This chapter contains some input (about ten percent) by Sarah Frost (now known as Blue Inked Frost on ) – lovely change, dear, if might do say so. Reviews and concrit are as ever, appreciated.

I’d also like to note that a new Roleplay is beginning on the Ace Lightning message board. Contact Blue Inked Frost for further details.

Eleven: Loopholes and Decoys.

Location: The Haunted House Foyer.

Date: 14/08/07

It was a strange turn of events.

Not that things around here hadn’t been unequivocally strange to begin with. There was more to them –to all of this– than just a child’s game. Lady Illusion had a feeling that if their life at this exact moment really was just some human’s fantasy role-playing scenario, then even the most enthusiastic of players would have turned the console off and gone to read a book or something, as a result of the game’s concept being too implausible.

Asides from being strange, it was also highly ironic. Had Sparx not chosen to bind her with that Vow – to make her swear to protect the mortals at the expense of everything but Ace Lightning, then she would not have been able to use her powers to escape from her prison. For now, their Blood Bond would serve Lady Illusion better than it would Sparx. She needed to escape and Sparx had given her a perfect excuse to do so. Lady Illusion knew she might well pay for it later on, but for now...

‘I hope you’re ready,’ she said, knowing that they would not answer her. Knowing that none of them really were.

Mark said something: probably the only thing he could think of. ‘Well... Do Right and Fear Not, then. Let’s do this.’

‘Quite,’ Lady Illusion said. What else was there to do now, after all?

Mark looked at her and smiled. It was about as genuine a smile as anyone could possibly summon up in a situation like this – which wasn’t very genuine at all – and it made her look twice.

He looked like him, she thinks, and only allowed this thought to distract her for the briefest of instances before turning back to face the Haunted House, standing behind them in all its gruesome splendour.

Location: The Nexus.

He remembers it all. The violence inside their minds. The violence which they feel as a result of what they are: programmed, conditioned, designed by mortal hands to think and behave in certain patterns. It had been a long time since those patterns truly mattered.

There were once three of them in the programmed memories —allies, the Lightning Knights and Lord Fear and his and Lady Illusion's rivalry back then, but at least all three of them were happy and things hadn't become truly bad until later.

Deceived. Treachery turned into war. Good versus evil. Them versus Fear. That’s all in the past now – a past which never truly was. But Fear is still bad.

The war--Lord Fear had started that, too. But Ace could not destroy him yet. No, for now he would settle with destroying the Junkyard. He could do that –it was broken enough, loose enough, that he could pull it away by its scrap metal seams and destroy it. He does that for Random and for all the pain the place had caused him

And then there is nothing left for him to feel attached to. Ace has destroyed everything towards which he can feel anything. Except for the Haunted House that is.

‘Nexus,’ he thinks. It’s the first real word he’s been able to think for a while now, which is fitting because it’s the most important one. That is where he is now: the Nexus. The heart of the World-Not-World. The root of the Sixth Dimension itself.

No, he corrects himself. That isn’t where he is. That is what he is. There’s no going back now. He couldn’t stop the rain of destruction he had begun even if he had wanted to.

And Ace Lightning doesn’t want to save the world this time. Fictional or otherwise.

Location: The Haunted House Study.

Date: 14/08/07

Staffhead was humming to himself.

An irritating habit, comparable to the out of tune caterwauling of a Sphynix crossed with a Nevershine Zombie, but Lord Fear couldn’t be bothered to comment on it at this moment. He merely stood in the window of his study, holding a single amulet fragment in one bony hand, and staring out at what remained of a putrid green and golden sky.

The Shield would require replenishing soon and he was not entirely certain that the one amulet piece he had on his person would provide enough power for him to do so. Truly, he had been holding them back –artificial or not, they still contained a vast reservoir of power. More in a single fragment than existed in a dozen zombies. Still, he has only one piece to hand and no more remaining afterwards.

No matter, Fear thought. The other pieces would be returned to him soon enough.

Lord Fear did not even attempt to hide a smirk when he heard them coming. They? No. Just He, Lord Fear realised after a moment. From the sound of it, the boy had come alone. Fear had not expected that. No doubt the others were somewhere within shouting distance, labouring under the illusion (pun absolutely intended) that they might be able to provide some help should Lord Fear decide to attack.

