Nerd 1 - The Archive

Well not exactly an Issue Bib, just the end of the other one, which got cut off due to the character count and forgotten for a few hours.

Anywhy, thats my little twist on the plotline. Now I get to sit back and see if any of my predictions come true :)

Please do keep in mind, the whole thing is just based on observations from Pluto server and reading Neocronicle. No secret information involved there.

On other news:
At the sight of the *ahem* 20th page on this post looming up, work has begun on a NERD website, one filled with chocolate cookies, banners every other line, and links to 300 invalid porn sites that all need 3 programs to enter. Hopefully it should be good. I'm also hoping to add some new features to it to make it more interesting than just the stories alone.

And on the business of the songs:
I think Danae wants to strangle me already, after seeing some of the lyrics to certain songs. So, I'm actually going to ask: Is anyone interested in singing the lyrics to any of the Megaman songs? You need a microphone and a willingness to have your voice slapped down on a song for all to hear. Applications to me: Auditions to start once we have responses.

Ok, now back to the more humourous side of things again with Issue 21.

*smacks Bib upside the head with the anvil of 'obsession'*

Great merciful Baboon Cigars man! You really think I'm gonna write another one today???? I'm insane, not stupid.

Next issue won't be out for at least 12 hours. Go to bed already.

Yes, like that, but made by Thanatos and bearing the 3 secret melee mods of 'buff' 'shine' and 'polish' which give it a friction free impact to knock your uberness right outta you.

NERD: FINAL ISSUE

I QUIT!

Thats IT. I've had it! No one buys NERD merchandise, the world doesn't revolve around me and I've now got Genital herpes......

(runs around slamming doors and deleting accounts)

Goodbye Neocron, I'm gone forever.....

(runs out the door and around the block)

......

(comes running back inside slamming more doors, and out of breath)

Oh yeah, April fools.

Until next time....

Heh, I always satire things around me and I've seen a fair few of those today.

Tbh I find April fools posts to be in extremely poor humour. There's one that says Neocron is closing down by April on a fansite, and the only clue that they're joking is the date of posting. (and yes they ARE joking, for all those pessimists out there).

Anyways, back to work I go.

Ok, question for you all:

Are you all happy enough with the current mix between drama-plot issues and comedy issues or would you prefer a change up?

In the last 20 issues, there's been 1 that was sort of plot (the reason for amok copbots story) and Issue 20. The other 18 were just for laughs.

Is that an ok balance for ya all, or would you prefer more Issue 20-like stories?

Just curioous ya see.

Ok, here we go folks, let the story continue. I'd Like to remind everyone again that NERD is a work of fiction. It is not in any way official. So when you get to the end of this one, don't start asking when 'thats' gonna happen.

NERD Issue # 021

The Coming of the Dawn

At long last, the sun began to rise over Neocron. The war had only lasted 24 hours from beginning to end, but the toll was indescribable.

CityAdmin.

From City Admin's point of view, the city had been saved! Which was a good thing. But now the paperwork started, which to many in the office seemed worse than the idea of being annihilated. The Public Relations department was in desperate need of some good old fashioned political BS to smooth over ruffled feathers.
The missile strike was beginning to raise questions, but fortunately few knew enough about it to make a definitive case just yet. But the questions would come. The X-borgs were destroyed, and protests from all factions came to CA demanding the cyborg program be discontinued. CityAdmin issued a statement saying that they agreed the Cyborg program was too dangerous and would discontinue. At the same time Reza ordered manufacture of the Battlelords to begin, the next generation of cyborgs. The remaining batches of X-borgs were moved to the bowels of Outzone 7 where none could reach them. STORMbot production increased and added security was enforced around Outzone station.
From a maintenance point of view, Neocron was in a fairly reasonable condition. Aside from the gaping gash in the city wall, allowing every dragonfly, drom and pervert Anarchy breed to peep in on E.b.e's bathroom, and the Outzone looking more screwed than before (which isn't exactly saying much) and a collapsed subway tunnel that wasn't being used in the first place, the city had only to rehook the power generators back into the city grid and things were back to normal. The contract for repairs to the city wall were contracted out to another faction.

Tangent Technologies.

The Main Office recalled NDA from the field shortly after the Mechs rolled off the line. They were received by the Head Office and congratulated, and told to expect big things in the future. The other Tangent clans received similar warm praise from their bosses. The production of Mechs also meant a huge surge in business, with NEXT now requiring a stable supply of armaments for the chassis. With the threat of war still looming, Tangent Technologies was in happy days. For what better time for a weaponry manufacturer than a war?
Tangent homes were not affected by the attack, as Via Rosso and Plaza were unscathed. Hence NDA returned home to rest and recovery, before the victory celebrations later on...

Proto Pharma.

Proto Pharma was one of the two factions that did not rest that morning. For 12 hours more they were hard at work producing and distributing medical supplies to the wounded. The clans worked in 2 hour shifts, 2 clans to a shift to keep work flowing. Once a shift ended, the clan collapsed at their homes (also unscathed) and awaited that evening...

BioTech.

BioTech worked alongside ProtoPharma to produce replacement implants for those lost or destroyed during the conflict. Never before had such an orgy of people jabbing their tools into other people occurred. When the narrator wrote this, Evangelion started giggling, yet she still hasn't read it. The clans then followed Proto's lead and retired till the evening.

Diamond Real Estate.

For Diamond Real Estate, the war was not the problem, it was the beginning of a great new day. Solo runners demanded the security of clanlife now and clankey sales went through the roof. Residents determined that living in Pepper Park was too close to the Outzone, where all the fighting had broken into the city through, and thus wanted to move to Plaza and Via Rosso. Employees did not have to strain to hold their cheezy grins on their faces at the thoughts of the commissions coming there way. It was a good day for Diamond members everywhere.

Tsunami Syndicate.

PIMP was up in arms over the annexing of Simmons. Once they had licked their wounds, they armed with full intent on annihilating NUTS, NDA and Reza for that matter. However, before their assault began, Shodough was sent to them.
"THIEF! USURPER!! Prepare to die!" Carinth yelled.
"IDIOT!!!" Shodough's terets had been edited from the logs of the war the day prior, for it had gotten worse under stress.
"Who u callin an idiot?"
"I bring you JACKASS a gift for your WHORE clanmates."
"You better start making sense and less with the lip." Shodough handed over a packet.
"Its the codes to the Simmons WUSSY defense system, so you can take A HIKE it back. Also, CityAdmin, NEXT and Tangent BALLS... send your clan the first Mech key." Shodough bit his lip and hoped he'd feel a little better tomorrow. Carinth calmed down, nodded and called for hostilities to end.
PIMP travelled to Simmons to take their op back. Lullysing, fried from his lack of dope, immediately ran to the machines, grabbed a vial and injected himself.
"Ohh yeah my bitchies, dis is da stuff yo, I ....arrrrrggghhhhh...." He went into convulsions, his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground foaming at the mouth with an odd little grin on his face. Carinth looked at the othe vials.
"You idiot, they changed the setting when they were makin mechs. This aint da dope, its carburretor fluid." Lullysing didn't hear or care. Carinth looked at him, looked at the vials, grabbed one and injected himself.
"Oh what the hel.....arrrrrrrgggghhhh......."

A runner sent to summon Tsunami to a meeting found the entire clan laid out, doped out of their minds on carburretor fluid. Instead of taking them to the meeting, he took a dozen vials with him.

Black Dragons.

As if the war wasn't bad enough, the day after was worse. Pepper property prices had dived almost 300%. No one wanted to be anywhere near the Outzone, the few remaining X-borgs running wild, the gash in the city wall, or the odd sounds coming from below Pepper. People swore they could still hear the thudding march of the cyborgs coming from below them from time to time. CRC, the only clan still in a condition to fight, was deployed to investigate the sounds, but could not discover any source. They wrote it off to simple echoes from the work beggining on the reconstruction. Nonetheless, it would be a trying time for BD in the coming weeks. And their anger to Dome of York burned all the more.

Crahn Sect.

The Abbey had been destroyed. The generep was still working, and work could continue, but the living quarters were uninhabitable. Given their assistance at a time of need, the Crahn sect were permitted to set up temporary residence in the ConCentre till the workcrews could effectively repair their living quarters. Crahn planned to spend their time assisting in the repair work in any way possible. CityAdmin was grateful, and tensions between the two sides lessened slightly, though neither trusted to turn their back on the other.

.....

NEXT.

Synergy was working on the Mech production by hand. It was nauseatingly slow work without a factory, but NEXT did not want to push its luck with PIMP after the annexing last night. MAX-T was assigned to work on the Abbey of Crahn and the greater Outzone area, both in reconstruction and the elimination of the remaining X-borgs.
And then there were NUTS. They had drawn the lot of wall defense and wall repair. So, they piloted the Mechs into position, and took up defensive positions. None really feared another attack from the Dome today, but many believed Twilight Guardians, who's motives yesterday were still under debate, might take advantage of their weakness. Meanwhile, the other NUTS (that came out wrong....) began the reconstruction of the missing wall section.
"Eva, EVA!! Lay off the drill a minute!" Vain yelled over. Eva did not respond, instead having an exstatic look on her face as she manned the pneumatic drill.
"Whats with her?" Mako Tanaka inquired.
"If I had to hazard a guess," Ithaqua said, "I'd say she's getting more pleasure out of that than the Dildo of Maven."
"MORE PLEASURE THAN..... but the Dildo of Maven is the ultimate pleasure machine, and you can use it in the dark too!" Everyone, including Eva turned to look at the priestly Mako with inquiry.
"Well... I mean.... thats just what I heard, ... its not like.... EEEEEEKKK!" and she ran off to go sing a hymn or 5 (which oddly enough caused the last X-borg to die, not that she was aware of that).
Warlock the Hermit had gone out into the wastelands looking for materials to use in the project. As one of the oldest runners in NUTS, he was well accustomed to all areas of the wastelands, but today was hard going. The very world he had wandered for years now looked completely different. A War had changed the shape of the world once before, and now another one had repeated the mistake. Angered by the destruction of his world, he marched many miles north to a mountain area. Taking his remaining chocolate rashions, connecting them to a string and leaving them in the open, he waited. And sure enough, Teh Bunneh appeared. No chocolate had passed his way in over a day, so he was very eager. As he reached for the chocolate, Warlock leapt forward and grabbed him by his fluffy tail.
"BAHHH!!! You again! You did this years ago!"
"And you don't learn, now eat the chocolate and listen up." Teh Bunneh began eating, but had no intention of obeying the other instruction. Warlock seized The Long Eared One by The Long Ears and bellowed into them.
"PAY ATTENTION OR ITS WABBIT STEW TIME!!!!" Bunneh's eyes watered and his brain turned to mush.
"Ouuughgghh.... ok ok I listen. What?"
"You have the power to talk to The DEVS. Do it. Get them to intercede. Better late than never."
"The Devs love war. They will not step in to stop it." Bunneh honestly answered.
"True, but if they want to see any fighting any time soon, they'll have to do something about THAT..." and he pointed at the dustcloud, rising to the heavens as far as the eye could see. Bunneh twitched.
"How will I find Choco in that???"
"How indeed...."
"I will do whats i cans. Now go, before you wear out your welcome." And Warlock left, getting lost in a dustbreeze and ended up walking into a Doomreapers ass. Fortunately he wasn't the first one to do that today, so it was starting to enjoy the sensation (don't ask how I know that...)

Fallen Angels.

For most people, having carnage and slaughter as far as the eye can see in your supposedly protected halls would bring you near to tears. However, for Fallen Angels in Tech Haven, thats a daily occurence, so aside from the gaping hole in the side of the mountain and certain power failures, it was life as always. Carebear Daycare took over security duty and cleanup of the cyborg carcasses. Dark clan began repairing the facility. Megaman began pk'ing people. Life returned to normal.

City Mercs.

Roused by the war, the Mercs didn't even bother trying to repair the Base. They grabbed all the ammo they could and in one voice, with one purpose and only one toilet break, went hunting for any Cyborgs that were remaining. They marched, shot at anything that moved, sang warsongs and enjoyed every minute of it. Then they marched to Neocron for that evenings celebrations.

Twilight Guardians.

All members remained within the walls of their city. By order of Headquarters they were to wait to see Neocron's reactions. By instruction from the now recovering Ronald Rodriguez "We shall not move ourselves, but wait to see what news our allies bring us."
Many were curious what they meant by 'allies'...

The Celebration and EGOS.

That night all of Neocron celebrated their survival. CityAdmin made up for their mistakes by hosting a hell of a party. The Copbots were serving drinks instead of packing plasma rifles. The STORM bots were all outside the areas performing security, rather than imposing themselves on the masses inside. Reza did not join the festivities, but Cassandra Edwards was more than happy to get sloshed and party with Wannabe, saviour of the Subway, like it was 2003.
MoonUnit was kicking back in 'sushi' style. With 14 bargirls around him, he felt that saving an entire city of people was something he should be doing on a more regular basis. Sprite, NoGravity and the rest of the 3rd Circle EGOS were challenging runners to Neofrag (3rd Circle EGOS are the only ones any good at Neofrag. Something to do with the others actually doing work instead (Giant red subtitles slam down "TRIALS MOCKED!!!")
CheapLoveMotel was in exstasy as he stood in Medicare, comparing gun sizes with Megaman, Shadow and N00bish. Naturally he won (no mortal has a bigger gun than Teh Motel babey!).
Laemin was standing in a corner looking at one of his command crystals.
"Damnit, you worked yesterday.... DOOMREAPER!" And he turned into a roach.
"Crap, HOVERBOT!" and became a metalpipe that Smokey tried to walk off with. After getting free....
"APPARITION!!!" and turned into a stripper. He gave up and returned to his STORM bot self.
"Laemin, dude, whats with your pants?" Paradox asked.
"Huh?" and he looked down to see he was wearing Copbot pants, "Oh I give up...."
"Listen, you guys kicked ass yesterday. I wanna test myself against you." Paradox challenged Laemin to a fight. Figuring it was better than trying to control his morph controls, he agreed.

