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Twicer felt a familiar stinging sensation and he thought he could make out voices. The stinging sensation was located at his toes, as were the voices. This meant one of two things - and since one involved the naked model from the latest catalogue of Omni-Tek Hardware Honies, a bottle of Newland Booze and a Flexigrip Nanite Spankpaddle it probably wasn't the good one...

He opened his eyes and glances downwards to his feet - Yes, it was the bad one with a desperate lack of naked models and a very definate prescence of Skittle trying to wake him up by biting him on his toes.

"It's awake now!" another voice said cheepingly. This voice seemed to emanate from Twicer's left side and as he turned the head, the familiar face of Izleeter stared back, wearing his fighter pilot helmet with the goggles pulled down, grinning broadly. He was sitting on a small stool overlooking the laid down nanomage.

"Izzy knew it'd work!" he said, wiggling his tail back and forth. "Izzy smart! Izzy think 'If Izzy give Sumo the recipe, there is no way he can help but screw it up!' and here you are again, stupid human!"
"Wh..?" Twicer began but was cut short.
"Izzy knew human would be back - Izzy saw human and Skittle at the lake that time! Couldn't help but want to help after that. Only human to ever even TRY! And here you are again, big and stupid as ever! Woot!" Izzy hopped down from the stool and nuzzled Twicer's side.

"Time to wake up - no more sleepies for you!" he said. "Skittle, you can stop waking him up now!"

Skittle stopped biting Twicer's toes and wobbled onto Twicer's lap as he rose up to a sitting position.

"Good thing stupid human fainted when it did! Roxxor said you should do that everytime, so Roxxor doesn't have to bring baseballbat around!"
"He was going to bash me on the head again, wasn't he?"
"Well, Roxxor call them 'lovetaps'!" Skittle grinned happily.
"Anyone ever told him there is such a thing as too much love?" Twicer moaned and had a look around the hut. It must have belonged to Izzy because the interior decorating had all the hallmarks of the mad scientist Twicer remembered him as, it was just a lot bigger than he remembered it.

"Yes, big isn't it!" Skittle chirped as if he had read Twicer's mind and pattered back and forth on Twicer's lap. "Skittle help build the place after last one got went Ba-boom!"
"Ba-boom?" Twicer's face grimaced as he remembered the makeshift skyrocket. "Oh. Noone got hurt I hope?"
"Of course not!" Izzy giggled. "Sumo tough that way! And big crater means big burrow! Lots of space now for experiments!"
"Yes, but.. this is huge!" Twicer's eyes wandered across the inside of the burrow once again. The roof was.. the walls.. Twicer's brain told him it had to be an optical illusion but his eyes told him "What you see is what you get!" and what you got was a burrow the size of a small humansized mansion.
"Izzy use light colors to make it look bigger!"
".."
"And good decorating!"
"..."
"And shitload of LeetTech SpatialWarp(tm) technologies!"
"Oh. What new experiments by the way?" Twicer asked, deciding to change topic before his eyes decided to shut down. Izzy squinted mischeviously at him.
"Izzy COULD tell you." he said. "But then Izzy would have to kill you!"
"Ah..."

Twicer's eyes circled the room, looking at the gadgets strewn about the place, both with awe and suspicion. He was fairly certain that while Izleeter did infact invent a lot of them, most of them had just turned up from nightly raids to the science facilities in Jobe. Or actually, Twicer came to realize as he looked at some of them, maybe Jobe did nightly raids here - one could never be sure when it came to LeetTech.

In one corner, a ball wobbled back and forth, drawing Twicer's attention. It seemed to roll forwards just a little bit with a grinding noise, then a puff of air wobbled it back.

There was something wrong with it but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. Then, after carefully studying the ball, he realized what it was.

"Why is Sumo in the corner working out?" he asked. Izzy and Skittle turned to face Sumo as he wobbled back and forth in the corner, groaning and breathing hard.
"Well" said Skittle, and had the decency to look a little ashamed, "After last time stupid human was here and Sumo rolled over those ratties, Sumo decide to lose weight.."
"Yes?"
"Well, at first Sumo start trying to nuzzle his toes. That not work, took forever to stop him rolling. Then Sumo try something easier - try to nuzzle his tummy. When THAT not work, then Sumo almost give up. Sumo cry so much that Izzy feel bad about it, so now Sumo works out and is rewarded by getting muffins! Sumo much happier now!"
"But.. he's not getting any slimmer! How many tummynuzzles per day does he do?"
"Counting from when he started.. Skittle guess something around "zero"! Sumo too blubby! Sumo gets rewarded for TRYING, stupid human, not for DOING - and Skittle think Sumo try very very hard!"

Outside a bell rang gently. The leets noticed it as well, and Skittle tilted his head slightly and after the second ring, a mad grin spread across his leety face and he looked up at Twicer.

"Now we go outside! It's THAT time!" and before he was able to protest, he found himself rising to his feet, with Skittle and Izzy perched on his shoulders.



Twicer climbed out of the hut, and was almost run over by yet another stampede of leets headed towards the centre of the village where leets had gathered en masse. Twicer recalled the town centre very well but it seemed.. different now. Many of the huts around it had been moved to make room for a giant..what in the world..?

"Leetmas tree!" Skittle explained enthusiastically. "Leetmas! Woot!" he clawed his little feet into Twicer's shoulder.

"Leetma.. Arghhh!"
"Shh, silly human!" Skittle said and started swaying from side to side. As one, the leets gathered in the centre of town started singing melodically - the song was strangely familiar, yet he had never heard it before, and Twicer realized he was listening to a Leetmas carol.

