Even in the midst of his pain and horror, Megabyte felt a gleam of admiration. Not even at the height of his reign had he managed to arrange such a 'do or die' situation for one of his victims, yet here this tiny slip of a woman was forcing a decision from him. He made up his mind in a flash.

"The last Guardians are Bob and Cadet Enzo Matrix. They live in the system of Mainframe, if it still exists. I have the feeling that it does, since Bob almost always manages to drag some last-nano plan out of his back pocket. They have with them a Hacker and a Game Sprite, and the support of the entire system. Their Command.Com is sister to the Cadet and.. rather *close* to the Guardian. They no doubt know of you, and are most likely going to come after you."

Megabyte paused as Daemon nodded slightly, then went on when she waved a hand. "If you can manage to draw them into the SuperComputer, you could then attack Mainframe and hold the system hostage, or, barring that, at least hold the Command.Com hostage. I know the system very well, and could advise you on it, but one thing I do know.. the Guardian would do almost *anything* for Dot Matrix's sake."

"Even sacrifice himself? Or perhaps.. if we offered to trade, then laid an ambush..." Daemon paused thoughtfully for a nano, and Megabyte felt a thrill as he heard her say 'we'. She was going to keep him alive! In a dim corner of his mind, Megabyte wondered at the glee he felt at proof of his continuing enslavement, then dismissed it as unimportant.

"Thank you Megabyte.. I do hope that the next time we meet, you'll be feeling much better. I know that you'll certainly feel better then you will in just a moment. Then again, from my observations, *anything* is better then code-merging with a webspore. Ta!"

Megabyte stared at Daemon then shoved himself as far away from the front of the tube and the webspore as he could, but Daemon simply grinned and pushed the release. Bubbles rushed up from the bottom as the webspore slipped into the tube, and the last thing Megabyte saw was the reaching black tentacles as they slipped around his throat, covered his eyes, and burst into his mind...

Daemon sat in her office once again, resting her feet on the scarred desk, reading over the file on Megabyte. She'd pulled all information on him from the Guardian Database and had been looking it over for a few nanos when her console beeped again. Annoyed, she swung her feet down and answered it to find herself looking at one of the techs in the reconstruction chamber. Over the sprite's shoulder she could see the tube where Megabyte should be, but instead saw what appeared to be a tube of solid black.

"What is the meaning of this? What have you done with my virus?!" The sprite flinched and shook, but managed to stammer out his message.

"My lady, we called as soon as we noticed.. the virus and the webspore had been fighting in the reconstruction tube, then, just after the webspore entered his body, the energy went black. We haven't been able to tell what's happening inside yet, but-"

"You idiot! I've been up here for at least ten nanos! And you mean to tell me that this *just* happened now? There's no way Megabyte could have held out against a webspore for that long, not in his condition!" The sprite shivered at the tone of her voice, but nodded.

"My liege, none of us believed it either, not after the spore attached itself to his head at first, but he kept fighting it. Only now did anything out of the ordinary happen, and our first thought was to inform you." The sprite looked pathetically eager to please, so Daemon decided to let him live.

"I'll be right down - have a report ready for me." The panicked look on the sprite's face made Daemon smile, and she deliberately made her way to the chamber as fast as possible. Arriving on the threshold, she stopped for a moment to gaze at the now-black tube before stalking into the room. She said nothing, but almost immediately the head tech was at her side and handing her a message pad with every bit of information they had, detailing everything that had happened since Megabyte had first entered the room.

Casting a glance over the displays, Daemon peered at the tube and frowned.

"Get me a strong light.. the strongest you can find in the next nano, and bring it here." She tapped the tank with one finger and was rewarded with a swirl as something inside the blackened energy moved. "Quickly!"

As her sprites scurried around the room, Daemon studied the last few readings on Megabyte that had come through clearly. Apparently the spore's presence was interfering with the readings.. but there *was* a way of getting a feel for what was happening to Megabyte, if she really wanted to know.

