How the NPF Saved Christmas Final: Merry Chrstimas to All, and to All a Good Fight!

[Red Mage Black]

(ooc: mind if I rejoin somewhere? If I need to edit my post please gimme a shout.)

What looked like a torn hole, shone a bright light. RMB popped out of the rip and the tear closed. This time he was wearing knight armor and wielding a fiery axe. "Thanks to Mammothtank for the armor and weaponry. I can't use spells in this class though. I guess I'll have to work with what I have", RMB said pulling off a backflip and landing next to TB who was now a book. "Is it too late for me to rejoin the fight? I can take care of the demonic swordsmen if that's whats needed. Any orders chief?" He looked around at all the fighting. "Anyone need any help gimme a shout."

[phil_]

So far, IC had torn one swordsman's eyes out, Phil_Mike had paralyzed one by crushing its pelvis, and Darth SS had shot another's head off. That left three, which Phil_Mike considered a fair fight.

Phil_Mike whipped his left hand up and opened his palm, signaling for the swordsmen to stop. Of course they didn't; why would they follow the commands of their enemy? Luckily for Phil_Mike, he'd just done it to be dramatic. "Ok, last time we were just trying to get you off IC. This time, we're" --he closed his hand and stuck his thumb down-- "gonna take you out!" The swordsmen continued to advance, unimpressed with Phil_Mike's continued bombast.

One swordsman charged before the others, thrusting his sword with both hands. Phil_Mike dodged to his right, grabbing the demon's wrists with his left hand and twisting them so that the demon's arms were one over the other. He then smashed down with his right elbow on the demon's elbows, dislocating both. Finally, he finished with a right side-kick, sending the swordsman flying into a wall. Phil_Mike shrugged, "We never thought those combinations we practiced would ever be useful, but then again, I guess we never expected to fight demon swordsmen."

The remaining healthy swordsmen were not happy with Phil_Mike's attitude nor with their companions being maimed (and in one instance, killed). Both charged at once. Phil_Mike pointed a finger forward and above his head, yelling "●Summon: 10-ton Weight!" A triangular weight appeared above the swordsmen, but they easily dodged it as it crashed to the floor. However, they dodged to opposite sides. With the swordsmen seperated, Phil_Mike dashed to the one on his right, drawing his axe-on-a-stick. The swordsman easily parried a horizontal swipe at his head, stabbing Phil_Mike in the left shoulder. Phil_Mike kicked off, feeling something much worse than a stab wound. The other swordsman had come around the weight and was now behind Phil_Mike. He noticed the second out of the corner of his eye, and yelled "●Blink!" just as the first swordsman thrusted again for a killing blow. Phil_Mike disappeared and reappeared immediately behind the second swordsman, who cried in surprise as the first swordsman stabbed him in the abdomen. They were stuck together for a split-second, and Phil_Mike took advantage of his newfound luck. "●Dismiss! ●Summon: Lazer Bee Swarm!" Above Phil_Mike's head, a swarm of baby-carrot-sized, pill-shaped, yellow and black legless bees popped into existance. "Lazer Barrage!" The bees' eyes glowed red, and the attack summon pelted the two entangled swordsmen with tiny lazers in such volume that, when the attack ended, the swordsmen were thoroughly aerated, taking them out of the battle.

Phil_Mike stopped to catch his breath. That was a lot of spell casting in a very short time, not to mention the martial arts, not to mention the stab wound as well. Phil_Mike pointed at his shoulder and cast ●Cure, knitting the wound, but not helping the temporary exhaustion.

[Inbred Chocobo]

Somewhere back at the forums, Silly Kitty was pounding The Kneumatic Pnight with a ban stick. She ended up killing him, and as she pulled out a pheonix down to revive KP for another beating, she heard a whistle. Suddenly an object came bursting through, just barly missing her, and went through the other wall. The pheonix down was missing, so she pulled out another and continued he barbaric beating of KP

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As everyone was preoccupied with their fights, no one might have noticed another hole appear in the ceiling, nor the object that came crashing through. The Wind Edge landed stuck in the ground next to IC, and what looked like a feather floated off of it. It gently floated towards IC, then a bright light shone. IC opened his eyes, and felt good. Most of his injuries were healed and his body wasn't tired anymore, though he was incredible pissed at the elf that he would think to kill him. He stood up slowly, then grabbed the Wind Edge and circled around, intending to use the element of surprise.

He now positioned himself nearly hidden from the elf's view, watching and waiting. He tried his best to keep hidden from everyone fighting, giving away his position might just ruin this plan. Ten to one I bet that elf can't multitask. Throw another one of those bolts and let's see if that shield goes down. IC thought to himself as he watched the elf and prepared for his attack.

