AN: So, of course, the first Flux Buddies series has finished… but there is another one coming! So I'm going to try and wrap the old series up in the next chapter (so it'll be a bit longer) and then will start with the new series as best as I can! This means that this chapter is going to have a little bit of a rushed feel to it… so it'll be a bit weird at first, but hopefully it will go well JI also have neglected to put the details of the nuke battle in place so will just start the next chapter with a brief recap of it because I am not even going to attempt to summarize both perspectives and events of that battle… JEnjoy!

Kim could barely keep her eyes open the next morning. She had woken in the middle of the night to hear herself screaming and whimpering, and she knew that it was because she didn't know what had happened to Rythian and Zoey. So she had lit another candle, and read on. And now she knew everything. She knew that Zoey had gone back to the base to re-join with Rythian, and that she had tried to disable the nuke, and that everything had had been blown up. She knew that Rythian had tracked down Duncan and asked for peace – Duncan had wrote this very strangely in the entry but she knew it was true. Duncan had completely ruined their lives… twice, it seemed.

Kim ended up endlessly hovering around, checking on the animals, watching the nukes being made. She felt uneasy. Rythian had been, ultimately, unable to protect Zoey. Duncan might not be able to protect her… or any of the creatures they had. She needed to make sure they were safe from the nukes… and, if it came to it, safe from Duncan. She was so deep in her thoughts that she didn't realise, when she drifted down to the lowest floor of Panda Labs, that she was no longer alone.

Seeing Duncan's wand charging on its stand seemed to shake Kim out of her thoughts. Duncan was back, she hadn't noticed. Where was he? Was he by the nukes? Would he set them off without her? Would Hat Films be completely and utterly destroyed, like Zoey had been? Did they really deserve that fate?

"No…" Kim whispered to herself, as her mind pictured the devastation described in Duncan's diary. She wobbled slightly and had to hold onto the workbench beside her to steady herself. "I can't let this happen… I can't let Duncan deal with this on his own…" she murmured to herself, and decided in that moment what she was going to do. She flew up to the main computer and took out her bag.

Meanwhile, Duncan was flying around the witch hut, looking for Kim. "KIM?!" he yelled, swooping and landing in the centre of the magic rings. "Kim?" he called, popping his head inside and finding no one there. All the animals were well fed and happy, so Kim must had been around here a while ago. Using the secret back entrance, he walked around Panda Labs, heading to the lowest level to collect his wand first, before heading up the floors, wondering if she was in their room. As he entered their bedroom, he cast a glance over at the empty beds and sighed. He could do with a quick nap after he found her… He suddenly noticed there were some pages of writing on Kim's bed… they looked awfully familiar…

"DUNCAN!" Duncan almost jumped out of his skin as he turned and saw a small, purple wild haired monster appear behind him.

"Kim? Oh my god Kim, are you alright? You look… well, you look like death!" Duncan added, momentarily forgetting his manners as he cupped her chin up and examined the dark circles under her eyes. Kim hastily stepped away, stubbornly folding her arms.

"I'm fine Dunc – but we've got a problem; we're completely out of gunpowder for the nukes."

"What!?" Duncan gasped, remembering emptying several stacks into the computer only a few days ago. "But it was full!"

"Well the nukes aren't making themselves and need gunpowder so seeing as you're all packed, you can go and get the gunpowder, right?" Kim smiled sweetly and Duncan knew at that moment, without a doubt, that Kim had taken the gunpowder.

"So… say you were trying to get rid of me somehow…" Duncan pondered thoughtfully, noticing Kim's smile waver momentarily before forcefully returning to her face, "…why would you want me to go?" He said all this with a playful tone, but inside he was worrying. Had he said something to her…?

"Honestly…?" Kim sighed and looked down at her feet… she looked so troubled that Duncan had to work very hard on not to squeeze her into a hug, and instead fidgeted with his fingers behind his back as he patiently waited for her to reply.

"I'm just a bit tired, and I enjoyed the peace and quiet and I have a lot I want to get on with by myself…" Kim started, as Duncan turned away from him, giving her a moment to relax and fix the expression on her face.

