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

[Darth SS]

A small ball was rolling around at Krylo's feet. If you listened closely, you could hear the repitition of gunshot after gunshot. At long last, the ball gave, and Darth was released. Unfortunately, it would appear a richochet had shot him in the arm. Even more unfortunately, he was released right into Krylo, with both of them falling over. His day was not improving.

It didn't improve when he saw the army either. His "oh shit, it's Dr. Tran" sense kicked in and he whimpered. Hurriedly, he rolled off Krylo and muttered his mantra for whenever he actually touched Krylo: "I am straight, I am straight, I am straight."

Back to the problem at hand, Darth gazed upon the tide of the damned. It was very tidey. As he didn't know how to stop tides, or how to get stains out of clothes without Tide, he was at a loss.

"Why don't we just have them start a flame-war among themselves, and tear each other to bloody pieces? Then the mods would try to stop them, and we'd have a rebellion anyways."

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

"I know a BETTER idea," Rhiya snarled through her teeth as she brushed herself off. The masterball irritated her to no end. She thought she'd left that past mutilated and buried halfway through the earth's crust. Obviously not.

What irritated her more, however, was the massive amount of Gaian invaders. They had no right - NO RIGHT - to be here and taint NPF's unique spamminess with their own half-assed attacks.

"How about we-" at this, the whisper of claws unsheathing was palpable "- show them what we can do to their sorry asses?"

Rhiya moved forward, her feet lightly dancing across the earth, transforming as she came. Her dragon form erupted from her body, tearing skywards as she pounded forward and clashed into the lines of Gaians.

But something went wrong. A banned came at her, transforming also into a grotesquely-formed creature - a creature as large as a three-storey building... a creature as large as her.

It, naturally, was a banned RPing god-moder. A nightmare for any good role-players, and Rhiya was no exception.

The nightmare rose up, breathing in deeply. Rhiya charged, leapt...

And copped a face full of white-hot plasma. Incidentally, due to her composition, much of it was shrugged off by her natural tendency and will to live. The only problem now was she was dazzled and fighting blind for a good five minutes.

It was lucky that she was still at max-velocity, when she cannoned straight into the banned. Claws, spikes, a lot of sharp jabbing things tried to claw at the creature who reshaped itself many times, dodging inexpertly yet effectively, until finally Rhiya managed to get a grip on her enemy and bite in. With a roar, the Banned tossed her off, causing her to land and squash a good amount of other Gaian freaks.

Disoriented, blinded, Rhiya didn't see the Banned smash into her from the side as she got to her feet. The two battling giants were once again locked into mortal combat, yet Rhiya had no effect on the Banned, who laughed uproariously at her futile attempts to even put a dent in his hide. The two creatures towered high above the others, grappling and tackling.

It was clear who was winning.

[PhoenixFlame]

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

"Looking good..." Phoenix says, gazing trancelike at the spartan control-panel of the massive spire. "Opening..." her voice took on a pained tone, "Ether circut A..."

A holopanel flickered into existance to the left of the assembly as Phoenix's body wrenched slightly as she channeled her own MP, as well as the other caster's, into the transferrance spire, the technomage serving as a conduit for the jury-rigged energy transfer.

Soon, the panel lit to life. Spotlights fully illuminated the massive core room, revealing the structure's true massiveness to it's guests. Several gauges popped across the green transparent holopanel, Phoenix staring at the flashed readings with geunine interest. Her body was quivering now, as she channeled the energy of all three casters into the device.

"A little more... Just a little more..." She whispered to herself.

And then the panel turned red. Emergency lights flickered all across the core.

"WARNING: CORE ACTIVATION COMPLETE." A traditional commanding male warning-voice boomed over the loudspeakers. "X-Ray Laser Initiation in Five Minutes. All Personell evacuate immediately."

"Ah..." Phoenix groaned, now doubled over across the Spire's control panel, "I may have forgotten to mention that this is where the lasers are focused on, to begin vaporization of the deteurium-enriched water and activate the reactor's artifical sun."

She points toward the elevator, "Quickly, we must leave." she cringes.

