This was originally the beginning of a longer story, but I decided to tidy it up and turn it into a long one-shot. It has been rather extensively edited, so I hope it's okay and not too confusing. Feel free to be brutal.

Many thanks to Sarah Frost for bétaing it for me (twice!) and helping me sort out its many flaws.

Disclaimer: If I owned it, rest assured that you'd all know about it, but… I don't.

Missing Something?

Scarab Dynasty.

"I don't lose. Ever. I don't understand what's wrong with me."

"Two words, dude. Anger Management."

-x-

Straight up, it's starting to worry her. Which is weird, because it's always worked the other way round.

So what exactly is changing round here?

Zoar knows. Sparx might as well be back in the Sixth Dimension right now. He barely even noticed her earlier. He was too interested in this shooting game he was having with himself. She sees it in her mind again. Watches him attacking the clay pigeons he's throwing into the air. Tossing them up, firing, watching the electricity settle then starting over. His eyes are all dark, cold and… and…

Damn…

She's been trying to think of the right word for it for the last three hours. To figure out how to describe what she's been seeing in his face these last few weeks and what it's all supposed to mean. It's keeping her awake.

Sleep isn't for her anyway. Sure, it's the most effective form of recovering energy, but so… boring. Plus, it means staying still for hours on end. And then there's dreaming to worry about. She has to think about those eyes when she's awake, she doesn't want to be stuck thinking about them when she's asleep too.

What is with him?

Okay, what am I missing here?

Great. Just great. You lose track of the guy for a few days and he gets a complete personality reboot!

She turns over and tries to sleep, anyway. It's not like there's anything else to do. Watching the mortals' stars from the roof of the Thunder Tower gets a bit dull after a while. So it's about now that she starts thinking back to something that happened a couple of weeks ago…well, maybe longer. Time is funny between this dimensionand that one. So she's sort of halfway asleep and dozing when she gets pulled into the memory.

All she knows is that, suddenly, it's the same evening that she'd just gotten back to him, and she's reaching out a hand to grip his shoulder.

It's not like she's never seen him angry. Just never like this. At first she thinks that she's the one he's mad at.

When she tries to put a hand on the lightning bolt symbols on his shoulders, he pulls away. She gets a cold shock of static, right up her arm. Not like that energy he has after a powerup. Nothing like that. She doesn't know what any of it means. It's like with every shot he fires he's shooting at Googler, or Lord Fear, or the Rat, or that new recruit to the cirque-de-freak who calls himself Kilobyte and seems to think he owns the joint. As if it's them he's shooting at right now and not just a bunch of clay pigeons they found in a closet, and no matter how hard he tries, he can't shake off the… the something. She doesn't know what. Maybe he doesn't know.

And that's what really bothers her. Because that's not Ace. Not the one she knows, anyway. Ace isn't the shoot-first-don't-even-bother-to-ask-questions-later type. Sparx has no idea what happened to the guy while she was back in the Sixth Dimension. Zoar knows why he'd changed; she couldn't figure it out, but it isn't a good thing.

Ace fires another shot. Only it goes off too hard this time, ricochets against the wall, rebounds off the Flash's bumper and goes back to strike a computer panel. Sparx starts. Something crackles and dies.

'Bad day, huh?' He doesn't answer. He hasn't talked to her all evening and after the fifth round of losing to him on this shootout thing, she gave up and went off to tinker with the 'Flash. Ace kept shooting alone, not even seeming to notice she'd gone.

She knows she ought to say something. Only what? He's the one who's supposed to be doing the talking here. Like telling her who the heck this Kilobyte is and what he wants and how they're going to get rid of him.

'O-kay Ace, whatever, but would you try to turn it down a little over there?' She pats the 'Flash absent-mindedly. 'I don't think she can take any more of a beating today… Ace?'

'…'

'Okay, fine. Don't talk to me. I'll just sit here watching while you blow up all the furniture…'

'I nearly destroyed him.'

Sparx pauses. Then she grins as what Ace says to her suddenly makes sense. So that's what he's been stressing over. She should've figured.

'What's up Ace, you ticked cause I got in the last shot?' No answer. 'Don't sweat it. We'll get him next time.'

'I'm not talking about Kilobyte.'

