"Network society has taken another step forward today. The scientists at Electopia's Scilabs have modified an entire sector of the country's network into a virtual environment with every possible parallel to one in physical reality. This environment is a CyberBeach, a coastline located on the lower levels of Den City's Beach area. At a press conference yesterday, project head Dr.Hikari claimed the online beach would finally allow operators to truly share their experiences with their navis. He also added that this environment was the first of many that would be added to networks around the world to more greatly enhance the realism of the artificial world and the artificial intelligence that inhabits it. When Dr.Hikari was asked why so much funding was going into luxuries for navis while national defense remains dangerously underfunded to the point Electopia's robotic tanks literally could not hit the broad side of a barn at point blank range, he promptly cut the press conference short and ran out the back door with his colleagues..."

The NetGuardians were all gathered in the livingroom, watching the early morning news. It was 7:00 AM, and while most of the team was usually asleep at this time, they had all stayed up all night when Ms.Stake offered them free leftover coffee the previous night, and they were suckers for freebies.

"Wow, shared expereinces, eh?" a mostly delirious Cyros mused. "We should do that some time. Like this weekend, let's all go on a road trip to the beach while our navis go to the one online."

"Well, there's no way we're going across the ocean to go to the beach." David pointed out, he was awake for fewer hours than Cyros and only slightly sharper. "Besides, Ameroupe has the best beaches in the world. We could head to the southwest coast for beautiful Italifornia, or the southeast coast for Floridenmark, then we could visit Disney World while we're at it."

"Don't you mean Euro-Disney?" inquired Sam.

"No, that's in Franceachussets, remember?"

Jon came up with his own brilliant suggestion. "We should just go today! The AH have been pretty quiet lately, and it's not like we have anything better to do today other than get this caffeine out of our systems, and we might as well do that in the ocean."

David smiled, "I like the sound of that. All those in favour of an immediate road trip to the beach?"

"Aye" responded every member of the NetGuardians, as well as the hobo, even though nobody planned on bringing him along.

"All opposed?"

"Nay" responded a pair of female voices from the doorway. Ms.Stake and Kalinka had invited themselves into the team's headquarters, and neither looked to happy.

"Oh great, I suppose you have some way to ruin our fun prepared, as usual?"

Kalinka thought back to every other time she came up with something to ruin their fun, "You mean...when I have a job for you to do? As in...YOUR jobs which you were hired to do?"

"Yeah, that nonsense, what a bringdown."

She sneered, "Well, yes and no. The good news is there is no vigilante business for you guys to perform today. The bad news is I have a far, far more important job for you. It's time to clean up this pigsty!"

The NetGuardians were horrified. The flat was practically built out of garbage.

"The fact you're all awake for this task today is no coincidence. Ms.Stake helped drug you all up last night in preparation."

Samantha nodded, "We've been planning this for weeks. The smell up here is driving away my customers. I can't wait until it's all gone."

Kalinka pulled out a clipboard outlining the mission for the day. "Now then, since there's more trash on this floor than can fit into a single dumpster, one of you will be on dump duty. Samantha's pickup truck is parked in the back alley. Stuff to be disposed of will be dropped out of the northeast window into the back of it and the dump duty guy will pick up whatever doesn't land in the bucket. He will also be the one to make periodic trips to the dump and back to unload."

"Does the Dump Duty job pay any more?" Moe asked.

"Congratulations Moe, you just volunteered. To answer your question, you get paid the same amount as everyone else here, which is nothing."

Samantha handed Moe her keys. "Anything happens to my truck, and I kill you." she commented casually.

Moe shrugged and looked at the bright side. "Later suckers. I get to spend the day driving around while the rest of you do all the real work."

The others each made a silent note to themselves to aim all the garbage thrown out the window directly at Moe. At this point Kingman unexpectedly joined the conversation. "Pardon me Miss Cossack, but seeing as your agenda for today certainly has no roles for my navi comrades and I, may I request we all be jacked in so we can spend the day doing something else?"

Kalinka thought for a moment. "It's true I have nothing lined up for you, but I would rather you did something productive for the team anyway."

"Yes of course ma'am. As a matter of fact, while your business for the day is centered on cleaning, I would like to organize a similar task on the team's main system. The hard drive has been in need of serious defragmenting and re-organizing for weeks. I estimate it will take at least 15 hours for the arduous panel-by-panel disinfecting and repair."

