometimes…I'm drowning. I can't let go of what I feel for her. At least I feel…real. And there are good feelings, too, like friendship. Take the emotions away and it'd change everything in me."
Ace hadn't told Sparx and Random about the programming, worried about what they might do if they realised that they weren't real. It had been hard enough for him to realise he was a created character—I'm not real, just human entertainment, I don't matter, my whole world doesn't matter. If it hadn't been for Mark's friendship he thought he'd probably have given up completely.
"Believe me, I understand," Random said. "You have conflicting emotions, I have a conflicting personality."
Ace peeled himself from the transformer, and looked at his friend.
"That makes two of us then," he said, and tried to smile.
"The only thing either of us can do is…to do right and fear not." Random turned to further busy himself with the television.
"You're…probably right," Ace said, but he wasn't looking at Random. "Right. Right."
He started to stretch.
"They're powerful," Ace continued. "And they have the numbers advantage, even with you on our side. We should try to attack as soon as we can."
"I won't be fighting with you," Random said, keeping his back turned. "Yesterday, I lost control. Partly because of her. I won't risk you or Sparx."
"We need you, Random," Ace said, walking over to his friend. "And I trust you."
Random looked at him, and shook his head. "I can't trust myself," he said. "I thought I had it under control yesterday, but I was wrong. I think my evil side's coming back, maybe even more powerful than before. I don't want either of you hurt. Say my goodbyes to Sparx. She's confident enough to take on anything, and with you there to support her you'll find them a pushover." He attempted a smile, but it came out more like a grimace.
"Goodbye, old friend. Just don't come looking for me."
He wheeled himself out the door, and Ace stood there for nearly a minute after he'd gone.
- -
"Ace!" Sparx cried, flying in on the Flash. "I saw the ice cream truck and the Doom Wagon and Fred, they're coming this way! I thought I'd warn you, I didn't even stop to fight them…"
"You did well, Sparx," Ace said.
"Can you call Mark?" Sparx asked. "He and Chuckdude could help us, this is big, Ace…"
"They'd be in school right now, Sparx, and I don't want to see them get hurt. This one's going to be bad." There was a look of cold resolution on Ace's face.
"It's just us, right?" Sparx said. "Metalhead's left again."
"He said you were confident enough to handle anything, Sparx. Let's prove him right."
Sparx grinned.
"Let's kick some butt, Ace. It's been far too long."
- -
It was a warm summer's day, and Conestoga Hills High School's maths students were hot and bored. It was hard enough to pay attention to the teacher let alone to anything else, and when a faint sound was heard outside the window barely anyone bothered to expend the effort to turn a head.
Mark stared at the window, searching for the source of a vaguely familiar-sounding giggle.
"Eyes to the front, Hollander," Mr Cheseborough said. "Let us now return to the properties of the number phi, frequently found in nature as one of the most perfect numerals known to man…"
Kat looked across at her boyfriend, and tried to catch his eye.
"What is it?" she mouthed.
"Nothing," Mark tried to reply, but Chuck tapped him on the arm and pointed to Mr Cheseborough, who was now staring at the window himself, gaping openly.
"…Class…dismissed…" the teacher said slowly, backing towards the blackboard.
The class didn't need a second invitation, and left the room in a bulging cluster.
"Hollander…"
Mark had been among the last to leave, and turned to look at the teacher.
"Don't worry, Mr Chesborough. I'll look after it for you."
"You'd better, cretin," the teacher said, and in a movement faster than Mark would have expected ran to the window and slammed down the blind.
"Go on…get out…the aliens…" He waved a limp hand in the air, and began a slow collapse, lowering himself onto his desk.
Mark reached for his bag, and pulled out his glove as he made is way down the stairs.
It's probably nothing, he thought, but I'd better be ready. Just in case.
- -
The Knights were waiting outside the Thunder Tower, both in the air, when we arrived via the conveyances of mortal vehicle, mutated wasp, and Doom Wagon.
I thought I'd seen something bright speed through the air on my way here. So they were warned. No matter. I don't plan to lose this battle.
I'd made sure to bring my strongest minions, Elspeth, Lady Illusion, Lord Fear, and Anvil, and had sent Googler to the school to prevent the mortals from turning up. Preferably permanently.
Ace chose to aim his first blast at me, and I was more than happy to engage him in an aerial duel.
