NPF Avatars 5 - The Universe, Breaking Us Down

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Engaging in close combat with amorphous blobs of elemental spewing gunk was a risky business, but somehow Hawk was pulling it off surprisingly well. He dodged, he rolled, he leapt about like a loon, slicing and dicing through the opposition, all the while barely avoiding fire and ice and electric shock. It looked like something from a really wierd action movie. With swords. And jams. Actually it looked more like something from Devil May Cry right now, as Hawk again switched weapons on the fly in an instant and began engaging in a spot of gunplay, just to mix up the action a little bit and go for the "Stylish" rating.

The Peacemaker fired again and again into the (belly?) of a yellow flan, pulverising it with every shot before Hawk holstered the gun and rolled out of the way of an ice blast. Coming out of the roll he stayed crouched, the Ascalon shooting out in halberd mode and piercing a fire flan. With another swipe Hawk flung it from the end of his sword and it collided with an ice flan with a wet smacking sound, the two jams cancelled each other out and liquidized into goop. Hawk was on the move again before they had even contacted, leaping over yet another flan (giving it a half-hearted stab with his blade in the proccess) and then went into another roll, this time to avoid an over-sized spinning top.

"Hey, watch were you're steering that thing!", he called out to Mime, but the distraction had broken his concentration, a single ice jam had snuck up on him and clamped down on his leg, freezing it numb instantly.

"OOHHH, collldd!!", he gasped, turning around and drawing his Warbringer, barely keeping his ballance as the damn thing began to chomp on his leg like The Blob. He brought the Glock to bear and unleashed a fury of lead directly into the jam, and at this close range it had significantly more impact. He held the trigger down, pumping rounds into, blasting the creature into thousands of pieces, ice blue stickyness flying everywhere. Eventually he was able to yank his leg out from what was left of the thing and retreated even as the creature began to reform.

I need a weapon that can deal with these things, but what kind of weapon can defeat fire, ice AND electricity? And then it hit him, he put away both of his weapons and drew the OG.

"Super-soaker 4000", he told the white rife and immediately it transformed into the massive, brightly colored watergun. A slight grin flashed across his face as he levelled the weapon, already primed (naturally), and opened up a continous spray of powerful water. He spun slowly in a circle, covering everything in the near proximity in the powerful jetstream. Steam hissed up from the fire flans, their heat dimminished. The thunder flans short-circuited, their energy no longer containable. The ice flans froze themselves to the spot, their own magics working against them.

The effects of his plan evident, Hawk began to move again, spraying anything vaguelly jam shaped with water that never seemed to run out. Oh and a few npfers, just for kicks.

[Long-Haired Narcissist]

"We're in quite a jam." Narc said to Starserpent expecting a laugh.

Huh?

"It's a pun. Jam is a word with a double meaning."

Oh, well, we need to think up a plan quick.

"I'm already trying. Jam...jam...jam...what can I use against them?"

I just thought about something that might help us. Hippies. I have no idea where the idea came from though.

"I got it! A jam session!"

Makes sense. Use me to summon someone.

Narc began playing Starserpent. Narc felt like he was on LSD; he was hearing color and seeing sound. He saw foxey ladied and a purple haze. Those who looked closely at Narc swore that they saw a green aura. Then the aura split apart from Narc and revealed itself to be the spirit of Jimi Hendrix.

Whatcha need, brotha?

"Just a little help with these blobs. You ever heard the story of the Pied Piper?"

Yeah. What about it?

"Just follow my lead."

Narc and Jimi stood tall above the jams. As they began picking and singing, everyone around Jimi, even the jams, were getting a contact high as a pungent smell began to fill the room. Soon many of the jams entered deep trances because of the effects of Jimi's cigarette and the music. Narc and Jimi began leading as many of the jams as they could away from the other NPFers.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

Renée looked around and saw the growing zombie horde. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she confirmed, hooking an arm around a convenient spike and manipulating the autocannon clumsily around it, “Move out!” She fired a round of dull red grenades into the swarm, and a mass of dead flesh exploded in all directions. She smiled. “...brings back memories.”

“I’d recommend taking ca-” KP started, only to be interrupted.

“Doodly-do, doodly-do, doodly-do...”

“What in the name of GOD are you doing?”

“I’m going to have a flashback.”

“What? Why?”

“This reminds me of the Mars Excursion way back.”

“That’s ludicrous. Aliens are much more dangerous than zombies... or even zombie aliens.”

“I know, that’s why it’s safe enough to have a flashback.”

“No flashbacks!”

“Awww...”

“Now, take care of that Raksha’s army.”