[mammothtank]

MT quickly sized up the situation. "Hmm... Something tells me I lack the skill and firepower to actually take anything in here down... but that doesn't make me useless!" Plunging his hand into his bag, he drew a handful of items, and prepared to begin tossing them around to aid his friends.

Backing off to one side, he caught IC's eye, having noticed but mostly ignored the bird man's revival. MT raised a Hermes' Shoes into the air, which vanished with a sparkling light. The air around IC suddenly became distorted as the Haste enchantment took effect. With a brief nod, MT dashed off to the other side of the room.

Skidding to a stop near Phil_Mike, MT quickly tossed the fused(?) brothers a Turbo Ether to help with the fatigue (and restore MP). "Hope that helps!"

[mauve]

((OOC: This is kinda long, but I'm not sure if I'll be online tomorrow or not. This might be my last post in the RP.))

Mauve’s eyes widened as she looked at the remaining balrog. Mammoth thought HE was going to die? He wasn’t the magic-user in the pointed hat! This scenario was practically screaming for a narrow bridge and a pit of doom!

Forcing herself to feel brave, she drew her knife and ran into the room, weaving around piles of candied fruits and hunks of ancient fruitcake. Her foot landed on something hard and slick and she barely caught herself from falling.

“Why the hell do I keep tripping over stuff?!” she fumed. She lifted her foot. A handgun? Curiously she picked it up. It was still warm, meaning it had recently been fired. Hold on, this was Krylo’s gun! Why would he throw it away? She looked around for him. Her eyes darted around the room, finally swiveling down to the ground.

“Oh my god.” The dark form on the floor that she had originally dismissed as a dead fruitcake golem was a human body. Krylo, or what was left of him, was laying motionlessly a few feet away. Mauve almost didn’t recognize him. Dark spiderwebs of veins wove their way across his arms and a mixture of blood and ash stained his tattered clothes. Parts of his skin looked almost rotten. Twiddy was laying next to him, his wings tattered. Were they… dead? But, aren't we too godmoddy to die?!

That elf was going to PAY! She started running towards him, but suddenly her path was blocked by several tons of flaming balrog. Frantically she skidded to a halt. Unfortunately, this wasn't the balrog that had just gotten its fiery butt kicked by Darth SS and Company. It wasn’t exactly intimidated by her (a mountain of fire versus a twig with glasses), so it saw no reason to move.

Well, everybody dies sometime, she reasoned. She might as well go down in the traditional magic-user way: fighting some large creature. Krylo’s gun was still in her hand, so she aimed at the balrog’s head and pulled the trigger. The first shot was way off mark; she wasn’t familiar with guns and the recoil had taken her by surprise. Grimacing, she gripped the gun with both hands and fired again. This time she didn’t miss. The balrog turned towards her, annoyed. Mauve took a step back and aimed the gun between the beast’s eyes. Bracing herself, she pulled the trigger.

Click! The tiny sound made her heart skip a beat. Out of ammo; just her luck. She threw the useless gun at the balrog. The only way she’d be able to harm this thing was if she did some sort of massive godmoddy uber-spell. Heheh, everyone would hate her for that. Still, that could be fun, if she didn't kill herself in the process. But what could she cast that would be strong enough to take out Tolkien’s Mega Monster? ... Heeeyyy.... An idea popped into her head.

It just might work. She ran out of the throne room and into the hallway, leaving the balrog staring confusedly after her. She kept running until she found the place where Raiden had burst through the wall. Snow glistened outside. Mauve sat down and started to concentrate, blending a variety of existing spells with images from her own imagination. The snow began to move.

A few minutes later, her voice could be heard in the throne room.

“HEY ELF!” she yelled down the hall. Her voice sounded strained and tired. “You gonna play Lord of the Rings? Fine! Let’s play Lord of the Rings!” At that moment, a herd of white horses burst through the doors, spraying snowflakes everywhere as their hooves hit the stone. They were crafted of snow and melted ice, and although not nearly as impressive as the CG pony flood in the movie, Mauve was feeling quite proud of herself. Tolkien was probably turning in his grave. They weren’t the smartest bunch (one had run into the wall near the door and smashed itself into slush), but they knew their target and dodged the other NPFers in the room as they raced towards the balrog. The first three horses melted into puddles before they could hit it. The rest, though, leapt into the air and dove into the flames. There was a deafening hiss as ice turned to steam. And then there was silence.

“Hah!” Mauve said triumphantly, leaning heavily against the doorframe. “Eat your heart out, Arwen!” She slid to the floor, drained of energy and feeling slightly ill. She must have overdone it a bit. “Ohhh, not good.” She muttered.((OOC: Toastburner- It’s up to you whether my little godmod moment killed the balrog or just weakened it.))

