Numbers' New Year's Newsletter: Turbo 2012 Update Arcade Edition with Hyper Fighting

[Other years' letters: 2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / 2017 / 2018 / 2019 / 2020 / 2021 ]

My friends, my sweet barbarians, a new year is upon us. If you read my newsletter from last year, still available here for your perusal, then you surely remember the tale of how my humble business venture, that of selling matches to schoolchildren, quickly became a lucrative empire. With match factories all over the world, thousands of valued employees with high morale and generous benefits/hours/working conditions, and, of course, cherished customers on every continent, I had decided that the world, as they say, was not enough.

I turned my eyes skyward. Look up at the stars and you're gone. My fallen blue-haired friend, almost a brother, told me that I would pierce the heavens, and by jove, I would see it done!

The Armour project began in secret and was unmistakably intertwined with my Space program. Matches were the past; space the future. I developed a nearly-unstoppable battle frame, a giant robot, if you will, but at the same time, a nemesis.

You see, his robot was sleeker than mine, with two faces and a fancy helmet. This simply would not stand. He opted for swords and missile pods on his mech, for some reason; I chose a much more constructive and humble option. My drill made short work of his weather-control device, and just in time to save the Earth, no less.

Our battle in the Sea of Tranquility was not one many people heard of. For a self-described super-villain, his advertising was quite lacking. I thought with him defeated, peace would be restored to the Solar System. If only.

While my Space Program merely aimed to put me in space, his had already brought him to another world. He had ships in orbit around Mars and bases on its moons, Deimos and Phobos. Not for the benefit of humanity, I might add, but its exploitation.

I soon made tracks to the Red Planet and saw the vile experiments he had performed on his own henchmen. I was glad I had built a giant robot and not merely a suit of powered armour as I had originally intended. Without the mech, I would have surely found myself knee-deep in the dead.

His creatures were more terrible than any I had imagined. Where, how, WHY had he created such monsters? A corruption of science if there ever was one. I spun up my drill and let nothing stand in my way. His steam-powered cruise-missile-firing flesh/machine hybrid minotaurs and spider-like machines with exposed brains and Vulcan cannons nearly made short work of me. If it wasn't for my mech--

The battle raged for months, but I soon discovered something far more sinister. My late nemesis was not simply creating these monsters, these demons... He had opened a portal to another, darker world and was summoning them into our own, presumably for nefarious goals.

I was told my drill would pierce the Heavens. Today I write to you about to step through this portal, this Gate, and use my drill to pierce Hell. I know what must be done, and nothing will stop me, not even DOOM music.

My friends, 2012 will be year of challenges and overcoming odds. Of doing the impossible, of seeing the invisible. I know not what awaits me on the other side of this Gate, on a moon orbiting Mars, but I know that my mech, my drill, and my fighting spirit will carry me through. May 2012 bring you happiness and plenty of matches. Fellas, smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.

- 1337W422102, aka "Numbers," Self-Appointed Guardian of Terra, To Mend & Defend
Toxin Refinery, Phobos
January 2012

[Other years' letters: 2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / 2017 / 2018 / 2019 / 2020 / 2021 ]