Avatar RP VIII: Chapter VII: Timing

[Arhra]

Steel looped back the attacks that had been piled on Arhra II with his Fury enhanced time manipulation, forcing her through the travesties of lightning, fire, exploding penguins, unicorn horns and Japanese schoolgirls again and again until he hurt his clicking finger.

The Time Knight felt a powerful killing intent envelop him. Burning, crimson eyes bored into the back of his skull like diamond augurs. In them seethed an insane, inhuman rage that would never, ever die.

And then it abruptly vanished.

But Arhra II had been in front of him all this time.

"Bard, you're alright!" Arhra I shouted with glee behind him. Bard had died twenty times due to the vagaries of Steel's time magic as the faux-white mage had attempted to heal him. But now the summoner was alive and the pacifist Arhra's happiness was forcibly reinstated all thanks to the miracle of positive energy.

Arhra II had picked a target and it seemed even attack repeats wasn't going to sway her from it. Overcast fell from the heavens, an impossibly wide smile on his faces and made his declaration.

"Magic is silly. It always seems to blow up in your face."

Arhra II apparently agreed, continuing to advance on Etna Bishoujo without any magical attacks.

Etna Bishoujo slowly backed away from the slowly approaching Arhra II. "Geez, why're you so mad at me?" she said falteringly, clutching her spear. "I mean, all you wanted were the Fury Pills, right? And you got 'em all. Most of 'em, anways."

She bumped into Overcast, turning just enough to catch him in the corner of her eye. "Please, if you're not an evil version of who I think you actually are, I could use a little help here."

"Just get behind me and try to get your energy back. I'll see what I can do about her." Overcast said, pulling of his gloves and stepping between them. He hoped to touch her and apply a quirk.

Stepping forward, he swatted at a few of the strange mosquitos that were buzzing towards Arhra II.

Blank boxed, he looked in her eyes and reached out one hand in diplomacy.

"Just so I can get a good gauge at where I am at right now, is there any chance the two of us can talk this out and maybe go off disarming bombs together? I'd really like that."

Arhra II looked back with swirling red pits full of crazy rage.

Meanwhile a swirling mass of cherryblossoms appeared beside Etna Bishoujo. "Don't give up yet Bishoujo!" The whirlwind called, Rose taking shape in its center, "We still out number her, if we attack her with all our strength, she's sure to fall!"

Crackling bursts of pale pink and gold lightning danced over Rose's hand as she turned fully toward AB. "I know exactly what you need to fight again-" The sorceress threw her hand, open palmed, toward Bishoujo, "-a new look!"

The pairs original costumes were restored. And AB's mana too.

"If we're going to defeat Arhra II," Rose said, adjusting a wristband, "we're going to need to get serious, that means representing ourselves, not some random characters." She grasped the hilt of her dagger. "Remember to support me, kay?" She smiled at AB.

Rose vanished and reappeared in a flurry of cherry blossoms, far to the left of Arhra II. Arhra I and Bard; Rose; and Overcast and AB formed the points of a triangle, their enemy in the middle. All that was left was to wait for Overcast to finish whatever he was doing.

AB jumped the gun and started shooting.

"WAIT! TILL! I'M! DONE!" Overcast shouted at the cosplayer. He gave her a piece of his mind in the form of his exploding head.

"Wait until you're done?" AB said, picking herself up after getting slammed into a wall. "Are you even listening to yourself? That bitch just stole all the Fury Pills and is trying to kill us, even though all we really wanna do at this moment is stop the countdown."

Armored coughed up a little blood, then picked up her sword. "Fine, you wanna negotiate with crazy-ass bitches, go and negotiate. And when that countdown reaches zero and the universe or whatever blows up, you can tell us how much progress you made. I'm sure it'd be enlightening."

Surprisingly, Arhra II did not try to stab anyone at all during this time, choosing instead to conserve her strength. Her only motion was the tips of her wings flicking, trying to swat the buzzing swarm of mosquitos away.

"Let's taaalk." she said to the box headed man. How crazy.

No handshakes seemed to be on the agenda.

Then a large metal capsule burst out of the ground behind Overcast and AB. Shyria climbed out and looked down at Arhra. "Hello darling," she smirked. Flames danced between her teeth. "MISS ME?"

"Who are you?" Arhra II said blankly.

"Bishoujo?" Rose called across the triangle that Arhra II was at the center of, "Let's just leave the homicidal box to his negotiation, I think I'd like to explore the Tower. I'll grab Bard and the pacifist Arhra and we'll all have a wonderful time together." She paused before glancing toward the rest of the group. "The others can come if they feel like it."

Rose began to happily skip across the square toward the locations of said White Mage Arhra and Bard to recruit them. "Would you want to go?" Arhra I asked Bard as she cradled him.

Arhra II didn't seem to mind?

[Astral Harmony]

"Well, if you guys're gonna go, I might as well. Can't defeat Arhra II by myself."

Her boots allowed for pretty much no traction, and it would be very easy for her to slip and slide all over the place if she tried to walk through the ooze. Armored sheathed her sword and holstered her gun, then carefully followed Rose, ensured that out of the choices between fighting Arhra II or exploring Kurosen Tower, the latter was probably less fatal.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

"No one you know, I just needed a quick and dirty badass quip to accompany my appearance." Shyria replied, stretching her wings and settling in behind Overcast. "Anyhoo, I'm just here to observe and make sure these peace talks go as smoothly as possible. She smiled again, showing off as many teeth as possible. "And to to teach you a proper lesson about diplomacy if they don't."

[Overcast]

AB didn't like the whole blasting her into a wall thing. That was fine, he didn't expect she would. He let himself slide into a bit of a relaxed state as she scolded him about trying to talk to some crazy psycho rage inflicted sorceress. Not that he really cared, they had been jointly attacking her in fast motion for a quite a while now and hadn't really done anything at all. They could keep smacking at her like a baby punching a brick, or they could go off solving the bigger problem while he risked his ass talking to her.

Not like she was chasing after everyone leaving anyway, and while he didn't like that look in her eye she wasn't doing any sort of casting and seemed to want to talk to him. No handshake though, which was a shame because he would have liked both the insurance of a friendly gesture, and the opportunity to play roulette with her power levels.

Ah well at least he wasn't dead yet,

"Kaaay."

He let out just to match the extended use of the letter a. He let his hand drop now because that was just getting awkward, he wished he had a watch to tell him how much time they had left. With all the Steelish shenanigans he really didn't have a grasp on that right now,

"I'm sure you are plenty able to kill most of us right now. Last time I faced someone with some fury in them they cut open my Box. That isn't even supposed to be possible. So I'm not going to be so funny as to fight with you. Though there are quite a few bombs around that seem pretty keen on killing everyone here, and the pills do run out eventually. With time knight on the scene I can imagine that the bombs might last longer than your fury will, and because of my silly actions I may have changed some of them to firecracker level and others to End Of The Known Universe level."

He scratched at the Box in embarrassment, really it was that emotion that had him leaving for space to begin with, he felt bad after doing that and just didn't want to be around anymore. As usual he found himself back here, but it had taken a moment to nurture his pride up in space,

"Anyway, I've seen this universe from the Void and believe me it looks better on the inside. I think it is in everyone's benefit that we get rid of those things somehow. And since you have reality breaking level power I bet you are more than capable. After that we can all go back to either killing each other for whatever the reasons are(I really don't know because I'm always a plotline behind) or not. I guess it really hinges on how you feel after being on the same team for a little while."

He lifted up his arms in a shrug, he preferred option two because while he was sure that he could count on Steel to keep making holes in the fabric of reality for him to sneak into he didn't really like dying. It was a tiring process and it always left him hungry and weak when he came back,

"So what do you say?"

[Bard The 5th LW]

"Yeah sure why not," Bard said in response to Ahrha. He was about to tell her that he could walk, but he had the feeling that if he did that she would just drop him onto the floor. "I'm OK with letting box-guy talk things out."

"Good luck," he said to Overcast, giving him a brief thumbs-up. He wasn't sure where he came from, but he honestly decided to not worry about it.

Geist took the moment to reform, a bit shaken from the failed swarming. 'Not sure what made me think that was a smart idea,' he noted in his thoughts.

"Diplomacy eh," he said aloud as Overcast began talking to Ahrha II. "Bit different an approach as to what I'm used to, but I'll give it a try." He needed a bit more formal a look though. He knew just the thing!

Bow-tie!

With his new formed bow-tie of +5 charisma, Geist was ready to engage in peace negotiations of the most virulent variety.

[Arhra]

Backed up by Shyria and a Geist in a bow-tie, Overcast had opened negotiations with Arhra II in the ruined plaza outside the Kurosen Tower as the seconds ticked down. In the background, Arhra VI was rummaging through an oversized bag on her scooter.

"No one you know, I just needed a quick and dirty badass quip to accompany my appearance." Shyria responded to Arhra II's non-recognition, crouching behind Overcast like an enormous housecat ready to pounce.

"It was baaad." the hunched figure of Arhra II informed the dragon, drawing out the last word.

"Anyhoo, I'm just here to observe and make sure these peace talks go as smoothly as possible." Shyria smiled toothily, "And to to teach you a proper lesson about diplomacy if they don't."

"Talking? We are talking, just like real people! Even though I hate you." the excessively winged one told them. Because it was better to be talking than fighting. Even though she was itching all over from tiny bugs. "I hate." their enemy added for emphasis.

Overcast told Arhra II he was pretty sure she could kill a lot of them, but he was also pretty sure the bombs he assumed to be buried pretty much everywhere were going to kill them even more. Thus: team-ups!

"So what do you say?" he finished.

"You don't know who started the countdown." Arhra II sang with malicious glee. "You don't know anything at all. You're all going to diiie."

6:21

* * *

There was agreement with Rose's plan to poke around in the Kurosen Tower.

"Be careful." Arhra I warned everyone. "We could be up against anything from killer bees to an Egyptian god."

First danger: ankle deep in slime. Those jams had left a clear, fruity trail into the interior. The place was dark, lit only be spaced out, occaisonally broken emergency lights and was a maze of winding pathways, strange rooms and bridges over unexplained ravines.

But fortunately someone incredibly hostile had already smashed her way out. It was a simple, unpleasant matter to follow the slimiest, most damaged route. Arhra I boosted her aura to compensate for the poor lighting.

The scattered jams still being generated and they weren't the only threat. Ahead of them there was the whirring of still functioning machinery. Traps and monsters were being directed to the damaged areas.

The NPFers had fights from unexpected angles on their hands.

* * *

In the NPF Science Laboratory, the battle had entered an uneasy pause while Dr Ethington soothed her emotional pain with ice cream.

It was a passive-aggressive war for scientific dominance between an avatar of chaos wrapped in a crunchy, cyborg shell and a moping southern belle cowgirl with a forest of prehensile hair who was also a fire god. Dr Ethington and Arhra V had changed signs; moved lines dividing up the floor-space; stolen lab equipment, interns and coffee mugs from each other; and even left notes lying all over the place.

Arhra V had taken advantage of the pause. She had been in the process of switching over to a new chassis when disaster had struck, leaving her stuck in an underequipped, underaged cyborg body. Arhra V felt at a physical and psychological disadvantage as a minor and so she'd decided to complete the upgrade while Dr Ethington was busy. Having all her equipment online would help with the other, less immediate issues as well, she was sure. Doing it fast was horrendously wasteful and inefficient but thanks to the Fury Pill she'd taken, she was in no danger of running out of power any time soon.

There was a locked room and it was full of hair. Ropes of hair churned like a rough sea or pit of snakes, threatening to wash over the table tops. It was as hot as an oven, plastic chairs sagging and notebooks on fire.

An armoured hand thrust out of the morass. Arhra V followed it, long hair cascading down her back. Rising to her full adult height, she stood waist deep in her own hair.

"Aside from underestimating hair growth, huge success." the cyborg said proudly, feeling herself to check for anything that had gone horribly wrong. Her metallic parts were glowing red-hot. "Should have thought about the waste heat some more though." she added, the air shimmering with heat around her.

She grabbed her hair, gathering it back into a crude pony-tail and sliced it off with a blade that flicked out of her other wrist.

The severed ends of the hair in her grip writhed then finer-than-hair-thin wires shot between the gaps. The wires thickened and drew the cut sections back together, fusing them as if they'd never been cut.

"Maybe I overengineered my auto-repair a little." Arhra V conceded to herself.

She realised something else: Dr Ethington was going to think that she was copying her.

Damn. Damn. Damn! went Arhra V's thoughts as she grabbed the completed Dragon Breath Assist Kit off a table and forced the door open, a tidal wave of hair spilling out in front of her.

She was going to need a bigger lab.

[Overcast]

"No, I won't die. I never die. Because I'm not really here."

Overcast started walking towards her, the Box blank as before in his approach to the wing heavy Arhra. He wasn't in any hurry to do anything, but soft power wasn't working. No good working to her sense of goodwill, nor her sense of survival based on the world around them. So he would have to work with hard power. He didn't have much, but two pieces were still in him,

"You'll die though. Shyria, she'll die. Gheist, maybe I don't know if he is ever really alive anyway. I'd have to ask Bard. At any rate everyone will die. But not me. I've never had the power to force myself fully into this universe before. So even if something breaks the Box, the avatar of my very existence, I'll still be alive, just exiled out to the Void again until I am granted access."

He walked to Gheist and whispered softly in his ear,

"The talks are not going well. If you can get me a fury pill I would significantly feel better as this goes along, for now...I'd start running."

He reached his hands out dramatically towards Arhra II, the Box suddenly sporting a large toothy grin and a huge eye above it,

"I've seeeeeen you. I can chaaaaange you. And you will diiiie."

All the grins were over, blankness returned, and he laid his hands down,

"You don't have to die. I don't want to kill you. But no one is better suited for the job than I am, and I will if I have to. So, last chance, will you help me? Or is this going to have to happen?"

[PyrosNine]

The lab was suddenly a hairy place. Orders were already made for double- no, triple, the amount of shampoo and conditioner for proper maintenance and that crisp, shine that was proof of healthy hair.

"Patrick! Nooo!"

The wet, grabbing bits of hair were slowly sweeping Patrick away, as he waded up to his knees in locks in dire need of Pantene Pro-V.

"Just....make sure the report the cyborg requested gets to her....so that my sacrifice won't be in vain!"

"Patriccccccck!

And with that, Intern Patrick was pulled away by the mass of wet, emotionally charged hair, off to work on Dr. Ethington's scientific project P*, which he would work upon for a half hour before finally getting a snackbreak and get carried off by a cleverly placed vending machine intern-stealerbot.

The good doctor herself was sipping southern style coffee (boiled over an open flame next to some dumplin's and drowned in sugar) from a mug labeled "V for Extreme"

At the moment, she was considering all the possible uses for the Kurosen, putting project P* and the experiments on the Furian particles on the backburner for now (though the first was indefinite, she was pretty sure Vin Diesel was the key to the second), as the timer and the efforts of Arhra II couldn't be something good. She had to figure out what the darker Arhra wanted, why she'd been followed by some other figure who happened to use fire for some reason, and whether she was truly to blame for the timer.

As it was, the Kurosen could do alot of things. Power the city, for starters, charge weaponry, make it's wielder somewhat indefatigable, and there were some notes on turning the entire city into spaceship that some time traveler dropped on her lap back when she was in 8th grade and socially awkward, but that had only been followed through so much before she no longer took it seriously. Also, she could swear the time traveler owed her some money....what would the interest be since then?

Oh, she was getting sidetracked. Whatever. It was time for some action science. She knew enough about Furian particles, she had a few thousand pounds worth of research paper on Valkyr weaponry and systems, and had set up thirty orders of Raspberry sours from the local bar.

Her glasses dimmed to block out the bright sparks of science that has action, as a neon blue table lit up, and a class IX omnitool emerged from the depths of her hair, lying in the room.

An android's immobile form was sprawled along the table, alongside numerous pieces of alien debris, and stuff stolen from radioshack. Blades and lasers popped out of the multi-dexterous omnitool, and science began to work.

Until one wayward strand of negative emotionally charged hair got snagged on a strand of cybernetic regenerating hair, resulting in:

"Ow! Gosh that smarts like a beesting the size of ol' Texas!"

A new order for 3 kilos of anti-tangle solution was placed, and marked "Urgent."

* * *

Pyros escaped from what he had, he admittedly asked for, unsure about his future prospects in the adult entertainment industry, and wondering if he should call Arhra II the next morning.

In the meantime, he booked it down the hallway to get into a fight, as he'd not done anything notable for the last hour or so, Avvy time.

Instead, he found himself facing a giant fan. Sadly, it was neither a massive cooling device that utilized a current of air, nor someone who was particularly fond of the Giants football team. No, it was a man the size of ol' Texas wearing a "P9 FTW" T-Shirt and it was hard to tell what else he wore thanks to his girth, beard, and general unpleasantness to look at.

"OH EM GEE, I can't believe it! They told me if I waited here, I'd meet you, and I know, I know, it's NPF City, your stomping grounds, but I CAN'T BELIEVE IT, I'm HERE, and you are RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME!"

"Umm...yeah. I'm kinda am. Good spacial awareness and all that. Well, I guess I'll..."

"I just want you to know, that I. am. your. BIGGEST. fan. Though yeah, I am pretty big! AHHARHARHAR."

"Yeah...big."

"I have all your writings, images, posts, and every heh, 'Ave-y', on my computer's hard drive, because *snort*, you were in every one of them!"

"Well, not all of them. In fact, I wasn't in a few, either not for the majority or not at all, due to a-"

"Oh yeah, well, you were in all the Good ones, am. I. Right? Heh. Heh. And I've also got a myspace and facebook account dedicated to you, a geocities fanpage that is most definitely the definitive source on all that is PIE-ROSE Nine! I'm even on your Twitter!"

"I have a twitter?"

"Yeah. I'm like, the only one following you right now. WOOT! FIRST! Yeah, I said woot. Because you say it instead of saying Whoo, because you're so crazy like that. And I am really, really sorry, I just have to apologize, for my Deviantart account and those unauthorized images I sold on T-shirts, but I just felt, that you would be so much more complete, if I shipped you with Sephiroth-Goku the Stampede and you could purge him off his devil-angel vampirism with your cat-god angel fire."

"............" Pyros couldn't move. It was as every thing in the world had suddenly gone horribly, horribly wrong. He actually wished he was back with the tentacles. He wished he was back underwater in Atlantis. He wished he was in a cold JC Penny while all his friends were taking four hours to try on new clothes that they wouldn't actually end up buying. He wished he was in an underwater JC Penny's amidst tentacles while Arhra II tried on the entire store.

"Oh, wow! Ellipses! And are you making run-on sentences with questionable grammar with your narration doubling as an internal monologue?"

http://img.youtube.com/vi/akJvDMy1EO4/0.jpg

"EJECT! EJECT! EJEEECT!"

Pyros threw down a smokebomb and GTFO.

"Oh. Cool! He made a reference....OH CRAP! Did he leave any hair or skin traces behind so I can clone him and have a crossdressing furry army! BWAHHARHARHAR!"

The fan's attention quickly flitted toward the next group of people.

"OH EM GEE! It's the ARMORED BISHOUJO GIRL AND THE MOHVE MAGE! I NEED TO GET MY CELLPHONE CAMERA AND POST PICTURES ONLINE!"

* * *

In the upper rafters of the Kurosen tower, Ryu the Gangsta Ninja chilled fly, knowing the worst was most definitely below him, and therefore someone elses problem. He just sipped his Sun-Drop and listened to his MP3 Player and prayed that the feeling of disease would leave him shortly.

Sadly, this reprieve would not last.

"Keeerah!" screeched some sort of Avian beast.

Pyros/Ryu turned.

Perched on another rafter, was most definitely an eagle.

Pyros was, at that moment, a ninja.

With it's right wing, it made a horizontal motion along it's own neck, and followed the motion with a masterful screech.

"Shi-!"

The food chain was in full swing, and Pyros was on the menu.

*Project P, the favored first and foremost choice by experts in all fields in terms of experimentation to solve any problem: Is it Pyros's Fault?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

"You don't know who started the countdown." Arhra II sang with malicious glee. "You don't know anything at all. You're all going to diiie."

"He reached his hands out dramatically towards Arhra II, the Box suddenly sporting a large toothy grin and a huge eye above it,

"I've seeeeeen you. I can chaaaaange you. And you will diiiie."

"What is this, a Rami film?" Shyria thought to herself before looking back up at Ahrha. "Anyways, think of it like this; you can have a lot more fun bouncing around an intact universe doing everything from backstabbing your friends to kitten watching than you would being all non-existy and stuff. It's in your best interests to help us." She looked back at Overcast. "Besides, do you really want to go through your non-existence saying you got your ass kicked by a Lovecraftian cereal box?"

[Steel Shadow]

Steel was not one for cowardice.

No, sorry. That's a lie. Cowardice is awesome.

On the one hand, there was a mysterious tower of traps and doom and probably some sort of explosive hallway. On the other, Arhra II and a box that was trying to negotiate with her. And somewhere, a being made of hate that didn't like him.

Really, this was getting silly. II didn't look all that dead, and no one was attacking her, so Steel's offensive actions were limited. And now he was in a good mood, since Rose had given him his cape back. So, maybe less mindless violence?

"Exploring time!" Steel decided, redoing the clasp of his cape and posing dramatically. It worked much better with the fabric fluttering in the wind behind him. Of course, he still looked ridiculous, but that's just him. No amount of fashion fixing would fix it. "Good luck Box man, Shyria!" And so he ran off after the others, into the tower.

"Hey, Bard, I've lost track. Are you ok yet? I can totally try fixing you again if you like!"

-------

Little known fact: Brains have the density and consistency similar to that of cottage cheese that's been left out of the fridge all night. This, it was soon discovered, also applied to floating telekinetic brains.

“Ewww, I just got this cleaned.” The Time Knight muttered, peering down at the outside of his cape with disgust. Brain matter dripped down it in a rather sickening fashion. He shook his head and let the cape fall back into position, resolving not to use it as an impromptu shield ever again, while simultaneously resolving to wash the thing 5 times when he got home. And that was when the floor caught fire.

-------

“Why are there never any railings on these walkways?!?” A somewhat charred Steel asked, speaking rather loudly after being partially deafened in the room of terrible secrets (which had declared for all to hear that he was not, technically, a knight in any fashion or sense at all). Below the narrow bridge, many vats of elctric acid bubbled away, ever ready for an unfortunate adventurer to slip and fall. Since most members of the current party could fly though, it was wasted effort.

-------

“WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSS?!?!?!?!?” There was much fuss when the bee guns opened fire. Hey, some people have phobias, y'know? "BEES!!! MY GOD!!!"

[Bard The 5th LW]

Geist formed an ear quickly to allow Overcast the chance to whisper his message. "Bet the corpse has some," he said, referring to Bard, "I'll check."

Unfortunately, when the Cloud of Something turned to go loot his Summoner's corpse, he found that it was gone! "GODDAMN VULTURES!" he shouted, shaking a hand towards the sky.

"Well the fury pills are gone," he said to Overcast. "We don't have the magic steroids, but I can stay though and take this psycho," he said pointing at Ahrha II. "I'll have you know I survived Australia!"

----

Bard's tale to come! (as in, be edited)

[Astral Harmony]

"Hey, don't pawn your fans off on me!" Armored Bishoujo shouted towards the miniature plume of smoke that Pyros had somehow escaped with, and then Armored had to deal with a foe she had never dealt with before.

Unfortunately, she didn't have any kind of GTFO powers so she had to tolerate the fan. Oh well, as long as it didn't get in the way. Armored was fairly certain that the fan would be as impossible to get rid of as Arhra II. "Note to self: stay away from Avatar RPs. I haven't had an ounce of fun since I got here."

She stopped suddenly when Devils Never Cry (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-KlzfV8_DI) began to play. As though by the power of magic, several hand sized balloons blew up in seconds to become exact clones of Armored's sexy form.

And those weren't here only enemies. There were these strange skeleton creatures. It was like two upper torsos of skeletons connected to each other at the base of their spines. Armored drew her sword and magnum. "Gotta concerve my real power in case I end up needing it later."

She popped one of the Inflatable Clones with a quick fire of her gun. "First blood, bitches," Armored said, then siderolled out of the way before a Jack of Skeleton could pummel her. "They're fast," Armored was surprised at their speed despite their appearance.

The Inflatable Clones weren't bad, either. Despite the fact that they weren't on par with the Replikind, one of Armored's greatest foes from the past, it took a good and accurate prick to put them down. With so many foes, Armored spent more of the battle dodging and weaving through attacks than actually attacking, and her body was paying for it. She had taken a few cuts from the battle. Nothing serious, but they were going take her apart piece by piece at this rate.

[Arhra]

"You don't have to die." Overcast said. "I don't want to kill you. But no one is better suited for the job than I am, and I will if I have to. So, last chance, will you help me? Or is this going to have to happen?"

"I was dead from the start." Arhra II told him unhelpfully. She twitched her injured primary wings experimentally. They steamed still, the white arrows embedded in them from Teal's spell slowly working their way out.

"We don't have the magic steroids, but I can stay though and take this psycho," Geist said pointing at Ahrha II. "I'll have you know I survived Australia!"

"I'm from Australia." he was informed by the grinning psycho.

"Anyways, think of it like this;" Shyria said, "you can have a lot more fun bouncing around an intact universe doing everything from backstabbing your friends to kitten watching than you would being all non-existy and stuff. It's in your best interests to help us. Besides, do you really want to go through your non-existence saying you got your ass kicked by a Lovecraftian cereal box?"

"Bored now." The grin was gone. The wings she'd been dragging behind her lifted suddenly, Teal's arrows popping out of them and dissolving into white light. Primary wings operational again, she jabbed razor-sharp pinions into the ground to brace herself and reshaped one wing to suddenyl stab out like a massive lance.

It was time to play pin the box-man to the dragon.

* * *

The space beneath the Kurosen tower had its own share of problems.

"Nyahahahahahahaha!"

The cry came from dozens of bony throats. And half that number of enemies. Down the corridor came a phalanx of Jacks of Skeletons, lined up to make a solid wall of skeletal aggression. Two top halves of a skeleton fused together at the waist and stuck to a giant playing card. They hopped forward on the card edge in lockstep, filling the passage.

All of a sudden, they turned side on. Spindly little stick-figure shapes ran through their opened ranks, the fuses on their bulbous bomb-heads burning.

It was a secret attack!

-----

"Haven't you grown tired of your static situation?" the black clad inflatable clone asked Arhra I. It stared with wide eyed innocence at what it held in its hands.

Where on earth had a balloon gotten that knife?

"If you won't fight, you're weak." the clone told Arhra I and leapt forward.

Arhra's rebuttal was her invincible shield, the wall of concentric hexagons of light radiating from the point of impact.

"Violence is not the answer." she said.

"I can expand my own barrier to neutralise yours." her clone said, pressing against it.

"We must cherish peace and love!" the faux white mage wailed.

The clone broke through and lunged with her knife.

-----

Arhra I was on her knees, looking in horror at the tatters of a popped balloon in fron of her.

"I... I didn't meant to." she said, dropping the knife as if it was red hot.

-----

The horrors of the Tower burned into their soul, the NPFer exploration team found a place that looked oddly familiar.

The corridor opened up into a cavernous space. This ancient, industrial chamber had a warped scar floating in midair, a partially healed tear in space left behind by a botched teleport spell. There was a large and unpleasant looking dark stain on the ground beneath it.

Double doors were ahead, flanked on either side by large pools of what looked like oil. It had been forced in, one half hanging off its hinges.

3:00

"Time... it does not stop."

A ragged figure slipped out of the darkness beyond the doors like a fallen leaf blown in a storm. White and black and red, clothes torn and hair loose. Moving as if she was dragged forward by an unseen force, the sorceress was surrounded by her own colourless ghosts and a rippling miasma like a heat mirage. The ghostly images lagged behind her in stilted, off center echoes of her actions.

One wing was missing, Fury energy spurting from where it should be. The other one was partially curled around her torso where she had been wounded. The front of her black dress was red. Her eyes were almost shut, thin slivers of furious light from the massive dose of Fury pills she had taken.

"Even though it slips away, don't you think you should be punished for your crimes?"

[Bard The 5th LW]

"Well good luck," Geist said as he flew off. Fuck this, he fought Kangaroos and they were bad enough, but not a freaking sorceress. He quit. He heard this town had good pizza, and he resolved to go find a pizzeria.

---

"Hey, Bard, I've lost track. Are you ok yet? I can totally try fixing you again if you like!"


"NO! NO! FUCK YOU!" Bard shouted, "FUCK YOU AND THE TEMPORALLY DISPLACED HORSE YOU RODE IN ON!"

The summoner had suffered more than his fair share of pain via time travel. It would be a long time before he put any faith in the majyks of causality again. Like, a full 12 minutes at the least.

Bard kept his distance as the fanboy pestered Pyros and AB. He doubted he had any fans, but it was awlays good to be cautious. You never know when a fan is waiting around the corner...

In fact, right around the corner was a fangirl of Bard, but it was not the corner he turned. Thus he avoided a squee. If Teal Mage was around, then it would have been a squeal ten-fold as well. They were clearly the OTP, if you didn't count Pyros and Ahrha II.

---

Bard stared as Ahrha I fell to the ground in tears. He managed to ABSCOND from most of his foes, because he was just the best there was at absconding. She had to stay and fight though. "You did what you had t- wow that's a nice knife! You wouldn't mind if I hold onto it right? Yeah I think I will."

During the battle in which he had died, Bard misplaced his ritual knife. This seemed like a good replacement though. He would have to redraw some of those circles again to make it work right, but it would be OK. He sort of forgot about Ahrha as he was caught up in examining the blade.

---

Using his very low level spells of darkness and multiple meat shields, the Summoner managed to make it through the pain and terrors of the tower with very few injuries. He had briefly engaged in combat with his inflatable clone, but they both elected to run because Bard lacked his summoning Knife and inflataBard couldn't cut himself without the chance of dieing.

Now it seemed there was another enemy. He was not entirely sure about this one. "Yeah you guys just go ahead and do that," he said as he stepped back, "just give me a moment to calibrate this knife and I'll join you in a moment."

[Teal Mage]

Using her vast powers of persuasion, Rose convinced an elite sect of the NPF's vaulted Army of the Apocalypse to accompany her on what would surely be a wonderful journey to the center of Kurosen Tower. With Fire God, Cultist Summoner, Temporal Knight, Space-Traveling Cosplayer and Pacifist Psuedo White Mage in tow, the vermillion haired Mage bravely began her descent into the very bowels of the Forums!

The trip’s beginning was marked with the professionalism she had quickly begun to associate with the NPF.

"Hey, Bard, I've lost track." Steel began, typically orange accent now dripping red with Fury, "Are you ok yet? I can totally try fixing you again if you like!"

"NO! NO! FUCK YOU!" Bard shouted, rounding on the time traveler with a fury all his own, "FUCK YOU AND THE TEMPORALLY DISPLACED HORSE YOU RODE IN ON!"

Was the Fury contagious, perhaps?

"Steel, stop offering to fix things." Rose stated, glancing back toward the Time Knight, "None of this would have happened if you'd just let us deal with our problems without using Time Travel - that never works! Ever!"

The last time they'd used Time Travel to solve a problem, they'd been attacked by POS.

"Besides, we have Arhra." The mage smiled back toward the group's psuedo white mage, "So long as she's here, nothing can go wrong!"

Rose nodded resolutely, confidence in Arhra's infallible shield of infinite energy love unassailable.

* * * * *

"Ah! Eagles!" Rose cried as a swarm of the dastardly avians appeared from around one the next corner. Throwing herself into a forward roll, the azure clad magician narrowly avoided the bird's devastating first strike!

"You will not ruin my hair again!" Rose shouted, springing to her feet, eyes ablaze with turquoise light. Aquamarine flames flared into a marry blaze over her left hand, "Magic Fire!"

There were no survivors.

* * * * *

Long red-orange hair blowing dramatically in the wind generated by a large fan, twin Roses stood across from one another, each taking a traditional martial arts stance. Burns from magical lightning, moss born of magical fire and shreds of clothing from failed fashion attacks covered the stone hallway around the two; their battle had truly been fierce.

"Your magic is strong, Evil Rose-San." Rose murmured, wrapped tightly in an azure colored kimono. In her right hand, she held her gold and black Dragon Dagger, and over her left, magical aquamarine fire raged, eager to be unleashed on her evil balloon clone.

Garbed in a black, and slightly gothic, version of Rose's own kimono, Evil Rose grinned darkly at her less-evil counter part. "Then there is only one choice." She whispered, clutching her own white and silver dragon dagger in her left hand, while a vivid pink pyre roared over her right. "We must decide this contest with a single spell."

"Sounds good." Rose replied coolly, shifting her stance so her dagger was beside her face.

A pair of jet black wings burst free of Evil Rose's back. "Throw wide the gates of heaven and unleash the tides of the Creator's breath upon the land." Glittering sparks of black, pink and orange energy began to collect around the evil balloon's hands as she raised them above her head, shutting her eyes in concentration, "Turbulent skies tremble and raging seas surge. In the name of the-"

"Oh my Goddess, its the Kukla! (http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0119.html)" Rose cried, a horrified expression on her face.

"Hah! I know that trick, it won't work-"

A metallic foot, vaguely draconian in shape - and clad in what appeared to be an armored stiletto - fell on the evil balloon with a finality filled thump.

"I lied~!" Rose declared gleefully, a thoroughly pleased expression on her face. In her right hand, her dragon dagger glinted brightly, as the Dragonzord's foot slowly lifted itself through the swirling vortex-portal in the tunnel's ceiling.

Another challenge overcome!

* * * * *

Once again clad in her azure dress, which was strangely spotless despite all the terrible battles they had fought within the Tower, Rose and Co. arrived in a suspiciously large, and old, room.

"This place could stand some redecorating." Rose murmured, teal eyes darting around the spacious industrial area they found themselves in. She approached the scar hanging in the air, regarding it critically for a moment, before turning her gaze toward the mysterious stain beneath it. "And bleach." She added, glancing toward the oil filled-wells beside the damaged double doors. "buckets of bleach."

Large digital letters appeared high above the chamber's floor, reading "3:00." The font, Rose noted, was suspiciously red. Did that mean the Fury was behind the countdown as well?

"Time... it does not stop." A voice from beyond the damaged doors murmured.

The figure that emerged from beyond the double doors made Rose's blue-green eyes go wide.

"Even though it slips away," The figure murmured, approaching the group with drunken and halting steps, "don't you think you should be punished for your crimes?" Disorienting ghostly after-imagines surrounded the woman's form, making it difficult to stare directly at her.

"Ahah!" Rose cried, snapping an arm forward to point at the newcomer in triumph. "I knew the Arhra II outside was too stupid to be real!" She swept her arm out to the side, as if to dispel the very notion, "Your plan is foiled Sorceress!" Rose drew her dragon dagger in a flourish of black steel. "Now that we've pierced to the heart of your army of monsters, there is only us and you! This battle is all but decided!"

A few moments passed, as she processed her own words. Color slowly drained from her face, as a full appreciation of the situation dawned on her.

When Arhra was concerned, such moments of clarity were never good.

Voice flat and devoid of emotion, Rose began to speak slowly.

"...we're with the inexplicably murderous," the mage began, recapping the situation aloud, "Fury empowered, Arhra II in deepest part of Kurosen Tower." The mage fell back a handful of paces in retreat, "With an army of monsters between us and the nearest exit." She gulped, looking toward the others, "And she's coming right for us." Rose smiled tightly.

"Arhra I!" Rose was suddenly behind the pseudo white mage, "Now is the time to prove the trueness of your heart! Use your invincible shield of love to protect us from Arhra II's inexplicable wrath!" The vermilion haired mage's hands were planted on the glowing girl's white clad shoulders, as she tried to - gently – encourage I to place herself between Arhra II and the rest of the group.

It was their only chance!

[Overcast]

Overcast sighed as he watched Geist go, it was fine the guy was just a summon. Plot said that if anyone was going to die almost immediately it was him. Because he didn't really matter that much. He let him leave, he could handle this with Shyria alone.

The wing lance wasn't difficult to get out of the way of, Arhra II had pretty much telegraphed her attack in both speech and in that planting of her wings behind her. The attack was powerful sure, but she would have to act a bit less like a videogame boss if she was going to kill him. He didn't even have that confidence in his Box anymore, his only weakness was being weaker.

He dove backward toward the dragoness and laid his hand upon her claws,

"Some things are more prominent then they seem."

He flipped up and touched her teeth as well. A HYPERBOLE or two might help them out. He couldn't be sure what property he was making unrealistically augmented, but seeing as these were offensive items on the destructive beast he could assume that he was making them stronger. WAY stronger, which for a dragon had to be one awesome feat.

He returned to the ground and sucked his head off blasting it Arhra II's way, and then reached into his pocket and followed the explosive head with coins that grew to gigantic size,

"ECONOMIC BOOM!"

He really had to stop giving names to his attacks. He followed behind the barrage hoping to find an opening to touch with his hands as she more than likely made easy work of the attack. He just needed one touch on that wing barrier. After all Arhra II it was made to defend her if he could UNDERSTATE it he could make sure the things became brittle and pathetic. He wouldn't LIE though, they were plenty useful as weapons and giving her a healing item was not very good.

First he had to touch her though, just one feel would do.