[Krylo]

Twiddy's spell actually had helped a little bit. It had been just enough to allow Krylo's regeneration to renew its battle against the withering disease, so long as he stayed relatively still and wasn't injured again until the disease had been stopped, that is.

His body began to lighten, the purple leaving him and rotting flesh beginning to renew. However, it was happening slowly, at least compared to his normal regeneration, and it was full minutes until he regained consciousness, and several more before he could even open his eyes, much less move a limb.

And, even then, he couldn't stand, but, luckily, he happened to be laying in such a position as that he could see Santa's cage.

His still rotting hand reached into his coat and pulled out his remaining nine milimeter pistol, and he took as careful aim as he could with his vision wavering. The gunshot sounded above the cacophany of the the battle, followed by a few bloody coughs, and a bullet was lodged in the padlock. He fired two more times, and each bullet hit precisely the same spot, finally shattering the locking mechanism and allowing the door to open.

Once the shots were fired his arm fell back down infront of him on the floor, the gun clattering out of it and across the floor, as he breathed slowly, too weak to move any further. Not that it mattered. Even if he had the strength, doing so would take precious bodily resources away from fighting the disease. Even after having regained consciousness he looked little better than when he had passed out. Indeed, he still looked even worse.

[Red Mage Black]

RMB headed over to Mammothtank who was helping out the others. An idea popped into his mind. "Hey MT, wanna work together to take these guys out? My axe and your lance. We'll make a great team." He gave a wink to MT before getting into battle position to charge the swordsmen.

[Darth SS]

The elf was distracted by Santa's freedom. Darth had an idea. He sprinted at the elf, and slipped away his lightsaber. He pulled out a curved combat dagger that had been generated when his health/armor regenerated. Then he did someone absolutely ludicrous.

He sprinted up the shield, like he was doing a wall-run.

As he was on it, he could feel when his foot missed a step, and the shield ended. Thus, he pushed off with his other foot, and came out above the elf, behind the shield, with the dagger raised. A golden haze surrounded the edges of everyone's vision and there was a distinct feeling of someone hitting triangle.

If you were to look at Darth, you would have seen that his dagger caught the light and flashed dramatically.

He was doing a Speed Kill.

OOC: TB, you may also decide if the elf is speed-killable, or if the elf can quickly generate a bubble or something. Though, I do imagine that a commando three times his size right above him with a dagger isn't exactly good for his concentration.

[PyrosNine]

Pyros hopped over to where the crumpled figure of Krylo lay, with his body slowly decomposing. "Hmm...wow. My respect for you has really gone down the toilet Krylo. Geeze, getting yourself impaled on a Rakhasa sword. What immortal goes and does something stupid like that. I had a hand in making the little bastards, so I'm fairly certain I know how pitiful they are."

Pyros preened himself abit. "You're such a pitiful sight, I'm tempted to just let you rot for stupidity." Pyros put a paw to a rotten part of Krylo's shoulder, where the rot proceeded to crumble off a bit.

The kitty put his head right into Krylo's face, and sniffed him a bit. "But I am well known for my tender care of my friends. No matter what those SOB's in guam say."

Pyros padded a few feet back from Krylo. "Deity transform! ASHETH!"

Many were aware that certian Deities had multiple forms and names over the globle, for whatever reason. Mostly because they're greedy, or for their amusement. Few however, knew what each particular god was in another country, as they usually keep this information to themselves. PyrosNine was just such a deity. While Raiden had a few ideas about Pyros's other monikers and forms, Pyros usually kept them secret. Mostly because some of them were embarassing, and it wouldn't be good for Raiden to discover that the Ninetailed Red fox that he paid to keep Pyros from entering his house was also Pyros as well.

One such form, was Asheth, the Goddess of the lKingdom of Seriysten. She ruled over cats, salamanders, fire, broken brooms, anger, and PMS. Most of these titles came from a most open minded yet somewhat stupid mortal that Pyros met in an attempt to get at that Kingdom's large supply of powdered Dragon's blood. While the crackpot mages used it for their halfassed spells, Pyros wanted it for making Dragon's blood wine, a favorite among fire beings everywhere. If Pyros had some on him when they first met the Balrogs, he could have negotiated their prompt dismisall from the throne room. Such is the power of the wine.

In looks, Asheth adopted the clothing of Seriysten, which was a neighbor to Persia. She looks very much like a female genie, with the slim build and the curled shoes. She ignored the veil however, because being mostly a male deity, she wasn't about to fall under some cultural sexism of the continent. When one holy man inspected her and remarked upon this, she broke a broom over his head. Henceforth, the title of the Goddess of broken brooms was attached to the name of Asheth.

