It was the day that changed all of their lives.

Carly Shay and Freddie Benson were idling in the iCarly studio, tinkering and adjusting the wooden-framed catapult Spencer had designed for them to use in an opening skit.

"And you're sure this thing is safe?" the paranoid boy asked while pulling back the arm of the missile launcher.

Carly shrugged.

"Remember who made it?" she asked.

"Spencer," he affirmed.

"And that should answer your question." Carly loaded a two-pound meatball into the nest and gave Freddie the signal. He released it and with a sharp whistle the meatball sailed straight into the air before striking a carefully placed trashcan lid with a loud CLANG!

"All right!" The two friends high-fived and beamed at each other knowing that if Sam Puckett would just stand in front of where the lid of the trashcan was right now, she would definitely be able to jump up into the air to catch the meatball in her mouth for consumption. The question was how many of them she could go through in a minute. Carly counted in her head the amount of meatballs she had baked this morning while Sam had fidgeted around her in anticipation. She had baked seventy-two… It might not be enough.

Just then, a flash of blonde hair and flapping arms crashed through the room.

"Guys! Oh my god guys! OH IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!" Sam raced through the room holding what looked to be a cereal box in her arms waving it back and forth like a tornado above her head before she slipped it in between her legs and began pantomiming a cowboy riding a bull.

"Oh yeah! Oh yeah! It's here! With my name on it!"

Carly giggled in both amusement and puzzlement.

"What's here?"

"Only the BEST cereal I've ever tasted in muh ENTIRE life!" Sam retorted. Carly snatched the box from her and squinted her eyes as she tried to read the writing on the box.

"It looks Chinese," Freddie chimed in. "Did you order this from the internet?"

Sam nodded. "Them Chinamen sure makes me some good multicolored-marshmallow-accompanied chewy oak bits," she declared while tumultuously tearing the box open and emptying the contents into her mouth. "Armph!" She scowled when she found herself biting into a hidden plastic toy she had poured into her mouth among a sea of cereal. She spit it out and her irritancy was quickly replaced as she released a groan of pleasure when the marshmallow bits began causing heavenly sensations in her mouth.

"Oh. Oh man Carly, you gotta have some!" She pounced on her friend, knocking her backwards onto a beanbag and pushing the box into her hands. Carly indulged Sam, just as she always had and shook the flakes into her hand before bringing it to her mouth. She wasn't expecting too much from a foreign breakfast product but found herself surprisingly jolted by the flavor.

"My digestion system is having a party!" she announced before contentedly falling over into Sam's lap. They both began giggling from the sugar high.

"Want some nerd?" Sam threw the box Freddie's way and he caught it, surprised to feel that it was almost empty. He emptied the rest of the box into his hand and ate the flakes and the marshmallows one at a time in true scientific method ascertaining that every varied piece had a different flavor.

"Yup. Yup. This is pretty amazing," he dazedly admitted. "I'm calculating a perfect 3 to 1, sugar-wheat ratio here." Freddie was the one to most appreciate this tasting experience. His mother only ever gave him cardboard-textured, flavorless health cereal that she plucked from the top shelf at the supermarket. Freddie's body began erratically shaking and twitching from all the sugar coursing through his body. "We have to order more. Sam. What's the website? I'm going to order more. SAM? WE HAVE TO ORDER MORE SAM. SAM. SAM. SA-"

He snapped out of his addict-like state when a well manicured hand came flying across his vision and smacked him across the face. "Calm down nub, we just ate the last box. I ordered it off Auction-bay because the company just went out of business."

"What?!" Carly exclaimed. "No…" she mourned, grabbing the box out of Freddie's trembling hands. "We just found you, how could we lose you so quickly? What cruel God would do this to us?!" She looked into the empty box and fell to the ground, pumping her hands onto the center logo of the happy giraffe and blowing her breath into the carton in a futile attempt to resuscitate it.

"C'mon cupcake, stop acting crazy. That's my job." Sam pulled Carly to her feet and consoled her best friend with a friendly hug. "It's better to have loved and lost than… to not have ever ate some bomb-ass Chinese cereal."

"Why did the company go out of business? It's such good cereal. My tongue is so unhappy now." Carly murmured.

Freddie jumped onto his computer and began typing furiously. His eyes widened when he found the information he was looking for. "Uhhh… guys?" Blue and brown eyes met his questioningly. "The reason their company failed is because of a dozen lawsuits that claimed that a bunch of kids who ate this stuff were radioactively poisoned. This cereal was manufactured next to a nuclear power plant…"

"Eh." Sam shrugged. "I feel okay. Stomach of steel, baby."

"Yeah, but is it a stomach of lead?" Freddie raised his brow. As soon as the words left his mouth, the lights in the studio flickered before blacking out. Thunder clapped and lightning flashed through the window. "Shoot. Hey guys, help me unplug all of the equipment in the room before the electricity comes back on. I don't want anything shorting out."

