A/n: Next 'episode' in my attempt at a season 3. I promised myself I'd try to keep it (mostly) within the rating of the show. This one may push the boundaries. So just warning you, though I rate most of my stuff 'T' to cover myself, this one's T for a reason. Enjoy, and please review! :)

It's out now, Pete. Ace, Sparx, everyone I guess… they all know they're a game. I have no idea how this is going to affect things. It doesn't make things any less dangerous. Perhaps it'll make it more so. At least Kilobyte is still in the game. I don't know for how long he'll stay there, but I can be sure of one thing; he's not going to get out anytime soon.

Mark's House

Mark leaned back in his computer chair with a sigh and clicked off the message for Pete. The amulet piece was once again around his neck, and he fingered it subconsciously. With a bit of effort he got himself up, turned off the light, and began to climb into bed.

And then his phone rang. Mark groaned, pausing for a minute on the edge of his bed. Then he reached out and grabbed the phone. "What…?"

"Mark! I need your help! Now!"

Mark blinked blearily. "Who is this…?"

"It's Rick!" the phone screeched back at him.

Mark froze. "Rick? How are you calling me from the sixth dimension? Wait… how do you even have my number?"

"Bloody… I'm not in the game! And I hacked your emails; you don't think I couldn't find your phone number? Don't your parents get you decent security software?"

"I don't think my parents have anything to do with… wait… you're not still in the game? How'd you get out? What about Kilobyte?"

"I thought I'd blocked him in! I thought I… but he's not out yet."

Mark stood to his feet and began to pace his bedroom floor. "So… wait… what's happening?"

"I'm trying to keep him in there… but I don't think I can do it without a bit of power to back me up. Get down here, call Ace… I… I need help…"

"Why should I?" Mark snapped. "You ruined my life!"

"Because Kilobyte will get free! Hurry up; I'm holding him back as best I can. If I can trap him he might not be able to get out again."

"You know, this wouldn't be a problem if you hadn't created him in the first place," Mark growled. "Okay, okay, fine. I'll call Ace. We'll be down there as soon we can." He clicked off the connection, and then dialled Ace.

The phone rang a few times before he got an answer. "Hello…" Ace's voice was light as he answered; it sounded as if he'd only just managed to stop himself laughing about something.

Mark grimaced. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Well… Lady Illusion and I were just…"

Mark held up a hand, though Ace couldn't see it. "Alright, I don't want to know. This is important anyway. I need you to fly down to the main street… there's a store there called Rick's Computer Shack…"

"Kid, I'm not running errands for you at midnight."

"No!" Mark growled. "This is about the Master Programmer. He escaped the sixth dimension. He's there now, and Kilobyte…"

"The game you mean," Ace cut him short. "And if by 'Master Programmer' you mean that guy you were talking about who caused us all this trouble…"

"Ace!" Mark snapped. "Will you be quiet and listen to me? I don't like the guy any more than you do, but right now he's trying to keep Kilobyte in the game. He can't without our help. If Kilobyte gets out…"

"Yeah, I know, kid. It can't be good."

"Okay, so you're going?"

"Yeah, I'm going. You're right, we can't let Kilobyte get back out again. And I think I'd like to have a few words with this Master Programmer too…"

"Ace, he's just a human. Don't go…"

"Catch you later, kid." Ace cut the call short.

Mark glared at the phone in frustration. "Damn it, Ace..." he drew in a breath. "I'd better get down there in case he tries something stupid…"

Mark changed quickly and put on some shoes, and then flung open his cupboard door and riffled through the clothes there. Eventually, he found his wrist cannon. He slipped it on. "Well, hopefully I won't have to use this." Then he flung his door open and rushed the stairs.

"Mark!"

The sound of his mother's voice drew him to a halt.

"For goodness sakes, why do you need to make so much racket in the middle of the night…" Fiona blinked blearily. She stood in the hallway in her nightgown, staring at him sleepily, but then she frowned and seemed to wake herself up a bit more. "Mark… you weren't planning on going somewhere in the middle of the night?"