'Then who? Fear, right?' Still no answer. 'Anvil?' She's stabbing in the dark and still he doesn't reply. 'What? Ace, you're freaking me out now. Next you'll be telling me you've been zapping mortals.'

Ace starts and another burst of lightning from his wrists misses its target by about a Kyrilian mile. Luckily, the roof is open. 'No. I mean, yes. I mean…I…' The rest of his sentence dwindles; then his fist comes out and slams into the already broken computer panel nearby, causing it to cough and start smoking. Sparx jumps.

'Man, Ace, power down will ya? It's not like that thing wasn't already busted…'

'Forget about the machine, Sparx! And it's not as if you helped.' Sparx feels a shock up her spine and her grey-blue eyes fix into Ace's, also blue, but way-too-dark ones. His voice is softer when he starts speaking again. 'It's not like I did. Kilobyte was attacking and I… I wouldn't fight him. I couldn't. And Mark could've been killed. I could've killed him.'

Sparx feels the circuits start turning in her stomach. Wait a second, Mark?

Okay, that makes absolutely zero sense. Ace would never hurt the kid, any more than he'd hurt Random, or Chuckdude. Or her. And no way is that ever going to happen.

'Ace, just chill, will you?'

'Don't you get it? He nearly got killed! We both did!'

'But, only nearly, right? Come on, Ace—'

'You just don't get it, Sparx. Mortals only get one chance! He risked it all for this world, and what do I do? I stand there. I watch him getting attacked. I let him go in there alone because I didn't want to give Kilobyte his kicks, and then he tried to…' The next few words must catch in his throat or something. Sparx has to wait a while before he can say anything else. 'I couldn't beat him, Sparx. I couldn't. But at least Mark tried. He wasn't the coward I was.'

Sparx swallows. Okay, before she was worried, now she's just… freaked. 'What, did that… mutant insect whack you round the head or something, Lightning?' She pauses, waiting for a retort that never comes. She doesn't know why she's trying so hard to smile at him about all this. Then again, she doesn't know the reason for half the stuff she does. 'Come on, Ace. That's crazy talk; no way's that guy stronger than you.'

'Well, he is.' Ace turns to look at her. Pictures dart back and forth inside her memory banks. She tries so hard to find a time when he ever looked like this. 'He is, Sparx. And he won't stop until he's destroyed us.'

Is he scared?

Yeah. Yeah, he's scared.

It takes a few seconds to register at first, because it really doesn't look right. It's not something she's ever seen before. Not on him. She doesn't say anything else, because it doesn't feel like there's anything she can. The words won't work right for her. She just reaches out a hand to his shoulder, and then snaps it away when she feels the static burning.

"What? You think that I'm afraid? Just because he beat me last time? You don't understand, Ace, I can't hide. I've gotta face him. It's payback time."

"I never could tell you what to do, Sparx. But promise me you'll be careful."

-x-

Her eyes snap open on impulse.

She might've been asleep. Might've been. It's hard to tell, sometimes. It felt kind of… real, though. More real than her dreams tend to be. Real enough to shock her into sitting position and cause her to grip the sheet beneath her. It was as if she had been right back there, in the memory of the first time that she ever saw Ace Lightning frightened.

Damn, she's got to stop thinking about that.

She thinks about how it's the little things that bug her, really. The way he always feels like he has to be backing her up in a fight. Like how he sometimes laughs when she just wants him to take her seriously for a change.

And smiling. He used to smile way more than he does these days. He has this look he only ever uses on her. This really, really irritating, what-in-Zoar's-name-am-I-going-to-do-with-you? look. One that annoys the living heck out of her, and at the same time, makes her feel sort of… better about everything. Even if she's messed up, big time. Like it's not such a big deal, so long as she doesn't do it again. And of course, she knows that sooner or later she's going to do it again, and she doesn't really quite get why.

Looking at the mess they'd been in when she had first showed up again, you'd have thought he'd just have been glad to see her. And he was. Sort of. The way she rescued him from Anvil. Again.

It was way more fun than it had been last time she got brought back from that place. When she turned up after a killer trip between the worlds, all ready for action, only to find that the kid had already taken care of business. She'd supposed she was grateful, seeing as inter-dimensional travel takes a lot out of you. All the same, there was nothing she wanted more than to kick Googler's butt all the way to White Hot Oblivion right then. So this time, she was running on full power in every sense of the word, and ready to kick.

