Annihilation

What's That Smell?

A young man was walking down the sidewalk late in a sunny day in downtown Crescent City and stopped for a moment outside the GoNuts Donut Shop. He looked up at the windows of the second floor, let out a nostalgic sigh, then entered the shop.

"Hey there, what can I get for you?" Ms.Stake asked when he reached the counter.

"Just a small coffee, please." he replied politely.

"Hey, have you been here before? Your face looks familiar." Stake asked this as she looked at the white "Misfits" skull logo on his shirt contrasting his otherwise completely black wardrobe.

"Uh, yeah, guess you could say that. I was going to be in the NetGuardians just before they started up, I actually just came to visit them. The name's Vidal."

"Oh really? What stopped you from joining?" she asked as she handed him his coffee.

At that moment Vidal thought back to the time just a few weeks earlier when he came with the NetGuardians to move into their new flat. Dr.Cossack and his daughter Kalinka were helping them get accquainted with their new jobs.

"So as you can see, There is plenty of room up here for seven people to work around the clock. I suppose you could put up curtains for privacy and get these boxes out of the way. I imagine it will not be too hard to keep this floor clean." the old man said as the new team-mates were already building forts out of boxes to be their own private rooms.

"Don't worry Doc, we'll manage on our own." David said as tossed his duster and hat in the middle of the floor to get comfortable, he then walked around the room tracking mud from his cowboy boots all over the place.

Dr.Cossack let out a sigh. "Very well, I guess I will leave you to your own devices. Just one more thing, why are there eight of you now?"

David stopped tracking mud to clarify. "Oh yeah, my pal Vidal wanted to sign up too. He already got himself the navi Darkman, and he's pretty good at NetBattling. Besides, I think having eight Guardians to counter six-and-a-half Hackers will give us an even better advantage."

Cossack thought for a moment then smiled. "Da! Wonderful idea!"

The NetGuardians all cheered for the admittance of their eighth member, Vidal walked up to David to give him a high-five. But Cossack continued, "All I have to do is factor out one eighth from the seven original paychecks to account for the additional salary."

The cheers immediately stopped, and David and Vidal stopped in the middle of their high-five to stare at the Doctor like deer in headlights.

"Oh, too bad" said Moe, breaking the silence. "I don't think this flat is big enough to fit eight people."

"Yeah, especially since I'm one of those people." added the Sumo-like Carlos, stretching his arms outwards to make himself look even larger than usual.

Then Sam joined in. "And don't you think it would be better to balance out the teams rather than have an advantage?"

"How do you figure that?" asked a confused Dr.Cossack.

"Hey, who's the strategy expert here? If I say having fewer members gives us an advantage, I must know what I'm talkling about."

"Well, I cannot argue with that. Sorry Vidal, but you're off the team, and since I don't want my hybrid technology getting spread around, I'm going to have to confiscate Darkman from you."

Vidal was shocked, "But...I already used the hybrid program with my navi and the Darkman ghost to make this Darkman."

Cossack shrugged, "It's too bad the process is irreversible, you probably should have thoughr about that before you were rejected from the team."

Vidal reluctantly handed over his only PET with a deep sigh. Cossack took it and decided what to do with it. "Okay, who wants a second navi to work with?"

Adrienne snatched the PET from his hands. "I do! I already hybrid-ed my navi earlier, but I bet a quadruple-hybrid navi will be really messed up! This'll be great!"

David patted his friend's shoulder. "Sorry man, couldn't be helped. How about I lend you the money for your new navi?"

"Uh, no, that's all right Dave. I can take care of it myself. I'll see you later."

And with that, Vidal left the GoNuts Donuts Shop, never to return.

"Good times, good times." Vidal said with a smile as he returned from his flashback, still standing in front of the counter of GoNuts.

"You were reminiscing?" asked a puzzled Ms.Stake. "So that's why you were standing there staring into space for the last five minutes. Now that you're back, could you move out of the way for the other customers?"

Vidal, startled by the realization, turned around to meet a long and angry line of customers. "Oh, oops."

A few moments later, Vidal was upstairs and found everyone in or around the TV area. They hadn't noticed him yet, so he cleared his throat for his big introduction. "Hey everybody! Remember me?"