Elspeth still sat behind me, managing to keep her balance on Fred without so much as touching me—deliberately? I wondered—and I signalled her to teleport inside the Thunder Tower to assist Anvil.
Ace fired again—more fiercely now Elspeth's disappeared, was that intentional on his part?—and I dodged.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sparx swoop down to the Tower as I heard a metallic clang.
Anvil should have been successful, then, in destroying the transformer. Excellent.
I saw Ace begin to aim another blast at me, but before he could fire Lord Fear attacked from behind, and the superhero found that to hold off two foes proved more than doubly difficult. I found it amusing to watch him dodge both of us, and knew the hunt wouldn't last much longer.
This battle is going precisely my way, I thought, as I saw Sparx leap from the Flash into the Thunder Tower for a rematch with Lady Illusion.
- -
In the courtyard, Mark saw a spiked ball bouncing through the air, and fired. Googler unravelled himself. The joker laughed.
"Once Googler crushes little Lightning Knight, no more left!" He released Zip and Snip, and the puppets careened towards Mark.
Mark aimed a few blasts into the air, but missed. The puppets were nearly on him when a basketball came rushing through the air, knocking both of them from him and into the wall.
"Goal!" Kat grinned as she and Chuck rushed up.
Mark took advantage of the distraction to blast Googler with his glove, and the Evil faded away as Mark turned to face his friends.
"Thanks, Kat," he said.
She smiled at him. "No problem."
They looked at each other, identical grins on their faces. Chuck waited a few moments before interrupting.
"Hey, if you two sweethearts would stop staring at each other, as junior Lightning Knights we may have a situation to deal with. Googler was probably sent to be a distraction for us." He sounded pompous, but the look on his face was serious.
Mark frowned thoughtfully.
"Googler said something about 'no more Knights left'…" he began, and then looked at his friends in dismay.
"The Thunder Tower?" Kat said.
"The Thunder Tower," Mark and Chuck replied in unison.
- -
I must admit, the arrival of the humans surprised me at first. I heard a roar from Anvil as blue fire sprung from the mortal's glove.
I was more than confident that the overmuscled minion and Elspeth could keep them busy.
Sparx leaped up on the Thunder Tower's roof in an acrobatic flip, closely followed by Lady Illusion, who was evidently interested in continuing the battle of the previous day.
- -
Mark was trying to hold Anvil back, but the charge in his glove had been drained by the earlier battle with Googler. He saw Kat standing next to the door, flattened between the doorframe and the wall, trying to appear as unobtrusive as possible, and positioned himself between her and Anvil.
Chuck threw a ping-pong racket, bouncing it off one of the horns springing from Anvil's head, in an attempt to distract the oversized minion from advancing on his friend. To Mark's surprise, it worked, and as Anvil turned his attention to his friend Mark was able to use the energy from his glove to fling the Evil into the wall.
Mark tried to fire again, to make the huge creature dissolve back to the carnival, but as he pressed the switch for the third time he realised that he was out of power.
The three humans drew back and clung to each other as an exploding crystal ball filled the room with smoke…
- -
I sent out a tentacle to grab Ace around the ankle, and began to operate an energy drain. He fired on me, and I released him, but not before I'd been able to greatly reduce his power levels.
A few more blasts from Lord Fear sent Ace spiralling down, and he awkwardly landed on the roof of the Thunder Tower, next to Sparx.
She tried to fire a few blasts our way, but her power was weak. All she managed to do was buy some time.
She offered a hand to Ace. He took it, and with her help rose to his feet. There was a spark of electricity between them, and he seemed to gain energy from the brief handclasp.
"Take the Flash and go, Sparx," I heard him say in a quick undertone. "I'll hold them off."
"I can't leave you. We fight together," she said, and squeezed his shoulder before firing again.
They stood back to back, two heroes making a last stand, bright and bold and shining, and though they fought bravely it didn't take long to overcome them.
I allowed the other two to strike the final blow—such fighting deserves a quicker end than an energy drain, I thought—and realised that Lord Fear and Lady Illusion had finally triumphed over their arch-enemies.
The hunt is over. Endgame. The symmetry of the game program, coming to its final chapter. The Knights who never challenged their programmed role as defenders, and the Evils who want nothing more than to honour programming.
