"Good morning Ms.Stake."

"It's one in the afternoon Miss Cossack. Ah, but it might as well be morning if you're here to see your employees."

"What do you...oh brother..."

Kalinka had just walked into the doughnut shop, yet she could hear loud snoring coming from upstairs. "Well, it's okay to sleep-in on Sundays, I guess."

The proprietor shook her head and sighed. "It's Monday Miss Cossack, that's why the only people in here after the lunch hour are you, me and those lazy freeloaders upstairs. Oh, I'm sorry. I should probably stick up for them when their boss comes in for a surprise evaluation."

Kalinka grinned and laughed nervously. She would have been more critical of them at this point had she not woken up just two hours ago after a wild night and forgotten what day it was. "Oh, by the way, can I get some coffee?"

After getting her eye-opener, Kalinka started climbing the stairs to the Net-Guardians' apartment. She noticed Ms.Stake stopped following her. A solemn shaking of her head told Kalinka there was no way this she was ever venturing up there. Kalinka took a deep breath, took a sip of coffee, then another deep breath, and climbed to the second floor.

As she reached the top, she became aware of the piles upon piles of doughnut boxes. They seemed to surround her, stacked like walls. One stack of boxes had buttresses holding it up; another was pasted with mismatching pieces of wallpaper. Kalinka walked slowly through the box jungle, off to the right where she remembered the TV was installed. The sound of the snoring she heard downstairs was louder but the source was indistinct. She climbed over a short pile of boxes with two planks laid over the hump like some kind of ramp, and finally found the living-room area. The furniture that was originally spread across the apartment seemed to have been crammed into this tiny space that was mostly free of artificial box-walls. Three of the Net-Guardians were there, watching some car racing. David sat in an armchair, Moe laid down on a couch, and Adrienne rested in a beanbag. An attention-gathering cough from Kalinka had each of them glance at her, double-take, then leap to attention in unison.

"Miss Cossack! To what do we owe this pleasure?" David greeted her with a nervous smile.

Moe scratched his chin. "It's been a week since you set us up here...is it payday already?"

David backhanded Moe in the forehead. Kalinka spoke up. "I'm checking up on you. We are going to leave the operation in your hands, but it wouldn't hurt to check up to make sure we made the right choice. Now I have three questions to start off. One: What's with all the boxes? Two: What's with the deafening snoring? and Three: Where's everyone else?"

Moe answered the first question. "We had Ms.Stake stop throwing out old boxes, filled them with sand, and stacked them around the apartment to make artificial walls, isn't it obvious? This place wasn't built for seven people."

Adrienne pointed to one of the box-bedrooms. "We're not sure, but the snoring could be Cyros or Sam...they took the night shift last night."

David fielded the last one. "Jon's over there on the computer and Carlos is out on the streets. So as you can see we're nice and busy."

Kalinka was a little surprised. At first glance it seemed they'd spent the first week goofing off and building fortresses out of doughnut boxes, but they seemed to have a nice plan set up. Each team member would take turns patrolling the net, or searching for clues on the Acid Hackers. She smiled and nodded and went over to the computer in the opposite corner of the room to peek over Jonathan's shoulder. Her smile turned to a frown when she saw Jonathan was using his "shift" online to show off Bowlman's sharp shooting skills in a netbattle tournament. She sighed and took another sip of coffee. Jon had headphones on and didn't even notice.

Moe decided to draw attention from their failing progress report by asking a question of his own. "So what about the big guy? How come he's not giving us the inspection?"

"My father's in Netopia this weekend giving a lecture. He's also picking up some new supplies for his research."

At that moment, in a hotel room in Netopia, Dr.Cossack was stuffing his suitcase with the room's towels, soaps, pillow mints, and shower curtains.

"Anyway, show me at least some progress, please? I don't want to get too angry because I have enough of a headache as it is."

The boys each raised an eyebrow at their employer. David came up with the status report they needed. "I'll have you know we've already engaged the Acid Hackers once. We, uh...managed to track them to a grocery store robbery and avert certain disaster. We could have had them finished, I'm sure, but the Officials showed up and they managed to escape."

