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

[Arhra]

When Yuri had been hit by the Masterball, she saw it bounce off her, open and then fizzle as energy leapt from it to her. Puzzled, she bent down and picked it up, looking at the device curiously. The power of energy absorption transferred form Arhra apparently worked on the Masterball's capture mechanism. Arhra, far away in the PhoenixCorp building, giggled for no apparent reason.

After Yuri got through the crash safely somehow, she found where Premonitions had landed and, as she approached him from behind, called out to him, "I think this is yours!" She beamed as she tossed the ball to him. It bounced off his head and then...

*BKAM!* *Sizzle*

Yuri caught Afrogator! Afrogator's information was added to Pokedex.

Yuri looked puzzled as she walked over. Where had Premonitions gone? He'd left his ball thingy behind again too, and there were a few other ones scattered around it. She picked up the Masterball she had thrown, shook it thoroughly and then accidently pressed something. It shrunk down to about the size of a marble. Figuring it out, she nodded in understanding as she enlarged and shrunk it a few times.

"I get it!" Yuri said happily, "It's some sort of pocket ball!" And with that, slipped it into her pocket. Looking at the other ones, she decided to try the button on front. They opened, releasing their occupants. Sadly, in the excitement of setting everyone else free, she forgot about Premonition's ball in her pocket.

* * *

Meanwhile, Arhra was headed to the reactor room along with Phoenix and Mauve Mage. It should be obvious what the threesome were doing.

Talking of course. Well, aside from the extra-obvious walking, breathing and such.

"And then they made me their queen." Arhra finished, then all three of them burst into laughter.

Phoenix's laughs subsided, "That certainly is a good story. The bit with jumping the shark and that plan to stop the traitors, just brilliant."

"Especially how that magical fountain was used." Mauve agreed. They continued on their merry way to the reactor room.

Unfortunately, due to budget issues, this scene was cut short. The full scene and many more are included as extras on the NPF Avatars - Special Edition DVD.

[POS Industries]

"You know.... you can probably take off the mascot costume. I'm sure it's mostly safe here."

"Naw, I think I'll leave it on."

"Your choice, but if you suddenly break out into a simplistic, repetitive tune in a major key with some sort of semi-educational message, I'd like to point out that my current plans don't necessarily require for you to have limbs."

Pedro moved swiftly through the ship's corridors, Fenris still wearing the plushie armor and trailing hesitantly behind him. As they rounded a corner, POS suddenly noticed the distinct sound of a third set of footsteps behind them. Phoenix, Mauve, and Arhra had gone on ahead to the main reactor, so who could...

POS turned around to see Newb. "Um... hello?"

"Hi," replied Newb.

"Um, right. Yeah," Pedro stammered, approaching the situation trepidatiously, "can I help you?"

Newb raised an eyebrow upon hearing this question. "Well, I was sort of planning to help you."

Pedro's eyes widened for a split second as the idea of the RoboHobo having paperclips where there should be microprocessors and drinking straws instead of power relays suddenly burst into his mind. Groundless or not, POS couldn't afford to take risks on this one.

"Ah, I see," he finally said, thinking quickly, "Well, to be honest, Phoenix has already made arrangements for resources and assistance with my current projects. The only non-PhoenixCorp personnel assistance that I require is the lab ra--er, the test su--I mean.... What was your name again, hobo? Anyway..."

Pedro pressed a button to his right, opening the adjoining door with a sound not unlike a woosh. The sign next the entrance read, "Office Supply Room".

"..for you," he continued, turning back to Newb, "I believe that this will be more than sufficient for you to construst your own personal super weapon of doom, doing your thing that you apparently do. Good luck, soldier, and godspeed." And with that, Pedro grabbed Fenris by the arm and continued on his course.

"Onward, hobo."

[PhoenixFlame]

"Ah, please try not to look down." Phoenix calmly grins, as the three board the lift to the Isparalian's reactor core.

"Vwrrr..."

Mauve, Arhra, and Phoenix calmly stood inside the lift to engineering as it slowly descended for what seemed to be several long minutes. Anyone looking outside the elevator's glass panelling would probably be overcome with head-splitting vertigo upon seeing the cavernous black void that was the ship's offline fusion torch reactor. The abysslike compartment was not entirely unlit, but what tiny pinpricks of elevator emergency lighting was sufficient to capture the scope of the core room.

