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Introduction

Hello. I suppose you've come here from some lookup link, or something similar. Just a click right? Well, I'd beg to differ. Your pet was the one doing all of the work, going from the informational display to my neohome, which is where you are now. If you don't believe me, I suggest you take a look at my stories. Perhaps that would provide some clarification.

About Me

What a wonderful topic. Anyway, I'm a white zafara. But what's different is my arm. Or, if you're a stickler for details, the lack thereof. I've got a cybernetic limb in its place, courtesy of Neesboy's programming doohickeys. In case you haven't surmised already, to a virtual entity such as myself, programming is quite real, as well as the threat of hackers, viruses, and data corruption. But that's just being pessimistic, and being pessimistic is something I do quite a bit. If you're wondering who my owner is, I don't have one. Pets on frozen accounts don't just vanish into nothingness, you know. But neesboy helps me out when I'm in a tough spot. Though I generally prefer it if he helps from a distance, as he doesn't handle emergencies all that well, as a few of my scorch marks will attest.

Byte

Byte is about as close as I have to a petpet. He follows me around wherever I go, makes a nuisance of himself, and needs constant supervision. What other qualifications are there? Sure, he can talk, he's made of metal, has gone a record of five minutes and thirty-seven seconds without making a sarcastic comment. But we all have our idiosyncrasies, right?

Likes Tune ups and upgrades for my arm Peace and quiet (whatever that is) Winning an argument with Byte	Dislikes Hackers (they tend to have something against me) Mondays (especially when the land on the thirteenth) Big explosions (I'm usually too close to them) Viruses (icky things, they're worse than hackers) My first boss (need I say more?) Fans (bleh) People saying that I have way more dislikes than likes

Hack

It was a cold, bright day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Or something of the sort. I always wanted to start something off that way, even though it's not April, just cool, overcast, and two in the afternoon. But 1984's a little hard to get out of your head. There I go again, wandering off into mental corners. Just because the police officer chasing me is slow, in more sense than one, and hasn't got the best track record catching me doesn't mean it's any time to start getting lazy.

"You're under arrest for the access of an off-site read only file!" blared an overgrown eyrie wearing his tried and true I'm-big-and-have-an-ego-to-match -disallowed_word-their? I never know which to call it) attention.

"Stopped in for a while, did you? You're in luck, though. I've been working on a couple odd projects," he said cheerfully. "I'm guessing you've got a case, since you're in early."

"Hardly what I'd call a case," I sighed. "The Powers that Be want me to check out some village by the Haunted Woods. The whole things over a couple little rumors. So what've you got? Small words, mind you. Just the basics, like what buttons not to press, and so on."

Neesboy chuckled. "Well, I'm still working on the first thing at the moment. It should be ready for at least a trial run, but it's only on the rough coding at the moment." He whistled, and a small object glided up. It looked for all Neopia like a rear-view mirror with thin mechanical arms on the bottom. Neesboy must have seen me flinch as it appeared because he said, "Don't worry, it's nothing viral. This is what'll be Byte. For now he's mostly just a variety of sensors and a storage device. He can also transmit information to and from your arm. Hopefully, he'll be fully autonomous in another couple weeks."

"Thanks," I replied as I examined the little machine. "Just promise me he's not going to do anything unexpected." For all their uses, sometimes Neesboy's untested programs are a tad... unstable. I mean that in the chemical sense, not the mental one. Thus far I've managed to avoid anything more serious than scorch marks.

"Don't worry. Checked him myself. Just don't go sticking him in water or anything of that sort. I'm mainly sending him with you now so he can carry the other thing I made. It's a little large to store on your arm. It's a holographic doppelganger."

"Small words, remember?"

"It's a double image. A copy of yourself, if you will. It mimics anything you do. I thought it might make for a good distraction if anything serious should come up."

"Provided, of course, that they decide to shoot at it rather than me. But I certainly don't mind any spare targets I can get."

"Hey there. Having much fun without me?" I glanced back to see Krin strolling towards us, parting the crowd like a maractite war hammer parts water. It was then that I noticed his avatar.

"How many times have I told you to use the standard police issue avvie when on duty? GET RID OF THE USUKI!" It's absurd. In our line of work, there some things you just don't do, as a matter of dignity, pride, and... well, sanity. "Can we get Sclaz as a guide? The Haunted Woods ain't exactly my neck of the woods." Yeah, that was redundant. "This is probably routine and all, but things out there can go bad faster than you shout 'What on Neopia is that giant monster doing with its claws around your neck?' Or something like that."

Neesboy shook his head. " No can do. Sclaz headed out a bit ago. Lot of talk about the whole matter, but its finally come close to blowing over. But if you need somebody to help out, I'd go with Faustus. He's familiar with the area."

A shadow Shoyru fluttered over, dropping down to the ground. The telltale glaze in his eyes gave his "occupancy" away. "Yeah, been trying to track down the Pant Devil. He's been avoiding me like Adam avoids flaming asparagus." It was an interesting thought: the internal conflict of Adam weighing the respective pros and cons of asparagus and second degree burns. "Figured that'd be the best place to start, so I've gotten to know a fair swath of the Woods. Anything else I need to know? Like what exactly that floating thing is?"

"All weird floating objects on this trip are courtesy of Neesboy," I answered. "I'll spare you the details, since I'm none too clear on them myself. Now, if we're done examining his recent additions to virtual reality, might we be on our way?"

And off we went. Tally ho, and all that jazz. Which is to say far too long stuck on a slow high-traffic link to the Haunted Woods. Could've been worse; weekend traffic is a killer. And updates... well, there's nothing to do put pull out a copy of the Neopian Times and sit the thing through.

I jabbed Krin sharply in the ribs to wake him up upon our arrival. Thankfully, his dignity extended so far as to prevent a squawk. Faustus fluttered along behind as we stepped out. "You get us on the wrong link?" Krin asked. Honestly, questioning my capability to get on the right... "'Cause if this is the Haunted Woods, they're gonna have to rename the place."

Oh. That'd be it. No trees. There was a huge swath clear cut with not a bit of foliage standing. In the former forestation's place stood dozens of perfectly identical neohomes. "What the hexadecimal is going on?" I asked. Of course, the answer wasn't too hard. You had to be careful about building in the Haunted Woods. You couldn't just go in cutting trees down to build new houses. The trees might start cutting down houses to plant new trees. On top of that, the only way somebody could destroy all the trees for kiladecimals around without them doing something about the matter would be hacking. Toss in the houses that looked like Destruct-O-Match blocks, and there wasn't any question. "There's only one kind of person who could clear all those trees and build those houses so fast."

Krin cocked his head. "A lumberjack with a case of Achyfii?" It's amazing how he makes even me feel smart.

"No, they couldn't set up the houses. It had to be a hack after some more money." He shuddered, raising his crest feathers. Hackers could, in theory, just make money or items. But that got them the immediate, direct, and final attention of TNT. Roundabout tricks like decidedly sub-prime real estate got coppers like me.

"So why the big commotion?" Faustus asked. "It's just some hacker after some neopoints. The Neopets Team'll take care of it."

A random event notice appeared as his Shoyru spoke up, eyes regaining focus for a second. "Just a hacker? JUST a hacker? Imagine if people in your world could rip the fabric of the universe, alter the fundamental laws of nature, and only wanted to do it to cause trouble and turn a profit. They're not JUST hackers."

"Look," I interjected. "I don't care what you think about them. Just warn everybody to get out of here, and fast." I scanned the area. The majority of the pets were shadow or Halloween, with a few mutants and other such darker colors scattered throughout. Nobody else would live so close to the woods. There was a yellow Meerca, but most Meercas are a bit crazy anyways, so that didn't tell me much. There was a small, simple park with a young Darigan Skeith and a mutant Usul playing on the teeter totter. There... Teeter totter? I'm no whiz at physics, but I do know the basic principal of a catapult. You stick a Skeith on one end and an Usul on the other. The Usul learns to fly without bothering with the faeries. So either that Usul had been laying on the acorns, or the Skeith wasn't really a Skeith.

"This is Officer Cal of the NCPD Neopian Central Police Department! All civilians are to aid in the capture of a potentially dangerous hacker!" I started running towards the Skeith. The call for aid naturally cleared everybody out quickly. The hacker dropped his guise. Without it, his form was a vague and indistinct splotch of black rippling at the edges. He whistled, and I turned in time to see the yellow Meerca come bounding towards us. Typical hacker... leave the pets to do the dirty work.

As the hacker took off, the Meerca took aim. Luckily so did Krin. He'd managed to get his freeze gun out. But as he shot, a tongue of flame licked out from around our assailant and engulfed the beam. "Firewall!" I called to him. "No good shooting. You go after the hacker; you'll be faster."

The Meerca was grinning a madcap grin. Unfortunately, I could see why. He was holding a Wand of Ultranova. Not my day. " Hey, copper! You look shiny. I've got a shiny too. Want to-" He was prevented from finishing his taunting by me taking a running leap at him. He whipped the wand out in front for defense. Perfect.

The Wand of Ultranova, for all its power, is actually pretty shoddy workmanship. They break easily, so they're not the sort of thing you go whacking people upside the head with. That'd be Illusen's staff. Metal shoulder out in front, I smashed into it. The wand shattered with a burst of purple light and the faint smell of a patch of my fur singing.

My opponent snarled, and suddenly his long tail was around my neck. Blasted crazy Meercas! As the corners of my vision began to sparkle, I managed to get a hold of the tail. It was strong, but nothing on a good set of motors. "Like your tail, huh?" I gasped, starting to turn around in place. Never tried shot-put before. I let go after I'd gotten the runt up to speed. It would have been a fine shot if it weren't for the house in the trajectory. It'd be a splitting headache for him when he recovered.

I hurried along the path I'd seen Krin take. In a couple minutes, I caught up with him. He was lying sprawled along the ground, likewise comatose. That was not a good sign. Krin was a lot of things, and easy to knock out was not one of them. It was only when I tried to catch up with the perpetrator that I realized what had happened. I slammed into something that wasn't there. A few seconds of probing revealed it to be a wall, quite solid, and quite invisible. Krin had been flying when he'd made the same mistake I had, and it had been like a bird into a window. Eyries were considerably tougher than your average weewoo, though. He'd be all right. What the hacker cared about was keeping him off his tail. And me now, too, it seemed. I didn't have time to check the wall. It could run for a few dozen pixels, or it could stretch out to the other side of the clearing.

In a sudden burst of quick thinking (the good kind, not the if I make a dash for the door I won't have to answer the math problem variety), I grabbed Byte. I'd forgotten about him, as he trailed behind silently. Neesboy had said there was a hologram me. Finding the controls, I tapped in the instructions and ran back a good distance from the wall. The hacker had to be close by. If he could have escaped, he would have done so rather than coding a wall. That, and the wall would have been such a quick job that he'd have to be maintaining it or it wouldn't hold. The hologram duplicate of myself appeared up ahead. It was custom coding, so it didn't actually need a source. That would be far too much trouble to code. Smiling, I started moving towards the wall. My twin moved ahead, passing through the invisible barrier as if it were nothing. Which, I suppose, they bother were. Before I managed to even reach the wall, objects began flying through the air at the fake. They passed through, of course, but it served its purpose. With the hacker distracted, the ramshackle wall wouldn't have him supporting it. A solid punch, and I was through.

"You!" The hacker wheeled to face me. His voice was surprisingly normal. I'd always sort of thought his sort would have a voice like ice or something. "You'll learn not to mess with Spyro!" Around him, his own firewall flared up. "Any last words?"

"You bet. TNT is already on their way. They'll have seen the corrupt authorization signature by now."