Kalinka suddenly perked up as if the caffeine had just kicked in. "Ah! That reminds me. We made some calls, and you're getting your Official NetBattling Vigilante Licences today. This way you'll be able to do any extreme net-terrorist busting and it'll be perfectly legal. Some guys from the ONBA will meet us here in a few minutes to issue them out."

"S'cuse me for a minute, I gotta hit the can." Moe's statement came at random as he walked over to the bathroom.

David grinned at the possibilities. "So will we get to shoot things?"

Kalinka blinked, "I suppose so...but ideally no."

A nearby stacked doughnut box suddenly popped out of place and Cyros stuck his head out of the new hole in the wall to join the conversation. "What about explosions? Can we blow stuff up?"

" Uh...I guess so...What? Why would you need to blow stuff up in netbattles?"

"What about cowboys? Can we kill cowboys?" Carlos, who had just returned from his expedition, asked this question then immediately engaged in a death-stare with David.

"Now what kind of question is that? Ohh...my head..."

Sam came out of his own artificial room to join in. "What about Moe? Does he have to be here?"

"Now what does that mean?"

"Well, he seems to be trying to escape or something." Sam then pointed to a window where Moe could be seen sidestepping across the ledge toward the fire escape.

Kalinka sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Wait. Wait. Wait...Wait, if all of you are here..."

"Except Moe."

"Yes, thank you Sam, except Moe. If you're all here, then why is that loud snoring still going on?"

The seven looked around in confusion, trying to figure out where the snoring was coming from. David looked at his PET and laughed. "Don't worry, it's just Serenade." He then pointed the PET at the rest of the company, where a recharging Serenade could indeed be seen sawing logs. David jostled the PET and his navi snapped out of it.

"I didn't know navis could snore." A confused Adrienne commented while scratching her head.

"They can when a mucous build-up in their throat impedes their regular breathing pattern during sleep." David answered.

"I didn't know navis had mucous."

"They do when they have noses."

Kalinka was still rubbing her eyes in pain. "Is it just the reverberations in my skull, or is there something still snoring?"

Carlos reached into a loose pile of boxes and pulled out a sleeping hobo. "Maybe it's this guy."

"How long has that been there?" asked Cyros, who was still just a head sticking out of the wall. All the Net-Guardians shrugged, having never seen him before.

At this point, Jon jacked out, removed his headphones, and turned around. "Hel-lo! Heyy, who brought the honeyyoh shit! It's Kalinka!"

Kalinka had seen almost all she could take. She was about to give them all an earful when an alarm near the computer began blaring. Kalinka cringed. "Oh yes, this is what my headache needs. Definitely."

David suddenly took a serious stance. "Jonathan! Cut the alarm! Cyros! Get out here! Sam! Put on some pants! Jack-in, Net-Guardians, execute!"

In an amazingly fast and fluid motion, the six team members were ready and jacked into the computer within seconds. A bewildered Kalinka could only ask what was going on. Moe, who had just returned from "the bathroom" pulled out the computer chair for Kalinka, had her sit down, and wheeled the chair in front of the computer where the action was just beginning, he then jacked-in along with the others.

The team had the alarm react to any large virus outbreak in a three-block radius. The seven navis dashed across the cyberspace to the source of the problem. They arrived at a NetDealer being robbed by 3 navis brandishing powerful weapons and a whole lot of helpers from virus-bombs. Serenade caught their attention by speaking up, "Alright, what seems to be the problem here?"

One navi didn't answer and just shot his Magnum Cannon at the Net-Guardians. They managed to leap back in time, but the ground was shattered, separating the shop from their platform. Another navi pointed a Volcano Cannon at the team. "Didn't you hear? Jack out or die! We're not letting anybody slow us down!"

"These guys mean business," Kingman pointed out. "The best strategy would be to get this done as quickly as possible."

Drillman transformed and made a large wormhole that connected the now separate platforms. Drillman then went into Drill-Spread mode and started hurling Missile after Missile through the Howitzer viruses. Serenade and Metalman soared over the gap and began blasting viruses with missiles and energy. Yamato, Bowl, and Darklady used Drillman's wormhole to reach the battlefield and assaulted the navis directly.

