NPF Avatars 6, Chapter (6?)7: Didn't your momma tell you not to fight?

[PhoenixFlame]

"CHIRRP!"

It was a Roc. Bear... Thing. Standing right there! Belonged in a petting zoo, which made it AWESOME. Phoenix giggled, and reached out to pet Newb the chickRoc.

"Hee! That's cool! Are you a shapeshifter?" She asks, but the bird only seems completely mundane. She's about to return to sewing when IC approaches and queries her backpack.

"Ah? This is Unity, she's my exoskeleton!" Her eyes go , and she seems quite pleased someone is talking to her, "I built her, and she's my multi-tool assistant!"

["Hello."] The device added.

Phoenix quirks her brow though, and cocks her head, "Funny though, I don't remember everything about it. You know when you have those times when you're doing something, and you just sort of autopilot through it without thinking? One of those... Keeps claiming it has a few errors, but I've ran all the specs, and I can't make heads or tails of what's wrong with her. A lot of the error reports are hex dumps with weird dates and crazy impossible data."

She grins for a sec, "Heyyyy... You look kinda familiar!"

[Intern Nin]

Nin yelled at IC.

"Hey, what's wrong with you? You don't throw things at a two year old!"

A realization dawned on Nin.

A two year old with a magic murder pocket!

Nin ran over to the worktable and pulled out SSB who was covered in mice. After brushing off the vermin, Nin began pulling random objects out of the pocket.

"Radioactive isotope... comb... broken swiss army knife... Neo Geo pocket... barometer... palm tree... transformer leg... 37 cents... Ronnie James Dio?"

"Can you give me directions on how to get home?"

Nin pushed him back into the pocket and went back to rummaging through the pocket. Eventually, he pulled out a pair of childrens-sized slacks.

"Success!"

He ran behind the shoe-pile and quickly changed. He emerged clothed and looking extremely confident.

Pants equipped! Now all I need is a plan to get out of here. Let's see, what equipment do I have to work with? Battery, trenchcoat, fedora/glaive, hologram cubes, the mask I've been wearing this entire time, weighted chain, high-tech binoculars, smoke bombs, and my Batman Junior Detecive's kit. Hmm, I wonder if there's anything left in that kit. I did stuff alot of items into that bounty hunter's boost jets.

Nin opened it up and looked through it. It contained finger printing dust, a small flash light, litmus strips, two beakers, super scope, a small acetylene blow-torch, and a welding mask.

Idea!

Nin snuck behind the babysitter, who seemed to be frozen in time, and lit the torch. He then started cutting through the lock on the door.

Oh yeah, seven year-old playing with fire. Nothing bad could come of this.

[mauve]

Mauve's seven-year-old mind had grown bored of just standing around moping over the lack of ponies in this childhood.

No one was sure where the Barbie dolls came from, but Mauve was now seated on the floor, Barbie in one hand and Midge in the other, occasionally seating a doll in a half finished shoe and calling it a motorcycle. From what the others could hear, apparently Midge's top secret spy shoe-cycle had crashed in Giant Mouse Forest, in Rotten Wooden Bench Cave, while she was exploring the territories for the Evil Dr. Badguy's secret base. But little did she know--Mauve informed the invisible audience-- that Badguy wasn't there at all and had actually mutated the local wildlife into giant mice as a trap for the brave, super stylish secret agents. So then Barbie had to make her way across the Dirty Floor Desert, which, Mauve might add, made her a sitting duck for any airborne attackers LIKE THIS SHOE AIRPLANE OH NO BARBIE, FIRE THE SHOELACE ROCKETS!! POW POW POW, OH YOU GOT HIM!!! PPSSSSHHHHHHH!!!!!!! OH NO HE'S FALLIIIIING! PAAAAAOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!! KKSSSHHHHH!! --at this point Mauve tossed the shoe, where it hit the ground and bounced once or twice-- And now Barbie was victorious and could continue her search for Midge. Who was currently having her hand chewed off by a mutant mouse.

Barbie karate-kicked the mouse, which squeaked in alarm at having some kid swat it with a plastic doll, and it retreated.

"Thanks Barbie," Midge said in a voice that sounded a lot like Mauve's. "Laser shoelaces don't work against giant mice."