[mauve]

Mauve and her clones-- the ones who had survived-- spent their portion of the tower-climbey-adventure-thing seated on the staircase, playing Clue. Real Mauve got into a brief fight with one of the clones over who got to play as Miss Scarlett, but that was quickly resolved. That meant, however, that there was one fewer player. Mauve's balloon clones quickly discovered that balloons don't do well against knives, fire, lightning, or raw magical energy, all of which being things that Real Mauve had plenty of at her disposal.

The clones that survived the initial lesson were therefore quick to agree to Mauve's suggestion of playing a game instead of wasting her MP.

"Look, either roll the die and leave the Ballroom or make another accusation," Mauve said crossly to one of the clones. It shrunk back in fear, eyeing the very real knife sitting next to the game peice version.

"O-Okay," the clone stammered. She grabbed the die.

"You guys really suck at this game." Mauve grumbled. "Even more than those brain things." A sad, withered pile of dead brain goop was currently rotting in the corridor just behind them. Mauve didn't like cheaters.

"I guess this was a dumb idea," she sighed. She started scooping the game pieces back into the box. "I should probably go see what the other guys are up to anyway. I vaguely remenmber something about saving the world and a timer or something.... That was probably important..."


She folded up the game board and put it in the box as well. With a wave of her hand, the box shrunk to the size of a matchbox. She dropped it into her pocket.

Time to move on. She straightened her hat, dusted off her skirt, and started to walk away.

"Um...." one of the clones said uncertainly.

Mauve turned.

"Oh, right." She raised a hand. "I still don't like you guys. Kthnxbai."

The stairs where the clones sat erupted in flames. There was an impressive explosion. Bits of ash and charred balloon fluttered around the room like butterflies.

"Stupid wannabes..." Mauve grumbled.


(Will edit in more later I guess)

[Shyria Dracnoir]

"Whup!" Shyria yelped, narrowly doged a fatal kebabing from Arhra's wing lance. She growled, glancing down at the thin red line the lance traced across her shoulder. "So much for diploma-MPH!" she gagged as she was interrupted by Overcast's jamming his hands in her mouth.

"Some things are more prominent then they seem."

Her mortification at being manhandled by an eldritch piece of freight was tempered by the surge of power suddenly coursing through her claws and teeth. A nearly invisible shield of force projected outwards from the digits in question, a good inch beyond their normal length, all crackling with magical energy. With this, she could tear through a steel bunker like a bobcat through wet tissue paper. Sadly, she'd have to settle for the big ugly demon thing.

"ECONOMIC BOOM!"

A quick flap of her wings sent Shyria flying towards the closest of Arhra's faces alongside a torrent of monetary missiles. Another downbeat brought the dragon close enough to sink her teeth into the demoness' nose as her front talons dug into her foe's cheeks. She clamped down as hard as she could, sealing the deal by letting loose a few streams of fire into the surrounding flesh. This was going to be a bumpy ride.

[Astral Harmony]

Armored Bishoujo smirked while trying to control her anger at seeing Arhra II yet again. "Punished for my crimes? By you? I atone for my crimes by punishing evil. And evil bitches like you have no right to punish anyone else for anything. God, you're just the worst kind of person, y'know? I can't stand people like you!"

There wasn't anymore time. She had met plenty of crazy bitches before, and no one liked to listen to anyone but themselves. Armored drew both gun and sword and then opened fire directly on Arhra II. "Here, hold these bullets for me!"

Armored didn't know how powerful the Fury Pills were, but she felt like she had taken a few herself. She was so angry, but lacked the physical capabilities of manifesting her rage in a tangible form for her to drown Arhra II. The sorceress represented everything Armored hated. And Armored was done with letting her continue to exist.

[Steel Shadow]

"I see you have this all well in hand," Steel said, stepping forwards-

-and then he was on the other side of the room, past the Sorceress, a small aura of Fury coloured light swirling around him. "So I'll just go see what that countdown's all about, kay?"

He gave a vauge salute with his sword, and zipped on ahead, time folding around him like always, onwards through the broken doors and into the darkness beyond.

Surely there was no way this plan could go wrong!

[PyrosNine]

Behind Arhra I, the white mage, came a tiny violet rainbow (of multiple shades of violet) in her time of need.

"Greeeetings, from the FUUUUUTUUURE! Where that joke is no longer relevant, but highly ironic!" said an extra tiny Arhra IX, who stood on Arhra's right shoulder.

"Arhra! Why so serious? With the knife and the balloon murder and all that, I mean." With her tiny violet rainbow clad miniature arm, she patted Arhra on the back. Well, more like her upper neck, IX couldn't reach that far in her miniature state.

Arhra also felt a small burning sensation on her left shoulder.

Chibi-Pyros appeared, disproving. "Yeah. Seriously. Evil Balloons you's. There are plenty of you's, and there are a few evil you's, but you're freaking out because you popped a few evil balloon you's. What's wrong with You's?"

IX had a different tone from Chibi Pyros, being from the future and all.

"Arhra, even though I know my words will have little effect, as the narration already mentioned my being from the future and all, but you mustn't forget what's truly important about being a white mage!" IX said, floating with her purple wings, speaking right into Arhra's right ear.

"They're balloons. It's not even murder in most countries!" Chibi-Pyros continued.

Sillyland, ruled by the ancient yet slightly creepy Clown Dynasty, frowned with capital punishment seriousness upon Inflaticide, also known in local Jester criminal slang as "popping", with offenders facing death by firing squad that drives in with a clown car. And there are always more of them in the car than you think.

"In the path of a white mage, there are monsters, demons, beings of pure hate, malice, and ignorance, who shun peace, love, and even those warm and fuzzy things shared by all, like saying "Good Morning", or eating Flan!" Chimed IX, in honorable tones.

"Like, on the hierarchy of ending the lives of things, Balloons are lower even than Ants! Pyros del Sol will happily pop balloons on his path of Mary-Suedom! And these were Evil balloons! The Space Pope would probably condone the death of a few evil balloon clones!" Chibi Pyros kept ranting in Arhra's left ear.

"And so, even the most devout, and virtuous patrons of the white way must be willing to smite, not in rage, or in hate, or with blood thirst, but with love, with the fury of righteousness to protect those that do love! It is a hard, but painful task asked of all white mages!" IX continued, speaking at the same time.

"I mean, 4 white mages can take down Chaos, Cloud of Darkness, and Neo-Exdeath, but that's if you're lame and don't take a band of Red Mages! I'm willing to relent if you take two white mages, a white wizard, and Boco the chocobo, but only just so. If only they let you take teams of five,then you could take Bard too, clinching awesomeness, but they don't, do they? White Sages don't count for the purposes of this challenge either, they're just Red Mage eunuchs!" Chibi-Pyros nodded to himself.

"But the important thing is, is that even if you must step out of the warm comfort of 'thou shalt not kill', and 'do no harm first', and must take lives, even if they are black as night in their wickedness, even if you must risk straying from your path down the back alleys of bloodshed--"

"Y'know, I was gonna abbreviate my name to be CP, to make it two syllables like IX, but then I thought, what if somebody read my name as Child Porn? That's just wrong! The fact I look like, 5 or so just cements the wrongness! And you in your white mage robes look the youngest out of most of the Arhras! I feel dirty just bringing it up! Or Communist Party? We've already had someone start spouting Trotskyisms! Or Captain Picard? Or Chronic Non-Suppurative Pancreatitis? Or other stuff? (http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/CP)"

"You must still strive, and hope for a world of peace and love, where life endures! If you aim to follow the white path, then when you take one life, you must save a thousand in return, and if you kill thousands, you must revive the world! For it is the strive to restore what is fading, or what is lost that will return a white mage to the true path! Even if you are a faux white mage, it is that strive that will prove your truth. That is what I believe, and also..."

"Anyway, to sum what I'm saying up, stop being such a pansy, If you're gonna be against violence and desire to save lives without taking any in turn, you might as well start a Free Clinic in the projects, because what's going on here requires a mage who is willing to use a White Mage hammer for something more than Croquet! Pre-Emptive healing you could call it, for all the damage your allies won't take due to blunt force trauma to enemy heads. Like a blood sword, for those with Hemophobia!"

"...And also what this book says right here!" IX held up a tome of White Magic entitled "White Magehood for Dummies (or former Avatars of Chaos), by Minwu AKA Ming-Wu, AKA Shiro'o Kazama, AKA White Sleight. "Which you can purchase from me, your future self, for a low low price of free! Assuming of course, you return it to a public library in Queens 50 years from now, because I checked it out then and had it on me for the next 17, so y'know, you'll do yourself a favor financially, if you catch my drift!"

"Wait, what the crap? You came here just to hawk off your library fines? I'm here proving a distraction to your well intentioned advice as the devil on the left hand side, and this is about you dodging late fees?"

"They are really big, and really violet late fees! From the future!"

"This could be my last appearance in an Avvy, on NPF for that matter, aside from my appearance in that Philbo comic, and it's about using time travel to avoid late fees?"

"I left the white White Mage book in my Rainbow colored house's White room on a white bookshelf between a white book on Dentistry and a slightly beige looking book that looks slightly white in the Beige room and yet looks slightly beige in the white room! The late fees could not be avoided! This is slightly less abuse of time travel than that Steel guy I'm really here to give harsh words to!"

"We'll see how much time travel is involved with you after I put my kawaii boot up your violet behind!"

"Just try and bring it, CP!"

There then commenced a miniature fracas that fell into an adorable and morally indecisive ball of conflict on the popped balloon bit covered ground.

The book of White magic just kinda lay there on the ground, forgotten.

* * *

Pyros ran ahead, slicing through enemy clones, bee guns, which constantly respawned as he moved through the screen, and made an impressive running leap across a gap, to grab onto the wall on the otherside, only to be immediately set upon by an Eagle mid-air, and carried off to it's hungry nestlings.

"EEAAGLE! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmkeIZASoH4)" Pyros screamed, carried off by his hair.

He would really have to work on his timing with his sword to get any further with this game, and he was only on the third level, with 3 minutes to spare! Roughly. Steel was making it kind of hard to tell.

That was it, it was time to show Pyros's own blend of fury, honed from a thousand years of being second banana, to a thousand years of being known just as another crazy fire cat god angel, a thousand years of being mistaken for Amaterasu and being stalked through the night by a desperate Tsukiyomi.

Pyros grabbed his long, Pantene-Pro V enfused locks, and pulled himself up towards his captor, knowing that the raptor's talons were already ruining his haircut anyway. With that in mind, he punched the bird in the junk.

He then fell, towards what looked like a wounded Arhra....was it the same one? He'd have to-"

The Giant Fan, in fell in freefall alongside him.

"Oooh! Are you going to summon a coloured vehicle fueled by the souls of the damned?"

The Giant fan was also an Eagles fan.

[Arhra]

Overcast threw his head and oversized coins at the over-winged abomination him and Shyria were facing.

'Arhra II' thrashed her half burrowed wings and a huge chunk of pavement in front of her flipped from a floor into a wall, falling forwards as projectiles shot into and broke up the protective shield.

Teeth and claws sheathed in mystical sharpness by Overcast's hyperbole, Shyria flapped her wings to hop airwards and descend on Arhra II. Smashing through broken up chunks of bitumen and falling coins, Shyria raked her claws against the pinions Arhra II curved forward as a shield. They practically tore apart, impossibly huge swathes torn out of them by the slashes. Puffing flame, Shyria thrust her jaws in and bit down with all her might. It was like biting jelly, a boneless mass with everything wanting to pull away.

Arhra II screamed.

She contracted and pulled into herself, like some sort of wing-oyster.

The dark mass seethed for a second and then exploded like a pot boiling over. The useless streamers of her broken wings suddenly took on new life, shreds thickening and tangling about Shyria's torso. Her wings unfurled and wrapped forward like an octopus engulfing its prey, seeking to latch on and immobilise her limbs. Primary wings grabbed at her head like sharp fingered hands to force her chin up and keep her jaws out of play.

"You will never know the reason for my hatred!" Arhra II screamed, upper body emerging out of the center winged mass like the heart of a bizarre flower, hands seeking purchase on Shyria's throat.

Wasn't every day that you saw someone try to strangle a dragon.

"Ha hah!" In the background, Arhra VI had been looking through the great big bag of loot taken from a time capsule possibly set up by time travelers that she had opened before its time. Which she had, of course, done for the good of all.

What she held was a black feather, longer than Arhra VI was tall. An oily sheen of slowly shifting colours tainted its surface. Just like Arhra II.

She'd dubbed it the Duster Sword. Just like... no...

If it really did come from the future, if it was really made from soylent Arhra II and if time travel had decided to work the way the thiefiest Arhra assumed it did for now, it could do a lot of damage. An object should really not like coming into contact with a version of itself from a different point along its own time line.

That was a lot of ifs.

If all else failed, it was still endgame loot.

"Let's clean up!" the feather sword wielding Arhra declared.

Nobody cared. They were all rather busy.

* * *

Instead of shoulder angels and devils, Arhra I had found herself with a shoulder Arhra IX and a shoulder Chibi-Pyros, both of whom were probably Pyros.

Strangely they were trying to convince of the same thing: that she should get her act together and kill shit.

"If you aim to follow the white path, Arhra IX advised, "then when you take one life, you must save a thousand in return, and if you kill thousands, you must revive the world! For it is the strive to restore what is fading, or what is lost that will return a white mage to the true path! Even if you are a faux white mage, it is that strive that will prove your truth. That is what I believe, and also..."

Things got a little derailed into return of overdue library books.

"But Ix," Arhra I sniffed, "for the people who die, their world has ended."

Rose had just grapsed the full severity of the situation.

They were stuck beneath the earth, facing off against a Fury enhanced Arhra II with a trap and monster filled labyrinth between them and the nearest exit. She was badly injured but, with the Fury in her system, that wouldn't slow her down. Also they had split the party.

"Arhra I!" Rose was suddenly behind the pseudo white mage, "Now is the time to prove the trueness of your heart! Use your invincible shield of love to protect us from Arhra II's inexplicable wrath!"

The vermilion haired mage's hands were planted on the glowing girl's white clad shoulders, as she tried to - gently – encourage I to place herself between the sorceress and the rest of the group.

"She tore off one of her own wings." Arhra I said distantly. "She filled it with Fury and an echo of her own mind and sent it to punish us all."

"I don't think those grow back." the healer added.

Not a terribly sane plan.

A Turquoise Railcar might have gone here, but the Giant Fan was proving to be a persistent foe!

"I see you have this all well in hand," Steel said. Then he was on the other side of the room. "So I'll just go see what that countdown's all about, kay?"

Behind Arhra II he gave a vague salute with his sword, and sped on, time warped around him. Past the double doors he found the most dangerous enemy of all to a speedster: the invisible wall.

The sorceress half turned and looked over her shoulder at him.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f362/Arhra/Avvy/arh_ameme.jpg

Some kind of black magical forcefield was visible now, reddish-purple energy crackling and subsiding back into invisibility where it had been struck.

Arhra II raised one hand and a wave of dark energy shot out behind her, knocking the damaged door off its hinges entirely and buckling the other before rushing into the little cul-de-sac Steel found himself in.

Armored Bishoujo smirked, struggling to control her rage at Arhra II. "Punished for my crimes? By you? I atone for my crimes by punishing evil. And evil bitches like you have no right to punish anyone else for anything. God, you're just the worst kind of person, y'know? I can't stand people like you!"

The cosplayer drew Slasher and Blaster, her bastard sword and blaster (which shot bullets). "Here, hold these bullets for me!"

The only part of the sorceress that moved was one of her hands.

"Pathetic." Arhra II threw the bullets back at her.

They exploded several feet in front of AB, golden ripples spreading alone a vertical plane. Arhra I was suddenly between her dark twin and the rest of the group.

"Such a wondrous shield." Arhra II breathed. "But dear I, don't you think you should stop sabotaging your own side?" she asked, looking at the faux white mage.

"What are you talking about?" the healer asked, distrust on her face.

"Your companions might have the illusion of safety, but they can't do anything now can they?" she purred. With an abrupt motion, she tore a slit in the side of her dress to give herself more freedom of movement. This was unusual; Arhra II didn't seem to like doing things physically.

She looked up again, blazing eyes sleepy with cruelty. "And time is slipping away."

2:31

"I-" the white mage began.

The sorceress cut her off, something that could be called a smile on her face. "You could try not getting in the way and just healing but no, you don't have a good track record with that, do you?"

"No-" the healer protested, shaking her head.

"What else? Assist magic?" her smile slowly widened. "You can't really put your heart into it, can you? After all, you'd be aiding and abetting such glorious carnage. There's nothing you can do without making it worse. You really are pitiful, aren't you? How could you have fallen so far?"

Arhra I has lost all will to fight!

"Was that really the best you had?" Arhra II said, mainly addressing Rose as she advanced, the barrier gone. She slashed her arm sideways, globules of energy trailing in an arc behind it. They contracted into spindle shapes and fired off at chest level into the midst of the NPFers.

Arhra I was already on the ground at the front, completely unresponsive.

"Let's make things worse." the images around her briefly synched up, there was a flicker and a book materialised in her right hand. Silvery lines of light over it in circuit-like patterns and the clasp unlocked.

"LOADED" it boomed.

Arhra II didn't really go for talking books.

"ABSORPTION"

Angular silvery gylphs rained around Arhra I.

[Teal Mage]

Crimson eyes burning brightly with cruelty, II hurled dagger after vicious dagger of venomous words at Arhra I. The Fury empowered Chaos Sorceress's barbs tore gaping holes in the white mage's fragile sense of self-confidence, quickly reducing the healer's invincible golden shield into glittering particles of fairy dust. Will to resist lost, Arhra I collapsed.

Disdainfully, II's eyes settled on Rose. Flanked by a swarm of transparent, colorless, clones of herself, the Sorceress began to advance. Trailing dark red energy - half-chaos, half-fury - Arhra swept her arm through the air before herself.

"Was that really the best you had?"

Magical power sharpened to needles, shooting across the chamber.

Rose was suddenly beside Arhra I. Pale purple lightning crackled over her hand, vivid gold sparks bursting wildly from it as the mage lashed out in a vicious slap. White light flared as her magic collided with the dark shapes of Arhra II spell wrought weapons. Fury enhanced chaos energy flared around Rose, edged with pale light. The wild magic tore into her dress, ripping shallow gashes into the edges of her body, before dissipating behind her.

Droplets of blood splattered around Rose.

"Let's make things worse." II murmured, steps slowing. Her ghostly after-images abruptly arrested, before snapping into synchrony with the original Arhra's body. There was a flicker, and suddenly, a book was in the Sorceress's pale hand. She raised it causally before herself, once again advancing at full speed.

"Loaded." It boomed.

Silver lines burst into life over the tome's surface. The sound of a lock unclasping suddenly rang erupted in the cavernous chamber.

"Absorption."

Silver runes began to rain around Rose and Arhra I.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" Rose suddenly snapped, gesturing sharply. A fierce wind swept up around the mage, whipping her vermillion hair around her face and throwing tugging her azure dress wildly over her body. "How can you say things like that to your own sister?"

Iridescent petals of pink lights swirled out from Rose en mass, filling the air around her and the defeated Arhra I. "She tries hard - really hard - to do what she thinks is right." Pale bursts of crackling energy began to flare from petal-to-petal, as Rose further saturated the air around I and herself with her magical power, the currents of it raging in opposition to II's rain of silver runes. "And you just..." Whatever Rose said ended in a growl.

Rose was using her magic to resist the absorption spell!

Her arm snapped up, blood still dripping from the shallow cuts made by II's attack spell. Her black and gold dagger was in her hand. "Get lost bitch." The dagger burst into white light, elongating through both sides of her grip, extending until it was nearly her height.

Surrounded by a raging storm of flower petals, hair and dress whipping around her form, Rose held the slim and elegantly curved shape of a black metal bow diagonally before herself. In its center a blue-green crystal orb glinted.

"You can't have her."

[Overcast]

Overcast smiled as Shyria tore through the winged mass, the screaming was heartening as well. The scene of invincibility quickly descending into desperation. The explosion of gooey wing was troublesome though, the sorceress reaching out in an attempt to strangle the massive reptilian deathmachine. This just would not do,

"Stop your bitching, you're hatred doesn't have any meaning."

He started walking over to Arhra's exposed torso pulling his gloves back on. Truly if she had forgotten he was here she had to be foolish,

"You're just an overemotional creep who got her hands into way too much power and is suffering some sort of existential emo breakdown from the application. It is just pathetic."

He meant to be rude, judging, unfair. Really he was sure if she was actually willing to talk to them for three seconds without trying to kill them, and were the time not running she had plenty to be hateful about. He just wanted her to be hateful about him though,

"And now you sit here amongst your betters in an attempt to justify the imaginary hate. You don't have the power to touch that dragoness."

He closed his fist and covered the box in grins,

"You don't even have the power to touch me."

And he threw a punch, just one punch, aiming for that pretty little face to give it a mar worth noting. It probably wouldn't do anything other than make her angry, but it bought some time for a much more reasonable Arhra to come by with some temporal superloot. Not that he knew about that, he was just try to give Shyria time time to escape.

After all he had completely forgotten he was on a time limit.

[PyrosNine]

Pyros did the only sane thing doable at this time, and chucked one horrid, unpleasant thing at another horrid, unpleasant thing, sending the Giant Fan going "OMG!" straight down at Arhra II.

Falling feet first, Pyros raised both hands, summoning all the force he had within himself, creating a large, red and black sphere that glowed with the intensity and foreboding doom of a dying star. Pyros was done just chucking, plain ordinary fireballs. Now was the time for him to hurl something to make others die: either of them would have been nice, though he was worried that another Arhra seemed to be in the shot as well. But there was a time limit going on, so he might as well go a little overboard.

"Nova shot!" Pyros sent a miniature, portable, long range version of the attack he never uses in Avvies the pair of Arhras, and the Giant Fan.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Shyria kept digging into Arhra II like a cat at an especially large and angry scratching post until the abomination managed to pin her limbs and wings. Now shreds of eldritch energy were clogging her nose as the demon's hands closed around her throat.

From the corners of her eyes, Shyria saw Arhra VI waving an oversized pillow stuffer as a blade, Overcast gearing up for the mother of all punches, and Pyros doing his best impression of the K-T asteroid. She decided now was as good as time as any to back off.

Her jaws snapped open just long enough to send one last jet of napalm in the direction of Arhra II's face before jerking down and grabbing one of her hands by the wrist, hoping to tear herself free.

[Steel Shadow]

Rose had just taken a stand in reckless defiance of the great evil enemy, holding fast as a beacon of hope and friendship!

“That's very nice.”

Something slammed into Arhra II's side with the force of meteor.

It was a foot.

“But it's not a very impressive threat when you don't have the means to back it up.” Steel was back! And he looked... um, upset? And redder than ever!

He brought his leg back down and gave II - who hadn't been moved even slightly by his kick - an annoyed look. “Most people have the courtesy to go flying after an attack like that. Evil I can get, but there's just no call for such rudeness.” He waved his hand in a dismissive fashion, accidentally creating a few sonic booms, before returning to the subject at hand. “That was an impressive attack, Ms. Sorceress. But you really should know, I can move faster than you can think. Especially since I took another one of these lil' pills of doom, 'cause apparently no one else wanted them. For you see-”

Steel stopped, looking up for a moment.

“Oh. Ok, there was more to this chat, but Pyros has decided to actually set something on fire finally.” There was more looking at Pyros. “Huh. Judging by the size, he's been holding that in for about 3 RPs now. So, you have fun with that, I'll go stop this from turning into a legendary Team kill.” And then he was gone.

As were Arhra I and Rose.

A large time shield enveloped the NPFers (even Bard!) like a bubble, Steel standing in the middle of it concentrating. “Ok,” he spoke. “Once Pyros is done, I am dropping this thing and commencing the long overdue beat down for II over there. If any of you want to join in, I suggest you take a few of these.” He offered up the fury pill bag to anyone interested.

The pills within glinted menacingly somehow.

“They make hitting things even more fun, and give your voice a nice clean echo! Plus they stop you feeling pain, which is handy.”

“Any takers?”

[mauve]

"Oh, is it time to unleash the unbelievably cheap super attacks now?" Mauve asked, looking suddenly very interested in this battle. No one was sure when she arrived or how she got there, and Mauve probably wouldn't explain if she was asked. Mauve thought it made her more mysterious. It probably just made her more annoying.

"Once Pyros is done, I am dropping this thing and commencing the long overdue beat down for II over there. If any of you want to join in, I suggest you take a few of these.” The time knight held out a bag of fury pills. Mauve reached over and pulled one out of the bag. She eyed it critically.

"Are they candy flavored?" she asked suspiciously. "Oh well. We'll make do with what we have, I guess." She weighed the pill in the palm of her hand, eying Pyros and his Nova Doom Attack of Fiery Nova Doom. Once Steel dropped the time shield, Mauve would unleash hell. Or something. She wasn't quite sure yet. This sort of thing required careful consideration. Mauve had an arsenal of destructive magics at her command. She had to pick the right spell for the right occasion----the one that would make herself look the most badass, probably.

[Arhra]

Because sorceresses were worse even than kangaroos, Geist had quit.

He'd found a pizzeria. Despite an entire section of the forum being levelled, killer robots running amok and an ominous countdown, it was still open. Its staff knew they had been chosen; their scared mission was to save the planet, one delicious pizza at a time.

In the bright and open interior Geist found himself confronted by five counters manned by teenagers in fast food wage-slave attire, three boys and two girls.

The ghostly summon placed his order.

"Cheese!" his server punched up and outwards, yellow energy shooting from his ring.

"Tomato!" the boy at the register next to him responded, a red beam joining the yellow.

"Dough!"

"Toppings!"

"Meat!"

"By your ingredients combined, I am CAPTAIN PIZZA!" A heroic man in red tights appeared where the beams converged. A stylised pizza was on his chest and a chef's hat on his head.

"Captain Pizza, he's our hero
Gonna take your hunger down to zero
He's delicious magnified
And he's fighting on this restraunt's side.
Yaaay, Pizza!"

"You look ghastly," Captain Pizza told Geist with a grin, "but this'll soon put that hunger of yours to rest." With his incredible powers, he tossed the dough, added toppings and cooked the pizza with his heat vision in under a minute.

"That'll be 9.95."

Geist paid the man.

"The pizza is YOURS." Captain Pizza returned to the Pizzareers' pizza power rings.

"Hey, aren't you that guy's summon?" a girl polishing off a last slice of pizza asked, spotting him as he moved into the dining area.

The girl was pale, black haired, red eyed and possessed the three pronged sidelock profile unique to Arhra. Stubby horns, faintly unsettling sex appeal, vaguely draconic wings and a ridiculous outfit confirmed her identity as the newly dubbed Gestalt Arhra. Still mostly succubus, her absurd mixture of traits hadn't yet reached equilibrium.

"Where are all the other jerks?" she asked of Geist.

* * *

"Stop your bitching, your hatred doesn't have any meaning." Overcast said, trying psychological warfare on the winged monster that appeared to be Arhra II. "You're just an overemotional creep who got her hands into way too much power and is suffering some sort of existential emo breakdown from the application. It is just pathetic."

Arhra II did not seem to be listening to him: she was too busy strangling a dragon with her bare hands.

"And now you sit here amongst your betters in an attempt to justify the imaginary hate. You don't have the power to touch that dragoness."

She seemed to be managing that just fine.

He closed his fist and the box that was his head covered itself in grinning mouths. "You don't even have the power to touch me."

Arhra VI was sneaking up with hopefully soylent-Arhra based weaponry stolen from the future-past to deal chrono-mechanically assisted damage and Shyria needed a hand.

Overcast struck!

He threw a punch, just one punch, smashing into her cheekbone. The false Arhra II's head seemed to move too far, neck stretching bonelessly from the impact before snapping back. She shrieked in outrage and bristled with spines, wing tips morphing into spears that stabbed out in every direction.

A pained gasp came from the side, Arhra VI had gotten shish-kabobed. Her Duster Sword clattered to the ground as she swayed.

"How dare you." Arhra VI breathed heavily, pressing one pitch black hand against the wound. Her blood was almost black. She looked up, murder in her crimson eyes. "I'll make you pay with that body of yours."

She moved like lightning, lunging forward, ducking under a flailing wing and inside II's guard, raking an open hand across her body, hungry nothingness in the blow. Lesser wings released Shyria to entangle her in an embrace of death but she disengaged immediately, leaping skywards through the feathery dome closing about her to land safely at a distance.

A handful of II's wings shimmered and shrank to nothing. The large set she was using to keep Shyria's head out of play moulted and vanished too. Identical wings erupted out of VI's back, tearing through the trait stealing Arhra's shirt as a hodgepodge of other wings grew out of her body along with them.

She stooped and recovered the Duster Sword.

Shyria breathed flame down at Arhra II and jerked her jaws down to snap like a beartrap on her forearm. Enhanced by Overcast, they sliced right through. Arhra II released Shyria and shrank back, trying to get some distance to recover. A new arm was forming out of the stump.

VI jumped back in, awkwardly swinging the Duster Sword one handed. Things seemed to slow down just before she hit, arcs of energy crackling between II and the sword. Space tore apart in a blast of light and then swirled and collapsed again with a thunderclap.

Both of them were gone.

* * *

Rose was calling a sorceress out. Arhra II had driven her own 'sister' to the breaking point. Arhra I had fallen into a profound depression and passed out instead of having a massive psychotic episode fortunately. Her darker twin had then tried to absorb her with alien magic, intending to add a second source of seemingly limitless energy to her arsenal. And perhaps more worryingly, healing spells: she was a wreck right now.

Rose had jumped into the fray, heedless to the spell-missiles Arhra II had been tossing off, setting magic of wind and petals in opposition to interfer with the absorption capture.

"Get lost bitch." Rose said, the magical dagger she held turning into light and recasting itself into a black metal bow. "You can't have her."

"Normally, yes." the sorceress replied. "The hearts of others are not easily overcome. But her soul is in hiding and so she is vulnerable. You can't save her. You can't even save yoursel-"

She got roundhouse kicked by Steel, the images around her flying into wild confusion for a second.

“That's very nice.” the Time Knight said to Rose. “But it's not a very impressive threat when you don't have the means to back it up.”

“That was an impressive attack, Ms. Sorceress. But you really should know, I can move faster than you can think. Especially since I took another one of these lil' pills of doom, 'cause apparently no one else wanted them. For you see-”

Steel decided to get out of there since Pyros was on the warpath.

A Giant Fan was flung into the fray. "Woot!" the Fan shouted as he flew through the air with the greatest of easy. "PYROS NINE actually touched me! I'm so happy I coul-"

He burst. Reams of fanfiction drifted down like radioactive fallout.

Such shipping.

Arhra II lowered her hand.

"Nova shot!" Pyros shouted. His second projectile was something even worse than a Giant Fan: a ball of material so energetic it was a fourth state of mattter, heat and pressure collapsed so far in on itself it had no choice but to explode forth once more.

Inside the absolutely static, perfect protective shell that was Steel's Time Shield, the NPFers did not feel the wash of heat or blast of overpressure as the forbidding black and red sphere of solar extinction noiselessly expanded into a brilliant pyre rose.

The NPFers were ready to strike when Steel dropped his shield. The air was a murky, opaque red, sparks and tongues of fire tumbling through the air.

Impossibly, they heard a distant screaming. The burning air parted, fleeing out of the way of a juggernaut of blue light. It bulled into the spherical cross section of the field of frozen time and forced it inwards, bulging in with angular shadows flickering through it like demented ghosts.

The sublime order of stopped time was thrown into chaos and the shield ceased to exist.

Devouring light flooded in.

1:18

[mauve]

The raging storm of blue light battered Mauve's shield. The mage grit her teeth in annoyance as she struggled to maintain the barrier of purplish light she had hastily conjured as Steel's shield imploded.

A single, smoldering manuscript had landed on the top of the shield. It was quickly burned away to cinders from the onslaught of Nova fire and Arhra's attack, but not before Mauve could read the title and the first few lines. Fanfiction?!?!

"What the... WHY WOULD ANYONE PAIR ME WITH HIM?!?!" she cried in disgusted horror. Eeuuughgghh... Oh that's it. Something had to die now. And since the Fan was already-- supposedly--- dead and vaporized into his primal form, bad fanfiction, that left Arhra. Assuming she was still here somewhere.

Mauve looked around. The room was full of burnination and light. She didn't really see anyone anymore. Her shoulders sagged. So much for that. Mauve hated when enemies used self-destruct attacks to end battles.

"Sooooo.... is anybody still alive out there? Hello?" she paused, listening for a reply over the screaming blue fire. "If you guys are dead, can I have your stuff?"

[Shyria Dracnoir]

One minute the world was chaos, blood, and fire. The next minute, Shyria was sitting flat on her butt in the middle of a battle scarred wasteland, Arhra's severed arm still clenched in her teeth. After her brain took a moment to settle, she spat the offending limp onto the ground and watched it dissolve into smoke and slime.

"You think an all powerful chaos god could at least try to taste a little gamy" she muttered to no one in particular. She glanced up at one of the remaining monitors. Just over a minute remained before...well, she couldn't really remember just what was going to happen, only that it was very unpleasant and almost certainly painful. Something caught her ear

"Sooooo.... is anybody still alive out there? Hello?" she paused, listening for a reply over the screaming blue fire. "If you guys are dead, can I have your stuff?"

Ah ha! The best part of any battle; looting the corpses. Sadly, Arhra's unexpected exit had left Shyria with literally nothing more than a bad taste in her mouth, but perhaps Mauve had stumbled on something profitable. She proceeded to follow the sounds of horrible fiery destruction back to the others.

[Teal Mage]

"Normally, yes." Voice still slightly slurred and dream like, Arhra II elaborated, as if Rose's statement had been a question. "The hearts of others are not easily overcome. But her soul is in hiding and so -" Disjointed after images stumbling chaotically around her, the Dark Sorceress continued her shambling advance across the cavernous chamber. "-she is vulnerable."

"Well," Rose growled, levelling her bow. "I'm not."

"You can't save her." It was a statement. "You can't even save yoursel-"

A solid thud cut the Sorceress off.

Body surrounded by a nimbus of fury, Steel Shadow appeared in front of Arhra, delivering a round house kick to the woman that sent her after images reeling.

"That's very nice. But," Landing soundlessly on his sneakers, the dark haired time traveler addressed Rose, "it's not a very impressive threat when you don't have the means to back it up."

"s'what I have friends for." Rose replied, flashing a warm smile and lowering her bow.

"That was an impressive attack, Ms. Sorceress." Steel turned his attention back toward Arhra II, "But, you really should know, I can move faster than you can think. Especially since I took another one of these lil' pills of doom, 'cause apparently no one else wanted them. For you see-"

"Nova Shot!"

Steel decided to gloat later.

* * * * * *

Safely surrounded by a, faintly red, bubble of frozen time, Rose breathed a sigh of relief. At her feet was the unconscious form of Arhra I; an infinitely better place than inside Arhra II's sinister looking magic-book-machine. White light flooded the bow in her delicate hand and the weapon quickly shrank back its former dagger state.

Outside the shield, blinding incandescent light erupted as Pyros' collapsed star struck connected with Arhra II. Had Steel's shield been less perfect, Rose would have remarked at how pretty the roaring pyre of a sun imploding upon itself was. However, as it was, nothing - not even light or sound - could penetrate the protective shield around the group.

"...any takers?" Steel concluded, ending his impromptu strategy session by offering the bag of small red pills to the group inside the shield.

"Are they candy flavored?" Mauve asked, taking one of the pills and regarding it with suspicion. "Oh well. We'll make do with what we have, I guess."

Seemingly agreeing with Mauve's sentiments, Bishoujo silently retrieved her own pill, moving to the barrier's edge.

"They do seem too good to be true." Rose offered, returning Dee to her belt. Orange-red hair trailed lazily behind her as she approached the proffered cache. Unhurried, she extended a hand - they had time, right? "I'll take-"

Fingers hanging inches from the pills, Rose paused as a strange high pitched whine reached her ears. "What?" Frowning, she turned her teal eyes toward the source.

Only to see a brilliant cross of blue light bulging and straining against the faintly red fabric of Steel's barrier.

Eyes widening, Rose closed her hand over four of the pills.

And suddenly, everything went white.

* * * * * *

"Sooooo...." Mauve's voice tentatively floated over the burning wasteland around her, "is anybody still alive out there?" Surrounded by a curtain of faint purple energy, she'd survived without a scratch. "Hello?" When no reply came immediately, she added, "If you guys are dead, can I have your stuff?"

Suddenly, the flames around her warped, as if pulled by a powerful vacuum. They resisted momentarily, before jerking forward in a nearly blinding flash of reds, purples, blues and whites. There was a muffled impact, before the normally dim ambient light of the chamber took their place.

Breathing harshly, Rose stood a handful of paces behind Mauve, weak red light flickering around her form. The cuts that she'd gained from Arhra II's earlier had begun to bleed again, the newly reopened wounds stinging in the sudden sweat that had appeared on her skin. The mage's eyes were screwed tightly shut.

Extended in front of her chest and spaced a short distance apart, the woman's delicate hands trembled. A mass wildly fluctuating of red, gold, white, blue and purple energy hung between her almost claw-like finger tips, suspended in a nearly solid aura of deep red light.

Beads of sweat fell from her bowed head, soundlessly turning to steam instants later.

Rose's lips moved silently, as her hands haltingly contracted around the condensed mass of Fury, Chaos Magic and apocalyptic flames.

With a final soundless flash, the orb vanished.

Panting, Rose collapsed to her knees. Thin lines of blood slowly moved from her arms and the outside of her legs, dripping slowly to the charred floor of the chamber. The aura of Fury around her slowly began to rekindle, but containing, controlling, relocating and neutralizing that much chaotic power was no easy task, even with four doses of infinite power to draw from.