A crowd formed in Outzone Station to watch. Paradox pulled out a Tangent Laser Cannon, xray modded with all the tweakings. Laemin pulled out a Long Laserblade 2.
"Haha, I is gonna pwns u Laemin!" Paradox yelled.
"I R L337. Onlyz Iz anz Precious talks da l337sp33ks."
"SHUT UP!!!" everyone yelled.
The battle began. Laemin had deactivated his invulnerability, but still had his superior speed and strength. Paradox waited for him to back towards a corner, and fired. Laemin raised his blade and deflected the shot. The crowd stood in awe.
"We stand in awe!" McDanish stated the obvious. He got thrown over the balcony.
Shot after shot beamed towards and were deflected away from Laemin. Paradox stopped firing and gasped. Laemin turned to the side, looking into an invisible camera and said:
"Star Wars: Galaxies, eat your heart out!" (Big Red Subtitles "SHAMELESS COMPETITION MOCKAGE!") Paradox went to pull his Malediction when the STORM bots, curious as to what was going on walked in and blasted him.
"YES!! I win!" Laemin yelled. Paradox went to appeal the decision, but then collapsed.

And thus (Y) day plus 1 passed by with celebrations long into the night. The next day work continued on and all were busy with their homes.

The Devs.

After having Teh Bunneh knawing on his ankle for 6 hours straight, Thanatos appeared above the Wastelands. He wound up, the pitch.... ITS GOOD! And he cast The Tuning Fork of Creation into the Land. It struck a Drom in the head and killed it instantly. Soulburner ran away from work to hump it. Thanatos tried again. He cast the Tuning Fork into the ground where it stuck and resonated. It unleashed a tidal wave of energy across the Wastelands. Many had to shield their eyes from the disturbance. When it passed they looked, and saw the Wastelands returned to their former self, as if the War had never taken place. The cities were still in ruin, but The Devs had deemed it reasonable to 'roll-back' the Wastelands, to facilitate future conflict.

MJS.

The only being seen walking the Wastelands (aside from Souls quickie with the Drom) was MJS. Clad in black, shrouded in fog and smelling of Old Spice (the nasty sailor variety that no sane man would think smelled good), he observed his handiwork first hand with an evil grin showing through his evil goatee and matching his evil Armani Powerarmour, that went with his evil custom shoes. In short.... he was evil.
As he walked along the shores, he walked over to a metallic object. And at the sight of it he laughed.
"Hah, I laugh."
"Hey thats my line!!!" McDanish yelled out. He got smacked.
"It seems another of my pawns wants to be played." And he walked away from the wreck. The wreck was of a Trans-continental Stealth Long Range Drone. It must have been accidentally hit during the firefight, for they are normally undetectable. On the side, in slightly burnt out letters it read "Observer Drone H-14838. Tok-o 2" What it means, only MJS knows.

Until next time...

At the moment, only 2 songs have been recorded, and unless we get some volunteers, that may be all there is. The links to those two songs are.... somewhere in this post.

I've been informed the NERD site may well be ready soon, so you all won't have to keep digging through the ever growing post to find what you're looking for

The site will have all the stories set out, and if all goes to plan will have a comedy character bio's section, a reality check section detailing where some of this stuff was inspired from and an Encyclopedia of the NERD universe of all terms and references (I really am suicidal....)

Anywho, later today I shall complete Issue 22 and crush Bibliotequa once and for all (eyes glow with burning rage)

Yes it was pointed out to me that your ingame name was Jujuwalker. HOWEVER, once I know any of your names, they're all up for use.

And I should hope you're not a junkie. Carburettor fluid is not good for the bowels.

*Targetting reticle locks onto Bibliotequa*

Oh no no, little man, I've got something far worse than the NERF bat in store for you.
Let the terror begin.....

NERD Issue # 022

NERD Editor Vs. Bibliotequa

Several weeks had passed since the attack. Life in the world had returned to a state of normality. Things went on, much as they had this past age, what with the comings and goings, the gankings and thievings, the prostitution and constitution that Neocron knew so well.

On this particular day, Bibliotequa was walking into Plaza 1. As he entered, several runners noticed him coming in. Now, at this point, the NERD staff, having a vendetta against Bibliotequa so great, it might actually be noteworthy, have decided that Bibliotequa is a.) a weird name b.) too long to write out all the time and c.) is a good opportunity to start the mockage. As a result from now on, Bibliotequa will be referred to as 'Betty'. We thank you for your attention.
"Hi Betty!" CryptoCronic yelled.
"Hi Betty!" The Light snickered.
"HI BETTY!!!" The copbots had apparently been programmed with the ability to say that.
"Hi Everybody! Today is a good day to be alive." Everyone went 'awwww', "I would like to give you all a gift," everyone went 'yay', "I would like to play for you my kickass collection of Hanson classics." Everyone started backing away slowly.
"Erm.... I have to um... wax my asshairs, bye." Murkster skipped away.
"I ahh I err, I can't lie very well, so I'm just terrified by Hanson and must flee!" Flyk screamed.
"Ok, ok. I won't play Hanson." Betty calmed them down, "Instead I'll tell you all a story." again with the 'awww's'. Oddly enough, the entire population of Neocron, being highly addicted to stories (or at least the entire population of Neocron who will read what I'm typing here are addicted to stories) formed a circle around Betty. Now again, by circle, I don't mean anything resembling a circular shape. I mean something more along the lines of a deformed egg shape thats been sat on by a 500 pound drunk called Ralph.
"Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a guy named Rico. Rico was a guy with amazing powers. And he lived in the age of BETA! (lots of 'ooh's' from the crowd)(BETA if you recall stands for BEfore Terran Animation) Now Rico would come down and use his amazing powers to show off to the world! He'd come running along faster than any vehicle, pull out a stilleto and strike down a Warbot in one slash (giggles from people who thought Betty was joking). But the coolest thing Rico did was this: Rico was the first person to ever transform into a Copbot and beat three STORM bots single handedly! (The crowd cheers)..."
At this time a mighty yell came from the balcony of Medicare. All looked up to behold NERD Editor, glaring at Betty.
"When the hour is time, the sheep call home, but if the sheperd has no sauce, the banquet cannot begin!" Editor yelled. Everyone just looked at him blankly.
"What the hell r u talking about?" Betty wailed.
"Only the listener can understand, the talker shall never know." Again with the confused looks.
Now, at this time we shall explain. Thanks to the long hours and effect of the ink fumes from the Printing presses, when NERD Editor is not telling stories, he cannot speak in logical form, and must resort to pointless cryptic comments. It's a sad life, but if it weren't so, NERD would not exist. So we lock him up and chain him to a fridge so he can't get away. Thank you for your attention.
At this point, NERD Editor took a deep breath and began to tell the TRUE story of the coolest thing Rico ever did.
"Once upon a timewarp, in the age of BETA, Rico walked tall among runners. One time he came across the city of Neocron calm and at peace. And he could not stand it. Rico went to the Wastelands and captured a TerrorMauler and a Raptor and dragged them into Plaza 1 where he turned them loose. At first, the two behemoths fought the copbots, till all the copbots were destroyed. Then they turned on each other, in a gladiatorial battle for survival, with Rico standing on the Skywalk handing out popcorn as everyone enjoyed the show he had put on for them. Eventually the TerrorMauler won (cheers from the TerrorMaulers Forever fanclub) and then it turned on the players. Rico invited everyone to attempt to find a way to kill the creature in the weapon suppression area. First, they tried healing it to death. Rico promptly booted their senile asses. Then brave runners, after Rico showed the way attempted to employ a combat move from the 20th Century, learned from the Ceres Discs. It came from a n entertainment medium called 'wrestling' and was called 'The Peoples Elbow'. Hence hundreds of runners leapt off the skywalk, attempting to deliver the Peoples Elbow to the TerrorMauler at terminal velocity. They all failed, and Rico laughed as his little event raked up the kills. Eventually Rico saw that no mortal runner was up to the challenge, so he grabbed two hack tools and shoved one in the creatures nostril, the other up its rectum and activated them. The resulting electric shock killed the creature and the runners cheered (and the listeners cheered as well.)." And Editor finished his tale, to great applause.
"NERD Editor, this is MY moment in the spotlight! You shall not interfere!" Betty threw a hissy fit.
"In the hour of scampering, the first to cry are the first to die!" Editor retorted.
"I challenge you Editor, to a contest of Skill!"
"When challenged I be, the wise would flee, but here you be, and that rhymes three... err 4."
"I hereby challenge you to .... The Great Neocron Singalong!" Gasps from the crowd. It had been a long age since the last contest was held, due to the disastrous end to that one. But the challenge was made and accepted. Thus, the only man fit to judge in the world was summoned to Plaza 1.
"EYYYYYY!!!!!" Megaman took the seat and the contest began. Betty cleared his throat and laid down the first sonnet:
"I think that I shall never see,
Your plasma shots are blinding me...."
"BOOOO!!! Copyright, PAY UP!!!" Megaman hauled out his book "Megaman's War Poems", flicked to page 295 and showed everyone that very verse, "no points." And then it was Editors turn.
"Oh I must kill you, let me count the ways...
Cannon, Lightning, fire and blood,
All modded with x-rays.
Oh I must grief you, oh so many kills...
In the sewers, in the cores,
On mountains and the hills.
Oh I must spam you, my chat shall come your way,
Swearing, bitching, Caps Lock on,
And telling you you're gay..."
"Oooh, eeyyy, point to the NERD, and you managed to glorify griefing, so bonus point." Megaman totalled up the score, "ok so we're still tied at nil." Math was not his strong point. It was Betty's turn.

(The Following Song "Weaker" is done to the tune of "Stronger" by Britney Spears. Original concept by Bibliotequa aka "Betty". Full lyrics written by NERD, a subsidiary of LaeminCorp. All Rights Reserved.)

(Psycho Killa runs in and takes over the job of playing the kiddy drum set)
Oooh EYYYYY Yeah!!

"I should just stop.
There's nothing more for me to play, ai ai.
I've had enough.
I'm not their property so why do they... oh oh.

They might, think that I am uber, when I own,....

But now I'm Weaker than Yesterday,
KK nerfs me in every way.
All Cursed Souls ain't killing you no more.
Ay ay... Weaker. Than I ever thought that I could be, ai ai.

I used to go with the flow,
Pow-er-leveling my stats.
You might think that they can't break it, but you're wrong....

Cause now I'm Weaker than Yesterday,
KK nerfs me in every way.
All lightning bolts don't hurt your ass no more.
Ay ay... Weaker.

Oh come on now....

Oh yeah...
Here I go, gonna pwn.
I don't need nobody, gotta heal alone.
HERE I GO, GONNA PWN.
I DON'T NEED NOBODY, NOT ANYBODY....

HERE I GO, HERE I Go, HERE I GO, HERE I Go,
Oh crap....
Just can't pwn, Just can't pwn, JUST CAN'T OWN, JUST CAN'T OWN, JUST CAN'T OWN!!!

Weaker than Yesterday,
Made a flame post at KK,
My uberness ain't killin you no more.
EYY EYY!!!
Weaker than Yesterday,
Man this patch ain't goin my way,
My uberness ain't killin you no more.
Weaker than Yesterday,
Man this patch ain't goin my way,
My uberness ain't killin you no more.
Eyyy Eyyy, WEAKER!!!"

(Editor note: Bibliotequa sent me a sample of the chorus and I thought it was good enough to make a song out of, but that meant having to listen to 'The Spears' again. Thus the reason why he's the target of this issue. He must pay for this.....)

The crowd moaned in agony. Truly the adage was true "Good songs are immortal, but bad songs linger like a bad odour". Megaman nonetheless was impressed. Now it was Editors turn.

(The Following song "Synched-out Girl" is done to the tune of "Barbie Girl" by Aqua. Lyrics written by NERD, a subsidiary of LaeminCorp. All Rights Reserved.)

Hiya babey!
Hi Ben!
Wanna go for a ride?
Sure Ben!

I'm a Synched-Out Girl, in a Synched-Out World,
Damn I'm naggy, its so laggy,
Crap I got no hair, the same things to wear...
Limitation, on character creation...

Stop your groaning,
lets try zoning...

I'm a Synched-Out Girl, in a Synched-Out World,
Damn I'm naggy, its so laggy,
Crap I got no hair, the same things to wear...
Limitation, on character creation...

I'm a bland muscly girl all alone in this world,
Gentank girls with chest hairs are so scary.

Try to fight, shoot away, with the gun of this jeep,
Lets go here, lets go there, with my tankey!

You can crush, kill all day, if you win the synching wars... oh no!

I'm a Synched-Out Girl, in a Synched-Out World,
Jeep is zoning, start the moaning
When we get to there, we'll be everywhere
Its a nightmare for this whole car to zone there.

Join my party, lets shoot Carly
Huh? Huh?
Join my party, lets blame Marty
Whoo? Whoo?
Join my party, lets shoot Carly
Huh? Huh?
Join my party, lets blame Marty
Whoo? Whoo?

I can walk through the town do whatever I please,
I can run, I can gun, I'll sit down and scratch fleas.
Don't jump in, not again, or I'll have to login,
Synching time is a crime, lets blame Marty.

You can crush, kill all day, if you win the synching wars...
You can crush, kill all day, if you win the synching wars...

Join my party, lets shoot Carly
Huh? Huh?
Join my party, lets blame Marty
Whoo? Whoo?
Join my party, lets shoot Carly
Huh? Huh?
Join my party, lets blame Marty
Whoo? Whoo?

I'm a Synched-Out Girl, in a Synched-Out World,
Damn I'm naggy, its so laggy,
Crap I got no hair, the same things to wear...
Limitation, on character creation...

I'm a Synched-Out Girl, in a Synched-Out World,
Jeep is zoning, start the moaning
When we get to there, we'll be everywhere
Its a nightmare for this whole car to zone there.

Join my party, lets shoot Carly
Huh? Huh?
Join my party, lets blame Marty
Whoo? Whoo?

Come on Ben, lets try zoning to MB again.
I'm sorry, but this lag is horrid
OH SCREW YOU BEN!"

All of Plaza was dancing around like epileptic kindergarteners. Megaman also was getting down with his bad self.

The competition carried on for hours until finally in a crushing blow.... Betty fell asleep while trying to sing "I Don't Gank You Anymore". Apparently, his addiction to NERD Editors stories caused him to suffer from Insomnia, and his sleep deprivation would catch up with him at the worst moments. Considering his last song went "I know you hate me but you know its true, I just can't be bothered shooting y.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" Megaman voted it a lame song and declared NERD Editor the winner. Everyone, having partied like it was 2003 returned to their business, leaving Betty asleep on a lightpost.

Until next time...

Alright, you asked for it so now you're getting it:

Tired of looking through the ever growing NERD post for the stories you're looking for?
Want to listen to Kick Me GM One More Time, but can't find the link?

Well now there's hope, yes thats right, the NERD website is ready to go.