The air grew colder. Something soft and cold hit Twicer on his nose. He gently put down Sumo on the ground as more of the soft cold landed on him. Looking upwards, the sky was filled with white glittering flakes dropping from the skies. Twicer stared. There was no snow on Rubi-Ka. Not REAL snow. There was the metasnow of the Shadowlands but it was nothing like this. He had read about it, seen the pictures. He knew the physics and it wasn't possible. But yet..

It was beautiful. Not the song - the sky. The song was the kind of song sung by drunk uncle Henry when he had forgotten the lyrics of a real song, but the sky.. the whole sky filled with bright glittering shards of frozen water slowly settling on his visor. And for the first time in ages, Twicer deactivated the HUD, flicked the visor open, and felt - and saw - with his own eyes.

"Skittle think maybe human is starting to understand now." Skittle whispered as the song filled up the air.

Twicer sat down on the ground and ran his hand over Sumo's back, who promply burped loudly and then smiled and drooled happily with his tail wiggling slowly back and forth.

"You know, Skittle.." Twicer said, still looking up into the sky at the falling snow, "Not even the fact that you have tried to masquerade a crashed alien spaceship as a christmastree could take away from this perfect moment.

Izzy and Skittle froze solid for a moment and then shrugged in unison.

"And don't even get me started on the people who have wrapped up in christmas paper. I bet human pets are the gift of the year, right?" Twicer looked at Skittle knowingly.

"Skittle think stupid human is thinking about wrong sort of thing right now." Skittle said and burred up against the side of Twicer's face, purring with all his leety body.

"And its 'leetmas', stupid!" piped Izzy and smiled.

"Remind me again how you talked me into this?" Twicer asked, getting warmer by the minute in the getup he was wearing. Skittle had located himself, as usual, perched on Twicer's shoulder. It was the ideal location in many ways. If the stupid human leaned his head, Skittle could cuddle up against it, and if he did something really stupid, there were a multitude of biting targets readily available.
"Cuz Skittle ask nicely?"
"No."
"Cuz its leetmas?" Skittle smiled.
"No."
"Cuz Skittle bite your nose off unless you do it before look at spaceship?"
"Ah, yes, I knew there was a reason. Very well then, lets get this over with.."

From the line in front of him, a very small leet wobbled up to Twicer and climbed up his leg. It positioned itself on his lap, looked him deep into his eyes and then with the distinctly high toned voice of a child, it spoke.

"Hi! Me Meep! Are you REALLY Santa?" and inspected Twicer's false beard.
"Ho ho yo! Oh yes, I'm Santa alright!" Twicer managed and felt cold sweat break out along his back. The leet looked at the somewhat overgrown Santa Leet, seemed to inspect Twicer closely and then shrugged happily and produced a small piece of paper.
"Meep wrote you letter!" the leet beamed proudly.
"Ho ho ho! Did you now? How.. eh, nice of you!" Twicer looked around himself, unsure of what to do next.

"Read Meep's letter!" Meep said with a pleading look in his eyes, and Twicer picked up the small rolled up piece of paper that lay beside the leet. It was tied up with a red ribbon with white stars on it. Meep had spared no expense on it, and he didn't wish to disappoint the little leet. He was definately in favor of keeping the use of his nose. Twicer started reading.

When Twicer had finished reading the letter, he looked at the leet which was still looking at him, wiggling his little tail back and forth expectantly.

Twicer glanced sideways to Skittle, who nodded encouragingly towards the sack at Twicer's side. Twicer reached into it and from it, he produced...

A small black bowlerhat.. a human with an eyepatch, bound and gagged.. and the biggest muffin Twicer had ever seen. It would have fed a pregnant quake lizard for years.

Meep stared with large eyes on the muffin, then he started giggling frantically as his eyes glazed over and his body started shaking uncontrollably. Twicer leaned towards Skittle.

"Is he okay?" he whispered.
"Meep fine! Just having tastegasm!" Skittle mused and grinned at the little leet, still shaking. "Skittle think you did good job there!" Skittle jumped down from Twicer's shoulder and nuzzled the nanomages leg.



After taking off the Santa costume and getting into his own clothes, Twicer had a feeling he never had experienced before. It wasn't happiness, he'd had his share of that, it was just a very deep feeling of.. belonging. He found himself wondering if this was how Skittles felt all the time.

He looked at the spaceship christmas tree again. Then he looked at the computer in his hand. If he called it in, which was his duty and mission, Leetville would be exposed. Or at the very least, the retrieval team would be exposed to Leetville.

Again he looked at the alien spaceship. He sighed, took the data transmitter into his hands and raised it up into the air and then blasted it to pieces with nanobots. Sometimes, the company lost men on their expeditions. He looked at the christmas tree again, and ambled over to join the choir.

Two heads popped up from behind a bush behind the nanomage, without him noticing. It was the heads belonging to Skittles and Mojo.

"You sure about this? You know how the others ended up." Mojo said.
"Yes. This one is different." Skittles said, his eyes glinted with intelligence.
"He looks awfully stupid." Mojo said.
"He is! It takes a special kinda stupid, Skittles think!"

And Twicer was home.

Chapter 1 - Click to read Chapter 2 - Click to read Chapter 3 - Click to read Chapter 4 - Click to read Chapter 5 - Click to read Chapter 6 - Click to read Chapter 7 - Click to read Chapter 8 - Click to read