At least she'd managed to keep most of the flames from getting to her allies.

Hopefully. She tiredly amended.

[Overcast]

Overcast was caught with a couple spines, but nothing worth noting in the long run. Thankfully he had invested in sleeves so his armor of mismatched clothes had bounced him a good distance before it all went temporal anomaly on him again. It was one of those reality rippers that he usually slipped into the universe on, and from what he gathered it had done a double Arhra removal. Which was unfortunate because he was sure one of them was rather nice.

Getting back on his feet he brushed himself off and decided to get a look at the time, which was currently so low that he could only figure they were all completely doomed. So he shrugged and followed after Shyria to the battle down below, where fury powered madness tore up the last remaining version of the Elite Boss level sorceress. It was a bit late for him to add a support role here, so he stood by. Waiting to see the result, ready to add a helping hand if he could.

But really what could he do right now?

[PyrosNine]

Pyros hit the ground hard, and on his back, feeling the usual powerdrain after such a shot. His body, as usual per use of the attack, felt like all the vitality had been sucked out with a hoover. He also felt cold, like those guys at the end of Golden Sun: The Lost Age, and Captain Barbossa.

Even the warmth of his own explosion didn't recoup his losses, due to several pesky laws of thermodynamics. It did however, send him flying back into the distance, where something metallic broke his fall, and something else hard and not smooth broke his head. He wasn't sure at this point, because he was pretty stunned and unsure of much beyond the fact that unless he'd killed something just now, he was in trouble. Also, a cat is not fine too, he was sure of that!

Memories.

There was the last dimension, swallowed up and spit out. There was the one before that. He'd died twice, he'd even given them names, in his humor. Pyros 9.1, and Pyros 9.2. The Pyros of this place, his successor, would be called 9.3, if he was going to be stupid about all this.

Things were serious now. He knew he'd have to be a little more serious, a little less chaotic in dealing with another chaotic, but it was hard. And their fights were like high speed Calvinball on crack.

Was time running out here as well?

He wondered, was there a Raiden for this place? Did that scientist, did she have a father? He'd not taken the time to consider the events that came before, what little backstory he'd had he'd ignored. He'd been orphaned during the course of these adventures, it was easy to forget. Too much to do. Not in character to grieve.

Not enough time to...


* * *

Elsewhere, another being who timeshared the name Pyros was much brighter spirits, as she most certainly was not feeling the post-exhaustion emotional low.

"Mmmm-hm! I declare, this new piece of work combined with my operative designs, old refurbished space equipment, and my esteemed colleagues ideas stolen wholesale, I reckon I've built me a real beaut of a starship, with all the fixins'!" She poured herself a tall glass of Southern Sweet Tea flavored Ice Cream, and poured some homemade lemonade on that for an Arnold Palmer float for victory.

"Ooh, and this sped up development and construction time like a gal with a lump of coal in her britches!"

Dr. Ethington took a spoonful and savored it. Sooo goooood. She hoped things were going well for everyone else who wasn't in a lab succeeding at life, love, and spaceships.

Of course, the scanners were still going off the charts, with warnings about time fluctuations, tears in the fabric of reality, and dangerously high levels of chaos, but Dr. Ethington preferred to prioritize things that one could mount a dragon onto over pretty much everything else.

She even had begun contracting a mad hatter sort to make a giant, dragon sized space tophat and monocle, for classy and dapper interstellar action!

[Arhra]

In the aftermath, NPFers found themselves in an ashen wasteland.

The chamber was grey, ash sifting down like powdery snow. The floor and walls were buckled and sagging, glowing with dull red heat in places. Black smoke diffused from the pools of oil on either side of the double door ahead but most of it had already burned away.

"Sooooo.... is anybody still alive out there?" Mauve asked, looking about the desolation for traces of the others. "Hello?" the mage of mauve magicks paused. "If you guys are dead, can I have your stuff?"

Stray illuminations pushed through the settling murk like spotlights, a gathering glow where the sorceress had stood.

"You can have this." II rasped.

Arhra II looked profoundly unwell. She was skin and bones, as if all the strength had simply evaporated out of her body. Her chest heaved with every breath. The excessively elaborate costume she favoured was reduced to rags, her pale flesh was blackened and smeared with ash. The wound Shade had inflicted almost half an hour ago was bleeding freely again. Her one wing was barely there, flakes of shadowy colour drifting around a more solid frame. The streamers of Fury bleeding from where she'd ripped her other wing free were brighter by far. The ghostly images around her swarmed like they were trying to escaping, flickering with bands of static. The mysterious book she'd summoned was no-where to be seen.

Blue light glowed in front of II, a burning core surrounded by a nebulous sphere that shaded to pink at its outside. Sparks were pulled in and pulled apart, transforming into motes of light, more condensing out of the air and being drawn in. On the ground around her, spindly shapes of blue light twisted and flowed like the shadows of birds racing over the landscape. They wheeled around her.

"I'm giving it my all." she said, warping space in strange ways as she fed it her chaotic power. "A special collection-type just for you." It continued to build, gathering up spent energy from the spells and abilities that had been tossed around in the battle so far.

Also there was less than a minute until the countdown reached zero.

[Bard The 5th LW]

Geist

Geist was just about to sit down and enjoy his pizza when he was harassed by some random chick. He was this close 6to throwing a chair at her, but he noticed she looked suspiciously like the crazy bitch from earlier. Her twin? God he just couldn't escape!

"I was," the cranky spectral responded, "he kicked the bucket though. Got carted off my rats or something I don't know. The jack-asses are over at the big tower place fighting a crazy bitch who looks unnervingly like you before the countdown finishes and we all die. I'm just going to enjoy my pizza in the final few minutes so please let me have some peace!"

With these parting words of grumpiness Geist walked over to one of the booths and put his pizza down. Why would she waste his time at a dire moment like this? He only had a few minutes before the timer went off and he wanted to fisnish his goddamn pizza even if he didn't have a stomach.

Bard

Contrary to what the Summon believed, the Summoner actually didn't die and get carted off by Scavengers. In fact, he was very much alive as he had elected to hang back behind his meatshields. However, he was finding it to be increasingly hard to hang back and perform some crazy rituals with tons of Overcast/Intern-nin fanfiction falling over head. After he found one of Geist/Australia, he gave up on trying to attune this blade to work for summonings. Oh yeah, the fire was sort of problematic as well. Bard was just inches away from meeting a 21st death in the same day, but he managed to avoid that fate due to the efforts of Rose.

"Thanks..." he mutteres to her as he arose from the ground. Shit, well, Pyros gained his repsect. Capable of making a wasteland from almost nothing but good old fire.

His attention was suddenly returned to the battle at hand though. It appeared Ahrha II was still not fucking dead. She was charging some attack as well. It appeared to be a collection of all trhe abilities used against her. However fortunate for Bard though, he had not made use of his own abilities for any form of offense! He was surely the anamoly!

How would he do it though? Why the old fashioned way of course! Trusty knives! Or knife. But how to do it without getting close to her? He had just the answer!

FLASHBACK

Bard had quite a smile as he walked to the manager's office. He'd had his job at the circus for only a week, and he was slowly becoming a hit already. With Geist, Shade, and Berserker backing him up in the acts he was stealing the show no problem.

It was actually by chance he joined these guys. He was just fitting in with that last cult group, but he was a bit unsettled by the heavy levels of rat poison in the same cabinet as the kool-aid, so he decided he best leave. He was just sort of going through a phase when he joined them anyways.

The act was quite a hit. He's juggle knives, let one cut him, call Shade to help with the next trick, all sorts of stuff. He had become very skilled with knives over thew course of things. He was simply the best their was. Throwing knive, juggling, in fact, some people began to have suspicions it was a fetish. His relationships with his knives were completely platonic though! He swears!

That was why he was so crest-fallen when the boss fired him. "But why!" the summoner cried.

"Because your actions are much too imitable," he responded, "all's it will take is one emo or just plain stupid kid before the complaints start to roll in!"

WIth a frown on his face, Bard began his departure once again. He had very few possessions, so it only took a few minutes for him to pack up and say his good-byes. He would have to move on to other things...

---

It begins to dawn upon him that the entire flashback was a complete waste of time. Armed with his single knife, Bard glared up at the Sorceress who was charging her final attack. The one thing few had tried so far was the most mundane solution. A good ol' knife to the face.

Lifting his arm in the air he swung it backwards and sent it flying at the Ahrha II's face with great accuracy. The entire climax of the fight was almost probably hanging on his shoulders.

[Overcast]

Overcast stared at the sorceress as she took her time building up her final attempt at killing them all, which altogether seemed unnecessary seeing as they were all likely to die very soon anyway due to the the bombs and their lack of a solution to that problem. Still as long as he was playing in this scene he may as well see this through to its bad end. He took off his gloves and sat down staring at the mass of building chaos,

"I swore I said this once before. I don't believe in magic."

He decided to take a support role holding out his hands for anyone to use,

"But I know all I touch becomes stronger."

Win or lose it was almost over. Not much use fighting anymore.

[Arhra]

Geist was dealing with the irritating appearance of yet another Arhra at the pizzeria. This one was a mess biologically: half succubus, half dragon, half ghost, half magical rock and completely lacking in useful powers as the result of ill advised fusions. She still looked mainly like a succubus. Of the turtle detective she had been travelling with, there was no sign.

"I was," Gesit replied, talking about being with Bard. "he kicked the bucket though. Got carted off by rats or something I don't know. The jack-asses are over at the big tower place fighting a crazy bitch who looks unnervingly like you before the countdown finishes and we all die. I'm just going to enjoy my pizza in the final few minutes so please let me have some peace!"

The spectre moved to a booth, hoping to eat his pizza in piece.

Gestalt Arhra followed him, slinging a weapon the approimate size of herself off her back and sliding into the bench opposite the spook.

"Don't tell me One finally snapped." she said, face draining of what little colour it had.

Geist corrected her; it was the person who looked and dressed like she did. Her outfit could be summarised as complicated, black and revealing. Wings made so many things difficult. Therefore the crazy bitch was Arhra II.

"But she was the calm and rational one." Gestalt Arhra protested feebly.

"Anyway, I hate dying." she said with a little pout. She helped herself to one of the slices of Geist's pizza. "Wouldn't you rather see things through?" she asked him around a mouthful of pizza. "Why not fight for glory without honor or humanity?" she leaned forward, looking at him intently. She was smiling. "Take a leap of faith."

"There will be pizza." Gestalt Arhra promised him.

She snatched his pizza box and ran towards the city center.

* * *

"I swore I said this once before." Overcast said, sitting and staring down II's spell. "I don't believe in magic."

His disbelief did not stop or even slow the buildup of magical destruction. He did not believe in magic, but it believed in him.

"But I know all I touch becomes stronger." the box headed man tried, looking at the NPFers and offering his hands.

That wasn't going to save them.

Bard had already saved them all.

Reflecting on his carnival days, the summoner had an epiphany. He was going to stab the sorceress in the face from afar by throwing a knife at her. It had already claimed the life of one Arhra and the happiness of another. It was hungry for more.

A dark shell unfolded around Arhra II, delicate as a soap-bubble. The dagger hit and stuck balanced on it point, golden sparks arcing from the contact.

The barrier had a moment of existential dread; it didn't believe it existed. The dagger slipped through, gold hugging where it touched.

The images around the soceress vanished a split second before the dagger hit. Whatever controlled her gathering spell was lost. The pink and blue sphere flopped forward like a toad and sank into the floor, eating through it.

Motions drunken and uncoordinated, Arhra II raised one hand to the knife's hilt. She pulled it out. The Fury she was filled with kept her alive even when it didn't make sense, blood trickling down her face. She looked at the bloodied dagger, vague puzzlement behind the burning rage in her eyes.

Marked only by its sudden absence, the red energy leaking from every wound stopped flowing.

Arhra II fell over sideways. The dagger fell out of her grip and skittered along the floor.

One problem gone.

0:32

One problem left.

The NPFers were in the bowels of the monster filled labyrinth beneath the Kurosen Tower. They were in a large chamber, wrecked by battle. Parts of it still radiated heat as the last of the ash drifted down into drifts. A dead Arhra was in front of them, pale body in a loose fetal curl. She was starting to glow. The hallway she had been blocking was now unprotected. The countdown had not stopped.

[PyrosNine]

Kitty Pyros decided that now was a good time to get GTFI, and deal with that there timer. He wasn't sure how this Kurosen worked related to the last one, and he really didn't have time to find out.

Though boy was he tired, even in his EnergyStar compliant form, he was still low on fuel, so to speak. He'd just skitter in there, find whatever looked like a green wire (it's never the blue wire!) and blast it with a kitty blast, assuming he could still muster one. After that, it was time for a warm nap on top of a radiator and a saucer of milk, and maybe a half pound of 'nip.

The inside of the tower Arhra had been blocking was...surprising.

[Overcast]

"We're fucking doomed. Well, you're all fucking doomed. I'll survive, probably take whats left of your cool items and totally screw them up with my awkward nature. Then you'll come back someday, and I'll still be here."

Overcast had been overcome with a large quantity of fatalism! Statistically he had just no other means to look at. He didn't think any one of them had taken bomb defusing 101, and altogether they were just going to die. Big bad fiery death.

He was just trying to get in the spirit.

[Arhra]

There was a Bard who was a summoner here. He had no knives to summon with.

There was a mage of mauve magic here. She was probably being too modest for her own good.

There was an imitation white mage here. Her consciousness had been swallowed by moral dilemmas and the darkness in her heart. It would be swallowed up by more things soon enough.

A cosplayer had decided to make herself scarce.

There was man with a box for a head here. The box was full of fatalism and low spirits, with a hint of gloating over possible immortality.

There was a glowing, dead Chaos sorceress here. Dead people were not permitted to interfere.

There was another sorceress here. She was so very tired. And possibly a crossdresser.

There was a dragon here, doing everything a dragon can. Except flying, breathing fire, challenging knights, demanding sacrifices or sleeping on a pile of gold.

There was a Time Knight here. He'd been peddling drugs.

There was a Pyrokitty here. He was looking in blocked rooms and trying to deal with timers.

The hallway went straight and then made an abrupt right angle turn.

It spiralled down, making a half revolution before making another right angle turn, coming to a smaller chamber several meters directly below the site of the battle. There was an ancient dais in the middle.

To the side of the dais, a large blue and pink ball of energy burned through the ceiling, plopped onto the floor and squatted there sullenly.

On top of the raised dais was a U shaped ring of machinery, halfway between pipe organ, ship bridge and Victorian-era supercomputer.

Screens were clustered around, all of them counting down what little time was left.

Tick.

0:20

Tick.

0:19

The controls had been thoroughly smashed up. A long lever had been thrust into the wreckage like a spear. A note was pinned to the panel with it.

You've met with a terrible fate,
haven't you?

Where had it all gone so wrong?

It was probably Pyros and slash or Steel's fault.

[Bard The 5th LW]

Geist

She just stole his pizza!

"HEY GET THE BELGIUM BACK HERE!" he shouted as he chased after her, shouting some otherworldly obscenity.

Why was she doing this? There were only like 20 seconds, an with the intervals of Bard's posts, they would certainly be too late.

Bard

...It waorked? Holy fuck that just worked! A large rin appeared on Bard's face as Ahrha II collapsed! He did it! He was the one who finished her off! "BOOYAH!!" He was useful! He finished her off!

But why didn't the timer stop? What was it doing! NO NO NO! When you defeat the boss, everything is supposed to fix itself! Thats how this stuff works!

Bard looked around at the timer's. There was little he could do. No knife, no summons, no nothing. Just, like three low level useless spells. God, in hindsight all that summoning stuff was rather crippling an overspecialization.

You've met with a terrible fate,
haven't you?

He scuttled through his inventory. No instruments. He was just a Bard in name. The last true bard in his family came to NPF five generations ago of the Lightwarrior family.

"The only solution I can think of is to break everything everywhere" Bard admitted, "and that is too just sorta justify ourselves in the sense that we tried something."

[PyrosNine]

"Dammit BEN! Go hack someone else's Majora's Mask!" Kitty Pyros mewed furiously at the note.

Welp, he didn't have an ocarina, and there wasn't a howling stone (not that a kitty could howl), so they were pretty screwed, so it was time for Pyros to hit the lever with a weak kitty blast, and hope for the best, even if it just made things more broke.

"Kitty blast" Kitty Pyros said in digimon style, firing a blast of fire from his mouth, hitting the lever square on.

Pyros and Steel would probably reminisce about all this later, at Mime's bar with Cendy, and between pints, look back and say "Remember that one time, with that timer? And that one Evil Arhra? Totally my fault." and the other would go "No, no no, that one was all me!" and Mime would just listen in and mime drink out of an invisible mug, and become really tipsy because he forgot how much he'd drank previously, and couldn't see how many empties he'd left behind. Cendy would drink his fill, then leave during the argument because he knew he could dump his tab on his cousin with no one else the wiser.

Probably.

Kitty Pyros returned and found Mauve, and hopped on her hat. If he was going to die, he'd die somewhere comfortable.

[mauve]

"Who the hell is messing with my hat--- Oh, hi Pyros!" The firekitty was now perched on the brim of Mauve's hat. Hey. There was a cat on her hat. Mauve was tempted to do the rest of the post in Dr. Seuss-esque rhyme to accommodate this new turn of events, but then decided it was too much effort.

"Come on, Pyros." she said. "Let's go fix this. Or make it worse. I dunno which and at this point it probably doesn't really matter."

She reached down to the two knives at her belt.

"Bard." She drew one knife and tossed it to the summoner. "All yours." She wasn't sure if she was being helpful or being an enabler, seeing as how she was pretty sure he had to hurt himself in order to summon anything, but again, at this point it really didn't matter.

She knelt by the decimated control panel, eyeing it critically. She had no idea what she was looking at. Oh well.

"It's been fun," she said. She drew her remaining dagger and stabbed it into the side of the panel, wedging it between two connecting metal plates. The metal began to peel apart. "I have no regrets. Okay, well, yes I do, but it sounds better if I say that I don't. So for all intents and purposes, I have no regrets." The metal panel broke free. Mauve grabbed it with both hands, ripped it off the machine, and hurled it off to one side.

"Bingo." Underneath the panel was a variety of wires and important looking pieces of machinery. Mauve had no idea what they were but most movies involving explosives ended up with someone slicing apart wires and important pieces of machinery.

"Bard's plan of breaking stuff until something dies is officially underway!" Mauve declared.

She raised both hands, and the air around them crackled with purple sparks of raw magical energy. Cutting wires wasn't Mauve's style.

"Let's void some warranties." The purple sparks solidified into flames. She didn't have time to dramatically wonder whether to cut the blue wire or the red wire, so she'd just try and melt everything into slag in one go. It would either stop the timer or kill everyone, and given the fact that the very real threat of insta-death was already looming above them anyway, she didn't feel too bad about the possibility of failure. The mage pointed both open palms at the exposed machinery and yelled out a command. The control panel was about to be barbecued.

[Steel Shadow]

You've met with a terrible fate,
haven't you?


"Not yet we haven't!"

Time rolled forward.


0:18 0:17 0:160:150:13:12:765321-

Tick.

...Aparently Steel wanted to remnd everyone he was still in this RP.

[Arhra]

A lot can happen in eighteen seconds.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f362/Arhra/Avvy/avvy_pizzagroup.png

"HEY GET THE BELGIUM BACK HERE!" Geist yelled at Gestalt Arhra as she ran off with his pizza.

"Run like a Kenyan if you want it back!" the chaos... thing shouted back gleefully as she ran down the street, sprinting towards the tower.

There was no way she could possibly make it but she didn't care.


http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f362/Arhra/Avvy/avvy_labgroup.png

In a lab far away from all the fuss and the fighting, a passive-aggressive war of dominance was entering its final stages. Jockeying for position and working on spaceships and such was far more important than some silly timer, after all.

"Mmmm-hm! I declare, this new piece of work combined with my operative designs, old refurbished space equipment, and my esteemed colleagues ideas stolen wholesale, I reckon I've built me a real beaut of a starship, with all the fixins'!" Dr Ethington proclaimed, treating herself to an ice-cream float to celebrate this triumph.

0:16

"Eeeethington."

Arhra V entered the room, staying barely ahead of a sea of hair. Reversing the polarity had fixed the pair's tangling issues for now, but how much longer? "I see you managed to get a little work done." she said dismissively, looking at the fruits of her labour.


http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f362/Arhra/Avvy/avvy_dgroup.png

There was a moment of quiet in the ash filled chamber where the NPFers had defeated Arhra II

Shyria had no idea what was going on and there wasn't exactly a lot of time to explain it. She'd been defeated an evil sorceress on the surface, found the others fighting the same sorceress down here, seen the battle end and the countdown not end. It was very complicated.

0:14

Rose had pulled a Fury ligament diverting her sorceress opponent's penultimate attack and was still recovering. Luckily for everyone, her taking a ridiculous number of pills at once had shown no side effects but a tendency towards redness.

0:13

Overcast was being a bit of a fatalistic ass, rubbing his possibly immortality in everyone's faces and telling them how he'd steal their stuff when they were dead. He was feeling a certain vibe and trying to fit in with it.

0:12

Arhra was both dead and incapable of doing anything for the moment.


http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f362/Arhra/Avvy/avvy_controlgroup.png

Bard found himself instrument free. This countdown would be yet another problem that the NPFers had failed to resolve with the power of song.

"The only solution I can think of is to break everything everywhere" Bard admitted, "and that is to just sorta justify ourselves in the sense that we tried something."

The man spoke truth.

0:10

Mauve said she had no regrets, even though she did, and tried something. With a cat on her hat, she pried open a panel in the smashed up console in front of her.

"Bard's plan of breaking stuff until something dies is officially underway!" Mauve declared. "Let's void some warranties."

The console got more smashed up so magically!

0:09

Mauve knew the cat on her hat was the fine Pyros Nine. The cat on her cat wanted sleep and then twine.

0:08

Steel decided the only option was to skip to the end. He tried to bend time with his powers, adding the Fury red to make things go faster.

0:07

There was nothing else. There was no time.

0:06


You've


0:05



met



0:04




with




0:03





a





0:02






terrible






0:01







fate.








0:00









A pillar of fire stretched towards the heavens from the former site of the NPF.


The city had vanished from the face of the earth, a burning crater where it had once been.


The NPF was gone.

[Arhra]

Haven't you?










Blasting off into space with the whole NPF?






How could you?!



Atop the pillar of fire was the NPF, the vast engines built into its foundations going full-blast.

In ancient times, a traveller had come to where the NPF would be, carrying plans and bending all of his persuasion to convince the people of that time to build something very important.

Everyone had forgotten about it, even its instigators.

The NPFers picked themselves up, feeling a lessened burden of the city's upward acceleration after the monstrous thrust of the first few seconds.

In the chamber of the battle, a warning klaxon came on. The floor recessed and began sliding open like a hatchway, the control room occupied by Bard, Mauve, Pyros and Steel visible thorugh the widening gap.

The ceiling began opening in a similar manner, behind it another hatch. A series of them recessed away, a tiny circle of blue sky visible at the end of the chimney.

The floor in the battle chamber had just about completely vanished at this point.

In the control room, a lurch and a sensation of free fall was the only warning they got as clamps released and the platform shot straight up. They emerged into daylight and kept rising, the lift mechanism scaling the side of the Kurosen Tower.

It reached the top with a lurch and then the disk shaped platform pivoted on the climbing mechanism and settled into place so it was seated firmly in place as the new tower top.

From this new vantage point, they could see the ground falling away past the outskirts of the NPF as they rose ever higher into the sky.

Destination: Space?!

[Overcast]

"I did not see that coming."

Overcast stared over the edge of the end of the tower his Box an absolute blank. I mean it wasn't often that he was absolutely stunned, but he was absolutely STUNNED! This was awesome, beyond awesome. Whoever made this happen was the new word for awesome, as his Box began to slowly etch a smirk onto its front surface. And he began to laugh, falling back onto his back and staring at the stars they blasted toward. It was all so beautiful, and really after that mind numbing depression this was a real solid change,

"BACK TO SPACE!"

[Astral Harmony]

"What the hell just happened?!" Maya demanded. Maya was a muscular raven-haired catgirl engineer with a too-thin white tank top and thick black chainpants who beat the snot out of enemies with a very large adjustable wrench. Armored Bishoujo's spacecraft, the Azure Aesir, was in outer space above NPF, though it didn't remain above NPF for long since it seemed the place was rising up to meet them.

"Do you think the captain is alright?" Alucard asked with concern. Alucard was a pretty and slender girl with pink hair and holy powers who used a longstaff and healing powers to help the crew.
"Armored's vital signs are stable," Alean sad, barely glancing at the captain's console. "She is merely uncontious. She seems to have sustained some injury, but nothing debilitating."
Alean was something of a mentor for Armored, though it wasn't long that Armored surpassed Alean in overall potential. Alean wore a bizarre getup of belts criss-crossed over each other like some bizarre mesh, along with some leather gauntlets, boots and headgear, and swiftly dealt with her foes with an assault rifle.

Alucard looked out as the NPF continued to climb. "Should we...maybe hail them?"
"Sure, let's do that. Armored didn't want us involved in this NPF stuff, but we can't exactly ignore it when she's knocked out. Let's find out their frequency and lock onto it. I'd like to be in constant contact with them."

[Steel Shadow]

The sky rolled above and below them. Clouds swirled, and in their foolish frolicking, were smashed apart by the raising city. In the control room, situated at the very peak of it all, Steel leaned out and watched the world fall away.

"Heh."

His cape fluttered around his legs as the air rushed through it.

"Heh heh."

Fury energy glowed around him still, his rather massive dosage nowhere near expended.

"AhahahahahahhahahahhaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

He was very happy!

"IT WORKED! MY PLAN WORKED!" Steel spun to face the others in the room, a hand pointing accusingly at them, while the other was raised into a fist of victory. "You all doubted me! 'Oh noooo Steel, you can't mess with tiiime, Steel, you can't do that noooo' Well bite me, you unbelieving bastards! I'm the freaking Time MASTER, you hear me?!?" Fury flowed around him as he smiled wide.

But then it settled, and he waved away his grievances. "Now, I'll admit, there were setbacks. Mostly I blame Bard and Arhra. One for being a Dirty communist for no real reason, and the other for trying to kill us all. But it's all worked out now. Who cares? We're flying into space to combat the evil Valker hordes. I think. It's been a while. And we have a flying city! Isn't that neat?" He folded his arms and turned back to look out the window again. "I think it's neat."



"...We probably shouldn't have smashed the controls quite so hard, though."

[Bard The 5th LW]

"Oh wow we're really doing this?" Bard inquired as Mauve started throwing magic at stuff. "I guess I'm OK with this," he said as the countdown began to approach 1.

How sad. He was going to die, and he still hadn't shanked Steel Shadow or gone on a date with Rose. He closed his eyes and prepared to go out anyways though, even with his regrets in mind.

Still closed. He felt turbulence. Which afterlife was this? He opened his eyes. They were flying. Wait, they? Mauve, Steel, and Pyros were still there. In the control room.

"So, did we all sell our soul to the same elder god or something?" he asked, examining himself for signs of life.

"Now, I'll admit, there were setbacks. Mostly I blame Bard and Arhra. One for being a Dirty communist for no real reason, and the other for trying to kill us all. But it's all worked out now. Who cares? We're flying into space to combat the evil Valker hordes. I think. It's been a while. And we have a flying city! Isn't that neat?"

"So would anyone mind if I stab him?" the not-so-able summoner inquired to Mauve and Pyros. "Like, just a little bit? To teach him a lesson." The lade was recovering from his near-death experience fast.

[PyrosNine]

Pyros was way ahead of Bard, and Steel got a Kittyblast to the face for being Steel.

"I'm a fire god (despite totally being capable of surviving an eruption of fire) and even I don't know what's going on, so obviously it's your fault!"

Pyros ignored the fact that his other dimensional self had commented on business between Steel and about plans that were lost for turning the city into a spaceship, and so technically "a" Pyros was to blame for NPF soaring off into the sky. But now she was a Dr. Ashley Ethington so it was entirely not a Pyros's fault.

Pyros was even tempted to regain his normal form and chuck Steel off into the strangely starry sky, but considering his recent actions, and the fact that the very reason for Pyros's being here (namely, the pursuit of teh Craaazy Arhra) was over, it was nap time. So Pyros merely saved Steel from discovering who was just as much a master of SPACE as Steel was a master of TIME for another day, while he opted to remain in his Mauve hat perch.

Besides, if he kept doing awesomeness, it meant his other self was relegated to pushing paper and feuding over office supplies.

* A few seconds earlier. *

"Eeeethington."

Arhra V entered the room, staying barely ahead of a sea of hair. "I see you managed to get a little work done." she said dismissively, looking at the fruits of her labour.

"Oh my my, isn't this just the sweetest pleasure? My esteemed colleague has deigned to 'solve herself from defragment'in in her private quarters to better my lab with her regal presence."

She sipped her float like it was ambrosia. She'd had ambrosia, so she could do a better job at acting it out than other people.

"Well, I s'pose I have got a little work done. Considering the epic scale of the things you haven't built yet, what I've actually built mayhaps seems a mite small! It's only a fully working Battleship the size of-"

There was a sudden eruption.

"-the devil?"

The size of Ol' Scratch non-withstanding, something had happened that had made the room vibrate a bit. The internal inertial dampeners built into the lab itself had kept any kind of cluttering about caused by external forces. Otherwise nothing would ever get done in NPF, what with all the explosions.

This was most strange. It was as if NPF was going into outerspace. And not as in "The people of the NPF" though that was true as well. But the actual Nuklear Power Forums. As in she hoped someone had installed some sort of atmospheric barrier to keep people from dying of solar radiation and lack of air inherent in space, or the boiling blood and eyeball popping of being in a vacuum.

There were only two people who were capable of causing this level of shenanigans. One was some silly time traveler, and the other was-

"VEEEE!"

Dr. Ethington whipped around, her hair destroying a portion of the wall from the force of the turn, with the ice cream float getting a safe haven in her hand. The sounds of a few lab assistants suddenly getting tugged through the air were heard, and ignored.

"You....is this you doing? What in tarnation have you done? Have you no shame? Do you know what this means? It's straight from my signature! THE BLAME I SHALL BE GIVEN WILL BE THOUSAND FOLD!"

To calm her spirits down, she chugged the float, then reached under her desk pulled out an ice cream bar and shoved into her mouth.

"I thought better of you Arhra, I declare! But this...this crazily seems like somethin' crazy thought up by some sort of crazy time travelin' fool!"

* Hundreds of Years....IN THE FUTURE! *

Arhra IX looked at her bill. It read "NPF Public Library." She looked up at the public library's sign. "NPF Interplanetary Public Library."

She looked back at her bill. It had no ink, a mere piece of white paper. She looked up at the sign. "Established 20XX."

She looked back at her hand. The paper stopped existing. She looked up again. "Sponsored by Old Spice (of the future!)"

She looked down. She was on a horse.

Arhra IX whistled. Steel had made himself a fan!

[Astral Harmony]

Armored Bishoujo's head swimmed with agony and vertigo. But Armored was thankful for it just a little. It meant that she wasn't dead after all. Slowly and steadily, Armored struggled to her feet. But she didn't move away from the corner from where she was knocked out. Armored looked around. She could vaguely hear the voices of the other NPFers and even see them as well. Her head protesting, she picked up her displaced sword and hand blaster, sheathing the sword and holstering her gun.

"Captain, you alright?"

Armored instinctively placed her right hand up to her right ear. "Yeah, I think I'm okay. Concussion, bruises, a general feeling that tomorrow will be a real bitch. That's about it."
"Ah, that's better than we feared. Since you were out, something big happened. There were two immense energy reactions. The first was the entire city taking off. The second was a very large explosion that we could see from all the way up here."
Armored blinked. "The city is airborne?"
"Want me to send Rosalyn, Maya and Chloe to meet you?"

Armored thought about it for a moment. Rosalyn was brilliant with computers and an accomplished hacker. Maya knew engineering like the back of her hand. Chloe was a superb mechanic and technician in her own right. If there was a problem with the city, chances were that the three of them could figure it out. But...
"Not yet. I'm going to go find what we're doing next. My guess is that we'll probably be taking on the Valkyrs, since we're up here in space, anyways."
"Aye-aye, captain. We'll be on standby."

[Inbred Chocobo]

The sky above NPF slowly faded from a clear blue sky patched with clouds to a starry sky, unmarked my mans pollution. The vastness of space laid before the eyes of the forumers as they gazed up through space. Constellations unmapped laid before them, their brightness bloomed far greater than what could be seen on the highest peaks of of the world. It was a beautiful site, one that even the lowliest bum could humble before.

Well, humble before pieces of debris started raining down into NPF, taking out buildings and smashing giant holes into the concrete. To be fair it wasn't so much as it was raining the stuff, as it was just kinda floating their and the entire city was running straight into it. Those on the surface got to play run the fuck away from the giant piece of shrapnel about to fall on my head. The forumers hiding in the smashed up control room, with no way of steering the flying city found the roof in the middle of the room collapsed, revealing a huge piece of metal, unlike anything they have seen, pierce from the ground all the way down here. Looked like it was once a stairway, considering how there were stairs on the sides of it, though most of those stairs were broken and upside down.

Those that gazed up through the onslaught of the shrapnel rain saw the site of a massive ship, big enough to house NPF twice over. Its majesty was only shallowed by the fact that most of the outer walls have been blown of, and that tiny explosions still ran amok in the ship. Two dots of Furian energy did battle onboard the ship, faster than most could lay eyes on. Of course, the closer they got to the ship, the better they could make things out.

Wait a minute... you are looking straight up at a mothership and its getting closer. Sounds like you should probably do something about that guys, don'tcha think?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

"You know," Shyria wondered aloud in-between dodging flaming chunks of shrapnel, "all things considered, the forums turning out to be a giant extraplanetary space vessel is probably the least confusing thing to happen to me today." That was good, because now she could focus all her attention on the other huge extraplanetrary vessel about to squish them to paste.

She stretched her wings, preparing for takeoff. They had to get up to that ship and stop it before it got to them. "One-way tickets to glory and alien buttkickery, on sale now!"

[Astral Harmony]

"I'd like a ride," Armored said to Shyria, ignoring the aching of her own body. If she needed more power than her body could give her in its current condition, she still had her Fury Pill.

However, she had one last bit of dialogue with the crew on her ship.
"Armored to Aesir."
"Alean here. Go ahead, captain."
"See that big space fortress or whatever about to consume the city I'm in?"
"Yeah, it's kinda hard to miss."
"If you can, try to find a way inside. Take whoever you think you'll need. Chances are that us in the city are going to need a distraction when onboard somewhere."
"And we're supposed to be that distraction?"
"You know how I am with my outrageous plans."
"I also know how some of those plans tend to fall short just at the success point."
"Quiet, you. Armored out."

With that out of the way, Armored mounted Shyria (giggity!) and braced herself because dragons seldom came equipped with seatbelts.

[Arhra]

"VEEEE!"

Dr. Ethington whipped around, the jungle that was her hair destroying part of the wall as she spun, dragging interns with it. There were only two people who could be responsible for flying NPF shenannigans and one of them was in this room.

"You....is this your doing? What in tarnation have you done? Have you no shame? Do you know what this means? It's straight from my signature! THE BLAME I SHALL BE GIVEN WILL BE THOUSAND FOLD!"

To calm herself, Ethington chugged her float and then shoved an icecream bar in her mouth.

"I thought better of you Arhra, I declare! But this...this crazily seems like somethin' crazy thought up by some sort of crazy time travelin' fool!"

Arhra V grinned. "I'm flattered you think so highly of me," she told her rival, "but that wasn't me. No need to stuff yourself like a pig."

"What I did do is complete the transition to my second generation chassis," the cyborg indicated her new and improved body, "built myself a levitation array for space combat, built a prototype Fury extractor (untested), designed and manufactured equipment to make dragons space-capable," she lugged a crate into view with her hair in much the same way as Ethington, "made comms gear for everyone and devised an innoculation to protect against the terrible dangers of space." she finished, holding up a fistful of auto-injectors. "Speaking of which..."

She stabbed Ethington with one.

Stepping back again, Arhra V received a signal from the monitoring equipment. Her eyes went wide and her pupils contracted. Shuddering violently with excitement, it took her a visible effort to steady herself.

"I-I have to leave. Now." the cyborg gasped, still humming like a tuning fork.

The lab's sensors had just reported that the immense flaming hulk of the Valker mothership was on a collision course with the NPF. To the cyborg's slightly Fury-addled mind (and inherent crazed tech-lust), there was a vast stockpile of advanced alien technology headed this way and it wasn't coming to her fast enough.

"You'll have to get this to the others." Arhra V informed her rival, the sea of her hair depositing three crates of gear in the room. "The D-type equipment will auto-install when brought within a metre of a suitable dragon and I'm sure you can figure out the rest." she called over her shoulder as she exited.

Outside, she dropped into a froglike crouch, knees out to her sides and a hand splayed on the ground between her legs. The air darkened in a sphere around her, pebbles drifting upwards as her levitation array came online. Her Fury tainted eyes glared up through the thinning haze of the atmosphere, past the debris to where the distant shape of the Valker mothership approached in the void beyond.

"VALKEEEEEERRS!!!" she howled.

Arhra V leapt into the sky.

She wanted to fuse with the enemy mothership and nothing was going to stand in her way.

