NPF Avatars IV, Chapter VI: Imprisoned with the Maniacs

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Hawk was racing back through the jungle towards the all-too familiar sounds of conflict. He had previously flown a good distance ahead of the group, but his extra-sensitive hearing had informed him of the commotion behind him and he set off back to what sounded like one hell of a party without hesitation.

He emerged from the clearing (well, it was a clearing now, what with all the explosions and weird shit that was tearing down the fauna!), and surveyed the scene. He took it all in in an instant, his eyes immediately locating all the beings in the area, and working out the exact speeds and directions of movement for each of them. He literally saw everything at once.

That was how he saw the nerby troll swing its club in his direction, long before anyone else would have, moving so slowly from his perpective it was almost not worth considering it a threat. Hawk banked to the left and flew low, the trolls swing went wide and missed by miles. He flew underneath the lumbering brute, banking slightly to sqeeze between its legs, before he shot up high again, turning around as he did so. Taking aim at the creatures back, Hawk compacted the air in front of him, and fired a concussive ball of solid air at his foe. It struck him between the shoulder blades, crushing bone and bursting blood vessels. The troll went down on to its knees with a roar of pain, but already it began to heal itself. However it then had something else to worry about, as a stray lightning bolt of Syttulg's hit it in the face, knocking it on its back. Hawk looked at the caster and at first didnt recognize him, as he appeared to be doing a Hulk impersonation, only without the green skin. And more lightning.

After this though, Hawk saw no more, as his sight chose this moment to inexplicably give up on him.

...

"SHHHIIIITTTTTTTT!!!!!"

In situations like this, there was only one thing you could do... PANIC!

"Vision impered, vision impered!!", Hawk cried out as he madly began to fly around in circles, with no way of knowing where his enemies were or what the heck was going on. Then he crashed into a tree. Before falling out of said tree and hitting the ground hard. Then he passed out.

[Tarrin]

A smile crossed Tarrins lips, His body streached and contorted untill his familar form was nolonger there, Instead the grey skin and huge form of an african bull elephant was in his place.

A loud trumpet of Rage Echoed around the ensuing combats, Mauve oblivious to the troll charging her, She seamed to be smiling maniacly about something she had just throwen at the manor.
Tarrins trunk wraped around the neck of the Troll, Swining his new toy around he decided to take care of two enemies at once, Moments later the a pulp that had been a troll landed on the ground next to the broken branches of the few trees it had been repeatedly slammed against.

Suddenly the Jungle struck back, Vines shot out attempting to entrap the huge beast that had destroyed their kin, With a great swing of his trunk Tarrin dislodged enough of the vines to start ripping out another tree, At intervels snacking on it's sweet sweet leaves, He was after all a hungy elephant and eating was what a hungry elephant did.

[GARUD]

Garud looked at the Capitalist and grinned. There was one big problem due to his size. He cast a very big shadow. It was a massive shadow at that. It left alot of opportunity for a really powerful attack. The demon slayer cupped his hands, and absorbed the shadow draining it from the capitalist. What he was creating was a degenerating energy attack, something that would eat away at the greedy bastard.

"You guys keep fighting. I'll have him down in a second. Well, in a minute. Let me get the rest of this shadow."

"Garud! I want a lollipop!"

"Not now Thorque"

"But I want one!"

"I don't have any lollipops."

"Do you have any lollies? Please?"

"Hmm... I don't have any lollies. Now go away."

Then a thought crept up.

"Hey brother, guess what? That big thing that's attacking us is one big lolly. Go eat it!"

"Yay!"

Thorque hurried off and started to take bites out of the Capitalist's leg. Garud bent one knee. He was ready to unleash the spell. He was about to unleash it when he got uprooted on the spot by some curling vines. They constricted him, but the sorceror was able to hold his blades of chaos like daggers. Using this, he cut the vines, releasing the pressure of the tendrils from his body.

"This might take longer than I thought."

[Lumaes]

The ground heaved and buckled wildly, the surging earth and roots splitting open like an enormous blister in an eruption of plain, white, terracotta tiles which spiralled impossibly in the air. They spilled from the wounded earth like doves set free from a cage. All about the earth began to fall away into an endless abyss of ink, the support of the pavers gone the loose dirt spilled, the plants doubling up on themselves and tearing open as the tiny iridescent worms that filled them attempted to escape the long sink into blackness.

