NPF Avatars: Pain and Amazement

[GARUD]

<Thanks for the new star buddy. Now, time to put this invicibility to use>

• BLASTING ZONE

Garud launched the beam toward Raiden, who was distracted by the slashing. However, by instinct, the Thunder God seemed to become transparent, and the beam went right through him.

"DAMMIT!"

The demon slayer jetted up the pile, and Raiden turned to face him. The two looked like they were going to have a stare off before the creature lunged. However, again utilising his abilities to become illusion, Raiden disappeared, and circled behind Garud. There, He got his former companion in a vicegrip bearhug, trying to choke the life out of him. The invincibility could only do so much.

"Pathetic. You are barely worth my time. From the first day I laid eyes on you, I knew you were beneath me. Now you will fear me! For I will be your end."

As Garud struggled, he recalled a memory. One of the first of NPF.

+++
A lone person, teenager looking descended in the elevator.

Level B, Roleplaying.

The demon slayer stepped out, the wind fresh in his hair. It was like he was called here. Walking through the grass, he found his way to a computer. It had a sign that said: Create RP

"I haven't seen you around here before. Are you new?"

The voice came from a man, imensely strong, white glowing hair, an electric aura surrounding him.

"Yeah. I'm Garud."

"The quiet type eh? Well, My name's Raiden! It's a pleasure."

"Likewise."

The man chuckled.

"We're going to get along just fine here. Welcome to NPF. Anyway, what do you do for a living?"

+++

Garud tried to hit his way out, but there was no use. Raiden was much stronger than he was. But there was one thing that needed to be done.

<Premonitions, Whatever you have planned, do it now!>

"Y'know Raiden. I don't know what happened to you, but I know this cannot be the real you. It just cannot be! You were so much nicer, and now this? Whatever the case may be though, you will be defeated! Even if it's at the loss of me!

[Arhra]

In her dream, Arhra was posing in a victorious stance atop a hog-tied and thoroughly beat up Raiden-sheep. She mused as she stepped back down and looked out over the golden fields. Her sleep had actually served a duality of purposes. The first purpose was the obvious one - to rest and recuperate. But this dream was not entirely happenstance. It was an enormous trap.

By the way Raiden had attempted to split up the NPFers and yet had apparently been there to face Arhra and POS when it was obvious there were others who he considered a bigger threat, it was obvious that there was some trick at work. Some sort of delaying action was going on.

Thus Arhra surmised some manner of multiplicity was what Raiden had done, especially since she had seemed to be picking up some fragments of Ecurt's speech from the cat ears and he was also battling a Raiden. Given this, she decided it was likely Raiden would attempt to demoralise her and if she was asleep, entering her dream seemed an obvious choice.

But the most important part of this occuring would be that it was Arhra's dream. She would rule there. She wasn't some weak-minded fool to be chased and intimidated in her own mind. Instead, the hunter would have found himself to be the prey.

Now however, it seemed Raiden had not taken the bait. She sighed and then sighted a glint off in the direction the sheep Raiden had come from. She smiled. If her prey wouldn't come to her, she would go to him. It was time to pierce the veils that sought to hinder them.

The glint she had seen, she ran towards, pausing with an odd smile on her face when she reached it. In front of her was the Mashirosen. Of course, it was a dream of the Mashirosen. But Arhra intended to prove once and for all that she could out-scheme Raiden in her sleep. She assumed the summoning stance, pulling upon her power and a massive mandala appeared around her, increasing in size and further out as her spell took shape. At the center of the great wheel of elaborate patterns that radiated around her she smiled as she completed the summon spell.

She summoned reality.

Back in the tower, Arhra suddenly stirred. POS almost fell as she suddenly seemed to wake but managed to avoid dropping her as she slid out of his grasp and stood upright. She was still asleep. It was also alarming that a complex pattern of lines of magical light was beginning to appear around them.