When the elevator finally ground to a halt, Phoenix calmly stepped off onto the thin, perforated aluminium walkway complete with spindly railings, in the approximate center of the cavernous core. The Technomage turns to beckon Arhra and Mauve forward as she steps toward a central metallic spire suspended by large supports stretching out into the voidlike blackness where the room's "walls" should have been.

"Alright. This is the central core, and the only place on the ship where we can activate the X-Ray Lasers to begin the fusion process without the Kurosen."

The technomage extended her left arm, and placed the center of her hand device's palm over the socket of the Spire's lone control panel. A pair of silvery joystick-like handholds pop from the sides of the panel, and Phoenix beckons each of the mages to take hold of one.

"Now, from here, we're going to channel our MP, Ether, Ki, Chi, Essence, or whatever system you use into the center spire. From there, it will convert the units of magic into electricity to activate the core. I will guide the channeling, so merely take hold of one of these units and assist. Shouldn't hurt a bit."

[Incendius]

"Have you all been slouching? We still have hordes upon hordes of our own sitting in our forums! Get on it right away. Also, Fidem, supervise the portals this time, I don't want them to collapse after a single attack like last time. We need to get rid of more of them then even what was sent out before"

The voice rang in the control room several hundred thousand miles away though undoubtably the heroes of the plot would be able to somehow know exactly what had just happened, or their controllers at least.

"Oh yes, and prepare for our 'thank you' to the beloved helper that has shown us this path"

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To Team Kill Raiden, it seemed as if the air suddenly erupted with portals.

Wait it DID erupt with portals so that was an entirely apt and appropriate description.

To the team, their was a brief glimpse of a crumbling, decrepit, and overrun city in the background before it was eclipsed by the evergoing hordes of Newbs, Flamers, Lurkers, Trolls, Regulars and finally most dreadfully, the Banned. There was instant chaos on the mountainside.

Though thankfully the goal was pretty much clear, there was a golden temple in the distance, the gold speck that had been seen before, and the hordes all seemed to be strangely placed between the NPF'ers and the temple.

[Inbred Chocobo]

Inbred now stood up top of the ship, his feline friend on his shoulder. He had managed to 'presuade' P9 into helping him with this attack, and now he waited.

Then it happened, the ship crashed.

Inbred timed his jump, and the second the ship stopped, IC launched forward into the sky, the feline friend clawing into the shoulder to stay on. Inbred suddenly bursted into flames, as P9 worked his magic. To those who looked up, it was lke watching a comet go jumping off the ship, and then hitting right in the middle of the army.

IC had his Wind Edge out, which P9 had focused the fireball on, so when he struck, its flames would go lashing out. He held it high, and as he came down, he saw his target. It looked like a newb, but when he saw it move, he knew it was one of the banned. When the banned looked up to the portal it came from, that was when it got a face full of Flaming Wind Edge.

The fireball shot off waves of fire in every direction, tearing apart those who couldn't stand it, and burning those who could. The wave lost most its strength by the time it reached the ship, so those onboard felt only a heat draft.

The banned just couldn't take that much, the added strength of IC jumping off a high speed ship, using both that speed and gravity to add to his strength, along with having front seat to a nuke, had torn the banned on apart. Most the others around were gone as well. In the brief few seconds he had before the ones that survived decended upon him, IC checked over the burns he had insued.

"You smell something cooking PyrosNine?"

Then P9 bit him.

[PyrosNine]

"Mmmmmrrrmr!" Pyrosnine growled as Inbred attempted to pry the fire kitty off his arm. Apparently Kentucky firaga Chocobos didn't really have a special blend, for the true flavor was in the chocobos themselves. And Inbred was a very flavorful chocobo.

However, Inbred was also a very strong chocobo, and the urgency of the situation added to his prying prowess. The large boomerang thingy was used, and Pyros plopped onto the ground.

"NO! I TASTED THE FLAVOR, AND WITHOUT IT I SHALL NEVER LIVE NOR LOVE POULTRY AGAIN!"

Then, Pyros's OMGGAIA'STEHSUCK! sense tingled. Then Pyros scratched it, and licked his fur down. Then he rolled around in the ground to stretch.

Then a banned got a facefull of Kitty blast.

"MEOOOW! I CANNAE LET YE LIVE, FOUL....Fowll....yummy....KFC...errr, never mind PREPARE TO DIE!"