The green blast and the crystal ball exploded. I saw a burst of light that seemed to cover the world, bright electricity, colours of incandescent red and blue dashing around each other in a dizzy blur of energy, and when it died down Ace and Sparx were gone.
- -
In the junkyard, Random Virus felt a surge of electricity run from his left wrist—his real wrist, not the machine part of him, the part that still wanted to be a Lightning Knight—to his whole body, and he looked up. He thought he knew the cause, but he didn't want to be right.
- -
"Ace!" I heard the mortal brat cry out.
"No superhero to protect you now," Anvil said, and from below I heard cries and the sound of scampering feet.
I watched the three humans run away. For once, the oversized rhinoceros was right: without the Knights, the mortal brats meant nothing.
"This would be the end of our battle—and of our alliance," Fear said, and before I could turn aimed a blast at Fred.
He let out a wailing howl, and I nearly lost control as he flailed in the air.
On the ground, I saw Anvil, standing over an unconscious Elspeth.
"You will regret this, Lord Fear. I will not spare you again," I said, and used a tentacle to send the Doom Wagon careening towards the ground and crashing into Anvil. Dark smoke started to rise. For a moment everyone's attention was drawn to that spot and away from me.
I swooped over the ground, and picked up Elspeth with a tentacle before directing Fred into the distance. It was difficult to control the wasp, and I wasn't sure exactly what Lord Fear had done to him.
Elspeth's eyes were closed, and this time she slumped against me as I held her on Fred.
Around me flared several blasts from Staffhead, but I paid no attention.
- -
We slid off the giant wasp, landing in the woods some distance from the now-deserted Thunder Tower.
Fred was making a soft wailing noise and moving irregularly, and I bent over him. I didn't like the way he looked.
Elspeth stood next to us, her face expressionless.
"Patience, pet, we will have our revenge," I said, stroking Fred as gently as I could.
He sank to the ground with another wail.
In the distance came the sound of a tinkling tune. I looked up, worried. The ice-cream truck. Not much time, then.
"It won't be long before our pursuers arrive," I said. "Hold on, Fred—"
A blast of green light seared through the air, and Fred gave one last gasp and was still. I heard the sound of still-distant laughter.
My only true companion, destroyed. Fear will pay for this.
I stood, and watched him unravel in a shower of light until there was nothing left on the ground but one normal-sized wasp.
I scooped the small body into my hand. It was…incongruous, a small dead insect in my oversized palm, but I did not care.
"Rest in peace, my loyal companion. You have not died for nothing."
A roar erupted from behind Elspeth and me, and I heard the clink of a metal hand punching the ground.
I looked at her, standing there with nothing written on her face.
In a way she was lucky. I'd stopped her from feeling most things.
"We cannot win this battle," I said, quietly and rapidly. "My powers are…weak, at the moment. Even so, I know Fear can't afford to destroy me. You, on the other hand…"
"I don't think I can leave you," she said, neutrally.
I wrapped a tentacle around her neck.
"I'll set you free," I said. "What do you think?"
"Whatever you want me to think." Her tone was noncommittal.
Before I reprogrammed her she was a reasonably intelligent individual, I thought.
There wasn't much time left, and I began to deactivate the programming.
She didn't cry out, though her body was still shaking when I finished.
There was a light in her eyes I was unaccustomed to seeing, and an expression on her face I'd never seen before, and I realised that I'd been successful.
She took two steps towards me, and raised her head to look me in the eye. I thought I saw hatred in her face, mixed with other emotions I had no name for.
"I suppose I should thank you," she said in a rapid whisper. "I won't. You controlled me."
She teleported out, just as a blast lanced through the air and hit me instead, knocking me into a tree.
I couldn't have cared less. I had already lost what I cared for.
"It was always my destiny to be the superior evil," Lord Fear said, grandly. "Now tell me, where did the traitor go?"
"I'm afraid I really can't tell you. Evidently she decided to desert me."
"She won't get far," he said, and nodded at the woman beside him.
"I'll hunt her down," Lady Illusion said, and teleported out in pursuit.
"I haven't forgotten the humiliation you meted out to me, Kilobyte," the skeleton said to me. "It's long past time for my revenge on you."
I'd underestimated him. I'd never thought that possible.
