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

[Raiden]

And so, the group split into two groups.

One group headed off to the unknown to face a God that seeked more power. The other group went off to more familiar places to plot and scheme.

But would it be enough? Would they stop Raiden from releasing his final seal and regaining the power and status he once had as the Universal Guardian? Or would Raiden once again hold all of existance in his hands?

Let's watch, shall we?

[Arhra]

Arhra felt the need for an exposition, seeing how several people were probably confused as to why she now looked different. Although they seemed to be too polite to mention it. That might be because they had seen her die and revive, but nonetheless, she should probably explain it.

Arhra rubbed her hands together as she looked at the holo-projector, "Giant robots eh? Sounds like fun. Anyway, as you may have noticed, I recently died and reincarnated. Unfortunately that means I've lost my summon magic. However, I have gained a different ability in its place that could be very handy, I can absorb energy now, especially life-force it seems and I can also gain at least some of the abilities of enemies I kill. I thought that given your inventiveness, you probably would want to kno..."

She trailed off, noticing the look POS and Phoenix were giving her. Arhra couldn't help but feel she now knew how a Metroid felt when it had Space Pirate scientists looking at it. But there would be no power armoured bounty hunters coming along to save her. Perhaps running was the best option...

[mauve]

Mauve tapped her fingers against her chin, musing over this new plan as she crossed the threshold into PhoenixCorp.

"Would we be able to put Fenry's consciousness back into his body after the battle, or if anything went wrong?" she asked Pedro, her eyes darting to the suddenly-paler hobo. "The last thing we'd need would be a giant, hammer-weilding robotic bum going on a rampage in the NPF. Raiden is basically the 'electric interference' you're worried about, and we already know that he can mess with electronic devices like Rei's computer. If he somehow screws with the RoboHobo programming, we could end up facing a pissed-off power-hungy thunder god AND his angry robotic hobo friend."

"STOP GIVING HIM IDEAS!" Fenris exploded. Mauve shrugged apologetically.

"I'm just sayin' we might need a big red Abort Mission button, is all," she mumbled reproachfully. "Although Pedro's probably already thought of that."

[POS Industries]

"Immediate reincarnation? Well, I was wondering why you were now a full foot shorter..."

POS continued walking down the corridor, analyzing Arhra's new form with as much scientific intent as he could muster. After all, she was still in a Sailor fuku, and he still had that leg thing....

Suddenly, Mauve spoke up about abort buttons and rampaging metal hobos or something like that. POS shook himself back to reality and addressed the mage's question.

"Actually, it's not so much that his consciousness would be inside the machine," he explained, "his brain would simply be directly connected to the remote control mechanism. Were the hobo's brain to be fried, well, that's it for him. Now, as for the question about Raiden just using his electrical manipulation powers to subvert control, that duck guy already had that under control when he gave Arhra her particular get-up."

With that, he provided a very convincing Vanna White motion toward the apparent living dead girl. "You see, it's designed specifically to absorb and redirect Raiden's electrical magic, essentially nullifying it while the wearer grows stronger. The girl's new energy draining ability only adds to that equation, I'm happy to say. The trick now comes from harnessing all that energy and rerouting it INTO the robot, as well as powering a few other toys which will be revealed in due time....."

Pedro, of course, could have explained why Raiden was able to use his electrical manipulation abilitiies to corrupt the Mashirosen tower's computer network, disabling Rei and sending the defense systems after them, noting that he was using those abilities on the computer core, which was located nowhere near the room that Arhra was in. However, since no one asked, it was clearly not a big deal.

[Truce]

Back on the Thumpcruiser, things were going quite well. As well as they possibly could, anyway. At the speed they were travelling at it wouldn't take long for them to reach the base of the Raiden's mountain. It was then that Ecurt realized one fatal flaw in his plan.

He forgot how he was going to stop the ship from crashing once they reached the Gaian army.

...oh well. He'd somehow pin this on Pyros anyway.

[Darth SS]

Cruising along in the thumpmobile, Darth was thinking. He was most likely about to die. That was fine. But Raiden as the one who killed him? That couldn't be right. Raiden was supposed to have his back, be his buddy. And now he was some kind of horrible monolithic enemy.

Oh well. He'd just find some way to pin it on Pyros...

[Premmy]

"SHIIIIIIIT!" Premonitions screamed, he decided there was one real option. He pulled out many master balls and captured his surrounding NPF memebers and put them in his pocket. before the Crusier got to close he jumped off and let it crash into the Gaians.

[Mesden]

The hell is this? Oh no, this won't do.

Mesden quickly phased herself out of the master ball, it's ethereal holding powers cut off by Mes to enable the escape.

She looked on as the giant Premonitions stomped on.

"Now Prem," her voice echoed in his mind harshly, "don't ever try to take a goddess agaisnt her will or you might find yourself in a world of pain."
Prem felt a breif shapr pain in his chest. Safe to assume, he wouldn't be doing that again.

Mes darted after Prem, quickly gaining on him as they bounded into the army.

[PhoenixFlame]

Silently pressing the "Hold" button on the glass-doored elevator to the engineering room, Phoenix lazilly stared outside toward Pedro, whom was as usual, holding the attention of her guests.

"Arhra, Mauve." Phoenix asks cheerfully, "Would you two kindly accompany me to the reactor room? I require your assistance to jump-start the ship as to make Pedro's dreams a reality."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Phoenixbot sat silently, despite DB leaning against her. She blinked twice, for no apparrent reason, as she stared off at the wall opposite theirs aboard the Thumpcrusier.

"Dragonsbane-san, there is a 93.58% chance this vessel's braking system is insufficient to stop before impacting mount Raiden." She states matter-of-factly, unmoving.

Obviously, the fault could only be attributed to Pyros' error.

"SHIIIIIIIT!" screamed the group's Afro'd friend.

*Clang.* A masterball hit Phoenixbot squarely on the head, bouncing off and popping open menacingly.

*BKAM!* *Sizzle*

Before Phoenixbot hit it squarely in the hinge with her Series-V Laser Pistol. She stood calmly as always, and proceeded towards the deck of the speeding ThumpCruiser. The android took a moment to calculate the speed of the ThumpCruiser, the distance to Mount Raiden, and the approximate consistancy of both the soil and the lake of humanoid ichor.

Luckily, Phoenixbot had taken with her the bottom of her seat cushion, a well-known floatation device. Although she had no intention to use it as such, the Android lept powerfully from the bow of the ThumpCruiser while placing the seat-cushion under her feet, and used the "in case of emergency" (Crashing into mountains of hostile forumites constitutes a level 4 emergency.) floatation device as a crude surfboard, speeding alongside the ThumpCruiser moments before it impacted the shore of Mount Raiden.

[PyrosNine]

Pyros kept sleeping, his cat form still in the clutches of Inbred. He found the bumpiness of the ship to be quite like the rocking of a cradle, and even started to purr after a while.

But then, suddenly, the arm Inbred had on him became very tense. And in all the nearby forumites, he could sense a strange feeling of danger. <What now?> he thought. They weren't at the top of the mountain, that was for sure.

As odds go, the ship was probably in some immediate danger that had been unforeseen, something typical of humans, robots, and Chocobos. Well, they may soon die a fiery death, except for Pyros since it was a fairly survivable fiery death. So Pyros simply whiped his face with his paw and kept sleeping.

What did he care for them? As things went, they all had probably already blamed him for it.