But, given the situation, she'd had to settle for Anvil instead. That was the first time she got to meet him. Kilobyte. Sparx didn't really know who he was, at the time. He was already on therun from them by then, but something about him just creeped her out.

She's not scared of him. Scared? Of squid boy and his carnival of mutants? Never that and never her. Nothing to fear, not even Fear himself. Anvil and Pigface –too stupid, neither of them worth losing sleep over (so why am I still AWAKE then?) Lord Fear – he's more powerful, but in the end just as dumb as the rest of those losers. Lady Illusion… let's not talk about her. She's not even going to waste time thinking about the Rat. Mr Puppets R' Us? Sure, the freak makes her feel queasy, but he's nothing a good blast from the Sword of Jacob won't fix.

Sparx sits up again, drawing out the Sword of Jacob and holding it out in front of her with both hands, watching it glowing softly in the dark, remembering where it came from. Remembering the Academy.

Too eager to attack, that was her trouble, they always said. Not that that doesn't have its advantages. And Sparx knows that she certainly had her up-points, considering knowing Ace was probably how she'd gotten into the Academy in the first place (he always denied that). Flying, for example. For a grounded Knight, nobody flew like Sparx did. She'd once heard someone say in passing that "Sparx probably fly that Lightning Flash through the gap in your two front teeth." It was a tongue in cheek compliment. The first time Sparx had ever drove her single-handed she had crashed and came to a halt about three inches from taking out her instructor's two front teeth.

It was the technical stuff that had really got her. The theory tests. The exams. The tooth-grindingly boring stuff that they were never going to use, but which the eggheads down at headquarters told them they all had to know anyway. So Sparx ended up with Ace as her tutor.

There had been this one day, when he was supposed to be teaching her the relevance of the power-boost ratio in mid-flight or some junk like that, but the first thing he seemed interested in was her choice of weaponry. Sparx had never really gotten the reason for that…

She never actually asked him where it had come from.

Sparx stares at the object glinting in Ace's hand for a moment. 'Uh…it's a sword.'

'Your point?'

'Well, what's wrong with the standard issue?

'Nothing, except that you probably enjoy using them too much.'

Sparx frowns. Zap Guns are for firing, aren't they?

'And giving me something pointy is supposed to… help?'

'Erm, sort of. I think this might be better. Guns aren't for everyone, right? This might be more… you.' He passes the sword back and forth between his hands. She watches as shards of pink lightning spatter out of the weapon.

'What, pink and shiny? Yeah. That's me,' she mutters sarcastically as she takes the sword from his hand.

Her attitude changes the second she touches it and feels it come alive. She's seen swords do that before in the hands of other people, and knows the way they work, but she never realised that it felt like this. She feels charges crackling in her fingers. It's lighter than she expected it to be. Thinner and tougher to control, not like just holding a gun and pulling a trigger. But it feels kind of stronger than it looks. The blade's split into two, like a lightning rod, and it's sharp enough to at least do some damage, even if the power ran low.

She likes it. It feels right.

Sparx nods slightly, stepping out of a stance and holding the sword up to the light. Maybe it IS her. One problem though…

'Look, as cool as this is, Ace, you know they probably won't let me through theory with it. It's cannons or, or guns or some other heavyweight weapon in there, not… a sword.'

'They might. Guns never really suited you anyway.'

Sparx scoffs. 'You've known me for what? A week? And you're telling me what suits me?' She tries to hand it back to him. 'Thanks but no thanks, Lightning, I know what I'm doing here.'

He pushes it back at her. 'Hey, don't look at me;I just found it.'

'What, I keep it?'

'Why not? Swords aren't for me; I'd have no use for it. Besides it… looks better on you.'

'Uh-huh. Do you have any idea how lame that sounds?

'Um… yeah. But, you didn't answer the question. Why not?' He pushes it back towards her. 'Just keep it. I can't use it.'

She grips the sword tightly for a moment, feeling it drag at the electricity in her veins. She looks at Ace, before firing the sword's energy blast into the sky, sending pink trails spiralling flying, just for the heck of it, and turning to walk away without giving it so much as a second thought.

Kinda cool.

Sparx sits there on the bed that Chuckdude told her used to belong to some crazy mortal who lived here, and gazes at the sword again, seeing her reflection in the blade, all broken in the metal and shadows from the nearby window.