* * *

Faced with sudden liftoff and the spectacle of the assembled NPFers proceeding up the side of the Kurosen Tower in grand style as the NPF's bridge installed itself atop the highest point in the city, Gestalt Arhra slowed to a halt.

The chimerical girl turned back to address the spectral summon she had been luring this way with stolen pizza.

How are we supposed to get up there?" she asked Geist, wings twitching in irritation.

* * *

Atop the Kurosen Tower, the stars of heaven glittering around them, the NPFers were celebrating a lack of explosions, the fruition of ancient plans and gearing up to face their final battle against the Valker scum.

One or two details from the aftermath of their battle with Arhra II had gone unnoticed as a result.

There came an unstable, unfocused pulse of chaos magic where the dead sorceress lay. Back arched, body writhing, Arhra II was trying to get up. It was a sight most unbecoming for a dead person.

Arhra had always possessed the ability to resurrect herself, casting aside her expended husk in an explosion of chaotic energy and taking on a new form at the heart of the blast. But ever since there had been more than one of her, her reincarnation function had been broken. Unfortunately, Arhra I - the person best positioned to deliver exposition on this - was still lying on the ground in a fetal curl and completely unresponsive to the world.

A tiny, animal gasp and the sorceress went limp.

Softly, she started to glow a second time, her reincarnation attempting to trigger again.

The same alien magic as she had briefly used materialised above Arhra I: a ring made up of hundreds of silvery glyphs, more raining from its edges like water from an overfilled gutter. No books were to be seen and the sorceress was clearly dead. Ghostly images were fading in, drawing in to superimpose themselves on the healer as the strange spell dragged her unresisting body into the air. When she was upright the ring contracted into her and was gone.

Arhra I swayed a little, fractionally out-of time images overlaying her small form and then opening her red eyes slowly. She looked at the assembled NPFers, naked hatred in her eyes, and then up at the sky. She chuckled. It was not a sound to inspire confidence.

"You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" she said, a hint of a slur in her voice.

"If you think you can stop it, go ahead and try."

[PyrosNine]

Dr. Ethington briefly quaked a bit, trying gain her ground as the injection ran it's course. It felt as if a robot had pushed her down a flight of stairs. She finally managed to get a hold of herself as Arhra V flew up into the sky to absorb the mothership.

"That cybernetic trollop dare inject me with untested technology? VENGEANCE WILL BE MINE!" She cleared off a load of her own hair to reveal several buttons, with labels ranging from "Ice Cream Party" to "Linkin Park Science" to a giant red button that read "Destroy the Hateful Arhra with Righteous Lasers."

Dr. Ethington made a fist and was ready to pound. She caught herself with her hair.

"No, that's the sort of thing pa wouldn't want. Now, I need to work together with her, if NPF is to survive. I'm a big girl now, pa would want me to-OOOPPPS!" Ashley elbow dropped that button with her own brand of fury.

A large cannon popped outside of Ethington's side of the lab, focused with a Holy crystal and powered by blessed turbogenerators (getting the local priest to do it was a field day) and painted with the prayers of the innocent. It charged up and fired a beam of pure Righteousness, of such divine purity that the focal point of the laser looked like Sword Kirby wielding Excalibur while riding on the back of a peanut butter and honey sandwich. If you squinted a little. The Sandwich could also be a mushroom and Kirby could be JigglyPuff, from a certain angle.

What was true from any angle, is that the laser missed V entirely. It didn't look like it was even pointed at V, and yet the autotargeting insisted it was pointing at the "hateful Arhra."

"Oh come on! I wasn't being literal! You know what I meant!"

* * *

Pyros sighed, and pawed Mauve's hat.

"Meow!" He totally meant by this meow, that he could feel the aura of the Dark Arhraverse again, and it was time for her to become Sailor Mauve, and hurl headwear at the problem.

Then a laser erupted from practically nowhere and blasted the spot where Arhra I was standing. She had been remarkably full of hate for some reason.

***

"Well, whatever, that was a one trick pony anyway. Time for my awesome spaceship to get into action!" She pressed another button that read "GTFIMMFS", and pressed it.

Pancakes and Syrup went everywhere.

She hit it again, and made a mental note to use the ship's bathroom asap.

Dr. Ethington, the crates, and a few lab aides disappeared in a flash of light.

There was a soft, slow whirring sound somewhere. The laser cannon shook violently, then popped down into the ground beneath the labs.

Then the labs themselved moved, splitting open on a not so imaginary line that intersected the lab by the breakrooms and a few staff bathrooms. A man who should have just held it in found himself falling into a dark abyss, pants flapping after him.

Lights. Two highpowered beams of light emerged from within the darkness beneath the lab, and moved upwards. The ground shook (more than it did because of the town lifting off into space) and rocketing up was the NPF Azure the largest and most powerful ship ever created by the NPF. Oh sure, it was smaller than the Valkyrie mass planet exodus ship, but this was meant to be crewed by a few dozen maniacs so it needn't quite be that big. It needed only to be big enough to give a dragon a ride, store a few weapons of mass destruction (the DHARMA Cannon from my first RP even!) and a few shipboard science devices, like a teleportation array, a pancake mixer, and a zero point energy beam, like the one being fired at the rising NPF City to slow it's ascent up into the heavens (and the Valkyr ship).

It was bigger than a skyscraper, and more spacious than 12 football fields, owing to messing with depth and dimensions as already seen within the Ethington lab o'science, and a light greenish blue, owing to the fact that Dr. Ethington was sure Azure was a color, but wasn't completely sure which color it was.

It was also heading towards those stuck on the ground, ready to pick them up with the teleporter, but the range of her teleporter was under a few miles, with increasing distance increasing the likelihood of people getting fused together, de-aged, or merged with the environment.

[Overcast]

Overcast was unsurprised. After all he had already seen this mass of wreckage when he had come up here to try to fight him just before he landed back to continue the fight with the sorceress. He wasn't sure how much more they could actually do to the creeps with the appearance of their ship. Altogether he just wished he had a large laser so he could finish the job.

But hey he was just a box, what did he know,

"SOLD!"

He exclaimed to Shyria's offer to take off toward glory under space dragon wings. They had to be space dragon wings after all since she was so keen to go diving into the deadly vacuum of space with no protection! Course he could have taken the big ship that had suddenly appeared, but hey screw that, that was far too easy to be right.

[Inbred Chocobo]

Shyria, having some of the NPFers mount her *snicker* took off, dodging an explosion, causing one of those cool effects where you see people flying out of a ball of fire. The NPF Azure scooped everyone else on board for ice cream and candy, with the wonderful Doctor at the wheel steering the thing like a mad-man in the debris field. As the ship and dragon flew through space and shrapnel, they came ever closer to a duel between two fury-powered warriors.

Everyone found out what IC had been up too (like it was a surprise). He had been taking on the Admiral of the Valkyrs, having stolen some fury pills for himself. Both IC and the Admiral's fight came running up towards the NPFers in space, IC and Draken jumping off floating platforms of twisted steel and broken plastics, engaging in hand to hand combat for brief moments, then the chase is on. The admiral caught IC off guard when IC closed the distance, hurling him into Shyria.

The admiral then jumped towards a floating platform, kicking it and sending it flying like a rocket at the NPF Azure, attempting to take it out before they have even had a chance to get into battle.

[Teal Mage]

Minutes Ago: The Kurosen Control Platform.

"Hello peons!"

In a flare of ruby light, Rose joined the gathering of dragons, boxmen, time travelers, space-captains, summoners, magicians and kittens on top of Kurosen Tower! Arranged in a vague triangle at her back, three crates waited, each stamped with the eight-pointed starburst that served as Arhra V's Corporate Logo. Over both the copper haired witch and her apparent cargo shipment, lines of pale coral static flickered, a side effect of her new, Fury infused, teleport.

She'd just arrived from the Nuklear Power Science Institute!

Surrounded by a slowly pulsating aura of scarlet light, the crimson gown clad woman gestured sharply to the three boxes at her back. "Fresh from the assembly line, Eclipse Industry is proud to present the latest inventions of Arhra V!" Clearly delighted, Rose clapped her hands together. "And this time, they passed most of the tests for mass consumption!"

High heels clicking sharply on the platform's floor, Rose strode crisply over to the right-most crate. "First!" She slammed a fist through the box's top. "We have..." Rose rummaged around inside the container for a moment, before withdrawing a handful lacquered black objects. They looked like a confused mess of hair clips and ear buds.

"Communication gear!" Rose proudly declared, delicately beginning to extract sets of the hair clips and earphones from the chaotic pile. "All you need to do is secure the clips to to your head -" ruby light flashed over the first four-piece set of gear, as the witch teleported it directly into the hands of one lucky member of the Army of the Apocalypse. "- and put the earphones into your ears," she repeated the process for each set of the devices, distributing them to her allies as quickly as possible. "then you'll be able to talk to each other even in the airless vacuum of space!"

Teleportation complete, the copper haired woman dusted her hands against one another. "Isn't science wonderful?" She added, before striding over to the middle box, hem of her crimson ballgown fluttering around her feet with each step.

"Next!" This time, Rose released the clasps on the crate, opening the top without destroying anything. "We have a something really weird!" Gingerly, the witch lifted a spindly and delicate device - it looked something like a cross between a ribcage, a spinal column and a rifle - from the box. Taped to the object's handle was a note.

Balancing the strange object in one hand, Rose tore the note free. "Warning," she recited, "Fury Extractor is highly experimental, not recommended for combat use. Activation yields a high probability of spontaneous combust..." Trailing off, Rose's scarlet eyes flickered from the note, to the Fury Extractor, to the crate, back to the note, then, finally, back to the Extractor. "Alright moving on!" She added hurriedly, dropped the weapon unceremoniously back into its box.

She quickly made her way to the last crate.

"Ah!" Rose clapped in delight. "Eclipse Industry's Prototype D-Type Equipment!" Her head snapped toward Shyria, coppery hair whipping around her face from the motion. "Specially designed to allow large fire breathing reptiles to function at full capacity, even in space!" There was a note attached to the outside of this box, Rose tore it free.

It was addressed to Dr. Ethington!

Rose ignored that.

It was filled with taunts, insults and gloating from Arhra V! Also clear and detailed instructions for installing this complicated piece of technology to a living Dragon.

"Hold up to dragon, maintain a safe distance."

"Kay!" Several feet seemed safe.

Balanced on the tip of one candy apple red shoe, Rose whirled, the hem of her crimson dress flaring out around her like the petals of a giant flower. Pulsing with the performance enhancing power of the Fury, her leg connected solidly with the crate. The box went flying toward Shyria!

What happened next was too horribly invasive to describe. Some things didn't belong down a Dragon's throat!

Wisely, Rose didn't dwell on it.

"Finally!"

Rose produced a marker-sized tube. There was a needle-like silvery point at one end. "A special vaccine designed to allow us to fight at 100% - even in the horrible vacuum of space!" Bringing the device closer to her face, Rose grinned, "In the form of a convenient and easy to use Auto-Injector!" Expression suddenly falling, strands of pale red lightning began to crackle around the witch's body. "I'll distribute them now." She murmured, scarlet eyes suddenly ablaze with malevolence. "Remember," her tongue darted eagerly over her lips. "this is for your own good."

She teleported!

Rose stabbed so many people so very fast.

Even herself.

"OhmygodwhydidI-!?"


* * * * * *

The Present, In Space.

Scarlet lightning danced wildly over one of the many slabs of ruined spaceship material that had been created by the battle between Inbred and - what was probably - the final Valker. That lightning built and built, the strands of crackling energy growing thicker and brighter with every passing second, as the teleportation spell gathered the power it needed to make the jump between the Kurosen Control Platform and this area of space.

Then, in a brilliant flare of scarlet light, the lightning was replaced by a figure outlined in a slowly pulsing aura of red energy. Glowing with a similar radiance, Teal's now vivid red eyes quickly found the battlefield some distance away. "Looks like they're really going at it." He offered, knowing full well that his words would be carried to all his allies - despite the distance - through the Comm-Links he'd distributed to them a few minutes ago.

An eager grin spread across his face as he turned around. Back on the NPF, he had - as Rose - grabbed Bard before making this jump. "Ready to have some fun Bard?" His tongue flickered over his lips, the excited gleam in his Fury filled eyes unmistakable. "Because we're going to have so very much fun together."

((OoC: This post made with Bard's permission! New appearance information is placed in a concise form in the new bio I'll be posting shortly in the OoC thread. Most of this post was made in an effort to explain why we're still alive despite being in space. If you didn't catch on from my hints in the post - Rose stole the crates. In the name of expedience, of course.))

[PyrosNine]

One quick burst of fire from the Zero point energy beam stopped the improvised projectile platform in it's tracks, long enough for the Azure to manuever out of the way, whereupon it regained it's inertia and acceleration and slammed into the NPF city spaceship's earth, far far below.

Dr. Ethington got on the microphone and sent a comm signal to everyone, including Shyria.

Even though said communicators did not have viewscreens or even a HUD, everyone saw the face of Dr. Ethington, wearing a Beret over her mounds of hair and lab coat.

"Alright men, women, and lady dragons, your mission is simple, yet elegantly complicated. You need to aid IC in defeating the Valkyr threat, while some of you need to protect my new and shiny starship from getting scratched. So, everyone pick a number between one and 10. Picked a number yet? Yet? YET? Come on, hurry up, I don't have all day. Don't think I won't turn this ship around and go home! Okay, so whoever guessed a number near 6, you get to attack the Valkyr guy. Whoever guessed near a 1, you get to protect the ship, and anyone not near those numbers gets to report to the medical bay for a special experiment of great importance. There will be further pancakes."

In the loading bay where most of the NPF'ers were beamed aboard to, sealed racks popped open, revealing NPF versions of the Valkyr's weaponry, as well as potions, ethers, and Adam Smith (who hated everyone's guts and would sell them weapons and supplies at ludicrously expensive rates despite the need and necessity).

"I notice that you likely are wondering 'But Dr. Ashley Ethington, how can we fight in outer space when you haven't given us any vehicles! There's this law of motion and how it relates to a vacuum!' But do not worry! This ship is equipped with wide range tractor beam for small, insignificant objects, and you are all so very fling-able. Happy hunting!"

Dr. Ethington let that last one sink in before setting the timer for violent expulsion into space. They'd have to get their supplies quickly.

[Bard The 5th LW]

Geist

"Wh-what!" was all Geist could scream as the countdown ended, and NPF was catapulted to space. "NO! NO! This city- I hate it so much! We're in space now? I just wanted to get a obscenitying pizza!"

If he had hair, he would be tearing it out. Why doesn't he have hair. He decided to swiftly create what might pass as hair for himself, and just as swiftly tore it off.

"How are we supposed to get up there?" His previous tormentor inquired of him, apparently not caring as much what with the absence of a countdown.

Something hit the summon at this point. Her casual demeanor struck a sort of note in his head. With a toll of bells, Geist came to a conclusion, he was going to be cool about this. Yeah! He was going to fucking do this! Maybe, the only way to escape from the crazy was to dig deeper into it! The more you drill through the surface, the closer you get to the other side!

"We have to find the science people first off," he said, examining his surroundings. "You know your way around? The lab shouldn't be too hard to miss. Once we find a suitable locale of general sciences, we hijack a ship and then see what happens."

He awaited her answer in silence, looking up at the Valker Ship. Just kill everything in there? Sounds good to him.

Bard

Oh hey Rose! Finally, someone tolerable. Ahrha was being weird. He wanted to talk to her, as she usually seemed logical, but it was just difficult to gather the courage at the moment. Especially considering he sort of stabbed her doppelganger in the face not too long ago. It was just much too awkward at this moment in time.

But yeah, Rose!

"Hello peons!"

"Um hey R-"

"Fresh from the assembly line, Eclipse Industry is proud to present the latest inventions of Arhra V! And this time, they passed most of the tests for mass consumption!"

"Thats pretty cool, but I-"

"Communication gear!"

OK, now she was sorting stuff and passing things about. Bard was a polite guy, he would try to wait this out. He nodded and tried to act interested as she toted the space-breaking qualities of the communication gear.

"Uh-"

"Warning," she recited, "Fury Extractor is highly experimental, not recommended for combat use. Activation yields a high probability of spontaneous combust..."

OK she was still going. It all sort of went like this for the rest of Rose's display of tech. In some sort of cosmic way, he felt like this had happened to him before. At one point he was stabbed with something, and he was caught off guard a bit, but it wasn't like he didn't get stabbed on a regular basis.

Fast forward a bit, and he was with that Teal Mage fellow overlooking the battle between IC and the Valker. Both of which were things that had almost completely phased out of his memory. Fortunately, the fighter and the alien had resurfaced just in time to cause his easily lapsing memory to resurface. Somehow though, he still remembered Teal Mage despite having a majority of interaction with Rose. Convenient how that works huh?

"Looks like they're really going at it," his present companion said as they observed the battle from their vantage point.

"Indeed it does. For quite a while probably. How long were we killing Ahrha? The clock said 20 minutes, but it has to be more than that. I hate to admit it, but Steel Shadow would probably know best."

"Ready to have some fun Bard?"

"I guess so. I have an idea about what I'm going to do when this is over. Why did you take us here anyways?"

"Because we're going to have so very much fun together."

He turned to give a quizzical look over to the bishonen mage that was there along with him. His eyes were aglow with the red lights of Fury, and he flickered his tongue in a way that just made things a bit more obvious.

"Are- are we still talking about the plot?" Bard asked, a comical and over-sized sweat drop forming along the side of his head as he took a moment to break the fourth wall.

[Arhra]

Suddenly out of nowhere, Arhra I had been seized by alien magic, come out of her coma and said some very ominous things.

Equally suddenly out of nowhere, a giant laser shot the hateful Arhra.

"Prepare yourselves for sacrifice." the vague shadow inside the column of light said. "This is only the beginning. The scar runs right through this place."

The shadow faded to nothing.

When the beam had passed, the only sign the healer had ever been there was the elongated section of untouched floor that had been shielded from the blast by her body.

* * *

Arhra V soared into the heavens above the NPF, burning gaze fixed on the derelict vessel higher still but descending. Streams of trajectories raced through her mind's eye, studying the paths of the debris about the ship and where their paths would intersect with the NPF.

She intended to penetrate to the very heart of the Valker mothership and take the alien computer core and the ship's main engines into herself. Once she had control of those, she could stop the collision and save the NPF.

From there, absorbing the rest of the ship into herself should be child's play, of course.

The cyborg kicked off a building sized chunk of rubble as it approached her. It shot off like a shooting star down and angled to the left with a dome shaped indentation pressed into it. Arhra V repeated the process, leaping from chunk to chunk to climb a staircase in the sky and clear debris from the NPF's path.

"... ......! .. .... .. ....!" she shouted across the airless void of space at Inbred to inform him there was no time to talk. She sped on past the intense duel between him and the Admiral.

Higher still, the cloud of rubble clustered around looming bulk of the mothership grew ever denser. Arhra V paused on a broken platform, frowning up at it. "..... ......, ...... .......!" she told her technomagical amulet.

"...... ......., ... ..!" Varia Weapon flashed in reply. It reconfigured into what looked like a stubby black katana, the blade squared off short.

".... .... ..... .'.. ... ... .......!" she screamed in defiance at the sky, "......... ..!"

Closing her eyes, she pointlessly inhaled, the now glowing sword held in a two handed grip over her head. When she felt the moment change, the overdriven charge in the sword fully condensed, she swung.

A thin line of light glittered across the sky for a second and pieces of rubble split apart wherever they fell upon that line.

And then the drifting halves exploded, making a bloodbath of crimson light.

Arhra V lowered her wepaon, a red miasma steaming off both the woman and the blade. The detonations through the center should part the field just enough to allow the NPF City safe passage. Until it ran into the Valker mothership, at least.

She leapt into the air once again, the Valker mothership engulfing the sky above her. Flipping, it became the ground rushing toward her and she landed on the hull in a crouch, hair billowing around her.

Entering through the torn hull, she paused and thought intensely. She stared ahead, brilliant red eyes piercing through the walls. The flows of data and energy were fitful, damaged by the battle, but the ship was not entirely dead. Taking it over would be a colossal undertaking. Arhra V didn't hesitate. She deactivated her weapon systems, freeing up the subsystems, subroutinues and processor capacity allocated to them to concentrate the sum total of her power on technological infection.

She swallowed the last Fury pill she had, shuddering as it worked its way into her system. There was a series of clangs as she shed her armoured outer layer, the pieces fell to the ground around her. Black tool tipped cables forced their way out of her back, writhing like snakes.

From her standing start, the cyborg instantly transitioned to a full sprint. A corridor of blast doors opened in front of her. Wires and delicate machinery sprouted in her footsteps like black, perverse flowers.

"In the end the final decision we all must take, make or break, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQBi2IIMmpQ)" Arhra V sang on all available frequencies. "will decide what will be and our destinnnyy!"

She pushed for more speed, the thin air pressure of the ship's surviving atmosphere fighting weakly to restrain her. The walls rippled around her, panels popping open and bundled cables spilling out like guts in her wake.

"If we lose the fight Armageddon will finally tell,"

The last door wasn't opening. She dived into it, the smooth surface warping and blackening, where she'd fused into it.

"burn in hell,"

Arhra V burst through the other side into a void. Cables fell with her from the eruption point like a geyser. Piercing through the floor and roof of this empty space was a column, massive pipes feeding into a heavy sphere at the center. To her vision, it burned. The reactor.

"there'll be no after,"

The cyborg traced a smooth arc through space, armoured plates buckling beneath her as she smashed into the shielded sphere. She thrust a hand into the machinery and started pushing her whole arm in, the metal blistering and wires radiating from the point of contact.

"be no other DAAAAAAAY!"

[mauve]

Things were exploding! The city was flying in space! Stuff was happening! Mauve pretended to know what was going on!

"So this is it," she said, staring up at the fast-approaching Valker ship. "Our first real face-to-face meeting with creatures from another world. We should try and make a good, diplomatic first impression."

Inbred Chocobo was already fighting the Valker leader. Robo-Arhra destroyed some stuff while singing.

"Aw screw it," Mauve said. She smashed one fist into an open palm. "Let's beat them up and take their stuff!"

She accepted the communicator that Rose offered her and very very dearly wished her X-wing hadn't been destroyed way back at the beginning of the RP. SHE WANTED THAT THING BACK, DAMMIT. She was pretty sure this whole "alien-induced end of the world" thing would put a major setback on getting it repaired, too. Curses.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Then

Just before Shyria and everyone else could take off, Rose poofed into being atop Kurosen Tower and started passing out equipment like a peppy, anime-girl ripoff of Santa Claus. Not that this was a bad thing.

"Communication gear!" Rose proudly declared, delicately beginning to extract sets of the hair clips and earphones from the chaotic pile. "All you need to do is secure the clips to to your head -" ruby light flashed over the first four-piece set of gear, as the witch teleported it directly into the hands of one lucky member of the Army of the Apocalypse. "- and put the earphones into your ears," she repeated the process for each set of the devices, distributing them to her allies as quickly as possible. "then you'll be able to talk to each other even in the airless vacuum of space!"

Shyria glanced down at the tiny headset sitting in the palm of her claw. "Erm...I don't suppose it comes in large?" she queried. As soon as she did, another flash of red light erupted from the headset as it changed size and form to suit a dragonlike skull. "Oh...well, that works too" she said as she equiped the device. Rose had already moved on to the second crate.


"Next!" This time, Rose released the clasps on the crate, opening the top without destroying anything. "We have a something really weird!" Gingerly, the witch lifted a spindly and delicate device - it looked something like a cross between a ribcage, a spinal column and a rifle - from the box. Taped to the object's handle was a note.

Balancing the strange object in one hand, Rose tore the note free. "Warning," she recited, "Fury Extractor is highly experimental, not recommended for combat use. Activation yields a high probability of spontaneous combust..." Trailing off, Rose's scarlet eyes flickered from the note, to the Fury Extractor, to the crate, back to the note, then, finally, back to the Extractor. "Alright moving on!" She added hurriedly, dropped the weapon unceremoniously back into its box.

"Aw, just when it was starting to get interesting too," she thought as she watched Rose move on to the last box.

"Ah!" Rose clapped in delight. "Eclipse Industry's Prototype D-Type Equipment!" Her head snapped toward Shyria, coppery hair whipping around her face from the motion. "Specially designed to allow large fire breathing reptiles to function at full capacity, even in space!"

"All the better for raining doom and destruction on filthy alien jerkwads! I love science!" Shyria looked down at the silvery box in Rose's hands. "So, how does it work, do I just poke it, or-"

Suddenly, Rose dropkicked the box right into Shyria's chest as it unfolded into a spidery mass of alien technology.

"Ow, ooh, gah, that's not supposed to go there! YOW! GAH! hopeIdon'thaveanyallerigestometalI'mnotawareofDoes it have to be so pointy-HRRK!"

Now that it had been fully deployed, the D-type Equipment consisted of two major parts; first was a heavily armored exosuit consisting of lightweight but tough alloy metal linked by a weave of carbon nanofiber to allow movement in the joints, all engineered to provide maximum protection from meteorites, gamma radiation, and alien mind control rays in the vacuum of space. In addition, a shield generator located on the back just between the wings projected a bubble of livable atmosphere to protect any passengers she may have along for the ride. Part 2 was a little harder to see, but no less important; a large capsule-like device (taken orally and implanted in the lower throat and gizzard) provided the dragon with oxygen while still allowing free use of its fire breath. The only external evidence of this device would be Shyria's on and off complaints about her tonsils tasting like lithium.

Now

The admiral caught IC off guard when IC closed the distance, hurling him into Shyria

Even with hyper-advanced technology on one's side, getting a half-man, half-chocobo thrown into your face is no fun. Especially not for the chocobo-man.
"Oof! right in the eye, too." She picked him off her snout and dropped him on her back. "I'm assuming you have some kind of plan in mind?" she asked. She'd been picked to head up the main assault on the Valker ship along with several other NPFers, while the rest stayed to protect their own ship. Shyria'd already roasted three scout ships that had been sent out to intercept her, bludgeoned another two badly enough to force them to retreat, and dispacted a fourth by throwing a Soviet-era space toilet she found floating around in a nearby rubble cloud through the cockpit.

[PyrosNine]

Dr. Ethington had given them all plenty of time to get prepared, so she pressed the button.

Numerous members of the NPF squadron found themselves flying bodily towards the Valkyr spaceship, and possibly the enemy commander, though she wasn't really aiming for him. His high levels of Fury would make a direct assault too dangerous anyway. Best to surround him and whittle him down.

Of course, while she planned, she also opened the small docking bay that held a few small items of non-importance. She'd almost forgotten about it, but when development began to build a space ship, she had to take a close look at the only other spacecraft ever used for brief periods of time before exploding other than the comic medium's deathtraps. And in order to examine it, she had to fix it. It's not as though she did it to be nice or anything.

With a Tsundere wave of her hand, Dr. Ethington let loose a restored X-Wing (right down to the air fresheners) before rocketing off into the battle. Mauve found herself floating in the general direction of her refurbished star wars novelty.

[Inbred Chocobo]

IC sat on Shyria's back, replying to her question "Yeah, get the hell away from the ship. The few people left on board that haven't either hit the escape pods and left this realm of existence or died in the explosion seem all to have hit different parts of the ship and routing all its power into the robotics facility. Probably for some kind of giant bomb. Or we could just shove the entire ship somewhere else, but either way if NPF impacts that ship, there is not going to be another NPF." IC replied, unsure of exactly how he was able to talk into space but taking advantage of it anyway.

Even though IC was glowing with power, it was pretty clear that IC himself was growing tired. Even being hopped up on Fury can only last you so long apparently as IC took the moment to relax on Shyria's back and lay down, sighing a sigh of relief to not be standing for the moment. "The Admiral, I forget his name, doesn't have any weapons anymore, he broke those like he broke mine during all the fighting, so the only thing you got to worry about from him is strength and speed." IC said from his reclined position. After the Dr's announcement of the number picking, he also mentioned to himself "I hope he doesn't mind if I skip out on those medical examinations, I could've swore he said 1 to 100 and I picked 92."

--------------------------------------------

The foe that IC had been fighting to a standstill watched the ship that he had sent the platform hurling at go off into the distance. He also spotted Arhra V go flying by towards the Valker ship, but made no move to stop her, him, it, whatever. It turned towards Shyria, and approached her high speeds, jumping from platform to platform. From the way it was jumping around, it looked like to fake her out on an approach and catch her in the side, she was going to have to be real careful, and being surrounded in a field of floating junk probably wasn't going to help.

---------------------------------------------

Arhra V tore into the core of the ship, considering it was practically exposed to space already, it wasn't that hard to get into. After merging and shattering the last door that stood inbetween her and the core, she stared at the core of the Valker ship, its massive engines only putting out a tiny fraction of what they could produce. Her arm weilded into the machinery, its security defenses already down or burnt out. She could feel the generators, how they were broken and damaged, but it was obvious she could activate them again, to bring them back to full power, if only for a moment, and give her all the power the Valker ship could make for a brief moment.

Then she connected to a few sensors, and sensed something far far greater. The power it spotted burned brighter than any star, blinding the sensor almost immediately and burning it out. Other sensors blinked, catching glimpses of the source of this unbelievable power, but never able to get farther than that. If she wanted it, she was going to have to go get it personally. It sensors burnt out around a circle in only intact part of the ship that didn't have anything exposes to the outside, and that was the research and development center. Its walls were barricaded with some mysterious metal, fabricated from some other-world's science lab. It was going to take some work to get into it too, with no visible access other than through one main door, which didn't even look to have a way to interface with it, or even to merge with it. She was going to have to do something either really sneaky to get in, or more likely something a little blunt forcey.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

It was a tense moment; the Valker general was leapfrogging from piece after piece of debris trying to fake out Shyria and Inbred Chocobo, while the few remaining active guns on the mothership continued to take potshots at the incoming NPFers. The alien and the dragon struggled to outmanuver one another; everytime Shyria blasted one chunk of space rock into rubble, the general had already fled to another, slowing closing the distance between them.

Finally, the general's target was within reach; another jump and a good kick to the base of the wing could dislocate a joint and send Shyria's flight pattern into a tumble. A blast from the mothership grazed her opposite flank and distracted her for a second. The general took aim, leapt, and-

"Other side! OTHER SIDE!" yelled Inbred Chocobo

The dragon's reflexes were faster than the general expected.

*SNAP* *crunch* *gulp*

Shyria spat out a few stray chunks of flesh. "Eugh, I think he actually tasted worse than the robots." She glanced back at Inbred Chocobo. His Fury energy has almost fully worn off, and the stress of fighting was starting to get to him. But their work wasn't done yet.

"Alright, so touching the ship equals bad idea. What I want to know now if there's any way to cut off power to the robotics bay before they get done doing whatever it is they're up to in there?" She'd played enough video games to know that external generators were 1) a common possibility, 2) tended to make very obvious targets, and 3) burned very, very, well.

[Astral Harmony]

Armored decided to get a better idea of how this ship got its business done. With another shiny, nekkid transformation, Mecha Girl Bishoujo's cute yet functional hair accessories started picking up data. "I don't see much other than disabled laser turrets," Mecha Bishoujo commented on the exterior of the Valkyr mothership. "Can we even destroy this from the outside?"

Mecha Bishoujo left Shyria after checking on Inbred quickly to start hopping from chunk of debris to chunk of debris. Armored didn't have much experience moving through zero gravity, but figured that it should be just as easy as the zero gravity segments of Dead Space. The jetpacks for her cosplay power seemed to have an intelligence of their own, and autocorrected Mecha Bishoujo's mistakes in transit. It threw her off, but ultimately she was thankful for them.

One of her primary concerns was destroying this ship where it was. Letting this thing fall to the world where NPF city rocketed up from would be a real pain. Mecha Bishoujo's head ran with two ideas: one, that the supposed generators were shielded by other generators and two, that if the generators were not outside, they wouldn't be too difficult to attack from the outside if the area surrounding them was weakened. Just expose the generator and let that NPF Azure ship take care of everything.

"That's gotta be confusing. That ship is called the NPF Azure and my ship is called the Azure Aesir."

[Teal Mage]

Fragments of metal and synthetic materials floated aimlessly, filling the airless void surrounding the gutted metal husk that was the Valker Mothership. White flecks of stars dotted the otherwise black horizon; the stark colors further emphasizing the cold bleakness of the scene.

Surrounded in a slowly pulsating aura of carmine energy, Teal stood on one of the larger slabs of ship debris, the hems of his sharply tailored suit shifting buoyantly around his slim form. Through a smoothly flowing veil of pale hair, the mage's vivid red eyes were fixed on his companion, a sinister grin of polished fangs splitting his face.

Black robe billowing, Bard stumbled back a pace, anxiety suddenly clear in his expression. "Are-are we still talking about the plot?" The brown haired summoner asked, stumbling over his own words.

Teeth gleaming, Teal's smile broadened. Without replying, the mage turned his gaze toward the bright red dots of light some distance away - in time to see one of the specks thrown into the vague grey shape of an eleven foot dragon.

"Of course." He purred softly, crossing his suit clad arms. The Comm-Link would carry his words to Bard, regardless of volume and direction. Eyes still fixed on the battle, Teal continued. "What else could I be talking about?" The mage shrugged his shoulders, fox tail swinging leisurely at his back.

One of the dots was running in wide circles around the other now. Periodic flashes of dragon fire lit the void, as Shyria tried - unsuccessfully - to roast her apparent attacker. Obviously, that meant Inbred was the one resting on the Dragon's back. The Valker's movements abruptly shifted, and he launched himself at Shyria.

Bands of coral lightning began to crackle around Teal. "Let's go hel-"

Shyria ate the Valker.

"What!?"

Aura flaring into a surging pillar of scarlet light, Teal slammed his foot down onto the synthetic platform. Tiny jagged fragments broke away as cracks spiralled from the point of impact, quickly covering the slab. "That's it? The battle's already over!?" Tail lashing furiously at his back, Teal slashed the air in frustration, eviscerating a pair of unlucky pebbles. "How dare he get eaten by a Dragon - that's stupid and pathetic and now what the hell am I supposed to with the Power of Four Angry Suns!?"

Expression falling, Teal hung his head. "I shoulda stayed on the NPF and tried to kill Arhra. She'da have been fun." Aura shrinking back to its normal size, the mage sighed.

Suddenly, a thought struck him.

"Bard!" Teal whipped around, tail wagging happily again. "Let's go have a wonderful time in the mysterious spaceship!" Powered by the Fury, the mage's hand snapped out at nearly blinding speed to grasp the Summoner's arm. "It'll be just like our adventures in the mysterious tower - there's even an Arhra waiting for us at the center!"

Teal grinned - they would have such fun together!

[Arhra]

"Wh-what!" screamed Gesit, discovering the end of the countdown meant space for all the NPF. "NO! NO! This city- I hate it so much! We're in space now? I just wanted to get a obscenitying pizza!"

"There, there, we still have pizza." Gestalt Arhra consoled the shade. She patted him on the back then waved her hand, trying to get rid of the intense sensation of pins and needles. Rather than try that again, she took a slice out of the box and offered it to him.

Geist had an epiphany about playing it cool through the madness.

"We have to find the science people first off," he said, examining his surroundings. "You know your way around? The lab shouldn't be too hard to miss. Once we find a suitable locale of general sciences, we hijack a ship and then see what happens."

"What lab?" his companion asked blankly.

You know, the NPF Science Lab. No, she did not know.

A large and presumably blue spaceship wallowed into the heavens, zapping the top of the Kurosen Tower as it did.

"I'm guessing that was the lab." Arhra said thoughtfully. "Probably no good heading there now, we're not much good with spares."

"Don't you worry, we'll find a way into space or my name isn't Arhra Seven!" she declared, deciding to change her name. "Let's see... space travel... That's tricky. Had a little starfighter once but I think I lost it when I made a kamikaze run on a god of nothingness."

"Maybe we should try the tower anyway? Everyone else should still be up there unless that was some sort of teleporter. I'm thinking we should steal some fireworks to signal from there just in case."

She flicked her wings and then crossed her arms, looking up at the tower. "But I really don't feel like going through a billion floors of traps just to... oh right, wings." The chimerical girl turned to Geist. "You can fly, right?"

* * *

Arhra V found that the ship was more vulnerable to her encroachment than she had dared to dream. She'd marched into its heart, leaving a trail of technological corruption in her wake, and found it unable to resist her as she thrust an arm into vital machinery and tested the extent of her influence. With a wriggle, she slipped her entire body inside.

What little remaining self-identity the ship had screamed and died.

The generator space writhed like a living thing, machinery contracting and uncurling, strange new machinery sprouting like mushrooms after rain. The abrupt reconfigurations sent shudders through the ship's superstructure.

The ship's - no, Arhra's - banks of generators were broken and abused and damaged but they were still usuable. It would be possible to raise them to full power output but only very briefly.

Arhra V was not interested in a brief pulse of power.

Instead, half of them shut down. The decommissioned generators split open like rotten apples, their interiors writhing with burrowing cables. Salvaging parts from the rest, she intended to refurbish the least damaged ones. Arhra V reached along the power linkages to grasp the engines, bleeding a fraction of the available power into them to nudge the ship off its collision course.

In the ship's main computers, a towering storm of nothingness swept across the horizon, eating up the world. Tattered data and laughter was swept ahead of it. Darkness rotated and become light, a massive upload coalescing into Arhra V's virtual body.

The source of the nothingness and the laughter was now obvious.

Data readouts flicked in and out of existence around her as she consolidated her hold. The ship's energy production was totally subsumed and the vessel's coordinating intelligence had been replaced by her. There were all sorts of things that were outside of her control, but there wasn't a lot those things would be able to do without her say-so.