The NetGuardians diverted their attention away from whatever they were doing and noticed the tall guy in the black clothes with the sideburns. David was the first to greet him. "Vidal? Man, what a surprise! I thought we'd never see you again!" David leapt off the couch to give his old bud a high-five for old time's sake. "So I take it there are no hard feelings about being rejected from the team and needlessly losing your navi?"

Vidal chuckled. "Nah, you know me. I can't hold a grudge."

"That's right. You always were unusually upbeat for a guy that always wears black. But hey, look who's talking here. Adri's not exactly the poster-girl for depression either."

Vidal turned to Adrienne, who was wearing her trademark long black coat. "Ah, my pre-emtpive replacement. How's Darkman doing? Did the second hybrid mess him up as much as you hoped it would?"

Adrienne grinned mischievously, "He's sometimes a 'she' now, and yes, yes it has."

"Well, that's water under the bridge now. I managed to team up with a new navi. One night I was just working on my computer, wishing I had a way to get a new navi, when all of a sudden, this magic lamp icon appeared on my desktop. Turned out to be a program for a Mistman.exe! My wish came true."

"All's well that ends well." said Sam, secretly relieved Vidal wasn't disgruntled and there to mow them down with a machine gun.

The whole gang retured to the sofas and after a few minutes of catching up, Vidal got a little more serious. "Hey, listen guys, I didn't just come here to chat, I got some info you might be interested in as NetGuardians."

"Oh really?" responded Carlos with fascination. "What kind of information do you have that our own intelligence network doesn't?"

Vidal smirked, "How about the secret lair of the Acid Hackers?"

"No way!" exclaimed Cyros. "You're kidding right? How would you know anything about that?"

"Because it turns out their leader Jeremy is an old friend of mine."

There were gasps all around. Vidal continued, "Don't freak out guys, I use the term "friend" loosely. We went to school together and I personally always though he was a little crazy. Anyway, last time I was here none of us knew who the Acid Hackers were. The Cossacks neglected to mention it. But the other day I ran into Jeremy and discovered his involvement while we were catching up. He had no idea I knew any of you guys, so I was able to get quite a bit of info out of them. They're hiding out in an abandoned warehouse on the other side of town. You guys could go in and arrest them right now."

"Cool" was all Sam could say, thinking about the prospect of finishing their mission so suddenly, but he kept his tactical mind working. "What kind of security they got?"

"They got some. I don't know the specifics, but it's controlled electronically, so if you send your navis in through the net first, you should be able to clear the way with no problems."

David picked his hat and duster off the floor and put them on. "Alright boys, we've got us a big mission today. NetGuardians, Jack In!"

In a fluid motion, the operators thrust the plugs of their PETs into the team computer, tranmitted their navis, then pulled the cords out and grabbed their jackets. They were halfway out the door when Vidal stopped them.

"Uh, don't you guys want the address first?"

David nearly fell flat on his face as he screeched to a halt. He turned to Vidal and grinned with embarrassment. Vidal handed him a sheet of paper. "Jeremy said if I ever needed anything from him I could find him there. Good luck."

"Thanks, I dunno how to repay you. I guess we'll figure that out later. Until then, you can chill out here and help yourself to the BigScreen and the free Donuts."

Jonathan added one more thing as he tied up his bowling shoes. "And if you don't mind, could you keep an eye on that hobo over there? He always breaks into the liquor cabinet whenever we go out."

And with that, the NetGuardians were away. Vidal watched out the window as the seven teenagers ran to the metroline to try and keep up with their navis who were already scouting ahead in the Warehouse District's Internet for traps. Vidal let out another sigh then turned to the Hobo, who was sitting in a pile of boxes, guzzling down a flask in a paper bag. "So I guess it's just you and me now, huh?" Vidal asked the vagrant with a friendly smile.

The old man shot back a menacing look and shooshed him with his smelly finger. "The walls have ears, m'boy! And eyes! And tongues! And fingers! Always feeling me, feeling me right now! Get 'em off! Get 'em off!"

"Alright! Alright! I'll uh...watch what I say then?" Vidal tried to appease the ranting man and it seemed to work as he stopped screaming and went back to drinking. Vidal went back to thinking about the NG and AH. "It's funny though, all these guys that were once my friends are about to be going at it thanks to me. I feel a little bad for some of them."