Spyro smiled in a decidedly unfriendly manner. "Not likely. I have a seal around the whole place. No neomail gets out, so you can't have alerted them. And I cover my tracks quite neatly."

I grinned back in an equally amiable fashion. "But not my tracks." I pointed at the hologram. Spryro turned to look at it, and I made a break for it. Naturally, so did the hologram, which was following my actions. Flames leapt after the decoy, just in time for the Neopets staff to see as the materialized. Several constraining tables leapt up around as the TNT programmers incased the hacker in layers of immutable HTML. "Have fun in Iceland," I called, waving jovially. Hey, I'm allowed my fun.

Of course, some interest might arise as to how exactly TNT new to appear. Spyro was right, of course. His tracks were well covered, otherwise he would have been caught before the whole fiasco. The instructions I gave the decoy, though, weren't just to appear ahead of me. They also destroyed the bit of code that identified it as approved content. Without it, the whole thing was blatant, unprotected tampering. That's the sort of thing they don't teach you in neoschool.

One question was all that remained. How to spend the reward money. One of the few questions I enjoy answering.

Viral

~We are. Move. Spread. Copy. Be. Others are too. Not us. Bad. We are.~ The thought emanated from a vast, writhing mass. Crawling over one another were hundreds of alien creatures, viruses. They had a large, round, armored center, like a crab's, but with no visible eyes. They had four huge, tough legs that arched up high above the body and came down to pierce the ground. They were the color of rust. Of corrosion. They were coming. Soon.

BZZZZZZZZZZZ! Uggggh... I hate Mondays. My alarm clock continued to emit a piercing, off-key note. Speaking of notes, note to self: withdraw some money to get that blasted thing repaired. "All right, all right. I'm up"I mumbled incoherently at the offending object. Tapping my mechanical arm, I shut the alarm off with a special radio frequency. I love this thing. I have a multi-purpose robotic appendage that can do quite a few things, and has gotten me out of a pinch or two. Or three. Or four. I could go on for a while, but I have to get up. Stretching my three good limbs, four if you count my spiny tail, I yawned loudly. What a night. One too many cans of achyfi. I swear, that stuff does something to your brain. That has got to be the weirdest dream I have ever had. Well, except for the one about being elected to lead the competitive yodeling team. That was seriously weird.

Several Neomails had piled up in the night. I flipped through them on my arm's display screen. Fan mail, fan mail, junk mail, BD challenge, fan mail, more fan mail, and for the grand finale... be still my heart, more fan mail! Word of my exploits spread a little too fast for comfort. Woe is me. At least I didn't get attacked by fan girls like Praedius. Luckily, I'm not that popular.

Well, off to another happy, cheerful day at work. Sigh... such is the life of your average one-armed, white, pessimistic, overly sarcastic police Zafara. I glanced back down at my arm to check the date, Monday the thirteenth. If that isn't a bad sign, I don't know what is. I don't care how unlucky people say Friday is, but Monday is worse by far. After all, who would wish it was Monday instead of Friday? I took a shower and did my morning exercises. On the way out, I grabbed an omelette from the food storage bin. I heard these are considered a little gourmet in the real world. I wonder what they consider a rainbow doughnut fruit? A basic food staple?

I grabbed my hover board and trudged outside. Well, it could be worse. I could have Snowflake's job. Or be a Virtupets minion. Shooting above the foot traffic below, I waved to a fellow officer, named Raz, heading in to the station. He grinned and stepped on his accelerator. I love it when he does that. Jubjubs look hilarious with their hair in the wind. He was a full block ahead of me, and we both had broad-band boards. However, I also have a few tricks up my sleeve. Or should I say, limb. I just got it upgraded yesterday, spending the last of my reward money. Time to test out the warranty. "Hey, Cal! Your board is almost as slow as you are!" he yelled back.

"Insult my board again, you little fuzzle, and I'll..." That bit-brained ball of lint! He doesn't know about my arm upgrade. He'll never know what hit him. I recently got a variation on the goo blaster. Using the new targeting scope, I shot a thin strand of a thick, greenish, not-quite-liquid. It hit the back of Raz's small craft. Then I slammed on the brakes. "YEE-HAH!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. We stretched apart, then, with a twang, he swung back around me in a wide arc as I flew forward. I released the line of sticky substance and pressed down on the thruster. "Eat my metaphorical dust!" I arrived at the station three minutes before him. The slime had dissolved by then.

"I was afraid I'd never get that stuff off!" he said with a laugh. "You didn't tell me you got your artificial appendage added onto!"

"Well now you know."I gave him my best malevolent grin. "That'll teach you to mess with me!" Of course, while saying this, I wasn't looking were I was going, and promptly walked into a large, metal support column.

"Sure... I'm real convinced now." He said, bouncing over to his work area. What ever happened to the stereotypical cute little ball of fuzz and happiness that most Jubjub owners are blessed with?

"GET IN HERE, YOU MISERABLE, MAL-ALIGNED MECHANICAL MORON!!!" Meet my boss. As you can see, I am graced with an even-tempered benevolent employer who is always looking out for everyone's best interest. And Adam will swear off asparagus because he's on a diet. "YOU'RE NOT IN HERE! AND IF YOU AREN'T..." I hurried in. It's not an especially good thing to keep him waiting, and I probably wouldn't do it even if he weren't the Chief of Police.

The corpulent Skeith loomed up over me, which is no small feat, considering he's shorter than me and was sitting. "I've got work for you. We have some trouble at the boards. Someone or something is messing them up." My boss nearly rips my head off for this? Of course, he'll rip some one's head off for anything he can think of.

"So, report them and they'll get frozen."

"YOU THINK WE HAVEN'T TRIED???" And this is him on a good day. I shook my head. " We tried everything standard, but we can't even find out who's doing it. Any hacker can rip holes in the Neoquest chat board, but can they do it without showing up?"

"I'm on it. I'll get Krin on the way out." Krin was my partner, a somewhat slow Eyrie, the brawn in a partnership of... well, brawn and brawn, I guess. I hurried out of the room, because it also isn't a good idea to stay in the room with my boss any longer than is absolutely necessary to retain your job. I always come in a little late, so I get here after he has his morning coffee.

I tapped Krin's shoulder, and he looked up from the doughnut he was eating. "We're off to the boards, after we stop at The Great Guild Of Neopia (TGGON)." I stopped there every week so I could see if Neesboy had made anything new that I could use, because he worked on writing HTML codes, and often designs useful tools for me. He was working on Byte right now, a small, hovering robot. It had a large face like a rounded rectangle and two thin mechanical arms ending in claws. All in all it looked like a pincetron with a very dull rear view mirror as a head.

We left for the guild on our hover boards, and arrived there in a few minutes. Right now, their help site was under construction, and the workers would only let you in some of the areas, so we had to rely on the message board. I stopped before we went in. "Are you using that avatar?" I asked him. Last time, I forgot to ask.

"What avatar?" he said, trying to look innocent.

"You know very well I mean the Usuki one that you always use. Nevermind, just don't post anything." Sheesh. He's a huge Eyrie, towering a good three inches above most people, has giant talons and a vicious beak, he works for the police squad, he makes even Kass look cute and harmless, and he's an avid Usuki fan. I will never understand him. He grinned sheepishly, which is no small feat for somebody with a beak, and walked in.

The guild bustled with Neopets, mostly chatting, but there were a few just wandering around. I saw Zurg hovering around with a glazed look in his multi-faceted eyes. Whenever pets looked like that, it meant their owner was using them. An owner couldn't make their pet do anything they wouldn't be willing to normally, but otherwise, they had control over the pet. Zurg was a Christmas buzz, Neesboy's pet. He spotted Krin and me, and flew over. "Got yourself another job, have you? By the way, the repairs on Byte are done, and he finally has a personality. I had been working on it when I gave him to you, but it wasn't finished then."

"Dare I ask, what kind of personality?" Neesboy has a sixth sense, and I'm of the strong opinion it's humor. I'm officially scared.

"You're in trouble. I based it on you, and made it more sarcastic." I'm doomed. I'm doomed. I'm doomed. I'm gonna die. I have to live with myself, but I'm going to talk back more. What a way to start the day.

Krin laughed. "Welcome to my world. I know you're good at programming, but how do you make something more sarcastic then Cal?"

Neesboy gave us an evil smile. If you have never seen a buzz giving you a demonic grin, hope you never do. I'm probably going to have nightmares now. "I'm worse." I shuddered.

Hoping to change the subject, I said, "I'm going to the boards. Somebody is messing them up without showing up."

He looked interested. "I was role playing, and I didn't encounter any kind of problem."

"It's supposedly in the Neoquest section. Do you have anything of use? Hopefully something that won't talk back."

"Along with some bad news, yes. You messed up the duplicate of yourself pretty solidly last time, and I still haven't gotten the thing properly sorted out. The good news is I wrote you a shield. The parts slide out of one another, turning from a one foot metal plank to a circular metal shield and sled that is roughly two feet in diameter. It can strap onto your arm like so." He shot off to a corner, bringing back Byte and the new tool, and he put it on across my back. "That's it, I've been busy. The real world beckons." Zurg's bug-like eyes returned to normal. Relatively speaking.

"How have you been doing?" I asked him. It's a bit confusing starting up a new conversation with the same person, but it would be rude to otherwise.

"All right, but I imagine you have to start on the investigation." Oh yeah, that.

I sighed." I suppose you're right."

I looked for my friend, who had wandered off. "He's over by the board, oh eternally observant and ever aware master." I had forgotten about the disrespectful bucket of bolts.

I saw him. Posting. With the Usuki avatar. I'm glad Neesboy left. "We have to go, and what have I told you about that moronic little square?"

"Quite a few things, most of which don't bear repeating." Har har. I think I've had all the humor I can take.

We walked out of the tall building and took our boards to the link tracks, and Byte slipped onto a special slot for him on my arm. We soon reached it, and a link pulled up after a bit. Unlike places from the explore page, common destinations like the boards, the main shops, and a few others have a link coming through on a regular basis. We got on with a few other people who had access to a high-speed connection. The only reason we got to go on this good of a connection was the fact that we worked for the police. We got to the boards with very little trouble. Byte flew out ahead of us as we stepped into the jostling crowd. We forced are way through the crowd, or rather Krin waded through it and I followed in his wake. Byte also identified us as people who you don't mess with. Anyone who could get that kind of thing into the mainstream code had to have enough friends in high places to cause trouble. As if they needed any more evidence. Krin is certainly tall enough to count.

I made Krin change his avatar to the pirate Shoyru one, while I settled on card shark, and we entered the Neoquest subsection. It didn't appear to have anything wrong with it. At first glance. I looked around, and noticed a small hole in the floor. That's about the worst thing you can possibly see. This wasn't your average pothole. No, this would be more accurately described as a rift. The very code of the section had been ripped and mangled, leaving a tiny, yet awful patch of absolute nothing, an inky black blot on reality. I pointed out to my painfully un-observant ally. "We have some kind of chaotic hacker, or the equivalent to one." I whispered. I didn't want whoever did it to decide that I shouldn't be poking around.

Krin nodded. "Let's see if we can find them before they do more damage." We walked around the board, looking for other signs, of which we discovered a few, mostly tiny holes all over the hall. Amazingly, it was Krin who found the next big problem. One of the topics had the description as a small strip of meaningless symbol that would confuse even the most hardened chat speaker. It had no responses, which was a bit odd in and of itself, but not enough so to merit investigation. We quietly opened the door and slipped in. As soon as we did so, we saw where the problems were coming from. A lone virus was crawling around. That probably meant it had recently gotten into the system, because otherwise it would have created copies of itself. It looked every bit as hideous as the ones I had seen in my dream.

