Sorry for the long wait, folks, but I was, uh, giving the last chapter some suspense!

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"Mm…," Ed groaned subtly.

"He's waking up!" He heard a voice to the right of him say. Or though he heard the voice say anyway. His head was pounding, his vision blurred, his hearing numbed.

"Ed? Ed! Can you hear me?" Someone was shaking his. He couldn't exactly make out the face. Didn't react. Who were these people and why was this one shaking him?

"Look at his eyes!"

Ed glanced over the person who was shaking him shoulder. He noticed three other blurred people. He opened his mouth to ask them who they were, but only nonsense came out.

He passed out again.

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Ed…Ed…It's time to wake up now.

"Wha…" Ed rubbed his head and opened his eyes. Why was his head hurting so badly? "Why am I back here again?" As soon as he stood, he instantly regretted it. Ed fell back to his knees, doubled over in pain.

It felt as if his entire being was being ripped apart, molecule by molecule.

"Why…does…it hurt?!" he yelled.

Ed, face the pain. Try to ignore it. Fight it and it will go away. You have to fight Bedlam's influence.

"Caretaker, help me!"

I can't do that, Ed. You must do this on your own. Now look at what you've become—do you want to die this way?

A mirror appeared in front of the boy. Ed glanced up through tearful eyes and gasped. He never saw himself since the experiment. Now…this was just shocking, to say the absolute least.

"Is…that really me?" he questioned, taking one hand away from his stomach to trace to outline of his features.

It's what you've become. It was almost as if she was trying to avoid the answer.

Ed traced the outline of his spiky red-black hair and his tinted skin. Until he finally came to rest on the worst feature of all—his eyes. He stared deep into his own eyes, enthralled and mystified, but most of all—sickened.

He stared long and hard for what seemed like forever. Ed felt his world go dark around him and felt an almost inevitable loneliness, but dare not call out, as if he would literately drown from the dark and loneliness rushing down his throat, like a river of death.

In watching his deep red eyes, Ed saw flashes of what he did in his warped state. But worse of all…what he thought of doing. Tears numbly streamed down his cheeks and the pain almost increased, until he shakily stood up—eyes never looking away from his mirrored ones.

"That's not me." And he shut his eyes.

Familiar voices came to his ears.

"Why is he…crying?"

"Is he going to be okay?"

"His heartbeat is back to normal and his vital signs seem to be okay."

"Why isn't he waking up?"

"Ed, wake up!"

He opened his eyes again.

Ed sat up from the med-bay table and looked around. Five familiar faces surrounded him with mixed looks of relief and worry.

Deets came up to him and lightly touched his shoulder. "Are you feeling better, Ed?"

"Yeah…I think I am." he responded. Deets squeaked in joy and tightly hugged him, planting a huge one right on his lips. He felt his temperature rising again, but in a good way this time.

Ol' Skool stepped forward and patted him on the back. "Glad to have you back, Ed,"

Ed wiped the dried tears of pain away from his face and looked up at them. "What happened to Bedlam and Dr. Hong?"

Fizz stepped forward, but before she could respond, Loogie was on it. "There were crashes and booms and p'koushs!" he empathized with many sound effects. "It was so monkey!"

Fizz lightly shoved him out of the way. "What Loogie is trying to say is… Dr. Hong had a back-up plan all along—well, to defeat Bedlam, anyway. After you passed out from the electrical wave the Machine gave you, Bedlam tried sneaking in the Machine, too. Dr. Hong came back with Zero and—"

"Zero's okay!?" Ed exclaimed, remembering the beating him and Spyker gave him.

Burn nodded. "Yeah. Dr. Hong used his nanobot technology to fix him up again. He's just like new and still on our side,"

"Phew…"

Fizz cleared her throat. "Like I was saying, Dr. Hong and Zero appeared at the door just in time and beat him back. He was running home to his computer systems like no tomorrow!"

"Really? Man, I wish I could've seen that!" Ed laughed.

"You should've!" Loogie said. "First, Dr. Hong was all like 'zap and bam' with his nanobots and then Zero was like 'boom bop!' with his weapons and—"

"I think he gets the point, Loogie," Burn chuckled. He looked back to Ed. "Good to have you back to normal, Hotshot."

"Yeah, it's feels good, too." Ed replied.

Ed finally smiled his original, sweet smile, his blue eyes gleaming with pureness.

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And so goes the final chapter! Read and review, telling me how you liked it! Hehe, I had fun with this story, but am now glad it's over!