"Ahh, don't feel bad m'boy. 'Twas fate that brought y'all together naw."

Vidal looked back at the strange old man and smiled. "Yeah, you're right. Heh heh."

* * * * *

About an hour later, the NetGuardians peeked their heads around the corner of an old building in a cluttered and dirty alleyway, the warehouse that the note indicated was within their sight.

Moe whispered to his PET. "Drillman, do you read me? We're just a stone's throw away from the warehouse. How's the security?"

The voice of Drillman responded through the remote link in his PET "It's all taken care of. There was quite a bit of security cameras, trap doors, spring nets, and automatic gun turrets on the way here, but we managed to shut them all down, just had to go through some AH viruses to shut them down."

"Well there's no doubt about it then. They're in there, and they're likely waiting for us."

David nodded. "Let's go then."

The NetGuardians then made a straight run to the warehouse and burst through the door and inside, they found...dust. The warehouse looked like it had been empty for years.

"All those traps couldn't have been protecting nothing." said Sam quietly. "Look for hidden stairs, their real base could be underground."

"Don't bother Detective Jackass!"

The Guardians looked up to find the source of the loud, obnoxious and pathetic joke. The Acid Hackers were indeed there, but they were waiting in the rafters. Jeremy shook his head in disappointment at Jake who announced their presence, then addressed the NG himself. "I take it you got this address from Vidal, eh?"

Carlos spat, "That worm! I knew we couldn't trust him!"

Jeremy laughed, "More like I couldn't trust HIM. I wasn't stupid enough to give him the loaction of our real hideout, so I told him to come to our spare warehouse instead. I actually intended to help him out if he ever came here alone, but looks like he just didn't want to be my friend any more after all. Anyway, all that security your navis went through on the way here was just our way of keeping tabs on who was coming through the area, and as soon as our computer told us it was YOU guys coming though here. Well, naturally we had come greet you ourselves. By the way, your navis should be having a similar experience right now."

Jonathan snickered. "You should have put a bomb in the warehouse if you wanted to trap us. We came here to take you guys out, and now that you're here that's exactly what we're going to do."

Matt cackled as he and the other Acid Hackers revealed their handguns. "You'll have to get us down there first. And it'll be hard to do that when you're full of holes!"

The Hackers opened fire on the seemingly helpless Guardians. Fortunately for them it was dark, and the AH doidn't have very good aim to begin with.

"You don't think we weren't prepared for your underhanded tricks?" David yelled back as he and the other Guardians ducked for cover behind the warehouse pillars. He then pulled out his trusty shotgun and started taking choice shots up at the rafters where his enemies were hiding.

The other NetGuardians had other tricks up their sleeves. Sam literally had a collection of Chess Pieces stored in his sleeves for impromptu games on his headband. Now he could use them to throw at the sniping Hackers with startling speed and accuracy. One rook smacked Stuart's hand, causing him to drop his gun. Cyros too was training with toys akin to his navi's theme, and had a set of small circular saw blades to throw as shurikens in just such situations, and one metal blade happened to slice off the barrel of Johnny's pistol. Carlos stayed out in the open, skillfully deflecting bulltets with his Shin-Himitsuken blade and in a heated moment actually threw the blade itself upwards, it sliced through Jeremy's gun and stuck into the ceiling.

Jeremy growled with rage. "Oh, don't think it'll be that easy. You guys wanna fight? You'll get a fight."

Meanwhile online, the battle of the navis was well under-way. The AH navis were fighting slightly fiercer since the AH PETs were all plugged in despite nobody operating them. They knew they would automatically transfer back if deleted, but the NG navis had to be more defensive.

"I don't think we stand much of a chance this time!" shouted Metalman as he desparately tried to dodge Beastman's limbs during his Wild Rush attack.

"Well no retreating just yet!" ordered Serenade, in the middle of grappling with Punk. "It's up to the ops!"

The ops weren't faring much better, Johnny got out a toy inspired by his own navi, a flame thrower. Matt made things worse by dropping a smoke bomb on the ground below. Between the fire raining down on them, and the smoke making it hard to breathe, the NetGuardians were ready to retreat.

"Go ahead and try to run! We took the liberty of programming the door to lock you in!" taunted Jeremy.