"I KNOW!" Barbie responded. "And Dr. Badguy has a shoe airplane that I blew up. Oh wait. I want to wear the purple high heels. You can wear my pink ones." Midge and Barbie made a quick shoe exchange, mid-expository speech.

"BUT HEY MY MOTORCYCLE CAN FLY TOO!" Midge exclaimed, the fact that the cycle had been broken fading into obscurity. Both Midge and Barbie piled into the shoe-plane-cycle, and rose into the sky.


Mauve was enjoying this too much to pay attention to anyone else. Because seriously. Barbies. You boys have no idea what you were missing.

[phil_]

Phil shuddered after his hug, maybe because of the knife, maybe because it was a hug from a world-destroying chaos beast, but most likely because it was a girl. Dammit, what's the point of having an adult brain in a child's body if I can't take a hug with dignity? "Well, at least I didn't faint," he added aloud.

Something made him follow his attacker instead of investigating Dark AB. After catching the tail end of her exchange with Pyros, he butted in, "Hey, what's this about you making portals, Arhra? Can you get us out of here? Can I help? You did say something about portals, right? Why have there been two of you this whole time? Why didn't I notice that before?" Phil stopped for a moment, then added, "I'm being annoying, aren't I? I can just go away if you want."

Elsewhere, on the other side of the room, the Creep noticed that its eaten to not-eaten shoe ratio had gone seriously wrong, and it was now without shoes. Naturally, this caused it to lose interest in its task, and it started looking for something else to do. This largely involved eyeing Mauve's Barbies hungrily.

[Arhra]

Initial pantslessness and then fire?! Arhra V knew when to withdraw from a dangerous situation and did so.

She edged away from Dark Armoured Bishoujo and predicted violence, looking about th room again to continue her search.

"Query: How did my scanner miss that?" she said, eyeing Phoenix and the wonderful technological bounty mounted on her back.

"Command: Re-run Local Area Search with default detection parameters. Run consistency check on Local Area Search during execution."

"Warning: Unexpected exception in Local Area Search. Hardware mismatch with registry listing. Data replicati&n $rro% at_0x^345%###. %3llo $or$d% HE^^# W@#L*!... Terminating process. Would you like to reinstall?"

Arhra V made an affirmative gesture, looking very sulky. Arhra V's child form was no super-prototype.

While her beta-version search function fixed itself, Arhra V made her way over to Phoenix to introduce herself. Although something did seem awfully familiar about the girl...

"Introduction: Hallo! I am Arhra V and this is Varia Weapon!" she added, holding up her magitech amulet.

"Hello." the device added, its red gem glowing.

* * *

Something made him follow his attacker instead of investigating Dark AB. After catching the tail end of her exchange with Pyros, he butted in, "Hey, what's this about you making portals, Arhra? Can you get us out of here? Can I help? You did say something about portals, right? Why have there been two of you this whole time? Why didn't I notice that before?" Phil stopped for a moment, then added, "I'm being annoying, aren't I? I can just go away if you want."

"No, please stay." Arhra I said happily, pointing to a a spot of floor invitingly with her knife. "Pyros and I were just having a discussion about where exactly he was taking us. I want to be sure of the information we have before I forcefully penetrate any dimensional barriers." She helpfully made little stabbing motions. "If you don't do it right, they don't like it."

"Anyway, you were saying about this 'Ultimatum', Pyros?"

The Ultimatum: GOD OF GODS! Like a giant man, he is said to watch over the cosmos, though his powers of watchingness are so great, that if he looked at something fully, it would be instantly CEASE TO EXIST! Particularly chaotic and de-natured worlds are said to be very good at shouting "Look at me! Look at MEEEE!". Each DIMENSIONAL JUMP risks introducing chaos and destruction, throwing the world off balance and bringing down the ATTENTIVENESS OF DOOM.

The worlds the NPFers have popped through are possible locations for a GLORIOUS RESTORATION of the NPF, being reasonably 'close' to it. This proximity is also why other forumites keep popping up.

But, like many gods, the Ultimatum has MINIONS who may be faster to notice things and less totally destructive of that thing when they look at it. Playing favourites, they are probably trying to KILL the NPFers before the attention of the Ultimatum is drawn to any world they are particularly attached to. But, their boss might notice THEM if they do their UNSAVORY BUSINESS directly and so they have hired UNSAVORY PEOPLE to do it for them!