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While the imperiled Trio made their way back to Elevator number 66, Phoenixbot surfed her way onto an island occupied by a large number of spacial rifts, out of which were marching hundreds, if not thousands of Gaians.

Being somewhat removed from the main group, Phoenixbot was immediately surrounded by several N00bs, Flamers, and Lurkers immediately upon landing.

"Stand down and disable your weapons." The android commands, holding her beam-scythe loosely at her side. Her crimson eyes lock with a maniacal flamer weilding a large fire-sword.

"OMG, STFU N00b!" the flamer shouted back.

Phoenixbot might have sighed. Or rolled her eyes, or possibly even laughed, if any of the above emotions actually registered. However, she did no such thing, not even shrug. Dashing forward with a preternatural agility, the Android launched the pole-end of her beamscythe directly into the flamer's gut, knocking the forumer several feet backwards as she slid into a torso-twist, spinning the tip of the blade cleanly through a Lurker's abdomen, and quickly shifted backwards to impale an accompanying n00b with the weapon's butt-end.

"Stand down, and disable your weapons." She commands again, standing central of a large group of angry looking Gaians.

[POS Industries]

"Rollin' down the street, smokin' indo, sippin' on gin and juice..."

POS sat at a workstation, singing to himself as he worked on his special secret project of doom. It required an expertise in a field to which his knowledge was somewhat cursory, but he was getting the hang of it. Fenris was screaming in agony behind him, several droids holding the hobo down as one cauterized some neural link circuitry into his brainstem.

"Laid back... with my mind on my money and my money on my mind..."

[Bailey]

Newb sat quietly, sticking bits of wires together with various capacitators, resistors, and other items scrounged out of an electronics for kids kit. Finally he had something resembling a ray gun, which he fired at a nearby computer terminal. Pretty much nothing happened, but the gun changed a little. A nearby speaker system came to life. "You do realize that you accomplished nothing but waste electricity from all nearby sources, correct?" Newb smiled. "Perfect." He walked off in the direction he had last seen Mauve, Arhra, and Pheonix heading in, firing the gun to no effect all the while, the lights eventually flickering whenever he did so.

[Truce]

Ecurt had been chilling out in his Masterball, watching a bootleg copy of NPF Avatars - Special Edition DVD, when suddenly he found himself back in the outside world. Needless to say, the sight of an overlord sitting on a couch watching a HDTV seemingly popping out of thin air immediately caught the attention of the Gaian army. He didn't care though, and continued to watch the DVD and the Gaians, instead of blindly attacking him like they normally would, gathered around in a circle to join him.

Nothing beats a good movie after all. And the quality of the production was exceptionally amazing too-it was as if he was right there, right now, fighting the Gaians with the other NPFers.

[Dragonsbane]

"Krylo, your suggestion intrigues me and thus it shall be done. However, rebellions were never my strong suit. Why don't you start this one?"

"Rhiya, if you INSIST on using brute force, do it on the OTHER side of the gate."

Dragonsbane gestured grandly in a wide semi-circle, flames that froze all they touched rising from the ground in a wall of crackling blue-purple pyrotechnics.

[PhoenixFlame]

As Newb randomly fired off his blackout gun, Phoenix, Mauve, and Arhra were doing important work that involved emergency power. Thus, it came as quite a shock when as the three turned to leave the reactor room, all of the lighting cut out.

"Wha?!" Phoenix exclaimed, looking around, grasping the spindly railing of the Spire-bridge. "What's happening?"

The technomage fumbled for her glasses, which while firmly attached to her head, took a bit of feeling around to find the communication system somewhere behind her right ear.

"Raven?" She asked tenatively, checking the Isparalian's main-computer channel. It was dead. "Rei?" She asks. Still dead.

Phoenix flicks the channel to emergency. "Pedro?" Dead also. The technomage groans, and feels her way toward the elevator, who's doors do not open. They pry open easily enough with one's hands when not powered, but the problem lie in the fact that the elevator did not function.

"Warning. Four minutes, to*crackle*" what remained of the warning system died to another of Newb's wanton blackout gun shots.

