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It was a dark, dark timein Mainframe. Megabyte had just taken over, and driven Dot Matrix and her small band of rebels into hiding. He had begun infecting the city, sector by sector. Binomes scurried away in terror, only to be rounded up by the ABC's that were soaring around the city.
From his standpoint atop one of the towers of the Gilded Gate Bridge, Jareth watched the ensuing chaos. A part of him wanted to help the city, another wanted to simply remain where he was and watch the mayhem spread. Unable to decide, he brushed back an errant strand of black hair that had somehow escaped from his ponytail. Without even realizing it, he switched masks, from his Happy mask to his Deep-In-Thought mask. What to do, what to do?
Suddenly, the decision was made for him. A stray ABC had spotted him. Viral or not, Jareth was a Guardian, and his brother Megabyte didn't care for him. The matter decided, Jareth quickly went into Viral mode.
His mask switched back to Happy. "Hello, Mr. ABC," he said, "Do you want to play with me?"
"This is now Megaframe," the ABC bellowed over it's loudspeaker. "Surrender you PID or be deleted."
Jareth removed the Icon from the claw horn in the center of his chest plate. He held it daintily with two fingers, looking at it intently. "But I like my PID. It looks good on me," His mask switched to a more mischievous face. "What do you want it for anyway? You've got your own."
In response, the ABC fired, destroying the support tower he was sitting on. Jareth leapt clear, pulling a zip board out of his seemingly bottomless coat and coasting up to the ABC's window. ""That was fun. Is it my turn now?"
The ABC paused as the Viral binomes conferred. It was apparently still their turn. The ABC attempted to raise it's cannon to target Jareth. In response, Jareth pulled his zip board out from underneath him and stuffed it into the ABC's cannon. Jareth, no longer having anything to stand on, morphed his coat into a pair of ebony angel wings. He flew circles around the inept virals, laughing hysterically as the attempted to draw a bead on him. Much more of this, Jareth thought, and it's turret will unscrew. But surely there were more enjoyable ways to play with this thing. Jareth suddenly stopped, hovering still, just begging to be deleted. The ABC spun around a few more times, not realizing that Jareth had stopped. Finally, noticing that their target was no longer moving, the Virals targeted Jareth. The Viral manning the gunner's post grinned and leaned forward, leering into the view scope. His fingers twitched on the controls, just a few more nanos, and this sprite would be history. The Gunner pressed the trigger and... The ABC quickly sent itself to the recycle bin.
Jareth hovered in the air, watching what remained of the ruined ABC plummet into the turbulent waters of the energy sea below. When the last piece of wreckage had been extinguished, his mask switched back to his contemplative face. He hovered in midair, turning his head back to look at the invaded city.
"Now, what to do..."
* * *
Inside the recently corrupted principle office, Megabyte glanced around what was his new home. A truly malicious grin spread across his face. It was his. Mainframe was finally his! The entire system was at his disposal, and User, was he ever going to dispose of it. After his new office was assembled, Megabyte walked to the P.O.'s Lab, which he had given to Phong.
"Greetings, Phong," he said as he entered the room and the doors closed behind him. "I trust everything is going well."
"Yes, indeed, Megabyte," the short, robotic sprite replied. "See for yourself." The elderly sprite punched a button on the control panel and called up a vidwindow displaying a record of all the PID's which had been collected thus far. It also displayed the locations of PID's that had not yet been infected. Since all the PID's were registered online with the Principle Office, they could all be tracked by the system.
Nearly all the PID's in the system had been accounted for. The only few missing were those of Dot's band of rebels, and one PID that kept wandering aimlessly around the system.
"That one," said Megabyte, pointing to the meandering PID. "What is that?"
"We do not know, Megabyte. It doesn't seem to demonstrate any regular purpose. One minute it destroys an ABC that is attacking an uninfected binome, the next it attacks one of Dot's CPU's it's just totally--"
"Random," Megabyte sneered.
"Precisely. But Hexadecimal has not been seen since she destroyed the Tor. And, as a virus, Hexadecimal doesn't have a PID anyway. I do not know--"
"Worry not, Phong. I shall deal with the matter personally. You just concentrate on the remaining PID's"
"Yes, Megabyte."
Megabyte left the Lab, a grimace on his already unpleasant face. He hated anything he couldn't keep under his thumb. And his brother was NOT something he could keep under his thumb. Jareth, in addition to being a Chaos Virus, was also a Guardian. If that wasn't a conflict of interest, Megabyte didn't know what was.
* * *
"Honey, I'm ho-oome!" Jareth yelled as he swooped in through the window of Hexadecimal's Lair. "Hex?" He called, not having gotten a response. "Oh, Hexadecimal?" Jareth looked around the shadowy interior of the Lair, looking for any trace of his sister. Finally, he saw a pair of glowing green eyes peering out of the shadows. "Hex?" a note of concern crept into his voice. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"
"No Jareth... I'm afraid I'm not." Hexadecimal stepped from the shadows.
