Outside of the Carnival of Doom, a large 4WD pulled up.
"We should've waited until it was dark," Random grumbled as he almost tumbled out the back end of the vehicle. He managed to balance himself as he landed, grabbing onto the back of the car with his claw.
"Dude!" exclaimed Chuck, almost falling out of the drivers side himself. "Watch the paintwork! This is my mum's car!"
Sparx flew down on the Lightning Flash, skidding through the air to a stop just above the vehicle. "You guys took your time."
"We do have to stop for traffic lights, you know," Mark pointed out, slamming the door to the passenger side shut.
"Whatever. Let's just find Ace."
Together they walked into the carnival.
"Looks quiet…" observed Mark.
"Too qu…" Chuck started, then shut his mouth as Mark gave him a funny look.
Sparx dragged out the Sword of Jacob. "Right, let's get a move on then."
"Googler's going to google you all!" came the voice of Googler. Seconds later he came bouncing out into the midway, laughing hysterically.
"Great…" grumbled Mark, lifting up his wrist cannon.
Sparx immediately fired a blast at the spiked ball.
Googler just kept laughing and dodged the blasts, before hurling himself towards them.
Random rolled in front of them and swung his claw into Googler.
"Whoaaaaa…!" yelled Googler as he sailed across the carnival and crashed into one of the sideshow booths.
"Nice shot, dude!" exclaimed Chuck.
At that moment Lord Fear came around the corner on the Doom Wagon.
"Oh no…" said Chuck.
"Look what the cat dragged in, m'lord!" said Staff Head.
"Yes, we'll just have to dispose of it won't we?" Lord Fear replied.
"Where's Ace?" Random demanded.
"You expect me to baby-sit that muscle bound moron? If you must know, he seems to be having a bit of fun with Lady Illusion."
Sparx made a disgusted face. "Right, now we know he's gone crazy…"
"Enough small talk!" said Staff Head. "Let's blast 'em, m'lord. Teach them to invade your carnival."
"Yes, lets," grinned Lord Fear, powering up the staff.
"Lightning Flash! To me!" Sparx called the machine, leaping onto it as a blast of green energy hit where she'd been standing seconds before.
Googler bounced out from where he'd landed and uncurled. "Googler's going to get you good, this time!" He curled back up and bounced towards Mark, Chuck and Random.
Mark fired a few blasts of lightning at him, one finally made contact, throwing off the bounce and causing the clown to fly up into the air.
Googler landed back on the ground and uncurled again. "Lightning brat's quick! Let's give him something smaller to play target practice with!"
Zip and Snip flew off Googler's arms and whizzed around the air.
"Oh great…" muttered Mark. He fired a few more blasts at the puppets, but they were too fast.
Googler laughed. "Zip and Snip are way too quick!"
Chuck ran up next to Mark with a piece of wood. "Least you've got a proper weapon!"
"It's not doing much good…"
As if on cue the Ferris wheel began to glow, rings of energy seeming to spread along its spokes. Seconds later Kilobyte dropped to the ground.
"We could use some help, Random!" said Mark as he fired another lightning bolt at the puppets. It missed and they continued to whiz around in the air, spouting off nonsense.
"Can't get me!"
"Too slow! You're too slow!" screeched Snip, and then was suddenly hit by Chuck's plank of wood. "Ow…!"
"Alright!" Chuck did a quick victory dance.
"Looks like you're doing fine…" said Random, sounding distracted. He'd just seen Kilobyte emerge from the Ferris wheel. "Now if you'll excuse me, I think I might go have a word with Kilobyte…" He rolled off across the carnival.
"Hey!" protested Mark.
"Heads up dude!" yelled Chuck, cutting off anything else Mark might have been thinking of saying.
Zip rushed Mark, "Snack time!" then flew out of the way as Chuck took a swing at him.
Chuck actually came closer to hitting Mark.
"Hey!" said Mark again, more indignantly this time.
"Sorry, dude!"
Sparx continued to attack Lord Fear. The sword and staff clashed against each other, blasts of energy flying off in all directions.
Random ignored them, even as a wayward blast of green energy plowed into the ground right next to him. His gaze was fixed firmly on Kilobyte. It was his fault that the program had transferred itself into Ace. He'd sucked it out with his tentacles and then shoved it into Ace's head. Random pointedly ignored the voice that told him Kilobyte would never have gotten the program if he hadn't let him.
Kilobyte saw Random coming and grinned. "If it isn't the Virus. Have you come to join your friend?"
"No," Random growled.
"Yes, that's right; you don't have any friends, do you?"
Random finally reached Kilobyte. He brought himself to a stop, even though every part of him wanted to attack Kilobyte now. He tried to calm his voice before replying, "I've come to take him back. Stand in my way and I will destroy you."