A small timer popped into existance on the right of Phoenix's glasses, in which she had cleverly installed a Heads-Up Display for times like this. It counted down from 4 minutes to about 3 minutes and 45 seconds before also dying.

Phoenix poked the elevator control panel, which was obviously dead. And then she screamed. It was a loud, long, angry scream, a howl of rage that generally accompanies being trapped inside a chamber that will very soon become an artifical star.

Then it hit her. Phoenix still had a few EP left, unlike Mauve's lack of MP, and Arhra's probable lack of power. The tecnomage's subconcious love of synergy lead her pattern of thinking exactly where it needed to go. The triple-A EMP warded Omniweapon system she'd been working on.

Extending her left hand and focusing on her laboratory, a plane of silvery material appears over her left forearm, out of which melts the boxlike form of the OS. Phoenix clicked the trigger once, feeling a snap, and the holomenu popped up where the weapon's scope would have been.

"Yes! Power!" She thinks triumphantly, thumbing the control switch over to "Lightning Blade".

With a snap of the trigger, a pair of tongs pop from the inside of the OS, crackling with tazer-like electricity. Phoenix plunges this into the elevator's control panel, and rips off the panelling protecting it. Momentarially shutting the weapon off to wrap the wires around the tines of the OS, Phoenix manages to jury-rig the elevator into working once more.

With five times the normal power it's rated to run on.

The three rocket toward the ceiling, suffering approximately 5Gs of accelleration as the elevator launches skyward. Phoenix eases back on the trigger, and the elevator slams into the top of the shaft at a gentle 3x normal speed. The door slides open with a gentle "Vssh" as if taunting the trio. The loud sounds of reactor startup accompany this seconds later, and the main lighting of the Isparalian comes online, except in their immediate section.

Phoenix was the first to stumble outside the elevator, and looked around with the look of a confused deer who'd nearly been hit by a car. Newb was merrily prancing around firing a small pistol-like object, lights flickering out as he did so.

One of the security robots confronted him, but was turned off before it managed to say, "Should you dare to attack an installation belonging to PhoenixCorp, we will have no choice. We will be forced to strike back."

A second shot drained it's flash memory battery, wiping the robot's programming. It fell backwards with an uncerimonious clang. Newb seemed oblivious.

"YOU... IDIOT!" Phoenix's voice rang through the hall with a healthy... Possibly unhealthy, due to it's blood-pressure increasing effect, dose of rage. She didn't bother saying anything else before pointing her left arm, and the OS attached to it, at Newb. The holoprojector scope's digital crosshair intersected him and the weapon beeped twice before Phoenix pulled the trigger like a madwoman.

First, a fist-sized miniature version of a naval Photon Torpedo arced down the hall after Newb. Before even watching to see if it hit or not, Phoenix immediately switched to the continuous laser function, and randomly swept the beam down the hall after Newb.

Suffice to say, the recent events had wore on the nerve of the poor technomage enough to make her snap.

[The Wizard Who Did It]

The Wizard heard a loud crunch as he rattled about the minute space. He guessed, by the fact that he felt like a bone or two was broken, that he had hit the ground. A few seconds of contemplation at what it will be like to permanently live in a ball too small for his actual size when suddenly his eyes filled with red. A few seconds later, horrible pain erupted in him as he felt like he was shoved through a space the size of peanut. After a few seconds of agonizing pain he landed on the ground, the purple torture ball of death right next to him.

He heard an unmistakable yell right next to him, “The bloody hell, who the fuck’s idea was that to shove us in these tiny shitty things.” The Wizard looked at his black cloaked… ally as he vented in rage. One could see him tighten up, a cruel look of happiness darkening his features. “Now I need to kill something…” He looked around at the Gaians around him, and stepped into the fray.
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The Dark Wizard walked calmly through the masses of Online Rejects. One leaped at him, a cloudy look in it’s eye. With but a glance, the pathetic being froze in midair. Placing a hand delicately on it’s disgusting chest, it flew back, running over many of the newbs. A flamer ran up to the Dark Cloaked Sorcerer, screaming obscenities. The Dark Wizard lashed out his hand like a lance, and dug into the flamers chest. His hands groped for something, the victim’s eyes widened, when the Dark One tore out his heart. With a glance at the heart, engravings in a glowing purple covered the beating organ. Runes rose into the sky, and started to burn all the posters around the Sorcerer. They screamed like they were burning from holy fire, as the man before the Monster dropped to the ground, almost dead. The Dark Wizard extended out his hand, offering the heart to the dying fighter. The Wizard spoke, mocking and self-confident. I praise the Glorious Goddess who gave me freedom. Freedom to fight. Freedom to kill.