I felt the impact of another blast, and the sound of cackling laughter followed me into the Sixth Dimension.
- -
I realised a flaw in my plan that should have been readily obvious after completing a simple survey on the number of remaining minions in the Sixth Dimension.
It had declined, quite considerably, and I ran scans to find the cause: Ace and Sparx had been recently blasted there, and as a result a number of the creatures I'd wanted to unleash on our world had been destroyed.
It was then I came to an extremely simple conclusion: the Sixth Dimension should no longer be a refuge for any of my foes after being destroyed here.
Considering for a moment, I altered the commands so that ingress and egress from the Sixth Dimension were now severely limited, and began work on a useful little device for inside the Sixth Dimension.
I noted with interest that Kilobyte had just turned up there, and laughed.
My game had just turned deadly.
- -
Kilobyte had set me free, and I had no intention of losing that freedom.
In dog form, I ran into the human world, in desperate flight from my enemies. As I ran, fragments of my older memories began to resurface.
I remembered that I had once loved Ace Lightning, and that I had betrayed Lord Fear for him.
He was gone now, I remembered, the one I loved destroyed in an instant of flashing light. At the time it had meant little to me, what feelings I possessed for him deeply buried. Now the grief was coming to the surface, but I had no time to weep.
I remembered that Kilobyte had talked of human emotions to me, and at the time I had been concerned to find out if my own emotions would destroy me. That Kilobyte had later hunted me down in the Sixth Dimension, and there bound me exclusively to him.
I remembered that I had started out as a computer program, but ever since my arrival in the human world I had been tormented by strange emotions and new experiences, and had learned for the first time to make choices and to feel. I had known pain and fear as well as love, but I would not have surrendered my memories for anything.
I still wasn't sure if what I was qualified as a person by human standards, but I knew I had the freedom to think and consider precisely what I was—cogito ergo sum, don't the humans say? Sentio ergo sum would be more appropriate in this case—and that I would never surrender this new experience.
- -
She caught up to me at the junkyard, a fitting enough location. She'd morphed into a far larger dog than my chosen form, a huge hulking confection of long legs and wicked claws and teeth. She would have attracted more attention than my more modest choice, but from the look of her shape most mortals would have feared her.
I allowed myself to return to my natural form, and felt the familiar sense of relief as I stood on two legs again. She followed my example, glaring at me with unbridled hatred.
I assumed she found me completely antithetical to her view of the world and her place in it.
She was my twin, my reflection, my darker opposite. Everything I was, and everything I had once wanted to be. A creature free of emotion and bound by programming, the self I thought I had abandoned a long time ago.
"You can't run any more, traitor, and there's nobody to protect you this time. You've lived far too long," she said, and a crystal ball appeared in her hand.
"And you haven't lived at all," I said. "You're some human's fantasy, a slave in all senses of the word. You'll never know the full gravity of choice, or the vivid sensation of emotion. Whether or not you kill me today, I'll be the one left alive."
"You're lying," she said viciously, "and I will listen to no more of your tale of treachery. You will die now!"
I jumped away from the explosion, and laughed at the expression on her face.
"You'll get the fight you want," I said. "I have to destroy you to destroy every remnant of the slave I once was."
I knew I stood little chance of defeating her. My powers were depleted, and the integrity of her programming demanded she destroy me. A deadly combination.
- -
Random Virus wheeled himself into the Thunder Tower, and noticed the total quiet.
"Ace? Sparx?" he called, but he was met with complete silence.
A cold feeling of dread gripped him as he realised the transformer had been completely destroyed.
The Lightning Flash was still hovering, unable to find its mistress, tracing irregular patterns through the air, the engine beginning to whine. Random shut it down. He didn't want to think about where Sparx probably was.
They're in the Sixth Dimension, he told himself. Ace'll look after Sparx, they've both made it there, and they'll be back as soon as a piece of the Amulet turns up. My friends can't be dead. They can't be…
Random screamed a wordless cry into the air, releasing his grief.
If I had been there, if I wasn't such a coward, if I hadn't hidden myself away in the junkyard afraid of myself…
…I won't run away any more. I'll kill them. I'll destroy them all. They killed my friends. Revenge is all I have left.
Ace. Sparx. You will not have sacrificed yourselves for nothing.
Random Virus turned away from the destroyed transformer, and set a course for the Carnival.