The universe seemed to be very unhappy with them as the air rippled weirdly and the tower around them seemed to blur and run. With an inexplicable sense of distance, a young girl appeared before them, a similiar mandala circling her. She bore an uncanny resemblance to Arhra. The adult Arhra, reached out with one hand, the other gripped very tightly around POS's wrist. The girl reached out too, some force resisting their approach, they inched closer and then, with one final montion, their fingers touched.

The patterns merged into one. There was a dazzling burst of white and then Arhra and POs found themselves elsewhere. Arhra had probably torn space-time a new one, but she had done it. They stood right in front of the Mashirosen, at the very heart of the tower.

OOC: And presumably the real Raiden is nearby.

[POS Industries]

POS sat in the darkened corridor, sipping on one of his previously discarded bottles of Cherry Coke. It was warm now. He hated warm soda. The sugar made his teeth feel weird, like he could feel them being corroded. The wearing away of his being, on whatever level, was something that he chose to ignore. His favorite liquid refreshment reminding him was the last thing he needed.

Arhra was sleeping soundly next to him. He set her down shortly after he had given up running. Raiden's ability to affect reality was more than apparant now. The physics-breaking office that he had occupied a few minutes ago should have been a dead giveaway, but for some reason the notion that he was completely out of his league didn't quite sink in until around the ninth time that he had run past that damn pile of snacks. Good thing the chips were still tasty as ever. He chose to leave the magazines where they were. There was a lady present, after all. Pedro stared at the bottle of warm coke in his hand, his glare so cold that it almost might have refridgerated the beverage itself.

Then, in an instant, POS yelled and flung the bottle as hard as he could down the corridor, listening to it fizz as it spilled out onto the concrete. This was enough. He stood up, wincing in pain from his ankle, and limped over to the opposite wall.

"You know what?" he growled, leaning against the cold cement wall, "I have had just about enough of this. I'd like to say you've underestimated me, but we both know that's not true. You're a god, and I am the epitomy of the mortal man. But guess what? It's not that simple anymore. You made a good offer back there, by the way. In fact, you may very well have had me join up with you, you dumb fuck, but then you made a dealbreaker."

"You lied to me."

Pedro couldn't help but laugh. "I asked you what the plan was, and you fed me shit. You did underestimate me, you Mortal Kombat ripoff. You tried to take advantage of the wrong weakness: greed. If you had only fed into my real achilles heel, my curiosity, then I may very well have happily sent this lamb to the slaughter. But you didn't You flashed dollar signs and trumped up garbage of corporate grandeur and that's why you failed. You thought you could reign me in and have me skipping along merrily behind you, saying to myself, 'Lordy, Massa gonna let me live in the house and everthing!' But you missed one very important thing..."

"...I am subordinate to no one!"

His voiced became surprisingly calm. "So here's the deal, 'Mr. Raiden.' There was only one thing that you asked of me." He turned to face the slumbering Arhra. "You wanted me to kill this girl. Now, you're going to get the opposite. I'm going to protect her. It's not because it's the right thing to do, not because I give two shits about her or because she may or may not be tactically important in the grand fight against you. I'm doing it to piss you off. I will defend her with my life if it means making your life just slightly more miserable, because it will remind you of the one thing that you failed to do...."

POS scooped Arhra back up into his arms and looked up at the ceiling.

"You failed to control Pedro O'Sullivan. And that's good enough for me."

Suddenly, he felt Arhra stir. Before he could open his mouth to ask if she was waking up, he felt another hand grab ahold of his wrist. Looking down, he saw a very familier looking little girl staring back up at him just as the air around them began to swirl violently, and he began to feel the very unique feeling of every molecule in his body being ripped apart.


*******************************************

An instant later, he found himself in a very new environment, and used the next half a second to take in his surroundings...

The main control room?

The Mashirosen core?

The girl's waking up?

Raiden?

My ankle still HURTS?!

And despite the last realization, a wide grin crossed Pedro's face, and he acted immediately. "Computer!" he yelled out, "Activate defense subroutine POS114XB-Alpha! Authorization: Ziegfeld-9!"