"We have to get it before it copies or worse!" I said. This kind of virus randomly re-wrote the code surrounding it, and there could be some very nasty results. There was no time for planning, so I rushed at the abomination with my friend, and Byte dived at its center. I aimed my arm to tie it up.

That was when everything went wrong. I took a step forwards, and fell about five feet onto a grassy plain. I was too startled to break my fall, and so I ended up sprawled on the field. "Ouch..." I managed to groan. "Where am I?"

I sat up, spotting my obnoxious metallic cohort a few feet away. I wish it were more than a few feet. "I don't think we're in Kansas any more, Dorothy." I'm not sure whether I'd rather that it was him or the virus that had gotten pulled along.

"Oh, be quiet Toto. Where's Krin?" I had just realized that there wasn't a very large shadow anywhere near, which is a definite sign that he wasn't either.

"Not here, wherever that may be." The hovering tin can had a point. We were definitely anywhere that I recognized. I looked around, and saw a large, brick building, lots of trees, and a lake with several figures beside it.

But before I could slowly plod any further down this path of thought, a loud, booming voice emanated out of seemingly nowhere. "Out of character: This is humans only! Go to a Neopets role play if you want to use that character." That answered one question, it seemed we were in the role-playing board, the speaker turned out to be Whitelightphoenix. The only problem was there didn't seem to be a way for us to get out.

Most people don't believe that there's anything that goes on in Neopets other than a series of systematic occurrences and a few random events. Thinking fast, though maybe not very well, I decided that I should play along with her and pretend to be a person. "Out of character: There was an accident, and when my character was on-line, he got grafted with a Neopet. Something to do with his synthetic limb." Gee, that sounded intellectual

"Out of character: Whatever. Just as long as you don't spam or anything Well, head down to the lake. I suppose we can fit you in the story." It worked. I recognized the role-play format. This was a school for the gifted. A white furred partial cyborg with a tail and a sarcastic robotic sidekick should fit in just fine.

"Out of character: Just a sec, I have to do something." I sent a Neomail to Neesboy. I really hope he's on. The message said, "I somehow got myself trapped in a school for the gifted RP by a virus. Any idea how I can get out???"

After a short pause, I was relieved to find he had gotten back on. The reply arrived, and I quickly read over it. "A board disappears after five hundred posts. If you can stay on that long without someone demanding you leave or obliterating you, you should be fine. As for the virus, as soon as you get near one, neomail Ch333s. If there's anyone who knows how to fight anything, it's him." Great, all I had to do was avoid getting into a lot of trouble and make sure I didn't get kicked out. Sounds simple. Unfortunately, you could describe life the same way.

I strolled over to the other people gathered around the pond. There was a short, dark haired kid who was talking to, odd as it may seem, the water. I had to get used to the characters having powers. He was also conversing with a man and a cat, both of which were controlled by Whitelightphoenix. Finally, there remained someone in a trench coat lying down on the grass by himself a little further away. I figured I might as well talk to the person who was by himself. I walked over and said, "Hello, I'm Cal." I sounded really stupid, but I didn't want to give a false impression.

The person stirred himself and got up. "Nice to meet you. My name's Yale. Yale Vern. Just call my Y." Interesting name. He sighed. "I don't really see why I'm here. My power only does one thing, allows me to turn into a wyvern. Why do I need to learn more about it?"

"I suppose that you might need to learn how not to change in times of stress. Imagine turning into a huge dragon during a job interview." I had no idea what was going on, but it's always best to go along with whatever's going on, especially if you have no clue what it is. "I'm here in the hopes that I'll learn enough about what happened to me to be able to reverse it." I realized that there was something wrong. I hadn't head any sarcastic comments yet. Byte was over with the other two. I had a very bad feeling about that. "Pardon me, but I want to make sure motor oil breath hasn't got into trouble. Want to come?"

"Why not? I might as well." We walked over at a leisurely pace, but I was still worried. When got there, I saw the small kid arguing with Byte.

As was to be expected, Byte seemed to be winning. "Is that so, oh elevationly challenged one?" he shot out at the other combatant. The lake grew a little rough as I saw the kid try to control his annoyance. I had to do something; otherwise I'd be in trouble with someone who controlled water. Not a good prospect even if you aren't part circuit.

I figured the best way would be to shift the argument to one that would seem to be against my own character. "Oh, shut down, you don't even have legs. You are less than a tenth as tall as he is!" For the first time, he was without words. Just because he was more sarcastic then me didn't make him any better at coming up with a good comeback. The lake calmed, and I turned back to his verbal opponent. "I apologize for anything this obnoxious flying waste bin said. I'm Cal."

He smiled and replied with a slight accent, "I'm Xavier. Is he yours?"

I laughed. "In deed only. I couldn't make Byte do anything even if he wanted to." I'm glad that disaster was averted. I glanced over at Y. "Have you two met yet?"

Y shook his head. "I'm Yale Vern, but everyone just calls me Y. Nice to meet you." They shook hands, and I stood awkwardly watching. It was strange to think that they weren't real, just the figment of a person's imagination, created solely for entertainment. And they thought I was this same, lifelike parody of reality. It gave me the creeps just thinking about it, so I did what I do best, and stopped thinking. Well, not really, but you get the idea.

Luckily for me, they seemed to not have any teachers, so there wouldn't be any classes to survive. This is bad enough without having somebody actually trying to help me. That's the last thing I needed. I shook myself from my reverie, just in time to notice the guy controlled by Whitelightphoenix step into the lake. Correction, onto the lake. "Would someone kindly bother to explain who the heck that is, and what he's doing?" Okay, so I'm not the most eloquent, but hey, it gets the message across.

The cat turned to me smiling. I was seriously reminded of Alice in Wonderland. "I'm Kitt, that's Moor, and he's walking on water." I braced myself.

Right on mental cue, Byte piped up, "No! You really think so?" I winced. It's not good when you can start predicting what he's going to say. On the other hand, I don't really care what he says. It's the reaction I'm mostly worried about.

Kitt bristled slightly, then feigned disconcert and started to lick herself. She asked me, "Does the mechanical mongrel have artificial intelligence? Because if you ask me, it's a bit too artificial." Neesboy should shred that thing for scrap metal, and unless it starts helping out, I'll do it for him.

I laughed, "He's about as bright as I feel after a history test." I didn't know what it meant, but I heard someone say it last week, so I hoped it would pass by.

Xavier chipped in, "I feel sorry for your history grade."

We all laughed at the short kid's comment, and I shot Byte a look that said, "If you don't keep your metallic mouth shut, the Meridell dump is going to have some nice, new, shiny scrap metal." I turned my attention back to Moor, who had turned around, and was coming back towards us with a look of concentration on his face. There wasn't so much as a ripple as he slid across the placid lake. As he reached the shallows, he dropped down and waded the rest of the way. As soon as he left the water, Kitt ran over and circled him.

"You're the best, Moor!" she said gleefully. Somebody has a devoted, and overly caffeinated, fan.

"Now, now Kitt. What I can do is no measure of who I am, and if something is mine, but not who I am, it does not matter." Help, I'm being attacked with philosophy! Give me a math problem, and I'll work on it for about ten minutes before realizing I'm not smart enough to work it out. Give me a philosophical question, and I'll work on it for ten minutes before realizing it's a philosophical question.

Y leaned over and whispered, "This guy is more abstract than a Picasso." Uh-huh. No matter how many human sayings you learn, there's always more, just waiting to trip you up. I just pretended that I hadn't heard him.

"Hello, I'm Cal." Repeat on the stupid thing. I never know how to start off a conversation with somebody on a normal day, and it's no easier when the victim is somebody who can walk on water, has a one-cat enthusiast society, and is the figment of somebody's imagination.

"As Kitt has probably already mentioned, I'm Moor." That wasn't so bad. I might get through this all right. All things considered, it was pretty easy, all you had to do was act normal.

Rule number one in police training: Never think something's easy, something's bound to happen. A booming voice, this one belonging to 13doom_is_fun13, said, "Out of character: Join?" Gee, with a name like that, how can I refuse? Of course, I can't anyways, so what difference does it make?

Predictably, Whitelightphoenix replied, "Out of character: Of course." Maybe they wouldn't be anything like what their name implied. Maybe they'd have to leave. Maybe... drat. A person dressed completely in black, wearing metal spikes and an "I'm with evil" tee shirt appeared over a few yards away. He was in the process of burning up a tuft of grass with a lighter.

"Remember, steel does turn into a liquid at very high temperatures. You tick him off, I'll aim for a gas, but liquid might have to do." I said to Byte. No use starting a fight, he looked really mean. My opinion was not helped when he grinned and dumped the smoldering ashes onto the ground. Note to self: avoid trouble with the creepy pyro.

Y and Xavier glanced at me. I know this is going to be very, very stupid, and I know I'm gonna regret it, but I decided to try and make friends with him. I walked over and sat down next to him. He gave me a quick glance and resumed his previous activity. "Hi, I'm Cal. What's your name?"

"I'm Nate." Just the start of your average monosyllabic conversation. He flipped his lighter closed, and stuffed it in one of his many pockets. He seemed rather annoyed with me, but I couldn't exactly just leave right after sitting down by him. If only I knew how many posts there were! He stared at a small patch of grass intently and it burst into flame. Okay, maybe I could just leave right after sitting down by him. I got upon my feet, noticing that my two friends were in conversation.

Pretending that I wanted to talk to Moor, who was conveniently farther away from Nate, I walked back to the lake. "How did you do that? Walking on the water , I mean. What were you making the water do?"

Moor gave me his scariest deep theological smile, and answered. I use the term loosely, as it did nothing to actually answer my question. "I didn't make the water do anything it wouldn't normally do. Why should I inflict the result of my weakness on something that had nothing to do with it?" Good grief, that's scary.

I heard something, and turned to see Y and Xavier giggling with barely contained mirth, looking at Nate. Y shushed his companion, and they turned back to their huddle. I figured it might be interesting to watch what happened, because even I could tell they were up to something. I was right. Xavier muttered, and the lake's surface wobbled a little. All of a sudden, a wave washed up over the preoccupied kid. He sprang up, spluttering. "You little rat! I'll get you for that!" He cupped his hands, and a ball of red fire appeared in it. Not your normal red for a fire, but a deep, dark red. Eyes glowing, he hurled it at the source of his trouble.

I thought fast, a new experience for me, and whipped off my shield. I activated it, and it sprang open as I whipped it in harm's way. It sprang open just in time, hitting the flaming projectile. I rolled for my tool, bringing it up in front of me and my friend. "Why you..." I had the feeling my good buddy, pyro palms, wasn't too happy.

I glanced around my defense, and came to the conclusion that I was right. Happy people generally don't have a small inferno surrounding them, at their beck and call. Neither do most angry people for that matter, but that's beside the point. Byte ducked in behind my shield. "Just to let you know, your cover isn't going to hold against those temperatures. Admittedly, it won't be gas, but as you said, he'll aim for it. It will at least be liquid." Just what I needed to hear, I'm facing a somewhat crazed opponent who can lob fireballs at me, and NOW I find out that I can't block them.

"Any suggestions? Anybody?" I turned to my potential backups. "Could you douse that?"

Xavier shook his head. "Steam isn't gonna do much, and that's exactly what it would be."

Y answered my unspoken question. "No can do, if it can melt steel, it can melt dragon."

"Times up. Goodbye. Have a good time at the barbeque." Just great. I going to be roasted like a marshmallow, and he has to be sarcastic. That's my job! If I could just distract him... but what would survive the heat? I grinned. Just because I've got a high tech arm, doesn't mean I'm above a good old low tech solution. I ducked, grabbed some sandy dirt, and threw it at his eyes. He instinctively put up his hand, which was a very bad idea. Hot liquid sand hurts your eyes a lot more than the ordinary kind does, as a general rule. He collapsed to the ground from the sudden shock.

