NPF Avatars: A story of Seals, Tears, and Betrayal

[mauve]

"I hate you, whoever-you-are," Mauve said flatly. "Know that when I find you, I shall take it upon myself to steal your still-beating heart from your ribcage, perform brutal acts of vengeance upon it and then shove it down your throat until it comes out your--GYAHDSFSF!!" That last bit was the noise a mage-turned-thief makes when she's suddenly attacked by a Sailor Moon uniform. Much cursing and gunhots followed.

A few moments later, a very unhappy Sailor Mauve grabbed the cat ear communicator.

"You will die a horrible death," she declared. "And..." Mauve paused as she caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of a shiny metal machine. It seemed that the sailor suit had modified itself to fit Mauve's coloring and body style. It was also pink now. "Oh yes. You will die."

Mauve did have something going for her, though. The fact that she was no longer a mage meant that she couldn't become a magical girl. And the fact that she was being fueled by pure, murderous hate and rage made it quite difficult for the love-powered suit to function. So sooner or later, the theif getup would come back.

She forced down her blind rage for a moment.

"I must admit that I'm now very motivated to open this door and meet you face to face." She adjusted the giant gun. There was no way she was going to stay like this for a long period of time. One way or another, the sailor fuku would have to go. She patted the PSG lovingly. "So how do I get this portal thing to work?"

[POS Industries]

"Shall we get to work, then? I'm sure Rei would be most helpful after I'm done with her."

Rei herself was unsurprisingly excited by this. "Wow! I get to have a body and everything! That's amazing! Don't you think so, Pe-chan?"

Pe-cha... er, Pedro was preoccupied with something. Phoenix's methodology when it came to building androids was motivated by the same thing that motivated Teddy Roosevelt to have his own face carved into Mount Rushmore. Phoenix wanted more than anything to leave her mark on the world and have everyone know it. This was a different sort of megalomania than Pedro's, where he desired control more than anything. Whether anyone ultimately knew who held it was inconsequential to him.

Still, that was not the issue at hand. The issue was that, as POS looked over the pile of arms, legs, heads, and torsos, a began to notice something. He looked at the spare android parts, then to Phoenix herself, then back to the parts, then back to Phoenix, repeating this pattern over and over again countless times before finally finding the courage to try speaking.

"Are... are these..." he stammered, "Are the parts... well... is the PhoenixBot... what I mean to say is... h-how..." Pedro found that there was no easy way to bridge the question positively. Might as well just go ahead with it.

"How accurate are these parts to the original? You know... anatomically?"

An awkward silence fell between the two of them, the thoughts running through their respective minds being unknown even from this omniscient perspective. Pedro and Phoenix shuffled a bit and looked about the room uncomfortably until a perky, mechanized voice permeated the quiet.

"Wait," Rei pondered, "does this mean that, on top of being able to do all sorts of stuff like touch walls, pet animals, pick up cups, walk around, dance, lay about outside, and go fishing, I can also experience sexual intercourse? That is just neat! I can't think of a better way to gain insight into the organic psyche than to finally understand what it is that you humans are always obsessing about! This is going to be soooo much fun!"

[Truce]

Little did Mauve know that the suit's definition of love included a wide range of things, such as a love for burning, and obsession for stealing, and even a desire to kill someone, so long as they would love commiting the crime. Esheth was pleased; she had found a perfect candidate. "Well, find POS. You can hook the suit up to the computer by inserting the tail into a USB port. From there, you'll...

"...crap. I just realized something. I have no way to hook the portal device to the suit. I knew I should've attached an angel wing wireless connection!"

[mauve]

"So I'm dressed like this for nothing." The thief began angrily, but then a realization hit her. "So I guess there's no point in me wearing this thing, right? Right! I'd better go back to wearing my thief suit so I don't... um... wrinkle the fuku. Yeah."

[Bailey]

A figure entered the chamber which was representative of Newb's mind, and took a seat. Almost immediately Itemist and and Dogboy asked the question at the same time. "Who are you and why are you here?"
"Me? I'm Messenger, don't you recognize me?" And indeed, the figure did have two messenger bags rather than the normal one, and the shoes held that air of speed not in use.
"Okay," responded Itemist. "What is everyone doing wandering into this body? Three personas is pushing it, we don't need a fourth."
"Well, I got a strange sense coming from this body. Like you guys are going on a quest again. A big quest, not a small one. Like, a full-blown NPF quest."
"Yeah, but I think we already have enough people. If you really want to help though, look, you still share a body with Tactitian, right?"
"Right."
"Okay, go tell her that there's a quest going on, but it's handled. Also tell her that there's likely to be another quest soon, so we're going to need her skills. Have her start organizing the personas and bodies to create the best combinations. She should finish up with that around the same time the next disaster starts up."
"Should I get her to maximize for balance or to consolidate power?"
"Just let her handle it. She knows what she's doing."
"All right." And with that, Messenger was gone.
"Think he'll get back in time for the next adventure?" Dogboy asked.
"No, not really. I had to get rid of him somehow though."

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

MANewb heard the commotion and rushed over to see what was happening. Aha, a sailor fuku. And it smells like power. Obviously it's attacking MM. Dresses are not my strong point, so I'll let DogBoy handle this one.
With a calculating expression, he placed his hand three inches away from his head, and smacked himself. Hard. He crumpled to the floor and began changing.


DogboyNewb rose from the floor. Mauve Mage was fighting with a dress. Only one explanation came to mind. She was going to a tea party, and didn't like the dress. She wanted a different one. Well, DogBoyNewb was wearing a very nice dress, and he had several other nice ones that she could borrow. He even had one which was covered in pockets, had a built-in bandolier, was very easy to run in, didn't reveal anything, and was a dark purple with blue segments. He was sure she would like it. He reached into hammerspace and pulled the appropriate dress out, slung it over his back, and sprinted over to where she was. He grabbed the offending dress from where Mauve had finally managed to remove it to, and handed her the dress he had selected. "Here! Much prettier than other dress! Much more useful too! See, knife holders!" He pointed at the bandolier. "You'll be the most stylish and deadly person at the tea party! There is a tea party, right? I can come too, right?"
One of DogBoyNewb's rabbit ears twitched.