They had forgotten. He was still the Master of this House and a denizens power is greatest in the places which they call their own. His power had not entirely faded yet. He was still greater in strength than any of them. Particularly the mortals.

He heard the boy’s footsteps long before he turned around to see him standing in the doorway.

The boy flinched. Which was oddly amusing. He reacted exactly the same way as he had during their first encounter, albeit without the screaming. How long ago had that been precisely, Fear wondered? Surely it had been years. The boy, however, was still very much a boy. Still terrified witless.

Now that Lord Fear thought about it, Ace Lightning’s sidekick had always been afraid.

‘And thus, the Lightning Knight who thinks himself a hero finally graces us with his presence,’ Lord Fear was the first to speak, naturally. He had every intention of being the last to speak, also.

Mark straightened out of a flinch, wiping the alarm from his face with as much dignity as a mortal could muster. ‘Sorry, Fear; no heroes here. Just me.’

‘True enough. Almost a shame, though. You know, it’s rather peculiar, Mortal. In many ways I have missed this kind of confrontation. What is it that you humans say: old habits die hard?’

‘Yeah or maybe they refuse to die at all,’ Mark snapped.

‘Ah. Clever.’ Lord Fear’s tone was only partly sarcastic. ‘You’ve been paying attention to your counterpart.’

Mark pauses. Lord Fear can see him drawing a breath. ‘...I’m leaving.’

‘Pardon me for not being crushed.’

‘I’m taking the others will me,’ Mark added. ‘All of them, Fear. Even Sparx, if she wants to come. We’re going to go find Ace, and we need the Amulet pieces to do that.’

Lord Fear folded cracking fingers around his now oddly silent familiar. ‘And the five you hold now aren’t enough?’

‘You know they’re not. To win the game, you need all six pieces of the Amulet.’

‘Ah. Indeed. But you forget yourself, boy. You also need a hero to destroy the Villain of the show,’ he bowed slightly, slipping back into –what he now realised was– an old formula.

This mortal was nothing to him. A mere technicality. An interference that could be easily destroyed.

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ Mark said.

‘I would assume that all your bridges have been well and truly burned, brat.’ Lord Fear spoke more sharply than he would’ve necessarily liked to. ‘Along with most places in this pitiful dimension. What do you suppose? That we continue with the same charade that has been waged between us this whole time? That we continue the game?’

Mark didn’t answer for a second, and when he finally did he sounded no more sure of himself than he ever had. He raised a hand, the Wrist Cannon pointing it squarely in Fear’s direction. ‘If continuing the game is the way to end all this then... then yeah, I guess that‘s exactly what I do.’

Staffhead tutted. ‘Foolish boy,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t get it, does he, m’lord?’

‘No, I’m quite sure that he doesn’t. He continues to treat this as a game –a glorified one, perhaps, and more involving than most of those ridiculous mortal contraptions tend to be, but a game nonetheless. ‘

‘I wouldn’t be surprised, Milord,’ Staffhead chucked. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever been much more to him than that.’

‘Staffhead?’ the mortal said.

‘What is it now, mortal?’

‘Shut up, Staffhead.’

Staffhead did. Though he did so with an amused chuckle and another disjointed whistle which suggested that he fell silent only because it pleased him to. He had nothing more to say and no need to respond to this awkward mortal’s hostility.

‘I suppose we should get this over with then...’ Lord Fear said, carefully shifting Staffhead from one hand to another.

‘I’m not here to play games, Fear.’

‘On the contrary, boy, that is exactly what you’re here to do. You forget yourself: I am the Lord of this Dimension,’ Lord Fear said. ‘And you plan to defeat me and claim the last of the amulet pieces. The only one which you could not claim through unsportsmanlike trickery, I might add. And here I was thinking Googler was the trickster amongst us.’

‘Got to say, old Googler does a better job than any mortal would, Milord.’ Staffhead put in. ‘Shame we don’t have ‘im handy. Mortal’s really not worth the trouble, and that insane puppeteer minion of yours always did terrify the wits out of ‘im.’

‘Look can we just... stop behaving as if we’re reading from a videogame script for a moment?’ Mark snapped.