"Nighty nighty." As I said, it's my job to be sarcastic. "Well, that was interesting"I commented.

Unfortunately, nobody aside from Byte heard me, as I was talking to a blank wall. It took me a moment to realize what had happened. "It ended! Pardon me while I go have a heart attack."

Byte attempted a scowl, which was a little bit tricky, given the fact that he was mechanical. "Very funny. Now I suggest we try to locate Krin as soon as possible." The only question was how to do it. Unlike the majority of my questions, I had an answer to this one. Unfortunately, it's a very boring answer.

We made our way to the IQHQ, the common nickname for search headquarters. A basic search about someone took almost no time. A search looking for where somebody was took a considerable little longer. I'm just glad Byte can't detect mental understatements. Civilizations rise and fall while you wait for a search result.

We stepped into the small building and an overly ecstatic blue Zafara greeted us with a cheerful, "How can I help you?"

"I need to know where Krin is. I have absolutely nothing to narrow down the search. He could have been randomly teleported to the ruins of Old Maraqua for all I know."

The Zafara remained undaunted by the mammoth task. "I'll get started right away."

After she left, I turned to Byte. "If I ever get that enthusiastic, stop me. It's just not healthy." We sat. Metaphorically, because he doesn't have legs. We waited. And waited. Not much else. We eventually fell asleep.

A couple hours later, the Zafara returned, and with her, our consciousness. "Your friend really has thrill issues. Right now he's in the Varem Sea on the far side of Kreludor. Have a nice day!" Great. Not only is he on the other side of Kreludor, but he's in one of the largest craters. Next Monday 13, I am spending the day hiding in the broom closet. This is just not my day.

"Come on Bit. The sooner we leave, the sooner we can get to the dark side of Kreludor, descend into a gigantic crater, fend off the extraterrestrials , attempt to rescue my companion, track down the viruses, defeat them, and get to the police round table poker tournament."

"Oh, goody. I'm positively ecstatic. And I resent that. I'm much more advanced than a bit." Apparently my backup is may not be the valorous of travel companions.

"But not quite a byte. Come on Motor Mouth." I retorted, heading out the door. For those of you who are technically illiterate; a bit is the smallest form of information, yes or no. They're like the atom of the computer world, everything is made out of them. A byte is sixteen bits. End of tech ed. lesson. It's also the end of what I know on the matter, but hey, nobody's perfect.

Grey buildings shot by as we headed for the link yet again. Obviously, tracks wouldn't work for getting to the moon, but they had a series of shuttles to both it and the virtupets space station. But they didn't have anything going to the other side of the moon. However, there always were the game paths.

As soon as the shuttle arrived, we made are way to the Kreludan Mining Corp. game, accustoming ourselves to the low gravity. I laughed as Byte shot about twenty feet into the air. Floating had it's disadvantages. At the game, I got in the ship. Simple controls. I didn't care about getting any kreludite. All I had to worry about was the evil sentient space fungi shooting at me. Enough to make me wish I had multiple lives this time.

I stared out of the view screen, and sent the ship up, forward, and a bit to the left. Normally the game is played two-dimensionally, but I wasn't aiming for the big shiny ball or a trophy. I was aiming to get to Krin.

A sheer rock face loomed up, and I swerved off to the side, and pulled up as hard as possible. "Great maneuvering. You might even make it onto the turdle racing team." This was going to be a very long trip.

"Shut up, bolt breath. You're in the same ship as me, in case you haven't forgotten. I'd rather not crash it."

"Then look out for that fungus! "The offending vegetation was firing at the ship. I had the sneaking suspicion it wanted to see us go down in a blazing fireball. Incidentally, we'd probably land right by him, but then again sentient is not necessarily smart. I swerved again, tilting down and firing a few successive rounds at it. All that remained was a green stump. And I mean stump quite literally. I don't thing I'll ever look at broccoli the same way again.

The tunnel narrowed down to a dead end. "We're going to crash!" yelled my ever-valiant escort. I looked around, and spotted a blue blob on the ceiling. Tilting back, I shot it and the wall slid up. I continued down the path, blasting at the homicidal shrubbery I encountered. I had the eerie feeling that Adam was going to start a campaign for sentient alien fungi rights. I snickered. After all, every one's interested in self-preservation.

"Hey, I think I'm actually getting the hang of this thing." So saying, I veered sharply to avoid a stone column. That's when I saw it. I didn't even know fungi could have nests, because that's what it had to be. The wall was lined with the hideous pulsating things, each one following me with its huge single eye. "NG. Not Good." A particularly smart alien decided to shoot at me. The rest followed suit. "Hold on, this is going to be very bumpy!"

"No its not, there's not much gravity, but I get the idea. "He grabbed onto one of the walls and clung to it for dear life. Not exactly one to instill an overawing sense of security. I put the thrusters on full throttle, weaving in and out among the green projectiles.

The end of the fiendish flora neared. But, as is to be expected with my luck, a warning light began flashing. One of the shots had clipped the ship, and we were descending. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have a problem with that. But the main problem was the floor towards which we were descending was a sea of eyes staring at us, accompanied by hurtling spheres of who-knows-what. I grabbed Byte. "We're getting out. Now." I flung open the emergency exit, and clambered out of the cockpit. I leaped off of the hull, pushing away from it as hard as I could. My grappling line was too short to reach the rock wall. So I shot out a string of sticky slime. It stuck to the wall, and I swung down and forward, out of the nest.

My abhorrent accomplice piped up, "Would you mind letting me go now?" And this is after I save his life.

I rolled my eyes letting him go. "A simple 'thank you' would suffice, you know." I saw the ship burst into flames, destroying a large portion of the 'garden.' I smirked. "Case in point." I jumped back as one of the surviving extraterrestrials launched a ball of ickiness at us. Okay, so I'm running out of adjectives. Big deal. I grabbed hold of him again, despite his protests. I really, really loathe Mondays. In view of my choices, I opted to run. Fast.

I rounded a corner, panting for breath. Flecks of goo stuck to my tail where the missiles had hit close behind. Raz would laugh if he knew. I glanced up and was nearly blinded by sunlight. Moonrises are all very nice, but wait until you see Neopia peek over the horizon, with the sun glinting off the seas. But at the time, getting out seemed more interesting.

I hauled myself up the grappling cable line, my personal antagonist hovering alongside. "You really should bring this up next time your looking for a raise, you know. I bet tracking down viruses, and lost police personnel, combating pyrotechnic psychopaths, escaping alien life forms, and putting up with me probably didn't come up on the job description." Just what I need, job advice from an un-employed mal-adjusted mechanical menace.

As we got over the brink, I looked down at the Varem Sea. No water of course, but it was named because of it's vast, enormous, gigantic, and all big size. Sort of the Kasuki Lu of dents. While Krin's big, I figured he's still going to be rather hard to find. "How on Neopia do we find him?"

As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. "We're not on Neopia, remember?" See what I mean? "And he's not going to be hard to find."

"What do you mean? This place is bigger than Dr. Sloth's ego!"

"Look, Kreludor is colder then Neopia, because there's less air. So heat spreads out farther and sticks out more. Krin has a rather distinct thermal pattern, as there are not many Eyries on the far side of the moon, much less ones his size. So all I have to do is take a thermal scan, and we can figure out roughly where he is."

"Thermostat scan? What is that going to do?" He makes no sense. I'm being taught science by a product thereof. Now that's irony.

"Thermal scan. Thermal means heat." Oh. I knew that...

"All right then, go ahead. Incidentally, why didn't you mention this before?"

"At the risk of sounding cliche, you didn't ask. And it wouldn't have done any good. Now let's see... Uh-oh. I have good news and bad news. The good news is Krin is just a little ways over in that direction. The bad news is the bottom of the crater is infected with viruses, and pockmarked with large holes of nothing. It must have been the download point." Mondays...

"All right, we'll go get Krin and advice. The two things we need right now." We descended down the outer rim of the crater, Byte leading the way to where Krin was. It turned out to be a small cave. We entered the cave, to find Krin sitting with a book, holding it upside down. As I looked closer, I recognized it as "How to Read"I just hoped he hadn't spent a lot of money on it. "Krin! Come on. We have to get of the viruses before they spread any more!"

The massive erie stood up. "What about the police round table poker tournament?" He asked.

I sighed. It was my job to bring that up. "If we hurry, we might be able to get to it in time, now just come on!" I quickly composed a neomail to Ch333s. "Hypothetical situation that's actually happening. I'm on Kreludor and I'm up against a mass of viruses that are spreading and randomly re-writing the code. Any suggestions?" I sent it to him. A minute later the response came back.

"All of nature abhors a vacuum. That's what makes the viruses spread, they move to somewhere that has less viruses. So you have to find something with fewer bugs then where they are, that's not going to be a problem. Chances are; if you can find a way to get them to something from whatever introduced them, they'll head back. There's nothing in the virtual world as clean as a hacker's computer." Great, find something else that was put here by whoever put the viruses here. That's going to be easy. They probably planted something nice and safe, like bunny slippers. I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

I explained to the other two what we had to do. "Byte, could you run another thermostat scan, and see if there's anything other the viruses that could be from the hacker?"

"Thermal scan." He muttered. "Yes, there's something out there. Down at the floor of the crater, and a little forward to the right." Again, we set down the treacherous slope, unused to the low gravity.

"Krin, why don't you just fly down? It should be easier here." I enquired.

"Can't. There's less air, I can't push up against it." Well, that made for yet another wonderful development. We finally reached the end of our descent in the end, though it took a while.

I glanced ahead. "What is that?" As far as I could tell, somebody had, for lack of a better word, dusted part of the ground. It was about an inch lower, and there was rock rather than the normal layer of dust. There wasn't a single pebble on it.

Krin, as usual, looked completely clueless. Byte also had no idea. "No clue. Kreludor has a maid?" the automaton replied. He deserves an award. Sarcasm in the face of danger seems appropriate.

I took a step onto the patch, and fell up. Most people would consider that an oxymoron, but when gravity pulls you away from the ground, what else are you supposed call it? I shot my cable at an angle towards the far side of the patch, and swung, which, while preventing me from falling into space presented one problem. As I swung out of the section of anti-gravity, the ground resumed it's normal state as down, which was the direction I fell. "Ouch... I meant to do that. Apparently the viruses are affecting the whole crater." I stood up, dusting myself off. "We should probably avoid anything that looks out of the ordinary." The two looked at each other and walked around the large patch.

"The heat source is just over this rise, if we're done exploring the anomalies in physics." We hurried over the dusty hill, looking down at the heat source.

"What luck, the group most likely to stop my viruses is here where I can get rid of them." Not only had we found something from the hacker, we had found the hacker. Our old antagonist, Spryo. He'd taken up another name, but he looked the same.

The best thing to do right now was to get him talking, so I could surprise him. "Luck? Luck? Don't you talk to me about luck. First of all, it's Monday. My boss yells at me, I have to go track down a virus that ends up teleporting me into a roleplay. I then have to face off against an anti-social pyromaniac whose lobbing fireballs at me. When I get out, I have to track down Krin, who was also teleported. I finally locate where he is, and fight my way through a nest of extraterrestrials who are trying to make my ship blow up, only to discover that I've wound up just a little ways from a virus colony. And now you show up. Don't you talk to me about luck!" I yelled at him. If that didn't distract him, I doubt anything short of Neopia exploding would get his attention.

