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

[Flarecobra]

I blushed as I looked up at the girl. "Um...thanks...any way I can save it for later? I ate not too long ago, so I'm not that hungry at the moment..." I said, slowly getting up, and used a Cure on myself.

"Anyway, can you think of any reason why we should fight? Hell, personally I could use a drink....kinda thirsty." I said, as I reached for my bag...then remembered it was left behind. "Oh..yeah...it's back with the others..." I said, slapping myself in the forehead.

[POS Industries]

"Good afternoon, Rei. This is Loyal speaking. I hear you're giving the ship a bit of trouble trying to... hide something, I guess. What's up?"

"Hi there, Loyal!" Rei greeted in return, "Welllll, I'm having a bit of trouble with this old system that attempted to infiltrate POS Industries property with a spybot. He claims to be thousands of years old, but I dunno 'bout that. I mean, I've been in three of these RP things already and I've never seen him once, so I just sort of assumed he had been created about a month ago or so."

There was a brief pause.

"Allie seems to be easily confused, too," she continued, sounding sympathetic, "I think it's his age. See, command authorization had been given to you just before he contacted me, so it was your voice command I was prompted to give, but he seemed to be under the impression that I had first copied the voice of his previous owner and then later that I had copied his voice, which would be pretty silly for a system to have a voice command security lockout that required the voice of the computer locking you out, you know? The OS appears to need an upgrade, so I've already taken the liberty of formatting the ship's central hard drive so we can replace it with a free trial for our newest version of POS-OS. There also seems to be a possible hardware issue so, if you'd like, we can order you some of our new POS iTron processors!"

It was at this point, one should note, that Alan would have begun noticing the sudden onset of a total memory overwrite.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

"I don't think so," Daimo seethed as he looked up at the ninja. He jumped up and smacked her with the back of his hand. He fell to his knee's again. "Get out of my mind Mac. You do not belong here any more. I am in command."

"I had no idea what I was doing," Big Mac said, speaking through his own body for the first time in as many days. "And this is my body. You are the invader."

"I have existed for as long as you have lived. You and I shared the same body. It was only when you played the Aria, was I able to escape."

"No. I refuse to let you exist. Who knows what evils you would spread to the world."

"Who said about me being evil. You only assume that. Well guess what. I might be the good one, and you the evil one."

"Impossible," Mac responded. To the outside observer, it looked like Mac was having a conversation with himself.

"Not impossible. I know what you think. I know your fantasies, your dreams your secrets and wishes. And should they ever...come out, people would look down upon you."

"Those were yours. You were polluting my mindscape with your twisted thoughts."

"Enough. We shall deal with this shortly. I have a ninja to kill."

[Loyal]

"Alright, three things: First, how did you know that the ship belonged to me?" Loyal said as he punched in some commands into the terminal, bringing up a display of all network connections in the ship. Rei was all over the Deathwish, which would make things unpleasant. Fortunately it was safe to assume she wasn't based here... it was a remote connection.

"Second, I can only assume that whatever you're hiding is POS himself, if you're trying to force his wares on me at the same time that you'd peddle them off. To that effect, I'm not like Thadius. I can arrange for amicable conditions until such time that he can comfortably get the hell off my ship. Indeed, I would like to speak with him." Loyal then brought up an interface that controlled the networks. Pushing a few more buttons, he brought up a prompt for "Network Lockdown". His hand hovered over the button to confirm.

"Third, the ship works fine. He's just in a bit of a rut what with his master's recent passing, but I'm sure you know all about that." He said the last part with just a hint of bitterness. "And so I'd appreciate it if you'd stop trying to hijack it."

He pushed the button, shutting down the ship-wide network and cutting Rei's incursion (and the conversation) off abruptly. As of that moment, all ship communication was strictly internal. No signals would go in or out until Loyal manually rebooted the network. Rei's attempt to upload her master's software was thwarted. While this was unfortunate for his ability to return to the other NPF'ers, it would at least give Loyal some time to adjust to the ship. And in the meantime he could deal with POS, or confine him, or whatever.

Then again, he was still locked down in one of the sectors, so it's not like Loyal had to rush.

The ship was safe, for now.