Lumaes stumbled as the ground broke beneath his feet, he would have fallen into the same liquid which now swallowed up what had once been down if by chance he had not crashed onto one of the large rectangles which even now lifted him slowly up into the air, spiralling softly. He clutched it in terror as it threatened to tip. All around him, through some bizarre coincidence his companions and enemies had been caught on similar platforms and continued fighting – seemingly oblivious to the dangers that a single misstep could cause.

What was seen by those who had not eaten the delicious delirium-profiteroles however was the spectre stumble and trip on nothing, tumbling hands down into the dirt before - through the power of delusion; he was buoyed up into the air on an invisible platform whilst the battle raged on below.

Back in the world that really mattered, Lumaes had managed to balance his weight properly that if sitting cross legged and making no extraneous movements he was in no danger of tipping. Figuring that just because one found themselves in a world composed of floating tiles and swallowing blackness they could not be excused from their duties to their affiliates the ephemeral creature cast an appraising eye over The Capitalist. Once he recovered from his surprise that the networks of pavers could actually support the massive beast he had a brain wave.
“Of course! He’s a creature composed of fat! What is the natural enemy of fat? Exercise! That’s the answer” he paused, eyes flickering as he ran the calculations, “For a creature that size, assuming normal fat-density it should only take…” he hmmm’d, “Thirteen months! That’s it! Keep at it! Keep ‘im moving!”
The spirit punched his hands encouragingly, a silly move as it turned out; the motion overbalanced him, sending him tipping of the tile. Luckily, or unluckily as it may be, he collided with another terracotta platform on the way down, the edge catching him in the ‘gut’. Winded, he managed to hook his hands around the edge and stop his descent for now.

[Darth SS]

Darth was a pinball. A pointy pinball, but a pinball none of the less. He was occupying himself by jumping onto enemies, cutting them, then bouncing off and cutting another enemy. He would then return and cut them again before they regenerated. Sometimes he fought off some foliage. While being attacked by plants, Darth could only think of one thing to say:

"Fuck vegans!"

[Arhra]

When Skyshot jumped in to help her against The Capitalist, Arhra began to revise her decision about existential hatred. She managed to avoid falling over with the surprising tremor that followed the immense impact of the fatcat and then fell silent as she heard Skyshot's suggestion. She began to reconsider her revision.

"Are you crazy?!" Arhra yelled, brushing Skyshot's arm off her shoulder. "Stop the troll-fruity thingy by giving me internal hemorraging?! We all know those spells require a line of effect, which we definately don't have if we just want ot hit the troll-thing and besides, does it actually have anything to hemorrage?"

"We need something to weaken it, or somehow strengthen me against it like..." Lumaes cried out his statement about The Capitalist's 'weakness'. Arhra's eyes went blank for a moment as she seized on one particular word. "That's it!" she crowed, "Exercise! If I can stop it forcing my stomach out, it should start crushing itself to death!" Her eyes sighted on where Thod sat, his tree by his side, watching the battle with mild interest as he munched on its fruit.

"Keep the fatso busy!" Arhra yelled at Skyshot as she leapt into action, trying to zig zag across the battle field and get there. The Capitalist was already rising back to his feet and plowing forwards, Thorque getting just trampled under as he tried to take a bite out of his flank.

With the epxlosion of the sacred relic Mauve had somehow come by, The Capitalist gave a roar of rage, veering to attack her. By the looks of things, exercise wasn't the answer to The Capitalist. If anything, he looked fatter.

As Rei plunged down at Bruticus, he stepped backwards, just far enough to dodge. The android created a small crater as she hit, Bruticus shielding his face from the flying dust and then viciously jerking his knee forward. He intended to knock Rei over and then wrestle her into submission. Blindness was much less of a problem when that close.

OOC: Just something about the mental pciture of the two of them rolling around in the dirt grappling struck me as funny.

[Bailey]

Syttulg continued happily blasting away at his surroundings, now believing himself to be at a target range in a carnival.

Bolts went at The, Skyshot, a couple trolls, and a hillside.

"Wheee! I won! I choooooose... That Teddy Bear!"

Syttulg pranced over to Mauve, picked her up, and run back to Thog and his tree.

[Skyshot]

Keep the fatso busy!

"On it!" Skyshot whirled around to face The. "Okay, you gluttonous abomination, I'll show you -- YEOW!" For a split second, Skyshot felt like his entire body had been set on fire. He slumped backwards, Nightstorm hanging loosely from his right hand.