Can the NPFers unravel this tangle and return to their PROMISED LAND? Only time will tell!

Arhra I sat still for some time, processing the information that Pyros had finally been poked into revealing.

"I think it will be OK if I use my own judgement to make changes." Arhra I said slowly, answering her own question of long ago. She looked very happy about finally coming to this decision.

"So, bravest and most noble of hobbits..." Arhra I said, turning to Phil. "How much do you know about portal making?"

OOC: I decided I'd have great trouble writing Pyros dialogue, so I cheated. Go me! For some reason I hear it getting said in some really cheesy narrator voice.

[Intern Nin]

Nin couldn't help but noticed the background music had changed from the kind that plays when the forumites were doing wacky antics to something more dramatic and suspenseful. He turned around to find the cause of this. He saw the giant narration bubble hanging over Pyros, Arhra I, and Phil. He quickly read off of it and nearly dropped his blowtorch.

So, some cosmic god-being who can utterly destroy things just by giving them his full attention exists throughout the multiverse. And Pyros is afraid that our actions could draw its attention. And judging by the information in that plot-dump, one of his minions must have hired Kamui to take us out so we wouldn't draw the attention of this Ultimatum and cause Tenchi's universe to be destroyed. Maybe Mog himself was hired by a Minion so that he could bring order through mind-control in that town. When we beat Mog to a pulp, we must've gained the attention of the Minions and now they're probably going to be actively hunting us. Could that couple have been hired to quiet us? No, we're still alive and they don't seem smart enough to be the lackeys of lackeys. But that babysitter...

Nin's eyes darted over to Dark Amored Bishoujo who continued to do nothing. Nin slowly turned back around and continued cutting through the lock.

Well, this is a fine situation I've gotten myself into. I could've just stayed back at home and helped the police solve the mystery of who was peeing in the mail drop boxes. No, I had become involved in some cadre of heroes' adventure to seek out a new home and vanquish evil/rain chaos down on the innocent along the way. Why? Why did I come with them?

As Nin asked himself this question, he finished cutting through the lock and the door creaked open.

[PhoenixFlame]

[QUOTE=Arhra;822814]"Introduction: Hallo! I am Arhra V and this is Varia Weapon!" she added, holding up her magitech amulet.

"Hello." the device added, its red gem glowing.

"Hallo!" Phoenix replies.

["Hello."] Unity replied, blinked several times, and then added, ["Master... This device seems to be a similar model. There are several inconsistancies with historical records, however."]

"Cool! You've got one too!" The girl-genius smiles at Arhra V, inviting her to sit down, as she finishes wiring a circutboard created from a small metallic ruler and gold-foiled gum wrappers to the bottom of a shoe sole. "Wassat, Yunie?"

["... I do not know, Master. I will display the records in question."]

The wrist gem projected a light-blue, flat holodisplay in midair within casual reading view of Phoenix, with red text. There were also pictures, conveying to Phoenix a great deal of NPF history. Of course, being that Phoenix was currently suffering from a rare form of amnesia, she had great difficulty understanding the significance of a rainbow gummy crystal dragon catfish named Rhiya and why it was capable of sneezing it's way through dimensions, more urgently, why there were theoretically 3.73x10^83 of them.

"This is silly, Yunie. Are you certain you've scandisked and defragged yourself recently?"

["... I am positive, Master, but I shall run it again."]

[phil_]

Originally Posted by Arhra I

"So, bravest and most noble of hobbits..." Arhra I said, turning to Phil. "How much do you know about portal making?"

Phil attempted to look thoughtful and found it impossible to do as a six year old. Toughing through this old annoyance, Phil slowly vocalized his thoughts. "Well, I'm pretty much making a portal whenever I summon something. I think it, like, wraps around them and then drags them to where I am. Something like that. I think it's more like a trail of candy on the ground for that guy, though," Phil pointed his thumb at the Creep.

"I've summoned gates to other worlds before," he continued, "but I don't know if they were safe to pass through, and I've only done so during short term power ups, so it's definitely out of the question now, since I can't even cast black magic like this." He gestured to his tininess. "Kinda sucks, losing all my mage training when that was all I had going for me. We can't all be naturally super powered weirdos. But, I digress," Phil was watching the knife as he said the last two statements.