"Great, you'll be done before we are. That's a wonderful idea, Kingman. I'm glad at least someone on this team, human or not, has the slightest interest in cleanliness and order."

The other navis on the team each made a silent note to themselves to "crown" Kingman several times once they were online.

And so the NG day of spring cleaning commenced. Samantha returned to her shop to go about her business, Moe was out in the alley next to her truck with garbage raining down on him from above, the other members were upstairs wading through their own filth while Kalinka sat in the recliner and barked out orders. Meanwhile, the seven NG navis plus Naomi were gethered in their main system to start on their own work.

"You don't have to be here Naomi. You're not officially a NetGuardian and so you're not contractually obligated to do this." Yamatoman offered some relief to his partner.

Naomi smiled and declined the offer. "It's better than being alone all day while everyone else is working. Don't worry about me."

Metalman cracked his gigantic knuckles as he advanced on his treacherous ally. "Thanks a lot for getting us out of a day of relaxing in our PETs, jerk."

Kingman simply chuckled and held out his finger to stop Metalman. "Relax, just watch. Access C://kingman/battlechips/files/antidmgNG.chp"

There was a clicking sound and eight crude NetGuardian plushies fell to the ground in a pile. Kingman continued. "Now run sysdefrag.exe"

A computerized voice answered back. "Defragmentation of system commencing. Estimated time to completion: 14 hours, 39 minutes, 21 seconds."

Kingman concluded, "And now we go do whatever the hell we want."

The others' murderous ambitions quickly changed to awe and gratitude. From their point of view, it seemed odd any of the humans checking in on them could get fooled by the kawarimi dolls, but they knew they were designed to appear more realistic from the other side of a screen.

"Gotta hand it to you buddy, that was some fast thinking." complimented Drillman. "So who wants to go see a movie?"

"I say we go shopping." suggested Naomi.

"As good guys, we don't get to go around terrorizing innocent people very often, let's go do that!" suggested Darklady.

Serenade cleared his throat. "As leader, I say what we do today, and I say we go to that new beach they just made."

Bowlman was defiant. "You jerk, just because you're leader doesn't mean you get to decide for all of...wait a minute, that's a great idea. I want to go check out some beach babes." The other members were all in agreement as well.

"Really? You guys are actually complying with one of my orders?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself ganguroboi, we would have eventually decided on the beach anyway." said Yamatoman, naturally.

"But Electopia is on the other side of the world. It would take us like ten whole minutes to get there." complained Metalman.

"That's alright" said Drillman, "I know a shortcut."

And so one trip on the cybermetro, a link to northwest Netopia, a trek through the Undernet, and a perilous hike through Hades Isle and some other Pacific Islands later, the navis made it to the DenCity Beach Area in fifteen minutes.

"Nice shortcut, jackass." commented Bowlman. "So where's this beach? Looks like regular old internet to me. Floating walkways, scrolling hexagons in the sky, viruses appearing out of nowhere harrassing anyone just walking around..."

"Look down!" exclaimed an excited Naomi, who was looking over the edge of the platform. Far below the levels of floating walkways, where there was normally a bed of circuitry, or a vast expanse of nothingness, there was a curved, golden line stretching north and south into the horizons. To the west of the sandy line was standard Cyberworld terrain, roads and buildings in dark metallic grey, while to the east was a glimmering sheet of blue, appearing to cover nearly the entire network. The navis down below could be seen as faint specks moving around.

"So...is that a beach?" inquired Drillman. Having lived online his whole life, he had never seen one.

"Well, what else is it going to be?" responded Kingman.

"Well, the day's still young. Let's dive in, shall we?" Serenade said while spreading his scarves. He leapt over the edge and began to glide is way down to the surface.


The NetGuardians began their day at the beach. There was a nearby visualization editor kiosk where they could buy swimming gear to temporarily replace their battle gear. Kingman didn't bother to buy one, and simply removed his robe and crown to be more comfortable in the heat. Given the shape of his body, nobody even noticed he was turning the place into a nude beach. Bowlman spent about half an hour trying to pick up "beach babes" until he gave up and went to work on his tan; his pale white skin stuck out quite a bit when he wasn't wearing armour. Drillman and Metalman spent most of the time in the water, heedless of the possibilities of rust. Naomi and Darklady, when they weren't being harrassed by Bowlman, were sunbathing most of the time. Serenade and Yamatoman joined a volleyball game on opposite sides early on, then went on to race each other while swimming, and then competed to see who could build the best sand castle. All in all, as good a day as it was bad for their operators.