The controller she had implanted in his core. Through that, she should be able to find out what was happening. Should - that was the key word. She *could* try and find out through the controller, or she could just wait for the light to be brought. The arrival of two out-of-breath sprites carrying portable light sources made up her mind for her.

"Shine them on the tube, and make sure they're on the highest setting possible. I HAVE to find out what's going on in there." Obeying her orders, the sprites turned on their lights.. and the whole room froze in shock. Daemon blinked, astonished, then grinned.

"Well.. I never expected THIS to happen.. but it's not a bad thing, after all. In fact.. it could be quite - interesting..." Daemon grinned again, then studied the dimly-lit form with more care.

Drifting in the darkened liquid, Megabyte's form had changed visibly - the most noticable change was the addition of a tail.. a long whip-like tail that coiled around his body and loosed, then coiled again. In the dimness, Daemon could just barely make out the silhouettes of his hands and feet, now repaired and renewed, being more clawed then before. They too were slowly curling and relaxing, over and over to a steady but slow beat. Daemon realized that it was in tune to the thrum of energy that sped through his body, pulsing thought the energy of the tube.

"How long before he's due to come out?" she demanded of the head tech. The man stepped back nervously, then checked his console.

"Uh, another twenty nanos, my liege."

"Bring him out now!"

"But- but- my liege! If the process is interrupted so soon, we don't know what will hap-"

*THWACK* Daemon spun around and sent the head tech flying into the wall, where he promptly deleted. Daemon snarled, then looked around at her frightened workers.

"Now.. who is the next highest technician?" Another sprite stepped forward tentatively, and Daemon looked at her. "Bring him out.. NOW!"

The new head tech complied, starting the process that would remove Megabyte from the tank. As the tube slowly swung down, Daemon pondered what the new changed would mean for his placement in her hierarchy. After all, if he had come through the code-splicing more powerful then before, she might have to delete him rather then chance him developing into a threat.

If, however, he had been weakened, she might do well to kill him anyway. There was no room for the weak under her rule. She drummed her nails impatiently on the tube as the final stages commenced - then jumped back when two large clawed fists smashed through the near-indestructible casing right where she had been tapping.

The rest of the tube shattered in a burst of dark energy that splashed anyone within a few dozen feet. As Daemon ducked a large shard of the casing, she saw a sinuous and sleek form climb out of the remains of the broken tube, and gasped.

Standing tall and proud, the virus she had last seen as a broken, battered wreck was fully transformed, and Daemon wondered if he had looked this magnificent even in his previous prime. For this virus was obviously in his prime, and looked likely to stay that way for some time yet. The arrogance in his gaze confirmed that he had recovered fully, and might even be as powerful as Daemon herself now.

Black as obsidian, his armored body gleamed with silver and electric blue highlights, the two colors outlining the new symbol on his chest - a symbol that matched the one on Daemon's armor. He clenched his fists and looked down to inspect them, and Daemon saw that his hands had regrown and looked more.. organic, almost like a sprite's. The razor sharp spines that slid from the fingertips belonged to no sprite, however.

He turned around to inspect his tail and Daemon grinned as she noticed the bony spines that ran in a double line down from the top of his head and down his back. The tail itself reminded her of the images she had seen of creatures called 'dragons' in children's storybooks, and the clawed feet and the new muscles on his legs also supported that image.

As he turned back to face her, Daemon also noted that his three-pointed crown had altered, and the three points now merged into a single red-spined crest that made his back look even more deadly then his front. His eyes had remained unchanged, and as they bored into hers, she smiled... and reached out to him through her controller.

He gasped and staggered as she thrust pain into his mind, trying to beat down his will with her own... then stopped as he smiled at her.. and went down to one knee willingly.

"Not at your demand, my liege, but with my permission," and with those words, he opened his mind to her as well. Daemon blinked in amazement again as she wandered through his mind and found no plots or thoughts against her, but rather the opposite.