Carlos and Jonathan were unimpressed by the trap and merely rammed the door down together. The Guardians piled out as the whole warehouse began burning down.

"Aw nuts. So close." pouted a disappointed Johnny. "Guess we better get out of here before the Fire Department shos up. Guess we gotta get a new 'trapped fake base' too."

Jeremy shook his fist at the retreating NG party as he opened up the door on the warehouse roof. "We'll get 'em someday. I swear it!"

* * * * *

The sun was just going down. The NetGuardians returned to the Donut Shop ached, tired, and depressed from their defeat. They logged out their navis on the way there and nobody was seriously hurt or deleted, although their pride had seen better days.

"Just where did they get all those weapons and security systems from anyway?" asked a weary Moe.

"Probably stole them somehow. We just shouldn't have underestimated them I guess." answered Sam. "Maybe next time we know where they are we should just bring a whole squad of police and officials along."

"No way. The Acid Hackers are our responsibility." responded David. "Besides the law doesn't care about the AH yet since they haven't done anything significantly evil that can be proven. Plus I won't have anybody taking those assholes down besides us. We deserve the pleasure, especially after what happened today."

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm calling it a night a little early. I got some burns to heal." yawned Adrienne. The others were more or less in agreement.

When they got upstaiers, they found Vidal sitting in front of the TV with some Popcorn, watching a sitcom, and the Hobo, in the same place as usual, snoring. Vidal turned around and noticed the faces of the NetGuardians. "Should I even ask how it went?"

David shook his head. "Sorry, but Jeremy gave you the wrong place, just in case you told somebody else. Thanks for the thought though."

Vidal sighed yet again. "I feel like such a tool. I just wanted to help out, now look what happened. At least it looks like everyone's in one piece."

David chuckled, "Don't feel bad, we don't blame you. The AH are the ones that make our lives miserable."

"Well, I guess I still owe you for letting me chill here. I gotta get going, but I'll see you guys around." Vidal handed David his popcorn and waved to everyone as he left. "Drop by any time buddy." David said just as he was going out the door. "Well guys, I'm hittin' the hay."

"You're going to sleep in my room?" Moe asked, puzzled.

"It's a figure of speech, Moe. And I thought I told you to get that hay out of here. The smell from all the trash is bad enough without your allergy-inducing excuse for a bed."

Everyone else dragged themselves to their own rooms and collapsed on their own beds. The flat grew dark and quiet, and night had begun.

...

Adrienne did not know how long she was asleep when she unexpectedly woke up to an unfamiliar smell. In her groggy state she contemplated the benefits of a hygeine living environment, and would gladly take active interest in keeping the place free of those smells if not for the definite possibility of all the guys teasing her about being the cleanliness-obsessed housemaid of the group. At that point she became aware of a dark whisper that seemed to be coming from nowhere.

"Adrienne...you cannot trust them Adrienne..."

She responded in a slighly nervous whisper. "Darkman? Is that you?"

"No" the voice answered cryptically.

"Satan? I told you never to contact me here."

"Huh? Uh...no..."

"Oh wait, I recognize that deep, coarse voice. Grandma! What's death like?"

"No. Now listen to me. They're all against you...they all must die."

Adrienne suddenly felt less aware of what was going on as the unfamiliar smell grew stronger. She was very tired and needed her sleep. And yet she slowly got out of her bed, took hold of her battle-axe, and walked trance-like out into the box-maze that was the flat.

Carlos too awoke to an unfamiliar smell. In his groggy state he contemplated the benefits of a hygeine living environment, and would gladly take active interest in keeping the place free of those smells if not for the definite possibility of all the guys plus Adrienne teasing him about being the cleanliness-obsessed housemaid of the group. Moments later the strange voice had lulled him into a new state of mind. "They're all against me...they all must die..." an entranced Carlos muttered as he took hold of his Shin-Himitsuken and pushed aside the curtain of his room. As he did this the curtain to the right facing the opposite direction from his belonging to Sam was opened, and the dark figure of Sam walked out with his head hung low. Carlos and Sam looked at each other with hatred and confusion in their eyes. Further to Carlos' right and to Sam's left, Adrienne was stalking toward the both of them with her Axe above her head.

"Cyrosss...Cyrosss...the Butcher Knife Cyrosss..." the mysterious voice whispered to Cyros, who was just sniffing his finger searching for the source of the new smell.