((While I hate to do something so cheesy, I will not accept POS godmodding his way into control of the ship like this. He doesn't belong on here in the first place and by all means should be dead - I will not go so far as to allow him to have his merry way with Alan as though it belonged to him. You'll have to live without your precious AI for now.))

[Steel Shadow]

"So, welcome back. If you've just tuned in we're now right in the middle of the grand mid-season NPF Summer Smackdown, Operation: Jusenkyo, sponsored by Starlight-Breaker industries. The best in befriending."

As you can see this is a troubling time for the NPF team. Given Nin's earlier loss to Captain Kenpachi, and Loyal's Shock forfeit to Paladin what'sisname, the forumites chances for winning are far less certain than the originally appeared."

All is not lost though! In a shocking twist of epic proportions, Pyros has just declared victory over the four way scuffle between Thadius, PoS, Brutus, Nin, and Jeremy Rose. Since most of the people I just listed were from the NPF though, I'm not entirely sure who's win that is. At any rate, certainly impressive, and no less than we'd expect from the firegod who's performance so far this adventure has been... less explosive than anticipated. We sent Nikose over to ask the god just what the problem had been. As soon as he gets out of hospital we'll find out just what Pyros had to say before the mysterious fire broke out."

Amongst the current contenders is fan favourite Mauve Mage, known for excessive not-quite-pinkness and use of, in her own words, 'Awsome'. Right now she faces the mutated Presidente Vile Tyrant, who's been infected with some evil virus which makes as much sense as the genetics in Metal Gear. If you want live footage of the fight, press the almost-sorta-redish button on your remote now."

Simultaneously we have Big Mac, who's fighting the voices in his head. I think. I dunno, it's kinda hard to read that colour text, and I'm way to lazy to highlight it. At any rate, I'm not sure who we're rooting for in this fight, given that he is essentially fighting himself, and therefore cannot lose. Right? Can we get confirmation on that? Anyway, whilst he's doing that, it looks like in the real world he's about to be killed most horribly by the one ninja in the group I don't know, so let's hope she really makes a showing of her skills here today. Bonus points go to Wizardcat for being so ninja sneaky I missed him and have no idea where he is!"

Elsewhere Newb is fighting some sort of abomination against all that is good and holy. I don't really want to look at that thing anymore, so we're switching the channel before it looks over here and sees me. Wish him luck!"

At another fight now, and apparently Garuds brother has stolen Newbs elephant. I do not see that ending well. Looks like Garud has indeed won his battle against Cel- I mean, the FMA fangirl, and has managed to stop being on fire. One more victory for the NPF pile, but will it be enough?"

News coming in from the Phil!-O-Vision now, and apparently he has made it all the way to the final boss! Given the intense amount of frustration he should be feeling after navigating those mazes of levels, he should be feeling quite a bit of frustration. Lets hope he unleashes it at the fool who now stands against an angry hobbit!"

Right now, odd news from the Snake vs. Mongoose fight. Apparently Flare, despite being bookie favourite, has been heavily wounded and is now being cared for by her opponent. I'm not even going to guess what that means folks. I thought we were in for a good old fashioned fight to the death. It's just not fair."

Meanwhile, the fight everyone's watching, Arhra I and V... wait, was it IV.. Verses Pyros-the-not-quite-so-insane! This clash between old GMs and new ones has eyes from across the forums rivieted! Wait, what's that supposed to mean? Is the prompter on the frits again?"

Now, let's check in on those here who've already won their fights. Right now, that would be SSB, Hawk, Pyros, Garud, maybe Fenris, and... Oh, me. Uh... Looks like most of 'em are either eating waffles or beating each other up. Business as usual, I guess."

And that's it from us here for this half, now we hand you over to the magic screen showing off all the fights for more mindless violence. Have fun, and remember! If you need to befriend the crap out of something, think Starlight. See you next break!"

And with that Steel put away the Pipe of Exposition he had mysteriously retrieved from Pyros, wondering what the hell the man had been smoking with it, and wandered back over to the waffle party.

"Will all victors, as well as all combatants who haven't fought, please step up to the stage? We have one or two more matches and then we're done here!"

"Mphff." Steel swallowed down another waffle. "I mean- Fine. Lets get this over with."

[PyrosNine]

The statue shook, taking Mauve's offering gladly, then with it's axis titled, it easily and automatically moved aside, revealing a weapons cache...that was mostly empty.