For some reason another face pops into her mind. Lady Illusion? Yeah. The first time Sparx ever really used the Sword of Jacob was against Lady Illusion. Years ago now when they were back in the Sixth Dimension. Now that she thinks about it, this fancy looking piece of metal has probably saved her hide more times than Ace has. When Lady Illusion crept up on them, she used it to hold her back against a wall.

Sparx feels her fists instinctively clench. Should've blasted her then while I had the chance.

So really they've always been there for each other. Her and that weapon. A part of each other. Reliable… most of the time. Doesn't shine as much as it used to, though. Hasn't got quite as much… spark.

Yeah. That's the word.

Sparx quickly figures that it's not the sword she's thinking of.

That's all it is. Loyalty. Friendship. Ace was right, really. Guns and heavyweights just aren't her; they don't work with her style. Swords are what are suited for sidekicks.

"You saw it in her eyes? Listen to yourself, Ace, you sound like a lovesick mortal. Uh… Uhoh, don't tell me."

"I'm not telling you anything."

-x-

Damn it, why did she have to start thinking about her?

Sparx has completely abandoned any thoughts of sleeping. How can she sleep, anyway? With Fear on the loose and Ace acting like the world's still ending anyway, despite the fact that Kilobyte's safely back in the Sixth Dimension. And now she's gone and gotten the Lady into her head and gotten herself worked up again, so she'll never be able to drop off anyway.

They hate each other.

Okay, so that's never been much of a secret. What's not to hate? Sparx can think of about a billion really, really good reasons for wanting to send Lady Illusion into White Hot Oblivion. All of which Ace doesn't seem to listen to these days.

In the end he didn't even tell her the truth. Sparx worked it out for herself. Then she spent ages wondering why he hadn't just told from the start. Was it because he was worried what she'd think of him, having all these feelings he's not supposed to have for a woman they're both programmed to hate? Sure, Sparx would've been annoyed, surprised, angry even; but she would've understood, if he'd just told her straight…

No I wouldn't.

Another glance into the memory banks reminds her of the time the spider-lady nearly destroyed both of them. Sparx on purpose, Ace… okay, Ace, not so on purpose. He just happened to get in the way, and that's what happens when people get in the way of Lady Illusion.

Ace doesn't know the half of what happened that night. Okay, in his defence, he was unconscious –her fault– so he never saw it that time.

That being said, Lady Illusion really did take them by surprise that time. Neither of them had been expecting an attack.

It starts off with the usual routine, really. The swordplay and the explosions and the two most important women in Ace Lightning's life, trying to destroy each other. Nothing new there.

What is new is the rest of what Ace doesn't get to see. Namely, the few minutes Lady Illusion spends playing this stupid, stupid mind game with her.

Looking like him, sounding like him and for Zoar's sakes, she actually has Sparx fooled. He –she– comes out from behind the telescope, takes hold of her wrist from behind, tells her Lady Illusion's gone and puts on this –admittedly pretty good– act of asking if she's okay and what the hell just happened.

And the worst thing is, Sparx knows that she probably wouldn't have realised, had he –she– not made the fatal (and actually kinda stupid, for her) mistake of saying "Sparxie" instead of "Sparx." Which is something Ace would never call her and which totally busts her act.

Sparx whirls around and strikes at his –her– face, catching him –her– hard across the jaw. She sees Lady Illusion lurching and changing back into her usual self. Watches as the Lady of Illusion's mask breaks up and falls away and she reappears in her usual, spider-headed form. Still sneering.

Sparx doesn't know why that memory bugs her so much. Maybe because that whole turn of events showed her that Lady Illusion knew just how to get into her head and screw with her mind. Lady Illusion tricked Sparx into thinking she was Ace. Tricked her into saying things she'd never say to anyone else but him. Things that she's obviously never, ever forgotten.

Then of course Sparx had to go shoot him, –the real him– and then things had turned somewhat. That was when for one, brief moment, Sparx saw Lady Illusion looking scared for someone other than herself. And yeah, Sparx knows she probably would've enjoyed that, had she not been preoccupied by the fact that she'd just shot her best friend and colleague.

Not like that gives Lady Illusion any right to worry. Oh sure, she doesn't like seeing him being knocked sky high by Sparx, but she'll gladly do it herself. She'll happily fake his face just to get her kicks out of the subordinate who sometimes –okay then, often– shoots before she thinks.