One of the banned prepared quite well, and Pyros nearly found himself flattened underneath a very large club. These were the trolls of the trolls, the flamers of the flamers, the guys who gay-bashed everyone else while enjoying manflesh.....This would be trouble.

[mauve]

Mauve felt her strength leaving her as she channeled her MP into the machine. For the second time that day (hey, new record), she was completely draining herself of magic energy. She usually didn't like doing this; it was tiring and felt like a reverse sugar rush. But it was for a good cause: The creation of a giant killer robot to do their bidding and smite their enemies. Mauve had her priorities.

She slowed down as she neared the bottom of her magic reserves. Thow out the MP too quickly and she'd end up fainting, a la Twiddy.

" 'Kay, Phoenix," She said, somewhat shakily. "That just about does it for me. What else do I have to do?"

[POS Industries]

Pedro and Fenris had finally reached the door to their destination, marked "Robotics Lab 3". As the door wooshed open in its conventional way, the two walked into the laboratory, a mechanized crew already working quickly and diligently on the task at hand: The RoboHobo Project.

One of the droids moved toward the two humans on caught their attention. "Excuse me, Mister O'Sullivan and Pilot Test Subject Alpha..."

"You know," POS said as he turned to face the worker, "he has a name. It's Hobo."

"FENRIS!!"

"Of course, Misters O'Sullivan and Hobo," the droid began again, correcting itself, "The construction of the RoboHobo XL-3500 is on schedule. We have already begun work on the internal components and adaption processes for additional PhoenixCorp weaponry. Very soon we will be ready to begin assembly of the armored exoskeleton."

Pedro nodded, satisfied. "Excellent, perfect. Tell me, what's your name?"

"My designation is Assembly Unit 520-1F," the robot replied.

"I see. I shall call you Billy," POS decided and continued, "Billy, have the others managed to bring the main reactor back online?"

"Negative. We are still functioning on emergency reserves."

"Okay. Let me know when it's back, if I don't already happen to notice," POS paused momentarily as a thought occured to him, "Also, I have another project that I'd like to begin work on, but I haven't quite worked out the schematics. I might need to make use out of your R&D department, if that's possible..."

[Dragonsbane]

The moment a Masterball touched DB's robes, it was sucked into a horrible, Lovecraftian dimension. It was given sentience, but only so that it could understand and appreciate the horrors inflicted upon it. Thousands of years later, it died wishing that it had never been force-fed the fruit of self-awareness, so that it could have remained forever at peace in the Eden-like bliss of being an inanimate object.

The ship crashed, people scurried...and Dragonsbane simply redirected the force of the impact to Something Else, namely the ground upon which he landed with all the agility of a mountain goat. There was a BOOM from the redirected force, and a crater appeared where there had been a Newb seconds before.

It has often been said that Trolls are the bane of those who enjoy intelligent discussion, those who feel COMPELLED at times to respond to them. They can smell a scholar from miles away, and choose such targets whenever they notice them.

Thus, a circle of Trolls surrounded Dragonsbane as he stood up, giving him only time speak two words before they attacked en masse, their bulk hiding him from view as their sharp claws and teeth descended upon magey flesh.

"Krylo's Fire."

From within the center of the pitched melee, a brilliant spark of red-gold shone for a second, then expanded with a furious roar into a sphere of flame, as if a thousand cutting arguments were piercing their armor of insecure self-hatred and skewering the sensitive flesh beneath...only instead of making them cry and cut themselves, it burned the flesh from their bones.

[Krylo]

Krylo, lacking magical abilities, and not really giving a shit about getting sucked into a ball, was one of the few who was ACTUALLY released by Arhra.

The moderator stood up as he was brought back into the physical plane, just in time to hear DB's spell, and watch its effects. He walked over the charred corpses, brushing down his somewhat staticy coat, toward Dragonsbane.

"I approve," he said with his customary smirk before looking up toward the portals, "But I think we need to stop these portals from the other side... we might be able to close them, but more just keep cropping up..."

The moderator looked back toward DB, this time with a full on grin across his face, "Luckily, though, they're attacking us with an army of trolls, newbs, and ban dodgers. These people hate being controlled--even when the 'control' is as benign as asking that they don't act like assholes--and as such, they hate their own moderators. ...In other words: let's start a rebellion."