His right eye was glowing a bright red, but he didn't care.
Destroy them. I have to kill them all.
- -
Random barely knew what he was doing, but somehow he made it to the Carnival, his entire vision clouded by red rage.
The first figure he saw was the Rat, and with one strike of his claw he threw the rodent into the wall of the Haunted House. The impact knocked several bricks from the structure to the ground, and the Rat didn't move again.
Googler tried to attack from behind, but yelling at the cowardly tactics Random easily met the target head-on.
Two down. Seven to go.
Anvil offered Random some competition. He lasted nearly a minute under the full force of the Virus' rage.
As Random sent Pigface spinning in a shower of light, he cried, "Weaklings! Let your master come out and show himself!"
Four down. Five to go.
The zombie lurched out, but with a wave of his hand Random started the carriage ride spinning, and Rotgut faded in a shower of sparks as the heavy car hit him.
Random knew he was out of control, and didn't care. His world was red, brighter than Sparx' hair, brighter than blood, and he needed vengeance. It was all he had left.
My friends are gone. Five down, four to go.
He saw Lord Fear, and blocked the way into the Haunted House so that the sorcerer would have no choice but to fight him.
Four to go, and with this one five others gone permanently.
"Coward," Random spat, and let his fist swing. Lord Fear ducked, and Random laughed maniacally.
"You won't defeat me. I will avenge my friends!"
"You've already been defeated, Random Virus," his opponent hissed. "It's the evil side, isn't it? You want to kill everybody—does that ring any bells?"
"My friends are dead. I'll kill everyone that's left!" Random cried. He swung again, and this time he flung the skeleton into a wall.
Lord Fear brought up Staffhead to fire at Random, and briefly halted his progress.
"You've let your evil side take control again. I doubt your friends would approve."
Another green beam hit Random.
"Oh, very good m'Lord!" Staffhead interjected.
I'll destroy them all, Random thought.
He held his claw up to shield him from another blast.
"I destroyed Kilobyte, and the other Lady Illusion should also be gone by now," Lord Fear boasted. "That gives me a massive bonus in power. Even you don't stand a chance."
Only two to go, then.
Random moved forward to attack, and found his claw blocked by Staffhead.
"Stalemate." The toad grinned.
I'll destroy him. I have to destroy them all.
Random hesitated.
This is…my evil side talking. Isn't it? I can't fight like this. Can't…give in to my evil. I'm a Lightning Knight. I have to be true to my friends.
No! I have to destroy! Kill them all!
…Not now. I have to…honour my friends. This is for Ace and Sparx.
It took every ounce of strength Random possessed, but he backed away from the battle.
"I'll return to destroy you, Lord Fear. I'm a Lightning Knight. Remember that."
He turned, and wheeled himself from the Carnival.
"Oh, nice one, m'Lord! The Virus is defeated."
Staffhead was gleeful, but his master wasn't so sure.
"Random Virus is gone for today, but he will be back. We can't defeat him with the resources we have. But I do have a plan, my totem of terror. Thanks to the late Kilobyte, we now have two pieces of the Amulet…"
- -
The two women launched into a desperate battle, using the environment of the junkyard to its full potential, turning the cars into a lethal maze and obstacle course.
In the end, it was luck, almost, when one of the women ripped off a fragment of a car door, and leaped into battle with her adversary, using it as a makeshift dagger.
The fragment's edge was sharp, and in a sudden move she stabbed her double in the heart.
There was a gurgling cry. Bright coloured light swirled around both the figures, and Lady Illusion stood alone in the junkyard, her double forever gone.
- -
"I've destroyed the traitor," she told Lord Fear.
"Excellent work, my dear," he said. "I'll need you to take care of another piece of unfinished business."
She waited, and listened quietly.
"The Master Programmer. At the moment, Random Virus is making life quite inconvenient for us. See if this Programmer can be…persuaded…to bring us any minions to assist. Use this piece of the amulet to barter with him."
He dropped a piece of the amulet into her hand.
"Yes, my lord," she said, and disappeared.
A/N: Flash, Hyperpsychomaniac, and SawCyn-WroteSin: I love all three of you. Thanks so much for your reviews, especially Flash, who sent quite a bit of feedback via email.
Anyone else, I still accept and appreciate any and all reviews. Thank you.