Raiden, the real deal, stopped dead in his tracks, his hand reached halfway through the security forcefield between them, jaw dropping more and more as the two mere mortals appeared before him, then disappearing a moment later in a flash of energy. He stood there a few more seconds in stunned silence as one last bit of realization washed over the god's mind.

They had taken the Mashirosen with them.

The thunder god let out a loud string of curses far too horrible to be printed here as the fickle hand of fate had turned into a fist right before his eyes.

[PyrosNine]

The thunder beast's fangs sunk in, limiting the use of Pyros's arms. Raiden was free for readying up another attack upon Pyros's pretty face, and Proceeded to do so. A vicious explosion hit Pyros's face, and then another . And then, he caught it in his teeth. His own fangs sunk into Raiden's fist, and there was a crunch of bone. Raiden quickly pounded Pyros's stomach to release his fist, and Pyros spat it out.

Pyros's eyes glowed red. And stayed so. Perhaps they weren't at their brightest, but they were red. "Huraaaggh!!" He bellowed, and his aura glowed red hot. The Dragons held on tightly, but as the aura kept growing and growing, they became pained from it. They were forcefully evicted from Pyros's arms as the aura continued to grow, encompassing all of PyrosNine's body, as well as a sizeable circular volume as well.

"Flameshield." Pyros muttered underneath the anger that drove him.

The wicked thunder came again, but as it did so, the shield part of the aura's name became evident. It was either the scientific explanation that the intense heat sped up the air molecules to the point that it didn't allow electicity to pass, like that one episode of Poke-...nevermind. The other explanation is that was a sphere of Pyros's own magic protecting him. Which many would approve of more, because saying it's "magic" always seems the best solution rather than go indepth.

Whatever the reason, Pyros charged raiden, spinning the flaming shield like a hamsterball. Raiden hurled another bolt at the oncoming Pyros, but it merely bounced off and Pyros kept running. The God-Raged Raiden charged up his own defenses, but it was too late. He was slammed into the wall yet again, but this time Pyros kept pushing forward with his shield, crushing him twixt the two.

Raiden however built himself up and pried himself free. He concentrated his might and pushed back, sending Pyros back. Pyros managed to rebound off the back wall, and then he went to the ground on his feet. Raiden hurled down another bolt. It was nicely sized, and exploded off the shield with such force to actually jar Pyros. He threw another, and this one caused Pyros to slide backwards. He threw another, and another, and continued to throw them, one after another. Pyros kept the shield up, but every explosion from the bolts moved him. Raiden sped up with this throws, faster and faster, hurling a cloud of the bolts at Pyros.

Pyros found himself being shaken violently and even tossed by the amount of blows his shield took, and dodged them when he could to hurl his own fireballs. But Raiden dodged that, and continued with his fast moving bolts. He threw them faster, more widespread, and more at a time. More and more and more, until it was as if there was a sea of thunder in the room to replace the sea of fire.

Pyros couldn't dodge this, for there was no way to do so unless one were of the size of an ant. And even then there would be great difficulty. They hit his shield like the rain, and each one pounded him back. He couldn't bring himself forward, and the hail of large bolts drove him and his shield into a corner.

His prey stuck, Raiden concentrated the bolts he threw at that corner, whittling at Pyros's shield. Pyros couldn't maintain it, for the ferocity of the stream wore his shield down than his ability to rebuild it. Just as Pyros's shield was about to break, he leapt out of the way only to find Raiden before him. A clash of thunder smashed the shield, and Raiden let loose the barrage again, each bolt finding it's target and cutting through it.

Pyros couldn't even scream in pain, for the shear number of hits and their encompassing his entire body did not allow him to uncompress his lungs. Skin, Bone, and Muscle were bruised, bloodied, and torn. Pyros's mind knew he couldn't take further punishment like this if he hoped to defeat the REAL Raiden, so Pyros flared his anger yet again.