Its big, its functional and very very green, but it has all things NERD involved.

The site will be in continuous development, but for the moment the Issues are separated out for easy access, the song links are placed under the 'Download' section.

Also, the first 20 Issues have been compiled into NERD Volume 1: The Rise of York. The first 20 issues constituted the introduction to the NERD tale, and now we're into Volume 2.

The Reality Notes are a reference to the actual incidents that have led to some of the jokes involved.

And yes, I'm hoping to finish work on the Character Bio's and the NERD's Encyclopedia soon so those can go up as well.

So, head on over to NERD and check it out.

Special thanks to Excelsier for putting the site together and agreeing to maintain it (thanks to my incompetent attempts at web publishing, he has been conscripted to run the site, and a damn sight better than me I might add).

NERD Issue # 023

Ben & Artricia Get A Room

"Oh baby, you know I want you to 'mod my barrel'" Ben typed.
"Sweetie, you boost my stats..." Artricia replied.
"When you do that dirty talk, I feel like I'm lagging,"
"Can we ever meet, psi of my dreams?" Artricia begged.
"I want to, but... I wonder if you can accept the real me...."

blah blah blah blah.... Cybering may be as old as electronic communication, but its no fun for those who aren't involved. Anyway, Ben and Artricia had met up on a NERD discussion board one day and since then had been playing electronic footsies under NERD Editors desk.

One day, the two were chatting in an open discussion room, discussing the political tensions between Twilight Guardians and the rest of Neocron. The conversation was political and many were involved when Arcadius joined the conversation...
"Oh great, its Arcadius..." a few of the other chatters groaned.
"Got any yet Arc? Or Art still not putting out."
"Oh like he could get any wit me guys." Artricia joked.
"Die biatch!!!" Arcadius typed.
"Hey hey, watch what you're saying there Arcadius," Ben stepped in.
"Who r u asshole!" Arc yelled.
"I R Ben."
"You tell him sweetie." Artricia replied.
"Sweetie?? SWEETIE!!! You two timing ratscum....."
"TWO TIMING?? On WHO? You? You're not with me. You're NEVER GETTING WITH ME!!" Artricia mauled her console.
"Who'd WANT you?" Arcadius yelled back. Derizor jumped in and started a poll. 857 people voted yes, 3 voted no, 126 voted they had crumpets for breakfast. "Damn you Derizor...."
"Just piss off Arc, you asshole!!" and with that, Artricia left. Sensing his honeybuns had departed, Ben left as well. Arcadius sat back at his hometerm and grinned.
"Yep, she wants me."

A few days later, Artricia, still befouled by Arcadius' hormone driven words, decided the only thing to make her happy was to meet Ben. So the two arranged to meet in a nice, sociable location, free from other runners or undue sexual tension.

They met in Artricia's Pepper Park 3 Love Nest.

The moment Artricia opened the door, her eyes popped out. Once they re-implanted them and cursed Gully Foyle's budget poke deal, she took the time to examine Ben.
Ben stood 5"9, 189 pounds and packing a lovely set of boobs.
Yes, Ben was a woman...

"Dis me will he, Ben will pay he will, yes he will..." Arcadius was pacing inside his apartment, "That bastard is trying to steal MY woman.... Oh I'll show him, I'll show them both!" and he stormed out of his apartment, heading to his peeping spot outside Artricia's love nest.

"You... you... You're a CHICK!!!" Artricia squealed.
"So are you..." Ben replied.
"But, but, but...."
"You believed in us before, why not now?" Ben looked deep into Artricia's glowing blue eyes. Artricia looked thoughtful for a second...
"Get over here Love Melons..."

MoonUnit was doing a random sweep of Neocron while invisible for disturbances. As he passed through Pepper Park, he heard some disturbing squeals and the occasional moan. Worried about someones safety, he walked through the wall of an apartment and stopped short.
"Oh....Oh.... OH MY FREAKN HELL!!!! DOUBLE ORDER OF SUSHI!!!!" MoonUnit had walked in on the greatest show of his lifetime. His brain overloaded with pleasurable thoughts and logic passed from his being.

Others had started to stand around in Pepper 3. The moaning had intensified.
"The moaning is intensifying." McDanish said.
"Thats my Love Nibblets!!" Arcadius had arrived on the scene.
"There is no runner named Love Nibblets. I believe Arcadius is attempting to refer to someone else by a coined affectionate terming he has deemed for that person." People starting gagging McDanish as Arcadius was looking homicidal. No one bothered to ask how he knew 'Love Nibblets' moan through a solid wall. At the knowledge that it was Artricia's pleasured moans they were hearing, most of the population of Neocron showed up.

MoonUnits sanity was gone. Two orders of sushi, mixing the sauce right before his eyes. Normal men cannot remain calm when faced with this. A Sushi addict like Moon had no hope.
"Oh the pretty sushi *twitch* it, argh... *twitch*... must be shared ...*twitch twitch*"
MoonUnit clicked his fingers and the walls disappeared and he turned visible.

Everyone was listening to the moans when all of a sudden, giant red subtitles slammed down in front of them "EXPICIT LESBO SEQUENCE!!!" and the wall disappeared and there was Artricia, Ben and MoonUnit. All bowed the Sushi Masta and beheld the show. Arcadius went postal
"Nifty Mounds!! How could you do this to me?" he screamed.
"Huh? EEEEKK!!!" At this time the girls realised they were now being broadcast live across CityCom terminals the world over. Then they saw MoonUnit, who had excreted some oil out of his STORM bot armour.
"Thats never happened to me before." he claimed.
"Bouncy Buns? Why? I have the equipment for ya, why'd you turn to the curvy side???" Arcadius was dismayed. McDanish ran over, grabbed the front of his trousers, pulled them away and stared inside with a scope.
"No, no he doesn't. What he 'claims' is equipment is actually ... ARRRGHGHH!!!" McDanish was killed that day, and it was not altogether undeserved.
"MoonUnit, you disturbed my bootey time!" Artricia growled, her eyes glowing more blue than usual.
"Now Art, come on, ya know you can't hurt me so don't even...." Artricia reached between her cleavage...

Now to those who do not know, all women possess a fold in space and time between their cleavage. This area is a null void that only they can access and has infinite storage ability. Its actually quite handy, but accessing anything there can often cause bystanders to look at you funny...

... and hauled out a 5 slot Spitfire Gatling pistol. Moon looked on in horror at the mod labelling on the ammo "LAG Round Enabled". He emmitted another fluid as Artricia sent him to the Higher Plane, courtesy of lag.

"Miss Nipple Missiles has betrayed me.... (sobs) what ever will i do... (sobs)... oh my precious (another runner screams "IT's MY PRECIOUS, Precious...") ...." and Art kicked him square in the teeth.
"For the last time, I am not getting with you Arcadius. You're nice enough and all but..."
"SHE CALLED ME NICE!!! You're all witnesses! You heard it!"
"I didn't..." McDanish called out ("Talking while dead, TEMP KICK" came CheapLoveMotels voice)
"Yeah, but listen, what I mean is...."
"You shall be mine! I will convert you from the all girl team! You called me nice. Bitch...."
"Oh for .... drop dead you Moron...." and Artricia opened fire with the Spitfire again. Once she had cleared all of Pepper and erected (no jokes) a new wall, she returned to Ben.
"Oh sweetness look what I found..." Ben waved around a flashlight-esque object.
"The DILDO OF MAVEN!!!"
"Damn straight, now get over here so we can abuse the hell out of this thing...."

Somewhere in the Wastelands...

Maven sits by himself in a hut.
"I feel so abused. Hey where's my flashlight?"

Until next time...

NERD Issue # 024

A Day In The Life Of A Jerriko Vendor

I arose at 0530, Neocron standard. My small, pokey plaza 3 apartment that I called home

was completely silent and aside from the occasionally passing hovercab, outside was as

well. I dragged myself off my recreation unit for yet another day of hard work. I grabbed

my uniform, checked myself in the mirror, had a nice tall glass of synthetic milk, then

went for the elevator.

At 0530, not a lots going on in the city. Few sane runners get up this early.

Unfortunately, I classed as below an insane runner. I wasn't even good enough to BE a

runner. I was a vendor. You know those guys who stand behind a desk and wave and smile

and buy or sell crap from ya? The crap that the aforementioned sane runners won't touch

because the quality sux and they all want to blame you because you sold it to them and they

automatically assume you made all of this and are solely responsible and never consider the

fact that the boss took all the good stuff to give to his cousin or something... *sigh* but

I digress...

I jumped on the subway and set off for Outzone station. There's not much to see in the

subway. It doesn't take long and the tunnels aren't much to look at after all. I sat with

my face close to the window waiting for the imminent pull up to the puke green stop of OZ

station. Along the way I actually noticed something of interest: a runner was dangling

from the ceiling of another tube, with a sewer rat pulling him round by his leg and the

runner trying to nail the rat with an SMG submachine gun, screaming obseneties at it as the

rat moved him ever closer to the main lines. Apparently this happens a lot, but normally

the runner in question doesn't get to work that early.

I pulled up towards the station and the door opened. I clambered out and proceeded down

the ramp, moved through the passages and passed a few of my fellow vendors, all entering

their stalls with a look of grief and dread.

Now, at this point I feel the need to explain something. As I said I am classed as sub-

runner. This means that during the genetic screening process it was determined I did not

have the adequate genetic material to become a fully fledged runner. Thus my choices were

to rebel against the city and hope to survive as part of the Anarchy Breed; become an

employee of a faction and hope for a nice office job; or join the Traders Union. The first

requires something my grandpapy referred to as 'balls' and well... apparently thats part of

the lacking genetic requirements I have. The second requires an unprecedented amount of

what what my grandmamy reffered to as 'on-your-knees' work. Never quite understood what

she meant by that. Thus that wasn't me. So I ended up a member of the Traders Union, or

Vendors as the runners simply refer to us.

Within the Traders Union there is a hierarchy, of ranks and positions to aspire to, and

jobs to fear. At the bottom of the scale is the jobs to fear: Pepper Park 1 is the single

most feared place to be a vendor, thus it is the starting position for all new vendors. If

you survive a week there, you get 'promoted' to working in Tech Haven. Many consider this

to be a demotion, as in Pepper you at least have a Copbot or two to watch your ass. In

Tech Haven you have these 4 legged things with a pneumatic nailgun that look like they're

made out of paperclips and are about as effective. After TH there's Military Base Duty,

Twlight Guardians duty, and then Outzone station duty. Outzone's considered the best

'crap' job as you get STORM bot protection, which is a far cry better than the protection

at all those other jobs. But still a lot die there.

Once you get past that job, as I had some 4 weeks ago, you are moved onto 'Outpost duty'.

Now Outpost duty can be absolutely sweet, or horrifying, depending on where you get

stationed. Working an op like say Grant Mine is a dream job, as nobody ever goes there!

No runners killing each other on your desk, no whiny customers demanding to know where they

can get a Long Laserblade 2, no jackass wanting to test the range of his Pain Easer on you.

But, there's the other hand, where you get stationed at one of the heavily contested

Outposts. The ones where factions and clans will spill blood on every square inch of the

outpost in order to claim it. And they don't care how many vendors get hit. They

occasionally care when their karma or soullight, kicks in, but half of them are so

bloodthirsty they couldn't give two tears in a bucket.

And thus was my lot today. I had been assigned to Jerikko Fortress. Don't let the name

fool you either. For a fortress it is suprisingly easy to invade. And of late it was a

warzone. JERK's had recently occupied it, and to be honest I like it when they occupy it

because they protect it pretty well. However they were at war with NUTS, who didn't

actually want the outpost, they just wanted to deny JERK's the outpost. Again, this wasn't

bad either because NUTS were very careful not to involve vendors in their wars, and best

yet, when it was over they placed stationary defenses. However, the battle for Jerikko was

not so simple. This particular outpost was wanted by PIMP, CRC, NUBI and NDA. Now NDA,

apparently, were starting to get along with NUTS, at least a little. Since the Seige of

Neocron they were at least generally on good terms. And in this they had agreed that NDA

would stay out of the fight till NUTS had taken Jerikko from their arch-nemesisisis...

their arch nimesasis... from the guys they don't like, and then NDA would occupy and hold

it later. Unfortunately CRC and PIMP were not so agreeable and were going to cause

problems.

I walked out of the giant double doors of Outzone station, greeted the STORM bots (I don't

care if they're machines or not, a little politeness to those killing machines means you

live longer) and proceeded down the ramp. There a few more of my fellow vendors were

having an early cup of Reprocessed Tea. I stopped to feel the wind in my face, the

radiation burn on my skin and welcomed the dawn of a new day in the Wastelands. Then I

walked down the ramp and joined my collegues. We only waited a minute or two before an APC

pulled up with the words 'Love Bus' stencilled on the side in crayon. Ithaqua of NUTS was

the driver. We all hopped in and Ithy began driving us out to our respective places of

work. This was one of Ithaqua's daily routines and a service he performed for NEXT.

Vendors unfortunately do not have the genetic requirements to survive Generep teleports so

must either walk or drive everywhere. Yes, I know. My life sux.

"Ok, all off for Jerikko, don't forget to wipe your feet on the way out." Ithaqua yelled

back. I hopped out and walked towards the outpost. As i walked through the arch, the

automated defenses activated and turned on me. My eyes bugged out, my prostate weakened

and I dived out of the way as lethal fire came surging towards my previous location.

Shaking like a leaf and packing a brand new wet patch on my uniform, I waved my ID in sight

of the guns. They registered my ID and de-activated. I entered the outpost and went to

find a corner to relieve myself in.

Around about 11am, I was standing behind my desk, scouring off somebody's brain matter that

had been left from the night before, when the JERK's arrived. Shadow went to relieve

himself, only to start screaming at people and demanding to know who pissed in his spot. I

said nothing. Murkster walked in and demanded some repair goo.
"Certainly sir, that will be 3,489nc".
"WHAT?? This is our outpost. I get the discount!"
"Thats with the discount sir," I replied, sweating profusely from my posterior. Murkster

pulled his Holy Lightning module out.
"And now???"
"If I say 2,000nc will I live?"
"You will."
"Then its 2,000nc sir, sorry for the inconvenience." I handed him the goo and he walked

away, laughing at how ne'd bullied a sweet deal out of a vendor. I laughed to myself in

that all profits from sales go to the outpost owners anyway, so he'd effectively screwed

himself. Not that I'd tell him that.