Staffhead chucked. ‘Speak fer yerself, mortal. What do you think you sound like?’

‘I know you won’t kill me,’ Mark said, sounding less sure of himself that he perhaps might have, but still more so than Fear would’ve liked. ‘If you did that Sparx would never forgive you.’

‘Yes, it’s quite possible that she would not,’ Fear said. ‘But setting my Angel’s interests aside... why break with tradition Mortal?’ Fear shrugged. ‘This is, after all, a game, is it not? A game in which you are – and have always been – quite thoroughly outmatched. Quite frankly, I don’t have to kill you. Merely get you out of the way. Do not delude yourself with any ideas that you are of some importance here. You’re an annoyance and nothing more. Now...’ he turned, holding out a hand in Mark’s direction, watching, amusedly, as the mortal’s hand moved automatically to a particular, amulet-shaped point on his chest. ‘Set aside this foolishness and give me the amulet pieces so that I might prolong our existence here for a few hours longer.’

Mark stepped back, biting down on his bottom lip; another silly mortal gesture. Lord Fear would never understand them. Decades without flesh and blood had blinded him to the relevance of such

habits, he supposed. He himself had no lips to bite and no lids to blink. ‘...That’s what the shadows in the Nevershine said.’

‘What, they said you was an annoyance?’ Staffhead chuckled.

‘No... Not exactly. They said that I was nothing. Me and Chuck. They shut up when I killed them.’

‘Not that they were truly alive in the first place,’ Fear said. ‘And not that their power even remotely reflects upon my own, you understand.’

‘Of course,’ a smile prickled on Mark’s face, though only for a second. ‘I’d be a fool to think that. But I’ll fight you anyway, Fear, if I have to. If that’s the way you want it. But... it doesn’t have to be like that.’

...Ah.

So the child was not merely imitating his immortal predecessor after all. This was not something that Ace Lightning would have suggested. ‘Am I right in assuming, then, that you wish to make a truce?’

‘What, again?’ Staffhead sounded somewhat disbelieving. ‘Like they haven’t already imprinted upon my good Lord’s hospitality enough as it is? This is what we call cheek, m’lord. Pure, impudent, mortal cheek. If he thinks—’

Lord Fear raised a hand. Staffhead fell silent.

‘I don’t see what you’ve got to lose...’ Mark said ‘The world’s eating itself from the inside, right? You can’t keep this shield up forever, but if you give me the amulet piece... ‘ He paused, as if to see what effect these words would have on Lord Fear. They had little, but the mortal persevered anyway. ‘...Then we might be able to fix this.’

‘And then?’ Fear asked, interested in spite of himself.

The boy shrugged. In all this time he had not lowered the hand baring the wrist cannon, but now he did so, the weapon falling to his side. This was not enough to convince Fear that he wouldn’t fire it; of course, any idiot could raise their arm. ‘The game goes on, I guess. But you know there’s no worth in us staying here, and we can’t stay indefinitely anyway. The world’s falling apart.’

‘S’been falling apart for a long time, Mortal,’ Staffhead said dryly and without much humour. ‘I wonder if you realised that. Why, this might all have begun the very moment you got your hands on a copy of some silly game... This catastrophe may not even be fixable from the source by now.’

‘Maybe not, but trying has got to be better than staying here. We don’t have many other viable options left, do we?’

‘This may be true,’ Lord Fear said. ‘But still... you can’t deny that at this moment I hold all the power that this world has to offer.’

‘Yeah, which isn’t all that much. You’ve got no use for what’s left of this world and you know it. The game’s no more use to anyone anymore.’

Ah, yes, Lord Fear decided. He had missed this. The inevitable stalling and strafing before inevitable battle. The suspension for anticipation’s sake. The one final chance at redemption which he had always –and would always– refuse, because redemption was not worth half as much as mortals seemed to believe it was. Mortal Mark may have been, but still, any enemy was better than none at all. He held the countenance of Fear’s rival, if nothing else.

The child even approached in the same manner as Ace Lightning. Constantly hiding behind the shields of a Lightning Knight. Never rushing. Never the one to make the first strike. ‘...But if you want to fight for it, then I’ll fight.’

‘And probably die,’ Staffhead quipped.