“Fine.” Renée scanned the battlefield for a target, and her eyes quickly found one. She took aim. “Gotcha.” With a mechanical thump, a single round, dull grey in shell, burst from the tip of the autocannon and fell keenly across the battlefield, until it struck Willy in his little, prinny head.

There was a ghostly blue explosion, and then a much bigger explosion as Willy’s own nature took over. The explosion was massive—fueled on a wave of Willy’s loosed ether; blue-white bolts of discharged ether energy arced across the battlefield. Zombies exploded or collapsed in warped, twisted lumps of cephalopod and infernal flesh. The very bubble that sustained Poseidon’s castle buckled and gave under the shocking force—and a torrent of water poured over the zombie army and the singed throne.

A bolt of ether struck the massive slick of chaos paint and propagated in quick, shatter-shape lines of ghostly, blue flame and cerulean electrical arcs. This terrible, blue light surrounded Arhiyara and her passenger for a moment, before all were dwarfed in the rushing torrent.

The wave sped through the colossal throne room, Arhiyara at its crest and Renée surfing, absurdly, on her back. The wave rushed past a slow degradation of the walls of Poseidon’s palace into rough, unhewn stone. This extra, open space was death for the wave; it sputtered and collapsed, folding under its own weight. Arhiyara veritably leapt from it’s unfurling, foam-tipped head and landed hard on the jungle ground, a fair distance away from the now-puddle. She slid across the dirt with deft balance—probably that which came from quadrupeditude—and came to a stop a fair distance from, unusually, an identical copy.

Though, not entirely identical, for there were two main differences. The first was Renée, who was perched, deftly, on Arhiyara’s right head, standing with arms crossed in a typically clichéd pose. She, too, was not all normal. For where her armor, helmet, and coat once were, they were replaced by a tuxedo, a top hat, and a cape with purple lining. Though, for all its absurdity, her cape was emblazoned with the earth and gear-sunrise of EdenTech Industries, and her gun was where one might expect—apparently, massive weaponry outweighs the calls of common sense, or appropriateness (as any RPG-player should know).

Secondly, the twin-headed dragon had somehow, itself, become adorned with a pair of disembodied cuffs and cufflinks and a pair of black bow ties—matching Renée’s, if gigantic. On Arhiyara’s left head was a massive pair of sunglasses, and around her gargantuan waist: an equally massive purple cummerbund.

Despite the regal appearance she had somehow cultivated, confusion overtook her and she glanced around, at herself and at Arhiyara. So many questions overtook her, but only one could be the first:

“So, how much do they pay you at Chippendale?” she asked, quietly.

[PhoenixFlame]

Originally Posted by Her Majesty, the Paragon of Anti-Kawaiiness

""You will feed the Dark Tree of Bad-ergy!"

"Nuuu!" Sailor Phoenixbot screeched in abject horror, hands clasped together a moderate distance between her mouth and heart in some manner of displaying abject horror with body language. This action made her staff a bit... Awkward to hold. Poor Arhiyara was surely doomed as Ethilvira was going to suck all of her... his, it's dragon-energy out to feed whatever horrible scheme she had planned this time. As if sucking up human energy wasn't good enough, I mean, geez!

Having her current plan completely shattered, Phoenixbot's hope in love and justice plummeted to an all time low. Her mind, paralyzed, flashed back to the only suitable memory it had... Five minutes ago when she first transformed into a magical girl.

"I can't let you do this, Ethilvira! Serving the Dark Tree of Badergy will only corrupt your soul! Why are you doing this, sucking the energy out of people just to serve your dark god!? It's just... EVIL! And I won't stand for it!"

"Bwahaha! I'll destroy you, and your little dragon too!" Ethilvira retorted, cackling evilly.

Phoenixbot posed dramatically, and began her transformation sequence for the inevitable battle...

Wait, when did that all happen? Wasn't it supposed to just be a random effect of chaos and love? Phoenixbot ignored the clear evidence that this was fabricated, and steeled herself for her next trick. "Shimmering Righteous Mecha Girl... Transformation!" she shouted, making up the phrase as she went, performing another remarkably dramatic pose.

The world zoomed out. To an observer, it would feel as if your eyes were suddenly sucked out of your head by a giant celestial hoover vacuum cleaner, being irrevocably drawn to look at Phoenixbot as her uniform became several times glitzier, and possessed of various golden whimsical jewerly-type arrangements. Her staff too, became more spearlike, possessing a laser blade eminating from it's heart-shaped tip. Finally, with a burst of feathers from nowhere, Phoenixbot gained a pair of angel wings for no apparrent reason. Then, everything stopped.

Yes, it was like DBZ, only without the hair. To fully capture the effect however...