"Oh, I'm not going to stand in your way," smirked Kilobyte. "You can try take Lightning back anytime you want. Somehow I think he's the one you'll have to get through. But that would seem to defeat the whole purpose, wouldn't it?"
Random didn't respond immediately, instead he stared coldly at Kilobyte.
At that moment Ace wondered out of the Haunted House, followed by Lady Illusion. It was hard to ignore the noise of the battle outside.
Random didn't see them; his gaze was too firmly fixed on Kilobyte. "I know what you did to him, Kilobyte," he finally said, "My evil program is inside of him and you put it there. Why'd you do it?"
"You make it sound like I've done something wrong," said Kilobyte. "You were the one who gave the program to me. I simply gave Lightning the strength that you could not control."
"And what do you think it's going to do to him? I can't handle it, no one can handle it!"
"Maybe you're the only one who can't control it," growled Ace, alerting Random to his presence. So Random's evil side had been what had pushed him to finally put his power to a worthy use. And to think the cyborg had been unable to control it. Ace felt rage building up inside of him at his so-called friend. The coward hadn't deserved the power in the first place.
"Trust me, Ace. You don't want it. I know you think you can control it. But you can't."
"Don't lie to me!" shouted Ace, his anger finally brimming over. He flew into the air and came down almost instantly so that he was right in Random's face. "This thing is strength. And I can control it. I'm controlling it now!"
"Just take a look at where you are. You're fighting with the Evils. It's not right, and you know it."
"Right?" Ace spat out. "You of all people are trying to tell me what's right? What are you going to do next, start quoting the code? You wouldn't know what was right if it came up and smacked you in the face. No, not you, the pathetic excuse for a Lightning Knight who hides in a junkyard, wasting his strength. Well, I'll tell you something, Random, I'm not going to waste it. And don't you dare try and tell me what to do with something you could never control!"
"Ace, I'm trying to help…" said Random, trying desperately to ignore his friend's words.
"I don't need your help!" Ace shouted.
Random started, as he realized how many times he'd said those very same words.
"You can't help me. You couldn't help yourself! Go back to the junkyard, you can't help anybody! You're worthless!"
Random felt each word cut into him. Even knowing Ace only said them because of what was now inside of him – it was still Ace. And it still took Ace to say them. And Random had given him the thing inside.
"Well, Random Virus, aren't you going to take your friend back now?" said Kilobyte. He looked quite pleased with himself.
Random ignored him and tried to gather every last bit of his will to try again. He wasn't going to let Ace have to end up dealing with his evil. "Ace…" but his voice came out faltering; it almost sounded like he was begging.
Ace cut him off by grabbing his jacket collar and dragged him so they looked each other right in the eye. "Go back to your junkyard, old friend."
Random broke eye contact, partly because the look in Ace's eyes was one he'd only seen in a mirror, partly from shame.
Ace released him and shoved him back.
Mark had stopped shooting; he'd realized that he was only wasting his wrist cannon's energy by blasting haphazardly at the puppet still darting around.
"Dude! C'mon, give me a hand!" said Chuck, swinging his plank of wood erratically through the air, trying to hit Zip.
"Hang on,Chuck." Mark took a step back. He leveled his arm in his friend's direction. Zip kept darting around, laughing and taunting Chuck. Mark waited, trying to steady his breathing, then shot off a blast of energy. It hit Zip, knocking the puppet away.
"Ow! That hurt…" said Zip from the dirt before he faded out.
"Took you time!" grumbled Chuck, not quite finished freaking out.
"Looks like Googler's got to do some googling!" The clown curled himself up into a ball and bounced towards Mark and Chuck again.
"Mark!" shouted Chuck, realizing that his plank of wood was going to do him little good.
Mark fired another blast of lightning, but there was hardly any energy in it.
Googler was barely slowed down by the blast. He laughed. "Little Lightning Knight's all out of power!"
Perhaps Googler wasn't so crazy after all.
He hurled himself at them again. Both of the boys dodged to either side as Googler bounced between them, still laughing like a madman.
Chuck found himself nearly running into Random Virus. But the cyborg virtually ignored him, and just continued rolling towards the gate.
"Where are you going!" asked Chuck.
Random didn't answer.
"Random!"
"Chuck, watch out!" shouted Mark, dragging Chuck's mind back to the battle. And the spiked ball hurling straight towards him.
Chuck yelled and covered his head.
A blast of purple lightning intersected with Googler, just meters in front of Chuck. The clown screeched before dissolving.
Half a second later Mark ran to Chuck's side, half crashing into him. He'd been attempting to tackle his friend out of the way but Sparx had made that unnecessary and he hadn't had the time to slow down.
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
They both looked up to Sparx, but she didn't have time for talking. Her attention was back on Fear, but the distraction had cost her.