"I don't have a knife. Do you mean these saw blades I got at the hardware store the other day?"

"Yeah sure...whatever."

Cyros too fell under the spell and stumbled out of his room into the TV area, where Jon slept on the couch. Except Jon wasn't exactly sleeping, he was holding his Bowling Ball Bag and staring ominously at Cyros.

"Moe, you must kill them all...Crush their organs...Rip off their skin...Rip Off...Rip Off...Rip Off..."

Moe tried to ignore the eerie whisper and the intoxicating scent that was making him lose contol of his body. "Something...not right...Drillman, help me..." Drillman managed to push a single button on his recharging PET before he lost his will and exited into the box maze. Not far he found Adrienne and Carlos with their blades locked, with Sam weakly punching and kicking at Carlos to little effect. From behind him came David, weilding his lasso rope. Before Moe noticed, David had the rope around Moe's neck and was choking him to death.

"I'm on to you traitor...it was you that led us into that trap." the deranged David whispered to Moe.

Moe elbowed David in the stomach, allowing him to break free. "No...it was you that did the leading...leader. You and your friend Vidal had it planned from the start." Moe clenched his fists and prepared to fight.

A Saw Blade flew centimetres past Jonothan and embedded itself into the wall behind him. Jonothan didn't even flinch as he wound up and threw his bowling ball directly at Cyros. It missed but crashed into the wall of boxes forming Cyros' room, causing the whole structure to collapse.

"I always knew you couldn't be trusted, you lech..." Cyros murmured as he prepared to throw another blade. His vision was almost useless in his state so it missed yet again and buried itself into the couch.

"Look who's talking. You're the one that can never keep his pants on." Jonothan slurred as he staggered forward.

No one was lucid enough to fight effectively, but every swing of their weapons was a potential fatal hazard. A swipe from Carlos' sword at one point drew blood from Adrienne's arm. Adrienne's axe meanwhile would have hacked off Sam's arm if he hadn't instinctively dodged and only gotten a tear in his shirt instead. Piles of old donut boxes collapsed everywhere as the Net Guardians continued to try and kill each other while a dark and sinister whisper laughed at the work it created.

Suddenly, the quiet shuffling of the semi-conscious battles was drowned out by a loud, piercing, rapid beeping of the Alarm Clock tone in Drillman's PET with the volume turned to maximum. Drillman was brought out of recharge mode by Moe at the last moment and after failing to find out why, began to think something was wrong. "C'mon Moe, what's going on? Get over here already!"

Strangely enough, the alarm had no effect on the entranced humans, but other recharging navis could be awaken from their own sleep modes by such loud noises. The only rooms close enough to Moe's were David's and Adrienne's, so Darkman and Serenade were the next navis to wake up. Realizing something was probably wrong, they activated their own alarms, which in turn woke up Yamatoman and Kingman. Since Sam's room was in the middle of the flat, his own alarm was detectable by Meatlman and Bowlman. And it just so happened Jon was sleeping fully dressed and had his PET attached to his belt.

"What the hell? Jon! Cyros! What are you guys doing? Hey! Wake up!" Bowlman was unable to get any response out of the humans that seemed to be fighting to the death by yelling, so he tried the more physical approach. "Man, this is gonna hurt tomorrow." Bowlman then accessed his PET's power controls and initiated an electrical surge. His own system exploded with energy that brought him incredible agony, but the shock was felt by Jonothan as well, and the electrical zap was just what was needed to snap him out of his trance.

"Huh? Where am I? Yipes!" Jonothan ducked to avoid a saw blade from Cyros. He ran accross the room to where he knew the light switch was and groped the wll blindly until he found it. With the TV area now illuminated, he could see the zombie-like Cyros, all out of sawblades to throw, but still looking at him rather menacingly. But it wasn't Cyros that Jonothan was worried about most.

It was the puplish haze that had filled the room.

Jon then noticed the smell. It was sweet and rich, and it made him sleepy again. As his eyelids started to close, he could hear the familiar whisper. "Kill him...eliminate the traitor...he tried to kill you..."

Jonothan became horrified and fought to stay awake. "Something's controlling him...us! This mist, I gotta get rid of it!"