The hacker just blinked. Good enough. I rushed at him. He simply smiled, taking a step backwards. The step carried him back a long ways. "You really should read more. Haven't you heard of seven league boots? I decided to write myself some. Of course, twenty one miles is a bit far, so I settled on seventy yards." I suddenly had an idea. Normally, when I get one, they take a while, but this one just popped in. I raised my scope, gauging the distance away from me, and where he'd land with another step. Perfect.

I yelled again, making a second rush at him. He continued to smile, taking another step back. Exactly where I wanted him. He fell into the nothing, still wearing his smile. He had opened the link back to his perfectly clean computer, and the viruses rushed in to fill the proverbial void. I've always known there's such a thing as too clean. It was my turn to smile. "Everybody has their Monday." I called after him. "Even villains." Not cliche phrase material, but still pretty good.

"What about the other virus we met?" Krin asked.

Byte clarified. "They follow each other site to site. He didn't want them jumping to other sites, so he made them stay with the majority. Move the majority, and the minority follows."

We contacted a local shuttle to take us back to the space port. There had been no time before, as it was far too slow, but we weren't in a hurry. After all, the poker tournament didn't start for another two hours.

Hero

(Please note that this story was mostly written prior to the release of DoN series two. Some of the villains therein are mentioned as heroes, the headquarters are from my imagination, and some of the names are different.)

A shadowy hooded figure floated above the ground. The wind ruffled his cloak, making it swirl slightly. He slowly extended a finger, pointing it accusingly at the ground. "You did not bring me it. I want my asparagus souffle!" The figure turned around in the air. "I shall eat the very big burger in Neopia Central, and nobody can stop me!!!" All of a sudden a large anvil fell on him.

BZZZZZZZZZZZ! "Mrgphomulor..." My alarm clock is evil. There is nothing else to say. I hit my left arm. It gave a dull metallic thunk. To clarify, I have a robotic left arm. Neesboy wrote the HTML code for me, and will never let me forget. The point of hitting my arm was to deactivate my antagonistic alarm clock. I groaned. That was a very weird dream... Of course, I generally don't have normal dreams.

I got up, checking my Neomail. I won't go into much detail, but I get a lot of it. Its almost entirely junk. Then I noticed something that was completely out of the ordinary, bordering on paranormal. Something from my boss. That was common, as he was the Chief of Police, and was normally having me investigate something or other. What stuck out was the fact that the subject had lowercase letters.

My boss is known for a strong tendency to yell. One syllable hardly does the action justice. His whispers measure on the Richter scale. Half of his vocabulary is degrading terms. Mostly I hear, "WHERE IS THAT TIN CAN OF A ZAFARA?" His most recent name for me is Snowflake. I don't want to know what he calls the green officers. The other astonishing thing was that it was phrased as a request. "Could you come in as soon as possible?" I opened after recovering from my shock. It continued, "Urgent business."

In all my time in the police force, I'd only heard him sound like that in one situation, and that when he was talking to somebody who clearly outranked him, and there weren't many people of that status. I could only think of one possibility. Somebody who had met him assumed he normally acted like that, and was trying to impersonate him. I'd have to be careful.

I hastily limbered up, and grabbed a bit of food. After finishing it off, I grabbed my hover board. I smiled. No traffic for police officers, even when the server was jammed. The boards shot above the general populace like a greased nova, albeit with less flames. Of course, the civilians generally didn't have to go off to face hackers or viruses trying to take over or destroy the world, so it was a bit of a trade off.

I didn't pay much attention to the scenery, for two reasons. First off, the scenery wasn't exactly picturesque, consisting mainly of stone grey buildings and a good deal of smog. And, of course, moving at broadband speeds tends to blur the surroundings.

I soon arrived at the police department, slowing the board down a good block ahead so as not to overshoot. Walls hurt, especially if you were moving and they weren't. As I walked in, I quickly asked one of the other officers, "Did he have his coffee yet?"

The Wocky nodded. "Seven cups, I think he's nervous about something." It was officially safe to enter his office. Enter before his coffee, and you came out in fractions. My boss is not a morning Skeith, by any means or standards.

I knocked on his door. There was a muffled rumble as he nearly jumped. I personally doubted gravity would let him actually do it, but that was the kind of thing that didn't get mentioned. Self-preservation and all. "Come in," the he said hastily.

I stepped inside the room. It was my boss, all right. There was nobody on Neopia who could possibly impersonate my boss up close. The last person who'd tried had gone mad from a caffeine overdose, and now stayed under Dr. Death's watchful eyes in the Neopian Central Mental Ward. "What did you want to see me about, sir?" I asked.

He nervously wrung his hands. Either that or he was envisioning somebody's neck right there, it's hard to tell with him. "You've been promoted," he stated simply.

Now that was a surprise. Promotions were almost unheard of in my department. They came around once every decade or so, and you were very lucky to get one personally. Most of the time you saw somebody else move up a fraction of an inch on the political and monetary ladder. "What to, sir?" I queried.

Now came the biggest shock. "Defender." That was like Dr. Sloth advocating Valentine's Day. Or Adam refusing asparagus. "You're supposed to report to headquarters in an hour." My boss recovered his normal self to some degree. "SO GET MOVING!" It's unusual experience, that for an hour, you outrank your boss. Not that I'd push it. Coffee can only do so much for somebody. An hour meant I had enough time to stop by The Great Guild Of Neopia, aka, TGGON. Before doing so, I picked up Byte from his charging station in my office. Byte looked like a cross between a rear view mirror and a pincetron.

Seven minutes later found me edging my way through the crowd at the TGGON message board. I was looking for a Christmas buzz named zurg9_2000, neesboy's pet. Surveying the bustling crowd, I noticed a yellow Ruki waving at me. I walked over. "Yes?"

The Ruki smiled. "What, you don't recognize me? The lab ray does seem to have that effect. Maybe I shouldn't give you're your gadgets after all." It was neesboy and zurg the reason and solution to half my messes.

"I've been promoted. I'm in the Defenders of Neopia now. And, as usual, I was wondering if you had anything that might be of use." I was a bit worried. Last time I asked, I ended up with Byte. Neesboy had written the aggravating automaton, imbuing it with his own sarcasm. And woe betide anybody who has to endure that.

The Ruki grinned broadly. "Let me see... yes, I do have something." He held up a strange, jointed copper plate. "Palm writing. I wrote you a copper palm, which will hook up to the electrical wires in your hand. You can use it to shock something, along with a couple other tricks, such as acting as a strong magnet." He quickly removed the existing plates, replacing them with the new copper ones. "The only foreseeable problem I can think of that wouldn't happen with the original is with heat. Copper conducts heat well, and has a slightly lower melting point. Other than that it should be fine."

I moved my fingers, the new palm worked just as fine as the previous one. "Well, I have to get going. There's a meeting or something." Who would have thought, me meeting the Defenders of Neopia. In a job interview.

True to his artificial nature, Byte spoke up. "You know, his ego is going to need a separate body after this. It barely fits as it is." That left me with one question. Why me?

After taking off again, I commented dryly to my insufferable partner. "One of these days you are going to get magnetized and spend the rest of your days holding paper on a refrigerator."

The retort came immediately. "The same could be said of you. Though it would have to be a very heavy refrigerator." My life. It reminds me of the quote, "It was the best of days; it was the worst of days." Or at least something similar.

We reached the Defender's HQ in short time. Not that there's tall time, but you understand. It was a somewhat monolithic building, supported by large columns. It was pure white, except for the scorch marks here and there. Sounds a bit like me... Off to the side was a publishing company that ran the Defender's comics. They made a lot of money off of them, and formed a rather large chunk of the Neodaq. Even Krin read them, or at least looked at the pictures. You never can tell with him.

I walked through the large vaulted doors, into the main lobby. The floor was tiled yellow with the logo in the middle. Doors branched off in several directions. I walked over to the information desk. An old Hissi was coiled on a chair. "I'm Cal. I was told there was something I was supposed to come to now."

The secretary made a bored jab with his tail. "Right that way. You are entering the headquarters at your own risk. DoN is not liable for any injury sustained if villains should attack. Just to let you know." Gee, that's comforting. And it explains the scorch marks.

The indicated door led into a small conference room. Sitting at the head of the cramped table sat every kid's hero, Judge Hog. He gave me a quick appraising look. "Have a seat. You obviously know who I am, and have probably guessed why you're here." He leaned forward, and there was a grating sound as the whole table slid towards me. "Stupid conference table..." he muttered under his breath. "As I was saying, you have been selected to help our organization in combating the forces of evil, wickedness, and... er... general naughtiness. You will generally work flexible hours, but you don't get to chose them. Most of the time you will come to work around ten o'clock, as diabolical villains don't like getting up early either. I doubt I need to mention the liabilities, and the fact that you insurance premiums will probably go up a lot." It seems the comics glossed over more then the covers before publishing time came around.

"How much do I get paid?" One of the more important questions before getting a new job; how much, if any at all, money are you going to get.

"Double what you received in your last job, plus life insurance and dental. Two of the more common types needed in this line of work." My insurance premiums would probably actually go down now, as working with the Chief of Police was generally considered more of a liability than fighting sinister masterminds and undead armies. Less risk, more pay, possibly better hours, and a different boss. My dream job.

"I'll take it. When do I start?"

"As soon as you come up with your alter-ego." I knew there would be a catch.

Byte, who had remained quiet just long enough for me to get the job, couldn't resist the opportunity. "What's wrong with his current ego? I'd say it's quite healthy, and growing all the time."

Judge Hog apparently wasn't accustomed to floating metal talking to him. "AAAH! Who's he? Is he with Sloth???"

If Byte could grin, he would have. As it was, he replied. "I'm your conscience. Have you been eating you vegetables?"

"Meet Byte, my side kick." The term seemed out of place. Byte didn't have feet.

"Yes I've been eating my... Grr! I mean oh. I think." Apparently brains weren't much of a referral in this line of work. I should fit in just fine.

"Exactly what does an alter ego entail?" I asked, shifting the subject back on track.

"A costume, a superhero name, and a nice, shiny laminated ID card." This guy was definitely not what the propaganda portrayed.

"Does Cal really need a costume? He's not exactly hard to distinguish in a crowd. How many white one-armed Zafaras do you know? The laminated ID card I can understand." He added the last part with a touch of sarcasm. I felt a breeze as it went over Judge Hog's head.

"Er... I guess..." he murmured.

I seized the moment before he could change his mind. Though that would probably require brain surgery. "All right then, I'll get started on the name immediately and then you can take care of the nice, shiny laminated ID card."

We exited hurriedly. The Hissi apathetically indicated another door. "The offices are that way. Yours is the one without an alias on it yet."

The offices branched off from a central corridor. They bore various hero's assumed names on the doors. We reached mine, entering and closing the door behind. "The thought of having to wear one of those ridiculous costumes scares me. I owe you Byte."

Byte agreed. "You owe me. As for your alias, don't make it too embarrassing. With your arm, and me as a sidekick, it has to be something that sounds somewhat technological."

"I've already taken care of that. I chose VR. I'm a superhero, nobody's going to ask." It seemed like the least humiliating. Old names seemed fine, but that was only because they'd been around for a while. When a new one came out, people worked out why it was that and not something else. And I didn't want to end up with something like Robo Guy.

Byte bobbed up and down, his way of nodding. "Tactfully short. Thank TNT they didn't pick one for you. We should go let him know. Better sooner rather than later."

Returning to the conference room, I let Judge Hog, who was struggling to ease himself out from under the table, about my choice of name. "I picked VR."