After a few hours, Serenade had just hauled a net full of Shrimpies and was starting to show it off. "Anything else you want to try and challenge me at, my former attendant? That spear doesn't make as good a fishing tool as you thought it would, eh?"

"How many times do I have to tell you to quit with the 'servant' crap, ganguroboi?" Yamatoman answered back, bitterly.

"Oh just accept it. Things now are no different from the Secret Area except your attitude. Carlos' navi's programming has made you a bunch of sour grapes. Meanwhile I still retain all my power and I'm even the leader of this team. You'd be better off just bowing to me as you did in the past."

That was the last straw, "This has gone on long enough. You are nowhere near as powerful as the original Serenade, and it is time to prove it. We shall battle here and now. No help from operators. This battle will show who is stronger, Yamatoman or Serenade."

Serenade laughed at the new challenge. "You're kidding, right? You may have some new moves, but I'm still the strongest navi on this beach. But if you insist, I've been pretty anxious to show you who's boss for a while anyway."

The others who were hanging out nearby started to pay attention, as did some other nearby navis who heard a fight was breaking out. Within seconds, one normal navi started chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight!" but before anyone could join him, Metalman smacked him in the head, shutting him up as well as knocking him unconscious (Metalman's hands are really big and hard).

Drillman made some suggestions, "Keep in mind you guys aren't anywhere near your PETs and you're not autonavis anymore, you can't delete each other. If you're going to fight, you should end it when someone loses 1000 HP, and declare the other one the winner."

"Sounds good to me, two hits of Holy Shocker should do the trick." a confident Serenade stated.

A ring of spectators formed around the squaring off opponents on a wide patch of sand just a few feet from the shore. Kingman got in between them and signalled the fight to begin, then immediately used his Checkmate jump to get out of the way. Serenade started with the Holy Shocker he claimed he would. Yamatoman nimbly dodged each explosion and got around him to deal his signature "Thousand Striking Spear" combo on his unsuspecting adversary.

"Hmph, a lucky coincidence for your operator to give you the FloatShoes program not knowing you'd have to do this battle on the beach." Serenade said as he recovered from the attack, "Lucky for me, I can do it one better." he then folded out his scarves and began to rise up of the ground. Yamatoman was already on the attack again, and missed his target as he floated out of his range.

"Coward! Come down and face me!" Yamatoman threw his spear like a javelin at Serenade. Serenade saw the attack coming easily enough to reflect it, but since he used his scarves, he instantly fell back down to the ground. Catching his spear, Yamato rushed up to his opponent to continue the attack, but Serenade was ready to block every thrust of the spear effotlessly.

"See? It's pointless. Just give up!" Jumping backwards, Serenade unleashed another Holy Shocker, this one with a much larger, wider blast. The spectators ran for cover, but Yamato plowed headfirst into the barrage and pushed his charged spear right through the stream of energy, into the hand through which the energy was streaming. The Shocker ceased as Serenade's entire arm was run through with the spear. The golden armlet shattered and the arm itself disintegrated into pixels. Serenade was shocked and enraged, but before he could fire a new Shocker from his left hand at the now vulnerable samurai, the referee Kingman leapt right in between them and announced the battle was over.

"If my math is correct, which it always is, Yamatoman lost 900 HP from Serenade's last attack, but the combination of the Spear combo at the beginning and the attack on his arm just now has lost Serenade exactly 1000 HP. Yamatoman wins!"

Some of the audience cheered, impressed by the navis that could deal so much damage with so few moves. Others were disappointed the fight was over so soon and with so few injuries.

"There, I have officially reclaimed my honour. You may no longer claim any kind of superiority over me." Yamatoman said to his foe, grinning with pride.

Serenade held back his seething rage as to not appear a sore loser. "Congratulations on a lucky outcome. Enjoy your luck while it lasts." he then opened his scarves again and began to float up into the sky. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

As the crowd dispersed, Naomi approached Yamato to congratulate him. "Way to go! I knew you could do it! Did you hear me cheering for you?"

Yamato smiled "It is all I could hear."