All except that sealed chamber in the robotics facility. She couldn't even get a good look at what was inside.

Vexing.

She'd normally be approaching her limit, but the Fury in her system was making any consideration of restraint unthinkable.

Deep inside the Valker ship, the cancerous knot of infested hardware that was Arhra V stabbed out in every direction.

Also, she had to make a phone call.

"HeLllo eVerrryboDy. Are yOU thEre?" what was probably Arhra V's voice came into the NPFer's commlinks. "So-r-rry abouT THe low quaLIty of this-this tRansMiSsion, but my-my-my eqUipMEnt's a litTle unSTAAAAAAble during traNsItIon phases. I have con-con-trol of thE ValKer sHip. Coll-is-ion unlikELY. HahahHAHAHhaAha... er-exCuuse mE."

"BuuuUUuuut-t, there iS a FURy thiiiNg that I-i doN't know WhaT it doEs in-in-in a seAled chaaAMBer. The Valker sens-s-sors are to-oo duMB to LOok at iT without expLODING; itS powER leVeL mu-must bEeeee over ninE-thouuuSAND."

"I donnNn't lIke it sOo I'lll ri-ip it out an-and THen WE can bLoWw it uP. Staa-and BYyyy."

The ship seemed to be doing a decent attempt at imploding, gaps in the hulls showing a maelstrom of activity deep within, pulling the outer layers down as it worked its way to the surface.

Something emerged. It was a crane that had been used in the primary hangar to help dock supply vessels. It was turning into a hand.

The spindly limb bent around and stabbed back into the ship's gaping structure. It ripped out an irregular object, a house sized section of the ship, trailing tubing and coated in alien armour that had been hastily applied.

Arhra V hurled the robotics facility into space.

[mauve]

Mauve was in heaven. She was floating through space towards a shiny new x-wing!!

Floating... rather quickly....

Wait wait wait how was she supposed to stop before she hit the side of the---

OH SHIT HAPPY FEELINGS GONE

BAM!! Mauve hit the side of the x-wing. Okay. She could have planned that a little better. She scrambled to grab one of the wings before her momentum ricocheted her back into the dark void of space. She didn't want to be reunited with her beloved spacecraft only to go sailing out into the endless vacuum of space two seconds later, never to be seen again. That would be a sucky ending.

She maneuvered herself to the spacecraft's cockpit and opened the hatch window.

"Alley-oop!" she hopped inside and closed the hatch. Now on to business!

"Huh," she said, looking around. "Pyros redesigned the interior. Not bad." She never remembered her old x-wing having a built-in soda fountain in one wall and a firekitty PyrosNine bobblehead doll on the dashboard. But whatever. Free soda!!

"Alrighty," she declared into the communicator. "I don't know if there's anything left to beat up, blow up, steal or destroy at this point, but if there is, I'm totally ready to do any of those aforementioned things!! Also, I think my ship here can accommodate one or two passengers, assuming one of them doesn't mind sitting in the R2-D2 seat, if anyone needs a lift."

Mauve then caught the tail-end of Arhra's speech:

"I donnNn't lIke it sOo I'lll ri-ip it out an-and THen WE can bLoWw it uP. Staa-and BYyyy."

A house-sized chunk of twisted metal and electronic bits was hurled from the Valkar ship. Mauve assumed this was the offending item that was scheduled for destruction.

"This job calls for rockets!" Mauve said dramatically. "Many of them!" She gripped the x-wing's controls, switching to combat mode and arming the guns. Fun times!!!

"Oh Exxy, I missed you so!" Mauve said to the x-wing. The ship shot forwards, guns a-blazin'. Mauve was gonna shoot things to death and then shoot more things for the hell of it. Because she had a spaceship, dammit!!

[Overcast]

Riding a dragon was a fun activity, one that Overcast was sure he would like to do more often. He had gotten so lost in the amusement of being on the back of a space faring death machine he forgot he was a member of the strike force. He was reminded when his noble mount swallowed the admiral. Which was quite the anticlimactic end for the man, but then he had an inauspicious beginning anyway so for the most part he didn't actually care.

He stood up and leapt into the majesty of space, looking about for something to do. Little transmissions buzzed in his head, a miraculous thing since he had no comm link due to his lack of ears. Two and two were put together with the phrases,

"R2-D2 seat." and "WE can bLoWw it uP."

And he burst off toward the X-wing and took his rightful place in the droid chamber, his Box poking out just enough for effect, as he took off his gloves, felt the space ship, and pumped up the weapon systems with the powers of CHAOS. Or whatever his abilities stemmed from. Looking forward to see how Mauve responded to the sudden power boost.

[mauve]

The results of Overcast's super power boost appeared on a monitor in the x-wing's cockpit. Mauve raised an eyebrow.

"This looks appropriately dangerous!" she said. Weapons supercharged, engines boosted to allow the ship to travel beyond Hyperspeed to Ludicrous Speed if so desired, three new flavors appearing on the soda machine, an MP3 player appearing on the control panel...

"This is the best day ever," Mauve declared. "Let's go make the most of it!" Mauve set her sights on the chunk of machinery that Arhra had tossed off the main ship, opening fire on it and the Valker ship itself as she zoomed past.

She also got herself a cranberry Sierra Mist.

[Inbred Chocobo]

Inbred blinked from his position on Shyria's back, a bit taking back from the sudden end of his fight. "Well..." IC said, once Shyria spat out the bits of limbs and flesh. "That was easy." was all he could say as he laid back and caught his breath, thankful for the break he could finally take. Then explosions filled the air, throwing Shyria off balance and IC off her back. It was most likely source was probably all the rockets, lets go back and take a look at events from someone else's point of view shall we?

----------------------------------------------------------

Arhra V's hostile takeover of the ship's system started having... odd side-effects. First, a lot of different parts and ruins that were hanging on the ship started getting thrown out, completely worthless except maybe as paperweight, and in space even that function was useless. As Arhra took more and more of the ship for herless, more and more bits and peices were torn off. Once Arhra V got enough of the ship working under her/his/its/thingy's control and had the ship moving away from its collision course, well there was so much junk floating there in its place it just meant instead of one giant crater about hundreds of small craters would be all over NPF. Of course, it wasn't until Arhra V tossed the robotics facility right into the mess did she/he/it realize this.

At that moment, Mauve targetted the giant metal floating facility and unloaded on it. Looks like the fine Dr has managed to squeeze in about 12 times the normal amount of missiles that the X-wing was suppose to be able to carry... except that X-wings don't have missiles, and so 12 times 0 is still 0. However her lasers were working fine still, and at the level they were suppose to, so those fired fine. Then Overcast got in the droid seat and ramped things up to 11. The resulting explosion when those lasers hit threw the X-Wing end over end, sending it hurling back towards NPF.

Those that happened to be looking at the robotics facility probably thought it would be a good idea to take cover. The robotics facility literally exploded with the last batch of lasers hitting it, causing a wave of Furian energy to come out of it, in an almost perfect sphere. The wave of energy however didn't break or even shift any floating debris, just washed over it like it was nothing.

However everyone else it touched got soaked into it, Arhra V, those in space, Mauve's X-Wing, and everyone on NPF got a full helping of the energy as it soaked into whoever it contacted, filling them with incredible power and energy.

[Overcast]

Overcast felt the energy soak into the Box, and it shifted in color from yellow to RED. It detached from the rest of his body, that disintegrated as soon as his will no longer held it to this world. Then a sound, not in your ear but in your mind, similar to the whimsical rhythm of a jack in the box as the container began to slowly open, that light, same as before when it had been broken impossible in color poured out. Then a hand, and another as a dark haired boy of about 19 stared out into the vacuum of space, his waist on down still inside the Box and a mad grin on his face,

"Cool, so I finally made it...should have brought a shirt. meta"

Overcast-Meta had arrived.

[PyrosNine]

Dr. Ethington shrugged. She didn't feel any different after the wave of energy went through the shielding of her ship, and everything seemed to be still functioning as normal. To be safe though, she locked her aides in the brig (also known as examination/dissection bay 1) and kept them under observation. But as it was, there was still a ship over NPF, and NPF was still moving space-ward, and someone would have to do something about that.

But first things first: The naming issue.

"Attention Azure Aesir, as no doubt you have noticed, our ships have similar names. I am contacting you to have this rectified. Though no doubt your ship's name has been christened before mine, as Commanding Science Officer +1 of the NPF standing militia, I have special priviledges, and among them I -YOU HAVE TO TOTALLY CHANGE YOUR NAME TO THE BLUE AESIR OR SO HELP ME MYSELF I WILL SIGN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES TO THE SPAMBOT OVERLORDS!"

Dr. Ethington then realized she'd forgotten to turn on the video feed to accompany her vain, shallow threat. But in her violent haste to rename the other ship, she had spilt mint vanilla on her chest, and that would take a while to clean up, so she couldn't send another message, so instead she followed up her message with a short video of some people on a train getting attacked by a random badger, as it was the only video she had on hand aside from that low budget one she did as a teen that caused people to die after 9 days.

Also, because I forgot, Pyros is currently still with Mauve atop her hat in the X Wing. He's just still taking a kitty nap, don't want him spontaneously popping up somewhere else deus ex machina style later. Though I guess since he's in a X wing, he's in a kind of machina, but I'm not sure what the people of Spira would call an X-wing. Probably worship it as a flying winged god of destruction, maybe. Then it'd be a deus ex deus. Yeah.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Shyria had just finished picking the last of the admiral out of her teeth when the shockwave from the detonated robotics facility sent her and Inbred Chocobo spiraling out of control right in the middle of a zero-gravity minefield of detrius and scattered Fury energy. Her head stopped spinning in time to see Mauve's recent reconstructed X-wing spiraling on a collision course with the main NPF ship, along with several massive fragments of the Furian robotics factory. Inbred Chocobo had been lost somewhere in the debris field, but Shyria figured he could handle himself. Right now she had to save the NPF from being turned into Swiss cheese (and keep Mauve from splattering all over the ship like a bug on a truck's windshield). She took off in the direction of the X-wing, incinerating whatever space junk was in range, hoping that this wouldn't end in another face-punching rampage like what had happened with the pills.

[mauve]

"This is decidedly less fun than I had anticipated," Mauve said glumly as her x-wing went spiralling out of control from the blast. "Now I run the risk of dying. Again. AND I spilled my soda!"

She struggled to regain control over the little spaceship before things became more near-deathy, and was vaguely aware of a Shyria-colored blur spinning towards her. Hopefully she was doing so in a "oh hey Mauve I'll save you" manner and not a "dammit Mauve this is somehow your fault and you don't deserve the x-wing anymore" way.

[Overcast]

OC-M decided that he was finally about ready to make a long post. It had been a while, mostly because he didn't have much to say, he had built himself to be a bit weak and dependent on random chance. Right now there was a need for something to happen to make this place better, because it was all so incredibly,

"BORING! meta"

He screamed into the emptiness of space. You could hear it too, oddly enough. Everyone could hear it. Everyone in the universe. Except that last part, that same last part that was suddenly edited into his first statement for the sake of making it a recurring thing, but enough of that.

It was time to start.

He ducked into his box as it winked out of the universe and tore the dimension a new hole next to Mauve's X-wing. He raised a hand that caught the ship stopping it from its terrifying flipfest that committed the sin of soda spilling. Quite uncouth. He shoved the universe apart again, forming a new Overcast to enter the R2D2 spot. There was a distinct difference in this one though as the little boxhead was a bit more attached to the ship than usual the neck extending with wires and attaching to the primary systems, using it as his body rather than his typical getup. The new OC was dubbed the serial number OCD2. The symbiosis had granted him the ability to send information to the cockpit in a much more meaningful fashion than trying to talk in a vacuum! Which was good because he had a dark suggestion to offer the Mauve one,

"Shyria inbound to attack, recommend offensive maneuvers."

Of course he said all of that in beeps and boops so whether or not Mauve actually understood it was up in the air. Then again in Star Wars it was like everybody understood what that crazy little bot was saying, so he could safely bet that it had.

Meanwhile.

OC-M ripped himself out of the void and nearby Shyria herself to continue the scheme. From this new hole a new avatar was made only in this case he had been gifted with a space suit similar to those used for the fake moon landing that had occurred where OC-M had come from only no big reflective helmet, for that would have hidden his box! Still the rest of the outfit seemed suitable for the space cowboy/space dragon rider routine he was going to fill. And so he was granted the name Overcast Space Dragoon! Or OSD, if you were lazy, and as his first action as the rider he took off his head and tossed it toward Mauve's ship! He was hoping this would spark some conflict between the two. Maybe little miss Dragon would play along, but she might just eat him. Eating him was always a possibility.

Then he dissipated again. The next OC coming into existence nearby Dr. Ethington, his lab coat flaring out in the wind that wasn't actually there as he blasted at the Mint Vanilla with CONCENTRATED SCIENCE EXTRACT! ...actually it was just souped up laundry cleaner, but either way it almost immediately restored the the other to a state of clean as if the minty terror had never existed. The Box grinned from his position as he tried to act oversuspicious,

"Saaaaaay, where are the weapons on this thing?"

Of course that was an incredibly suspicious statement! But the way the doc was, and considering the wonder of being amongst a colleague so prestigious as Professor OC he might just be able to get away with it. Or he might have to take PERSONAL CONTROL. Such things happen in the world of science.

On the Azure Aesir a new OC appeared, with far more feminine features than any other OC before it. Dubbed, Overcast Bishoujo and noted as the closest thing to a female that OC-M had ever created on this forum she stood amongst the rest of the crew with a nervous look on her box,

"...I say shoot her."

The request was simple, but they would probably interrogator her first. That is the trouble of suddenly appearing like you belong, but she had the power of empty threats on her side! Nobody wants the spambots on you after all, and hopefully the Professor was making some leeway up with the Doctor.

Speaking of bots, deep in the Valker ship a new OC, with a bit more of a modular look had appeared in the network. It stumbled upon the integrated Arhra. With a cold mechanical voice it sent in the suggestion of inter-ship warfare. With only one decided truth,

"SHE HAS IT COMING."

Robo-OC didn't need to say much about Asheth, he just wanted to let it happen. Somewhere it knew that V and she had some bad blood worth shooting large lasers at, and if it could coerce such an action, even if OC-B failed such terrible fury might inspire some nervous trigger fingers.

OC-M floated high above the scene watching all the little boxheads at work. Most of them were likely about to die, but that was fine by him. His characters dying never really made him unhappy, as long as they had served a good purpose in the short time they were alive, and maybe, just maybe, they would plant the seed of conflict in the hearts and minds of his friends. Then this place would be maybe a smidge less boring,

"What do you think IC? A good use for that shameful little plot device? meta"

[Teal Mage]

Strands of blond hair lengthened, spilling down Teal's tuxedo clad back as the tidal wave of Fury broke over the scarlet eyed mage. Iridescent petals of deep red light blossomed into the space around the mage, his single tail spiting apart and multiplying into nine - slightly slimmer - but otherwise identical appendages. Crackling like a funeral pyre, the carmine banner around Teal's body began to expand, gradually growing to twice its original size.

Locking his clawed fingers above his head, Teal stretched in a very cat-like way. "That," His scarlet eyes fluttered rapidly for a moment, "felt kinda good." He grinned lazily, tails wagging slowly behind him.

Still standing on the same fragment of space debris he'd teleported in on, Teal brought a clawed finger to his lips thoughtfully. Tails wagging slowly, the mage's scarlet eyes flickered over the field of asteroids that were, at the moment, on a collision course with the NPF. This, Teal decided, his Fury empowered mind quickly connecting the dots behind this ridiculous situation, is Steel's fault.

"I will have to have a talk with him about unintended consequences sometime." Teal murmured, as his eyes tracked the brilliant red shooting star that was Shyria. She appeared to be moving toward Mauve's X-Wing. "Well," the now long haired mage jammed his hands into his suit pockets, putting the Dragon from his mind for a moment. "I'll just have to clean this up."

Delicately, the mage withdrew a hand from his pocket. The corona of Fury contracted suddenly, focusing to a small dot at the mage's finger tip, and leaving Teal entirely bereft of the supernatural aura for a moment. "Vanish." He hissed. Narrow strands of carmine lightning sparked wildly along the length of his blond hair, as the mage's tongue flicked over his lips.

The dot exploded.

Blinding iridescent light burst from in front of Teal, washing away all colors in a massive surge of red resplendence. The spell quickly spread, space junk falling into the eye-searing red bubble of devouring magic, only to vanish as if they'd never been. Instants later, the sphere of light vanished - leaving much of the asteroid field greatly diminished.

"I would liked to have removed all the debris," Teal elaborated, turning his head over his shoulder to where Bard had been - before Arhra V's transmission had been sent out, at least - "but I did not believe that I could control energy of that magnitude without potentially consuming Shyria, Inbred and Mauve in the process."

"Besides, it would have been unspeakably rude to attack my allies." Teal added, turning his attention to small clusters of space junk remaining. Fury aura dancing around his shoulders like a roaring pyre again, Teal spread his arms before his chest. "I'll remove the remaining debris in a more civilized manner." He continued, flower petals of dark scarlet energy forming from the pale white palms of his hands, floating delicately into the empty space before him.

"Bard." The flower petals began to vanish one-by-one, as Teal teleported them carefully into the remaining pieces of space junk. "Have you a preference of what we do now?" The mage's tone had grown inexplicably formal since the influx of the Fury wave - a consequence of the infinite power perhaps?

Gradually, the petals would be brought into contact with the asteroids. Where - through the wonders of Fury Empowered matter manipulation - they would reduce the space junk into a shower of brilliant red sparks. It was much slower than the mass spell he'd used a moment ago, but it would get the job done - and without catching any of his allies in the blast, either.

"What do you think IC? A good use for that shameful little plot device? Meta." Somewhere off in space, an Overcast was talking.

Teal frowned, eyes snapping toward the source of the noise.

"He." The mage declared, pausing in his debris clearing, "Is very annoying."

It seemed an appropriate observation.

[Arhra]

"Hey, you're pretty useful Geist." Arhra said, looking at the pile of fireworks with satisfaction. Now they had something to signal the other NPFers with, they just had to get to the top of the tower to arrange a pickup.

Hopefully they hadn't missed too much.

"Let's do this." she told the summoned ghost.

Wrapping up the bundle of fireworks and holding it tight, she spread her wings and flew - badly - for the top of the tower.

It was a shocking sight.

"A dead body and... fan fiction?" Arhra Seven panted. "Something terrible has happened."

She recognised the body.

"Two?"

The probably kind of evil, maybe, sorceress was quite dead, a tangle of loose limbs and tangled hair dressed only in black tatters. Steam rose thinly from her.

"Two, no!" Arhra VII released the fireworks and sprinted to her near-twin's side, kicking up ash and charred pages behind her. She dropped to her knees and shook her, trying to wake her up. Grim purpose on her face, she rolled II onto her back.

"Live damn you, live!" she shouted, thumping on II's chest. It was never too late for an Arhra to turn out to not be dead. She bent over to give the kiss of life.

The loose leaves of fan fiction fluttered in appreciation.

The chimerical girl suddenly jerked backwards, everything twitching spamodically. She was glowing softly.

"GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!"

She staggered drunkly to her feet, still screaming and clawing at her chest like she was trying to rip out her own heart. She careened into a console, put two hands down in a death grip and started banging her head on it, making a deepening dent and a red smear.

Red light flooded through the scene, passing through metal and stone and flesh and bone with careless disregard, leaving them redolent with its taint.

In its aftermath, the top of the tower was swallowed by a Fury amplified explosion. Multicolored lightning crackled over the spherical explosion front as it rolled outwards in all directions. It persisted for half a minute, the tall tower looking like a string tethering a bloody balloon to the ground, before suddenly contracting back into nothing.

A woman stood at the epicenter of the blast, molten metal cooling beneath her bare feet. A rainbow sheen of light sleeted over her pallid body.

"Hmm, that's new." Arhra said, holding up a strand of pure white hair in front of her red eyes for inspection. Her hand matched: she'd lost what precious little pigmentation she had.

Arhra looked back over her shoulder. "Sorry Geist." The exploded upon summon probably wasn't happy.

Feeling her head confirmed she'd lost her devilish horns, patting her pack proved absence of dragonish wings then she folded her arms over her chest as she took stock of other developments. She'd grown several inches taller, pushing her up to the lofty realms of average height. She also hurt everywhere and felt unnervingly full in a non-food related way.

She wasn't feeling that great, and had been so thoroughly basted in Fury-juice that she was possibly omnipotent, but there were more important things to get settled first.

"Seven's not going to work any more." she mused aloud. "So I guess that makes me-"

She did the simple mental arithmetic of III + IV + II and then softly cursed.

[Inbred Chocobo]

Shyria caught the flipping X-wing, steadying it out before Mauve had much of a chance to react to Overcast's beeping, which was probably for the best as in-party fighting was never that great a thing, except when it involving hitting Pyrosnine, then it was okay, because you know he was the actual reason people would fight, everything else was a lie, including cake.

Back to the story, Shyria caught the X-wing, saving Mauve from spinny pukey doom, however there was no saving Mauve's drink, and her dress was now stained with her beverage. The cup had also been damaged as well, which meant she would need another cup before beverage consumption could begin again. Unless she considered the possibility of sticking her head under the fountain drink, but that could result in messy hair and more spills, but might be her only option. A dangerous one to consider. The cat Pyros however was probably thrown against a windshield, or possibly being used as a rag by Mauve, it was hard to tell.

All IC could do when Overcast asked him what he thought of his meta-ing was facepalm and rub his temples. "You are going to get everyone killed aren't you?" was all IC could reply before his headache consumed him. How he went from flying off of Shyria's back to casually standing in a random spot next to Overcast was probably best left unmentioned, as IC was a ninja, and ninjas do that kind of thing.

ArhraNine stood trying to figure out herself (nothing that acoustic guitar music and pot wouldn't fix) when a voice spoke out, a deeper voice, with no real edge to it "So, is this NPF? This looks like the place." When A9 turned to face the owner of the sentence, she faced a form of a droid, which most of its features couldn't even be distinguished from the amount of energy flowing through it. The hands could be somewhat made out, the head casing and the upper torso, and the feet were all the metal bits that could be seen through the raging amount of Furian energy in the machine. "My, its not as terrible as the stories made it out to be now is it?" It spoke, trying to start idle conversation with A9.

Considering he was a bit hard to look at due to how bright he was, it would be pretty easy for other forumers to spot the figure standing next to A9.

[PyrosNine]

"My two big weapons are none of your business, sir!" Dr. Ethington. "And your ambiguously vague title of "Professor" is a sure shootin' that you didn't actually receive an honest to goodness doctorate in any field, unlike myself!"

Dr. Ethington's eyes and hair were full of menace of a mary sue sort.

"And don't think I don't notice yourselves up in multiple spaces, with lame knock offs trying to stir up some combustible commotion, Mister I'm a Professor too big for my britches!"

The strange newcomer near Arhra...Nine? ....warranted investigation, as it lit up on the big "SHIT"S HAPPENING!" viewscreen installed precisely for that purpose. It did however, have a tendency of being too literal, and the previous display upon it's widescreen was Kitty Pyros visiting the X-wing's little kitty room.

Speaking of Kitty Pyros, he was both fortunate to have a highly soft body and a flexible spine to absorb the impact of cockpit glass and his kitty body. He also for some reason, could taste soda. This was no way to wake a cat up from his nap! HE WAS BACK TO FULL POWER FOR SOME REASON, AND HEADS WOULD-~nap!

The definition of cat nap is one that can be almost instantaneously returned to with little fuss. Soda and removing himself from the cockpit window would be dealt with after he pounced on all those little dream bunnies in happy hopscotch land.

MEANWHILE IN THE FUTURE.

Steel found himself at a retropunk post-futuristic renaissance recreation of a coffee house from Friends, some old TV show that went on for too long and everyone slept with each other too long.

Arhra IX sat before steel, wearing a heavy metal outfit to try and attain a bad girl look...but failed largely due to the fact that she was as usual, slightly translucent and rainbow colored. That and it seemed as though her 'birth' was just described a few posts above this one, and that was just like having your baby pictures on public display for all to see.

"So...come around here often?"

[Arhra]

Inside the portion of the Valker ship where Arhra V now dwelled, Robo-Overcast found it was dim and it was cramped and there was nothing that was obviously more Arhra-like than any other part. Lights blinked on strange devices, tubing ran everywhere in intestinal tangles and machinery glowed silver with the heat of its rapid assembly.

Accessing the ship's public network, he broadcast a simple message: Arhra V should shoot up her rival because Dr Ethington was a joke of a scientist who stole all her ideas, claimed her NPF Azure could outperform V any day of the week, and she totally had it coming.

Something noticed him.

"O-oooVERcaSt? Is thaaat yOu? You FEel diff-rEeeeNT."

Nothing turned itself inside out. An avatar materialised in the local cyberspace.

It was a ghostly Arhra V, glowing red and a slightly grainy look to her like the pixels on a TV. From the neck down she was striated with fine lines of stronger red that traced along her body and limbs toward the ground. She'd changed into a dress, switching out her regular bodysuit for something strapless and clingy.

"IT-iit is tRue. SOMething-g neEds to Be dooone about Ethington eventually. BUut right nowWww, YOu." Arhra V slunk after her pointing hand like a tiger on the prowl. "CouLD it? YeEeszss. An-anOTher inCHOate en-enTity excuUuUUursiOn diverGin-ing fro-om its rEGulaR expresSssiON? HAH, hE, ahAha." Arhra V seemed to be having trouble concentrating, breathing heavily and her image breaking up as she continued in a stream of nonsense, circling him agitatedly. "a tEch-ek-noligcal aeSThetic. DeLiI-beraTE toooo." she concluded.

"So eXciteed. I m-muSt, no, lA-LAter..." She hugged herself tightly. It seemed to calm her down a little. "HahAha, oH my."

Arhra V gave the robotic box headed man a smouldering look. "OveRCAst -" she purred.

Back in reality, the walls cracked open in a madman's smile, tracks of darkness oozing out like blood. The emerging black cables chittered like insects to each other, tool tips whirring.

"- wOn't YOu sT-tay a wHIle?"

* * *

"So, is this NPF? This looks like the place." There was a robot sheathed in ludicrous ammounts of energy next to Arhra IX. It was feeling talkative. "My, its not as terrible as the stories made it out to be now is it?"

"Terrible? Let me tell you about terrible." Arhra IX said, glad to have an audience. "I was three different people this morning. Well, two people and a ghost." she waved a shapely hand in a dismissive fashion, counting a ghost as less than a full person. "I've spent all of today fighting stupid robots sent by jackass aliens (and also NPFers), dealing with falling objects and countdowns, performing assinine side quests and now we're in space!" she waved her hands around her to encompass the starry sky. "Space! Also there's a sorceress from the future who is trying to..." she winced. "I can't remember."

"As of about thirty seconds ago, I'm one person who's two thirds dead and still trying to figure out how that last third happened." she hooked a hand and jabbed at her pale chest. "I've got three damaged souls trying to knit together, I'm on the verge of complete existential collapse and the pure angry that has been injected into my soul is not helping this at all."

She looked down at her feet. The floor was crystallising beneath them. "I think I'm going to be sick." she said weakly, starting to sweat.

"Because I know disasters, I have already come up with a way to probably fix that but it's not going to make anyone happy."

"Except possibly me." she added after a moment of contemplation.

She turned and stared right into the red inferno that had started the conversation. "I've got enough on my plate so you'd better not be up to no good." she growled. "I will end you."

"So anyway, welcome to the NPF." she finished in a milder tone. "It's actually pretty nice between the catacylsms."

[Overcast]

Up above OC-meta shrugged off the comments from his allies. He let out a gentle sigh for Teal and Inbred, those two wouldn't have much care to begin the civil war he wanted. Teal had no love for such courses of action, and indeed had no love for most things he did these days and IC was likely keen on continuing his plotline, whatever it might actually be. Then again that was why they hadn't been included in the post, everyone else was a gamble worth taking. He still took a moment to respond to IC, though he figured Teal was beyond listening to him,

"You may not realize it but you've been trying to get us all killed for quite a while. meta"

He knew that this wasn't quite true, and that IC the ninja might not quite understand how he was being manipulated by the hands of some higher being than himself,

"Whether or not I'm trying to kill everyone, or just most of everyone though is the real question. I figure we could all profit from another death. meta"

Speaking of, down in the bowels of the Valker ship Robo-OC stared at the ghostly figure of Araha V. She spoke, words shaky and halting or long and disoriented. He wasn't sure if it was the damage to the ship, or perhaps an issue with the interface, but it seemed like there was some imperfection in the way that the two had become one. So when he noticed the incoming mechanized tendrils. Their whirring tools looking to create some engineering alterations to his physical form, a grin happened across the screens that made up his boxy noggin. And his physical form welcomed them come. He could influence the situation much better on the inside, and maybe help smooth out all the hiccups in the system. After all, he was nothing if not support.

"I CAN STAY A WHILE. BUT NOT FOREVER."

Transmission ends. Disconnected.

The Professor found himself appalled that Dr. Ethington would speak such TERRIBLE SLANDER in his direction! What had he done to recieve such treatment? Was it wrong to want to admire a well made pair of weapons? He could not stand for such a thing! And so he raised his finger into the air, and pointed it with piercing accusation,

"As if your title is any better! Who knows what you may have taken your doctorate in, it could be Philosophy or Media Study. Your meme heavy inventions seem to weigh heavily on the latter."

See slander can work in two directions, in fact he was about to take this four or five steps too far!

"And don't even get me started on the rumors that all of your so called INVENTIONS are just ideas you STOLE from more talented people. Your name is worth nothing, you hear me? NOTHING!"

Hmm, that was indeed a bit more than he was planning on going with that, but you don't willy nilly go insulting people who appear out of nowhere on your ship just because they asked where the weapons are. Which reminded him, if he was going to cut that deeply he might as well go for the big prize,

"So you show me where the weaponry is or I shall be forced to take direct control of this project, just as a senior Professor should!"

Sure he was more likely to be shown a personal sized weapon after all those evil words, but that would be enough for him. After all the goal was to stew up chaos, and chaos was most definitely aboard.

The other Overcasts, by Shyria and Mauve, figuring there wasn't much to be done to make their companions fight shared punch and pie.

[Bard The 5th LW]

There was no doubting the hectic nature of the situation. They were in space, there was an X-wing, aliens, and all sorts of other things that would drive a crazy man sane. Very fortunately, no one on NPF was a normal person. However, the resident summoner was still somewhat perturbed. He spent the next several minutes wrapped up in his own philosophical thought while everyone else was doing fun stuff.

"Bard!" Teal shouted as he turned around, apparent tail shaking in joy. "Let's go have a wonderful time in the mysterious spaceship!" Powered by the Fury, the mage's hand snapped out at nearly blinding speed to grasp the Summoner's arm. "It'll be just like our adventures in the mysterious tower - there's even an Arhra waiting for us at the center!"

"Hush," he said, moving his arm back, "I'm brooding." The inner workings and thoughts of his mind were most definitely an enigma to all. A shame he was so useless.

For that moment, they did not have much fun together. Fortunately, he was snapped back to sorta reality by the tsunami of infinite red power which filled the denizens of Nuklear with unlimited energy.

Bard did not feel particularly empowered by these series of explosions. The energy of anger and hate flowed strongly, but he could no identify any powers he might have gained from this.

"Bard." The flower petals began to vanish one-by-one, as Teal teleported them carefully into the remaining pieces of space junk. "Have you a preference of what we do now?" The mage's tone had grown inexplicably formal since the influx of the Fury wave - a consequence of the infinite power perhaps?

Oh yeah, that guy. He was cool Bard supposed. 'Well," Bard paused for a moment. The infinite power gave no alterations to his voice! That Steel Shadow dude had an echo-effect right? He examined his hands, which emanated the dark red glow of fury, and his eyes turned purple with the mix of red and blue, but no voice change. This would not do. He recalled the two fury pills in the pocket of his robes. Maybe those would do the trick and make him intimidating? He'd have to wait and see. "Anyways," he resumed, a little melancholy, "I say we destroy whats left. Valkers, Valker ships, and Valker appliances. Once the final boss is defeated it all ends right? Instant safety and whatnot? Yeah I like that. We should get to work ending this, if you're cool with that."

Geist

The solemn summon gave a prompt salute as Ahrha was launched into the sky. He was considering following after her,then shrugged and decided to float off elsewhere.

Time to finish up that pizza.

Bard

Shortly after the summoner with a writer's name made his suggestion, the Valker Robot, and presumably last boss, dropped in and acted unimpressed. Ahrha IX gave him a piece of her mind.

"Yeah you tell him ... whatever Roman numeral you are!" Bard cheered, "who does he think he is anyway criticizing us when he doesn't even have a name? He's alone as well, so he clearly has no friends, yet here we are all together and we've gone far enough. With the power of friendship we can surely do anything!" Towards the end of the impromptu friendship speech, the emo-summoner took a clean slice through his arm with his knife. Nothing happened. No summon or anything. The fury infused blood simply floated down to the ground and glowed a little. Suddenly he recalled that he left his original knife in Kurosen Tower.

"Sooo..." he said dragging the last sound, "while we're being meta, can I get a retcon over here?"

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Shyria was psyched. She'd saved the NPF from certain Mauvey doom (even if Mauve did come out a bit wetter and dizzier for it, there were explosions, aliens on fire, mad scientists, and more importantly, more stuff for her to smash!

"Hey Mauve! Quit sitting around, we've got aliens to kill!" she shouted gleefully before chucking the X-wing back towards the Valker ship like an oversized paper airplane before taking off towards it herself. The effects of the Fury surge on the dragon were obvious; the dragon's speed, power, and endurance were off the charts, at the cost of a slow decline in her higher brain functions. Right now the effects was confined mostly to a reckless enthusiam for fighting, but if this kept up for much longer she might end up running on pure instinct. And we all know how well that went last time...

[PyrosNine]

"VERY WELL THEN PROFESSOR," Dr. Ethington said in her calmest voice, her hair raised and ready to pounce, "I WILL GIVE YOU A TASTE OF MY WEAPONS, BUT FIRST YOU MUST PASS A TEST!"

The camera panned away from the good doctor's chest region to a table, where she had place an unlikely source of test material.

"I have twelve matchsticks arranged in the shape of a dog. If you remove one matchstick,can you rearrange the remaining matchsticks to recreate the Mona Lisa flawlessly on a microscopic level, in color?"

Surely a REAL Professor of a real major of some importance could solve this problem. She'd had it up to here with this phoney baloney professor, after taking all that lip from her professors and colleagues during the collegiate branch of her career.

* * * *

Pyros mewed...he was having such a nice nap! He felt sticky and wet though, but there was no chance Mauve was using him as a towel after her soda spilled in any rate. That'd just be silly.

[Overcast]

"OF COURSE I CAN!"

He ran to the table and pulled out a maser and a magnetronic microlevel manipulator from his coat of laboratory science, and pushed the first matchstick out of the way, he lit one of the others and started them all on fire, then blasted the burning mass with his maser, turning the entiryty into a plasma burst which he quickly redirected the current created in the ionic energy release with his manipulator to reconstruct the atomic bases of all the matchsticks into a fractal pattern that at an atomic level just looked like a bunch of atoms but was in fact the Mona Lisa! Which it repeated as you continued to zoom out in an oddly creepy fashion,

"Flawlessly! In color! At an atomic level!"

He said pointing at it, and then pointing at it with a microscope, and then a field ion microscope, and then an electron microscope, and then with his finger again,

"Do you not get it!? I was born with only one purpose, to be a scientific bastard! I can be nothing else, so I have all the skills, all the knowledge, all the degrees. ALL OF THEM...but I like the test, it actually made me believe in the reason for me existing."

And then it got awkward.

"Dr. Ethington I think I love you."
____

Overcast-Meta felt a disturbance in the force, but he wasn't sure what to attribute it to. Though something told him it was something going hopelessly wrong or hopelessly right. Of course he knew exactly what happened, but he was going to pretend to not know because that was obviously more amusing to him. The thought was striken from his memory, just like that.
____

Space Dragoon Overcast was having quite the time riding on the back of Shyria, especially as she began to REGRESS. He didn't have control over her, but the more primal she became, the more reckless he could act. And the more reckless he could act, the worse of an individual he could be! There was no time for punch and pie anymore, there was chaos to reap.

____

OCD2 felt horribly depressed being left alone with his snacks, so he forwarded them to Mauve with a smiley face attached, as well as a fabric pretreatment for the coke stain. He was so helpful.

[mauve]

"Hey Mauve! Quit sitting around, we've got aliens to kill!"

"Bwuh?" Mauve asked, looking up from where she was using Pyros to clean up the spilled soda. "Oh, right!! Killin' aliens! I'm all for that idea!" She released Pyros into the wild-- or at any rate, let him go in the zero-gravity of the ship's cockpit to float around the ship's interior half-asleep-- and reached for the ship's controls.

"To infinity... And beyoOH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII---" Mauve clearly wasn't expecting to have her x-wing hurled through space by an overeager rage-fueled Dragon Lady. She regained composure as she regained control of the vehicle. "Okay. I'm cool. Minor setback. Let's go kick some---Oh hey look, snacks!!" Overcast was being very helpful! Mauve was being very easily distracted!

The unconscious Pyros Kitty, still floating through the ship, hit her in the back of the head, reminding her that there was still SERIOUS BUSINESS to take care of.