Funnily enough though, she's never tried to destroy her again, since then. Not really. Not even that one time when Sparx had her helpless and was totally ready to do whatever it took to get her away from them. From Ace. But still, Lady Illusion didn't try to destroy her. Not even when she had the perfect opportunity.

What's the deal with that?

Sparx feels herself burning with anger, as she remembers yet another time when the spider lady set them up, played Ace for a fool. Manipulated him, as Sparx is sure she was doing. And then Ace (stupid human emotions) tries to stand up for her. Even when they were sitting up to their necks in that disgusting gunk, all he could talk about was her.

Okay, fine, a couple of hours in pig slime, Sparx can handle, but spending as little as two minutes talking on the loyalties of an evil who had SO obviously set them up for a fall, from a Lightning Knight who sounds like a lovesick mortal, was an altogether different kettle of gnomes. They should probably add it to the self-discipline training program at the Academy, Sparx thinks.

She tries to make herself laugh at that. Not easy. There's really nothing funny about your best friend falling for your worst enemy. Sparx doesn't have a clue what else Ace expects her to do but fight it. It's like he's hoping that something's going to happen. That he's going to convince Sparx that Lady Illusion is… different now. That she's not the same arrogant, self-serving creature that Sparx got imprisoned back in the Sixth Dimension.

Yeah, right. And ratty little minions can learn to care about others.

There goes a flying Pigface.

Things can't be different, because Lady Illusion is evil. It's all part of her program, right? Might as well just go with it. Why do things have to be any different from the way they used to be?

But Ace's been like that, ever since his codes got scrambled. (Isn't that what Chuckdude says happened? His files got all messed up? Kind of like Random's did, when that virus got at him back in the mech-theatre. The day he had his body put back together after that stupid mine-pit accident?) Anyway, Ace doesn't always listen to his own program anymore. He keeps getting in over his head.

Which is supposed to be her department, right?

"This might sound crazy… Okay this is all crazy but, you and this Ace guy, are you, like, together?"

"No. Ace… loves Lady Illusion. He just doesn't know it yet."

-x-

Sparx sighs, turning over and burying her face beneath the pillow. Why did Mark's girlfriend have to choose this moment to pop into her head? Just when she thinks she's gotten through enough of the annoying, ponderous stuff for one night, and is actually getting somewhere in the sleep department, her brain goes and chucks another mortal into the mix.

Its kind of weird, Sparx figures, that she worked it all out before Ace did himself. But it was talking with the human girl that did it. The little "heart-to-heart", as Kat might call it. Okay, so the girl seems to have some weird thing about trying to pair them all up with each other, but heck, after being trapped in a bubble for hours on end with nobody but a personality-warped cyborg for company, you'd be glad to talk to anyone. Especially if they just happened to be female. Sparx hasn't had the chance to talk to a lot of them since the academy.

To be honest Sparx hadn't even known she knew what Ace felt for Lady Illusion herself. Kat seemed really interested in that whole line of conversation, for some reason, even though it made Sparx… edgy. Maybe it's because Kat just doesn't know the history between the three of them well enough, but she always seems… well, okay about it all. More okay than Sparx is herself, anyway.

She remembers one of the stories that she told Kat, about one of the times she went to find Lady Illusion. Another of the times that Ace doesn't know about. Well, he doesn't know everything. He knows that he came back to the Thunder Tower one evening to find her gone, and probably didn't have to wonder where she went. He followed her to the carnival, trying to be the hero while she, once again, had to settle for being the bait. Why is she always the bait, anyway? Sparx supposes that she knows how Mark feels, when it comes to that.

Sparx knew Ace'd be mad at her if she went anywhere near the carnival again without him, especially with Lady Illusion around. She went anyway. What else was she supposed to do? If Ace would just let her in on the action now and then, maybe she wouldn't have to keep doing things like this, just to show him she can take care of herself. She wouldn't have to be so bummed about him and Lady Illusion, because she'd be able to live her own life too and do her own thing, the way all other people do in this dimension.

Why won't she just butt off back to prison and leave us alone?

It's normally her who starts the fight, Sparx admits that much. She admitted it to Kat, too. Why shouldn't she? She just wants Lady stab-your-back-as-soon-as-look-at-you Illusion to back off. Go back to the way she was before they ended up in this insane dimension with all its new ideas and weird ways of thinking.