Retreating from him mentally, she found herself grinning at the thought of a partnership with this new virus.. this new WebVirus, who was not yet fully a match for herself, but who could be trained and eventually become worthy of more then simply being her close companion.

He rose from the floor and stepped closer, towering over her and putting her in his shadow. Daemon's eyes sparked and she stabbed into his mind again until he stepped back.

'Hmm.. he'll need to be taught who is the master here.. and fast.' Daemon thought for a nano then crooked one finger at him, turned and walked away.

"Follow me."

Megabyte growled under his breath and followed Daemon as she walked out of the reconstruction chamber and headed down a brightly lit corridor. He shielded his eyes for a nano until they adjusted, then continued after Daemon. Cursors, but this would take some getting used to... he was now in an almost permanent lean forward, his legs having thickened and grown, his tail now swishing along just a few micros above the floor.

His tail.. now THAT would take some getting used to, indeed. Megabyte glanced down at his hands again, still not used to the way they felt. He no longer gleamed his normal deep blue, but rather a brilliant black with iridescent highlights, and it was not metal, but some kind of thick hide.

Then there was his feet.. the claws on them clicked on the smooth floor with every step, a constant reminder that he was no longer in control of his life. He wondered if Daemon was going to try and infect him or if she was simply toying with him. If she'd only do *something*... all this walking around behind her was making him feel like some exotic pet.

He looked up and nearly ran into Daemon's back as he discovered that she had stopped. The look she gave him made him drop his eyes in embarrassment and shame that he hadn't been paying better attention. He noticed that they had stopped in front of a set of double doors, and watched as Daemon threw both doors wide. Darkness swallowed the light from the hallway a bare inch from the threshold. She nodded towards the inky blackness.

"Inside. Now."

Well, she certainly wasn't one for long speeches now, was she? As Megabyte stepped up towards the dark entrance of the room, he stopped. There was something.. different about this room. It smelled.. familiar. A hand on the small of his back propelled him into the room, and Megabyte shivered involuntarily as a memory of that particular smell came back to him. He grinned.

Energy. Specifically, spilled energy. The smell filled the room; undetectable by normal sprites, the overpowering scent nearly off-lined his fine-tuned viral senses. Megabyte blinked, attuning his eyes to the gloom, and spotted a single figure.. a sprite. The figure was attached to the wall with manacles, and the smell of fresh-spilled energy as well as old was strongest there. Megabyte stepped forward into a pool of light, one of many that dotted the enormous room, and took a better look at the sprite.

Held up by strong steel bands around his wrists, waist, neck and ankles, the sprite was suspended about two feet off the ground. A small floating platform was in front of him, probably in the spot Daemon usually stood. On a small tray nearby were a few sharp instruments that Megabyte could identify as being implements of torture.

The light-grey sprite raised his eyelids and peered wearily at Megabyte, revealing eyes flecked with Daemon's infection. Noticing the Guardian icon on the sprite's chest, Megabyte frowned.

"Daemon? Why torture one of your slaves? If he's committed a crime, why not simply kill him?"

Daemon stepped forward, noiselessly moving across the smooth floor. Her mouth twisted in a snarl as she stared at the imprisoned Guardian, then turned back to Megabyte with a false smile.

"My dear, this is no ordinary Guardian, and therefore, no ordinary prisoner; I won't kill him until he has bowed his head to my will." Megabyte glanced at her in surprise.

"But.. you've infected him!"

"Yes, but he's strong.. He's fought me ever since I first attacked - he was very nearly the first Guardian I infected, so that should tell you how strong he is." Daemon waved a hand at the battered sprite's uniform. "As you can see from the remnants of his clothing, he was no ordinary Guardian to start with, but I never thought he could hold out this long." Daemon raised an eyebrow at the sprite and *tsk*ed gently. "Waiting for a rescue that will never come... how.. pathetic."

Megabyte tilted his head, and looked closer at the sprite as Daemon continued.

"My dear Megabyte, be known to the Prime Guardian, Turbo."