The light switch Jon just flipped was just to the left of Cyros' room, which he just noticed had collapsed and had a bowling ball sitting on top of the wreckage. Getting an idea, Jon quickly picked up the ball and hurled it in the other direction, right at the western window of the flat. The glass shattered and the purple smoke began to pile through the hole into the night. Jon then grabbed Cyros and began smacking his face continuously.

"Damnit man! Get a hold of yourself!"

Cyros just repeated the word "Ow" in a listless monotone, until about the tenth slap when he suddenly shouted it in his normal voice and volume. "OW! What are you doing that for? Hey, what happened?"

"Good to see you're awake, now just keep your eyes open and for crying out loud don't listen to the evil whisper telling you to kill me."

"Uh...okay?"

The two then heard some more boxes crashing from the eastern side of the flat. "Uh oh, looks like we're not the only ones. Come on!"

Jon and Cyros ran through the box maze, or at least what was left of it until they found the other five Net Guardians locked in mortal combat. Jon quickly got between Adrienne and Carlos and grabbed the handles of their weapons then delievered some decicive orders to Cyros. "Quick, open the window next to the bathroom and turn on the lights!" As Cyros went to ventilate the room, Jonothan pried the weapons out of his friend's hands and slapped some sense into Adrienne and Carlos. After explaining the situation to them, Jonothan went on to slap some sense into Moe, Adrienne slapped some sense into Sam, and Carlos slapped some sense into David.

"Ow! What's going on? Ow! Wha!? Ow! Hey! Ow! Quitit! Ow! Carlos! OW!"

"Carlos?" murmured Moe. "David's awake, you can stop smacking him".

"Can never be too careful." Carlos replied as he continued to smack sense into David. And so the other NetGuardians pried them apart. When the lights came on, they could all clearly see the mess they made as well as the purple cloud that was flowing to the east where Cyros just came in to re-join the group.

Adrienne took one look at Cyros and groaned. "Damnit Cyros, not again."

"What?" He then looked down and noticed for the first time since Jon snapped him out of it that he was completely nude. "Give me a break! It wasn't my fault this time!"

The rest of the members were not much more decent in their pajamas or underwear, so after a moment of returning to their rooms to slip into something less comfortable and retrieve their PETs, the team re-convened in the TV area.

Noticing the gas was still influencing them somewhat, they fought to stay alert and figure out what was going on. They all shared what they remembered, which wasn't much. Jon noticed Bowlman was fairly out of commission due to the power surge and would have to repair his PET. The others tried to determine where the gas was coming from.

Sam did some modifications to his PET then began searching around the pile of boxes that used to be Cyros' room. "According to the barometer in my PET, the highest concentration of the gas is right...here!" At that point he pulled out a milk carton sized electronic device with more purple smoke pouring out of a nozzle on the top. Sam plugged the nozzle with his thumb and examined the device. "This thing has a jacking port and...a speaker."

"That voice I heard." Adrienne concluded heavily.

"There must be several of these things hidden around the place." Sam continued. "But who could have planted them all?"

"I have no idea. " Moe replied sarcastically. "It's not like we left any untrustworthy characters alone up here for several hours recently or anything."

David was shocked. "Vidal? No way, he would never do anything like this. There must be another explanation."

"Wake up and smell the hallucigen, fool!" Carlos said as he got ready to smack more sense into David.

"Ha Ha Haa..." The sound of the dark whisper sent chills down everyone's spine. It was coming in loud and clear through the speaker on the device in Sam's hand. "So you want to know the voice of your innermost evil desires? Then jack in and confront me. You should hurry. This miasma only alters your perceptions at a low dosage, but in higher concentration, it is quite lethal." As if on cue, the device in Sam's hand started shooting out gas much faster and thicker, too fast for Sam to hold it back with his thumb. A hissing noise accompanied this, and the NetGuardians could hear more hissing coming from all around them.

"Well, we shouldn't have much trouble finding the rest of these things." said David as he cupped his hat over his mouth. He then gave orders to his team with a more muffled voice. "Everybody find a device and jack into it. We'll stop whoever's responsible!"

Since he couldn't jack in, Jon took the liberty of rounding up any extra devices and tossing them out the window. Kingman was the first into the network followed by his five team-mates once they found their own ports.