‘Maybe, but I’ll do it,’ Mark snapped. ‘I don’t have time to wait for you to make your bloody mind up about whether or not you’re going to do the sensible thing for a change.’

‘And I have no time for mortal children who believe they can influence a world that is far beyond their scope of understanding,’ Lord Fear snapped. ‘In case you are forgetting, Mark... The Lord of Fear itself makes deals with no mortals.’

‘Oh, goodie,’ Staffhead said. ‘We can start with the blasting now, then, milord?’

‘Certainly, if the mortal boy would be good enough to stand still,’ Lord Fear said, and a part of him could not help thinking that this would be a highly inappropriate moment for his Angel to return. True, she was at the other side of the building right now, complaining over a morph-induced headache, but it would be very like her to put in an appearance at the most inopportune moment just for the sake of it. But what was existence without risk, anyway? He lifted Staffhead and aimed.

And then Mark lowered the Wrist Cannon again, face suddenly blank.

‘Still confused, mortal?’ Seemed to Fear that the boy spent most of his life in such a state. Honestly, this would all be resolved far more quickly and efficiently if they just started shooting at each other already.

‘Just about one thing,’ Mark said. ‘There’s... there’s one other point I need you to explain. Something that’s been puzzling me.’

Fear tutted to himself. ‘Mortals. To think that your obstinacy still astounds me, even now, after so much exposure...’

Mark hesitated for a moment. ‘It’s just one question, Fear. You can tell me that, at least.’

‘You make it sound as if you are somehow owed an explanation, boy. By me, no less. I owe you nothing.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

Once again, Staffhead fell disturbingly silence.

Lord Fear didn’t argue and Mark took that as a cue to keep going. ‘It’s been around ever since this whole mess started.’ He paused. ‘The first war, against the Lightning Knights. Those… those

memories that never happened in the game. The ones you have that you didn’t need. There was a boy in them, wasn’t there?’

There was silence for a moment. This was not what Lord Fear had expected. Nor did he have any particular idea how to respond to Mark’s query beyond: ‘...Say what?’

‘A boy. I know he existed, I know he was in this game once, maybe in a cut scene or something, I’m not sure. But he was there. You saw him once.’

‘Did I indeed?’ Fear turned to stare into the organ, refusing to look in Mark’s direction. Or more accurately, just no longer concerned with him, wrist cannon or no wrist cannon. ‘And how would you know that, mortal?’

‘That’s not important. I just know. You saw him. And her… Sparx. She was looking for that boy, because someone else had asked her to. I know you met him. I know you talked to him. I need to know, Fear –who was that boy?’

‘Why in the name of Zoar would I know?’ Fear snapped.

‘You do know,’ Mark interrupted. ‘You were there. Don’t lie to me over something this pointless.’

‘If it were pointless you wouldn’t be so desperate for the answer. Who this boy was… there were many boys in this dimension at the time.’

‘Fear,’ Mark said again, refusing to back down. ‘You know who he was. Tell me.’

Mortals, Lord Fear thought impatiently, were a finicky and eternally dissatisfied species. They wandered around searching for something; they knew not what. They attached importance to objects which held no value. They placed power in words rather than in the things which truly mattered. They would go miles to avoid the subject of magic, even if it were staring them bluntly in the face, preferring instead to worry about trivialities which hardly mattered: fan clubs and videogames and children who no longer existed. For these reasons Fear supposed that there could be nothing more to this boy’s question than simply idle, human curiosity.

Some random child –not truly a sentient being, even– known by his Angel before she had been called as such... why in Oblivion would Lord Fear be interested in such things?

And yet... there were memories. They mostly involved Sparx and those few instances where she had been so... ridiculously emotional that he had not quite known what to do with her and thus, had done the only thing any sensible person who did not want to be assaulted with the screeching and annoyance of an emotionally distraught red head could do... Those times when she had spoken to him of the war they had fought from opposite sides, what seemed so long ago...

‘Very well. This child, then...’ Lord Fear said (and Staffhead tutted irritably at being raised beyond a good firing line again). ‘For me to have encountered him, he would have to be located within the Nevershine Mines during the time of the civil unrest before our journey to your... to the mortal world,’ he said. ‘Correct?’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Mark said, latching onto this revelation just as Fear had expected him to.