A little later on, I was taking my lunch break. I sat down behind the desk and ate my

ratmeat burger. A few of my fellow vendors were having a synthetic whisky, as it was

indeed cold today in the Wastes. They were talking about something that obviously

interested them so I removed my 'mute local' devices (also known as earplugs) and listened

in.
"I'm tellin ya, the wall disappeared and there's these two hot chicks going at it!!"
"Come on, why would the wall disappear?"
"MoonUnit."
"WTF??? Moon put on a Sushi buffet and I missed it? NOOOOOO!!!"
"Yeah, poor Arcadius seemed crushed. I hear he considered moving onto another chick."
"No way, Arcadius? The guy who comes in here and slaps a red wig on a vendor and starts

practicing his flirt lines? Not a chance."
"I'm tellin ya, I hear he was cybering some chick called Betty just the other day."
"Dude.... Betty's a guy."
"HUH!!!!"
"Yeah man, Betty's a guy. If he's cybering Betty, then we got mores to worry about then

him giving up on Artricia." Everyone, including me, shuddered at the thought of Arcadius

practicing his 'new' pick-up lines if this was true. We found out later that it was

actually a lie. Arcadius was simply calling Betty to ask him to dig up some dirt on Ben.
"Well anyway, it'd be a loss of business if ... ACCK!!!" the two stopped talking and

started wailing like a Drom getting an enema as a shot from a Doom Beamer blew 5 limbs off

between the two of them. I kissed my well made desk for protecting me, till I realised

what parts of my co-workers had been smeared on it. The kissing stopped after that.

It was at 1540 NST that the attack came. PIMP had decided to take Jerriko and CRC were

coming along as well. JERK's sat inside under the protection of turrets and fired on their

attackers. CRC stood at a distance and used ranged attacks. PIMP kept firing shots inside

with their cannons. I pissed my pants again.
"Somebody make them stop, when will the hurting stop!!" I screamed. Agent K took cover

behind my desk.
"No no no, you can't be here, if you're here then.... eeeek!" Carinth stood before my desk

and opened fire. Agent K grabbed me and stood up, using me as a human shield.
"THINK THIS THROUGH!!! YOU THINK HE CARES ABOUT ME????" He didn't. Carinth opened fire

full auto. Thankfully K dropped me and I fled into the corner. Then a grenade landed by

my feet so I fled down the stairs. Then the turrets turned on me and I realised the

grenade just blew up my ID, so I ran back up the stairs. Then I see Carinth and K going

melee styles inside so I dive behind a box. Then I realise where Shadow has decided to

make his new peepee hole, so I jumped behind another desk.

The killing carried on for some time. Eventually NDA got the go ahead from NUTS and

crushed everyone. They marched in and took the outpost by force. Centuri came up to see

the state of the shops and found only me.
"Dude... that aint right. You're sitting in a puddle and it ain't raining. Go clean

yourself up, I'll call for some more vendors." and walked off. As I stood up to get myself

cleaned, I got accosted and hauled up to the desk by Cereal Killa, who declares he needed

to buy medpacks. At this point, my mind kinda lost it
"Oh you need.... YOU NEED!!! Well whooptee freakn doo man. Want a medal? I need to LIVE

but no one thinks about that!!"
"Err, easy dude I was just sayin..."
"Of course you were, you guys always are!!! Do you KNOW the sh*t we go through to supply

your cheapass, tightwad no respect giving monkeyspunk asses with stuff you just whine about

anyway???" Yes, the old adage was true. This job would be great if it weren't for the

customers.... and the projectile fire.
"Listen, I'll go get meds somewhere else. Don't blow a fuse man..."
"Oh he still bitches about meds, here, have all the meds in the world!!!" I threw out the

entire contents of the store before him.
"DUDE!!! Sweet!! Freebies!!"
"THAT'S IT!!! I QUIT!!! It'd be easier as Anarchy Breed. I kiss this job goodbye," and

made the mistake of kissing the bench again. I marched right past Cereal Killa who was

grabbing everything he could, only to drop half of it back out of the hole in his backpack.

I shouldered my way past a bewildered Centuri on the ramp and stormed towards the exit.

Wish I'd remembered to pick my ID up...

The Biotech doctors say its a miracle I survived getting hit by 11 Gatling turrets

simultaneously. They reckon I'll be back on my feet in no time. Some might think that

being bedridden and unable to move for 6 months would be a bad thing. Those people however

do not realise my bed has a perfect view into Artricia's love nest.

Until next time...

My apologies for the poor spacing on the last issue. I'm not working from the comfort of the NERD offices today, but from a remote terminal in the insidious place I am forced to go to every day. I'll edit it up nice and clean later and I'll make sure Excelsier puts the clean version on the NERD site.

And now I move onto Issue 25, which..... oh dear.... don't expect it in a rush guys. Say goodbye finger-skin its time to type like a madmen... where's my oreo's....

Till later...

Well now I'm just angry....

I was working at my remote location on Issue 25. As I am expecting it to be fairly long, I decided to get to work on it right away. I finished what I could and mailed it back to NERD head office....

And did the attachment arrive? Nooooo. Now the original is gone from the remote locale and its not here and I'm pissed... Me hates remote location.....

Anyway, I will get 25 done as soon as inhumanly possible. I think Bib's been looking forward to this one (don't give them any clues Bib) but as it won't play out exactly like he thinks he should be able to enjoy it too.

Anyway, back to killing the tech guys at remote term...

Well, I've managed to rewrite the lost material for Issue 25, now I can carry on a bit. I doubt my ability to finish it any time soon, but you never know...

Btw, if you've been NERDED once, thats it, you're part of the NERD universe and thus are up for recurring roles. So the Art show may not be over yet....

Also, had an interesting talk on #cronhelp earlier, pointing out I may have been a bit mean to the 'bad guys' ingame. Well, possibly, but that is all just lead-up to where I'm going (do I even know where that is anymore????)

Anyways.... [insert stupid comment here]

NERD Issue # 025

When Worlds Collide

Ever get that feeling when you just recently woke up, perhaps opened a window and the breeze made all the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? That sense that things are about to start happening but you've no idea what? This is one of those times.

>>>> 0000 May 17 Tyron Factory, C Parallel, Wastelands <<<<

It was all quiet in the fields, much as it was throughout the Wastelands, and in the cities. There wasn't much fighting going on at the moment. The occasional clan scuffle over an outpost took place, but other than that the world was enjoying a time of peace. Near Tyron, a swarm of dragonflies were practicing their dogfight tactics near a lake, happy and peaceful when all of a sudden a bolt of Lightning struck the terrain and sent them flying in all directions. Debris went everywhere until a vacuum effect from the impact crater kicked in and drew everything in the area towards it. And then it began to take shape. Formed of lightning, fire and dragonfly droppings, it took humanoid form and thus MJS stepped onto the Neocron plain of existence. Once fully formed, he generated for himself his Armani Powerarmour, gucci boots and the Shades of L337ness (highly coveted by Sid btw). Then he began walking. Each step resounded with death and destruction. All living things made haste to get the hell out of his way. After a time he passed into the D Parallel and found a crate. He sat down quietly for a moment and everything became very still. Then he snapped his fingers and a thunderous ripple of noise shot across the lands. And again he returned to silence.

A few minutes later Teh KillerBunneh came bounding over the hills to see his Master.
"What is your bidding Master?" Bunneh asked.
"Have you seen the state of the world?" MJS asked.
"Master, you told me not to get involved. To this day I have followed that command."
"Yet you summoned The DEVS to perform a Wasteland Rollback." Martin seethed with fury. Bunneh quiverred.
"I am sorry, Master. What would you have me do?"
"Look at it. Just look," Martin glanced across the landscape, "It's .... PEACEFUL! NDA and NUTS are working together... Reza makes no moves for fear of pissing his publicist off, JERK's only come out to fight over petty outpost struggles, and even the Dome has sent out messengers to... NEGOTIATE!" Martin kicked over a hill in disgust. Bunneh quiverred further. MJS was about to go on when Megaman came walking along at a distance with Smokey behind him.
"EYYYY, don't worry about it, I'll get ya to Tech Haven. And once there we can play kick the can with the bots!"
"Will the Fallen Angels give us trouble?" Smokey asked.
"Nah, we're cool with them. They might play with us too!" Megaman and Smokey skipped along, gay as could be (that came out wrong...).
"OH THAT DOES IT!!!!" MJS stomped and the cliff he was standing on was reduced to a plateau, "MEGAMAN IS BABYSITTING NEWBIES??? He's gone Carebear!!" MJS was livid, "My greatest agent of chaos has gone to the pansyass side. Oh that's it Bunneh..." Martins voice dropped to a sinister hollow growl, "... its time for drastic measures." He reached into his Armani pocket and withdrew the Brassnucks of Synchholes.
"No... No anything but that! Surely there's another way!" Bunneh pleaded, but MJS would hear none of it. He placed the nucks on and punched at thin air. A rip in the fabric of reality formed and a wormhole was created. And once formed, MJS stepped through...

Now, a quick note about wormholes. According to a certain sci-fi of the 20th century (listed on the Ceres Discs under 'Theories of Dimensional Travel') wormholes link parallel universes together and can be used to travel from one to another. This is not quite true. Rather, a wormhole leads you to a null zone, only referred to as Zone 28. This zone is like the loading program in The Matrix (also listed on the Ceres Discs under 'Theories to Counter-attack a Dominant Mechanised Species in cases of Planetary Conquest') in that it is a big empty place that you can pretty much do anything in. Only difference is that there isn't a big black guy in a shiny trenchcoat handing out blue and red pills like some member of PIMP. Once you enter Zone 28, you can access a Parallel Universe by punching through reality in another location. The locations form the mapping conduits to the other Dimensions.

... and thus he came to Zone 28. Once there, MJS punched a hole again and pushed a button on a device in his pocket. Then he stood and waited. A few moments later, another individual stepped through into Zone 28. As Bunneh peered through the first wormhole, he saw that it was... MJS?

"You paged me?" second MJS asked.
"I did, yes." first replied.
"Well what do you want?"
"Always so to the point. How bout a little chitchat? How ya doin?"
"You should know..." second growled.
"Suppose I should..." first assented.
"Get to a point."
"Very Well. I NEED EVIL!!!" 28 rumbled with thunderous rage.
"Why should I waste my time with you? You're obviously not evil enough for me to talk to." second answered.
"Obviously? Why is that? I R EVIL!!!" again with the thunder.
"Oh yeah? If you're so evil, why do you need more evil from me?"
"TO BE MORE EVIL!!!" Bunneh backed away from the thunder.
"Hmn... you have a point..." second agreed.
"See, if you were truly evil, you'd never have agreed. Only pure evil can be so arrogant as to believe itself absolute! AND I R EVIL!!!" Thunder, fear, blah blah blah.
"DAMNIT!!! Fine, what do you need?" Second gave up. First handed him a list. Second read it.
"Damn.... you R EVIL!!!" a tiny firecracker fart noise broke in the deathly silence. Bunneh looked on confused.
"Bunneh, go with him. He will need your special skills to acquire some of my 'merchandise'." First laughed, and the Apparent Walls of Zone 28 oozed blood...

>>>> 1306 May 17 Military Base Entrance, J Parallel, Wastelands <<<<

Hurricane was out with The Khans helping them to hunt down a few Warbots. He would provide what offense he could, and then open the protected chest cavities of the fallen Warbots to obtain useful materials for the continued war effort of the City Mercs. After a while, Hurricane had become separated from the main force, as he tried to crack open a particularly difficult Warbot Titan.
"Ahh, that got it... lets see here.... pipes, don't need those... wires... blehhh... OOH! This warbot was equipped with a Bezerk chip! Level 3, very nice... I'll just hold it here flimsily between two fingers while I continue to talk to myself and give away valuable information and fumble around with my pocket and ... ACCKKKK!!!" Hurricane was, unsuprisingly, hit with a Moonstriker missile and sent flying into a hill nearby. He dropped the implant which was picked up by his attacker.
"Thanks for the loot, now say hello to deathvill: population - you". Just as Hurricane reached caught a glimpse of the runners dogtags, he was killed.

>>>> 1322 May 17 NUTS Clan Apartment, Plaza District, Neocron <<<<

Hurricane appeared at the Generep. He slumped over and crashed to the floor. Eva saw an opportunity to slip her Nurse uniform on.
"Oh My Lioon!! They killed Hurricane!" McDanish said.
"You BASITDS!!!" Shodough yelled.
"Who? Who killed Hurricane?" ReefSmoker ran in.
"The Bastids did." Shodough replied. He and McDanish were promptly strangled from behind by Warlock.
"Hurricane, who did this? Who attacked you?" Reef implored.
"S...St....Starkes..." and Hurricane became one with the floor. Eva turned him over and began a full body cavity search.
"That just can't be... its not possible..." And Reef doubted, but he still signalled for his NUTS to gather round.

Now, the reason why Reef was in doubt was this. From time to time a runner will experience perma-death, the absolute death of character that cannot be fixed by locking onto a generep respawner. At these times, occasionally a runner finds themselves crossing the great celestial nexus and arriving in a Parallel Universe. When they arrive, they bring with them tales of the universe they came from. Each one seemingly the same world, but vastly different. To distinguish which Universe one is talking about, it became common practice to refer to the Universe by the dominant planet in the sky. Reef and NUTS existed in the Pluto Universe. Another was the Jupiter Universe, and the Saturn Universe. Thankfully, all connections to the chaos Universe Neptune had been cut off. Runners during permadeath could go to and from different Universes. Often Runners would come from the Saturn Universe, with grave tales of hardship and also tales of joy. Whenever a runner said he was from Uranus, he generally was met with hysterical laughter.

Now the name Starkes comes from the Saturn Universe. Tales of his actions have spread through the multiverse. Now, it is was not inconceivable for Starkes to have achieved a Universe transference, for it happens to the best of us. It was less conceivable that Starkes could have arrived here and already be strong enough to wield a Moonstriker, as when you achieve a transference, you come out the other side as weak and naked as the day you were born. So for Starkes to have arrived and increased his potential that much undetected was hard to accept. But what made it harder to accept was the fact that the tales had said that Starkes had been struck down by Odin (of the Saturn Universe) and that his body had been obliterated. His soul was encased in Silly Putty (the only substance tricky enough to encase a soul) and buried deep in the bowels of the world where no runner could ever free it. So for him to be here was an impossibility...