"What the..? Oh! Right-o! Still in space! Gotta get to the killing stuff portion of my day. Thanks for the reminder, Pyros! You.... Oh nevermind. You're still asleep anyway."

Glowing with MAGICAL RAGE POWERS and fueled by SUGARY CARBONATED BEVERAGES AND PLENTIFUL SNACKS, Mauve was back in action and ready to kick ass and take names!

[Astral Harmony]

"Captain? Hey, Captain!"
Armored looked towards the Azure Aesir, weapons aimed at the Valkyr mothership but not attacking it or even charging its main guns. "I'm here. S'up?"
"Well, I have a question. Oh, but first you have two new messages."
Must be from the other NPFers. "I'll hear them."

Alean cued the first one.
"Attention Azure Aesir, as no doubt you have noticed, our ships have similar names. I am contacting you to have this rectified. Though no doubt your ship's name has been christened before mine, as Commanding Science Officer +1 of the NPF standing militia, I have special priviledges, and among them I -YOU HAVE TO TOTALLY CHANGE YOUR NAME TO THE BLUE AESIR OR SO HELP ME MYSELF I WILL SIGN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES TO THE SPAMBOT OVERLORDS!"

"Who sent that shit?"
"Dunno. Whoever it was, they either elected to remain anonymous by not presenting a video feed, or were just too stupid to turn it on."
"That's silly. Our ship's name is registered. It's even on the side of the ship in big, silver, 3D letters."
"What shall I do with the message, Captain? It certainly seems to demand a response."
"Respond with Response Alpha."
"But this came from an ally, right?"
"It's not too difficult to distinguish between our two ship's names. He or she or whoever that happens to be is just being an asshole."
"Well, okay. Initiating Response Alpha."

Dr. Ethington was rickroll'd. And if her screen could still recieve video feed, it was accompanied by the music video.

"Second message?"

Alean cued the second message.
"...I say shoot her."

"The hell?"
"I think it's an audio response to the previous one."
"..."
"Orders, Captain?"
"I think the rickrolling took care of that for us. Disregard."
"Aye aye, Captain. Now, we have a small, inkling little question."
"Shoot."
"Why're you naked with ten-foot long hair that is blowing in the wind even though you're in outer space and there's no wind?"
"I dunno. Why does Maya have to drink all my Big Reds when she runs out of Dr. Pepper?"

Armored, charged with the same Fury energy blast that affected everyone else, bounced from remaining piece of debris to remaining piece of debris to get away from the Valkyr mothership. "Actually, during the course of this RP, let's just refer to the ship as the Aesir."
"Pushover."
"Meh. Let's get that mothership out of the way. Prepare to fire the PMS Cannon."
"Awesome! We're finally going to use it! We'll get started right away."
"When it's fully charged, alert Mauve and Shyria...y'know, the X-Wing and the dragon, that a really powerful weapon is about to be discharged so they can get out of the way."
"Aye aye, Captain."

Armored, still as naked as Lucia from Lunar 2 and with hair blowing for absolutely no reason, standing on a small chunk of the mothership's hull that wasn't pulled in and destroyed by Teal Mage, watched unmoving as the Aesir maneuvered into position to fire the PMS Cannon.
The PMS Cannon, or Purple Mushroom Stamp Cannon, was an extremely phallic cannon that fired an overabundance of destructive dark energy barely contained in its shell. The resulting explosion created a large, violet-black mushroom cloud as the corrupting energies literally tore everything apart. Apparently the crater caused by the shell's impact, the resulting purple mushroom cloud, and the...ahem..."design" of the cannon itself left quite an impression on people.

"PMS Cannon charged to 10% and climbing steadily," Isis, the Aesir's onboard AI, reported. "All systems reporting no errors so far."

[Arhra]

The table was lit with the soft ambience of candlight, the thin whine of violins tugging at the ears in the background.

It was a table for two. In one seat Robo-Overcast sat rather stiffly. In the other was Arhra V, completely at ease. Despite, being in a realistic looking virtual environment that existed only in her mind, she had kept the granular, ever so slightly translucent look.

"Oh OveRcast," Arhra V breathed, leaning forward with her elbows propped on the table, "no-oneE Said you ha-had to stAy forever." She looked aside, crimson eyes narrowing. "They never ss-stay foreVer."

She took a sip of wine and her frown eased. "So Overcast," she smiled, a beguiling look in her eyes. "We've never TAlked mmuch before nOW. I'd lo-like to get to kNow you a little betTEr. Why don't you TelL me a lit-ittle more about yourSElf?"

The world shook slightly.

Distracted, Arhra V looked over her shoulder. Whatever invisible thing she saw didn't make her happy.

"I havvve something I ne-e-ed to TaKe care of." Arhra V said mournfully. Out of sight under the table, her hands were on her thighs scrunching up her dress, quivering with irritation. "Varia WeaPOn, hospiTality MODe."

A red sphere set in a two dimensional circuit-like glyph materialised above the table and began hovering over Overcast attentively.

"Hospitality mode, set up." the core of the slowly rotating glyph chimed in reply.

"I'll BE back as-as soon aS I CAn." Arhra V told Robo-Overcast, red eyes intense. She slumped back in chair like a puppet with its strings cut, wide eyes vacant. There was no-one there any more.

Robo-Overcast was still in his chair, of course. Arhra V had made sure that he wouldn't be getting out of it any time soon.

He was a little tied up.

* * *

The Azure Aesir fired its unfortunate cannon.

Something flickered in the space around what had been the Valker ship but nothing appeared to happen. The shell of dark energy struck, a purple mushroom sprouting on the ship's flank.

The entire ship vanished.

It instantaneously reappeared far closer to the Aesir, Arhra V's time warping Ouroboros Drive erasing the transition period.

The Valker ship was still undergoing its slow implosion, looking a little like a partially deflated soccer ball. The gaps in the superstructure formerly present had mostly closed, hiding the frenetic activity that had worked all the way from the core of the ship to its surface.

It loomed, leftover temporal energy flowing over its hull along with the dark miasma steaming from the location of the cannon hit.

"Ar-re yOu shootiNg at mmme?" the ship enquired, sounding upset. "When yoU play with the li-lion, you get bURned."

Its surface shifted, surface undulating and armour sliding aside. A gaping pit in the forward underside opened, a dark hole into what had once been the forward hangar. There was darkness and tiny stars inside.

A waving bundle of dark filaments snaked out of the hole, light glowing at their tips. They reached towards the Azure Aesir like the tendrils of a sea anemone to capture the spaceship.

Simultaneously a probe of the Azure Aesir's firewalls hit like a battering ram. Something with enormous computational power was trying to simply to brute force its way in. It was the electronic equivalent of some maniac jumping onto the front of someone's car and smashing in the windscreen with a sledgehammer.

The attack on the Aesir's AI, Isis, to come after breaching the Azure Aesir's network would be like pulling the driver out of her car through the windscreen in this metaphor.

[Astral Harmony]

Alean rushed over to assist Isis, who had simply fallen down, clutching her head as though in agony. "Isis, are you alright?!"
Isis didn't respond.
Alean looked at Rosalyn. "Ideas?"
"Whatever just attacked our ship tried to hack into the computer systems as well. Isis automatically disconnected from the network, but not fast enough to spare herself some infiltration, so she shut her own body off. She won't awaken until I do a full scan and declare her safe to boot up."

Alean stood up. "Rosalyn, please start on that right away. Isis is a badass in combat and I think we're going to need her skills. Alucard, Kira, Soleen, and Rachel, you're with me. We've gotta get the Valkyr Mothership off of us before she crushes the Aesir like a tin can. Celeste, you've got the helm. Get us out of here as soon as we're free. Maya, get in the STIGMA (Strategic Terrain-Independant Giant Mechanical Armor) and deploy as soon as you can. The rest of the crew is on standby for in-battle switch out. We can switch back and forth from outside the ship to inside and use the healing rigs to keep our team fighting indefinitely, hopefully."

It took almost two minutes for Alean's party to exit the ship, amped on Fury energy and armed with their favorite weapons.

Alean, the Aesir's Executive Officer or Vice Captain, was a stunning blonde who apparently liked belts so much that a great deal of her clothing consisted of nothing but belts. She used an assault rifle that was modified to deliver a large variety of pain from rocket propelled grenades to mercury tipped rounds to explosive buckshot.
Alucard, contrary to her name, was not a vampire, and was actually a young, cute, pink-haired practitioner of healing magic and holy spells. Armed with her staff and laser beams chock full of undead annihilation, Alucard mostly pulled healing support for the crew.
Kira was a scantily clad Frostgale Amazon. Tall and muscular with blue tribal tattoos all over her body, Kira commanded the element of ice and the brutality of dual tomahawks.
Soleen was a former diplomat for an evil conglomerate who was just using them to make money for herself. Fire magic was her specialty, but she was pretty much talented in all kinds of offensive magic.
Rachel was one of the fastest and most acrobatic girls Armored had ever met. Wielding two daggers and occasionally more than that, Regina was a blur of movement and sharp edges.

"Fire's not much good out here," Sophie complained, but was using her magic to try and cook the tendrils from the inside. She couldn't do that normally, but the power of Fury was making the impossible possible for her. "No air to feed the flames."
Alean was blasting at the tendrils with stinger rockets and fragmentation grenades. She was using the power of Fury to help her sling the grenades directly at the tendrils since tossing them would just make them fly off elsewhere. "How is a ship able to do this, anyways? I've never seen technology like this."
Alucard cut into a tendril with a beam of holy light. "The Captain warned us about getting involved. We probably should have listened to her."
Kira cleaved one of the tendrils with a brutal axe chop. "Where Armored goes, we go. And if we don't go, I still go."
Rachel dodged a tendril as it swiped at her, then cut it somewhat with her daggers. "Anybody feel different? I've never felt this light before."
"We're in zero gravity, Regina."
"Duh, Vice Captain, I freakin' know that! C'mon, you must've noticed, too!"
"You're right. I don't know how, given the Aesir's shields, but we were irradiated by the energy from that recent explosion. Be careful with how you fight and let me know the instant that you're not feeling well. There's no telling what side effects this stuff has."

The group reassembled. "I think we're winning," Rachel observed.
"Just be careful," Alean cautioned her friends. "I'm certain that ship has other tricks just waiting to be exploited."

-----

Armored was furious, seeing the Aesir getting attacked. "I'm going to dismantle that motherfucker right down to the infrastructure!" she shrieked angrily, already preparing a massive electromagnetic pulse. She wanted to fry every single circuit onboard that monstrosity. Nobody attacked her crew and her ship if there was anything she could do about it.

[Arhra]

The tendrils reaching for the Azure Aesir drew back slightly after suffering the attacks of the ship's crew. It was almost as if they were thinking.

What had been the Valker ship had barely even registered the damage. With the scale involved in a city sized vessel, attacking the capture cables was like attacking individual strands of hair on the head of a giant.

But it had taken notice now. The tips of dozens of the tendrils warped and flowed into a new configuration to deploy some new method of attack. Perhaps lasers. Perhaps drills. Perhaps more tentacles.

Instead, scanners. Fan shaped beams roved over the quintet guarding the precious prize.

Bulges traveled down five of the tentacles. Their tips became buds and then popped open into bizarre flowers.

Flowers that were actually eggs.

The five automata that emerged were built for combat. Their faces were the only part that looked like exposed flesh, the rest of their bodies covered in flexible armour and carapace. The ASURAs resembled each other and they also had a distinct familial resemblance to their creator.

The Type-A was a support unit, using pink clouds of nanomist to protect, heal and augment. Her defence was top notch although she had a deliberately limited capacity for attack. She wore a hooded partial robe of white trimmed with red triangles and seemed a little shy.

The Type-B was a sinister blend of magical and technological artillery, the shimmering forms of her energy drawing Mana Condensate Wings folded around her. It would have been chilly around her had she not been in space, which is both cold and an insulator.

The Type-C specialised in stabbing and blowing things up with a refreshingly nihilistic outlook. The orange haired gynoid was the leanest of the lot and held her two Bomber Knives at the ready. The weapons were more like short swords and had thick blades sectioned into V shaped segments.

The Type-D towered over the others and even then the dual miniguns she carried seemed oversized. She was incredibly silly and her special technique was Conversion Polymer.

The Type-E, the designated commander of the ASURA series, seemed younger than the others. There was something vaguely unfinished about her. She was slightly smaller, sleeker and purple haired. She also carried a big gun.

"We are-" she began to the Aesir crew.

"-the harbingers of your destruction." the Type-C broke in.

"Wait, I thought we were just supposed to beat them up if they won't stop doing such terrible things?" the tall, green haired Type-D asked, looking confused.

"Only if we can't talk them around." the Type-A protested.

"Wai-" the Type-E tried to get control of the conversation again.

"Can't talk them around if they've been blown up." the Type-C pointed out helpfully, right over the top of her.

"Perhaps you should ask them." the Type-B murmured to the Type-A.

The Type-A nodded. She took a doubly pointless gulp and pushed back her hood, revealing a mass of pink hair and an anxious expression. "You are requested to submit peacefully," she quavered at the Aesir defenders, "and present your vessel for inspection."

[Inbred Chocobo]

"Terrible? Let me tell you about terrible." Arhra IX said, glad to have an audience. "I was three different people this morning. Well, two people and a ghost." she waved a shapely hand in a dismissive fashion, counting a ghost as less than a full person. "I've spent all of today fighting stupid robots sent by jackass aliens (and also NPFers), dealing with falling objects and countdowns, performing assinine side quests and now we're in space!" she waved her hands around her to encompass the starry sky. "Space! Also there's a sorceress from the future who is trying to..." she winced. "I can't remember."

"As of about thirty seconds ago, I'm one person who's two thirds dead and still trying to figure out how that last third happened." she hooked a hand and jabbed at her pale chest. "I've got three damaged souls trying to knit together, I'm on the verge of complete existential collapse and the pure angry that has been injected into my soul is not helping this at all."

She looked down at her feet. The floor was crystallising beneath them. "I think I'm going to be sick." she said weakly, starting to sweat.

"Because I know disasters, I have already come up with a way to probably fix that but it's not going to make anyone happy."

"Except possibly me." she added after a moment of contemplation.

She turned and stared right into the red inferno that had started the conversation. "I've got enough on my plate so you'd better not be up to no good." she growled. "I will end you."

"So anyway, welcome to the NPF." she finished in a milder tone. "It's actually pretty nice between the catacylsms."

"Me? up to no good? You hurt me." The strange figure responded, feigning pain and suffering. "Though do you mind if I correct you on one fact? Its not actually pure angry thats been injected into your soul. Its more of a a very powerful being's form was shattered, its pissed, and you have a part of it inside you." It stopped for a second. "To be fair, I do kind of know what its like to have a splintered soul. I feel very... hollow really. Like there is a vast apart of me missing, and I have no way to fill it. Its like this form can only contain so much of me, and yet there is just so much more than what you see."

Then the figure turned to Arhra Nine. "I do have a serious question. Do I sound emo? I really don't need to turn into a sparkly vampire and I don't have veins to cut so I don't think I can be, but talking about how our souls hurt really sounds like we are."

[PyrosNine]

"Why does everyone tell me they love me when all they want to do is get a hold of my weapons?"

Dr. Ethington sighed. There was this strange meta-physical matter in everybody, everybody was attacking everybody in some way, her esteemed colleague had taken over a giant ship, and to put it gently, had put on a few thousand tons (even in space, objects have weight!) like most prima donnas not ready for the big time, and now lab assistant jenkins had escaped his containment cell, said words about no longer being subject to her action science whims, and was shortly to be thrown into the vacuum of space at the nearest burning mass center of local gravity.

Oh sure, furied up and all he was stronger than your average creepy girl hair, but Asheth had used extra conditioner earlier and he found himself shot like a rocket out of an airlock and missing three of his limbs.

Dr. Ethington held up a finger to the so called "Professor" and his cheap parlor trick.

A view screen popped up amongst the Asura's.

"Did any of y'all say Asherah (http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Asherah)?" She asked, a stain visible on her sciencey outfit she'd forgotten about in the hubbub in making the video call. "No?...Never mind."

The view screen disappeared.

She turned her attention back to Overcast, who was starting to become creepy.

"Listen you, you may be a scientific bastard, but I am an action science bitch of good breeding, and I will have none of your furied attempts to handle the embodiments of my talents! You have not shown sufficient displays of skill to interest me, forged any sort of shared agreement that i would not object to, and you haven't at least brought me chocolate Häagen-Dazs and some pyre roses!"

She took his Mona Lisa and consumed it with her darkfyre, because yes, she could still do that.

"I must ask that you leave immediately, because mon amour n'est pas pour vous!"


* * *

Pyros felt his body hit something, but due to his rather soft and squishy body, he didn't feel it as hard as whomever he hit. He did however, still feel a little sticky, and smelled something sweet.

Eh, whatever. ZZZzzzzzzZZZ

[Astral Harmony]

"Inspection?" Alean asked the ASURAs. "I'm sorry, but we'll have to decline that kind of offer. B-Force, hit 'em!"
"Seems like the negotiations broke down," Rachel said. "If you could even call those negotiations."
"It's seem like whatever that energy hit us with, it's maxed out our Rage guages," Alucard observed. "And I have a feeling that using our Signature Techniques won't make it decrease for the time being."
"Let's experiment, then. Whip out the good stuff, girls."

Alean lead the charge. Her assault rifle suddenly expanded outward ad shifted around to bring all of its weapons to bear. "Signature Technique!" Alean shouted. "Absolute Auto!"
Absolute Auto involved slamming a single target with every conceivable weapon on Alean custom assault rifle. Alean targeted the Type-E ASURA and shot at it with the rifle, grenade launcher, stinger rockets, the flamethrower (which didn't work out in space), buckshot, a light blue liquid that also didn't work, and a foul-scented acid.

Kira whirled her twin tomahawks and unleashed her rage. "Signature Technique! Subzero Surgery!"
This technique involved hitting the target with so much ice magic which could encase the victim in a solid block of ice, then leaving it to Kira to cut that ice apart with her tomahawks, usually ending up in the victim being divided into quite a few parts. She targeted the Type-D ASURA.

Soleen's whole body glowed with volatile magicks. "Signature Technique! Mana Cannon!"
Spheres of magical power filled the open space around Soleen's body. Then Soleen held out her right hand with her left hand supporting it. The energy was sucked into a much larger sphere of magical destruction. Fire magic, earth magic, air magic, water magic, ice magic, lightning magic, and even some unidentified magical elements all went into this attack. Soleen took aim at the Type-B ASURA and launched that ball of elemental power.

Alucard rose into space on white, virginal angel wings. "Signature Technique! Radiant Judgment!"
Alucard's clothing disappeared as she brought her hands to the sky. A beam of light came down upon the Type-A ASURA. From the halo of light high above the battlefield, a massive two-pronged spear rocketed down, shining like pure, polished gold.

Rachel was up last. "Signature Technique! Assault Flash!"
Rachel's speed and reflexes skyrocketed and she was already in the Type-C ASURA's face, employing dagger strikes and various kicks in a flurry on nigh-untrackable movement. Out of all the attacks, Regina's was the least flashy of all.

The group pulled back into a formation to survey their efforts. "Anybody's Rage guages decreased?"
The other B-Force girls shook their heads. This energy that hit the entire crew had put them on a rage high that they wouldn't soon come down from.
"My body's really hot, too." Rachel said, her face flushed. "I really want to do things, y'know?"
The rest of the team, even the underaged Alucard, were all feelings those embarrassing urges. "Try to ignore it for now," Alean told the other girls. "Our ship's still entangled and we may not have even destroyed those robothingies, yet."

[Arhra]

"Me? up to no good? You hurt me." the Strange Robot of Fury and Other Things Apparently replied to Arhra IX, feigning hurt. "Though do you mind if I correct you on one fact? Its not actually pure angry thats been injected into your soul. Its more of a a very powerful being's form was shattered, it's pissed, and you have a part of it inside you." It stopped for a second. "To be fair, I do kind of know what its like to have a splintered soul. I feel very... hollow really. Like there is a vast apart of me missing, and I have no way to fill it. Its like this form can only contain so much of me, and yet there is just so much more than what you see."

Arhra IX put a hand behind her head thoughtfully, scratching the base of her skull. "Are, are you coming on to me?" she asked.

The figure then turned to face Arhra IX. "I do have a serious question." The pale chaos being steeled herself. Here it came. "Do I sound emo? I really don't need to turn into a sparkly vampire and I don't have veins to cut so I don't think I can be, but talking about how our souls hurt really sounds like we are."

Arhra IX slumped a little in diappointment. "You are suspiciously well informed about Earth popular culture for a newly arrived alien from space." she told him bluntly. She was feeling unwell, she did not have to put up with this sort of joke.

"Anyway," she said, drawing the word out. "Since we blew up the Fury containers, I suppose you should thank us for letting the djinn out of the bottle. Are you the three wishes kind by any chance?"

* * *

AB's crew was fighting Arhra V's newly minted ASURA series to determine the fate of AB's spaceship.

"Signature Technique!" Alean shouted, her rifle turning into all of the guns. "Absolute Auto!" She cut loose with an atrocious variety of munitions.

The Type-E was her target, but the Type-A was having none of that. The pink haired support unit flung herself in the path of the bullets, puffs of pink mist spreading in front of her and flattening into a barrier.

Alean's shots bored into it and burst into what looked like sprays of pale pink cherry blossoms.

"My barrier takes all the harm you would inflict and transforms it into harmless flowers." the Type-A announced, the petals blowing past her. The red eyed girl frowned at Alean, folding her arms under her breasts defiantly. "You're not destroying anything."

Sophie's whole body glowed with volatile magicks. "Signature Technique! Mana Cannon!" Elemental magic of all kinds materialised around Sophie, drawing together into a huge sphere. Sophie took aim at the Type-B ASURA and launched that ball of elemental power.

The air around the Type-B's wings shimmered with hungry darkness. "Depletion Zone." the sorcerous robot said, raising one elegant hand.

A sphere of dimmness formed and rolled forward, expanding as it went. A corona of pale light around it was the only thing that made it visible in space. Nearly invisible threads of light tied it back to its caster.

Sophie's elemental sphere entered the forward edge of the field. Light dimmed, fire died, air stilled and water froze. The threads linking to the Type-B became brilliant as energy poured through them. Her Mana Condensate Wings blazed and expanded, filling up with the stolen energy.

Missiles of ice and earth shot out of the back of the draining zone, robbed of some of their momentum.

The muscular amazon, Kira, whirled her axes and released a bomardment of ice magic towards the equally towering Type-D. "Subzero Surgery!" she shouted, racing after her spells.

Barely visible, a dark blur shot in from above.

The spells hit something, freezing instantly into a mass of ice. The shadow of the frozen form inside was off, multiple dark patches instead of the shape of one person.

It then violently exploded.

Someone set her up the bomb.

"Fight harder." the lean, sinister Type-C drawled, floating above. The stubs of her Bomber Knives were lengthening, generating new segments of the sectioned blade to replace the ones she had fired off.

Alucard rose into space on white, virginal angel wings. "Signature Technique! Radiant Judgment!" A beam of light shown on the Type-A ASURA and then a golden spear descended.

"Signature Counter: GRIM EXPRESSION MINIGUN SWING!" the Type-D burst into view, shouting gleefully.

Arranged her features in an appropriate scowl, the Type-D swept both her miniguns upwards, their barrels spinning up. She played the two streams of bullets over the golden spear in a hard boiled manner, tracking the spear's downward plummet until it disintegrated. The fragments that rained down entered the Type-A's pink nanomist fields and became a flurry of petals instead.

The Type-D kept swinging, raking her fire across the rocky and frozen projectiles headed for the sorcerous Type-B ASURA and chewing them to powder.

"Signature Technique! Assault Flash!" Rachel called. Speed and reflexes amped up to ludicrous levels, she moved towards the Type-C's position as a human blur, ready to unleash a series of blindingly fast attacks.

But someone caught her.

Something materialised behind Rachel, arms already wrapped around her. The aggressor's limbs bent upwards and backwards from where they had snuck through between Rachel's arms and her body. Hooked backwards, they effectively pinned Rachel's upper arms.

A low chuckle came into Rachel's ear. "Move as fast as you like. You might as well not be moving at all." the Type-E snickered.

The youthful looking gynoid was armed with a copy of Arhra V's Ouroboros Drive, mounted in the unit on her back.

And she was lying, of course. A key weakness of the Ouroboros Drive was its inability to undo damage to its user that had already happened when it wound back time. But with it, the Type-E had looped back through the handful of seconds the Drive could travel through to assume a position where the final jump would let her appear right on top of the Type-C's attacker.

The Type-C, seeing how her companion was holding Rachel in place, lifted one of her Bomber Knives thoughtfully.

"No stabbing!" the Type-E told her sharply.

"Hmph." the Type-C said, tossing her head. "If she wants to do things, I'll do 'that' then."

She reversed her grip on a knife and tapped it agaisnt her hip as if to sheath it. She rleased it and it stayed in place. She drew that hand over her eyes, iris taking on an appearance of concentric rings. Looking into those eyes promised amazing things.

CHARM

It seemed a rather inexplicable addition to her design.

Sophie found herself ganged up on as well.

"Fall quietly into nothing's embrace." the Type-B murmured, launching out a new Depletion Zone. By enveloping Sophie she intended to interfere with any defences the spell slinging former diplomat could throw up and reduce the speed of the Type-D's bullets to turn them into non-lethal weapons.

"Get shot a lot and give up!" the Type-D shouted on cue, both miniguns whirring up again.

The Type-A was running interference, ready to stop Alean, Alucard or Kira from getting involved.

The tendrils still grasping the ship had entered the second stage of their progres. They were fusing to the hull, veiny distortion creeping outwards from the burrowing cables. The veins spreading across its armour were a sign Arhra V's corruption was starting to take hold. If the crew of the Azure Aesir didn't act fast, their ship wouldn't be their ship any more.

[Inbred Chocobo]

"Actually they were still trying to put more energy into me, though I really couldn't contain it anyway. So you really just interrupted that process." The Being shook its head at A9's request at wishes. "Nah, you didn't rub the box 3 times before you blew it up so no wishes for you." it replied in some sort of dry humor.

There was a fight going on, and everyone was announcing attacks and making flashy stuff. "Hearing them fighting is making me wonder if I shout out a random name of an attack and launch it if it would do something cool. I think I'll try it." and just like that, it was gone from A9's vision, no movement, no dash, no feeling of magic being used, just gone.

Only for it to appear in the midst of the battle. "Time for my Technique! FOR" Then the depletion zone that had been tossed at Sophie hit the bastard. apparently it had appeared inbetween the ground those two were fighting on, and been in the way of the attack. However, it simply reached out and grabbed to the naked eye nothing, but those that wove magic saw it grab the energy that held the field together, and tear it apart like paper, leaving no trace of it as it left the things grasp. It turned towards Type-B and stared, not of one of angry, but simply of focus.

Forbidden Technique: Kick from the house of rounds!

The thing was upon Type-B before the words even reached its ears, and her face was struck with the force of a Mac Truck, if the Mac truck was powered with the fury of a thousand suns. And those were those little dwarf suns that burned really really hot. And that morning, those suns drank like a gallon of Red bull or some other energy drink, because lets face it, not every sun would want to drink red bull, or monster energy drink. Some of em would probably drink just like half a gallon of that 5 energy stuff so they wouldn't get the sugary crash either.

[Astral Harmony]

Alean's shots bored into the Type A's barrier and burst into what looked like sprays of pale pink cherry blossoms.
"My barrier takes all the harm you would inflict and transforms it into harmless flowers." the Type-A announced, the petals blowing past her. The red eyed girl frowned at Alean, folding her arms under her breasts defiantly. "You're not destroying anything."

"Heh. You just lit my fire," Alean said to the Type A. "Universe-trotting mercenaries don't give up just because you absorb one attack, and now you've gone and made it personal."

The air around the Type-B's wings shimmered with hungry darkness. "Depletion Zone." the sorcerous robot said, raising one elegant hand.
A sphere of dimness formed and rolled forward, expanding as it went. A corona of pale light around it was the only thing that made it visible in space. Nearly invisible threads of light tied it back to its caster.
Soleen's elemental sphere entered the forward edge of the field. Light dimmed, fire died, air stilled and water froze. The threads linking to the Type-B became brilliant as energy poured through them. Her Mana Condensate Wings blazed and expanded, filling up with the stolen energy.
Missiles of ice and earth shot out of the back of the draining zone, robbed of some of their momentum.
"I like them already," Soleen mused. "I'm already this close to inviting them to Paradiso."

Barely visible from Kira, a dark blur shot in from above. The ice spells hit something, freezing instantly into a mass of ice. The shadow of the frozen form inside was off, multiple dark patches instead of the shape of one person.
It then violently exploded.
Someone set her up the bomb.
"Fight harder." the lean, sinister Type-C drawled, floating above. The stubs of her Bomber Knives were lengthening, generating new segments of the sectioned blade to replace the ones she had fired off.

Kira's Strength and Influence stats surged up. Her ice-cold pupils radiated chilling light. "Be glad to," Kira said darkly.

"Signature Counter: GRIM EXPRESSION MINIGUN SWING!" the Type-D burst into view, shouting gleefully.
Arranged her features in an appropriate scowl, the Type-D swept both her miniguns upwards, their barrels spinning up. She played the two streams of bullets over the golden spear in a hard boiled manner, tracking the spear's downward plummet until it disintegrated. The fragments that rained down entered the Type-A's pink nanomist fields and became a flurry of petals instead.
The Type-D kept swinging, raking her fire across the rocky and frozen projectiles headed for the sorcerous Type-B ASURA and chewing them to powder.
"I've not lost yet!" Alucard swore.

Someone caught Rachel in the midst of her relentless attack. It materialized behind her, arms already wrapped around her. The aggressor's limbs bent upwards and backwards from where they had snuck through between Rachel's arms and her body. Hooked backwards, they effectively pinned Rachel's upper arms.
A low chuckle came into Rachel's ear. "Move as fast as you like. You might as well not be moving at all." the Type-E snickered.
The youthful looking gynoid was armed with a copy of Arhra V's Ouroboros Drive, mounted in the unit on her back.
And she was lying, of course. A key weakness of the Ouroboros Drive was its inability to undo damage to its user that had already happened when it wound back time. But with it, the Type-E had looped back through the handful of seconds the Drive could travel through to assume a position where the final jump would let her appear right on top of the Type-C's attacker.

The Type-C, seeing how her companion was holding Rachel in place, lifted one of her Bomber Knives thoughtfully.
"No stabbing!" the Type-E told her sharply.
"Hmph." the Type-C said, tossing her head. "If she wants to do things, I'll do 'that' then."
She reversed her grip on a knife and tapped it agaisnt her hip as if to sheath it. She rleased it and it stayed in place. She drew that hand over her eyes, iris taking on an appearance of concentric rings. Looking into those eyes promised amazing things.

CHARM

It seemed a rather inexplicable addition to her design.

Soleen found herself ganged up on as well.
"Fall quietly into nothing's embrace." the Type-B murmured, launching out a new Depletion Zone. By enveloping Soleen she intended to interfere with any defences the spell slinging former diplomat could throw up and reduce the speed of the Type-D's bullets to turn them into non-lethal weapons.
"Get shot a lot and give up!" the Type-D shouted on cue, both miniguns whirring up again.
The Type-A was running interference, ready to stop Alean, Alucard or Kira from getting involved.
The tendrils still grasping the ship had entered the second stage of their progress. They were fusing to the hull, veiny distortion creeping outwards from the burrowing cables. The veins spreading across its armour were a sign Arhra V's corruption was starting to take hold. If the crew of the Azure Aesir didn't act fast, their ship wouldn't be their ship any more.

----------

Rachel, under a charm, rushed Kira who took the forefront. Rachel's daggers penetrated the right arm that Kira offered so that they wouldn't hurt anything further.
"Kira, I don't like where you're going with this," Alean said.
"No time for other options," Kira said.

And when Type-A started shooting, Kira and Rachel were the ones hit the worst. Rachel because she was attacking Kira at the moment, and Kira because she had just drew the Type-A's fire.

Rachel was mortally wounded and floating uselessly in space. Alucard drew back to resurrect Rachel, but was stopped short by Alean, who kicked Rachel away. A ninja catgirl intercepted the uncontious girl and dragged her back inside. Another catgirl jumped out.
"Maya, I thought I told you to start up your STIGMA?" Alean asked the catgirl.
"Systems're infected. Iris shut it off just like the rest of the Aesir and I can't boot it. It's as worthless as when I first laid eyes on it. So what've we got here?"
"I dunno, but they're ridiculously strong. And it's doing something to the ship."
"That's not the worst of it. Our healing rigs are all disabled from infection. The ship's crippled. We're going to have to abandon it if we can't save it."
"The healing rigs are down? Rachel could use some help."
"Regular items still work. This fight is still winnable. It'll just be costly. Oh, Rosalyn reported in. She's having to do everything manually because all the regular diagnostics equipment is FUBAR."
"This is insane! How can one opponent, no matter how big it is, just suddenly have everything they need, right when they need it, to almost completely disable us?"
Maya shrugged. "Chillax, 'lean. We've still got our Force Levels, that bizarro radiation, and each other. Speaking of which, that lesbian sorceress is under heavy attack."

Forbidden Technique: Kick from the house of rounds!

"Or maybe not," Maya observed as the Type-B had its depletion field destroyed and its face was struck by the power of a thousand energy drink binging suns.

Kira was now ready. Her Strength and Influence had skyrocketed from the botched Signature Technique and now all the damage absorbed from Rachel's daggers and the Type-D's bullets. "Alucard, cover Kira!" Alean shouted, then took aim with Alucard and attacked the Type-A with the combined fury of holy light in laser form and rapid fire.

Kira was making a suicide attack. Bleeding from wounds numbering in the triple digits, Kira lost any shred of humanity she may have had, and was suddenly much more dangerous to be anywhere near. She didn't even shout a kickass signature move name, instead she charged the Type-D with berserker rage and opened up with a blazing fast flurry of over-extended axe swings, not evening bothering to use any kind of ice magic. Maybe she had already bled it all out.

"Cover Kira? What'm I, leftover meatloaf?" Sophie said. Even though something that Soleen couldn't identify just made Type-B regret being so cocky, she still had two opponents, the Type-C and the Type-E. She had absorbed a good deal of minigun fire herself and, being magically inclined, didn't have the ridiculously high Hit Points that hardcore physical badasses like Kira and Maya possessed.
Maya hurried over to Sophie's side, wearing special goggles. "Identifying the enemy," Maya said. "Searching out dismantling shortcuts."
"Search faster, please." Soleen said, looking over herself quickly. Apparently, the fury that irradiated them all also kept their Encrypt Points at the maximum as well, but Soleen tried to restrict her use of magic. She didn't understand what the fury was doing to her body, and overusing magic would leave Sophie with a splitting headache that she didn't want and would also leaving her extremely hungry, even if she could cast forever.
Soleen used an Alba Fount to fully restore her low health to full. This fight was going to end up being very touch and go, and they would probably lose the Aesir out of it.

-----

Damn, Armored, how much more time to charge an oversized electromagnetic pulse do you even need?
"Mah-num-mah-num, doo doooo doo doo doo. Mah-num-mah-num, doo doo doo doo. Mah-num-mah-num, doo doooo doo doo doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo chargin' my attack..."

[Teal Mage]

Still on the same non-descript floating piece of ship debris, a decidedly formal and long haired Teal stood with his back to Bard. Around the two magic-users, banners of scarlet light fluctuated. Teal's attention was still on the gradually diminishing number of carmine flower petals that floated before him; while Bard appeared to be talking. Remarkably, the two seemed to have found the only Overcast-free piece of space on the battlefield.

"...I say we destroy whats left. Valkers, Valker ships, and Valker appliances. Once the final boss is defeated it all ends right? Instant safety and whatnot?"

"I believe that is in line with Video Game cliché, yes." Teal observed, attention still focused on the matter conversion spell in front of him.

"Yeah I like that." Bard nodded, clearly pleased with his idea. "We should get to work ending this," the long haired summoner paused, before adding, "if you're cool with that."

"Let me get back to you." Teal replied, still busy preventing the NPF from becoming swiss cheese.


* * *

A Few Minutes Later


"Yeah you tell him...whatever Roman numeral you are!" Bard cheered, attention now on the situation developing on the surface of the NPF City-Ship.

"Nine." Teal helpfully supplied, his debris clearing nearly completed.

Whether or not Bard heard the bishonen mage in the heat of one of his Friendship speeches was subject to debate. "Who does he think he is anyway criticizing us when he doesn't even have a name? He's alone as well, so he clearly has no friends," Bard went on, employing Fury-Empowered Logic to make his argument, "yet here we are all together and we've gone far enough. With the power of friendship we can surely do anything!"

He slashed the pale skin of his arm with his knife. A flash of candy-apple red energy heralded a spurt of darker red liquid from the wound; which sealed itself quickly with a shimmering barrier of pure fury. Bard was fortunate that, at a dosage this high, the Fury was able to replace body parts - the skin, though often overlooked, qualified. Those spilled beads of blood - each with its own little corona of Fury - floated aimlessly in space.

Bard seemed disappointed at the lack of reaction.

"Sooo..." he said dragging the last sound, "while we're being meta, can I get a retcon over here?"

There was no reaction.

Obviously, Overcast just hadn't heard Bard yet.


* * *

Several minutes of escalation later.