‘Named... Tyran, I think. Yes, I’m sure. It was Tyran.’

‘A boy. I presume mortal?’

‘Yes. With a sister. Only she died earlier.’

‘I know little about her,’ Fear said. Nor did he honestly care. ‘But there was a child was in the mines, seeking a sister. A parent. Anyone he knew, in fact. We encountered him whilst we were making our strategic retreat across the Neverglades.’

The human stayed silent, eyes slightly wider than was probably necessary, wrist cannon by his side. Staffhead wriggled uncomfortable, seemingly debating whether letting off a shot of his own free will would be worth the repercussions of disobedience (not that Fear honestly cared if Staffhead shot the boy, but doing so without instruction was not something he would tolerate).

‘He screamed of course, and bellowed and rage and quite generally acted like a precautious child. Which he was, I suppose. And a mortal one, at that. We were in the mines sharing territory with my then-Lady’s spiders, who are wild and abrasive to many and often refused to obey even her commands, while hungry. And they were very hungry. To have allowed him to draw attention to us then would have been fatal. It was Googler who eliminated him. It had to be done.’ Lord Fear finished, calmly. He spoke without any trace of culpability.

‘You destroyed…’ The mortal paused, swallowed and caught his breath. ‘You killed him.’

‘Of course we destroyed him you imbecile,’ Fear’s neck cracked and stretched, his face twisting to look at Mark head-on. ‘Did you think I would risk our position because of some foolish mortal brat?’

The boy remained surprisingly unmoved by this sudden lurching action, despite how he had behaved upon first entering the room. ‘So... Sparx would never have found him, then.’

‘No I suppose she wouldn’t,’ Lord Fear went on. ‘There were a great number of similar deaths taking place that cycle, though I don’t suppose you could call them “deaths”. I highly doubt anyone bothered to keep track. You ask me who Tyran was, mortal? He was no one. Or if he was someone, then that someone was nothing more than another casualty of an artificial war. And now you know what you desired to know,’ Lord Fear said, blankly. ‘If we might, in mortal terms: get the living Oblivion on with it?

‘It’s hell where humans come from, actually,’ Mark whispered, and then Lord Fear stepped back, drew inwards and primed himself for what he anticipated would be a short battle. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to kill anyone and his Angel’s rather curious mercies concerning these mortal brats could be appeased. Nothing much happened for several seconds. Mark raised the wrist cannon again. Staffhead was lowered into a position better for firing directly.

Mark raised his other hand.

It was this hand with which he chose to attack.

Which was, in short, a surprise. More of a surprise however was the orb which crystallised on the mortal’s palm, forming faster than the eye could see –and thrown no less quickly in Fear’s direction. The explosion ricocheted against his bare ribs, almost but not quite slicing into marrow. His hat ended up somewhere on the other side of the room. Staffhead squawked and cursed inanely, more out of surprise than anything else.

The Lady! Lord Fear twisted, neck crackling as he contorted his face in every direction, trying to locate the other half of the ambush. Being smashed in the ribs by one of his onetime lady’s primary attacks, however, was not something even an Overlord such as himself could shake off. Clearly, he was even disoriented enough for the mortal to get right behind him in a matter of seconds.

‘Blimey, Staffhead, would’ve thought you’d see that one coming,’ someone said. Not Lady Illusion – the voice came from Lord Fear’s shoulder: the voice of Mark Hollander.

The name emerged almost entirely against Lord Fear’s will. ‘Lightning!’

‘Nah, but kind of close,’ Mark said. Fear had no time to figure out precisely where the boy’s real voice came from before the amulet piece was gone, snatched suddenly from his bony hand.

And Mark still stood before him –but not Mark. Green skin was crawling across what had previously been mortal arms. A smile flickering in a human, yet distinctively not human face. She changed back as slowly as she clearly dared and Lord Fear had no doubt whatsoever that she enjoyed how much her presence alarmed him.

A second energy orb crystallised in her palm just as she reached her final, true form, and she paused for only as long as it took the mortal to get out from behind him before throwing it. This second burst of energy to Lord Fear’s face was enough to blow Staffhead from his grip and for the familiar to screech as he hit the ground. Lord Fear caught hold of something –maybe an arm, but a crackling of electricity ripped through his nonexistent nerves and forced his hand away.