"Anyway, while I'm droning about the powers I don't have, I may as well mention that for a while I've thought it possible for me to open gateways myself. Not like summoning one, just going 'poof, portal to Strawberry Street.' 'Cause, I mean, I've summoned myself to places before by trying to summon god-like beings tied to the forces of the universe, like Raiden or Kurosen or Zombie Bruce Lee. So there's some way I can move myself, maybe like by forming an anchor where I want to go then reverse summoning it or... argh!"

Phil held his face for a moment before continuing. "Man, I just hate thinking about it. And really, even if I wasn't depowered, I can't even cast Bolt 2. Remotely forming a magical anchor in another dimension with a connection to the primal fabric of the multiverse akin to that of a god is totally beyond me. I'd be better off summoning a D&D wizard and having them cast Gate. But, that wouldn't be funny, so I'm sure that would backfire."

"That was a little too long, wasn't it? I'm sorry. Um, in short, my only magic trick right now is summoning Creep, I've never tried summoning a portal, and I'm not a void mage or something yet and probably never will be because I don't want to have to explain something like that when 'I'm a Summoner' is so much easier. I think that covers the high points."

Phil stopped to catch his breath. "Any questions? Anything in that helpful? Was that kid in the Ninja Turtle's trench coat looking at us funny for a second?"

[Steel Shadow]

"Woooo!!!" There's on in every group of little kids, y'know. The hyper one. The one who'll run everywhere, climb over anything, or, just maybe, play Train on a converyer belt. This was Steel at 6.

"-l totally do better than you!"

"Huh?" Steel looked around at this oddly familiar voice, tripping on his cape as he did so. Since he was still on the conveyer belt, this put him on a quick trip through happy pointy needle and heavy machinery land.

"Whee!" He emerged out of the other side of the particular machine slightly dusty but miraculously unharmed. This was a kids show, after all. He coughed a bit, sending soot everywhere. And then, "Again!"

"Would you stop that? We got big problems!" The familiar voice stopped Steel from running back around and jumping back in. He turned around, and saw a huffy looking version of himself glaring at him.

"Who're you?"

"I'm you. Duh!"

"Don't duh me, stupid head!"

"You can't stop me!"

"I can to!" And Steel leapt.

The two rolled around on the floor for a moment, with crys of "No you shut up!" and "Stop hitting yourself!". This pointless display lasted about three minuets, untill they both rolled apart and drew their swords.

"Right, now I'll show- Huh?" It was then that Steel realised something was wrong, "Hey, what happened to my sword!" the first Steel whined, looking at the strange foam imatation he now held in his hand.

"Well that's quite simple" Steel two said, producing a pipe and putting it in his mouth. A few bubbles flew out of the end, drifiting a little before going 'pop'. "You see, as we are now stuck in child form, our powews hawen't pwopewy devewoped yet. As such what little we do hawe is compwetewy uncontrowlable, meaning even bwasic flight is cuwwently bewond us. As fow ouw swords, that jus' twakes concenwasion we dun hawe wet."

"That pipe makes you sound dumb, you know."

"Hwey!" Steel to glared and put the bubble pipe away. "Anyways, like this our powers are pretty much usless. We can't even time travel properly."

Steel One looked appaled. "But time travel is awsome! I can totaly do it!"

"No you can't."

"Can to!"

"Can't!"

"Can!"

"Prove it!"

"Yeah, I will!"

"Go on then. One second forwards!"

"Easy!"

"Then do it!"

"Fine, and I'l-" Steel One vanished. Steel Two thought about the past few minuets for a moment, then decided it was boring and wandered over to the rest of the NPFers, looking to see what Arhra I, Phil and Pyros were talking about.

Originally Posted by Phil_

Phil stopped to catch his breath. "Any questions? Anything in that helpful? Was that kid in the Ninja Turtle's trench coat looking at us funny for a second?"

"Oh oh, I could totaly anchor you! Or at least hold some of you in time stasis while the rest of you gets pulled off somewhere else! But my powers aren't working so good here, so maybe not."

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

Mac followed IC heasitantly. Part of him was frightened of this young boy, but another part felt like some sort of kinship. He lugged his guitar with him and followed closely behind the tailed boy. Again the golden yellow feather hypnotized Mac. He reached out and gently touched the feather. "Feels so soft, just like my blanky back home."