Namoi giggled in return then looked up to the sky at the departing Serenade. "Kinda feel sorry for him though. I hope he wasn't hurt too bad."

"What are you worried about him for?"

"I don't know him like you do, but he can't be all that bad, can he? Don't tell me you're that serious about hating him."

"Do not let anyone know, but I agree with you. But you still should not worry about him. He is too strong-headed to let this bother him too much." He then looked up to the vanishing navi as well. "If anything, he will just be more serious for our next fight. He and I are the strongest fighters on this team, and it is important we challenge each other to become even stronger."

"So this whole rivalry thing is just your way of getting some serious sparring done?"

"Parlty...but as I said, do not let him know that. Aside from that, he is also very annoying and he deserves any ass-kicking he gets."

"Ah, of course."

Serenade was back at the old Beach Area where they entered from. The walkways and platforms were entirely deserted since all the traffic had shifted to the actual beach below. Serenade sat on the edge of a lone platform in serious contemplation.

"I don't understand why I lost to him. The legendary king of the Undernet would never lose like that...at least so fast...did I not spend days in battle against Bass? What if it's David's navi? Did his programming weaken me after all? Can I even be considered the true Serenade any more?"

Serenade was deep in thought for a few minutes when he was suddenly shocked to hear a familiar voice speaking to him from nowhere, it was his own voice.

"Serenade...Searenade...use the force Serenade..."

"What the hell? Am I going nuts? I think I'm talking to myself!"

"Well, you are, sort of. I am the true Serenade."

"No, I am!"

"...yes, you are, partly. But I am the complete, pure essence of Serenade within you."

"But...I thought my mind WAS Serenade's...I thought I was me."

"Hate to break it to you, but even though you have all my memories, your mind and personality are mostly that of David's navi. Hence, I can talk to you as a voice in your head."

"Well that's just great. Well, what did you mean about using the force? What force?"

"The force of love is the force, of course!"

"...are you sure I'm not going nuts?"

"You know it was love that made me so mythologically powerful in the first place, you have my memories."

"...I may have forgotten that bit. That's basically just a fancy way of saying I should use their own agression against them, right? Use that reflect ability all the time?"

"If I was not just a voice in your head, I would smack you. That is a good strategy and everything, but it will not help you win. You have all the power you need, it is your mind that is unfit to use it. It is about your reasons for fighting and your respect for your opponent. Only by cleansing your heart and filling it with love can you hope to regain your honour, respect, and superiority."

"You're saying I should...<i>love</i> Yamatoman? Look, I don't care what goes on in your mind, but I just don't swing that way."

"You're not getting it, look...no, just forget it. That's it, I'm out of here." Finally, Serenade could hear the sound of heavy footsteps, followed by a door closing, and then the sound of a car starting up and driving away.

"...I think I <i>am</i> just going nuts."

Back down below, the day was nearly coming to a close. Drillman getting in some last deep-sea diving in Drill-Mode.

"Wow, they sure went all out in making a real ocean down here...wait, there's another navi down here...is that..."

And on the surface, Kingman was putting the finishing touches on his 80 cubic feet sand castle.

"Magnificent, it is truly fit for a K-...me. Wait...did it just move?"

Metalman and Bowlman were getting their armour back from the visualization kiosk.

"Man, I've been feeling really vulnerable without my gear." mused Bowlman.

"I hear ya' pal, navis don't go well with bathing suits." said a lanky mowhawked navi who was there at the same time.

"Well, some of us look better than others" said another, more humanoid navi smugly. The four navis pressed some buttons instantly reverting their armour simultaneously. Then they looked at each other.

"Wha? It's you!"

The kiosk exploded and innocent navis ran in terror as Metalman, Bowlman, Punk, and Flashman erupted from it and squared off for a real battle. At the same time a hole in the sky opened up, pointing straight dowm. Water poured out of the wormhole endlessly, as well as several aqua viruses as well as Drillman and Bubbleman, who also regained their footing and squared off while the wormhole connecting underwater continued to flood the beach. Further away in the other direction, the sand accross the beach began to rise up into a jumbo-sized Desertman, holding Kingman in his hand.

Yamatoman, Darklady, and Naomi joined the scene immediately. "Acid Hackers, here? What are you planning this time?" demanded Yamatoman, drawing his spear once more.

"We were enjoying the day off until you guys showed up!" bellowed Punk.