>>>> 1400 May 17 NUTS Clan Apartment, Plaza District, Neocron <<<<

All NUTS were assembled and the emergency meeting was begun. Teams were dispatched to talk with NDA, Synergy, CareBear Daycare, MAX-T and any other friendly clan to determine how Starkes could be here, and also if any other disturbances had been noticed. Warlock and Mako were ordered to search for anything that could provide an alternative answer. The meeting took 55 minutes, so before departing at 1500, they all had Milky Rens. Only one member noticed a drooling furry thing with Long Ears at the window.

>>>> 1500 May 17 - 0100 May 18, Various Locations <<<<

The investigation brought much interest and concern. Various bits of info flowed in about sightings of Starkes, but none had believed it till now. However... other sightings had been made that brought worse feelings of dread...

>>>> 0130 May 18 Eastgate Factory, H Parallel, Wastelands <<<<

NDA had assembled. They too had heard of these strange rumours, and were taking no chances. Tonight they were working on a batch production of weapons for the coming warfare, and so were defending Eastgate above all of their other assets. At 0142, Nightfire declared he saw movement. At 0143 he declared it was just his foot. At 0151 he declared he saw movement again. When his foot got shot off by a Pain Easer, the other NDA's knew he was telling the truth this time. In the dull of the night, the firefight began and lit up the Canyon. The firefight was so intense it became as bright as day. Eventually, Sl33py, awakening just in time to join the fight as it began to enter the outpost, caught glimpse of the dogtags around an attackers neck...

Blood Brothers.

At 0456, NDA had to abandon the base. They had held out for just over 3 hours against Blood Brothers and it looked like a stalemate, until JERK's, wanting to reclaim Eastgate, had joined the fight. And as Blood Brothers were also Twilight Guardians, they allied together to defeat NDA. The escape was not without losses, and most of NDA found themselves respawning from death back in Neocron, rather than just teleporting home.

>>>> 0600 May 18, Plaza 1, Neocron <<<<

The City's population had been summoned together. Centuri told of the horrific warfare that had taken place throughout the night, followed by ReefSmoker imparting the knowledge about what was going on. The Worlds were colliding somehow. Some of the most destructive forces of the Saturn Universe, past and present, had found ways to somehow cross into the Pluto Universe without enduring perma-death. The alliance between Blood Brothers and JERK's had only created more disturbance. Insidious Wolf, not one to take crap from anybody, and determined to prove himself stronger than Starkes, screamed for blood, grabbed his Holy Lightning and charged for the city gates. Any attempt the meeting leaders made to restrain the unruly mob was wasted, as they charged to get their guns and beseige Twilight Guardians, the only realisable target they could think of. Teh Bunneh, sitting atop a ledge watching the proceedings, bounded off to give the news to his Master.
War was upon the world again.

>>>> 0814 May 18, Atop Tech Haven entrance, E Parallel, Wastelands <<<<

Martin sat back, shades on, beer in hand and with his uncanny vision, watched as a giant unruly mob poured out of Neocron, determined to ransack TG. He grinned and a Hoverbot fell over dead.

>>>> High Noon, May 18, Twilight Guardians Entrance, E Parallel, Wastelands <<<<

The Resistance resisted. They and many other of the smaller Twilight Guardian clans held the gate against the oncoming masses. The guards released fusion fury upon the incoming charges, the runners opened fire with everything they had. It didn't look like they would hold the entrance, until the attackers were flanked by JERK's and Blood Brothers. Over 600 runners fought in the Battle for Twilights Gate, and less than 30 walked away from it. The carnage was unheard of, the hate - indescribable, the blood - hip deep. And the evil grin grew worse. Omega Res, Diesel, and Megaman were three of the survivors, walking away from the warzone when they were ambushed in their injured state by Starkes, who had sat back firing potshots at any who tried to seek cover from the slaughter. He killed Omega and Diesel, but was only able to wound Megaman. He then hooked Megaman's powerarmour to the back of his Jeep and drove back to TG, dragging Mega along the canyon floor. Once their, JERK's strung him up in a cell and beat seven shades of shampoo out of him. Then their Manipulator came to talk to him.

>>>> 1601 May 18 Miscellaneous Torture Chamber, Twilight Guardians <<<<

Psycho Killa walked in with a bottle of synthetic vinegar. She looked upon Megaman and circled him silently. She then threw half the contents of the bottle on Mega's exposed wounds and watched him writhe.
"Mega, why do you do this to yourself? The city scum cannot appreciate your power. The city scum cannot give you what you need... Death and destruction." Psycho looked deep into Mega's eyes.
"What do you want?" Mega growled.
"You must join with me, Mega, and together, we will destroy Reza."
"I'll never join you!" Mega yelled back.
"I emplore you to reconsider!" Killa yelled back.
"Ok, I agree." Megaman reponded.
"Really?"
"No."
"But you must!"
"Why?" Mega asked.
"Because Megaman, I am your SISTER!" and she flashed him.
"NOOOOOOOO!!!!!" He screamed.

>>>> 1607 May 18 Miscellaneous Torture Chamber, Twilight Guardians <<<<

Megaman broke and agreed to become a member of JERK's. The grin turned to a sneer.

>>>> 0032 May 19 Redrock Mine, D Parallel <<<<

Warlock and Mako had tracked for the last day and a half to finally come upon the source of the disturbance. Where once the wormhole had been, now was simply a area of terrain where mobs that walked to close, fell through the ground, reappeared a mile up in the air and fell to their messy fate.
"Well, this is it, this is where they came through." Warlock pointed out.
"Don't start doing a McD." Mako looked at him.
"Sorry." Mako contacted NUTS HQ and revealed the truth. After a few minutes of deliberations, they contacted the pair with a plan. It was very dangerous, and success was a slim possibility, but they needed to try. Warlock ran around and with great difficulty caught two Flying Black roaches. He then stuffed one in either ear and sat down as Mako began singing a hymn. The nightmarish sound ripped through the air and re-opened the wormhole, and worse still it blasted a hole out the other side of Zone 28. Once she stopped singing, Warlock pulled the bugs out of his ears and released them. He then followed Mako through the wormhole. They entered Zone 28
"Hello, I am Morpheous." a strange man with shades that were oddly attached to his face turned to face them and grinned oddly.
"Where are we?" Mako asked.
"More importantly than when, is perhaps the question where. You believe you're in the year 1999, when it is in fact...."
"Woah, hold up q-ball," Warlock butted in, "what the hell are you talking about? Its the 28th Century."
"... It is? Damn. There wouldn't be a guy here who's name is an oddly simple anagram of 'One' would there? You know, like "Oen" or "Eno"?"
"How about Neo?" Mako suggested.
"Yeah, that could work." Morpheous looked hopeful that his stupid search to find some benevolent computer geek with pasty white skin was at an end.
"Yeah... he's in Uranus."
"....I'm sorry?"
"Oh no, not this explanation again..." Warlock successfully explained what Mako ACTUALLY meant by 'in Uranus' and then blocked his ears again. Mako ripped a hole to Uranus (don't say it...) and Morpheous went through it. Finally, Warlock and Mako sent out a message to the Saturn Universe. They waited a short while and then all of a sudden, several Runners jumped through the wormhole into Zone 28. Mako and Warlock were oddly suprised at their appearance. Half of them wore dorky looking orange pyjama's with Kanji stencilled on the back, and had the worst hair-do's since Mr-T some 800 years ago.
"Wow, that was great... where's the food?" Kakarat asked.
"Kak, calm down, we just got here." Sh0dan calmed him down.
"Where is here?" Rykos asked.
"Oooh, look!! Natives!" another said, hiding behind Sh0dan.
"Who might you be?" Warlock inquired.
"We are the Saiyans." Sh0dan responded. The other Saiyans all waved.
"Peace be to you!" Mako said.
"And to you!" Sh0dan responded.
"No, to you!" Mako replied.
"Seriously, it must go to you..." "no you" "no you"....
Warlock walked over to Kakarat.
"How long can yours keep that up for?"
"Indefinitely, how about yours?"
"We've never found her limit for politeness..." They both groaned. The one that had been hiding behind Sh0dan was now zipping around the place.
"Wow, nice place. Bet it could do with some paint... Meehhh!!" the twitchy little man ran up and around Warlock who recoiled.
"Who or what is that?"
"Well," Kakarat replied, "his name is Bibliotequa, but since recently we started calling him Betty and..." Kakarat stopped as he saw Warlock's eyes blaze red as he grabbed Betty by the neck.
"BACK YOU GO!!!" Warlock tried to shove him back through the wormhole.
"NOOO!! I MUST GET OUT OF HERE!!! I MUST GET FREE!!!!" Mako stopped being polite and pulled Warlock off.
"Easy Glare-boy, we need what we can get." And with that she explained the situation to the Saiyans...

>>>> High Noon, Jerikko Fortress, B Parallel, Wastelands <<<<

This time it was TG that attacked. The forces of Neocron intercepted them at Jerikko and the fight raged. The battle was intense, but going against Neocron. The new tactics of Blood Brothers were causing chaos in the ranks. All seemed lost till the Saiyans joined the fight and being aware of Blood Brothers' tactics, were able to counter. Not expecting this turn of events, the TG coalition decided to retreat before their losses mounted. As they ran, Neocron forces began the pursuit, hoping to overtake and slay their foes. But it was not to be. Their pursuit was cut off as a being of immeasurable evil stood between them and their targets.

MJS had joined the fight.

TG noticed this but did not turn back to assist. The feeling of dread coming off Martin was too strong. All cowered away from him. Each step towards the Neocron forces made the earth shake, and the forces retreat a step. MJS burned with rage and sought to charge down the front lines, when a sole runner came running up from behind him and stopped right in front of him, facing the Neocron forces, withought even noticing him.
"Hi Guys, sorry I'm late, what I miss?" Richard Adregan asked. Enraged beyond measure, MJS coiled back and bitchslapped Richard into orbit.
"I can see my house from here!!" Richard yelled as he passed into outer space.
"TALKING WHILE IN A NOISELESS VACUUM!!! TEMP KICK!!!" CheapLoveMotel appeared above him and drop kicked him into Limbo.
"NOOOOOOO!!!" Hurricane yelled. Everyone looked at him and he just shrugged.
"You candy ass carebears!!! I will see my vengeance out on you all. PREPARE YOURSELVES!!" MJS loomed ever closer. He then pulled from his deep pockets the Mallet of PWNAGE and began pummelling runners. Left and right he swang and they were cast from him. All seemed lost. Till without concern for her wellbeing, Danae ran forward and tapped MJS on the ass. Turning to see the cute-faced vixen, he paused in his slaughter.
"Hi there Marti-poo, I've got something for ya!" and she passed him a Portable Console. MJS, oddly baffled by all this, took the console and turned it on. It had text, so he began to read.
"MJS YOU SUXXOR" Diesel.
"I HATES YOU!!! I WANTS TO QUITS!!!" Parad0x
"If I had the Mallet of PWNAGE and the Shades of L337ness, it'd be U Down on the ground, Precious." Sid.
"Erm... I've no idea who you are, but I don't wanna be left out. You are sucky!!" Jercules.
MJS recoiled from the words and grabbed his head, yelling in agony.
"NOOO!!! NOOOOOO!!!!" and his physical form broke down. His eternal being fled from the shell back to the Etherial Plain only referred to as "His Office", right before the body exploded covering everyone in electrified, flaming dragonfly poop.

For Danae was one of the few people who knew of the secret weapon; the one thing guaranteed to make MJS run from the Neocron Realm....

A Flame Post.

Until next time...

I now live in terror. As I walked through Neocron, incognito on Pluto, there came Betty running past me, humping the leg of many a runner and attempting to live out NERD.

What have I created.....

NERD Issue # 026

I R Evil

You know, Evil MJS wasn't always evil. In fact there used to be a time where he was the sweetest benevolent being in existence. This is his tale.

Once upon a time, MJS, or Marty as his three friends used to call him, was walking around the benevolent playground, waiting for the secret meeting to take place. Now, it really wasn't all that secret, but when you're 8 years old and you say you're going to a secret meeting, you automatically believe its a secret.

Marty found his three friends and they sat down at a benevolent park bench, under a benevolent oak tree and talked about what they were gonna do with their benevolence. Seated with his back to the oak tree was Marty. To his left was George, to his right was Wesley and across from him was Gene. And so they talked.
"Guys," Gene jumped in, "When I grow up, I'm gonna create a world!! Yeah man, I'm gonna use my benevolence and create a world!"
"What kinda world?" Marty asked.
"Its gonna be such a cool world Marty, its gonna have all these planets in it, which you get to by making these white lines whoosh past you and your ship..."
"Oh so there's ships and planets?"
"Yeah man, its gonna be so cool. There'll be these ships man, and they're like flying saucers, but to make them look really cool, i'm gonna stick these pipes out the back that make em go faster..."
"But Gene," Wesley jumped in, "in space there's no friction, so streamlining doesn't make things faster."
"Yes but the reversed polarity of the warp coils co-axial thrust inverted through the deflector couplings will create a subspace window allowing the displacement of matter through a localised phenomenon to pass beyond the theoretical limits of physics." Gene replied.
"..... WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST SAY????" George yelled.
"That is what I call technobabble, and its the answer to all of lifes problems. So, like, there'll be these ships with crews on them, and some will have pointy ears, and some will have tubes where their peepee's should be," everyone looked at Gene funny, "and I'll give them a Swedish name like.... Beorg or something, and then there'll be these guys with dreads, and bad attitudes and no dentists called Clampons."
"Your names need work dude," Marty said.
"Well, maybe, but here's the really cool part. On all these ships, everybody gets along, and if they get bored getting along, then out of nowhere, a woman with big boobs who wears skin tight clothing will conveniently appear to save them all from their boredom. It's gonna be so cool..." Gene finished. George, the only teenager of the 4, was loving that last idea.
"Well, I'm gonna make a world too, and its gonna be so cool," Wesley decided to share too.
"Why's that?" Marty asked.
"Cause its gonna be a world completely populated by sheep."
"........."
"No really, it'll be so cool, it'll have Mamma Sheep and the sheepettes, and her girlfriend sheep can come and do her wool up for the big field dance where Papa Sheep will be butting horns in the Concussion Contest..."
"Dude, thats like the worst idea ever. How dull would that be?" George blurted out, "I mean, what are they gonna do in this world? Mate? Eat? Shed wool and make the world a warmer place? Oh, no, I know, they're gonna have farting competitions to see who can blow a bigger hole in the ozone layer."
"Hey, come on, sheep are cool." Wesley retorted.
"Seriously man, get a better idea."
"Oh yeah George, well whats your idea then?" Wesley through a huff (He never made his sheep world, instead he ran off, changed his name, stole someone elses idea and made a world called Middle-Earth. But he never forgot his dreams about sheep...)
"Well my idea is the best!" George leaned in, "its set a long time ago guys, ya know, and its got all these weird people, and they all run into each other ya know in a universe... well, rather a galaxy, and its far, ya know, far far away."
"This sounds like the worst intro ever," Wesley was still bitter.
"And its got all these cool people, like these midgets in Red hoods who run around stealing your car and your robot, and sell it back to you once they've given it a paint job, and these British sounding guys with swords of light who sound like they're bored with life. Ooh ooh, and there's wookies!"
"Wookies?" everyone exclaimed.
"Yeah, wookies. They're like 7 feet tall, really strong guys with 6 boobs on their chest!" George was grinning.
"6 boobs on their chest? Dude, if they're so strong and tall and stuff, I'd expect hair on their chest, not boobs." Marty intervened.
"Pfft, a wookie with hair, what a stupid idea." George scoffed, "anyway, they all get into weird adventures and they're all drawn together by this mystic power called The Pull, ya see, cause it pulls them all together."
"Again I think your names need work," Wesley argued, "but it sounds ok."
"Wait, I still haven't said the best part. There's this little green muppet that hobbles around using bad grammer, and everyone will love him."
"For being green or his bad grammer?"
"Everything man, Yoda will be pants!"
"Oooooh, Pants.... he must be cool!" Marty said. And secretly he coveted the idea about the sword of light.
"What about you Marty?" Gene asked.
"I'm gonna make a perfect world!" Marty exclaimed. Everyone laughed.
"No, really, I am. Its gonna be nice and clean, and everything works, and nobody gets angry or argues. And it will have these 4 types of people, like Monks and Spy's and stuff, and they'll all be equal in society and powers and they'll all live happily in their homes and their toilets will always work."
"Dude, there's no way you can make a perfect world, but best of luck with the toilets..."