It's not just her. Not really. It's just that it used to be just her and Ace. Then all of a sudden there's another kid thrown into in the mix. And she means a kid. "Scrawny", Sparx believes, was the first word she used for him. And Sparx has never been mad about that, really. She likes the kid, likes his style, she even gets on okay with his girlfriend. Which is just plain weird… She cares about him as much as Ace does, it's just that…

Well, how many superheroes do you know with two sidekicks, anyway?

How many superheroes do you know who fall in love with their best friend's worst enemy?

Mark she can handle. Mark's on their side. Mark can be trusted not to let them down when it really counts and not try to stab them when their backs are turned.

You can't trust an evil, no way no how. So Sparx had figured that if Ace couldn't work out what it was he was feeling for Lady Illusion, then it wasn't a problem. She'd just sort of hoped he'd stay confused.

"Sorry, Sparxie. Looks like the best woman won."

-x-

What was it that humans called this? This whole not being able to sleep, no matter how tired you were thing? Insom… something?

Ah, who cares? She thinks. The only name she needs for it is "irritating."

She's had enough of this. She takes her face out from under the pillow and stares into the glare of moonlight from the open window. She doesn't want to think anymore.

But it's not as if there's anything she can do about it. She can't stop herself from thinking, and every time she tries to close her eyes, the same thing happens. So in the end she gives up trying not to. She allows herself to go back to her vague, not-quite-with-it dozing and just waits to see what else her brain is going to chuck out at her this evening.

Great.

She's sitting hiding in a clapped out old vehicle, watching the look on Lady Illusion's face as Kilobyte tells them his plan. The plan to hunt down the Mortals and imprison them in the Sixth Dimension.

She tells Ace that she's going scouting out, but it's her she's here to see, really. She waits there, watching, and while she's trying to convince herself that she's only here to spy on Kilobyte, her gaze keeps shifting to Lady Illusion. Standing there with her arms folded. Hard as she tries, Sparx just can't convince herself that Lady Illusion is happy about what Kilobyte is planning.

Because she really, really doesn't look it.

She's pretty in a strange kind of way, unlike many of the freaks from her dimension. In fact, she looks just like she did the first time they met. They were in the Hall of Mirrors, if Sparx remembers rightly (and it's hard to remember anything right about that bizarre place), Lady Illusion's face being reflected back at her, a thousand times over, in all that plated glass as she walked the corridors, looking for Ace.

It's now when Sparx makes her mistake. Kilobyte sees her. She doesn't want to admit it, but she sort of figures that Lady Illusion could have given her away minutes earlier. So why didn't she? She doesn't have much time to think about it before she's pulling herself to her feet with a quick one-liner and a whistle for the 'Flash. 'Places to go, people to save…'

She calls for the 'Flash. Blasts away anyone who comes near and launches into the air to escape.

Then she makes the mistake of hesitating, just for a second, directly overhead. She stops to look at Lady Illusion again. So even when she's getting struck from behind and thrown over her own handlebars, it's the Lady's smirking face that she sees.

She could've given her away earlier, and yet she hadn't. She waited. Waited for Kilobyte to see herWhy? Sparx thinks angrily. Why's it only now that she's being thrown off the Flash and knocked to the ground and the vehicle that she could fly through anything is crashing into the junkyard and exploding?

When she's barely conscious and everything hurts like hell, the only thing she can hear is a cold blunt laugh; Lady Illusion's laugh. And that only convinces Sparx that she hates her even more, and she doesn't care how much Ace loves her.

Damn, she hates using that word for them.

"Lady Illusion… Sparx… What's wrong with this picture?"

"The only thing wrong with it is her."

-x-

Like she said, she doesn't really NEED to sleep anyway.

She's finally given up trying altogether. She's gone back to the main scope room and is playing about with the 'Flash. Random brought it back for her while he was in one of his nicer phases, but it kind of looks like it should've been left in the junkyard. It's in pieces, a total wreck, and she doesn't know how she's ever going to be able to fix it.

She doesn't know if she's ever going to be able to fix anything here.

Once more, she draws out the Sword of Jacob andstares at its blade. Odd, that in the last battle, it had never even gotten a look in.