‘Out, now, back to the door!’ Mark yelled, and to Fear’s still somewhat disoriented surprise, the onetime Lady listened.

The two of them were gone in the time it would've taken to disintegrate a Screaming Cockroach.

They ran the first few corridors back towards the Haunted House cellar. Or rather, Mark ran –Lady Illusion teleported. One moment she was behind him and the next she materialised at the end of the corridor grabbing him just in time to prevent him skidding into a wall due to his own momentum.

‘You enjoyed that, mortal.’

‘What, and you didn’t?’ Mark felt as if he wanted to laugh, but didn’t quite dare. Not yet. This was still too much like one of those movies where everyone left alive thinks they’ve safe until the vampire dropped on them from overhead...

...And he really, really had to stop letting Chuck pick home movies, be damned if Ashley liked the vampires.

‘You heard all that, I trust,’ Lady Illusion muttered. ‘I don’t particularly want to try and repeat that damned script word for word. Honestly I didn’t understand half the things you had me saying.’

‘Yeah, I heard it. Every word. You were brilliant, Elspeth.’

‘I still don’t know why you felt the need to almost blow our cover for the sake of some NPC related curiosity, but... whatever,’ Lady Illusion muttered, brushing imaginary dust from her shirt. ‘Now can we actually get out of here?’

‘It’ll make sense later on, I swear!’ Mark said quickly, though he couldn’t be entirely sure he meant it (at the moment he didn’t particularly care) ‘And yeah, yeah out would be a good move, once we can work out which corridor leads where. We’ll lead them about a bit first, this is a big building, let’s see if we can confuse them some more. Any questions?’

‘Yes, what in the name of Oblivion were Fear and I just talking about and why?’

‘I’ll explain that later too,’ Mark said. Glimpsing up and down the seemingly deserted corridors, listening for any sign that Staffhead might be following as they wove between one room and the next trying to put as much distance between them and the study before attempting to teleport to the basement. ‘Right now we’re getting out of here.’

‘And we still have no idea precisely where it is we’re going,’ Lady Illusion said, striding behind him with a strange kind of grace he wasn’t totally used to seeing from her.

‘No, we know where we’re going,’ Mark smiled. ‘It’s getting there that’s going to be the interesting part.’

‘...Far be it for me to say this, Mark, but would you be insulted if I questioned your sanity?’

Mark forced open a doorway, showering dust everywhere as he did so. A cockroach fell at his feet and began spluttering. Mark kicked it. ‘At the moment? Hell, no.’

‘Good, because I’m questioning it.’

‘And yet you’re still coming with us,’ Mark said, smiling to himself. ‘You believe me, don’t you? This whole thing with Ace. He’s out there, Lady Illusion, and now we have the amulet we can find him. We’re one step closer to winning this game once and for all.’ He clutched the single piece around his neck and the one in his hand. He knew he was grinning like an idiot at an utterly inappropriate moment (they were still inside the Haunted House, after all) but he didn’t really care. They had the amulet. The whole amulet. Every damn piece of it. Right now they were immortal so far as videogame reality went. he wouldn’t have felt intimidated in a live Buzzbeast jumped out right in front of them. They were getting out of here. They were going to find Ace. One way or another they were going to go home.

...And he had totally just outwitted Staffhead on his own turf. Mark wasn’t sure why he felt so pleased with himself about this, (the fact that he’d wanted to get back at Staffhead every since that incident with his dad and the roof might’ve had something to do with it) but he did. Something was burning deep inside of him, the same pounding and excited sensation as the voices had exuded earlier.

Or maybe that was just the blood currently rushing in his ears. Yeah, it was probably something to do with that. ‘Okay, we’re at a distance. Think we’ve lead them on enough of a wild goose chase?’

‘Certainly. I suggest we ‘port and get on with this already.’

Mark looked at Lady Illusion. ‘You know you’re getting good at that. Being me, I mean.’

‘I’d take that as a compliment but...’

Mark smiled as she took hold of his arm and began the teleport. ‘Yeah, I know, I know. Damn Mortals’