"RIGHTEOUS SPEAR OF FRIENDSHIP!" She powerfully commanded, holding her new weapon aloft. Burning with the fires of friendship (which, as you know, Phoenixbot and Arhiyara were friends), the lance took upon a remarkably piercing white holy flame. Light from nonexistant spotlights mounted on the "Ceiling", shone down upon her like rays of heaven. Every instance of her uniform and weapon glimmered with starlike radiance. Taking an olympic thrower posture, she hurled the now-empowered weapon directly at Ethilvira's exposed heart.

For, as you know, friendship goes straight to the heart.

[PyrosNine]

Ethilvira relished as her tentacles began their evil tentacley business on Arhiyara, complete with an evil laugh that made ears bleed.

"Bwahahaaahahammeeeeheeemaahaa!! Nothing can stop me now! Not even a straight blow of some super powered love thing to the heart! I mean, unless of course we're near the end of the episode and I'm already about to do something super-bad and the laws of narrative causality screw me over. But that's not the case, right?"

Ethilvira checked the episode's timer. 28.50/30. Then she remembered her health sucking thing was superbad. "WEll, at least no one's hurling something like a righteous spear of friendship at me then. That would be-"

"RIGHTEOUS SPEAR OF FRIENDSHIP!"

"Oh shiyARRGH!!!! Since when were you to friendsarrrghhibleASdfPAIN!OWCHIE!HOWCANFRIENDSHIP HURTSOMUCH?EXCRUCIATINGNESS!"

Ethilvira lit up from the very center of her punctured heart, and the glow grew even brighter until her entire physical form became little more than a corrupted silhouette of darkness that soon faded away to nothing.

A sappy victory music played, and from the spot where the wicked lady kasploded, now candy began to rain down, and her tentacles became cherry flavored licorice (which wouldn't be too much help for Arhiyara, due to the fact getting tied up with licorice would be even harder to escape than tentacles, and it would also get sticky after a few moments).

In spoils, 69 gil was had, A "cosgear" and a "slutty dress" were acquired, and Phoenixbot got 30 exp, whilst Arhiyara got an extended 6000 for being a traded awesome 2 headed monster.

But even as Phoenixbot savored her victory, a voice could be heard on the wind..... "I'll get you Phoenixbot! Next time! Next time, I'll have EVEN MORE tentacles!"

[POS Industries]

Despite the fact that Hawk's plan shouldn't have worked that way at all, it somehow miraculously did, as if an ancient race of long forgotten deities aligned their unholy majicks to bring about this change in both the natural and supernatural order of things. These titanic entities, long ago referred to by prehistoric civilizations as the Gahd'Moadhi, disrupted the workings of physics and modern magic, allowing Hawk's water gun attack to actually significantly affect the temperatures of the strawberry and blueberry jams.

However, the law of equivalent exchange quickly took hold, and a sacrifice had to be made to account for the summoning forth of these Old Ones. The spray from Hawk's super soaker struck the lemon jams, causing them to cast their electrical magic attacks upon it. Traveling through the stream, the current quickly meeting Hawk's body and invoking both his avian qualities and his use of the attack "Water Gun", the universe determined that Hawk was a Flying/Water type being.

The jams' Thunder attack was super-effective, dealing four times the normal damage to Hawk and sending his convulsing body hurtling backward.

In the center of the chamber, Rei struggled to get to her feet as the jams attempted to overtake her. Despite the recent effective tactics of Mauve, TBMoici, and Narc, the options for an outright victory in this situation were slim to none.

"Everyone get against the wall! NOW!" Rei called out to the others, her normal pale blue eyes now glowing red as a low hum began to grow in volume from her body. Everything around her suddenly began to feel heavier as her artificial gravity field went on overdrive. Rei herself began to feel her body buckle under the strain of the high gravity environment she was creating, her feet sinking into the steel floor beneath her. The jams were being compressed further and further down, their respective colors of red, blue, and yellow, mixing into a murky brown.

Rei could only hope the others could manage to get to safety along the wall in time.

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

Despite having lost to P-Bot, Pyros couldn't seem to exit the battlefield. Supposedly, a teleportor beam would have removed the fallen competitor from the area. Pyros would have originally found himself in the POS Industries company spa, but that had been fairly well demolished during the first round of competition. As a result, it had been decided that losing combatants would be sent to Chuck E. Cheese's instead. That's beside the point now, of course, as it seemed that whatever malfunctions had been occurring throughout the space-time displacement system was keeping Pyros from exiting gracefully.

"Uhm, well, Pyros Nine has been defeated by Phoenixbot," the holographic referee Rei announced, "but we're currently experiencing some minor technical difficulties. Please bear with us while we resolve the situation."