Fear plowed the Doom Wagon into the Lightning Flash, causing the smaller vehicle to spin out of control.
"Hey!" yelled Sparx, as the Lightning Flash flipped almost upside down and fell towards the earth. She managed to roll it at the last minute, its underside spewing out a blast of energy just in time to stop it crashing. She spun it back around to face Fear. She could still take him down.
Suddenly Ace was next to him in the sky.
"Oh, not you!" grumbled Staff Head.
For half a second, Sparx almost thought he was there to help.
"Leave her to me, Fear," Ace growled.
"And let you have all the fun, Lightning? I think I can handle one fiery upstart."
Sparx blasted Fear while he was still looking at Ace. "Eyes on the battle, boneman."
"Bad move, Sparx," stated Ace. He shot a bolt of lightning at her before she could get her sword on him. This time, she was knocked off the Lightning Flash. She landed in the dirt, the Sword of Jacob falling next to her.
"Sparx, are you okay?" asked Mark, rushing to her side.
"Fine." Sparx sat up, but her body had started flickering. "Where's Random gone?" she asked, looking around. Sparx might not have been willing to give up, but at least she had the sense to look for help.
"He left," stated Chuck.
"What?" Mark asked. "Why!"
"I don't know! He wouldn't talk to me."
"That coward's not going to help you now, if he ever could!" shouted down Ace. "You're on your own."
"That coward is supposed to be your friend, Ace!" Mark shouted back. "And you're supposed to be a Lightning Knight."
"Shut up, mortal," Ace growled.
"This mortal's your friend too."
Ace blinked. For just a second, Mark almost thought he could bring him round. "Come on mate…" he said quietly.
"You won't be after I snap your neck."
"Enough!" boomed out Kilobyte's voice over the carnival. "I suggest you leave, you've lost this battle."
"Not yet we haven't…" growled Sparx, trying to get up. Her body flickered sharply.
"Dude, I think he's got a point…" said Chuck.
"And what about Ace?"
"We can't help him if he kills us!"
"Fine," Sparx replied. "Lightning Flash, to me!"
"Yeah, run away…" grumbled Ace, knowing too well that Kilobyte didn't want them destroyed just yet.
Sparx glared at him. "We'll come back." It was as much a threat as a promise. She got on the Lightning Flash and flew out. Slowly for once, making sure both Mark and Chuck came out safely.
Mark kept glancing back over his shoulder, right at Ace. Ace eventually got annoyed and powered up his wrist cannons slightly as Mark looked back again. The kid got the message and didn't look again, just left as quickly as he could.
"You know we could have destroyed them!" Fear shouted at Kilobyte.
"You had a chance to destroy Sparx," Kilobyte pointed out.
Ace laughed at Lord Fear.
"And you still have to watch your emotions," the next comment was directed at the superhero with a growl.
Ace stopped laughing; it was Fear's turn to smirk.
"Or they will destroy you." Kilobyte added.
Able to do nothing else, Ace just nodded.
Kilobyte returned to the Ferris wheel then. When it had done its task, a program really didn't seem to have a reason to be running.
"I suppose you want the Haunted House…" Lord Fear grumbled.
"Yes," said Ace simply, and flew down. Perhaps he'd had enough bickering for now.
"I suppose it's back to the caravan then, m'lord?" asked Staff Head.
"I suppose it is."
----
"You really took care of Random Virus," Lady Illusion stated as Ace landed beside her.
Ace shrugged. "He deserved it."
"Because…?" she prompted. It wasn't so much what Ace had done that was bothering her. But that it was Ace who had done it. Even with human emotions, she just didn't expect him to say those things to someone he called a friend.
"He misused his strength," said Ace. "Why are you asking?"
"It just doesn't seem like something the Ace I know would do."
"I've changed," Ace replied, reaching out to hold her arm, "you know that."
Lady Illusion took half a step back. "Well, I'm not so sure I like it."
"What's that supposed to mean!" Ace demanded.
"It means I loved you when you were… Ace. He was who I fell in love with. Right now you're not really acting like him."
Ace stared at her, for a moment lost for words. Lady Illusion could almost see the thoughts and emotions flitting behind his eyes, raging just beneath the surface.
"You can't not love me!" he burst out. "I am Ace Lightning! I'm not the coward I was before, I'm stronger! You should love me more for what I am now!"
Lady Illusion just shook her head. "I don't think it works that way, Ace. I'm sorry." And then she morphed out.
"Hey!" Ace yelled, making a last attempt to grab her. All he got was a handful of sparkling light; and that too faded seconds after. Lady Illusion had gone. Ace stared at his hands, part of him willing the light, willing her to return. But she didn't. "Fine then!" he shouted, and stormed into the Haunted House, slamming the door behind him.