The head navi activated a 500Barrier and charged the attackers with a HeroSword. "You jerks just had to complicate things for us, didn't you?"

Kingman remained on the other platform and summoned pawns and knights to aid his allies. He had them position themselves between the swordsman and the ground troops.

"Exactly how did petty thugs like these get their hands on such rare weapons?" Bowlman questioned while shooting down every Fishy in sight.

"Stole them, what else?" Answered Metalman, who had just crushed a Dominerd with his Iron Fist.

When the navi with the Magnum ran out of ammo trying to shoot Serenade out of the sky, he switched to a GoldFist and started firing rocket punches at Serenade, Yamato, and Darklady. Yamatoman deflected the fists with a fast spin of his spear. Adrienne used a Shadow chip to make Darklady invulnerable. Serenade just reflected every hit. Serenade then began charging for a powerful blast, the GoldFist wielding navi saw this and raised an IronShield. While hiding behind the shield, Yamatoman got behind him and made swiss cheese out of him with his Yamato Spear. The navi tried to use a Recov chip, but Darklady's bats quickly enveloped him. When the bats flew away, the navi was gone.

The Cannon-wielding navi used a LavaStage to surround himself with fire, powering up his Volcano as well as warding off Bowlman and Yamatoman. He threw a few Lava Hogans to keep them on their toes. Yamatoman summoned his Backup force to sacrifice through the lava. Bowlman cut through much of it with his Ball. Darklady went in with her BlueIce style and created an IceCube on top of the heatstyle crook. The severely damaged navi countered with its ultimate attack, a Salamander Spirit MegaChip. He pointed himself at the chasm created by his earlier Magnum attack and a stream of fire erupted from his body and was sucked into the hole like back draft. Dark, Yamato, and Bowlman all took the heat from this flame attack, but Serenade was left with a clear shot to obliterate the navi with the energy he had built up earlier. When the smoke cleared, it turned out Serenade had made yet another chasm in the area.

The remaining crook had spent his time fighting Kingman's pawns. His Barrier's energy was down to 20%, but he'd managed to break the attackers with a Hammer. When he was done, he noticed Drillman and Metalman were finishing off the last viruses. Serenade was taking a passive stance, recharging from his last attack. The other three were recovering from the Salamander attack. The navi decided to try and escape, but as he turned around; he noticed he was blocked off by some Rooks. He noticed the Pawns were starting to regenerate and realized he was surrounded. At that moment, the sky got darker and the navi realized he was in a massive shadow. He dared look up to see Kingman falling steadily for his finishing move. Unable to run anywhere the navi did the only thing he could think of, he whimpered "mommy" and was then crushed to deletion.

Back in the real world, the Net-Guardians let out a cheer and jacked out their navis. They gave each other high-fives in congratulations. It was all in a days work, or at least that's the message they hoped Kalinka would pick up.

"So, what do you think?" David asked Kalinka expectantly.

Kalinka got up from the chair and smiled. "I think it was pretty convenient that you guys got a chance to show your stuff at the very moment I'd run out of patience for you. I'd say it had to have been either an elaborate set-up or a bad case of deus ex machina. It doesn't matter though. That was an impressive show and you guys are obviously capable of handling this job."

David, Sam, Adrienne, Moe, Cyros, Carlos, Jonathan, and the hobo all let out a cheer at passing the progress report. The eight of them got in a circle, put their hands in the centre, then threw them up in the air shouting "Net-Guardians!"

Kalinka nodded, took another sip of her coffee, and started to head out. "Oh yeah, the Officials still have to give you your licences, I guess I'll just hang out until they get here." She sat down in David's chair, grabbed the remote, and began channel surfing. The others gave her a confused look, shrugged, and took a seat as well. Moe snuck towards the fire escape again, and the hobo went back to sleep. Cyros's room suddenly collapsed because the box he removed was a load-bearing box, but nobody cared. All was well.

The End

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