He grunted. "I'll make your card." He finally gave in to reason, and lifted up the table with one hand, and stepped out from under it. Setting the table down again, he grabbed a small machine, entering a few things into it. It whirred and spat out a card. "Here you go. Your first assignment is to protect the Neopian Museum's crystal collection. Millions of neopoints have been invested in this, and it displays several extremely rare crystal items. We suspect Malkus Vile may have taken an interest in some of these. You must prevent him or any of his hired thugs from stealing any of them."

The museum was located a little ways outside Neopia Central. We sped above the civilians on my board, arriving at the aging building in a matter of a few minutes. I rested my board against the side of the building, activating the anti-theft alarm. It wouldn't look good if I were robbed myself while on guard.

Byte examined the intricate glass-like sculptures. "Don't worry I won't touch. Wouldn't want to leave fingerprints," he said, holding up his pincers, which were entirely devoid of fingers as far as I could tell.

"Humor. Remind me to laugh." I shot back.

"Since you told me to, laugh. There, I've reminded you."

I was going to come up with something really witty, but we were interrupted. Two brown Meercas, one with a blue cap and the other with a pair of goggles, dropped from the large metal grid above, hanging upside down by their tails. The one with the goggles started, "Peeka..."

The other finished. "BOO!" They started laughing. Then the one with goggles stopped and said, "Who are you?"

Heermeedjet and Meerouladen! Neopia's top thieves. Admittedly, they didn't face much competition, but they were still better than the competition that was there. "I'm VR, the new hero for Defenders of Neopia, and this is Byte." The twins glanced at each other, an odd sight given they were still hanging. It was apparent they hadn't reckoned on a Defender.

This time, it was Meerouladen that spoke up first. "He's new on the job..."

And Heermeedjet that finished. "And we're not! Lets grab the stuff and go!" Meerouladen grabbed his partner's pudgy hands, and swung forward. Hermeedjet lashed out with his tail, grabbing a sculpture. Looking up at the metal grid that supported the two, I knew what to do. I ran for what looked like the next most expensive item, and set it on the ground. I then jumped up, and hung onto the grid myself.

The two repeated the maneuver, but I had something else planned. As Heermeedjet's tail touched the ground to grab his target, I sent a surge of electricity through the grid. "Peeka boom," I said gleefully as they dropped unconscious. Byte retrieved the highly padded pouch that they had slipped the first crystalline object into. "First mission down," I commented. This had been the easy one. That begged the question; what would the other ones be like?

Shortly thereafter, I faced one of the hassles that Judge Hog had neglected to mention. Artists. The storywriters and illustrators that did the comic books each insisted on getting a personal description of the events. Byte had conveniently gone off to recharge. I didn't bother to point out that his battery should be at least eighty percent full. I don't have to put up with tights; he doesn't have to put up with artistes. It was quite a while before I managed to escape their clutches, each appetite for details finally satiated.

When I finally did return to the headquarters with Byte, most of the other heroes had done likewise. I made my report, going over details for the final time. Then I set off into the mingling crowd of famous, albeit always masked, faces. It was ironic, like seeing the police force chatting after a day of work, only this particular force wore spandex. I recognized most of them. I spotted the Aerotechnic Aisha, a white Aisha able to fly, Chiablob, a blue Chia who looked like he'd been sent through a salt water taffy puller, the Wrapper, a blue-green Eyrie wrapped up like a half finished mummy, renowned for his control over radiation, Captain K, the blue Kacheek who was Neopia's ace pilot, the Kinetic Kau, a telekinetic of a bright yellow hue, Klepto, a blue Kougra with unnatural strength and an uncanny ability to get at almost anything, and Masso, the dark gold Skeith. His power was the least conventional. While the average Skeith will eat anything sitting around your aging safety deposit box, most of them weren't quite up to consuming an entire building in seven minutes flat, electrical cables, plumbing, cement and all. There were a few others, but I didn't read many of the comics. I'd probably have to change that now, being set up as their colleagues.

Klepto spotted me, and came over. "Hey! You're the fresh meat. How'd your first assignment go? It's the only job you'll get that's guaranteed to get into the comic books. And how'd you get out of wearing a costume? Boss nailed us all, as you can see."

"I dodged the outfit thanks to my alleged side-kick, Byte. I just call him that so I can take him along and out of trouble. He pointed out that my arm was already enough. And I don't think I can go over the details of my first job any more. The comic division got to me," I explained to him.

"Ah. All you have to do is tell one person, say something about having to go defend justice, and whisper to somebody that the person you told has the details. They do the rest themselves, and you don't have to survive countless explanations." Wow. No wonder this guy was a superhero, he knew all the tricks for outwitting evil.

"Thanks!" And I meant it too.

I was going to continue, but Byte deemed it high time to interrupt. "How did the esteemed Judge get to be boss?"

Klepto laughed. "He's just what we present the media, because he's the ideal figurehead. You know the 'secretary?' Well, his name is Dalten and he's not really a secretary. He runs the whole Defenders operation. He does an excellent job; nobody outside has any idea about it. But he doesn't make a very good secretary or receptionist." Well, that explained a good deal. I was mostly glad that I wouldn't have to take my orders from Judge Hog.

Byte sank back, annoyed that he hadn't thought of that. Of course, Byte was always annoyed when he didn't think of something. While I'm on the subject, I'm a bit hard pressed to think of a time when Byte isn't annoyed. I grinned. "You've have just metaphorically saved my life. I was worried that I was going to get sent on some kind of pointless mission like drying off New Maraqua, and then not being able to actually complete it."

Klepto grinned. "You might end up with something about as hard, but generally never anything quite that pointless. But if you get on his bad side, you'll get patrol duty. And you don't want to spend a week making sure nothing happens at the Meridell dump."

I feigned a shudder. "I'm in trouble. With Byte here, I suspect I've got three days at most before I end up defending the boards against n00bs."

The Kougra chuckled maliciously. "Somebody actually did have to do that one time. He called in sick, and Dalten found out he had intentionally eaten poison jelly to get out of a press conference that he'd been stuck with for something else he'd done. Seventeen days later he got the assignment." Now I was worried. Note to self: complete all assignments, and don't call in sick.

"So what were you doing today?" I enquired, anxious to move to less horrific topics.

He shrugged. "The normal. Most of the work is what we are most likely to be useful. For instance, if you've heard the human phrase 'set a thief to catch a thief,' I'm often the one making sure nobody swipes something at an inopportune time. That, and of course, 'retrieval.' I suspect they'll put you on viral and hacker duty. Given those two aren't especially common, you'll probably take care of various evil robots, really unusual stuff, and electrical monsters."

I groaned. "I have seen enough of viruses and hackers to last me a very, very long time. My reputation is out to get me. Out of curiosity, do all the neophytes end up facing things that habitually tweak reality?"

"Well, you're the expert, aren't you? Each to his own."

"Dumb luck only strikes twice," I said gloomily. "And in my case, there isn't any other kind of luck."

Byte took the opportunity to lob a verbal projectile. "However, in your case, the dumb part never stops striking. You're a veritable lightning rod."

"I'm not the one who's made entirely of conductors," I retorted.

"Yes, but you are the one who's grounded." Blast his... well, I guess you'd call it floatiness.

Klepto's curiosity got the better of him. "How did you end up with him? Did you make him?"

"As if. The only thing Cal can make is mistakes, and he makes more than enough of those."

I cut him off. It's dangerous to leave heavy machinery running, and his mouth is definitely sufficiently large to qualify. "Byte was one of a friend of mine's HTML experiments. He's been imbued with his creator's sense of sarcasm."

"You must pull more strings then a puppeteer."

"Frankly, I wish I could cut a few of them. Advanced AI doesn't stop Byte from being the most obnoxious piece of metallic refuse I've had the misfortune to meet."

"Flattery will get you nowhere." Byte just loves to prove me right. But only when I'm talking about him.

"See what I mean?" I said. "The only really useful thing he's done is some thermostat scans."

"Thermal scans!" Byte snapped. What's a syllable more or less? Same difference.

"Well I better head back to the old lair. It's getting a bit late."

"The Klepto Cave?" I said jokingly.

"Hardly. Just a regular Neohome, but with a very thorough security system," he replied.

"Same here. When you've got a hacker with a grudge against you, a little firewalling here and there doesn't hurt. And you're right, it is getting late." Ingrained habits dictated that it was better to hit the sack earlier than normal, because the Chief could neomail you at unnatural hours, and felt no qualms about doing so.

On the way back to 'the old lair,' as I passed through the market, I happened to notice a small shop, the proprietor selling a mass of assorted books, including a few Defenders Comics. Byte was probably right, I would probably end up with an ego the size of Chiazilla. But I'm not the one who has to deal with it. And, after what I've been through, surely I'm allowed some narcissism?

When I finally did reach home, I wrenched my musings off of vanity, focusing them on an article I'd copied and pasted from the Neopian Times on the compulsive trouble solving in which I was referred to, albeit indirectly. My new 'sidekick' hovered over and commented wryly, "A crime a day keeps the psychiatrist away, huh?"

"I need all the preventatives against a mental breakdown I can get with you around." I decided to try and turn the tables. "And what keeps you sane, knowing you're not real, and all your motivation is artificial?"

"So said the reflection to the shadow. What's to say your motivation is any more real?"

"You're a robot. You're not allowed to talk theologically," I said acidly.

"You're an idiot. Neither are you," He said, volleying the insult back like the closing of a gormball match. I guess that makes me very wet.

"Every time I try to turn the tables, I end up spinning them too hard, and I'm back where I started."

"Then just leave the tables where they are like a good idiot." And when I leave the tables alone, he makes a comment like that. I think I need to take the tables to the dump.

"Well, I'm going to get some rest," I said, boarding up the declining conversation as quickly as possible.

As I got into bed, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief as I turned off my alarm. I'd be awake well before that. My biological, if not mechanical, clock would take care of that. "I wonder what normalcy is like," I wondered, posing my question to the darkness. Of course, that was entirely pointless, and I got no answer. But no answer is not a sarcastic one, and that was the important part.

My dreams probably were weird, but upon waking, I couldn't remember them, as I was a little distracted. Not many people are woken up at four thirty in the morning with their arm alerting them to that fact that they've received a priority neomail. Still wrapped in a thick stupor, I peered hazily at it. I made out something related to 'Jelly World' and 'trouble.' Enough to get me out of bed. I shook my head to clear it, and ran towards the door, pausing only to kick Byte into consciousness. I grabbed my board, and whizzed across the city, the cold pre-morning air shocking me into normal thinking. The first thing that struck me was that Jelly World didn't exist. This might pose a problem.

As I entered the HQ for the third time, I said sardonically "You beckoned, master?" Not a good way to start out with the boss, but I don't start giving a care until six.

Dalten gave me a glare like only Hissis can. "Charmed, I'm sure. I don't particularly like getting up this early, but there's no choice. We've got a problem in Jelly World. The Jelly Chia practically absorbed the whole place during the night. A fifty ton blob with anger management problems is not a good thing."

"Why not send in Masso? This seems like his area of expertise."

"Honestly, ever been to the Jelly Processing Plant? Guess what the one thing in all of Neopia that Skeiths are allergic to. This is also complicated by the fact that we don't know where Jelly World is, as it officially does not exist. The only reports we've had are unconfirmed ravings of known lunatics."

"So how do I find Jelly World?" I demanded.

"Isn't it obvious? Go to the known lunatics. Specifically, to the largest insane asylum. Monsieur Darque has established an expansive mental ward. A word of caution, it would not look good for us if you end up in there yourself, so please do your best, and pretend you're not a psychopath." Is it just me, or is everybody out to insult me? Now I know I'm overly paranoid.