"So it has nothing to do with the pages which are on your bed then." Duncan's sudden change of voice forced Kim to take a step back as Duncan remained motionless, staring at the bed. He could make out some of the words from here. He could remember writing them. He could remember thinking them. He could…

"Duncan, I didn't mean to read them…" Kim began, trailing off as she heard how pathetic she sounded. Of course she had meant to read them. They were on her bed. There was no way out of this. Duncan remained still.

"So what do you think of me then?" Duncan's voice asked, without a betrayal of any kind of emotion. Kim opened her mouth to reply as Duncan cut across her. "Am I not a monster? Do I delight in hurting people? What do you think of me Kim?" Duncan's voice progressed to a roar as he turned around and looked at her, the pain in his eyes evident, his breathing unnatural, as if he was choking on the air. Kim wanted to turn away but found she couldn't. She couldn't run.

"It wasn't you… you're different now..." Kim managed to whisper, watching the anger and pain die down into sadness as the scientist walked over to the sofa and sat down heavily, placing his head in his hands.

Running a hand through his blonde hair, he muttered to himself "But I haven't really changed… not really…" He looked up at Kim, his eyes unfocussed slightly. "I want to nuke Hat Films before they hurt us. I want to hurt people. I will be delighted if they are hurt to the extent they cannot hurt us. That is why I am doing it. I saw what Rythian lost; I'm not going to lose…" Duncan stumbled on the last word, desperately trying to finish it off the sentence.

Kim stood awkwardly until she was sure that Duncan wasn't going to add anything else. When she was sure, she stated slowly "I'm going to go and ask Hat Films to make a peace treaty with us, and see if they're interested. It's not too late. Not yet anyway. And we do need more gunpowder, by the way. I used up a lot of it by myself." As she fumbled in her bag for her portal gun, Duncan stood up and held onto her wrist, causing her to freeze.

"Kim, I…" he began but stopped as Kim wrenched her wrist from his grasp with a strange expression on her face. "We might need those nukes Duncan" she said firmly and marched through the portal and out of sight. Duncan stood there for a moment, filled with anger at himself, and half considered the thought of blocking the portal so she couldn't return. Struggling with the temptation to throw something into the portal after her, he paced angrily around the room.

"Fine!" he yelled pointlessly after her at the portal – sound didn't travel between them but he felt better for shouting anyway. "Go then!" He picked up on of the gohlems and threw it at the wall, dissatisfied as it merely bounced off and didn't smash, as he had hoped it would. He picked it up, noting where Kim had carefully crafted his name on the back of it. He choked back a sob as he placed it carefully back down, looking back at the portal.

"You, Kim. I don't want to lose you." Duncan said bitterly as he marched towards the stairs. He paused and leant his head next to the portal, momentarily comforted by the noise it made. "I didn't ever want to lose you…" Duncan sighed and turned around and walked to his bedside table. Within a few moments he had taken the pages and put them back in their original places, briefly staring at the words he had once written.

How do I convince her that I have changed…? He wondered to himself, when an idea struck him. Fumbling through the pages, he finally found the entry he was looking for, quickly reading it over to check there were no damaging ideas or actions implied. He was just about to close it when he realised that he had written an afterthought at a later date, half concealed by bottom of the page being slightly folded over. Opening it, he read the words 'She reminds me of Zoey sometimes.'

Duncan carefully tore out the line and held it in his hands, deep in thought. Yes… he understood it now. The pain and damage he had done to Rythian was because of what he had done to Zoey. Zoey had meant the world to him. He almost lost her because of Duncan – and could never forgive Duncan because of it. Duncan smiled sadly as he concluded to himself "Rythian completely loved Zoey." So maybe… that's how he felt about Kim.

Well, almost… he thought to himself as he folded up the torn fragment and glanced at the portal. She was a right pain sometimes, and far too stubborn for him. She was also very noisy and chatty sometimes whilst sulky the other time. To say that she meant the world to him could be true… but there were hundreds of worlds, and the universe and stars to consider…

You're in denial… a voice seemed to whisper in his head, but Duncan ignored it. He actually felt briefly at peace with himself for the first time in a very long time. Kim meant the world to him… no... she meant this world to him. Smiling, he left the diary out for Kim to see on her return, and started to re-pack his bags. Time to hunt some creepers.