And so they prattled on, as kids do. Eventually Gene went on to make technobabble a household word and he did change the names of some of his races. Wesley changed his name to Peter and married a nice woman. They now live on a sheep farm in the Sheep capital of the benevolent world. George got distracted when his dog Indiana got run over, and he felt the need to create a small world as a tribute to him, but eventually made his world and his wookies. The ones with boobs were exterminated by the freaky hooded creatures for being too weird to live, and so George let them have hair... lots of hair.

Now, as for Marty...

At first, it looked like he was going to succeed. With his benevolence, he created a world. The world had no pollution, no problems. Then he introduced people and they started to mess it up a bit, but ultimately things were going ok. Then they had a, well a little spat, and they lobbed these missiles at each other and the world was no longer clean and pretty, instead it was a post-apocalyptic nightmare. But in so doing, they thinned out their numbers and eventually got to behave again and started working together. And Marty reckoned things were going pretty well. So, he decided to go and walk in the world he had created.

As a young man of 20 and still utterly benevolent, he decided to take a run through the wastelands. Radiation wasn't an issue for him, so it seemed a good idea. And he did enjoy his run. The weird mutated mushrooms, being eaten by the even weirder mutated bunnehs (from which one day a ruling Bunneh would rise, but I think you know about it) and the people working together to fight off the plagues of their environment served only to show him that a perfect world is not necessarily a clean world. In fact a dirty hostile environment seemed only to serve the function of bringing humanity together.

"I love this world, I think I shall stay among them, for they are wonderful. Especially those spy's, those shades they wear are so cool!" And MJS sat down on a rock, and pulled a Milky Ren out of his pocket. He prepared to open the wrapper when he was struck from behind by a big stick and sent sailing into a ditch.
"Owww... what hit me?" Marty stood up and looked around to see a Spy with a baseball bat, standing on the rock, with Marty's Milky Ren in hand.
"Hey, Mr. Spy, thats my Milky Ren, please return it." Marty began to move forward.
"Fry em!" the spy yelled. And the Psi Monk standing nearby hit MJS with fire and he burned.
"Owww, I'm burning!!" and the spy and the monk moved away, sharing Marty's candy. Eventually Marty was put out, when the Spy wheeled past in a crude vehicle, kicking dirt in Marty's face. MJS's brow creased a bit.
"That wasn't very nice. That was my candy..." and Marty's brow creased considerably more, "oh well, they must have been hungry. It's ok, I have another one..." and as he pulled the next one out, he got shot from behind and fell to his knees. A Private Eye walked up and took his candy.
"That's mine now bitch... uz just got pwnzed!" And he kicked more dirt in Marty's face and walked away. Marty now had assumed a scowl. And he lay there, drained of any will to do anything by the horrible events.

A while later a GenTank walked past and saw Marty. He walked over, checked him, looted his pockets of remaining Milky Rens, but then woke him up and lifted him to his feet.
"You ok man?" the Tank asked, hiding the candy. Marty had been face down this whole time. He finally raised his face to look at the Tank and the most evil glare the world had ever seen was on his face. The Gentank recoiled in fear.
"You have done me a kindness. For that, you and your kind shall be spared.... for now." and Marty reached into his armour and withdrew the first ever NERF bat. He walked past the Tank and chased after his attackers.

MJS set upon the Spy first, beating him to a bloody pulp with the NERF bat.
"You shall be the bitch of all. You shall work for the benefit of all, but be too weak to ever use your benefits. You shall be the wussy bitch of this world, you and your kind..."
"Nooooooo...." the Spy tried to scream and collapsed. The Monk had stood by laughing at the spy as he was beaten to uselessness, when MJS turned his rage on the Monk.
"You, shall forever be in a state of confusion," the monk began to sweat, "at times I will let you think that you are strong again, and that you have power. And just at that moment, I will send my minions to strike your kind down with this bat, and forever make you miserable. Enjoy the rest of your pathetic life..." and MJS walked away, leaving the Monk to soil himself.

Marty caught the Private Eye and beat him in all places where it counted.
"You shall forever be the nothing special guy. You'll always be dumber, weaker, slower and less able than everyone else at something, and you'll always feel ... inadequate. And even when you think you've overcome those inadequacies... you'll always know where I hit you the hardest." and the PE, clutching his manhood, recoiling from the where he'd been NERFed the most, looked on in despair. And MJS swore that for his kindness, the Tank had earned an immunity from the NERF bat, until Marty's revenge had been exacted upon all the others. Only then would the NERF bat come to bear on the kind samaritan who helped him out of a ditch, and stole his candy.

But it was not enough to just nerf them all, no, Marty needed to inflict more suffering, more chaos, for their heinous crimes. So from that day forth, MJS insinuated himself into the confidance of two individuals, whispering in their ears, promising them power and riches, and a better world. And they called him Master, and did his bidding. And then, one day, he called Regant and Ceres and ordered them to attack each other.

And the rest, is history...

Until next time...

*me smashes everyone upside the head with the anvil of 'NERD Denial' till everyone stops spamming this post*

NERD Issue # 027

The Truth About Bats and Droms

Lisa Davitt had finished a long and tiring day of being blonde and had returned to her luxurious Plaza 3 apartment. The elevator doors opened and she began walking down the narrow corridor to her apartment door. As she walked, she thought she could hear a grunting, rustling sound. She got to the door and placed her hand on the identi-scanner. The door slid opened and she stepped in. All of a sudden she heard a thud and a scurrying noise, before a flash of light from the Generep was spotted. Lisa, shocked that something had been in her apartment, looked around to see if there was any damage. As best she could tell there wasn't any until...

Aghast, Lisa ran to her hometerm and called the NCPD.
"NCPD here, Officer Jenna speaking,"
"I need help... someone was in my apartment."
"Ok, just calm down ma'am. Is anything stolen?"
"No, worse... whatever it was was molesting my potplants!!"

A few hours later,

McDanish, SoulBurner, Vain and Byron were out fighting near El Farid Village. They had just finished killing a Hazard Worm, and pulling SoulBurner away from its tempting posterior.
"So, what shall we do now?" Byron asked.
"We shall decide what we are going to do now." (Do I even need to tell you who said that?)
"How's about we all head back to city for some Synthetic Milk? Milk, it does the body good. You guys go on ahead and I'll just finish up here... ack." Soul got slapped by Byron again. The debate continued, and rather than stand around with the full weight of his back, McDanish placed a package of tech parts down on the ground. Eventually it looked like everyone had agreed to go back to the city and take a breather, and McDanish went to collect his pack, when a Grim Persecutor came over a dune and ate the package.
"Ack!! A Grim Persecutor has come over a dune and eaten the package!"
"Brilliant deduction Sherlock!" Soulburner yelled, "now what do we do?"
"Mr. Grim, would you kindly cough up my package?" McDanish asked the Grim. The fireball to the face was answer enough.
"Guys, get ready, you attack it from the front and I'll launch my special attack!" Vain yelled. Not having a better idea, they attacked it from the front. Vain snuck around behind the Grim. It looked like SoulBurner was going to be killed, despite Byron's attempts to heal him, when all of a sudden Vain screamed like a dying sheep and launched himself at the Grim. The Grim stopped fireballing the others to turn its head and make a 'hmn?' sound. Once 3 steps away, Vain pulled the buckle on his Inquisition trousers and let them fall to his ankles. 3 men and a Grim stood there, jaws on the ground, as Vain launched himself into midair, with his pants round his ankles and his heat-seeking moisture missile targeting the greatest ass of fire, and impaled the Grim from behind. The thrusting began and the regurgitation started. The Grim's eyes did something similar to Wile E Coyote's eyes in a Roadrunner cartoon as the penetration began.
"NOOOO!!! Not another one!" Byron screamed.
"Hey, I only do em when they're dead." Soul yelled.
"Oh and thats supposed to be a defense?" McDanish looked at him. Vain continued his pelvic assault and, Byron almost wished he hadn't noticed, but the Grim seemed to be grinning. He felt last nights Baked Wasteland Potato's coming back on him.
"Well, *grunt, moan, heave* what are you waiting for *grunt, heave, squelsh* hurry up and shoot it!" Vain yelled between thrusts. Soulburner opened fire and was the most effective. McD and Byron kept trying to shoot with their eyes closed so tended to hit everything around the Grim, but rarely the Grim itself. Eventually the mighty beast was felled, but unfortunately this led to three things.
1. Vain didn't stop.
2. SoulBurner decided to join in.
3. Byron and McDanish generepped back to the city in search of therapy.

After the Grim incident, Soul and Vain decided to chill out at El Farid Village, overlooking the lake. The desert wolves were howling, the vultures were circling, the droms were eating and the two necrophilactic beastial sodomisers were feeling pretty good.
"You know, Grim's pretty good. Not as good as Hazard, but good nonetheless." SoulBurner said.
"Ever tried Warbot?"
"Nah, those guys got sphincters as tight as a drum. Kinda explains the pissed off look on their faces."
"True." Vain agreed.
"You know, sitting here, with nature around us... I'm getting an inspiration coming on."
"Dude, you just did the Grim like 11 times."
"An 'INSPIRATION'... what did you think I said?"
"Oh... never mind. So whats your inspiration?"
"Well...."

(The Following Song 'The Drom Song', is done to the tune of 'The Bad Touch' aka 'Discovery Channel' by BloodHound Gang. Lyrics written by NERD, a subsidiary of LaeminCorp. All Rights Reserved.)

(SoulBurner grabs a mic and stand on top of one of the houses)
"Well now, we call this the act of mating, but there are several things about us you need to be aware of
(Vain pulls out the kiddy drum set he stole of Psycho Killa the other week. Goes mental for a while till Soul kicks in on his electric keyboard.)

Grass baby grass hey we eat it all damn day,
All us Droms chow on the ground like this stuff was piles of hay.
Wait this hands on my glands and its feeling my nuts,
Damn that runners getting horny, like those pepper park sluts.
Now thats too much, you shouldn't touch, this is rough uncharted grounds,
I'm not your lover, pick another, like that Plaza rat in town.
So just back away, i'm here eating hay, I'm not sadistically inclined,
Don't you know this sicko show is a capital crime?

Do it now,
You and me baby are descended from camels,
Your backside texture is patterned like flannel.
Do it again now,
If you get caught, you know that Vain'll be
Down on your 6 giving beastial anal.
Not again now!

(Soul' pointless piano bit)

(the rest of this song was censored due to not being fit to be heard by anyone under the age of 200)

Somewhere near Cycrow, standing over the corpses of several bloody corpses...

"Ohhhh.... bad... music... it disrupts me,.... EEYYYYY.... uuggghhh..." Megaman became quite ill as the highly disturbing sonic waves reached him.

Back to Soul and Vain...

"... yeah man, Droms are cool." Vain was looking with lust at a small herd nearby.
"Yeah man, Droms, lets get us some Drom bootey!!"
"FREEZE!!" SoulBurner and Vain turned to look at the squad before them, weapons drawn, surrounding them.
"Who are you?" Vain asked.
"No questions from you. We're taking you to BED!" The head of the team yelled.
"Well, you know I am kinda tired after that Grim."
"Not bed, BED! BioTech Ecology Division. The two of you are under arrest!"
"On what charges?" Soul asked. The leaders assistant whipped out a gigantic list.
"You two are charged with multiple counts of sodomy, necrophilia, cross-species propogation and abusing a potplant!"
"Oh, right, I didn't have time to clean up before Lisa got back." Vain looked a little embarrased.
"Dude... a potplant? Like, how is that even physically possible?" Soul asked.
"Well...."
"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR!! Take them away." And so it was that the two were carted off to BED where they would endure SEX (Sanitising Education eXperiments).

"Vain, we want to help you," Magnus Garn was the guy on top in BED. At this time he was trying to re-educate Vain, "this addiction of yours is not natural, we want to help you."
"You can give me all the SEX you want, I'm not giving up Drom Booteh!!" Vain yelled.
"Please Vain, be open minded, here, look what we have for you," Magnus pushed a button and a medical table with a naked female strapped to it rose up through the floor. Vain realised it was Mako Tanaka strapped to the bench. His eyebrow raised slightly. Mako looked and realised her predicament.
"OH NO YOU DON'T!! I know where he's been, and I know what he's been in! He ain't touching me!" Vain on the other hand was not so sure about that.
"Ohhhh.... Drom Booteh... Mako Booteh... Drom Booteh... Mako Booteh... Mako Booteh... MAKO BOOTEH!!!" Vain snapped his restraints and leapt towards Mako. With equal determination, Mako smashed her restraints leapt off the table, and with a strength that would put Superman's blue-tights wearing monkey ass to shame, punched Vain through the ceiling and some 6 zones out into the Wastelands.
"BAKA!!!! ^-^ " (for those of you who aren't anime fans, baka means idiot. Who said NERD isn't educational?)
Mako-chan then proceeded to go wild in BED. All attempts to give her SEX just fired her up even more. Eventually she found some clothes and stormed off to go strangle Vain.

