Avatar RP VIII: Chapter VII: Timing

[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.