He rebuilt the shield and expanded it instantly with his anger, deflecting the Bolts and lashing out at Raiden, who was shoved back. Then, he pulled the aura-ic shield back to himself. He launched himself forward to avoid further injury, and Raiden made a nice explosion where he had just been by wrapping five of the nicely sized ones together, powerful enough to knock out NPF's electric grid completely. Bleeding and a tad bruised more than he'd wanted, Pyros was happy to have avoided that attack.

Raiden followed the moving Pyros with another attack of the sort, which Pyros leapt out of the way. Raiden leapt about, creating more of these such explosions that Pyros had to dodge. But being repetitive only brings forth patterns, which can be used against you. Raiden made yet another for Pyros to dodge, then doubled back quickly to catch the Fire Angel off guard. Pyros however, had been thinking the same thing and caught Raiden in the face with burning fist. It clotheslined the elder Thunder god, sending his attack harmlessly away, his feet continued to move forward, but his head went straight down.

Pyros pounced upon him with his shield, slamming him flatter. He spun the flameshield about himself, grinding Raiden into the ground, but with great strength Raiden shoved him off and straight up into the air. Pyros let himself go along, and when he hit the cieling he rebounded himself back down towards Raiden. The return hit crushed Raiden, but Pyros bounced back off again. Raiden quickly got back up to his feet and hurled more bolts, but Pyros hit himself off the walls, bouncing about.

He bounded for Raiden who went nimbly avoided him, but immediately came back with another bounce and slammed into his back. But this time, with the hit there was an explosion made from Pyros's quick hands. Raiden fell down, but got back up quickly, hovering in the air upon the electric power he was filled with.

Pyros kept bouncing and bouncing, from cieling to wall to floor to the next wall, his speed increasing with every bounce. Truly, it was like a hyperbounce ball stuck in an enclosed box. The speed boost was due to an explosion being made with every bounce. Even if Raiden could avoid the attack, the after effect explosion came against him.

Raiden roared and threw his previous massive attack again the very moment he got a clear shot. It hit it's target, and the shot knocked the bouncing ball back. But Pyros's force of speed didn't allow the the shield to break, and he used the force that the shot gave to increase his speed dramatically. Now the Flameshield ball he was in was nothing more than a red blur in the room.

Raiden lashed out with Lightning in all directions, but what hit the Red ball was bounced back, and Even this Raiden had to move away from the backlash of his own attack, laced with fire.

Pyros returned with his own attack. Raiden was clipped from behind, thrown forward by the explosion and met with another clipping to his face, side, and back. The resulting explosion nearly tore him apart. The room was full of explosions occuring simultaneously and in a chain. The sea of flames had become a sea of thunder, now a sea of explosion force. Raiden was buffeted on all sides, while Pyros moved at a speed known only to a certain superhero who also had a red blur after-image.

"Wheeeeeeeeee!!!!"

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

Krylo was up again, using what time Rhiya had managed to gain to recover and regenerate. It was at this prime time that Rhiya regretted giving those two extra guns to him. She was afraid Krylo might – in revenge-like fashion – shoot her down in the process of conquering the Raiden-puppet.

She was currently ducking a vicious sword-swipe from Raiden as she tried desperately to prevent the God-puppet from approaching the Withering Blade embedded in one wall. Rhiya’s chaos claws crossed and deflected another blow just barely. There wasn’t time for her plan to click into place, and she was doing all she can just to cling onto the ceiling with her wings, which were slowly inching her towards Krylo’s blade even as she tried to keep Raiden away.

Suddenly, Rhiya fell loose. In midair, her wings unfurled like great sheets of goo and shot forward, punching the immortal/regenerative Raiden back like a mighty fist of subconscious goodness.

But they didn’t stop there. Like splash damage, those wings gushed around Raiden, pinning his arms down and sending his sword skittering across the floor with a vigorous shake. Those same wings melted and solidified into the ground, concreting Raiden’s body to the point where he could barely even turn his head. Or breath, for that matter.

Now, perhaps you may be wondering why Rhiya hasn’t finished Raiden off yet. This is why: Rhiya, in pinning down Raiden with nearly all of her subconsciousness, didn’t have enough left to actually turn around to face her enemy and do something explicitly nasty to Raiden.