The Network connecting all the devices was filled with thick purple smoke, much like in the real world only to a higher degree. None of the navis could see more than a panel ahead of them.

"I am glad you made it this far." The dark whisper announced within the network. "It would have been most disappointing if all your operators merely killed each other before I could fight you all personally."

Metalman strained to see through the mist until he could see the silhouette of a large figure. The voice seemed to be coming from that figure. Without hesitation, Metalman thrusted himself at it and crushed it with his Metal Fist. The figure crumbled and scattered accross the ground. "Wow, that was easy." said Metal.

"Metalman? Why the hell did you destroy my Knight?" said an irritated Kingman, standing just a couple panels away.

"Oh, sorry King. I thought it was the owner of the voice. Oh wait! He's over there! Metal Missiles!" Metalman launched several missiles in the direction of another silhouette. All of which Drillman had to dodge as he flew through in Drill Mode.

"Damn the Metalman." Drillman thought. "His aim's a little off. I have the guy right in my sights. Let's hope his visibility is as bad as ours is."

Yamatoman recevied three CurseShields from Carlos that turned into an Everlasting Curse PA. He prepared to raise it because he could see the villain's form charging directly at him. "Come and get me. You are in for an unfortunate surprise." he thought.

Then Drillman drilled right through the shield and bowled Yamatoman over. Noticing it was the wrong guy, Drillman transformed back to help Yamato up. "Sorry man, the silhouette I saw looked nothing like you. It was huge and had these big arms. Didn't look like anybody on our team."

"Strange. The figure that appeared to be charging at me looked the same."

"Ha Ha Haa...You see enemies everywhere, do you? It seems you navis cannot trust each other any more than your operators."

"Who are you trying fool? It's you making us turn against each other!" shouted Drillman as he looked around for the source of the voice.

"Ah, but the mist only shows you the truth of your hearts. You won't admit it, but none of you truly trusts one another."

Serenade launched himself into the air and charged up for a Holy Shocker. "How can you call this the truth when it's nothing but blind obscurity? This poison mist can only cover the truth, not reveal it!"

"And would you be willing to fire your strongest attack blindly into the mist where it could easily strike your allies to prove that?"

Serenade clenched his teeth and cancelled his charge, and at that moment struck from behind by a strong attack. Serenade spun around to see the attack came in the form of a fist, and connected to that fist was a large, muscle-bound black and purple torso. As quickly as he could Serenade launched a blast of Holy Light at the torso, but at the last instant the unfamiliar figure was replaced by a familiar one, Darkman's. "Aw crap!"

"Ow! Watch it!"

"Sorry, I know the navi I shot at wasn't you, where did he go?"

"Ha Ha Haa...Are you sure that was me? How do you know it wasn't Darkman that attacked you?"

"Come out and show yourself! We're not in the mood for your mind games!" yelled Serenade.

In the real world, the operators were having trouble breathing. They would gladly just throw all the devices they could find out the window, but then they would just be poisoning the city streets. They had to stop the flow of gas somehow. Moe readied a chip for download. "All you have to do his get rid of the smoke screen. This chip should do the trick. NorthWind, download!"

Drillman summoned the Northwind chip, which swept through the network and while it didn't completely remove the thick layer of smoke, it at least improved his visibility by a panel.

"That's the trick!" said Cyros as he downloaded a Vaccuum Fan chip to suck up some more mist. Then Adrienne had Darkman clear up some more with a powered up NoiseStorm attack. Serenade used an AirSword to sweep away another chunk. After a few more wind chips the mist was thin enough that the NetGuardians could all see each other's silhouettes.

"Stay close guys! We don't want that prick directing our attacks at each other again." suggested Kingman. The other five navis complied and gathered in one spot. They looked in all directions but couldn't see any other shadows.

"Impossible! There must be another navi in here, I refuse to believe we've only been fighting each other this whole time." said Drillman.

"What? You can't see me? Don't be ridiculous. How can you not see what is all around you? Mwah hah hah hah hah haahh!"

Before they knew it, the mist surrounding them formed into six identical navis, all large, dark, legless bodies with turbans on their heads. The navis began to deliver powerful blows to the NetGuardians, and try as the may to fight back, all their attacks went right through the mysterious figures.