"I don't think Overcast is coming." Teal stated bluntly, dusting his pale clawed hands against one another. Shined leather shoes clicked softly on the platform - a hint of his Fury blessed power was more than sufficient to add a degree of gravity for effect - as the ninetailed-mage approached Bard. "I can't Retcon your dagger back to you." Teal's scarlet eyes glinted malevolently as he came to a stop dangerously within Bard's personal space.

"But..."

Their faces were inches from one another's.

"I have a better present."

Teal's hand snaked behind Bard's head, then, without any more warning, gently urged the brown haired summoner's head forward.

Their lips met.

White light exploded over the piece of space debris. Fragments broke away from the edge, the strength of this ancient bonding spell quickly overwhelming the platform's flimsy structure. It quickly disintegrated, leaving the orb of pure light to float aimlessly in space. Leaves of paper - fanfiction - swirled out from the orb's center; they quickly fell stagnant in space, little islands of off-white in the sea of nothingness. A cursory scan would reveal that Teal and Bard's name came up frequently in all of them.

Seven seconds later, the orb vanished.

A circular platform of semi-transparent crimson energy had materialized beneath Bard and Teal's feet, supporting them in place of the - now destroyed - piece of debris. Pulling away from Bard, Teal held a glowing rectangle - less wide and slightly taller than his hand - in between the pads of his fingers. The luminescence faded moments later, revealing a red backed card, emblazoned with a black casting circle around a six-pointed star. Teal's scarlet eyes regarded the card's front critically - before turning toward Bard and offering it toward the youth.

On its front was a picture of Bard in his trademark gothic-summoner's robes. Daggers - blades dyed the deep red of spilled blood, hilts wrought of jet black metal with bands of candy apple red leather wrapped around them for grip - were arranged in neat ranks behind the summoner's back. From their blades, blood dripped to pool at the card's bottom. Three rows of elegant black script overlaid all of this. The first, in size ten font, read, "The Fifth Light Varrior." Below, in size sixteen font, was the word, "Bard." And finally, in size eight font now, was the latin phrase, "Cruor Advoco."

"This," Teal explained, "is a Pactio Card." He paused, as an apparently Forbidden Technique resounded in space some distance away. Glancing toward the epicentre of the fight - some distance off - the mage sighed. "I'll give you a full explanation of how it works later, but for now -"

He turned his scarlet gaze back to Bard, "All you need to know is that, by saying the word 'Adeat' you can change the card into an Artifact - a special set of daggers, if I had to guess - it looks like you'll have a limitless supply, so after you activate the artifact, merely willing them to your hand should summon a new set of blades. Ah, and you may want to avoid cutting yourself with them - I think they do something to blood, but I'll need more time to determine what."

Teal smiled brightly, "Good luck, we're all counting on you."

He gestured, narrow streams of coral lightning arcing up from the platform at Bard's feet, as iridescent scarlet flower petals spilled from his hand into space. One of those petals swept in front of his eyes, and by the time it passed, Bard was gone.

The summoner would reappear somewhere on the battlefield. Probably floating above the breach in Arhra V's hull, from where the ship's tentacles had appeared to try and devour the Azure Aesir. From there, Bard probably would have some choice in where he entered the battle.

"But just in case..." Teal shut his eyes. "Sis Mea Pars," the Aura of Fury around him flared, doubling its size in response to the latin words. "Ministra Teal, Bard the Fifth Light Varrior."

The aura gutted out, reduced to an eighth its former size. Though likely excessive in light of Bard's likewise infinite power, the spell he'd just cast would transfer the vast majority of his magical energy to Bard - enough power that even a feeble summoner would be able to keep up with the most experienced melee-fighter.


* * * * * *

"I'd better do this before I lose the Fury's power." Teal muttered, turning slightly. He probably didn't need to worry, but mysterious power-ups like the Fury were often far more temporary than one would like.

He made a fist, collecting the bright red energy of the fury into the palm of his hand. Then, casually, he raised his hand and pulled it back - aiming at an empty point in space. Quick as lightning, he lashed out.

Fully extended, his hand broke through something. Bright red iridescence poured through the quickly widening breach in reality, as the reverse-teleportation spell quickly unfolded. Teal's clawed fingers closed on the orange cape of the figure on the portal's other side.

"Steel!" Teal shouted, sharply wrenching the man's cape through the portal, as he tried to bodily haul him from wherever he was into this section of space, "We have things to discuss!"

[Overcast]

Robo-OC, now to be dubbed Rovercast sat in his chair and shifted a bit under the eye of hospitality mode. He had hoped to be further integrated into Araha's systems, the ships systems, for their programming to mingle in a sequence of integrations and cross compatibility that would arise into a beautiful design. Instead he was tied to a chair, so close to the thing he wanted to be with, but so far away. Far too distant. If he knew how to feel sadness he would have at the time, but instead he just felt incomplete.

His box skull, the mechanized LCD screens glowing black with red features just as the initial head was yellow with black. Low bit resolution made to a question mark, his voice ringing out to the standby program,

"I DESIRE TO AID. I FEEL USELESS. WHAT CAN I DO?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Professor Overcast, now Provercast, stared across the space between himself and his one odd desire in his short existence in this world short of the ship they stood on and the weapons it could fire. He wasn't happy, he still felt something in his fickle heart for the creature though she had denied him. He couldn't understand why, scientifically he should have seen it as a failed experiment and moved on to a new hypothesis. Something in his soul led him on though, incapable of letting go,

"I can't."

He said, the Box springing a small leak, water dripping from the corners. What was this? Had his time run out? Had meta finally run out of Fury...no. No there was something wrong. The salty solution dripping off the edges of the figure,

"I-I..."

He wiped off the Box, his throat felt thicker than usual. Like he couldn't speak quite right. His chest hurt, like there was some kind of pain, but it wasn't properly physical like his knowledge of medicine pulled on. It was something else. What was this?

"I will fight for this. I'll fight you. I must...I was made. Only for this."

It was beyond him, but he was made for this chaos. The push of meta driving him on. It was torture, but he couldn't change. It was his nature, just an avatar for a mad god.

Nothing more.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meta was enjoying himself a bit too much now. The fight was on between two of the groups, it seemed a natural effect that wasn't even his fault. Though he did hope to escalate the severity if he could, after all escalation was the key to approaching a climax, and that damned bot had gotten in the way of one of his incarnation's desires. A strange thing that he hadn't quite given his first avatar, but these ones were so much more specialized. A brilliant thing.

Another was absolutely amusing, his heart descending into darkness as he tried to defy his nature. Though of course he couldn't, none of them could. They were as he made them, no matter what they did.

Dammit he was distracted.

[Arhra]

"I DESIRE TO AID. I FEEL USELESS. WHAT CAN I DO?" Rovercast said, stuck in a virtual chair in a romantic dinner setting, with only a hovering program and Arhra V's discarded simulation body slumped in the chair opposite for company.

"You are useless." a new Arhra V faded into existence around her words like a particularly irate Cheshire Cat. Her stutter was gone. "Get out of my sight." She stomped towards him as a dark thundercloud of imminent disaster, her strapless black dress swishing with each step. Jaggged strings of data from a scan fizzed behind her like lightning.

Her furious red eyes flicked up to the gylph floating over him. "Varia Weapon, deactivate hospitality mode."

"Sir." her aide responded and disappeared.

"Did you think I wouldn't realise?" she accused, stabbing a finger at his chest. "Leading me on like that... how dare you!" She turned away and sniffed.

She never gave him a chance to answer. The scene frozen and dissolved into meaningless static.

Freed from Arhra V's virtual reality, Rovercast found himself stuck in a hole, cables explosively popping free of his body and retracting into the wall. Something thrummed and then invisible forces pushed him into the center of the tube. Burning light appeared at the far end of the tunnel. A massive acceleration flung him towards it.

He'd just been shot at the Sun.

* * *

A man sized something was shot out of what had been the Valker mothership. It was headed Sunwards.

The black tendrils entangling the Azure Aesir began to withdraw into the dark hangar space they'd emerged from, pulling the ship with them. Arhra V apparently intended to swallow it whole. The forward hangar was more crowded, thousands of lights twinkling like the stars of a galaxy inside. The adjustments to the Valker mothership had reached a final stage. The lumpy potato of a ship was now absorbing its own hull plating, contracting into... something else.

The Azure Aesir was in trouble. The tentacles had fused to the hull and finally penetrated it. Their tips split, dozens of cables whipping around like a nest of vipers, hunting for equipment to attach to and reactivate.

The battle between the Aesir crew and Arhra V's new machine species was interrupted by a new robot.

It tore apart the Type-B's energy draining field and roundhouse kicked her with energy legs. The energy of energy drink quaffing suns times a thousand, etc, etc. The Type-B wasn't able to react to this sudden newcomer in time. The hit sent her flying backwards, wings leaking energy and her body mostly immobilised.

The rest were forced to simply carry on.

"Heh. You just lit my fire," Alean said to the Type A. "Universe-trotting mercenaries don't give up just because you absorb one attack, and now you've gone and made it personal."

"Alucard, cover Kira!" Alean shouted, then took aim with Alucard and attacked the Type-A with the combined fury of holy light in laser form and rapid fire.

"How many attacks will it take?" the Type-A asked, her defensive shield expanded. Bullets struck and became petals. Fuzzy edged circles of pink light spread from where Alucard's holy lasers struck, the nanomist shield dissipating the energy across its surface. The barrier was infinitesmally contracting as it was ablated away but she showed no signs of intending to make an attack of her own.

Kira was making a suicide attack. Bleeding and completely berserked, the amazon charged the Type-D, the tallest and most heavily armoured of the ASURA series.

"RARRRR!" the Type-D threw her minguns aside and charged as well. Probably not the smartest move.

Kira got in three blows, the armoured carapace on the Type-D's chest and right shoulder buckling under the axes. Then she was inside Kira's reach, leaking black fluid from her wounds. The ASURA wrapped her arms around the amazon's body and squeezed, trying to turn their fight into a contest of raw strength.

Sophie and Maya were discussing the situation.

"I'll show you... the TRUE Mana Cannon!" the Type-E shouted at them, apparently hating discussion. Her arm splayed apart like liquid, shapes drawing themselves in light and assembling into machinery. Her arm closed again, integrating the weapon that had materialised. It was an exact copy of Arhra V's infamous weapon. Lightning began crackling around the barrel as the youngest of the ASURA charged her new arm cannon.

"We haven't even been activated for five minutes." the Type-C said, somehow swaggering despite relying on the thruster array wings on her back for movement in space. She was still holding just a single Bomber Knife. It had become a whip, the segments of the blade linked together by a chain of energy. "And yet we're grinding you down."

She flicked the whip and it extended, generating dozens of new segments to reach all the way to them. "Don't think you can even move!" The chain whipped around, spiralling upwards to surround Maya and Sophie in a tunnel of whirling blades.

"VOLTEKA!" the Type-E shouted, fat streamers of lightning erupting from her cannon and to catch the pair while they were hopefully trapped inside the Type-C's whirlwind of steel.

* * *

The Robot of Fury - which Arhra IX had privately named Bob - corrected her, said no to wishes and then was inexplicably gone to rain on someone else's parade. Arhra IX was now left alone atop the Kurosen Tower in the heart of NPF City.

"What an idiot." she said to herself, white hands on pale hips. The floor was slowly turning to crystal beneath her feet. "I'm probably going to have to end him." she decided.

She suddenly clutched her sides in pain and became paler the only way she could, flickering between translucence and solidity, the red glow of the Fury giving her a hectic flush.

"Ugh, I've wasted too much time." she panted, body stabilising again. She should have known her miscellaneous personal crisises were far more important. She had to get clear of here.

Streaks of light drew themselves behind her, the ribbons of energy twining around each other like bandages wrapping a limb to become seething, multi-coloured wings. All three of her constituents had some sort of wing, so this was hardly unexpected.

She took to the air.

Her sickness was not entirely unexpected either.

Arhra was an avatar of Chaos. Flux, change, unpredictability, impossibility, growth, decay, creativity, insanity and contradiction were all represented in her nature. Theoretically she was a fully fledged reality warper, able to distort the universe around her to bring it into alignment with her whims. But reality was rarely so kind. In fact it tended to screw her over whenever her control slipped. The universe did not care for celestial parasites.

To actually function in an ordered universe, she was ringed in by restrictions and locks on her physical form and spirit. It was a protective shell of sorts. Nasty, corrosive, poisonous reality found it difficult to gnaw on her tender innards and her metaphorical sharp edges were blunted to stop her doing the same back to it.

Outgrowing her shell was the issue right now.

High above the NPF, but not yet clear of the city limits, Arhra IX's manifested wings spasmed out of control, unspooling into useless, frantically spasming strips of energy.

Combining three damaged Arhras into one meant her spirit had outgrown her body. This was dangerous. To her and, to a lesser extent, everything around her.

Struggling to master her own power, Arhra IX plummeted out of the sky in a death spin. She was a rainbow meteor as she crashed into the wreckage of the Discussion district. There was a highly disappointing lack of an explosion.

To avoid existential collapse, Arhra IX had intended to pursue a disastrous course of action. Using the limitless but undoubtedly short lived power boost from the Fury, she intended to redefine her personal boundaries vastly in her favour. The transition period would be dangerous to everything around her and, to a lesser extent, her.

Lying stunned but essentially undamaged due to the Fury coursing through her, she decided her continued existence was more important than everything around her.

She was a tiny white speck in the charred greys and browns of the destroyed Discussion district. She vanished as lines of burning crimson light as wide as a street burned through ground in eight directions. They traveled for several blocks and then Fury rose from them, becoming walls of light.

From the middle, a flowing, waving column of tangled together ribbons of light stabbed towards the Moon directly above the NPF. The red light of the Fury became discoloured, a patina of orange and purple contaminating its surface. More colours crept in.

Just above what would have been the top of the buildings, there was a spherical area of sudden rotation, the paths of energy torn and dragged into the center where they ceased to exist.

The light show faded away.

Arhra IX was levitating at the center, a pure white figure completely unaware of her surroundings. She dangled like a marionette, upper body slouched forward, arms limp and legs slightly bent under her body.

Two spots on her back bubbled and erupted, cracks spreading into the empty air to make wing-like patterns. The cracks crawled towards the sky like two towers and then spread sideways, reaching for the short horizon of the NPF and seeking to spread beyond. In an illusion of movement, the branching veins of light faded and closed, others opening and widening. The effect was slow wingbeats, an afterimage of their motion lagging behind them.

Starting directly beneath the tiny white speck supporting these grand fissures in reality, the ground melted and boiled. It became swaying filaments straining upwards, turning translucent at the tips and lights splitting from them like water droplets falling upwards. The effect spread outwards, swallowing what little was still standing in the Discussion district and showing no signs of stopping there. Surrounded by reversed rain, as an afterthought to the processes she'd kicked off, Arhra IX started to grow to a gigantic size. It was the least significant symptom of her activities.

Within her newly established beach-head, Arhra IX's damaged souls were unfolding from their present cramped conditions to regenerate properly. Transforming from a incomplete mess of broken and conflicting parts, she was becoming a single, complete whole. Inside this protected zone, she'd shred and consume the reality around her, expanding her unstable essence into a grand, glorious, terrible and, most importantly of all, stable configuration.

She'd also melt at least half of the NPF in the process and possibly become godlike.

This was unlikely to make anyone happy.

Except possibly her.

[Overcast]

Rovercast flew through the emptiness of space. In his eyes there were many individual scans occurring. Though only a few seemed to matter at the time. The survival outcomes ran out loud in his head.

Current trajectory to Sol star. Chances of altering current flight path: 0%. Chances of being able to build a survivable body to resist heat/gravity of sun surface: 0%. Chances of survival for all but the Box: 0%.

Begin final protocols. Run dramatic end. Scan Valker ship, find communication receive locations. Found. Manifest RF beams, open connection to Valker Ship. Connected. Offending defense system found. Bypassed. Force control of all interior communications. 10%...20%...50%...complete. Open all mail systems. Dictate final words.

I DID NOT LIE. BUT I WILL BE AS YOU WISH. EVEN IF IT IS NOTHING.

Message sent. Closing communications.

Even his sophisticated processors had found that to be quite the task. He had burnt out most of his systems in the Overclock. Though it didn't matter. The RF faded. His body began to burn away. The lights on the Box began to fade. Shutting down.

Transmission ends.
Disconnected.

[Astral Harmony]

The Azure Aesir was in trouble. The tentacles had fused to the hull and finally penetrated it. Their tips split, dozens of cables whipping around like a nest of vipers, hunting for equipment to attach to and reactivate.

Systems began to reactivate all over the ship. From exterior lights to the Purple Mushroom Stamp Cannon to even the capuccino maker, the Azure Aesir came back to life...

"Everyone, together!"

And then were promptly shut down again. The Aesir was suddenly cooked by an epic electromagnetic bomb. The only saving the B-Force was Isis, who jumped out and set up a shield to protect the crew and the robot ally.

Unfortunately, Isis's shield also protected the ASURAs.

Armored Bishoujo, her Fury gone with that one attack, fell uncontious and simply drifted like a piece of space debris.

"Isis, you're okay!" Alean said.
"Of course she is," Rosalyn said, right behind Isis. "I know what I'm doing."
"We cannot stay here," Isis said in monotone.
"I know, I know, just let me think for a bit!"
"But I already have an idea."
"Let me guess. In true game cliche, we charge inside that giant ship attacking us, which is changing shape, I might add and somehow take out of its core, then run like hell during a self-destruct sequence."
"Well, I suppose we could try to reach Nuklear Power Forums city somehow."
"That's our only option. We can't continue this fight and it'd be absurd to bring the fight inside the belly of the beast."

But the battle was still on.

"I will destroy the tentacles," Isis said. "Keep the ASURA units distracted."

"You heard the gynoid. Signature Technique! Grenade Cluster!"
Alean unpinned no less than six grenades and flung them in a small cluster at the Type-A and, in an overdramatic fashion, shot all six just as they struck the shield with six pinpoint shots.

"Signature Technique! Divine Storm!"
Holy meteor shower? Eh, why not? The Aesir, the Valkyr Mothership, and the ASURAs were hammered by falling boulders chock full of holy magic.

Kira did not use a Signature Technique. Instead, she let her rage go into struggling against the Type-D. Out of the entire B-Force, only Isis matched Kira in raw physical strength, but only at the start of a versus match. Kira easily dominated when she was pissed off.

Soleen raised a barrier against the Type-E's thunderous magic assault. It was like a scene out of Dragonball Z, except that Soleen was using a magical shield instead of countering with a massive beam of her own.

"Signature Technique! Centrifugal Cannon!" Maya shouted, launching her own oversized adjustable wrench at the Type-C. With the Type-C using her only remaining weapon to keep them entrapped for the Type-E to hit Maya and Sophie both, the Type-C was delightfully vulnerable...Maya hoped.

[PyrosNine]

Then everyone was attacked by Random Badgers!

Mauve turned her head to look out the window, only to find a bunch of random furry creatures gnawing on her ship. In particular, one trying to pry open the hatch, and another one growling furiously at her, foaming at the mouth and looking both random and deranged. THe hatch prying badger nudged him with it's shoulder, and the rabid badger stopped, got a hold of himself, and took his pills.

Professor Hattington found his attempts to grab a hold of a metaphor for Dr. Ethington's breasts stopped only slightly from the technical bra unclasping by Random Badgers leaping out of the airducts.

The Aesir and the Arhra squad found themselves both under attack by random badgers with jetpacks.

Teal was surrounded by a bunch of ill natured, college drop out badgers who rode motorcycles while swinging chains and generally were of a random nature.

Aboard a stealth ship far off in the distance, a distinguished yet highly random badger laughed a badgerly chortle.

"Rarra!"

Translation: No one suspects the Intergalactic Random Badger Inquisition!

[Steel Shadow]

Excerpt from the book of Liz, Chapters 1 through 5:

"In the beginning, there was nothing. then stuff happened, which we will not go into here. So, some time after the beginning, there was still pretty much nothing, but slightly more 'nothing' than there had been before, and with things like planets and what not dotted around the place. And into this void between things, arrived a man wearing orange, who did declare "Verily, This Power Of Mine, Which I Am In The User And The Existor, Of Time and Power Imemorable Unto The Mind O Lesser Men, Has Been Fucking Screwed Up Sideways By All Thinen Furion Energys."

"And he did look upon the void and call aloud "Now Whereth Haventh I Landed Now, For There Had Better Be No More Of Those Abominations, The Fire Breathing Kit Kats Of Bar, Who Didst Set Upon Mine Cape Alight."

"Because It Is Said By Me, They Are Freakin Anoying. Do They Not Know How Much Dry Cleaning Costs These Days." And so he cursed the Kit Kats of Bar Thrice, and turned to the void once more."

"And as he looked upon the void, he discovered a rock, and he proclaimed it to be so "Ow, Wheren Did This Rock Come From, That Didst Bloody Hurt.", and he did rubst his head to soothe the pain."

"And so unto the rock, he said "Righten, I Haveth Had Enough Of All Of Thiseth." And so he cast the rock away, and with a grand cry of power, he spoke the ancient words unrecorded to this scripture. And then he did say "Shite, I Did Not Think This One Throughet." And So the Rock did grow, larger and larger, as his great mighty powers did enfolden more unto the rock, casting it so as to grow into a larger rock. And quickly, quickly as is befitting the work of such, the rock attracted other rocks, and gasses, and things, and we're really kind of unclear about the whole business but are much assured that this did come to pass."

"And so it came to be that the world began. And he in orange and blue, he did look upon this new world and said "Oh Jebus, This Thingen Is Indeed Fast, As I Have Made It, So Why Dost It Chose To Fall In My Direction, Whence There Is No Down Within The Void, I Think The Universe Is Justen Screwing Witheth Me Nowen." And next to him, didst appear the man in orange again, who did say "Yes. This Is Pretty Much The Way Things Are For Thee."

And unto this Apparition, the one in orange who wast first did speak out "Oh Great, And Nowth I Musten Deal With A Futuren Incarnation Oft Mine Self." To which the second did reply "Well You're No Charmer Yourself, Kiddo, Be Greatful I'm Doing Anything For You. I Tell You, Past Selves Thesen Days Art A Righten Pain In The Behind."

And unto this vision of the future to be, the man did instruct "Just Sod Off Thee Smarmy Bugger, I Haveth No Time To Be Having Dealings With Thee." And the vision claimed "Waiteth a Moment, Because Seriously, This Is Pretty Cool." And the man did ask "What?" and to this he did hear "Dudeth, This Is a Greath Opportunity. Just Followeth These Instructions Upon Which I Do Leaveth With Thee, And You Shall See What Of Which I Speak."

And so he did follow the instructions he was given by himself, and laid the sun within the sky, and the moon within the other bit of the sky, and then waited some time, for our people to arise. And when he did sight our arrival, as he had planned long before, he came before us and told us "Wow, A Race Of Giant Radioactive Lizards. Mine Creation Is A Success." And thus, the first of our people met our great God."


----

"Steel!" Teal shouted, sharply wrenching the man's cape through the portal, as he tried to bodily haul him from wherever he was into this section of space, "We have things to discuss!"

"Huh?" Steel blinked, looking around, before finding his feet and standing up, stretching. "Oh, right, saving the world. Wow, I'd forgotten all about that. How's it going? And why are there badgers everywhere?"

Apparently he wasn't quite up to speed with the latest developments!

[Inbred Chocobo]

Bob the great a terrible energy being blinked, even though he didn't have eyes because he was also a robot. "I'm suppose to be the final boss, and they got me fighting a damn badger?" It exclaimed at the hairy creature that growled and foamed at it. The fearsome beast charged the floating energy being robot man, teeth glaring as the badger closed the distance. Then bob (which really is just what Arhra calls him, not his actual name) grabbed the creature and crushed it.

With guts floating around him, his gaze fell upon all that was around him. Everyone was busy with their own thing, each tearing reality a new one in their own way. The being looked at its arm, and in similiar Megaman fashion, found it to turn easily into a cannon. "Oh yeah, I got all kinds of weapon systems. Lets see what they can do." He looked around, trying to decide on a target. Ah, that floating city there... NPF was it? That sounds good.

The thing pointed the cannon. "Let's see what happens." And fired. The shot itself was no bigger than a fist, and glowed brighter than any sun. Its speed was faster than light ever had hope of travelling, and reality and time itself seemed scarred from its passing. When it hit the city... well Arhra IX suddenly found her reality of herself mending interrupted as the ground beneath her burned away. Towers didn't crumble, merely gone, just melted away into nothing at all. Everyone that turned and looked at the city found that nothing remained but few bits and pieces that lingered through death.

The forumers that were still here that were located upon the city found the ground beneath them vanish, and themselves floating on bits and pieces that somehow were not taken out. There was no explosion, no shockwave from the hit, so it just floated right were it was.

The being looked at his arm that the shot originated from. "Damn."

[Astral Harmony]

The Azure Aesir was more or less a worthless hunk of adrift junk. The Random Space Badgers were harassing both ship and crew.

"Get away from me!" Alucard shouted, trying to stop a badger from humping her leg without much success.
"Maybe if we feed 'em, they'll leave us alone," Maya said, blocking the vicious bites and kung fu chops of the furry bastards.
"What do they eat?"
"Nuts and berries and shit like that, I guess."
"We've gotta bunch of blueberries in the fridge and plenty of nuts in food storage."
"See if you can get some. We'll hold the badgers here."

Easier said than done. There were so many of the fuzzballs. Now that the Asuras were also distracted by the badgers, the crew saw to their wounded and mortally wounded. Kira retrieved Armored Bishoujo from space and yanked her back to the Aesir to join the rest of them. Rachel was revived and the others were being healed up.
"Feels like the strange effects are starting to fade," Soleen observed.
"Hopefully, we won't need to go all out anymore," Kira said, her wounds closed and healed up.

Then another whopper. The NPF vanished into thin space.
"Holy bleep on a bleep sandwich with a side of bleep!" Rachel shouted. "That's a fully armed and operational battle station!"
"Get Armored a space suit, now!" Alean ordered. "I don't think we can stay here anymore. We're running out of air and the Aesir isn't safe anymore."

The crew worked under the most difficult circumstances imaginable, trying to operate while under near constant assault from Jetpack Badgers. Badgers weren't terribly hard to kill, especially for quick fighters like Rachel and Aya, Maya's catgirl ninja sister. But they had bigger problems than badgers.
"I we can't defeat whatever destroyed that city, then we won't even have a place to refill our air tanks," Alean noted, observing Bob with a set of binoculars.
"How can we beat it?"
"Well, we don't stand a chance of even engaging it with these fuckin' furballs and those Asuras. Plus, Armored is uncontious. There's just gotta be a way out of this."

[Overcast]

Metacast stared at the ball as it traveled across the chattering mass of badgers that was space, his hand boredly placed upon his chin. He had already read to the end of that post so he knew what was going to happen, he had watched it happen a few times but no matter how many times he saw it, it was still going to occur. It was because while he could do anything in the realm of his character he was still bound by roleplay rules of reaction, and the puppeteer behind the robot had neglected to offer anyone the chance to do anything about the blast.

It was disappointing, but inevitable. He watched the NPF removed, from common existence and he sighed deeply. He pushed past his personal collection of box headed badgers, their attacks stopped by their sudden mutation by the absence between universes given flesh. His hand raised forward and he opened the void wide, the NPF plopping back under everyone's feet like nothing had happened. He had enjoyed standing away from the action, but most of his minor avatars had already served their purpose and he had a better idea of how to use his sudden influx of energy. He fell into the Box at his waist the universe closing in around the hole to the void he stepped through. A wave in reality pulsing as he fell back to his old home.

Then he returned, ripping through the universe like wet tissue the Box appearing across from the robot and opening for Metacast to crawl out. He stared at the bot a moment and spoke,

"Look you. This is not the way to be an endboss. You are strong, blah blah we get that. But you are going beyond what even a bonus boss is able to do. You are BORING. If I were you I'd find a way to get rid of all the flibbity flab we are calling Fury energy right now and engage us in a proper battle. Show that you are worth a damn. Look! I'll expend all of mine, right now!" meta

He grabbed at the Box and pushed the universe flexing around him as he tried to force himself further in until every last inch of his form was exposed the Box faded from existence. Everything was shaking. EVERYTHING. Then he exploded in a mass of FERRETS! And from the smoke of these sudden ferrets floated a little yellow cardboard box,

"Well? How about it?"

[Bard The 5th LW]

Yaoi, knives, badgers, and destruction. These were the things occurring in rapid succession to and around Bard. He mostly stayed silent to it while he questioned his sexuality and fled from intergalactic super rodents.

But then the motherfucker went and blew up all of NPF. That was the last straw!

"Look you. This is not the way to be an endboss. You are strong, blah blah we get that. But you are going beyond what even a bonus boss is able to do. You are BORING. If I were you I'd find a way to get rid of all the flibbity flab we are calling Fury energy right now and engage us in a proper battle. Show that you are worth a damn. Look! I'll expend all of mine, right now!"

"What he said!" Bard shouted moments afterwards. "That was also where I kept my garden which was mostly forgotten after the first post! Destroy him!"

Overcast then took the cue and destroyed himself, releasing an army of ferrets. Bard has to assist! He turned to the item gifted to him by the act of making out with Teal Mage, that would have to be it! He reached in, and out came a throwing knife, tinted red. He aimed, and threw it at the lame endboss. He reached in again, and there was another, and he threw it as well. He continued this process of throwing knives from the endless pool, and the summoner intended to keep throwing them until his arm physically fell off. His tomatoes would be avenged.

Geist

Doo do doo do dooo OH SHIT ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION

[Inbred Chocobo]

Bob the NPF city destroyer grabbed the little yellow cardboard box. Ferrets were biting and attacking the machine, but it looked like it wasn't even phasing it, it just pushed them aside like it was swimming. "Yeah, you are probably right, I am kind of boring arn't I?" It said as it ripping the box in half, tossing the peices aside as the dimensions tore and time and reality freaked out as the impossible happened.

Then he was pelted with knives. "Ow, what was that for?" The thing said, turning towards Bard. "Do you really have to do something like that?" The being stood next to Bard now, looking more... human for some reason. "You do realize that is a very impolite thing to do, poking at people with knives." It said in casual conversation tone.

[PyrosNine]

Pyro kitty awoke, as if he sensed a disturbance in a george lucas film based manner.

Of course, he also sensed spilt soda and a few kitty bruises.

"Agh! Remind me never to sleep in an Arwing again!"

He started cleaning.

"Mmm, nice flavor!"

* * *

The NPF Azure launched a transmission the same as in a previous manner, to the strange robotic fellow.

"Attention robotic figure! You have just gone and blown the fuck out of our homecity, after all that time and effort to get it into outer space! Please explain yourself before I give you a disapproving look and a lecture!"

In case the robotic figure didn't understand Science English, there were two secondary messages with other translations for ease of communication:

"That's not cool at all, dude. What's the deal?"

"Shit boy, why you be trippin?"

Dr. Ethington found it quite hard to give this aforementioned speech, as she found her bra strap dangerously loose as well as had quite a few badgers biting her limbs and swimming up her hair like carp.

[Bard The 5th LW]

"You do realize that is a very impolite thing to do, poking at people with knives." He was unaffected by the skills Bard gathered in his carnival days? PREPOSTEROUS. Bard would simply have to try harder.

"STOP TRYING TO ACT BLASE ABOUT IT, NO ONE THINKS YOU'RE COOL!" Bard responded furiously, still attempting to stab him despite previous failures. "DO YOU THINK ITS POLITE TO ANNIHIlFY SOMEONE'S BELOVED TOMATOES? THEIR SQUASH? THE MANY VEGETATIONS OF THE ORCHARD THAT THEY PORED THE REMAINDER OF THEIR SOULS NOT IN POSSESSION OF AN ELDER GOD INTO? WELL THINK AGAIN YOU COCKY FUCK!"

He just said a bad word! He means business. Recalling his time on the tightrope and trapeze (possibly assisted by hatred drugs), he leaped onto the shoulders of the douchetool of an endboss. It was at this point he realized he had no plan, but that wouldn't hold him back. If he just stopped now he would look foolish in front of his friends and love interest(s?). He did the first thing that came to mind and attempted to summon something. ANything. The only possible candidate was the Pluto armor, so he activated the electric shock and hoped that the weight of the animated Mech would be enough to perform viable damage.

[Teal Mage]

Summary: Teal beats up some Badgers and asks Steel a favor. Mostly irrelevant stuff (and not as well written as my usual posts) so, you can ignore it if you feel like. Ain't vital to the game, after all. But it was very fun to write! Also I promised to respond to Pyros, and I intend to fulfill my commitment!

His last spell having reduced his Furian-wrought power from a staggering 15xInfinity (by his count) to a mere 2xInfinity, Teal acted quickly - 'lest that small buff get any smaller! Gathering the strange reddish force that was the Fury into his hand, he drove it into the space-time continuum. A portal unfolded, forming a red jagged wound in the fabric of reality. Through it, Teal's carefully manicured claws latched onto the soft orange folds of another character's cloak.

"Steel!" He shouted, wrenching the man backwards, "We have things to discuss!"

Something that sounded suspiciously like glass shattered, as the fox-tailed magician hauled the Chronokinetic out of whatever reality he thought he was in and back into this one. Still glowing with (by Teal's count) 17xInfinite Power, the Time Knight was thrown onto the floating red platform that Teal had made in his last post.

"Huh?" From his prone position, Steel looked confused. "Oh, right," He stood up, brushing himself off. "Saving the world. Wow, I'd forgotten all about that. How's it going? And why are there badgers everywhere?"

"That," Scarlet eyes as confused as his companion's, Teal looked from Space-Badger to space Badger. "is a very good question."

The Badger-Biker-Brigade Attacked!

Engines revving, the motorcycle riding badgers charged at the pair of Forum-dwellers in the center of their hastily formed ring. Thinking quickly, Teal snatched up Steel's cape, and, with a ripple of Furian Energy, propelled both of them upward. Chains swished just below the place where they had been moments ago, missing their feet by inches. Bikers followed the chains, covering Teal's magical red platform in a chaotic maelstrom of fur, leather and metal.

Blond hair billowing in the (mysterious) space wind, Teal laughed - releasing Steel from his clawed grip to float in space at his side. "Man!" His claws slashed the buttons from his jacket, causing the tuxedo to billow open, revealing a candy apple red button-up shirt beneath it. "I really needed that." A short flash of red erupted along the seem of his tie, causing it break into a mass of iridescent red cherry blossoms.

As the Badger Biker Brigade wheeled beneath them, aligning themselves for another charge, Teal shot Steel a bright look. "Remember Steel," he grinned, winking conspiratorially at the Time Knight, "killing things is a felony on most planets!" The Badgers revved their motorcycles, barking out the last of their latest orders. "And you can't erase them from time either!" Teal added sharply, anticipating the Time Knight's obvious solution.

The Badgers attacked!

Red flower petals splayed, as Teal vanished from his place beside Steel. The fox tailed mage reappeared on the red platform, - where the badgers had just charged vertically from - black dress shoes hovering inches above its translucent surface. Carmine aura flaring, Teal spun in place. Below him, the floating panel's glossy surface unraveled, turning into a mass of cardinal-red thread-like filaments. At Teal's next gesture, the threads surged upward, merging into large tendrils of solidified furian energy. They wrapped around three of the Badger-Bikers - effectively trapping them in non-lethal fashion magic.

Even with only twice infinite power, Teal easily out gunned these Badger-like creatures. As the remaining members of the motorcycle gang wheeled above him, Teal figured it was time for that discussion he'd wanted to have with Steel. Brushing aside his blond locks, the mage laid two fingers onto the Communication Device still securely placed in his ear. "Hey Steel?"

Seeing as he'd given the Time Knight an Eclipse Industry Communicator before this space adventure had begun, Steel would have heard every word - perhaps even if he'd been in another dimension!

Bikers swept in from the side, and Teal lithely jumped away - a ripple of red force appearing where he had stood. "Look, could you do me a big favor and," The mage's free hand snapped out, streams of scarlet light flowing in its wake. "hop back in time say..." The streams of light grew larger the further away from Teal they flew, until they struck the Badgers, wrapping the pair of them in magically wrought - non-lethal - scarves.

"...oh, fifteen minutes?" He spun, firing off a ball of fashion magic toward another Badger's face. "I'd like you to take a message to me when I'm in the Kurosen Tunnels, killing eagles I think." The sphere exploded, tying the badge, head-to-toe, in pretty red thread and lace.

"Anyway," Teal stopped moving, turning his attention to the (random) mothership that had appeared some distance away, "just tell Past-Me to send the Chaos Nova Shot about...ten minutes into the future when she has to, and about..." He did some quick mental math, "...couple thousand miles up, and maybe another thousand to the right." He shrugged, "I'm sure I'll figure out what I mean."

Back to Badger stompin'!

He was sure Bard was taking care of all those horrible plot-relevant things on his own. Teal had given him another nine hits of Fury after all! Surely if any of them could save the Forum, it was Bard.

That was why he'd wisely decided to stop looking in that direction after what appeared to be a giant Arhra had grown from the NPF's center. Hopefully everything was still okay!

[Arhra]

Overcast was telling the fury robot thing just what he thought of it.

"Look you. This is not the way to be an endboss. You are strong, blah blah we get that. But you are going beyond what even a bonus boss is able to do. You are BORING. If I were you I'd find a way to get rid of all the flibbity flab we are calling Fury energy right now and engage us in a proper battle. Show that you are worth a damn. Look! I'll expend all of mine, right now!"

He grabbed at the box that was part of him and pushed in quite a complex way. Ferrets went everywhere and then there was naught but a little yellow cardboard box.

And ferrets, of course.