And it was clear that her tea-sipping days were over...

Until next time...

NERD Issue # 028

Ukko Yli-Jumala

Back in the days of BeTA 2 (once again, for those of you with goldfish attention spans, BeTA 2 stands for Before Terran Animation 2 years, the time before the great unfreezing of the cryo-tubes and the population resurgance) there lived a man. This man was great, and wise, and strong and powerful. Unfortunately he stepped on MJS' toe, got nailed with the NERF bat and died.

So this is the story of another man. A man who is not so great, and wise, and strong and powerful, but nonetheless, we're pretty certain he is a man. Naturally the editing staff did not go over to him to check, we're just going to assume that he is. Cause I mean, come on, what do ya think we're gonna do? Walk up, grab him by the balls, take a squeeze, ask him to turn his head and cough? Anyway...

Once upon a time there was a man named VitalBlade. He walked the streets of Neocron back in the day. Vital loved a good fight, no doubt about it, but he also liked to help out. On a fine day where the radiation was low and the gas clouds weren't hovering around (cause Shodough and his farts of doom were still in cryo thankfully) VitalBlade would stand on the porch of Typherra and wave to passers by, occasionally pulling them over for a good talk, and quite often opening his backpack and throwing goodies like rat flesh, gatling pistols, poison glands and gatling pistols to passers by. Did I mention the gatling pistols? Cause he threw a lot of those things out. Ol' NERD editor remembers the day he was walking by Typherra (for you youngsters out there, that would be the Medicare building in Plaza 1) when all of a sudden a great big gatling pistol came flying off the balcony and nailed ol' NERD editor right in the balls. And NERD editor went down. If you think a gatling pistol is a dangerous weapon to be shot with, then you don't know what its like to have your genitalia mashed by a flying gun. Anyway, not noticing that he had ended NERD editors ability to reproduce, Vital proceeded to chuck another bag full of Gatling pistols over the balcony, effectively burying ol' Ed in rustic weaponry. Eventually the pain subsided and ol' Ed clambered out of the pile (for back in the day gatling pistols were nice and light. After all they were made from 4 metalpipes as the barrels, 3 wires as the trigger and handle and 2 green poisonglands squished up to hold it all together. Amazing what you could make a gun out of back then).

Now a year later, in BeTA 3 (unfortunately the guys in charge of keeping the time back in the day had a few too many synthetic whisky's and consequently couldn't count in the right direction) good old VitalBlade was participating in a good old game of kick the crap out of the Copbots in Pepper Park sector 1. He and some buddies were enjoying the rousing game of knocking the vastly inferior older models of the Cops over when Flawl3ss, enemy of the people and Reza's personal eunuch came running in. Lacking any form of testicles, Flawl3ss had no weak spot. He also lacked any bass in his voice, but thats beside the point. VitalBlade and his long time friend Wannabe (you remember him, the guy you see pasted to the windscreen of your Hovercab every Thursday around lunchtime) engaged Flawl3ss as best they could. But Flawl3ss pulled out a Forbidden Technology. The Ub3rHealth Chip. Inserting it like a supository, Flawl3ss gave himself a 10,000 points of health (for those of you who don't know, Neocron weapons cause your blood to either spill, boil or disintegrate. Once you're out of blood, you kinda die. The Ub3rHealth Chip grants the user a tremendous supply of blood, which it pumps up your rectum and into the bloodstream). But despite this, Vital and Wannabe chose to fight on against the odds. At one point, Vital's mighty Fusion Pistol was destroyed, so Wannabe ran back into Plaza all the way to the back of the Archer & Wessons store in Plaza 1. There he found the Lord of Construction, the original Builder, Professor X.
"Prof, Vital and I are fighting Flawl3ss and I need a replacement Fusion pistol immediately!"
"Oh very well," Professor X closed his eyes for a moment, snapped his fingers and an artifact Fusion Pistol appeared before them, "now go kick ass."
"How do you do that?"
"Its just my gift." Prof answered. (actually it was because he never did anything else all day long, but thats another story).

Wannabe returned to the fight and they fought hard. 7 vendors, 2 Copbots and a newbie named Bob were slaughtered in the exchange, but it looked as though Flawl3ss would win the day. All of a sudden the walls shuddered, a vortex opened in the floor between them and a DEV appeared through it. CoDi stood before them in all his glory. He was packing the crystal of Bannage.
"Flawl3ss, you have committed crimes using the Forbidden Technology. For this you will pay." CoDi began the banning ritual. Not one to go down without a fight, Flawl3ss attempted to kick the crystal. Wanting to help, Vital leapt to protect Codi. Wanting to avoid trouble, Wannabe grabbed a nearby stripper and hightailed it for his apartment. Wanting to strike down Flawl3ss, CoDi pulled his NERF bat out. What happened next would forever go down in history. Flawl3ss dives out of the way in a stunning James Bond action sequence, narrowly escaping the swing of Codi's NERF bat by the fact that he lacked testicles, so the bat passed harmlessly between his legs. Vital, doing a John Woo slow-motion dive in front of CoDi, takes the full force of the bat right in the face and goes flying into a nearby trash can. CoDi, realising his mistake, ignores the now NERFed Vital and proceeds to ban Flawl3ss for a time. He then proceeds to check out the cleavage on one of the nearby strippers.

Now, I'm sure you all know, getting hit with the NERF bat is a horrifying experience. Things don't work right, you feel weak and helpless and everything seems wrong. Getting nailed in the face with the NERF bat is 100 times worse. You're lucky if you can remember how to walk after that. Yet Vital stood up. He cracked a few bones back into place, then turned to look look at CoDi. Gone was the nice, helpful look he always gave. Now there was a look of death in his eyes. He walked over to CoDi, grabbed his belt buckle and pulled his belt off.
"The Belt of Invincibility! No, give it ba...accckkkk" And CoDi, a DEV, fell dead. He had been perforated through the stomach by, you guessed it, a gatling pistol. Wannabe, returning from his quickie, tapped Vital on the shoulder.
"Hey Vital, whats ... ack!" Wannabe crashed into the wall behind him. Vital turned to look at him.
"I am not Vital, I am Ukko Yli-Jumala. Time to die..." and he lurched forward. Wannabe screamed. Then he looked again, and there was VitalBlade, wondering why he was screaming like a 4 year old with a scratched knee.
"Dude, you sould like Flawl3ss, whats the matter?"
"You said you were gonna kill me Ukko." Wannabe sobbed.
"Huh? Who's Ukko?"
"You!"
"There's a runner called Yu, who calls himself Ukko?"
"No not Yu, You!"
"Who?"
"The man on first..."
"What?"
"Never mind."
"Whats going on here?" Vital asked.
"Vital, you (and this time he pointed) just said you (again pointed) were Ukko, and that you (3rd time) were gonna kill me (points at himself)."
"You gotta be kidding me..." at this point another runner walked in
"Hello, I'm Yu." Yu said.
"Hi I'm Ukko, prepare to die," and Vital gunned him down. Then he blinked twice and looked at the body and then at Wannabe.
"What happened?"
"You just killed Yu!"
"I killed myself?"
"No, erm... lemme start again...."

This went on for a very long time....

The next year...

VitalBlade's split personality was still becoming a major concern. There were times where Ukko would be very dominant and he'd go off on slaughtering rampages where he'd pillage the women and rape the livestock. Other times VitalBlade would be dominant, and he'd teach survival training to newbies and do needlepoint with Danae. It wasn't so bad, except if you were around at the time of the change. Often, VitalBlade would go to a sewer and give a newbie some help, and go to hand them an artifact stilleto. Then he'd blink twice and stab the blade in their ear as Ukko resurfaced. Eventually Wannabe decided he had to do something. So he went to BioTech and requested aid.
"Sirs, I need you to fix Vital, he can't go on like this."
"Wannabe, rest assured we can help your friend. We can make him better, faster, and stronger than he was before."
"Oh, thank you, you don't know how much this will help, I don't know how to repay..."
"You can repay us by paying the bill."
"Eh... theres a bill?"
"Yes, this procedure will cost... 6 million dollars!"
"6 million dollars? Where am I gonna get 6 million dollars, man?"
"Then we cannot help you." And Wannabe despaired. Where was he going to get 6 million dollars?

The next day was the Great Neocron Stock X crash. Everyone with shares suddenly had a few hundred million dollars, and many people were throwing millions of credits into Plaza 1. With his money problems sorted for life, Wannabe bought the procedure for his friend.
"Here you go VitalBlade," the doctors gave him a cup, "drink this."
"What is it?" Vital asked.
"Its a retrovirus, in liquified form. It will rewrite your DNA and make you of one mind again." Vital drank the contents of the cup.
"Tastes like piss."
"Woops, wrong cup. Sorry, here you go."
"....."

And so it was that from that being, the sane mind of VitalBlade, and the wicked mind of Ukko were reformed into a single being, named after the procedure that forged him.

Liquid Virus or LVirus for short.

Present Day.

Some still remember the tales of Ukko and Vital, the Jekyl/Hyde combo that would set you up with all the gear you'd ever need, then shoot you in the ass as you tried to walk away all encumbered by the weight. However, in the harsh times since the Terran Animation, LVirus has met with bouts of depression, and even considered suiciding himself. He's often been seen to walk around wondering what was wrong with the world.
One day he walked into Plaza 1 and found only 4 people around. One was Warlock the Hermit, a fellow survivor of BeTA 2.
"Warlock, is Neocron dying?"
"Why would you ask that L?"
"Look around you? There's no one here, the worlds population is dwindling. Is Neocron doomed?" He despaired again.
"Relax, I'm sure its just your imagination." and LVirus walked off, desperately looking for signs of life.
"Psst, you can all come out now!" Warlock called out. And 200 people flooded back into Plaza.

So if you are ever walking the realm of the Pluto Universe and are wondering why it seems so quiet, realise that LVirus must be around.

Until next time...

One of these individuals will suffer Perma-death:

Laemin, MoonUnit, Lisa Davitt, Murkster, McDanish, Megaman, Bibliotequa, Wannabe, Warlock the Hermit, Centuri

One of these individuals will change teams:

Megaman, Vain, ReefSmoker, MJS, Teh Bunneh, Cassandra Edwards, Carinth, Omega Res, Trillian, Ithaqua

One of these clans will change the face of Neocron:

NUTS, JERK's, CRC, NDA, Blood Brothers, CD, Synergy, GEF, Edgerunners, The Parish

One of these individuals will be mocked:

Betty

Issue 30: Betrayal. Coming soon...

One of these individuals will Lie:

Megaman, Torque, Lisa Davitt, Lioon Reza, Richard Adregan, Hurricane, Shodough, Agent K

One of these sectors will be annihilated:

Plaza 4, Pepper Park 2, Outzone Station, ConCentre, Abbey of Crahn

One of these individuals will have a bad day:

CheapLoveMotel, Insidious Wolf, LVirus, Lioon Reza, Ben, Psycho Killa, Shadow

One of these individuals will make terrifying discovery:

Danae, Crono, SpikeZ, Derizor, Wannabe, Hurricane, Smokey, N00bish

Issue 30: Betrayal. Still coming soon....

NERD Issue # 029

Precious No More

R minus 14 days...

Sid was not his usual beyond cocky self this day. He had been out showing his NUBI's how strong he was when he had received a summons to Reza's office. The summons simply said 'Don't make me wait.' That was never a good sign. Sid told his NUBI's (all 2 of them at this point) to train (which essentially meant they were gonna stand in front of each other and punch each other in the face, till one of them started bleeding) till he returned (or till the passed out).

Later that day at Reza's Plaza lvl 4 apartment;

"Sir, Insidious Wolf has arrived," Cassandra messaged through the intercom.
"Send his ass in." Reza growled. Sid, not wanting to portray the concern he had, put on his best face and strode into the room, with the usual full of himself attitude he always exuded.
"Heya boss, whats the word?" Sid asked.
"You're fired."
"eh..."
"I charged you with the task of making for me a powerful mercenary force. I told you to crush those carebear, toilet installing NUTS months ago. I ordered you to sway a city faction to my cause. None of these things did you accomplish. Instead, you wound up barely able to eek out an existance as a CityMercs clan. Your clan numbers can be counted on one hand and as far as I'm concerned, you're little more than a laughing stock right now," Reza walked towards Sid, who was no longer full of bravado.
"Now wait a sec boss, I can..." he was promptly bitchslapped to the wall behind him.
"You DARE to interrupt me?? What use have I for you if you cannot accomplish any task I set for you?" Sid did not respond, "As I thought. Sid, you cannot be my minion, you're not up to the task. For your efforts in recent War, I shall allow you to leave and do as you please. But you shall not set foot in this office again. Now get out." Reza turned away and began walking back to his desk. Sid suddenly leapt forward and knocked Reza to the ground.
"It darez to slaps us? It DAREZ to mocks us. I R L337 precious!!! YESSS!" Sid hauled out his Holy Lightning ready to strike down Reza once and for all, but he was broadsided by another individual, one he had not seen in the room. Before Sid passed out he noticed the shimmer of a cloaking unit shutting off, and the girth of a GenTank looming over him...

Sid awoke on the steps of CityAdmin. His hands were tied and he was feeling very groggy. Whoever knocked him senseless had departed, and now Sid found himself surrounded by Copbots.
"Attention citizens of Neocron. For actions against our Beloved Lioon Reza," Cassandra Edwards was standing nearby at a podium, talking to the city through its PA system. Sid had to wonder how she could stomach to say 'beloved Reza', "Insidious Wolf has been hereby banned from the city. He is to be evicted from Neocron effective immediately. Returning to the city will warrant the punishment of death. Begin the eviction."