She watches Ace being shot from behind, the green sparks of energy and crackling static wrapping around him for a few, short seconds. She remembers the momentary burst of panic as he hits the ground. She remembers hearing someone else, crying out the words she wanted to scream herself, but which got stuck in her throat.

'Ace, NO!'

And then…

Then it wasn't him. She saw her morph back. She saw Lady Illusion appearing where Ace's body had been.

Damn.

Hadn't expected that. Really hadn't expected that.

She really did it. She got herself destroyed, for him.

Sparx looks up suddenly from the battered remains of her vehicle, when she sees him coming down through the open skylight. She doesn't think to ask where he's been.

'Bad day, huh Lightning?' She watches him out from behind the wreckage of the Flash. He doesn't speak. She's not expecting him to. What's there to say? Nothing that can make things right, that's for sure. What's happened has happened, even if she can hardly believe it did.

Yet she knows she has to say something to him. Anything. As long as it'll take that look off his face. 'Ace? Ace, you all right?' He doesn't answer.

Damn. He's never looked at her that way before. Sparx doesn't think he's ever looked at anyone that way before. In fact, he's not really looking at her at all, but through her, as if she's not there. It's not her face he wants to see. He turns away and the next thing Sparx knows she sees him falling to his knees.

She stands there in shock, wishing he would look at her. She stands there holding the Sword of Jacob, clutched tightlyin her hand, even though she doesn't really need it. She stands there thinking about Lady Illusion, what she did, and trying to figure out if she'd have done the same thing.

Yes… I would. Sure I would. But in the end it just wasn't me that did. It was her. Guess she was the only one who could, in the end.

That hurts her. She doesn't know why but it does, almost as much as it hurts to see him like this.

'Ace?' Sparx's voice is uncharacteristically quiet.

No answer.

That face… Sparx suddenly realises that she's seen that face before. Not on him, though. On the kid.

It's the vaguest memory she has. All fuzzy and messed up, but it's there. It involves Googler, and Mark, and the Sword of Jacob being knocked from her hand. Then there's an attack. A loss of balance. A painfully familiar energy, eating into her chest.

Shot down, by her own weapon.

Now she's lying in the dirt and watching her own power plummeting. She's at 0.8 percent before she really realises it's happening. By 0.5 percent, Mark is kneeling next to her, his eyes wide with shock. And she's looking at him and telling him to "Look after Ace, kid."

Mark's eyes say it all, in that weird way, which she supposes only humans have. She hears him speaking her name. Her power slips to 0.1 and she knows there's no way out of this. All she can do is look at him. She says the only thing that comes into her mind, something she thinks he needs to hear, which just happens to be "Do Right, and Fear Not."

And then he's gone and she's gone and all she can see is the twisting violent spiral of the portal. And the thought of: "here we go again" barely hits her before she's picking herself up again, back amidst the familiar sights and sounds of the Sixth Dimension.

Sparx remembers Mark's eyes. How they looked in that moment sticks in her mind. Wide and filled with shock. That very expression is the same one that Ace is wearing right now. A lost one. A… a human one.

Human?

A shiver tracks its way right through her body. The word that she'd been wracking her brain after for hours, trying to explain that totally disturbing look in Ace's eyes, suddenly comes to her. That's the face. That's how he looks. The same way as Mark did when she got wiped. Scared and shocked and not really having any idea what was going to happen next.

Human emotion. The words stick, like static in her throat.

Like she said. Not her department. But she'll give it a shot, all the same.

Sparx kneels down next to him, reaches out a hand and places it over his. He shudders, but there's no static. Not now. There's not enough left for that. 'Ace, I'm here.'

He doesn't answer. She doesn't know how knowing that is going to help him. Sparx isn't even that sure if he sees her. He's still looking right through her, with way-too-human eyes. He's gone beyond being scared now. He's gone somewhere that Knights like them aren't supposed to be able to go.

She drops the Sword of Jacob on the floor. It clatters, sparkling a little as she reaches out. Her other hand grips his shoulder, as if she can force him to hear her and force him to know that he's not alone and that as much as Sparx hated her, she still cares about him. She says it again. Stronger this time, like a loud whisper. 'I'm here.'

And for just a second, it's almost like he can see her.

-x-

Phew. That's it. This fic was certainly interesting to write. I hope you enjoyed it, and please, reviews are much appreciated and please let me know if it's OOC or anything.