"Wait, so I take it you guys don't have operators right now either?" asked a slightly calmer Metalman.

"You too? Huh, well, maybe we should lay off each other for now. We don't want to risk getting deleted permanently any more than you do." suggested Flashman.

"Pfft! As if we had a chance of dying now?" Punk scoffed.

"It looks like they have us outnumbered though. Why did Flame, Plant, and Beast have to stay behind?"

"All that matters now is Desert! Get a load of him, he's right at home here." Punk then turned to Desertman and shouted. "Go get 'em man! There's no way you can lose now! We're right behind you!" and with that Punk tucked into his ball and rode off in the opposite direction. Flashman glanced around nervously for a moment, then followed him with a flash 'port.

"Running away is supposed to be my blubbing thing blub. Well not any more!" Bubbleman stood his ground and summoned a tsunami of Bubble Lead from the nearby water towards Drillman and the others.

"[Hmm, is there really any point to this battle? Well I suppose if the chance presents itself, I should take it.] ZWAZOOESHU!" Desertman, absorbing all the sand on the beach, had grown to fifty times his normal size. Still holding Kingman in one hand, he formed several other hands to attack the NG with. They fought back to the best of their ability, but all their attacks were absorbed harmlessly into the sand.

Drillman moved his last wormhole over Desertman's head in an attempt to slow him down with the pouring water, but even that seemed ineffective and he fought back with a rain of SandStone Cubes. Eventually, the sand under the others' feet came to life and held them all down.

"Soouumazheeastuuaa..."

"What did he say now?" asked the nearly fully buried Bowlman.

"I'll venture a guess and say 'sweet dreams from the sandman'" said Darklady.

Bubbleman drew his Harpoon gun and was ready to finish them off, when he was suddenly blown clear by a Saint Light from Serenade. "What are the AH doing here?" he asked, as he blasted the arm holding Kingman, now soggy enough from the water to be destroyed.

"Apparently they're vacationing as well." King answered back as he slammed down to the ground Checkmate style, causing more of Desertman to dissipate.

"Give me a break. Do we really have to do this? Don't we all just want a day off?" Serenade said directly to Desertman. Desert stared at the NGs for a moment, then shrunk himself back down to size. Apparently he agreed.

Bubbleman was getting up from the attack and answered for his team-mate with the even stranger speech impediment. "We don't need the blubbin' stress any more than you do blub. Fine blub, we won't blub kill you. But you have to promise us blub that we can have another battle at this blub beach so Sandy and I get to have the advantage again."

"Uh...okay...how about next weekend?" Serenade negotiated.

"Nah blub, we got a thing. How about the 20th? Is that good for you blubs?"

"Why don't we get back to you on it?"

"Whatever. C'mon blub. Let's get the blub out of here." Desertman formed some shoulders so he could shrug them, then melted himself into the ground. Bubbleman dove into the water and swam off. Since the citezens all ran off when the giant sand monster appeared, the NGs were now alone on the beach.

"Guess you came through for us Mr.Leader. Good work." complimented Drillman.

"Ah, I had to do something, didn't I? You guys were in trouble and I can't let anything happen to you. You know I feel about all of you."

"Huh? What are you talking about ganguroboi?" a confused Yamatoman asked the strangely emotional Serenade.

"Well...you know...I...No, I just can't say it...Shut up already! You've made your point!...I don't care what you think, it's all over now anyway!"

The others stared nervously at their Leader as he argued with nobody in particular.

"Oooo...kayyy...I think somebody got a little too much sun today." said Kingman, breaking the akward silence.

Surprised, Darklady looked up to the sky. "There's a SUN here? Those Scilab geeks thought of everything. It's not actually a billion miles away like a real sun though, is it?"

"Uh, no, it's just a part of the system wall. It passed pretty close to my head while I was up there." said Serenade.

"Well, it's realistic enough to be setting in the west now. I guess it's about time we got back and took the credit for that thing with the base computer." said Drillman.

"Sounds good to me." said Serenade. "Great day though. We gotta skip out of work again sometime. Any other menial tasks the computer can do automatically that the humans don't know about?"

"I'll think of something" said Kingman as he put his robe back on. "Now let's hurry up and get out of here. I have sand in all the wrong places." Once again, the others could not even tell Kingman had any wrong places.

The End

Stories main