“Well? What are you fucking waiting for, Krylo? We gots ta hurry up and get this over and done with!”

OOC: I hope I could do that........

[Truce]

Ecurt was ran as fast as he legs would let him, knowing full well how dangerous Pandora's Haxxors was. Like its mythological counterpart, it was harmless if left alone but, if opened, it could release a devastating force that would be comparable to that of Pyros' second Apocalypse. And, since he had left it behind within a room crowded full of power hungry newbs, it wouldn't be much longer before it activated.

Ten seconds later he was proven right when a newb noticed that Raiju was sniffing a box on the ground. Thinking it was free loot, he snatched it away and opened it, eager to see what 1337 treasure he had discovered. What he found was a little electric rodent, staring up at him with big black eyes, making the cutest face ever.

Then, pikachu opened its mouth and exploded, taking out almost everything in that alternate universe at once. Ecurt was lucky; he had already made it out of the tunnel by this tame. Fenris...not so much. The hobo was still in the tunnel when some of the force from the Pika-bomb caught up to him, and he was shot out of the tunnel like a bullet. Ecurt wasn't worried though; Fenris was wearing the armor, after all.

Taking a look around, Ecurt checked to see if anybody else was outside. Not seeing IC climbing the tower (because, he didn't really expect anybody to be doing that) he shrugged and took out a radio out of Rhiya's pants. Turning it on, Ecurt adjusted the frequency until he opened a line to Arhra. "Oi," he said, sending his message hopefully to through the cat ears on the other's head. "Arhra, are you there? Can you pick up? If you can, turn on your tail and give me a report!"

[Premmy]

The four sword, Like all sacred blades of Hyrule, had the power to repel evil, If the source of Raiden's new powers was evil, This image would have a serious adverse affect to the touch of the blade.(Think tetsaiga) The Four sword brothers, quickly moved out of the way and let Garud try his hand. Raiden had Garud where he wanted him, right in the way. But this did'nt change their plans very much.

The four Premonitions(s) moved in perfect synchronicity, They ran until they were standing around the two warriors in a wide diamond formation and then closed in from all sides. At the last moment their movements differed from each other and they ran Garud and Raiden through from four different angles. Both men began choking, as at least one blade had run through their throats.

Premonitions could have all of himself slash away, Litterally tearing both men to shreds, but that wasn't nearly violent enough. Again they moved in unison, all of them pulling their blades out perfectly, Green pulled Garud by the arm and threw the heavily bleeding creature off to the side and pulled Raiden in close. "Tell me, before I kill you, what is this? what's the purpose?" The Puppet merely smiled as glowing blood trickled out of it's mouth"Now why would I tell something like that to something like you?" Green growled, This puppet was healing, rather slowly, but he could still see the flesh mending, it was almost fascinating.

"Wwell It does'nt matter anyway, because when I find the real you, you'll be just another part of my collection" They each pulled out a plasma grenade, smiled and jamed the explosives, far into each of the four deep, wounds. They pushed them as far as they could go, deep inside the faux-god. A last mad cackle was heard as Premonitions applied all eight feet to Raiden and pushed off. Sending himself flying in four different directions.

Green landed on his back near Garud. He got up and looked at the man. He was dying and he was'nt taking it very well.Premonitions returned the four sword to his portal and pulled out a red potion. He poured it out on top of the dying thing as it gave off it's last breath. It tranformed back into Garud and then lay still. As Premonitions'(s)three other selves faded away, Garud's wounds closed up, his eyes opened and he came gasping back to life. He had a look of excrutiating pain on his face and he was sweating profusely. At that moment, the grenades went off. The explosions rocked the landscape. Premonitions looked back and waited to see what wold happen.

[Fenris]

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" Fenris yelled as he was shot out of the tunnel at massive speeds. He flew straight into a tree and fell over on the ground, with broken ribs from the impact.

Fenris groaned and layed on the ground, deciding he wasn't sure if he could move.