Who needs a motto when you can have coffee?

The Story so Far...

Half a year ago, Cloud Version was abandoned by its characters and Webmaster, left to die like so many sites have before, while the Webmaster began a new beginning 21 sites down the list...

For months himself and his co-webmasters enjoyed lives above 4 BQ, until disaster struck. So absorbed in playing cards and drinking coffee, the three Webmasters of the new Storm Version neglected their characters, and left them to be tormented for what could've been an eternity...

A character army, strong in Extras and "people we torment for laughs", led by Ditto36, set out to overthrow the Webmasters and be noticed once again. The brave glob of grape-flavored jello succeeded, but at a great cost - the network site was set to explode, and take all its residents with it...

Duo, Kite, Toby, the Webmasters of Storm, knew exactly what to do. Grabbing the characters they loved to torment most, they each fled to their previous versions, hoping to escape the blast and start again...

So it is that Toby, the Cloud Webmaster with a taste for caffeine, and Kate, the character with similar tastes and a hatred of narrators, fled past a distracted Portal Toll Booth officer on a one-way route to Site 52 - The Version That Readers Forgot...

And Now the Conclusion...

Cloud Version Battle #1: Pawn to King Four
 Written June Ninth, 2001

NARRATOR is playing Chess with ITSELF!
Pawn to King Four.
Oh yea, that was original.
Shut up and move.
Knight to King's Bishop Three.
Ah, I see I've taken the famous Narrator's Defense. Quite common for a Narrator such as myself.
Stop analyzing your every move.
PORTAL to STORM VERSION opened!
Stop trying to distract you from the game.
You're not, it's really a portal!
You wouldn't do this if you were me...
KATE, TOBY and a COFFEE MACHINE tumbled out of the portal!
COFFEE MACHINE exploded on landing!
Good LORD! I wasn't joking!
Told me you were right.
...You know, talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.
Oooh, a helpless character to torment! What did you say?
Ack! The coffee machine is broken!
TOBY is UNCONSCIOUS!
Hmm...without Toby I won't be able to turn on Cloud's coffee machines - they're bound to have the standard 42 character password...
Better find something to use as a stretcher then, looks like he broke a few bones flying out of that portal..
Yea, I'll just take this weird checkered board thing..
HEY! THAT'S MY CHESS GAME! Me and Myself have been playing since the Webmaster left six mon-...why are you back, anyway?
Storm Version's about to explode...I'll tell you on the way to the hospital.
KATE, holding TOBY, exits!
PORTAL to STORM VERSION is closing!
GREEN-TEXT-SHEEP tumbled out of the portal!
Bah! O_O
Bah...
Bah? o_O
PORTAL to STORM VERSION closes and seals!
Bah! ><
Bah... ;_;
Bah?
GREEN-TEXT-SHEEP sees a trail of chess pieces!
Bah!
GREEN-TEXT-SHEEP follows the trail!

Look, he's coming around!
Mmm...you...look so good...mm...
Haha! Looks like he's talking about someone he likes!
Come...closer to me...please...I want you...
This RULES!
Must...have you...Deluxe Coffee Maker 2000 that...folds easily...under the bed..
...
...
...Maybe I should keep him unconscious.
But then I won't be able to have any coffee...gah, much as I hate it, I've got to wake him up.
KATE played the POKEFLUTE!
TOBY woke up!
Huh? Where am I?
You'll never guess.
...squalid surroundings...century-old equipment...no ceiling...gotta be Cloud Version.
Uh huh. Look, I need the access code for the coffee machines.
...coffee machines?
Yea, I figured you'd put some sort of lock on 'em, so any greedy characters you left behind wouldn't eat your coffee.
No, no lock...no coffee.
...WHAT?!
Storm's coffee and machines were all bought with Kite's money, the stuff Jason gave him so he'd be silent about what Jason's voice REALLY sounds like...
...Oh.
Basically, I'm broke, and always have been. So I was only able to buy the bare minimum for Cloud...no sophisticated equipment, no brilliant characters-
No ceiling.
...and no coffee.
So, basically, I've gone from a coffee-filled Network site that's about to explode, to a coffee-empty site that probably won't explode in the near future.
That's about it, yea.
OPEN THE PORTAL! I WANT TO GO BACK!
Keep calm, we still have the Coca Cola supplies..
Which come to?
...Half a can I shoved in my pocket when the self-destruct activated.
Well, a can of Coke won't be much hel-AAAAAH!!
KATE screams in pain!
What?! What's wrong??
Nothing...some kind of...headache...
It's caffeine-deprivation! You display all the symptoms...I've seen it before...
No it's not! I just didn't get much sleep last night, that's all!
If not getting much sleep made you suffer extreme pain, Matt Beswick would be in his death-throes. Besides it's painfully obvious - the first stage IS denial...
Ugh, maybe it won't be so bad...I could learn to drink something else...
...and the second is optimistic delusions.
Okay, fine, I admit it, I might just have a bit of caffeine-deprivation.
A bit? You need lots of caffeine, as soon as possible!
Uh huh, and you know a place where we could get some?
Hmm...let me think...ah, there's an old history book around this hospital somewhere! I used it to finish the east wall when we ran out of bricks!
So?
It had a coffee section! It might help us!

Forty-two minutes later...

I think this is it!
No, that's just some old medical journal about easy ways to cure caffeine-deprivation without any caffeine - it's useless to us, throw it away.
'kay.
KATE threw the book out of the window!
Ah, here's the right book! "The History of Popular Drinks".
Quick, look in the index for-AAAAAAH!!
KATE screamed in pain!
What, what is it?
I think it's the caffeine-deprivation...it's getting worse...
SURROUNDINGS begin to BLINK!
...Why are they blinking?
What better way to show a character has some kind of disease that's getting worse?
Oh, right..
Ugh, just look in the index..
Right...A...B...C! Here it is! ...THEY DIDN'T SPELL COFFEE WITH A CAPITAL C! THE BASTARDS! BURN THIS BLASPHEMOUS LITERATURE!
No, wait! Here, it says "coffee-making"! Page 42!
...Notice the massive amount of 42 references in this battle? What's so special about 42?
It's the answer to six times nine, stupid.
...Oh. Of course. Silly me.
Look, here it is!
Hm..Making Coffee...the first and usual method involves much tact, cunning, lots of intelligence-
Keep going...
...will require brilliance in all fields, reflexes of a chee-
Keep going...
...and, once again, intelligence, so you can perform the fantastic feat of...buying a coffee machine. Oh, bloody brilliant.
Gah. What's the second method?
Hm...it says we must take a power source the equivalent of a sun, hook it up to a VCR, hooked up to a Quantum Energy Flombulator, a large Martian Solar Converter, a Space-time Fluctuations Monitor, a really hot cup of tea, and an Anti-matter Construction Chamber.
...Can we get all that stuff?
Hmm...most of it shouldn't be much of a problem, I'm afraid it would be a bit of trouble to find the tea, though - would take us perhaps fifteen years...
Ah, I see...
..and the actual process takes about a hundred and fifty years...
Right...
...none of which matters, of course, because neither of us can program a VCR.
Can anyone?
Probably not. Well, those two are the only methods...I think we're stuck. What do you think?
I think you should get that Coca Cola out of your pocket...

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