"I'm glad you're back, Hex. I--" Jareth's train of thought stopped dead upon seeing her mask. "Hex... What happened to you?"
Hexadecimal's mask was covered in a network of tiny cracks. Just below her left eye was a large fissure, as if someone had given her a solid whack with a chisel. On top of that, her outfit had changed. Instead of the seven crown points that normally adorned her head, she now had a set of swept- back, snakelike projections jutting out. Her armor, normally red, was no more black than anything else. She looked completely different. But the look in her eyes was the same old Hex.
"Megabyte happened to me."
"Does it hurt?"
"Oh, yeeess... It hurts. It hurts allot. Megabyte... He... trapped me."
"He trapped you? How did he--"
"A control collar." As she spoke, Hex went from a flat, monotone voice to one seething with rage, though her mask didn't change. "He slapped a control collar on me. He made me do things for him. He... he controlled me!! He made me do whatever he wanted!"
Hex was really shaken, Jareth could tell. He was much closer to Hex than Megabyte. In fact, Hex was his only friend, and he was probably Hex's. Hexadecimal was terrified, probably for the first time in her life. As a chaos virus, one rarely has to worry about anything. And to be taken from that and forced to serve someone else... Well, Jareth could certainly see where she was coming from. As he thought about this, Jareth started to grow furious. His sister meant the world to him. When she was around, that was the time that his conflicting programming didn't make his head start to split. Just by being there, she made everything seem right. But to see her like this...
"Don't worry about it, Hex. I'll deal with Megabyte. Just wait here."
Without another word, Jareth flew out the same window he had come in. Hexadecimal watched him leave, then sat back down in the shadows.
* * *
Megabyte cruised the city, searching for his brother. The tracking system wasn't much good, since Jareth kept moving around. Megabyte couldn't let a corrupted virus stay here in HIS system. It was bad enough Jareth was chaotic like Hexadecimal, but a Guardian as well! He had to be deleted. Megabyte would be doing the entire Net a favor by deleting the worthless half-breed.
"Faster," he ordered to the binome driving his ABC. Megabyte was perched atop the vehicle like a cat, just waiting for Jareth to show himself. He blinked once, twice, turning his green-and-red eyes black and greatly enhancing his vision. Through his Viral eyes, Megabyte could see things at a distance up to a sector away.
They don't, however, enable you to see behind you.
Jareth, flying straight as an arrow, plowed into Megabyte, knocking him off of his ABC and sending him plummeting to the ground below. Megabyte hit the ground hard. For a nano, he regretted that Hack and Slash were no longer around to catch him. Megabyte peeled himself off of the ground and found himself facing a very angry Viral Guardian.
"Why, Jareth," he said, "I was just coming to delete you. I was having a little trouble finding you, though. How nice of you to save me the trouble."
"You're dog food, Megabyte. I'm gonna rip you limb from limb and feed you to Frisket."
Megabyte laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Oh, you missed that, didn't you? That dog is gone... along with that pesky young boy and that double- crossing Hacker. They lost in a game minutes ago. Where have you been?"
"I've been taking care of Lost Angles. You see, Hex wasn't there."
"Of course. Hex was with me. I... looked after her for a few cycles."
"Looked after her? You used her. I haven't seen her like this since that time Bob removed her mask."
"Yes... I remember that. You should have deleted him when he did that... But your programming wouldn't let you, would it?" Jareth didn't have an answer for that. "Yes... You're nothing but a half-breed. You can never be a real virus, or a real Guardian. You can't even delete a binome without your programming interfering. I'll wager you can't delete me either."
Jareth had an answer for that, He blasted Megabyte into the wall of the nearest building. "I wouldn't be so sure of that, Megabyte. Neither one of my codes has any problems with fighting a virus."
Megabyte staggered to his feet. "I have had enough of you, Viral Guardian. You will not cause any more problems in MY city." With a metal-against-metal scraping sound, Megabyte unsheathed his golden claws. With a feral growl, he lunged at Jareth.
Jareth, in response, fired off another blast. It hit Megabyte square in the chest. Megabyte landed flat on his ASCII. He looked up and saw Jareth advancing on him. Jareth switched to his Evil grin mask. "Hmmm... I don't believe you've met my little toy. Shark, this is Megabyte. Megabyte... Shark." Jareth rolled up his sleeve, revealing a Guardian's Keytool.
Megabyte's eyes widened at the sight of the small box shaped object. "A Keytool? A Guardian's Keytool? Where in the Net did you get that?"
"It doesn't matter at this point, Megabyte. All that matters now is which end of it you're on. Shark-- Pulser Cannon!" Shark beeped, then began to change, transforming from a small box to a small energy cannon. Jareth aimed it right at Megabyte's head. "You, Megabyte... Are on the wrong end."