"Er… just the back yard, mum…"

Fiona folded her arms and looked her son up and down. "Oh, really?"

"I just need to…"

"There is no good place you can be sneaking off to in the middle of the night, mister. And if you march yourself back up to your bedroom right now, I won't ask you again where it was you were heading. Go on, back to bed…"

Mark groaned and slipped past his mother, looking at the floor and avoiding her gaze. He slunk back into his bedroom and shut the door. "Now what?" he muttered to himself. "At least she didn't see the wrist cannon."

"Lights off, now!" Fiona's voice easily penetrated the closed bedroom door.

Mark flicked the switch and sat down on the edge of his bed. There were no further orders from outside. He sighed and lay back on the bed. "I hope Ace can handle this…"

Rick's Computer Shack

"This better be worth it." Ace eyed the front of the building in the moonlight. But he had yet to enter. In truth, he was just a little bit nervous. He growled to himself and then pushed open the front door. "Hello?"

Steps led down into a basement store. Ace crept down these and looked about. The store appeared quiet. But there was a door in the back and from this came a purple glow. Ace approached cautiously and pushed the door. It resisted slightly so he pushed harder, and with a rather loud snap it popped open and slammed back into the wall.

At the centre of the room was a mass of computers, much bigger than the ones that Chuck had filled the Thunder Tower up with recently. At these sat a man, bent over and intently typing away at the keyboard. He didn't appear to have noticed the damage Ace had done to the door.

Ace stepped towards him and then paused. "So, you're this Master Programmer?"

Rick looked startled. "Good lord… where did you come from?"

"Through your door."

"Right okay, so Mark sent you. Okay, so you need to help me Kilobyte is getting closer and…"

"Woah, hang on a minute," Ace growled. "I haven't decided that I want to help you yet."

Rick paused at his typing then slowly turned around. He appeared legitimately surprised. "But… you're a superhero; you're supposed to help people…"

"Yeah, well I don't know about that anymore. Someone went and messed with my programming. Gave me human emotions for Zoar knows what reason. So when I find out something like, I don't know, everything I've worked for is just some child's game, I get a little bit ticked off." He leaned in towards Rick as he spoke, both hands on the open ends of the rig and blocking off any escape route. "And if I happen to find this 'Master Programmer' Mark told me about, I'm probably not going to be feeling like doing anything 'good' to him…"

Rick leaned back against the screens. "But… hey, look… I need your help. And… you don't have to call me Master Programmer… it's not like I think I'm your god or anything. Rick, call me Rick. But… Kilobyte… he's more important…"

Ace let out a sigh and leaned back. "Relax… Rick. I'm just scaring you. I feel like I should do something more to you, but maybe you're right, it's not in my programming."

"Oh…"

"So what have you gone and messed up this time?"

Rick moved aside so Ace could see the screen. "I tried to make sure he couldn't get out."

Kilobyte could be seen down in the depths of the portal. He was still making his way out, gripping onto the edges with his tentacles.

"But Kilobyte is too powerful. I'm trying everything I can to close the portal, but I can't with him inside it – he's too strong. I need to knock him out. So I need someone to blast him."

"Sounds simple enough."

"Yeah, here's hoping. But we need to wait until he's almost out. Otherwise the datastream will just absorb all the energy you shoot into it before it gets to Kilobyte." Rick turned back to his keyboard and began to type again.

"Okay… so that means we've got a few minutes to chat."

The clatter of keys faltered briefly. "No… I've got to… set this up…"

"Rick, you made the… characters of a video game think they were real. You brought them all here. I don't completely understand why."

Rick sighed. "You want to know why I created you?" He let out a short laugh. "Because I made a mistake, that's why. I'm an idiot, I could've gone and got another job, or held on to my program for a few more years until the technology and the idiots caught up, but no, I make monsters come to life and nearly bloody kill me… good thing I didn't work on Grand Theft Auto…"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're a mistake; I never should have done this. But be grateful, otherwise you wouldn't exist…"

Ace opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again. He let out a small sigh and looked at the floor.