Back inside The Capitalist's mansion, the technical difficulties were more apparent. As the swordsman incarnate of Pyros struck down an approaching noob, "The" (as was Mr. Capitalist's first name) strode past him and moved out the door as Bruticus followed.

"I'm sorry to cut this affair short, young man," The informed Pyros politely, "but there are greater issues afoot than whatever grudge you seem to have against my assistant. You're more than free to join our investigation, of course, though you may want to tend to your wound first and foremost."

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"Well Raiden, it was nice seeing you, but I really have to go."

The Raiden from the ancient era of 2006 stumbled back slightly, taken aback by the sudden increase in strength shown by IC. However, the thunder god's own strength and speed were still more than a bit superior, all things considered, and Raiden made a quick grab at Inbred's wrist. He failed to catch IC, but came away with something else: the modified mod bracelet.

"Well, this is certainly interesting," Raiden mused, looking over the device, "Since when did you get access to mod technology? How odd, the usual secrety lockouts aren't present on this thing, and it's power source seems to be coming from...."

Before the god could finish his analysis, however, a tiny ball of webbing knocked the bracelet out of his hand. As he whipped his head around to see who dared interrupt him, Spider-Bear swooped over his head and landed several feet down the hall behind IC. Firing web from both front paws, the bear grabbed IC and the bracelet and swung both onto its back before taking off back down the hallway.

Raiden had only a moment to curse under his breath as the flood of seawater enveloped him.

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

"Hm, a fungal troll. How quaint," the current incarnation of Raiden shrugged apathetically, "I should bring you home as a pet for RJ. Not too easy on the eyes, but a few runes should fix tha--"

The trunk of the stripped baconfruit tree collided hard with the side of Raiden's head as Thod swung it at the purported thief of his lunch, sending the thunder god tumbling into the wall. Hard.

"Oh, right," Raiden groaned as he got to his feet, "You're the mutant one. I think I remember Newb rambling on about fighting you a while back. Touché, by the way..."

Several feet away, a hologram of Rei appeared next to Mesden, who was very busy standing around looking bored or, as it is usually referred to by most people on the NPF, it was Tuesday. "Excuse me, Ms. Mesden?" the AI spoke, breaking the over a year-long streak of a POS Industries-played character never directly interacting with the soul goddess, "You don't seem busy at the moment, so I thought I'd inform you that the space-time displacement system used to create these environments has been compromised by Doukhobor Laboratories. We're currently addressing the problem, but we currently seem to be unable to get anything in or out of the reality bubbles. You seem to be an expert at crossing dimensional boundaries, so we were wondering if you might have any ideas."

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So, you aren't taking the elevator why?

Because our systems have been hacked, Pedro's inner monologue responded to Anima as he ran down a seemingly endless flight of stairs, I can't risk Doug taking control of the elevator while I'm in it and smashing me to a fine paste.

Fair enough, the emerald crystalline entity replied, still in the form of a pen in his coat pocket, So, you're off to fix the problem and save the day, huh? How heroic.

Would you believe it's what I do?

Not even for a second.

Damned telepathic rocks....

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

Arhiyara landed in an action pose (well, an action pose for a dragon is both mouths open roaring, wings flaring, tails lashing) in front of a tangled Arhiyara, whose limbs were held together by...

But already, Arhiyara had set about yelling out her well-rehearsed lines - albeit a bit too late for the actual battle, but she didn't want to disappoint herself - and flinging a rose that seemed to warp and change colour through the air. The rose hit the ground, shuddering, before unfurling its chaos-swirling petals.

"Fear not, Sailor Phoenixbot, for your knight(s) is here! Come! Combine your attacks with Arhiyalovera to defeat the epitome of Unlove and unkawaiiness, and let justice and peace reign over evil and badergy!"

Then Arhiyara opened both eyes.

That is, one of the heads opened their eyes, while the other was humming along to the corny victory music that was still playing in the background.

"Awww, we missed the grand entrance!" the head whined as she saw Phoenixbot finish off her opponent with relative ease. Then both heads noticed the--

"CANDY!" Surging forward on a powerful, serpentine body, Arhiyara lunged at Arhiyara's bonds. There was a muffled squeak, then the tearing sound of cherry liquorice. Then both Arhiyaras were munching happily on the candy that had previously bound the form of the Twin-headed abomination of Love.

There was a brief moment of happiness, before both dragons noticed each other.

"Hey!"
"Hey!"

"You look exactly like me, only... with feathers!"
"You look exactly like me, only... before I transformed!"