One ability that this formed wielded that Pyros did not (which wasn't unheard of. When Raiden was a turtle, he gained the ability to be a one man barbershop quartet.) was some healing powers. Pyros assumed it had something to do with the gender being able to give life, but decided not to venture further into that train of thought.

Being a fire deity, the technique would lack water and plant's tingling sensation as they healed. It was more like a painful burning sensation like being set on fire. But it was perfect for maladies such as the rot...

Arm Braclets jingling, Asheth smiled at Krylo. "Pay close attention to the face, or else you might black out from the sheer unrelenting terrible throes of pain that might make you wish you would die anyway." She swept herself towards his pitiful figure, soon becoming a blur of flame that wrapped around Krylo's body and even went into him. The flames licked at the corruption, the vile death that coursed through the mod's body and devoured them, cleansing him like a good sponge over a dirty plate. Or like those CLR commercials over rust. Coincidentally, the burning sensation felt was much similar to contact with the famed cleaner.

When the corruption was removed, the parts of the body that were destroyed in the burning process were more easily regrown. Hopefully Krylo'd be back to his old self shortly. But first Asheth exited Krylo's body, not wishing to get stuck in there. Then, while still in a pure fire form, she flicked away the corruption she had removed from herself (In the healer's handbook, it was never good for the healer to get herself afflicted by whatever she removed from her patient) and a glob of filth splattered onto the floor.

The gooey mess burned into the floor, then dissolved into the pain, suffering and death that it was made of harmlessly.

[phil_]

Phil_Mike chugged the ether (a handy trick, chugging...) and felt the lactic acid in his muscles magically disappear. With a newly revived body and mind, he wondered If there were five swordsmen, and IC maimed one, and we maimed one, and Darth killed one, then how'd we just fight three? Ah well, I'm sure it makes sense somehow.

Now, to business. The swordsmen were history, but the Balrogs were still flailing about (though both had been weakened), and the elf was still on his throne. But, more importantly, Kry wasn't quite dead yet and had freed Santa. Unfortunately, Ol' Saint Nick didn't have any chance of avoiding all the ice trolls that still roamed the coridors, so he was still as good as caged. Continuing to scan the room, Phil_Mike's eyes fell upon poor lil' Mauve, who'd tried the forbbiden art of godmodding and tired herself out. Being twice the lonely loser he had been, Phil_Mike sprang into action!™

He hopped toward Mauve, grabbed her by the scruff of her robe, then hopped over to the cage, where some flaming lady stood after burning Kry's blight out. "That's some fine work, lady," he smirked, "but next time, get some video. I'm sure that CT would've loved to see that." Setting Mauve down, Phil_Mike yelled "●Summon: Rickshaw!" As the taxi bounced to the floor, Phil_Mike hurried Mr. and Mrs. Claus to the seat and threw Mauve on their laps. "Sorry, but there's not much room." He looked down at his watch. "Or time, for that matter. Let's get you airborne, Santy."

Phil_Mike grabbed the handles and started to run out the door. A balrog noticed them, but its whip barely missed and Phil_Mike dashed between its legs. In the antechamber, a crowd of ice trolls had congregated to eat what was left of the fruitcake golems. However, they immediately dropped their bricks of cake when Santa's scent reached their noses. Unable to leave the cart, Phil_Mike let go or the rickshaw with his right hand. As he ran toward the holes Pyros had made just a few minutes ago on his way from the workshop, Phil_Mike charged through any trolls who attacked from the front and cast ●Fire with his right hand at any trolls who attacked from the sides. Reaching the first cat-shaped hole, Phil_Mike yelled, "Cover you heads!" at his pasengers and leaped through, making the hole significantly larger in the process. As he ran across the hall they'd entered to reach the next hole, he yelled back, "Remember, all this damage is TB's fault!" He then crashed through another hole and another wall.

After about twenty such hurdles, Phil_Mike jumped and landed on snow. They'd brought Santa to his sleigh and the toys. Unfortunately, they'd also brought every troll they'd passed on the way, as well as some yetis and, strangely, a few devil dogs. Breathing heavily, Phil_Mike turned the rickshaw over. "Everybody off!" His body was bruised and cut from breaking through so many stone walls (unlike Goku or Pyros, Phil_Mike couldn't make a protective chi/fire shield as they rose the damage bill). Standing at the last hole, facing down hundreds of trolls and other nastys, more tired than when Mammoth had given them the Turbo Ether, but full of adrenaline and Christmas spirit (though it may've been from carrying Mauve, not from carrying Santa), Phil_Mike spat in the snow and said, "No problem." Finally breaking his poorly made dramatic tension, Phil_Mike yelled back, "Get Santa on his sleigh, elves! We'll keep these monsters busy!" and sprang into action™ once again.