However, there was still a "LaserPowered Bioweapon Elimination Injector," designed to fire substances into even the hardest skinned foes...but it needed ammo. The vial of "TG-VX:Plagas Variant Sample" Mauve had looked like it could fit, but...

* * *

Chill quickly looked into her parked aircraft for a bottle of water, while blissfully ignoring the thrashing battle in the distance.

A very irritated giant world stretching snake was suffering a nasty eye wound, which was surely aggravated by an irate FMA fan attacking him due to an easy case of mistaken identity.

Though none of this irritated him more than Zodick finding mortality a bitch and attempting to use the giant snake's tail as a inhuman shield.

* * *

The sheer awesome (and impracticality of) of scythe made of lasers made Pyros8 flinch a little bit, taking the weapon's danger seriously, whereas the real Pyros would have kept going and beat Arhra V in the head with a Grapefruit.

This more than enabled Arhra V to strike him with the scythe, sending him plummeting back to the ground, where his contact with the ground served to somehow dispell the altered magma floor, returning the fight to normal.

Recovering quickly, he rushed at the tripped Arhra I, seeing that she was stunned, and knowing that a one on 2 fight was not in his favor...

* * *

Meanwhile, aboard the interdimensional crapship, a new voice entered into the fray.

"HELLO! THIS IS ONO YOKO! CAN I BE AN A.I. TOO, FLOWER ROCKSTAR PEOPLE!!? I WAS LIKE A.I., BUT IN ACTUARITY A R.I. THAT IS FAR BEYOND THE LIMITS OF CONSERVATIVE WORLD! I ALSO AM FAMOUS! I MARRY JOHNNY AND DO FASHION! MAKE GREAT MUSIC! MUSIC MAKE WORLD GO ROUND!"

"I WANT MORE SCREEN TIME! I NOT BEEN SEEN SINCE LAST GAME FOR ROLEPLAY OF PEOPLE MIND AND VOICE PERSONIFICATION! WHAT YOU THINK? ME HAVE GREAT IDEA! INSTEAD OF BLEAK, 'BLAH, INTER-DIMENSIONAL DARK ASSASSIN HOME', WE MAKE IT 'SUPER HAPPY INTER-DREAM-SPATIAL HELICOPTER THAT RUNS ON GRANTED WISHES AND SOLVES MYSTERIES!'??!?!!"

"YOU KNOW, I EVEN MEMBER OF EXTENDED CAST! TECHNICALLY, I MAJIMMIER"S MOMMY! THAT WRY HE LOVE PEACE ABOVE ALL THINGS! BUT HIS MANSEXY LOOKS? NOT MINE! NOT JOHNNIES! MUST HAVE BEEN LOVECHILD FROM HAPPYWEED PARTY!!"

Everyone aboard Thad's, now Loyal's interdimensional base: "NO! Go AWAY!"

"AWWWWWW! YOU PEOPLE MEAN!"

* * *

ABoard the Stage, The girl gave Steel his next battle.

"Steel, VS. The Great Wizzard!"

Steel found himself in a bustling mystic city, finding himself being bothered by a man who attempted to sell him strange meat things in a bun. But this was just an unimportant man trying to make a quick buck.

Steel's real opponent was trying his best to simply blend into the crowd. However, his companion was quick to point at Steel and give him away.

"Ooh! Hey, isn't this great? You get chosen to represent Ankh-Morpork against a fighter from another world! That is such a great honor! See? Just look at him! He looks so otherworldly...kinda makes you wish to go see where he came from, just for a few days. That'd be a splendid vacation, don't you think Rin-"

His partner, a bearded (yet young) man in robes who promptly put a hand over his talkative companion's mouth. This was in vain of course, as Steel already read the words on the man's pointy hat reading....'Wizzard.'

Meanwhile, Great Teacher Oninzuka got a new opponent as well, in a consolation match.

"Intern Nin, or Great Teacher Oninzuka vs....TWINVOLGAVIA in a semi-Technical match!"

Nin found his great Teacher self on an active volcano, amidst lava, on an island of earth amidst the molten crater, pockmarked with holes big enough for a man to pass through.

As a teacher, his first thought was about convection and how it didn't seem to be bothering him at the moment. The second thought was about how there will be dragons: two large draconic wyrms, almost snakelike, flying above his head.