Both dragons fell silent again, eyeing each other suspiciously. Suddenly, both Arhiyaras flared their wings, covering their heads as they hustled together in an excited whispering war, where much giggling and "yum!" words could be heard. As if reaching an agreement on whatever plan they were plotting, both furled their wings again, each head (all four of them) grinning maniacally.

Suddenly, there was an awkward scuffle, as Arhiyara got up on her hind legs and took a tottling step towards Arhiyara, who somehow conveniently shuffled around to reveal a glittering saddle on her back (it was there all along! No, really!)

Then Arhiyara leapt on Arhiyara, and with a small "oomf" Arhiyara was saddled, gripping chaos strands of reins on Arhiyara.

Arhiyara reared, Arhiyara clinging onto her back cackling and roaring with delight. Then, with all four heads blasting chaos breath into the air, they rode into the sunset, Arhiyara's voice carrying in the breeze.

"Don't worry Phoenixbot! I'll give Arhiylovera back to you as soon as we're doooooone.....!"

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

Renée slipped and grabbed on for dear life atop the lurching Arhiyara, clinging hard to the crystalline, dragon-head. Sliding back down the neck like a fireman’s pole, she waited in a more stable location, until Arhiyara mounted Arhiyara and took to the charge.

“It looks like the battle is done here,” Renée said, through her comm.

“That leaves, the bear and the gods. The bear should be no problem, but I want you to take all our resources down there and scratch out that overcharged fishbulb,” KP said somewhat distractedly.

“Uhh... how? I’m not even sure how we ended up here.”

“Yeah, I can’t get any updated telemetry through the chaos that’s going down in there. Suffice to say, go FASTER. And... try to your right.”

“My right? Based on what?”

“Tails.” Renée was silent for a moment, then climbed determinedly up to Arhiyara’s head. Well, one of ‘em. One of either. Whatever!

“KP says to go right!” she told the Arhra-head, and the beasts beneath Renée complied. It wasn’t long before the mucky ground and trees gave way to the wood walls and candy curios of Santa’s Castle.

Oh, crap, candy! That could cause a terrible imbroglio, of sorts. Well, not an imbroglio, exactly, I’ve just been meaning to use that word for a few days.

In any event, it could be a problem. Renée thought quickly. “Cake’s just ahead! Keep going!” she yelled to the dragons. And, sure enough, the cake soon came in view—in the form of a pair of deific... things... surrounded by a grove of fungal trolls. (Yes, grove, that’s how it works.)

Renée leapt to the head of her ride. “The cavalry has arrived!” she yelled, melodramatically. “You’re going down Shocktopussy!”

“Ha, Shocktopussy, I love it!” KP laughed through the comm.

“Yeah, I know! I just made it up!” Renée took the time to chuckle to herself and hefted her autocannon in both hands. “Now, CHARGE!”

[Arhra]

"Wait, wait, wait... You've been having all this trouble with evil, elementally aspected jam?" The strangely familar voice came from the entrance to the room of death jam, laden with disdain. "What next, a giant evil jar of strawberry preserve? Hideously deformed giant ladybugs?"

The camera swinging suddenly to face the door revealed Arhra, the chaotic being leaning against the door frame with exaggerated casualness. It was unmistakably her, down to the shortness, dark hair, red eyes, pale skin and general appearance of practically bursting with energy.

This... wasn't right.

As far as could be told, Arhra was currently comingled with Rhiya and trapped inside a pocket reality that supposedly was inaccessible at this moment in time. Though the comingled entity, Arhiyara, was in two places at once, those two places happening to be one on top of the other, neither of those places were here. As such, Arhra shouldn't be here.

Rei's monitoring of the current battles clearly accounted for both Arhiyaras, and showed nothing had happened that would account for another one, further disproving Arhra's presence. Why the thought of a third Arhra was laughable!

The diminutive figure of the person who wasn't here walked neatly into the round chamber's, one hand reached out to trail along the wall. She took a few steps, circling the intense gravity field that Rei generated from the center of the room.

"You don't have to worry though." Arhra told everyone. "I'm here to save the day now. Happy to see me?" She looked around, realising there was some gap filling to be done.

"Oh, don't worry. There's a perfectly rational explanation for all of this," Arhra said to Rei, lying smoothly. "Though you seem rather busy there -" The glowing red eyes, loud humming the android was emitting and her pose were a dead give away - "so I'll trouble you with it later."

Her eyes flicked over Hawk, "It might be best if I told you away from Hawk." Arhra said, the sight seeming to have reminded her of something. "The knowledge could kill him and I haven't gotten around to finding any other potential emergency food supplies."

[IHateMakingNames]

The cat offered his assistance to Rei.