Just then, Serenade recognized the navi he was fighting. "Rank#2! This is the navi that challenged me all those years ago!"

Jon heard this and was puzzled. "I thought Bowlman was Rank#2 of the Undernet."

"Uh...yeah..." said Serenade with a bit of embarrassment. "There was a bit of a clerical error and there ended up being two Rank#2s at the same time. They couldn't defeat one another, so I let them share it. I think Bowlman had Tuesdays and Thursdays and weekends this guy had Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays."

"Fascinating." muttered Yamatoman sarcastically. "Any other useful info you have on this guy?"

"Yep. His body is nothing but mist so it can't be damaged, but he needs a container to hold the mist and THAT can be damaged!"

"Clever, you know my weakness, but you will have to get through me to find my lamp."

"No problem." said Drillman as he transformed into Drillmode and wormholed his way through the wall of mist navis. He flew into the thickest cloud of mist he could find and soon the lamp was visible. He was about to drill right through it when the mist around him converged into another navi that held him in place. Drillman called out for some help, and Moe helped out with a Tornado chip. Drillman strained to point the fan-arm at the lamp. The mist navi tried to hold him back, but it could not stop the wind. Drillman activated the Tornado which focused the cyclone right on the lamp. All the mist navis disintegrated as the mist itself was twisted around the lamp by the firce winds. Within moments all the smoke was focused in the middle of the platform, above the lamp. The NetGuardians gathered a few panels away from it in the now bright and clear cyberworld and prepared to attack it.

"So pal, still think you know the truth?" Metalman mocked. "'cause I have some true pain I'd like to reveal to you any time you're ready."

The smoke hovering above the lamp grew and morphed into the figure of the navi that attacked them. It had its arms crossed in a pretensious fashion. "Hmm, you all fought better than we expected. And I suppose now that I don't have the advantage of obscurity, it would be a bad idea to continue fighting one against six."

Serenade thought for a moment, then remembered the navi's name. "You're Mistman, right? What do you want with us?"

The others had never seen the navi known as "Mistman" before. They heard rumours and heard the name from Vidal, but this was the first time they saw what he looked like. And yet they were not surprised. They knew Vidal was behind it ever since they heard the word "mist" and yet they were still reluctant to accept it. But at that moment Vidal appeared in a comm window and made the acceptance significantly easier. He had a much more sinister look on his face than he did before.

"I'll tell you what I want. I want nothing more than the annihilation of the NetGuardians and AcidHackers. I have to admit I didn't expect this particular plan to do the job, but I was hoping at least one of you would get killed tonight so you'd all know who the real threat was. I guess I'll have to settle for getting Bowlman to nearly delete himself."

Mistman chuckled, "Yes, I rather enjoyed that myself. Although I still look forward to his recovery so I can finally defeat him myself."

David shook his head in disbelief, "Vidal...buddy...why? I thought there were no hard feelings."

Vidal's face became furious. "Don't you ever call me 'buddy' again. Of course there are 'hard feelings'. You bastards ruined my dreams and ruined my navi, and now I won't rest until I ruin all of you! Mistman! Jack Out!"

"Until next time...Ha Ha Haa..." And with that both Mistman and Vidal's comm window disappeared. The smoke devices all stopped working and the NetGuardians logged out.

After a moment of silence, Jon put his shoes on and went downstairs to collect the tossed devices and his bowling ball. Cyros started to put his room back together, and Carlos went over to the hobo and shook him awake.

"Didn't you notice that guy planting those smoke devices all over the place?"

The hobo answered back groggily, "Thad guy? Yeh, he done spent the whole day fiddlin' around with dose lil' box-a-ma-doo-hickeys."

"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING?!" Carlos shouted in the hobo's face, infuriated.

"You didn' ask me nuttin' about it 'til naw."

Carlos dropped the hobo in his heap of boxes and lumbered back to his room. He was too tired for any of this crap. The others who were still feeling up to it stayed and cleaned up a bit.

"Can't help but feel partially responsible for what happened tonight. I guess we should feel sorry for Vidal." sighed Adrienne.

David chuckled weakly, "Don't feel bad, we can't blame ourselves. The AH are the ones that make our lives miserable. And apparently they're not the only ones now. We just gotta concentrate on stopping them, no matter what their reasons are."

The End

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