"Boss!" Buzz and Delete screamed.

"Motherboard!" Jackie screamed.

The end of the arm that was holding the Hacker had been broken away completely, leaving only a metal rod with loose, sparking wires twitching at the end of it.

The Cyber Squad barely noticed that, as they saw that the top of Motherboard's protective dome was shattered, and a cyber car sized hole was now where the Scramblatron was mounted. Inez immediately came to the gut-wrenching conclusion that the evil machine had, through an unintentional method, actually done its job.

As the Squad zoomed towards the broken dome to make sure Motherboard, as well as the security of the rest of Cyberspace, was intact, the Grim Wreaker also zoomed off blindly and haphazardly, its two temporary captains scrambling to think of which way their captain was sent flying.

When everything had stopped spinning, the Hacker found that he was still floating aimlessly through the electronic cosmos, and that he was riddled with shrapnel. Fortunately, most of it was too light to mean anything except a lot of stinging and some extensive repairs once (if) his brain dead henchmen found him. He instinctively felt his face. He was happy that it was practically untouched, only to get angry once he realized that he had lost his wig.

Then he saw the large twisted piece of metal jutting out of his chest, stabbing right through his shirt pocket, the pens sticking out like splinters, and into what may have been called his heart (even though everyone said he didn't have one), his main power unit.

He panicked and yanked it out, not even stopping to think that it would also pull out the vital unit until his vision started to fail and his mental processes started to slow.

"Ohhhh nooooo," he said as everything became dark, and then, "Daaamnnnn youuuuu Mother….." as his system shut down.

Suddenly, his system started back up again, and at full force. His ears rang, his eyes started to burn, and the circuits throughout his body zapped and sizzled like they were being fried. After a minute, the unpleasant sensation subsided, and was replaced with one of euphoric clarity, like that of waking up out of a coma. He was running on a unit that he never knew he had, and one that was a hundred times as efficient and powerful as his old one, which he now let float out of his grasp.

He felt great. He felt unstoppable. But he also felt anxious and somewhat ashamed, because not only was this new system releasing greater power, it was also releasing memories…

Just when Delete was beginning to prepare a eulogy, Buzz exclaimed, "There he is!"

On their screen they saw him hailing them. He looked terrible, cut up and bald like he was, but all they cared about was that he was alive and that way. They had use the vacuum tube to bring him aboard, hoping that he wouldn't kick them all the way across the room.

Much to their grateful surprise, he simply grunted, got up, and, holding a hand over the hole over his chest so they couldn't see, said, "Come on, we don't have much time."

As he walked over to the command center, Delete said, "Boss, don't you want take care of all those cuts, first? They look like they hurt."

"Just get me some bandages for now." the Hacker said, "They don't hurt too badly, but thanks for asking."

That made Delete stop dead in his tracks. His mouth flapped open and shut a few times before he managed to say, "Boss, did you just say, 'Thanks?'"

"Yes. Why?" he then thought a moment, "Oh. Right."

The bots glanced at each other, and Buzz asked, "Uh, Boss, you sure you didn't get hurt anywhere, um, important?" He carefully skirted around the phrase, "like your head."

Now in front of his seat, the Hacker turned around, his cape swishing and his wound unwittingly exposed for his henchmen to see, "Yes I have, and thank goodness I did."

The bots just stared at the wound for a moment before he realized what they were doing and said, "Don't just stand there. We've got work to do!"

"But—" Delete couldn't stop staring at the loose wires that were peering from the floppy patch of exo-skin.

"Just please get me some bandages and don't worry about it now. It's not important," he turned away from them, "I've got to knock Motherboard out of power, and this time, I've got to do it right!"

Motherboard was perfectly fine, showing almost now sign of having experienced a near scrambling or a nearby explosion except for that she had slightly more static than usual. Dr. Marbles had already been teleported in to inspect the damaged and would soon be making calls to Symmetrian repairmen he knew would fix the glass to perfection.

"I'm glad you're alright, Motherboard," Inez said.

"I thank you, but I'm afraid it's not over, not by far."

"What do you mean?"

"I sense—" a piece of virus-induced static cut in, but it seemed more to Inez like she purposely cut herself off, "Did you see where Hacker went?"

All the kids and Digit shook their heads. Matt said, "All we saw was that he's gone from here."

"Yeah," Digit added, "Hopefully gone from Cyberspace, if you know what I mean."

Jackie wanted to reprimand him, but she couldn't, since she was in full agreement with him. It was, after all, very hard not to prefer that the person who they had spent most of their time here fighting against would just disappear.

Things in Cyberspace were, for the most part, quiet after that. Uneasy to be sure, as most cyborgs were still shaken up from the near-victory of the Scramblatron, especially after they had heard of the extensive repairs Motherboard was having to go through due to the explosion, and even more so when they found her to be dodging the question or simply vague when asked as to whether she believed the Hacker was really dead or not. Still, over two weeks had past without any incident, so things were slowly starting to return back to normal.

Except in Happily Ever After, where Wicked, upon hearing everyone celebrating the presumed demised of Public Cyber Enemy Number One, started launching random hexes at the citizens, then collapsed and started wailing for hours, and kept alternating between the two for the next week or so. Fortunately for the site, she eventually grew tired of throwing the hexes and settled for simply wailing nonstop. For that, everyone was advised to wear earplugs.

The earplugs were so effective, and everyone had become so used to the witch's unpredictable behavior, that most didn't even notice when her castle had become suddenly quiet one night. They also didn't notice the soft sparks of wheat-colored light oozing out the windows, the kind of light the was typically emitted from a type of spell she hadn't used in a long time, that of a healing incantation, in particular one used for painlessly stitching up pesky lacerations.

They did notice, however, when she started going back out into public again, mostly because she seemed much more serene than she normally did, and that she was missing her wand.