And with that, Sid was lifted to his feet and shoved down the steps. He turned to give an evil eye to the Copbots but the pain on his backside prevented him from doing so. A paddle slapped across his butt.
"Oww, hey whats the big... OWWW" he got hit again, and again, and again. Yes, the eviction process was actually the great tradition of the asspaddling parade of 2437. Sid began almost running as fast as he could, as the entire population of Neocron had lined up forming a path from the steps of CityAdmin all the way to Outzone station. Each person was armed with a paddle and they smacked his ass for all it was worth on his way to the gate.
"Ow... quit it. No, stop it. Yes, we lovez it! No we's don'ts! You's nots adventurous enoughs! I R L337 not adventurous! Precious says we likes it, go slowers! Get your own ass and have it paddled! This is my ass and I wants it spanked! No it's My Ass!..." this and other inane conversations with himself could be heard as Sid sometimes ran, sometimes walked out of the city. Eventually he reached the gate and was pushed down the ramp by the STORM bots. Then the gate creaked shut behind him and he was alone. Night fell on the Wastelands.

R minus 13 days...

Sid, tired and unable to sit down, walked onwards towards the MB. He had lost his job, and all rights to enter Neocron. Of course there were ways to enter undetected, but it would be a dangerous task to accomplish. During the noon day sun, Sid took shelter under a tree, and leaned against it, making sure to keep his glow in the dark red ass from touching anything. He watched the dragonflies dogfighting, the dogs catfighting, and wondered why there were no cats to act like dragons. Eventually, he found the courage to lie down for a while, and he passed into a slumber.

That evening...

"Sid, gets up. We's needs to talk." Sid sat up and found himself face to face with ... A Mauler. Sid was about to pull his gun when the Mauler started talking.
"Sid, I am your father!"
"NOOOOOOO."
"Heh, I love this gag." the mauler grinned.
"Who the hell are you?" Sid couldn't believe he was beginning a discussion with a Mauler.
"I am Precious!" Sid checked himself, patting down his pockets and his groin.
"The Mauler ate My Precious!! Give it back fireboy!"
"I dids not eats Precious, I ams Precious!! And why did you check your balls? I was never there, well.... that one time... but nevers uz minds!"
"So, if you're Precious... why are you a Mauler."
"This is one of thoze moments of revelations where you're inner voice appears before you to givez uz Pearls of Wisdoms. To do that, I had to exit your ass (btw, would it hurt to wipe once in a while??) head to the Higher Plane and get a hold of a morph crystal. Unfortunates for me's I seems to have stolens Laemin's one. Its really is brokes. So I must be a Mauler for dis talks."
"Can I sell Pearls of Wisdom at Yo's?" Sid asked. The Mauler kicked Sid in the ass. He screeched then shut up.
"Sids, uz must gives up The Precious! You must be's better than this."
"No!! I needs Precious. Precious is good. Precious keeps me warm at night." They both looked around to make sure no one heard that.
"No, Sid. You must give up the Precious to find yourself. Walk the path of destruction unhindered and bring forth the new age."
"I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. I'm talking in cryptic crap, there's no way you can know what I really mean."
"That totally sux."
"True, but it sounds like I know my stuff."
"And do you?"
"Not so much. I'm overcompensating here."
"Figures." Sid rolled his eyes.
"Ok, fine. So you need to walk that way," The Mauler farted a fireball in the direction, "and destroy all you see. Only then can you bring forth your old strength. And no more talking to Precious."
"Damn. Fine, I shall destroy. Farewell Precious, I R L337 and I R Gone." And Sid rose and began walking. Once he was out of sight, the Mauler morphed shape. Where once it had stood, there now stood the ominous black armani powerarmour that all of Neocron knew to fear.
"That should get him out of the way. Precious is too unpredictable for this campaign." And MJS walked off, laughing maniacly and scaring creatures, till he tripped on a boulder.
"Damnit!! Who put that there?" CoDi appeared before him.
"Sorry, my bad."
"You're demoted, go taste test the new Intestine Burgers." MJS growled. CoDi weeped as he warped to the nearest food vendor to try out the latest hideous food sensation from McMutants.

R minus 12 days...

Sid was in better spirits as he sang a walking song to himself.
"Hey hey and away I go, where I'll stop no one can know.
Walk this path, 5 zones long, watch out now cause Sid is strong.
Bringing fire death and pain, Insid-e-ous Wolf, yes thats my name.
Running on the sandy dunes, tripping on some newbies tombs.
Where the crap am I right here? That Johnny 5 is striking fear... eh?"

Sid found himself surrounded by strange robots that rolled around and surrounded him.
"Intruder, Intruder. Disassemble." They all armed their laserpointers.
"Disassemble? NO!!!" Sid prepared to fight them when they shone their laser pointers in his eyes.
"Arrrgghhhh, my cataracts!!!" The Bots beat Sid up for a while, then determined that with only 3 unbroken bones he wouldn't be much of a threat so they went back to patrolling. Sid lay there for some time, wondering how long it takes for bones to fix themselves when dusk fell and two individuals met nearby. Sid could not see, but he could just make out their voices.
"Is all in preparation?" the first asked in a low resounding voice.
"Yes. Soon I shall move. You shall know it is time when the earth itself shakes. Then shall my coming be nigh." the other responded in what seemed to be an electronically altered voice.
"Very well. We shall stand prepared to aid you. Then we shall have our revenge."
"I live only to serve my new masters." the 2nd responded. They laughed a little then parted.
"New masters? Who were the old masters?? What the..." then two more of the 3 unbroken bones broke and Sid passed into unconsciousness. He was awakened occasionally by a Johnny 5 robot running over his foot, but otherwise he just lay there.

R minus 11 days...

Eventually, Sid was found and dragged into the bowels of Dome of York by some of their guards. He was chained to a wall and subjected to tickle torture. But he told them nothing, for he had nothing to tell. So they tickled him anyway, cause it was fun. Eventually they tended his wounds and fed him, but Sid remained locked up, in the dungeons of Dome of York, without even a Precious to talk to...

R minus 10 days...

Until next time...

I can see you're the kind of people who throw a temper tantrum when a show has a season cliffhanger....

Leave em hanging and they throw a fit.

Anyways, Issue 30 is in process. However, as it is expected to be, well, Long (points at Issue 20 as an example) this may take a bit longer.

So quit chomping at the bit, Ol' Nerd Ed will see ya right.

NERD Issue # 030

Betrayal

5 days had passed since Insidious Wolf had been taken prisoner by Dome of York forces. Unfortunately no one actually knew about this as he had been exiled, his NUBI's were unaware of his presence, and any that might have tried to follow his trail would not have got past the dragnet of security now encircling Dome of York. Thus Sid's disappearance had gone virtually unnoticed in the city of Neocron, with the exception of one.

R minus 5 days...

The wall gave way and dust filled the air. Light seeped into the dark void and illuminated small walkways and running water.
"Ok this is new. What have we found here?" Warlock asked as he widened the hole in the wall that he had just created.
"We have found a hole in the wall." Warlock might have backhanded McDanish, but it didn't seem worth it. Once the hole was large enough to pass through, Warlock entered the darkness. A few moments later he exited the darkness and went to the nearest Archer & Wessons for two flashlights (the one item in all of Neocron he'd never had a use for). Returning to the hole, he and McDanish entered the darkness, flashlights in hand.

The day before the two had been working on the last toilet installations for Pepper Park 3. At long last it seemed the toilet installation work was coming to a close. But while they worked, they had heard faint noises coming through a wall. Some minor investigative work had revealed that beyond that particular wall should be nothing. That wall was supposed to be part of the main city walls that enclosed Neocron from the Wastelands. Yet, they were certain they could hear sounds, rhythmic and mechanical. McDanish had repeatedly stated that this was 'odd' and that added to Warlock the Hermit's genetic disposition towards exploration led to the two deciding to see if in fact there was anything on the other side of a wall that was supposedly several hundred metres thick. When the wall gave way, they knew they were on to something.

Sure enough, as they entered the darkness, it was revealed that a long since abandoned passageway led between the enclosing walls of Pepper Park 3 and the main city walls. The walkways were hard to navigate, as it was incredibly dark, even with the flashlights, and various debris cluttered their path. But onwards they continued, after making a quick pause to contact NUTS HQ about their plan of action, into the dark unknown.

Not far off, at the Pepper Park Subway platform, Wannabe was preparing for work. Today he had some assistance, as his good friend LVirus had been accepted to work with him. The two were heading down to the NEXT employee access area. Wannabe placed his hand on the door access, and the DNA sampler identified him. The two entered the restricted area, and made their way into the tunnels. Wannabe was even more cheery this day than usual. Not only had he received a promotion to Assistant Manager of Tube Maintenance, not only had he received another substantial pay increase, not only was his friend now going to be working alongside him, but on top of all of that... with LVirus' help, Wanna felt he was finally going to get that damn rat that kept towing him out into the line of traffic. With all that in mind, he jovially stepped out onto the walkway and began navigating his way towards today's work area. They were going to be working at the Pepper park offramp, the point where traffic can either turn towards the old unused sections of the system, or turn to head off towards Outzone station. NEXT had quite optimistically put forth instructions to begin work on reactivating the unused segments. Apparently it was believed that CityAdmin would approve a proposal currently before them to add additional stops and increase the scope of the cities transit system. This all sounded like a lot of work to NEXT, but it also meant pay bonus', so the employees were happy. It would also mean a price skyrocket in NEXT stocks, so investors with their ear to the inside stories were happy too.

LVirus, having reached the location, took out his fusion-cutter and looked to Wannabe for instructions.
"Ok, so what now?"
"Ok, we basically need to open up the plates to access the cabling and see if the cables are still active. If not we need to replace them. Once we've verified that all cabling is functional to the next routing point, we weld all the plates into place, clear any debris, then activate this section. That'll probably take 2 days, so I don't really need to say more at this point."
"Cool, cool. But so I know, once we've done this section we keep moving further down the track right?" LVirus pointed down the abandoned passage.
"Yeah, thats the general idea. Once we reach the next junction we inform HQ and ask for the next assignment."
"Ok, well I guess we got our work cut out for us. That mess right there's gonna be a bitch."
"What mess?" and then Wannabe looked. And just a section down the track he saw the rubble. An entire segment of wall was collapsed and the debris was strewn about.
"Oh hell... what coulda caused this mess? Come on we'd better check it out." And so they marched on towards the rubble.

"... and we can have a half dozen Copbots in position to receive the latest shipment. Naturally securing the basic resources will be of paramount importance. Also sir, we've still got this matter of runners commenting on strange noises from Pepper Park. Naturally I've told them that any problems in Pepper are due to the meddling Black Dragons trying to act like a real estate broker, but I do believe there may be a need to investigate..." Cassandra Edwards prattled on about the daily list of work needed to maintain the city and CityAdmin's operations. Naturally, she knew Reza wasn't paying attention, but she paid this job all the lipservice it needed, in every meaning of the phrase.
"Reza may not care about anything I'm reading to him," she would think, "but he does care if I don't read it. Then he gets paranoid that I'm not being open enough." So she read as she had done every day for the last 4 years. The only time Reza would pay attention was when it was time for his personal 'lipservice' or when Cassandra drew upon the topics of 'CityAdmin Special Projects'. These were Reza's babies; that which he poured his energy into. And most of his projects showed that enthusiasm. The testing and manufacture of X-borgs might have been a failure, but it had not been for lack of effort. And even now, Reza still kept stashes of X-borgs just in case. At the end of the War for Neocron many months ago, Reza had noted that their bezerker tendencies made them hopeless for defense or security, but the perfect Trojan Horse. Reza's efforts to find 2 salvagable Cold Fusion Missiles had saved the city (although from the way he spoke, you'd think he'd have preferred Neocron to be destroyed, calling their use in its defense a waste, and how SpikeZ had doomed us all by launching them on the Dome's forces). His project to ready the Mechs had paid dividends big time. Production and demand were skyrocketing. Everyone wanted mechs, and once they had them, they were still wanting more. Able to cross all terrains at speed, highly armoured and packing some fine energy weapons, they were a formidable sight on the battlefield. Reza's latest project was called the Uplink Annex. Even Cassandra, whom all information and orders went through, could not discern the purpose of the project. Various CityAdmin clans, particularly Clan NCPD had been requested to acquire and hold Uplinks throughout the Wastelands. Since few clans actually used the Uplinks to boost their long range communications in the Wastes, there had been little resistance. But Reza had specified the clans to make the uplinks off-limits. So, the clans armed the uplinks heavily, and in so doing had attracted some attention. But again, with the limited value to the uplinks, there had been little opposition. The occasional problem had come from JERK's, but oddly enough they had been beaten back by Megaman.

Now, some may recall that during the incidents where Martin had unleashed the Blood Brothers on the Pluto Universe, Megaman was assimilated into JERK's by Psycho Killa. This had been the case for a time. But those incidents, and the War for Neocron, had left JERK's somewhat disillusioned. Their power had waned and they had become less active. Thirsting for blood, violence, and his favourite Jukebox in the city, Megaman had convinced Psycho Killa to come with him, and the two had broken from JERK's. They had gathered to their cause as many like minded warriors as they could, and under the banner of the Black Dragons, had formed a clan of their own.
"So, what shall we call it?" Psycho had asked.
"Dunno, any thoughts?" Megaman had replied.
"How about, Claw of the Dragon, or CD for short!" Psycho suggested. Others nodded in agreement.
"Man, get your mamma to pick your names for you, you still need help. But you might be on to something with CD."
"Ok, how about Clan of Destroyers?"
"Not bad, but I like Three Letter Acronyms more. So how's about... Clan of Destructive Villains?" Everyone jumped up and shouted in agreement. Their name was chosen.
And so it was that the name of evil came into being in Neocron. CDV had come to reign terror in Neocron.

And by protecting the CityAdmin outposts, Megaman had won the favour of Reza. He now stood where Sid had fallen. And he swore his allegiance to Reza and Neocron. It had been he who had knocked Sid senseless before his eviction parade. And it was he that was succeeding in bringing Black Dragons under the CityAdmin protection veil, despite years of hostility. But Megaman had been most convincing to the leaders of the faction. So Megaman and CDV worked to ensure the Uplinks remained in CityAdmin control.

"Very well Cassandra, tomorrow I want orders sent to these carriers to deliver their cargo's to the uplinks and then return. That should be all thats required for that project. Anything else?"
"No sir, I believe that should be everything. Oh, wait, you wanted me to start reminding you about that special date."
"Ah yes, how are preparations going for that?"
"They are proceeding nicely sir. This should be a grand spectacle for the people."
"Good. In these chaotic times it helps to distract the cattle with something flashy from time to time..."

Meanwhile...

The Gates of the Dome began to open. More security bots rolled out into the desert areas. Night fell on the Wastelands, and all was quiet.