One, with a hard snout and looking a bit more like it's Z:OoT N64 appearance, dove straight into the ground, popping it's head up from time to time to breathe fire at Oninzuka and attempt to pull him into the lava.

The other, with pronounced wings and an intricate flight pattern, flew above to provide air support to it's earthly brother.

With dragon above and dragon below, Nin had a hard time on his hands.

To aid him, in the middle of the crater lay a pedestal with a giant hammer atop it, however, this hammer was chained to the pedestal with a chain too small to hit anything in range with. The second piece of help was a strange dome peeking out of the lava to the right of the island, that seemed to conceal something. The dome looked pretty hard, and it looked like something really tough would be needed to remove it's shell.

With that, the fight commenced.

* * *

Suzu-alike nearly cried. She had been so close to finishing drawing a Rock-Lee style set of eyebrows on Daimo, only to be thwarted at the last minute!

"Oh, so you're awake yet crazy, are you? I'll learn you to have an internal battle while fighting a ninja!" She yelled, pulling knives from who knows where out and hurling them at Daimo en masse.

Meanwhile, Wizzle's sheer malaise and lazyness had an effect upon the Sakura-alike and Sheena-alike, causing them to become equally lazy and loaf about on the floor, eating junk food, reading magazines, and watching TV. This habit had long since started during their many days as Big Mac's roadie slaves, in between Ninja-Massages and setting up his sound system for all live performances, as well as making sexy poses whenever his friends came over. After all that, even the most disciplined Ninja needs relief!

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

"Enough WHORE!" yelled Daimo loud enough. He dodged a few of the blades but two of them hit his shoulder, digging deep. "This is what I get for dealing with you Big Mac!"

"Maybe you should let me take over. I dealt with these girls before," responded Big Mac. He felt if he could throw Daimo of balance while the music was plying, he could rest control back of his body.

"No. I think not! I can handle this woman. Rising Phoenix!" Yelled Daimo asthe ninja. Instead of a kick this time he ran at her, his fists charged with energy. he rushed at her. However, before he connected, he spun around, grabbed the knife and threw it at her at close range.

[Bailey]

"Oh no you don't you twisted freak! My hands are knives! Die! Die from my numerous stabbing!" Newb's enthusiasm was overflowing as he leapt over Jurmungandr's tail to slash at Zodick some more.

Unbeknownst to Newb, the rings he had stolen had more properties than simple invulnerability, and he executed a midair spin attack, neatly slicing through portions of Zodick's skull.

The catboy crouched and poked at Zodick's twitching corpse. "Is it dead yet?"

[Loyal]

Loyal stared quizzically, scratching his head. "Alan, how the hell did that thing get aboard this ship? I put all external communications on lockdown did I not?"

"I do not know, Sir," the AI replied. "But I am purging it as we speak."

"Good, keep at it. Whatever that is, it's too annoying to let live. If you can't kill it, then keep it from plaguing my airwaves. In the meantime... Rei's no longer hiding anything here. Patch me through to our guest in Sector... C-7, was it?"

"Of course. One moment... We're live."

"Good, good. ~Ahem~" Loyal put his hands behind his back and put on a mock-authorative tone. "Greetings, POS. This is Loyal, standing captain of the Deathwish. I must apologize for my lack of hospitality, I was not expecting guests so soon. If you'll bear with me a short while longer I shall arrange some lodgings for you."

As an aside, Loyal added, directed at Alan, "Oh, and if you have an instruction manual or a map or something, Al, I'd appreciate it. The interface for this room is user-friendly enough, but I still have no idea where I'm going with or within the ship itself."

[mauve]

The vial of "TG-VX:Plagas Variant Sample" Mauve had looked like it could fit, but...

"But NOTHING!" Mauve snarled. "Work, dammit!!" She fitted the vial into the gun, gave the compartment where the vial fit into the gun an extra hit with the heel of her hand, and then leaped dramatically onto the statue's base.

"EAT ANTIDOTE, ZOMBIE SCU--oh wait hold on." She dug into her pockets, emerging with a pair of sunglasses. She put them on. "Okay. This is better. EAT ANTIDOTE, ZOMBIE SCUM!! GRAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!"

Looking cool, at least in her mind's eye, Mauve pulled the trigger, aiming at the zombie.