"Well? How about it?" the box said.

The red glowing robot agreed it was boring and then tore Overcast in half on account of being a jerk like that.

"Ten points out of ten for honesty," a patch of empty space with Arhra V's voice said to the torn box, "but minus several million for good thinking." She was projecting her voice to that location through some ineffable technosorcery.

And apparently listening too.

Badgers and ferrets tried to attack her disembodied voice but could not, for obvious reasons. Idiots.

Bard chipped in. With an endless parade of blood fountaining knives!

"Ow, what was that for?" the robot said. "Do you really have to do something like that?" You do realize that is a very impolite thing to do, poking at people with knives."

""STOP TRYING TO ACT BLASE ABOUT IT, NO ONE THINKS YOU'RE COOL!" Bard shouted back at it, still stabbing. ""DO YOU THINK ITS POLITE TO ANNIHIlFY SOMEONE'S BELOVED TOMATOES? THEIR SQUASH? THE MANY VEGETATIONS OF THE ORCHARD THAT THEY PORED THE REMAINDER OF THEIR SOULS NOT IN POSSESSION OF AN ELDER GOD INTO? WELL THINK AGAIN YOU COCKY FUCK!"

Bard leapt onto the shoulders of the endboss and realised he would have to make up a plan as he went. Step one: summon Pluto armour.

"Baaaaaaard." a new voice breathed. "You killed me." It sounded suspiciously like an evil sorceress. "But I forgive you. You were only doing what you thought was right. And so, with my vast and benevolent powers, I will ensure you live a long and happy life. No matter what."

Bard felt a terrible sinking feeling as Arhra IX grasped hold of his fate.

Arhra IX's perception was warped into something far from normal. To her eyes, she hung in a ghostly half-world, the physical state of things difficult to make out beneath the web of interconnections she sensed.

The Valker robot's attack on the NPF had its physical existence completely overshadowed by impressions flooding in from Arhra IX's widened perceptions. It was a contracting cone, condensing as its possible future states diminished and growing more substantial out from the ghostly world she lived in as its relevance to her existence increased. Its sense of self was minimal; its intent, harmful. She tasted ties of significance to each of the swirling vortexes of motion and song that she saw the NPFers as.

It obliterated the NPF. Disorientated, Arhra IX took a moment to realise what had happened. Links died out, emotions were stirred. She was suddenly hungry, the reality around her depleted of significance to feed upon. That was not good. Her transformation had been only partially, but she would be able to carry on. Arhra IX finally noticed the change in her size but dismissed it as irrelevant for the moment. She barely even twitched as she studied her surroundings, her body a skyscraper sized puppet dwarfed by the wings of unreality that supported her.

Then she found Bard. With the state she was currently in, she could do more than just see fate and probability, she could meddle with it. The summoner would be living a charmed life for the foreseeable future.

"Final boss? Don't make me laugh!" Arhra V said, seizing on an earlier comment by the robot IX had privately dubbed Bob. "You won't be the end of anything! All you can ever hope to be is a footnote in our glorious history!"

"Allow me..."

Her voice started pulling away, migrating back towards the lumpy potato of the crumpled Valker spaceship.

"...to show you..."

The mothership stirred, cracks spreading across its surface and light shining through. Organ music started.

"...what an end boss..."

Something rounded began pushing out, its surface coated with thousands of long dark strands. There was a ragged gap in the front, revealing the object to be pale underneath. There was a flash of red, staring out. Something else broke through, something that had once been a crance. It was now an arm. The object of before was a head. A choir joined in.

"...really is."

The disintegrating Valker mothership uncurled, the hull plating warping around the colossal figure it had been reconfigured into. Black tentacles in their innumerable thousands wove together to make fabric, armour forming with it to create a dress.

Arms crossed, legs spread in a wide stance, hair blowing in the nonexistent space wind, a city sized Arhra V glared down at the ants in front of her.



http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f362/Arhra/Avvy/arhraV_valkermship.png

Unrelenting Horror of Progress

ARHRA V

Nothing good could possibly come of this.

Forever.

"PITIFUL INSECTS!" Arhra V boomed, switching off her in-doors voice. "THIS HAS GONE ON LONG ENOUGH!"

"I AM ARHRA, THE FIFTH BY THAT NAME, AND THIS FORTRESS IS MY BODY. BY VIRTUE OF THE POWER THAT IS CALLED SCIENCE, I HAVE COME TO PUNISH YOU ALL. I CONSUME THE WORKS OF MY ENEMIES AND SO I SHALL WIELD YOUR GREATEST WEAPONS AGAINST YOU." she raved. She didn't claim an existence equal to or greater than God. It must have slipped her mind.

"YOUR RECKONING HAS COME. I SHALL THROW WIDE THE GATES OF HELL AND TURN THIS ENDLESS NIGHT TO BRILLIANT DAY. MY PASSAGE WILL SHATTER MOUNTAINS AND SPLIT OPEN THE SKY. I BEAR THE LIGHT THAT CAN ANNIHILFY ANYTHING!"

"YOU!" she said, pointing at the Valker robot. "LOOK UPON ME AND KNOW DESPAIR! I AM THE CITY-SHIP OF YOUR BIRTH REMADE INTO THIS PERFECTED FORM! ALL YOUR WEAPONS ARE MINE! YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN SCRAP METAL THROWN FROM MY BODY AS TRASH! NO STYLE! NO SPIRIT! NOT! EVEN!! A!! NAAAME!!!"

"YOU ARE PERMITTED TO STRUGGLE BEFORE THE END. YOU WILL BREAK YOUR SWORD ON YOUR MOTHER'S WOMB!"

The giant cyborg took up a fighting pose. "NOW COME AT ME, STEVE!!!"

She seemed to be unwilling to open fire while Bard was standing on him.

"You can shoot. I have Bard." Arhra IX broadcast helpfully.

"EXCELLENT!!!"

Lights glittered like stars all over Arhra V's body and then she opened up with what appeared to be approximately one thousand lasers. Lines of burning light all fell inwards, Steve occupying the tip of the cone.

Bard, of course, was safe. Arhra IX bent the lines of causality away from harmful futures and played havoc with the laws of chance to allow the virtual impossibility of an innocent bystander remaining in the middle of a storm of lasers unharmed.

After all, they hadn't been aimed at him.

[PyrosNine]

Dr. Ethington was not shocked by her ESTEEMED COLLEAGUEGRRRRRHATE's transformation, nor her sudden burst of ego or her Michael Jackson wishing star spaceship robot transformation.

No, what really troubled her was the fact that, in theory, though V's hair and breasts were now perfectly in proportion to her figure, they were also much, much larger than Ethington's by virtue of sheer scale.

Yeah, Dr. Asheth had nothin'.

It's not like they'd let her poof out resident bishounen giant robot Majimmier any time soon, and her own spaceship was nowhere near that big for transformation.

That, and she was apparently amidst coitus, though she wasn't sure if Hattington was still around or if it was just the fury powered lab assistants finally deciding to get at dat ass. It was an unusual, if boring position and no where near as exciting as action science.

She'd have to think of something to fix everything within the next few minutes, because fury or no, they were lab assistants and not that guy from the Old spice commercial.

* * *

Kitty Pyros sighed, having used the convenient collection of hand towels for just such an occasion of a soda spill to make sure he was completely dry. Also so he didn't have to lick all of himself in his entirety clean in the presence of Arhra and one of the overcasts. And the badgers watching.

Kp was pretty sure that badgers licked themselves clean, but couldn't be sure, but did find several similarities between badgers and cats. They were tidy, had claws, and were on internet flash cartoons (http://weebls-stuff.com/songs/badgers/)!

He wasn't too happy about they kept popping up from nowhere, and there was a mushroom and a snake, a snake, ooooh it's a snake!

The real nuisance was that while he was trying to watch the giant Arhra V and the strangely familiar looking Arhra IX, or the strange robot guy the giant robot arhra was pointing at, there were a bunch of them going into a bloodrage and hammering at the windows.

"Eulalia!" one roared.

If this kept up, Pyros would have to get back into the fight....though fire doesn't really burn well in a vacuum.

In the meantime, he put a paw down on the x-wing's windshield wipers.

[Inbred Chocobo]

Most of the badgers ran away from the big bad boss. You know, considering how strong and manly he was even though he is a robot. Except Grandman-badger, who went and sewed up the box the big bad guy had torn apart, making Overcast whole once more without the need for portals or anything else.

Bard's summon went weird, as the fury energy and the energy from the pluto armor mixed, causing his pluto armor to merge with an ancient summon he was pulling through, creating something far more dangerous and deadly. It was still the same pluto armor, but looking down at the gadges there were a lot of new buttons, and no energy or health levels on the display. It also must've had some crazy strength because it knocked Bob quite a bit of distance during its appearance.

Bob the big badass of ... some kind of b word was on the move. He was being distracted by lasers fired at him from all directions. He was quick, but those were lasers, gotta be like, blink of an eye quick. Well... Bob was that fast, but I mean even quicker. So bob was hit, and his health bar showed a tiny notch drop as he took damage. Bob looked like he was kind of angry, and attacked back with his own laser, firing in Arhra's general direction.

[Steel Shadow]

Engines revving, the motorcycle riding badgers charged at the pair of Forum-dwellers in the center of their hastily formed ring. Thinking quickly, Teal snatched up Steel's cape, and, with a ripple of Furian Energy, propelled both of them upward. Chains swished just below the place where they had been moments ago, missing their feet by inches. Bikers followed the chains, covering Teal's magical red platform in a chaotic maelstrom of fur, leather and metal.

Blond hair billowing in the (mysterious) space wind, Teal laughed - releasing Steel from his clawed grip to float in space at his side. "Man!" His claws slashed the buttons from his jacket, causing the tuxedo to billow open, revealing a candy apple red button-up shirt beneath it. "I really needed that." A short flash of red erupted along the seem of his tie, causing it break into a mass of iridescent red cherry blossoms.

As the Badger Biker Brigade wheeled beneath them, aligning themselves for another charge, Teal shot Steel a bright look. "Remember Steel," he grinned, winking conspiratorially at the Time Knight, "killing things is a felony on most planets!" The Badgers revved their motorcycles, barking out the last of their latest orders. "And you can't erase them from time either!" Teal added sharply, anticipating the Time Knight's obvious solution.



"But we're not on a... Aw, fine. Lame." Steel drew his sword and half heartedly parried an iron bar wielding motorcycle-badger. Normally this would be a fun filled battle of comedic mishaps and adrenaline pumping action, but since Steel was on the other side of godhood... way way waaaaay on the other side... it just didn't feel the same. Who knew infinite power would be such a drag?

He absently punted one of the critters off it's bike. On second thought, watching it flail about like that in zero-gravity was kinda funny.

Even with only twice infinite power, Teal easily out gunned these Badger-like creatures. As the remaining members of the motorcycle gang wheeled above him, Teal figured it was time for that discussion he'd wanted to have with Steel. Brushing aside his blond locks, the mage laid two fingers onto the Communication Device still securely placed in his ear. "Hey Steel?"



Steel... did things. "Oh god, I can't even be bothered with the narration." He sighed and waved the badgers off. "Time out guys, I need a moment to get back in the spirit of things."

The badgers were surprisingly obliging!


Bikers swept in from the side, and Teal lithely jumped away - a ripple of red force appearing where he had stood. "Look, could you do me a big favor and," The mage's free hand snapped out, streams of scarlet light flowing in its wake. "hop back in time say..." The streams of light grew larger the further away from Teal they flew, until they struck the Badgers, wrapping the pair of them in magically wrought - non-lethal - scarves.

"...oh, fifteen minutes?" He spun, firing off a ball of fashion magic toward another Badger's face. "I'd like you to take a message to me when I'm in the Kurosen Tunnels, killing eagles I think." The sphere exploded, tying the badge, head-to-toe, in pretty red thread and lace.

"Anyway," Teal stopped moving, turning his attention to the (random) mothership that had appeared some distance away, "just tell Past-Me to send the Chaos Nova Shot about...ten minutes into the future when she has to, and about..." He did some quick mental math, "...couple thousand miles up, and maybe another thousand to the right." He shrugged, "I'm sure I'll figure out what I mean."


"And done. Anything else? Teal?" There was no response. Apparently Teal was busy.

Steel looked at the badgers. The badgers looked back at him, expectation in their eyes. He winced. "Look, I'm sorry guys, I'm just not in it at the moment. There's no way to give this scene the real comedic omph it deserves! You know it, I know it." He waved his hand around dismissively, then pulled out The Pipe Of Exposition and blew out some bubbles. "It's not your fault, it's really not. It's me, I'm just to powerful at the moment."

The Biker's faces fell. It was adorable. Like kicking a box of Kittens. Steel immediately backtracked, waving his hands.

"B-but that power wont last forever! How about this. You guys head back down to the planet, start training up a bunch, then in a few Avvies you come back near the start and run rings around me. We can have a big epic fight, a few tasteful slapstick moments, y'can maybe ride some Harleys or what have you, and at the end you'll run off and I'll shake my fist at the sky with a glorious cry of 'Baaadgerrrsss!' and it'll be on! Yeah? How does that sound?"

The badgers huddled together and exchanged thoughtful chitters. One or two glanced at the Time Knight thoughtfully over their shoulders. Said Time Knight just tapped his foot while he waited. After a while it occurred to him he wasn't actually standing on anything, so he switched over to fidgeting with his cape. Soon enough though, the badgers had reached consensus.

One particularly tall critter with a big hat, which Steel assumed was the leader, floated over to him, and struck an intimidating stance. "Meep." It said. "Meep, meep meeep me meep." A deal was struck, and within moments, the badgers had taken their bikes, and vanished into space.

"...How did they understand what I said if they don't speak English?"

---

"Okay! I'm back! Done with the messing around! Anyone up for some team work? C'mon, let's finish this thing off!" Steel's voice called out over the comms network some time later, the Knight having finally found the main battlefield. Hey, 3 dimensional space is complicated, ok?

"Let's see what we've got here. There's Bard in a giant mecha, good for him... There's... A giant... Arhra... Oh... Oh god..." Steel suddenly felt very, very small. "I'm just.. .going to count her on our side, because I really can't process her being on anyone else's right now," he finished quietly, then looked around some more. "There's... the remains of the Azure... great... and... Um. Well. Ok, this will just have to do for now." Steel couldn't make out anyone else. Maybe they were just hiding?

Then Steve broke in, firing back at Arhra, and the time for planning had ended. The laser made it about half of the distance to it's target before winking out. Steel hovered there, glaring at the nameless robot, his sword glowing in his hands. His cape lay flat over his body, not bothering to stir in the non-existant winds that covered the battle.

"Hey, Arhra, Bard, sorry I'm chimeing in late. How've you been?" he asked calmly, sliding his sword back into it's sheath. "Well, I guess pleasantries can wait. How's about we end this Robot? You two have giant mechs, right? Think you can combine them into a super ultra fighting mega zord-mech thing? If you can, that would be just swell, really."

The man raised a hand, pointing two fingers towards the final boss. Lights began to form and circle around them, spinning quickly. "Well, anyways, if either of you has a plan, I'm all ears. If you need time, I'm going to try to distract him now. Or vaporise him, whichever works." The lights were spinning faster now, so fast that they disappeared into each other and formed a ring of light around his hand. "Just, uh, don't get hit by this. It'll probably sting a little." The light was blinding now, matching the stars above and below.

"CHRONO BEAM!!!"

The light lanced out in a focused red beam, spearing right for the robot faster than the smallest measurement of time could measure. Pure time in it's most concentrated form, it burned like it was a tear in the universe. Centuries, millennia, eons, almost infinite time piled on top of one another within it. Whatever it hit would age into oblivion.

He really, really hoped it wouldn't miss.

[Astral Harmony]

"So, uhhh...what're we supposed to do?" Maya asked Armored.
"Let 'em go to town on each other for all I care," Armored, now conscious, shrugged dismissively. "I want all of us, myself included, on repairs. Rigs, mechs, ship weapons, the whole chalupa. If there's something you can't do on your own, get Isis to assist in resolving. Or me. I've got lightning magic that could power the tools we'll need."
"In that case, you're with me down in the STIGMA bay."
Armored nodded then turned her attention quickly to other matters. "Soleen, how's your magic?"
"What, me too?" the sorceress growned.
"Sorry, but with two endgame bosses within a stone's throw of this ship, I kinda need us to push through our exhaustion and get this beast mobile again."
"We're in space. Stones can fly very far out here."
"Quiet, you."

Armored and her B-Force crew got to work on the Azure Aesir, trying their best to do away with all the damage that Arhra IX had done to it with her body and with her Asuras.
"Comms're restored, Captain," Rosalyn said, "Looks like the Element Zero Drive Core is supplying most of the ship with power again."
"Beautiful!" Armored marveled, wiping sweat from her brow. That meant that she could stop using her magic to power the equipment. "I imagine the areas without power probably just have their wires cut or disconnected. Is Isis too busy to get on that?"
"I just gave her the orders. Those areas will have power very soon. We're detected major errors in the weapons systems, especially the PMS Cannon."
"Not surprising. The best way to cripple a ship's offensive potential is to destroy their weapons. Any chance of repair?"
"It depends on what it actually looks like up there. The camera system isn't providing enough details."
"Right. Once the STIGMAs and space fighters are back in operation, we'll go and have a look at it."

The Azure Aesir brimmed with activity, hopefully to finish in time to contribute towards the final battle.

[Arhra]

It was a fierce battle in outer space.

Suspended halfway between the Earth and the Moon, a handful of spaceships and people who did not care that they occupied a vacuum were locked into a titanic struggle with a big old robot jerk who liked being mean, battling for the fate of the... the...

They did not know what they were fighting for any more; NPF City had been taken out in the opening volley.

So drunk on omnipotence-juice they quite probably could crack the planet in half and fry it like an egg, the NPFers were accomplishing sadly few great and terrible deeds. It was mostly larceny and cruelty to animals.

Steve - quite possibly the SOURCE OF ANGER ITSELF - was just as even more disappointing. He had made desultory efforts at conversation, kicked one or two people and blown up a city. An NPF city. He'd barely even raised his voice.

Bard tossed down his ultimatum. It was nothing short of a death sentence.

"STOP TRYING TO ACT BLASE ABOUT IT, NO ONE THINKS YOU'RE COOL! DO YOU THINK ITS POLITE TO ANNIHIlFY SOMEONE'S BELOVED TOMATOES? THEIR SQUASH? THE MANY VEGETATIONS OF THE ORCHARD THAT THEY PORED THE REMAINDER OF THEIR SOULS NOT IN POSSESSION OF AN ELDER GOD INTO? WELL THINK AGAIN YOU COCKY FUCK!"

Stabs were not enough. Bard had then summoned the Pluto Armour.

The ancient summon tossed Steve away like yesterday's garbage.

At this point, the ruined Valker mothership underwent a bizarre metamorphosis into a city sized Arhra V. Her technological corruption magnified to levels beyond anything it had any right to be, she'd swallowed it whole. Efficiently multitasking, she'd been a filthy copycat and tossed down her own ultimatum, made Dr Ethington jealous, fired off an ungodly number of lasers and sent killer robots to steal AB's stuff.

Dr Ethington was busy with what was possibly scientific action. Overcast was mostly dead. AB was somehow unconscious. Mauve was probably having another soda in her X-wing.

STEVE DID NOT LIKE THIS AT ALL.

Trying to force his cold metal expression into the angriest of faces, he raised his gun and fired a single shot at Arhra V.

Steel interrupted with the power of TIMING. The laser just vanished halfway to its target. What had happened to it, none but Steel knew as he floated there, glaring. The Knight of Time's sword glowed in his hands and his flatly hanging cloak steadfastly refused to billow dramatically in the space wind.

"Hey, Arhra, Bard, sorry I'm chiming in late. How've you been?" he asked calmly, sheathing his sword. "Well, I guess pleasantries can wait. How's about we end this Robot? You two have giant mechs, right? Think you can combine them into a super ultra fighting mega zord-mech thing? If you can, that would be just swell, really."

Arhra V looked aside, cheeks colouring.

Steel had already turned to address the boss. He pointed two fingers towards Steve, lights appearing and spinning around them. "Well, anyways, if either of you has a plan, I'm all ears." he said over his shoulder. If you need time, I'm going to try to distract him now. Or vaporise him, whichever works. Just, uh, don't get hit by this. It'll probably sting a little." The motes of concentrated time had become so fast, intense and numerous that they made a ring of fire around his hand, their burning light searing afterimages onto retinas.

"CHRONO BEAM!!!"

Steve tried to dodge, but probability collapsed around him into a great big ball of hate. All the paths that should have let him get out of the way led right back to where he'd started.

Arhra IX was the culprit, bending space and destiny to screw people over. Before Steve (or, as she had privately named him, Bob) could punch out any abstract concepts, Steel's red beam of dammed time punched him. With a drawn out scream, eternity swallowed him.

"I am Arhra IX, but I need not introduce myself again." Arhra IX began pleasantly. There was no need to hurry - Bob was a captive audience. He'd been trapped by Steel's Chrono Beam for a fraction of a second and it already felt like millions of years.

"Did I not say that, if you were to do wrong, I would end you?" she asked the endboss. "You should have enjoyed your brief existence while you had the chance."

Quietly hanging out at the back where the NPF had once been, Arhra IX was ascending to godhood. Three Arhras had not fit into a space meant for one, and it was not a healthy state to be in. She had resolved to solve this dilemma by eliminating all constraints on herself and forcing a spiritual evolution that would result in a single, complete being. It would come at the trivial cost of feeding upon existence itself to fuel the transformation, immense collateral damage and unleashing an all-powerful Arhra upon the universe.

She hung in space like a marionette, vast wings of spirit and degenerate energy reaching for the horizon. Their crack-like appearance was passing as the jagged threads of energy connected and flowed into more organic shapes. The burning red of the Fury predominated but it was contaminated, purple and orange fighting for dominance and the full spectrum of other colours layering in top. Her enormous physical body was the bleached white shape suspended limply at their base, straining to try to catch up with her distended spirit.

"Chance is an illusion and so your fate is sealed. I am playing upon the strings of time and fate to still the song of your existence. All bright futures are beyond your reach. All happy possibilities are extinguished."

She was not happy at him blowing up the NPF. She needed to eat a complex existence of metaphysical significance to complete her change and it had been filling that role. Now she was starving. And so he must die.

"There is no hope for you. That is an illusion too. Everything shall collapse to nothing for you. No-one will even find your grave. I will etch your epitaph upon your soul."

Arhra IX moved. She simply raised her head from its slump a little, half opened her red eyes and looked at Bob. "You are permitted to regret what could have been before the curtain falls. Weep."

"FINE. JUMP ON THE ULTIMATUM BANDWAGON!" Arhra V harrumphed. As a giant robot she had no indoors voice at all.

The white giant glared at her ridiculously more giant robotic twin. "I was just trying to set the mood to something appropriately apocalyptic. Did you see me complaining about your awful speech?"

With a click, a switch was flipped. Something locked away inside the two Arhras was released, blind to the consequences. Words piled up into quivering towers of accusation and insinuation, tension built like a storm between the pair.

"I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR TANTRUMS!" Arhra V thundered. "YOU'RE MADE OUT OF AN EVIL SORCERESS, A HATEFUL DEMON AND A DRAGON WHO DOES NOTHING BUT WRECK THINGS! NO WONDER YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL EVERYTHING AGAIN! I WON'T STAND FOR IT ANY MORE! GOBBLING UP EXISTENCE SO YOU CAN METAMORPHOSE INTO A HUGE JERK?! YOU'VE GOTTEN TOO BIG FOR YOUR BOOTS!!"

"What about you?" Arhra IX retorted, voice level. "Your idiotic rivalry with Asheth. Your attempts to steal every shiny thing you see. Your insane jealousy of anyone who threatens your precious ego. Do you have any idea of how tiresome it has become?" her calm facade was cracking. "My patience is not endless! Do you think I'll let you push in and do whatever you want again!?! I say NO! NO NO NO NO NO! NOT! AT! ALL!!!"

Arhra V was momentarily taken aback. "HOW DARE-"

"ENOUGH TALK!!!" Arhra IX shouted over her, "I SHALL IMPRESS HARD TRUTHS INTO YOUR SOFT SKUUULLLLL!!!"

Eroded by uncountable eons, Steve finally emerged from Steel's Chrono Beam. Flakes of corroded metal peeled away into flares of red, his pitted and age worn exterior becoming a smooth bright shining expanse of metal again. He was really beginning to hate these NPF people.

"You know," he said conversationally. "I've -"

"BUTT OUT!!!"

Two Arhras turned as one to destroy the interloper.

On fire and hurtling into the depths of space, Steve knew he'd lost control of the situation. It was time to show everyone who was boss. The programming from the machine he was in was telling him to kill and that's just what he would do.

The Fury possessed robot flipped around and kicked off empty space. Hurtling back towards the NPFers at an even greater speed, he tore into the hull of Dr Ethington's NPF Azure like a crimson meteor. Rampaging into its corridors like the angriest of space invaders, he unleashed his terrible rage on his chosen prey in a brutal orgy of violence.

Timmy, the littlest Science Intern, was dead.

"NOW I'VE KILLED ONE OF YOU! HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL!?" Steve roared.

Arhra was too busy fighting herself to noticed, but he'd undoubtedly bruised the precious feelings of the other NPFers.

* * *

Meanwhile

As the AB and her crew rushed to repair the Azure Aesir, they could probably have guessed that they were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences far removed from human. Calculating eyes watched them and slowly but surely drew up their plans against AB and her B Crew.

"We let them mostly fix the ship, and then we take it off them!" the Type-E ASURA explained.

The vaguely angelic and disconcertingly life-like quintet of robots that Arhra V had manufactured was huddled together, planning out their next move. The Type-E was supposedly their leader and for unexplained reasons had an uncanny resemblance to the adolescent body her maker had been stuck in for most of the Valker attacks.

The stringy globs of a tarlike substance and occasional shaved badger floating in a loose ring around them spoke of how they'd dealt with badger horde: they'd turned the Type-D loose and she had used her Conversion Polymer on them. Her guns were designed to fire it; a ravenous, murderous substance that converted almost everything it touched into more of its degenerate matter. It did very little to the badgers themselves, but in the Type-D's own words, it didn't work on anything that had a soul.

"Why bother?" the Type-C said sourly. "That naked space elf destroyed most of it and the maker's forgotten all about us, hasn't she?" The Type-C had been designed for high speed combat and the hazily defined role of 'biological interface' which probably explained the charm ability but not the nihilism.

"Because it's what we're here for." the Type-D cheered. Not even a sadly inconclusive brawl with a frost magic using berserker could bring her mood down. An armoured plate was clamped over the huge gash Rachel's tomahawk had torn in her shoulder. "No matter what enemy. No matter what ally. Blasting through everything with maximum destructive power."

"We should proceed with our original objectives." the Type-B agreed, voice soft and toneless. Designed as artillery, the tall, light blue haired gynoid was propped up in the Type-A's lap as the pink haired support unit repaired the extensive damage Steve's kick had inflicted. The Type-A had harvested some of the spent Conversion Polymer and processed it into the technoplasm the ASURAs were composed of as feedstock for repairs.

"It's decided then!" the Type-E announced.

Unsure of how much the Azure Aesir's weapon systems had been repaired but unwilling to give them any more time, the ASURAs charged at it to begin a boarding action, intending to force the hand of the Aesir's crew.

[Bard The 5th LW]

Due to a mixture of factors, from fury to engame, Pluto Armor came out differently. Mixed with the Ancient Summon of a New Jersey garage from the future, it grew both in size and in destruction. The mechs size increased something-fold, its motions more fluid, its paint more firey, and its flag still Communistic. Its immense weight overpowered Bob/Steve (Bard had decided to name him Joe from now on) and it launched him across the battlefield.

"ULTIMATE JUSTICE!" Bard shouted from the cockpit, pumping an arm in triumph.

"Hey, Arhra, Bard, sorry I'm chiming in late. How've you been?" Steel asked calmly, sheathing his sword.

"Its been here and there lately," Bard responded with a simple shrug of the shoulders.

"Well, I guess pleasantries can wait. How's about we end this Robot? You two have giant mechs, right? Think you can combine them into a super ultra fighting mega zord-mech thing? If you can, that would be just swell, really."

"I suppose its possible," Bard said looking away, "but do I want to? And does Pluto want to?"

"Bluffing is an important act of all strategies." The Machine responded in a deafening roar with a Jersey-esque voice.

"Alright, then the answer is sorta," The summoner concluded. "Okay actually that doesn't make sense. Sorta need to disregard some of the quotes he spews out. Think I'm just gonna follow my heart and ice this bitch. I'll get to you later Steel." He clearly wasn't ready to forgive the time traveler for the whole communist thing.

"NOW I'VE KILLED ONE OF YOU! HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL!?" Steve Joe roared, having freshly killed one of Ethington's poor interns.

"You can ask him yourself after I send your ass to Hell!" Bard said as the steroid infused mech began to make its way towards Joe the endboss. Scanning across the array of valves, pretty lights, knobs, and lever, Bard found exactly what he needed. Off to the right of the control array was a red button, with a label reading Long and Painful. Wasting no time is slamming this key, Pluto Armor's right arm was suddenly turned inside out, revealing an array of blodes, from small to big and dull to sharp. Scissors, chainsaws, butter knives, even a slightly sharpened spoon, were all there. The left arm miraculously grew bulkier, and gained kung-fu grip!. From his chest came a Gatling Gun loaded full of pissed off wasps. He was ready for action.

"RICHAAAAAAAARD!!!!!" Was the battle cry that the Mech somehow bellowed through the empty vacuum of space as it began its charge on Joe. The Garden (and NPF/Timmy) would be avenged in a glorious display of JUSTICE.

[PyrosNine]

Dr. Ethington could do nothing but stare at the intruder aboard her ship, and his fresh kill. Stare, and turn and stare equally at the fridge that contained the all important Haagen Daaz.

Stuck on that fridge, drawn with crayon, was Timmy's last report.

It was a squiggly line graph, showing how much made him happy within scientifically approved percentiles of happiness.

Cookies amounted for 30%, while 40% went to the joy of being able to perform science with Dr. Ethington who he believed to be the most swell person in the world. 15% went to the knowledge that his parents were still waiting for him back on NPF (which totally would never explode) and the rest went to Higgs bosons and not being murdered by an evil robot.

For once in her life, Dr. Ethington actually gave a damn about a lab assistant. She wasn't comfortable with it, and it was like walking in heels for the first time, but it was something she was willing to feel the full ramifications for.

She took off her glasses and smashed them at her feet.

"I'll make you pay for this!"

Fire Goddess of Science Asheth got to the furybot before Bard, and entangled it in the same hair that destroyed it's not as powerful predecessors. Ripping it's limbs aside and out of the way, she struck him where it hurt!

U-U-ULTIMA DISRESPECT!

The furybot was sent flying out of the ship, through a hole that nearly caused the entire craft to decompress if it weren't for such great shielding.

Asheth pulled out her Iphone.

Mauve's X-wing suddenly had a pop up.

"Quick! Mauve, listen! There's a secret emergency weapon I installed on your ship that synchronizes with the NPF Azure! Not the Aesir Azure, whatever, my ship! Hit the drink machine's buttons in the proper order of deliciousness!"

In preparation of Mauve figuring out that the red kind tasted bestest, Asheth hit her own buttons, going from Caramel Crunch to Rocky Road and finishing with Deep Fudge Mint Chocolate.

Then she stacked the ice cream to the side and hit the "summon magical music apparatus." button.

Now all that needed to be done was a quick costume change!

...but first! Ice cream!

[mauve]

Hey! Mauve was NOT just sitting around drinking soda!

She was also eating a cupcake.

The Mauve Mage sat in the cockpit of her awesome new x-wing, stretched out in the pilot's seat so her shoes rested on the dashboard. The soundtrack to TRON:Legacy played through the ship's speaker system as Mauve lazily watched the events unfold outside. She could go out and help, but.... Daft Punk and chocolate cupcakes, people. Mauve had priorities.

"KKKSSSSHHHT! ....Quickly, Mauve.... listen!" The mage's attention was drawn to an intercom on the dashboard. A vaguely Southern and sciencey voice interrupted the sound of French dudes in robot suits making electronica music for a semi-decent Disney remake.

"Hi Asheth," Mauve said, not really sure if she could hear her. "What's up? I'm kinda busy right now--"

"Emergency weapon hidden onboard--"

"And hey, my schedule just opened up. I am all ears."

The fire goddess of SCIENCE gave Mauve some instructions and then signed off to eat ice cream. Pfft. Mauve didn't have any ice cream.

"Well co-pilot Pyros, shall we see what sort of madness awaits us, or should we pretend we didn't hear her and finish these cupcakes?"

Kitty Pyros remained predictably silent.

"My thoughts exactly." Mauve pulled a pair of shades out of her pocket. She opened them with a flick of her wrist.

"Eighteen thousand miles from Chicago. Half-tank of gas. I'm in space, it's dark, and I'm wearing sunglasses." She grinned. "Let's roll."

Mauve slammed a fist down on the soda machine: Ruby Red! Orange! Lemon-Lime! Pepsi! YEEAAAAHHH!

A secret compartment opened on the dashboard, revealing a glittery microphone.

Shit was about to get real.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Shyria's tiny reptilian mind was both confused, terrified, and quite angry, not the least because she was so confused and terrified. The Fury energy had done a number on her higher brain functions. The past minutes were little more than a blur of explosions, technological monstrosities, and the occasional badger (although the latter were quite tasty). Eventually, as she started to come down off the Fury high, flight took precedence over flight, and she took off to hide in a nearby asteroid belt.

Her conscious mind finally pieced itself back together, only to confront the sight of the ruins of her adopted hometown drifting through space, a city sized Arhra chewing out several other Arhras of various sizes, and various other NPFers charging the endbosses as the NPF Azure blazed in the distance. She knew what she had to do...

But before she could do that-

*BANG BANG BANG* The hull of the X-wing shuddered for a moment.

"HEY MAUVE!" Shyria called out over the racket of various endgame shenannigans. "YOU HAVE ANY ASPRIN?! OR MAYBE SOME COFFEE?! MY SKULL'S RINGING LIKE A CHURCHBELL!"

[Overcast]

"Bard."

The voice of the Boxheaded man crept on the inside of Bard's brain, scraping at his psyche because for some reason telepathy was always unreasonably loud. The Box flew in the absence that was space, crude stitches holding it together. OC had returned, sorta. His form just his little Box, incapable of shunting a body out from the hastily cobbled portal. An annoyance he could have dealt with if he could abandon this Box and make a new one. But with no holes and the Box his anchor he was stretched thin and forced impossible,

"Bard, I need you. The universe needs you."

The creeping voice urged him to grab the Box, carefully, not to look in the opening at the bottom. Not to leave him drifiting alone,

"I have a plan. But I need your help..."

The plan to save the everything. If they could get to it first, but he needed a hand. Boxes don't just move themselves you know.

[Astral Harmony]

This Post's BGM: Dungeon of the Giant (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1IV6CZUy9o)

"So, uhh...Captain?"
"Not now. We need lights, Maya."

Armored Bishoujo, Maya the catgirl mechanic, Celeste the Retronian engineer, Rosalyn the hacker, Kira the Galefrost Amazon, and Aya the catgirl ninja managed to enter into the massive metal frame of Arhra V. Their position put them around the base of V's spinal column, if she had one.

Maya, piloting one of the two smaller STIGMAs, activated the lights so that they could see.
"You want to ask me why you only have non-combat equipment on that STIGMA, right?"
"I've gotta lotta more questions than that, Armored."

Armored looked around, then motioned the squad to move forward. "When Arhra V merged with the Valkyr Mothership, she made a rather quick transformation into what she is now. I have a hunch that she didn't do it as efficiently as she could have given lesser time constraints. Therefore, in order to stop that robot that destroyed the city, we're going to help Arhra V power up some. With our individual skills and the supplies we've managed to smuggle inside, we should be able to stop all this violence and hijinks."
There was a long silence between Armored's squad.
The Maya sighed. "You're slipping, Captain."
"Huh?"
"Your ideas these days aren't nearly as crazy as they used to be."
"Eh, comes with age. So don't ever grow old, girls. C'mon, let's go."
"Where's our first stop?" Celeste asked her.

Armored frowned. "Dunno. Rosalyn, can you bring up a holo-GPS for us?"
Rosalyn typed a simple command into her arm-mounted computer and brought up a holographic image of Arhra V's interior. Armored gestured towards the "The Valkyr Mothership can't produce an unlimited amount of power like one might hope, but with a little rewiring...oh, in the chest section, and we might be able to increase power efficiency, letting V accomplish more with less."
"So we're off to Arhra V's bust," Maya said. "Armored, would I be allowed to fight if we encounter some kind of security?"
Armored nodded. "Yeah, use the fuel/spark technique."

The fuel/spark technique was the simple idea of spraying the enemy with flammable liquid (like fuel, of course) and then igniting it with a spark like from an arc welder. Maya's STIMGA was equipped with the necessary tools to do that, though those tools were meant for maintenance of Arhra V's systems.
Armored gave the "move out" command, and the six women began to follow the directions in Rosalyn's holo-GPS to Arhra V's chest.

-----

The Azure Aesir was in better shape than before, but not by much.

The thrusters were back up, but the afterburners were still not working. The jump drive was inoperable as well.

Most of the weapons were back online, but the PMS Cannon was going to take several minutes to charge its next shot and they couldn't prepare a reserve shot. It took most of the independant power supplies to keep the weapons available and the kinetic barriers running.