Kim returned several hours later, still fuming at the Hat trio. "I got the final laugh…" she announced as she walked through the portal "… we are going to blow them away, right Duncan?" She bounced into the bedroom and suddenly remembered how she had left it. "Oh…" she said simply, as she slung her bag onto the floor and listened for any movement in the house – nothing. Noticing the diary on Duncan's bed, she immediately began to feel panicky; but then she noticed that it was facing the portal and looked like it had been deliberately placed that way… maybe Duncan wanted her to read it now…?

"It can't get any worse Kim…" she said to herself as she walked over, noting the date on the entry. That was the day she had met Duncan! Kim's eyes widened as she eagerly picked up the diary, noting that it was a slightly short entry than the other two, but still full of writing:

Well, she fell out of the sky. I still can't quite get over that! She began to talk far too quickly for me to understand, but I managed to word out that Sips had blown her up… bit like I had done with Rythian's base…

Kim's eyes narrowed as she read this, but the next few sentences pushed it out of her mind;

I introduced her to my castle – she was pleased with it and said it was better than Sipsco; I responded with thanking her, although I did point out there was some dangerous flux level problems at the moment, to see if it would scare her off. I assured her it was nothing I couldn't handle; it wasn't too dangerous. Having said that, I had to warn her about the door though, which would have instantly killed her. She sarcastically responded by saying about how pleased she was that she had gone to a better place from being on fire… She actually made me laugh, believe it or not.

I wanted to show her the castle but she couldn't fly – instead of being annoyed, she took delight in that I could, and the plasma cannon, and the spaceship… although she did point out that it was highly dangerous. However, everything she saw seemed to awe and please her, as I explained various different science approaches; I offered to teach her some, and she agreed. I couldn't promise not to blow her up though (like Sipsco) and instead promised that if she did blow up, she wouldn't be too badly hurt… and that I wouldn't do it deliberately – looking at her, I knew I'd keep that promise; I'd never deliberately blow her up.

She also talked about getting revenge on Sipsco – so maybe that could be interesting; I think I will like taking her on as an apprentice; I'll give her a wand, teach her magic, teach her science. She shall be my companion and I'll look after her.

Kim smiled, tears glistening in her eyes; it a kind of weird, science like way, Duncan had really accepted her when she first met him. She glanced over the rest of the entry, which seemed so long ago in her mind, of her rushing about and constantly asking questions and reportedly laughing and cheering him up considerably. She noticed the page was torn slightly at the bottom, but took no notice of it. She moved her hand to turn the next page…

"Woah Kim!" Duncan's voice suddenly shocked her out of her reading as she glanced up in time to see Duncan's slightly red face as he quickly snatched the diary away from her. Refusing to meet her gaze, he said awkwardly "It's still a diary Kim, you've read the worst parts…"

Kim smiled innocently. "So… if I've read all the worst parts, I can read the rest?" she asked, waltzing up to Duncan and trying to take the diary back. Duncan held it above his head, quite above her reach.

"No chance… but honestly Kim, you know the worst about me now… can you accept that?" Duncan's voice came close to breaking at the end as Kim looked at him, searching his eyes for any signs of evil or faked guilt. Apart from the flux that had started spreading on one side of her face, she detected nothing.

"I tell you what, you'd better have got a lot of gunpowder, because Hat Films need to be blown off the face of this planet – I got their co-ordinates too to put in the missile silos…" Kim grinned wickedly as Duncan laughed.

"I'd better go and hide them, I reckon they know where they are…" Duncan said thoughtfully, wondering why Kim looked sheepish for a moment.

"So long as you don't set them off without me – I want to set them off together Duncan!" Kim beamed and Duncan had a sudden vision of all the nukes lighting up the sky whilst him and Kim laughed.

Duncan and Kim laughed at each other as they unanimously said "Let's go nuke Hat Films!"