"I'll be off then." Now this was unusual. I'm going to protect Neopia from a villain currently where a place that didn't exist was, and I'm finding it by visiting the loony bin. But this didn't answer the real question; why wasn't my former employer in there?

Maison de Lunes, as the proprietor often called it, is not a place you want to be, even during visiting hours as a visitor. The former mansion had been repurposed, and the transition had not been a graceful one. The decrepit garden was full of stunted plants, choked by weeds, a few of which tried to snap at me. The windows on the second and third floors had steel bars across them. Stone Draiks stared out with unseeing eyes, or so I hoped, at the path carved through the veritable forest of plants, some of which seemed to follow me as I walked towards the large vaulted doors. Stepping inside, I noticed a large family portrait. The solemn Kyrii held its painted gaze on a desk, bearing a notice with the words "Visiting hours very depending on the pets species, aversions, and mental condition. Please view the chart for further details. Also note that we cannot be held accountable for patients' reactions to visitors, and will not provide any form of compensation for problems encountered during your stay."

"Oh great. Just great," I muttered, and glanced around for the list of times. When I found it, I scanned the list. Two names presented themselves, who would be awake around now and didn't seem too dangerous. There was Keirch, a mutant Korbat with a speech impediment and mild general psychosis, and Trantelain, a Zafara who only spoke in assonance. "What the hexadecimal does assonance mean?" I asked Byte.

"It means rhyme. I don't know what you'd do without me," He grumbled, peering anxiously about the gloomy room.

"I guess we have to go see Keirch, as Trantelain isn't awake until a five. But that's only a quarter of an hour." So we navigated the dusty corridors, avoiding the more dented metal doors. With three staff members running it, it was amazing the building was still standing.

We located Keirch's room, and unbarred the several locks. The occupant was sitting in a corner muttering. He turned around as he heard us enter. He was wearing a floppy straightjacket, and his red pupils seemed slightly out of focus, and entirely too small for the rest of his large night eyes. His ears twitched slightly. "O-o oh! You's not one of dem! Dat makes you a visitaw! I iz not getting lots of dose, nope nope." He suddenly glared at me. "You's a visitaw, yep?"

I hastily nodded. "I'm a visitor. I came to see you. I wanted to ask you something."

Keirch frowned. "Iz not gonna be about meh, wight? Dem awsks lots and lots a dose. But you ish a visitaw. So, so, what ish deh qwestion?" He cocked his head, his messy green hair shifting slightly.

"Do you know anything about Jelly World?" I asked hopefully.

"Naw, you iz being siwwy! You should be in heewah, los an los of da peoples heewah talk about it! Then you couwd be meh friewd! Friewds see me more den visitaws, cause, cause, dey iz staying heewah an not going. Iz you a friewd or a visitaw?" He asked, his grin showing two pointed teeth.

"I'm sorry, I'm just a visitor," I replied. "But don't tell anybody about me asking about Jelly World, okay?"

He shook his head up and down, his oversize ears flopping. "Yepyepyep. I be weal qwiet about it. Shh!" He held a wing up to his mouth for emphasis, with the straightjacket sleeve drooping down.

"Yeah... shh," I said. Thank goodness he was friendly. While he was very nice, I didn't exactly feel like joining him. "I'm going to go now. I hope you have a good day." It felt creepy, and a little bit wrong to leave him here, but there was nothing I could do. I made a mental note, if you'll pardon the pun, to visit him later. And maybe I could bring him something.

Byte was waiting outside the padded cell. "Any luck?"

I sighed. "Nope, but apparently a lot of the others do know something about it."

"Let's just hope Trantelain does, because I don't fancy visiting any pyromaniacs or similar things."

The cell was just down the hall. I stepped inside, seeing a red Zafara sitting on the floor with his eyes closed. He opened them, and a small half smile crept across his features. It was very creepy. "Hello, and welcome to my cell
Please stay here for a spell
Guests are really quite rare
I hope you have time to spare."

"Time to spare, thought not much, and a question," I replied. Trantelain seemed healthy enough, just a little off balance.

"Present your query, but phrased in poetry
As for an answer, we shall see."

Why on Neopia do I get stuck with this kind of thing? There are plenty of other heroes, but I'm the one chatting with lunatics. I pondered how to phrase it. Jelly World does not present a flood of lyrical choices. Hurled, but that did not present a flood of practical ones. "For a vile monster to be slayed
I must find the world of jelly made."
Never mind the grammar, surely I'm entitled to my poetic liscense?

Trantelain rolled his eyes at my pitiful attempt, but consented to reply. "I'm glad you believe it does exist
And not a part of madness' mist
For most links, the 404's the same
Save from the scores of a jelly game"

"That's all. Thank you for your help." I didn't care if he was perfectly safe; somebody sitting so calmly in a padded room, speaking ad hoc poetry was not good for my own nerves. As I turned to leave, I saw him close his eyes and start talking to himself. Still in poetry. Definitely not good for my nerves.

After locking the door, I explained the situation to Byte. "The only valid link is when you go through game highscores with a jelly game, then exit it to the world. So, we head back to TGGON, and find somebody who placed in one of the two games. It'd take a genius or a lunatic to come up with that, and frankly he's a bit of both."

We were quite glad to be back outside. Well, until Byte nearly got eaten by an innocent looking plant. We exited the garden, thinking that the gardener was probably a patient as well. I grabbed my board, beating off a few tendrils clutching at it. The trip back was quick and uneventful, which was a big surprise in and of itself.

TGGON was crowded, as we had hit when a lot of people were dropping in. Making sure my avatar was presentable, I posted my inquiry. "Anybody here have a jelly game trophy?"

I waited for a response. After a minute, somebody I hadn't seen around much, Omega, answered. "I have a second place Bouncy Supreme trophy. How come?"

"A quick link to Jelly World." I looked him up at the search panel of the page. Unlike locating somebody, looking them up was easy. A list of information sprang up, and I selected the trophy. It whirred, processing who I was, and spat a small card. "Bye all." I called back, running out of the guild with my companion trailing along behind.

Luckily the highscores weren't too far from the Guild headquarters, so we got there without wasting much more time. I handed the worker the card, and he opened up a small door that blended into the wall. It was a secret game, after all. When I entered the records, I ignored the scores entirely, and went over to the small link that shuttled people back and forth to the game itself. "Get on." The conductor said in a bored voice. I boarded the remaining car, of the three that ran between here and there. There wasn't much traffic on these tracks, so the links left whenever you got on.

Today, thank TNT, there was a reasonably good connection, so five minutes later found us in Jelly World. Or where it had been. I raced down the sticky sweet path to the central area, which was now a large blue blob. It was slowly making its way in my general direction, to the unabsorbed portions of the world. "Byte?" I said.

"Yes?"

"Why does this always happen to me?" I asked, running away from what was apparently the Jelly Chia. He'd but on some weight. I tapped out a quick message on my arm, sending it to neesboy. It read "How do you stop a mammoth blob of jelly?" Simple, but to the point.

The reply was almost immediate. "Is this a joke? Two slices of bread, and a lot of peanut butter?"

"No! The Jelly Chia ate Jelly World! HOW DO I STOP HIM???" I sent back. The mass of preserves was slowly advancing.

"No idea. Beyond the fact that since it's like an amoeba, it might have a nucleus. Pretty much a simple brain. But I'm not sure, as it was designed by some weirdo who wanted edible pets, and isn't an amoeba. You might be able to freeze it. Jelly is partly water, after all."

I groaned as I read the last message. "Trouble has my name and address. I think it likes paying visits." I think my oozing opponent agreed, as belched loudly. Don't ask me how he did it without a mouth. Reverse osmosis?

The thing was huge, gigantic, mammoth, gargantuan, and in general, big. How was I supposed to freeze something so large? I'd have to move it to the peak of Terror Mountain, and wait for a few hours. Either that or hope it did have a whatever you call it, nucleus, and get rid of it. Without being eaten.

"Way to go, you've set yourself up against a villain capable of amassing a small world. Why can't you just be normal?" my partner asked.

"Normal people scare me."

"And titanic globules of digestive jam don't?" Why do I even bother answering?

"Are you going to make yourself constructive, or just give a pun-by-pun commentary?"

"Probably the latter. Neesboy said we could go for the nucleus, which would be in the center, if anywhere, or freeze it. I can't do either. And thermal scans aren't likely to be the ideal solution either."

That last comment did the trick. Our unobservant opponent finally realized our presence. It flattened out, spreading across the ground quickly towards us. "Way to go. Now he heard us!" I yelled, sprinting across the terrain. "Do you have any idea whatsoever about what we could use? Surely you know of something that gets really cold really fast, and is found in this all but linkless world!"

He would have answered, but he faced a difficulty. The approaching mass whipped out a thick sticky tendril, encasing him in acidic conserve. He thrashed about lethargically in the thick fluid, but could barely move.

"Bad choice, blob boy!" I hollered. "Nobody eats Byte!" OK, so that sounds a bit odd, but so were the circumstances. I ran towards my assistant, jumping over the flailing tentacles of deadly blue material. Byte was being pulled slowly into the main section of the blob, and if he reached it, there would be no way to get him out. I plunged my cybernetic fist by him, but he was too far in to reach. Then I suddenly realized what to do. Instead of removing the nucleus from the jelly, I remove the jelly from the nucleus. I sprung open my shield, which neatly sliced off the imprisoning semi-liquid. It immediately stopped thrashing about, and I was able to reach in from the part that I sliced and pull him out.

"Thanks, but not now. We've got another mess to take care of!" he said, and as he indicated, I noticed the caustic solution had encircled us, and was warily closing in. "The only thing I can think of that cools down fast is when something compressed expands quickly. Hope it helps, 'cause otherwise we're in a very sticky situation."

"But what do we have that's compressed? I know! The canisters for my grappling line! I've got two of them, just enough. You're going back in," I said excitedly.

"What?!? I just got out of that thing, and you're putting me back in?"

"With a secret weapon." I took the two small capsules, and handed them to him. "Puncture the first one, and it'll send you through the jelly to the core. Aim the second one once you're inside, and freeze the core! We don't need to remove it, or freeze all of the monster, just the part that controls the rest!"

"All right, but this had better work." He clinched the back of one, until it snapped, and flew forward towards the dark throbbing patch in the middle of the whole mess. He slowed down slightly as he hit the surface, but continued, leave a trail of icy bubbles along his path. When the pressure had dissipated, he clung to a large icicle near the dark patch, and broke the second one. The stalactite held for a few seconds, enough time solidify the corrosive cortex, before he was shot back out.

The rest of the jelly began to droop and slide, without a controlling force behind it, it just rolled slowly down the slope. I hurried across as fast as possible, ignoring the stinging as I ran over the preserves, stopping only to grab the large lump of ice that used to be the Jelly Chia.

Before getting on the link, I sent a neomail explaining the situation and giving directions for how to get here. Sooner or later, somebody would notice that the giant jelly was now nothing more than a dirty slightly steaming puddle. After boarding, I waited as we progressed towards Neopia Central Station.

I glanced at my arm. It wasn't even noon yet. What next, doom before dinner? After disembarking, I got a couple odd looks, but I can't be sure if it was because I had a robotic arm and an odd machine hovering behind me, or because I was carrying a big blue ice-lolly around with me.

Back at headquarters, Dalten was curled up on his chair, in the sunlight shining through a window. As I entered, he peeked open an eye, and then unfurled himself. "Well, you're back early." He glanced at my trophy. "And with a very large misshapen brucicle, I see."

"Dalten, Jelly Chia. Jelly Chia, Dalten. Ah, the wonders of modern cryogenics. We should probably get him into a freezer of some sort, he's beginning to thaw out a bit. As to being back early, the sooner you start, the sooner it's over. And I started a good deal sooner then I'd have liked."