“Hey, man, is this yours?”

As the man made his last dying gasps, the Dark Wizard dropped the heart into the blood stained grass. He had been looking for a worthy foe here, and it seemed that he was disappointed. He scanned the area, and saw something glorious. Something powerful. A man, donned in red armor, who to the normal eye would look like another wimp, stood among the fallen corpses. He spoke with an air of annoyingness, and aura of confidence about him.

“What makes you come here, stranger? Other folks have gone insane down this here path.”

“I’m already insane.” The Dark Wizard replied, “By the way, “this-here-path”? What kind of backwater shit hole did you come out of?”

Rather than actually respond, the Banned One just launched forward with high speed. A claw lashed out at the Dark Wizard, aiming for his face. With almost a lazy shrug, he moved out of the way and drummed the blade of the Tomahawk into the Banned One’s gut, with his other hand charging magic. Blood splattered onto the Earth, but the Forgotten didn’t even flinch. He drove his hand through the Dark Wizard’s skull. The head started to melt, smothering the claw. Then the rest of the body melted. The liquid wrapped around the Banned One, and consumed him. Arrows of ice launched out of nowhere, freezing the liquid. The Dark Wizard came down from the sky, like some perverted mockery of an angel.

The ice before him cracked, and shattered. Sparkly icicles shot out like bullets from the Banned. The Dark Wizard calmly looked into the shards as they came toward him. When they got close, he became dark and blurry, like a shadow. He floated forward, wavy and ghostly, with the spell still charging in his hand. The ice flew through him, only causing a slight disturbance in his form. As he approached the Banned, he split into multiple forms, which surrounded the warrior. The forms each let loose with a simple magic spell, which the Banned just shrugged off, unharmed. With lightning speed, he started destroying the clones, lashing out at all he could get his hands on. In less then a second he reached for the last standing form. The Dark Wizard tried to dodge but failed miserably. The claw struck the shoulder as the copy vanished without a trace.

The Banned looked behind him just in time to see the Dark Wizard hit him point blank with the spell he had been charging. It drilled into the Banned, sending waves of energy into his stomach. The Banned was forced onto the ground, coughing up blood. The Dark Wizard stepped up right in front of the Banned, a grim look of satisfaction on his face. He drew a black gun made from magic and placed it in the Banned One’s mouth. He stared into the Banned One’s pleading eyes. Like some sort of executioner, he pulled the trigger and watched the Banned drop dead. He fired a few more shots, than tossed the gun onto the Banned, smirking. He started to walk away. Suddenly, the Banned One’s arm shot, now covered in a blue robe. It struck the Wizard in the chin, sending him flying away from the Banned one, and landing in a crumpled heap. The Banned got up, wearing a blue robe, having an entirely new look. The Dark Wizard looked up and said,

“Fucking Ban-Dodgers!”

[Mesden]

The forsaken blue robed creature closed in on the Dark Wizard, preparing to strike again. The sick look in its eyes were intent to destroy the wizard.

It's hand formed into a massive and stretched out. His arm was now a giant flailing claw that eviscerated all near it. The hating eyes grew wider as it wound back for one massive swing.

Before the arm struck down on the Dark Wizard it fell apart. The rest of it turning a creeping black that rushed down its body. The creature lashed out as it tried to reform its quickly rotting arm. Something clicked. The banned fell over and began to writhe. Lashing around, screaming in agony. The writhing stopped along the the banned's existance.

From the nothingness of her own world, Mesden came back to help the Dark Wizard. Her body still glowing from her reentry into the world. Her bright, explosively blue eyes locked onto the wizard.

"You're welcome. Now, let's go."

The Goddess's red glowing hand extended to him, opened and inviting.