"Ace… Ace!" Rick said suddenly.

"What?"

"He's closer than I thought! We've got to do this now!"

"What? Blast him?"

"Yes!" Rick pressed himself to the side of the rig. Kilobyte's face took up the whole screen. Tentacles gripped the screen's edge and began to emerge into the room.

Ace raised his wrist cannons and sent a massive blast of electrical energy into the rig.

Kilobyte let out a grunt and one of his tentacles slipped free.

"Come on, harder!"

"I'm not a bottomless pit you know!" Ace gathered himself and sent another blast into Kilobyte. He paused to gather his strength.

The rig suddenly sagged. Rick's eyes widened. "Oh, no!" He ducked to the floor and tried to squeeze past Ace's legs. But a tentacle shot out of the screen and grabbed him around his ankle.

Kilobyte materialised in front of the rig, bringing it twisting forward as his weight bent the aluminium frame.

Ace had to take a step back as there was instantaneously another almost seven feet of solid muscle in the room. He'd forgotten how big Kilobyte was, and the shock of him suddenly being there made him falter briefly and lower his wrist cannons.

"You think you can trick me, programmer!?" Kilobyte roared. He lifted Rick up in the air, dangling him by the ankle. "You worthless fool!" He tossed the man into the corner and then turned towards Ace.

Ace raised his wrist cannons, but Kilobyte was quicker. A tentacle whipped around and snapped across the room. It caught Ace under the jaw with a crack and he too was tossed back into the wall. His power dropped and the room began to spin.

The Carnival of Doom

"Well, I thought it was a good idea at the time, milord."

Lord Fear closed the door to the Haunted House behind him, slumped back against it and let out a sigh. "As did I, my loyal staff."

From outside came a loud wail, followed by the sound of sobbing.

"But it appears the news has not been received well."

Outside the Haunted House, the rest of Fear's Evils stood in a confused huddle. Pigface was in the centre of them all, sitting slouched in the grass, and sobbing into his great big paws.

"Googler's not real? But… oh… I had so much fun googling…"

"Yeah…" threw in the Rat. "What have we been wasting all our time finding pieces of the amulet for then?"

Duff was looking around at everyone rather sheepishly. "Gee, guys… I really feel for ya. But being real isn't all it's cracked up to be…"

"Yeah… " the Rat sniffed. "You're real, and you're still a loser."

"Hey! Just because you're upset doesn't mean you can go around insulting people!"

Rat sniffed again. "Oh, Duff. You've always been good to me, taught me about money… I'm sorry…" Suddenly he had flown across and thrown himself around the man's neck.

Duff's eyes widened. "Er… there, there, little buddy…"

"Rotgut could use a hug too!" The zombie began to lumber towards Duff.

Duff had had enough hugs. He started backing away with the Rat still struggling to hold onto him. "Wait, wait a minute guys…"

Anvil thudded his weighted hand into the ground, successfully distracting anyone else from looking to Duff for comfort. "Anvil does not care if he is not real!" he roared. "Anvil likes to smash things! Anvil still likes to smash things! He will keep on smashing things!" And with that he stuck his nose into the air and stomped away from his companions.

Rat sniffed again and pulled away from Duff a little sheepishly. "Maybe that big oaf is right…"

"But Pigface don't like smashing!" Pigface wailed.

"No, you idiot!" said the Rat. "We're real now, right?"

"Real enough…" muttered Duff. He'd removed his outer jacket and was frowning at it. Rat had left a big damp patch on his shoulder.

"Maybe we can still do what we do…"

"Which is?" said Duff.

"Pigface all hungry now."

"Piggy eats," said Rat. "And, um… well, maybe we just need to figure it out…"

"Googler googles!"

"Whatever the hell that is," said Duff, rolling his eyes. "I tell you what I do, I sleep. And I'm going to do that now…"

"Oh, no, Duffy!" the Rat flew in front of him. "You're used to this real stuff. You're going to help us."

"Oh. Wonderful."