"Evil strikes where and when it chooses. We just have to be ready." He motioned for somebody to haul off the immobile villain.

"Let me guess, where our weak point is when we're not looking," Byte commented dryly.

"How specific. I'm sure we'll be able to factor that into account in order to prevent any future incidents."

"Well, then we'd be looking there, wouldn't we?" Well, there goes my career.

Dalton most likely had more to say, but he was interrupted by a resounding crash on the door. I wheeled around, fur on edge. There was a muffled groan and somebody said, "I meant to do that."

He gave a sigh, and called in reply, "Open the door, then fly in, in that order."

The Aerotechnic Aisha stepped in, her second set of ears swiveling a little awkwardly at first. "Got to get a runway..." she muttered. The comics definitely smoothed over a fair number of details. But I suppose that's to my advantage now.

Dalten sighed again, something he seems fond of. "The things I put up with in this job. Anyways, this isn't going to get publicized. We all know how the Neopets team wants Jelly World a secret."

"Even from us, as it would seem."

The Aisha gave us a puzzled work. "Jelly World exists?" Maybe this wasn't the place to discuss this particular exploit.

"Of course not," I said hastily.

"Whatever you say. In my case, the whole thing turned out just to be a plane from Skies Over Merisel. The pilot thought he'd have a little fun, and flew towards the castle, with Darigan's colors, and let loose a couple shots. Nobody was hurt, but Kayla was about ready to start blowing things up. Lord Darigan and King Skarl ended up deciding his punishment between the two of them. Something to do with the dump and working in the engine room."

"Stupid tourists, always making trouble... well, good job. They need more security on those games, that's where half our trouble is."

"Yeah, but it's also how I was able to find Jelly World. Increased security might prevent little loopholes like that, and then we'd all be in trouble."

"And so we are left with the tourists. And a regular job for that matter, employment when there aren't any villains plotting global domination, mass destruction, or grand theft."

"But you just said that Jelly World doesn't exist! How did you find something that doesn't exist?" I closed my eyes, counting slowly to F. In hexadecimal, of course.

"You look very hard." It seemed best to leave it at that. On second thought, I added, "I found a touch of insanity rather useful."

Before the line of conversation could perpetuate itself any further, Dalton intervened. "In any case, I have our new recruit on night shift, so he should go home and get some rest." Right he wa... night shift? Well, I suppose I've used up any slight remnant of fortune I had in reserve for this week.

"Well, in that case, I really ought to be off now. Come on Byte!"

"'Come on Byte,' he says, like I'm some kind of Virtupets petpet!" Byte muttered, bobbing along as I exited the grandiose building. "And don't even think of stopping to see if they have your comic yet!"

On the way back, Byte was quite sure that the route we took would not intercept with the book store. Honestly, you'd think I had a literary addiction that he was trying to break, which is definitely not a thought that fits well with my intellect, or distinct lack thereof.

It took me a while to get to sleep at this early hour, but I finally managed to do so counting baabaas in binary. Nothing like it to knock you unconscious, believe me.

Around six, judging from the light seeping into the room, my arm alerted me that I had a priority one Neomail. There are maybe twenty people other than staff members who can send that kind of thing. Apparently, Dalten was one of them. The subject was a question mark. The message was simply, "WHAT IN NEOPIA, KRELUDOR, AND THE VIRTUPETS SPACE STATION ARE YOU DOING?" Odd. Up until a moment ago, I was sleeping. I sent a reply to that effect.

In response, I received a message containing "Don't tell me you were asleep! I can see you right now, opening a download site in Neopia Central!" This was not going to be good.

"Byte! Get over here now! We've got trouble, and apparently I'm causing it. Or, more accurately, my apparent duplicate." I never knew I had an evil twin, but you learn something new every day.

I grabbed my board, shooting off at a bit beyond what would be considered a reasonable and sane speed. A download site in Neopia Central was about as awful as things could get. Viruses could come flooding in with no trouble whatsoever to the hacker. Me, myself, and I. What a day.

As I swooped into a landing, my counterfeit counterpart grinned maliciously. "Good day. It's nice to meet myself. I don't believe we've been introduced to ourselves yet." His voice was quite different from mine, and didn't correspond with what his mouth was doing. All in all, he seemed like a puppet being manipulated by somebody with too many fingers and not enough practice.

"Believe me, the pleasure is all yours. As of yet, you have likewise not been introduced to my mechanical fist. I hope to remedy this sad shortcoming at the next available opportunity." Ah, introductions, the perfect time for quick threats with little cranial expenditure.

"I have, in fact, already met said fist. I found it quite useful. But I suppose you're wondering exactly who I am, aside from you that is. The body is simply a copy of something I expect you've forgotten all about. It's your holographic replica. I, referring to the user of this avatar, put it over a core based loosely on the coding of your own singular appendage."

"A copyCal," Byte mused.

"Right about now, I don't care if you're the king of Altador. I'm about to pound you into a Neopium isotope." I hadn't managed to get past the first level of Chemistry for Beginners. I'm the only person I know who can create an explosion with one reasonably stable element. But punching things, that I had a bit more experience in.

I took aim with my grappling line, firing at the hacker's imitation of myself. But the circular shield sprang open. Blast. This brought to mind one of the crazy Techo master's sayings. 'A wise man knows his enemy's weakness. A still wiser one knows his own.' If he could do anything I could, and possibly more since the hacker was likely to make improvements, what could I do? All I had in my favor was Byte and his thermostat scans. "I don't suppose that heat thingy would be of any use?" I asked him.

"Not unless you want to know if he's running a temperature, no." Blast. I've heard of people with self-image problems, but this was ridiculous. Then it hit me. The rest of the Defenders!

"Surprised?" the doppelganger called out. "Don't be. You're the expert on hackers like myself, so naturally I'd take the trouble to work out a way of stopping you. I wouldn't try notifying the Defenders of Neopia, which you've doubtlessly worked out after considerable contemplation. With the download site up at that point, I could have as many copies of them as I wished. Let's just leave it as you and yourself, shall we? I fancy a nice little challenge." After this, he returned fire with his own cable.

The obvious solution was to use the shield in the same manner. But that didn't get him anywhere, did it? Instead I sidestepped, grabbing the line as it went shooting past and sending an electric charge racing along it. "Touche," I snapped glibly as the current shocked my opposition. Unfortunately, the charge was somewhat dispersed by the metal.

When he recovered, he shouted back angrily, "You're going to pay for that!" Guess that means I'm in debt.

"Oh yeah? At what annual interest rate?" Unfortunately he didn't seem to be there any more.

"Boo!" he shouted from behind me, throwing a punch and catching me in the back. "It's really not to hard to change the position of a code object, you know." In other words, he could practically teleport. Things just kept getting better.

"You know," I said while ducking under another punch, "people like you really get on my nerves." This was starting to remind me of something that obnoxious old Techo said, 'a wise man knows his enemy, but a wiser one knows himself.' I didn't know how to stop me from clobbering myself. Then it hit me. The idea, that is, not my copy. My copy already hit me. Somebody did know what to do. Neesboy, of course. He wrote the code for my arm. It was complex, so there'd have to be a weakness. At least, that was the theory.

"Oh, and what kind of person would that be?"

"Megalomaniacs bent on site domination comes to mind readily." I needed time. But he'd finish that blasted download site if I gave him any of his own. "Byte! Send a neomail to Neesboy asking him how I beat myself." My opponent snarled, taking another swing, fist crackling with electricity. I jumped back, nearly stumbling.

I grinned. I had the perfect distraction. "Well, there goes your precious download site." As I expected, he paused and glanced quickly to the side. I took the opportunity to allow my own charged fist to make his acquaintance. But again, he wasn't there. "Stay still!"

"But that would make things too easy for you, wouldn't it?"

At that point Byte interjected. "Neesboy says that an EMP would be best. He's going to do his best to insert the coding from the game Escape to Kreludor into your arm." Yes! A solution! Then my arm went limp. "He says your arm won't work while he does it though." How the hexadecimal am I supposed to stay alive?

CopyCal leered menacingly. "Now things get interesting." He appeared beside me, swinging his whole arm like a bludgeon. I grabbed my own mechanical limb quickly, thrusting it up to block the blow.

"Frankly, I think..." I dropped, rolling back to avoid another assault. "They stopped being..." I scrambled up, using my appendage as a shield again. "Interesting a long..." This was decidedly bad. "Time ago!"

Then my arm turned back on. "Much better." Byte dropped behind a metal beam, from some construction, knowing what was going to happen. I activated the new switch. Nothing apparent happened immediately as the electro-magnetic pulse swept outwards, frying any circuitry in its path. But this time it was the hacker's arm that slumped disabled. The partially completed coding download site gave way to the barrage, as well as the temporary construct he had used to insert his avatar and the tiny teleportation codes. "What goes around comes around, hmm?" I jeered with a wide grin.

The Defenders eventually arrived to clean things up and work out the details. In half an hour, Neopia Central was full of its usual bustle and jostling. The comic people came and went, though mostly came. When I got back to the headquarters, Dalten was there, smiling. "All in a days work, I guess you could say." I just shrugged. After staring down my mirror image, the rest should be a cinch. Right?

Licenced Superheroes

No superhero is official without a shiny, laminated licence, of course. If you would care to register with the directory of Neopian superheroes, please simply fill out the following and neomail it to Neesboy.
(Note from Neesboy: To qualify, you must have a superhero Neopet with a spiffy petpage. You must also have a 50x50 link. Please do not apply if you do not, as I cannot make you one.)
•Alias: Please provide your full public identity. In my case, that would be VR.
•Power(s): Please list any abilities that are not in keeping with conventional physics and/or genetics. This excludes minor markings, superficial appendages, etc.
•Gender
•Power classification (A-F): This is a rating of the destructive capability of your power, and may be subject to review.

Letter	Description	Example
F	Power cannot influence objects or people in any potentially damaging fashion	healing
E	Power is used for non-offensive purposes, but could conveivably be used in such a manner	teleportation without air displacement
D	Power is mainly used for defensive purposes, but can be used offensively in need	super speed
C	Power is capable of both mild or contained damage	control of water
B	Power is easily capable of large amounts of damage	control of electricity
A	Power alters physics, reality, or the mental or physical state of large numbers of people on a regular basis	I'm sure you can think of something yourself

•Other: Please be sure to include any other important details, such as normal wings, natural skills, and other aids in heroing that could potentially belong to anybody.
•Link: Include the 50x50 image link for your page. If it's animated, one frame will be taken from it.

Rules: Don't take somebody else's, remove the link, claim you made it, issue your own, bend, fold, or mutilate. The last three are permissable if required in defeating an archnemesis.

It's mine, you hear?

Über Usul

<a href="http://www.neopets.com/~cal_#licence"><img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e87/neesboy/UberUsulLicence.png" border="0"></a>

Red Hawk

<a href="http://www.neopets.com/~cal_#licence"><img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e87/neesboy/RedLicence.png" border="0"></a>

Hero in Training

This liscense is intended for those who don't have links or detailed pages. Don't remove the link back, and don't swipe the idea! If you really want to try entering it in the Beauty Contest, your sense of style needs serious examination.
Tips for those making hero characters:
•Fewer powers is better. If you have more than two, you need to strongly consider rethinking what ones are necessary. It should be somewhat difficult for them to beat a villain.
•Related powers are better. If you have more than one power for a character, it's a good idea to be able to draw some connection between them. Flying and control of plants is going to take a lot of explaining.
•Personality is good. Try to have some sort of motivation for the character, as well as a general outlook they take. Remember, they'll likely act a bit different when out saving people as opposed to doing their day job.