"Aw, chizz." Sam unhappily elicited. "I hate… having to do stuff." They all moved around the room and began unplugging all of the electronics. After completing their tasks, Carly and Sam leaned on the sturdy, wooden catapult while Freddie grunted, having trouble pulling out a last thick cord. "Come on nub, you're taking too long." Sam wrapped her arms around his waist and started pulling. Finding that the plug was more stubborn than she initially thought, she stepped back and gave a strong jerk. Like dominos, Freddie fell back onto Sam who tripped over Carly and all three felt the burst of tingling when they saw a spark of electricity run up the badly insulated cord and connect with all three tangled bodies.

When the lights came back on, they all had eighties-style, static, rocker hair and the smell of burning wafted through the air.

"I feel like a microwaved burrito." Carly monotonously stated. Sam rotated her head in a forty-five degree angle and licked Carly's cheek. She blinked.

"Needs salsa."

The next morning Carly hopped out of the shower and ran a towel through her hair muttering to herself about how she shouldn't have stayed up so late with her friends last night and how she knew she was going to be late. She threw on a yellow top and slipped on some capris before skipping down the stairs.

Spencer was cooking pancakes and bacon in the kitchen when he heard his little sister rushing down. Carly must be in a rush. I should pour some orange juice for her before she leaves. He thought to himself while opening the fridge door. "No thanks, I'll grab something from school!" Carly called out. Wait! You need to tell her that you can't pick her up from school today, you need to deliver a sculpture to a customer.

Spencer began calling after her, "Car-"

"I'll get a ride from Freddie's mom! Hope your client likes your work!"

And the door slammed.

While this was happening, Sam was running to school in a heavy, green and black striped hoody, a half drowsy mess herself. Gotta get there soon if I'm gonna steal Freddie's homework to turn in! Sam steeled herself for the barking and the chasing of two pitbulls as she made her way across mean old McGrudy's yard. She did a little fancy footwork and was able to avoid any snapping jaws. On her way to school, Sam preferred the shortcut of jumping over fences rather than walking around the block the long way. She knew which houses had yards with dogs, had prickly bushes, had inhabitants who woke up early enough to catch her trespassing, and had fences that were too tall to climb over. She avoided all of these.

This morning however, she must've been distracted because she ended up in an unfamiliar yard with the latter. I'm going to need a running start. She told herself when she saw the twelve foot brick wall. She backed up before sprinting forward and launching herself off her left foot. Using the momentum built, her hands caught onto the top of the wall and she flipped herself over her obstacle. Easy. Sam smirked to herself. She had always been athletically gifted and it was typically expected that any fence would be no trouble. What was unexpected however was that she didn't land in the next yard, no.

She heaved herself over the wall and soared, landing with a heavy THUNK on the far side of the roof on a tall building with barely a strain on her arms. She struggled to catch her balance on the angular down-sloping incline as she began to compose and re-orientate herself. The view caught her breath as she gazed down from the three-story house she was perched on. She blew a tress of golden hair away from her face.

"Woah."

Freddie was at school. The bell hadn't rang yet so he was leaning against his locker talking to his friends in the AV club. They began walking to their classroom while chatting up their geeky hobbies. "That's not the only thing!" Freddie enthused. "The new XQ-2700 model also had this feature tha-"

"HEY! Watch it dweeb!" A burly jock grunted as Freddy ran into him and his cell phone clattered to the ground. He picked it up and fiddled with it, trying to get back to texting his girlfriend. "Damn! The screen's scrambled… Now you die!" He ferociously called out, pulling back his fist.

"Wait! I didn't mean to!" But at the same time, Freddie flinched, readying himself for the thick knuckle that would plow into his cheek.

But it never came. The burly jock was holding his fist to himself as though he had shattered it. He threw a punch with his other arm and Freddie clenched his eyes shut willing that the pain would be minimal, praying that the swing would miss him. It connected with the air two centimeters away from his face before it glanced off and left him unscathed. By this time, the bell had rung and everyone in the halls had scrambled to class. It was just him and the raging athlete. Perplexed, the jock roared in frustration and ran at Freddie, aiming to grapple and wail on him. Freddie put his hands up in front of himself to protect his face when a force field shot out of his fingertips, knocking the bully back six feet, slamming him against the opposite wall. His body fell limp at the impact.

Freddie stared astonished at the dented metal of the lockers and the unconscious athlete. He gaped at his hands before slowly tucking them into his front pockets.

Author's note: Hey iCarly fans, this is my first story and I intend it to be a lengthy one. Reviews are appreciated and would push me to get chapters in quicker. Hope you enjoy where it goes. ;)