"Owww." He looked at his daggers. The cloth under them was blackened; he'd been hit with a lightning bolt for sure. Who was shooting lightning at him? No time to worry about that now. "Cure serious." That dealt with most of the bodily damage, although the pain still lingered. No time to worry about that, either. There was a solar eclipse overhead he had to -- wait, solar eclipse?

He looked up at the looming monstrosity of The Capitalist.

"Oh, hi." Something grabbed his aching ankle. "Ow." He felt a jerk, and then that "flying through the air" sensation one feels when one is flying through the air. He looked down (relative to his muddled axes) and saw a vine wrapped around his ankle. "Ahh. Should I be thanking you?"

The sound of his body crashing into a tree trunk echoed throughout the jungle.

"I'll take that as a...ow." He slid down the rough surface and landed face down. "This...has been a very bad day..."

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Hawk's eyes jerked open as he returned to consiousness. The first thing he felt upon awakening was a splitting headache. The second thing he felt was the vines that had been slowly trying to constrict him.

"WHOW"!

He acted upon pure instinct, forcing wind beneath his wings and leaping verticaly into the air. Fortunatley the vines had been moving slowly and hadn't gotten a good hold, plus his sudden velocity had wrenched him out of its light hold over him. He beat his wings furiously, despite the pain in his head, trying to get high above the battle where it was safe. Well, safish. Once he was high enough to limit his chances of being immediately attacked he looked around. That was when he registered the fact that he could see again. It seemed either the knock on the head had done him a world of good, or whatever it was that had affected his vision wasn't as effective against him as it was against some of the others. If only. He then saw winged, pink elephants flying past him, while he began to shake uncontrollably. He also felt extremely nauseus.

"Ohh this can't be good", he thought to himself as a wave of dizzyness came over him (which should never happen to a hawk really). Then his hearing gave out while he puked up the chicken from before. As he had been flying above the others while this happened, he could only assume that someone below was going to get a very messy surprise very soon, most likey that muave mage he had seen before. She looked like the kind of person this type of shit usually happened to.

"Heads up"!!, he called out.

One good thing came of this however; since he had now regurgitated most of the offending material from his stomach, the effects he had been suffering from suddenly stopped, for the most part at least (there were still a couple of pink elephants flying around though). His hearing was back, as was his sight, albeit at a slightly reduced level.

Feeling better, Hawk scanned the battle below for a viable target and noticed the troll from before (easily noticable by the large purple bruise between his shoulder blades that still hadn't healed fully). Hawk took aim and fired a much larger blast than before at the creature. Hawk's sight was still noticable weakened though and his accuracy was off. The blast struck at the base of a tree, shattering it into splinters. It fell sideways and towards the group.

"Eerrrrr, heads up....again!!"

[mauve]

The Capitalist roared in fury as he saw the sheer destructive power of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch upon stately Capitalist Manor.

"Well THAT got your attention, hmm?" Mauve said mockingly. The Capitalist ran towards her, practically foaming at the mouth in his rage. Hmm. Maybe she overdid it a bit? Nah. Mauve grinned and pulled out her knives. "Come on Fat Man, let's see if you're made of anything more substantial than jello."

She bent forwards slightly in a battle-ready crouch, with an almost demonic grin on her face. Tarrin had taken care of the troll that was sneaking up behind her, so now it was just Mauve and Capitalist. This was going to be the kick-assingest fight of "might versus magic" in the known UNIVERSE!! She was going to--

WHAM!!!!

The wind was knocked out of her as something attacked her from the side, lifting her off the ground and carrying her off. Mauve almost dropped her knives in her surprise, but she managed to keep her grip. She turned as best she could, ready to do some serious stabbing.

"What the...?" she sputtered, looking at her kidnapper. "Syttulg! What the hell are you doing?! Lemmie go!"

It should be noted at this point that the upside of her being abducted by Newb was that she missed becoming the target of Hawk's... er... accident. Sure, she was usually the victim of things like this, but the fates were kind enough to let her escape this particular humiliation. She'd probably pay for it later, though. That's just how things worked.

Mauve wasn't in the mood to feel grateful for this, though. Syttulg kept ranting on an on about teddy bears, and Mauve was getting farther from the fight and closer to the holy shrapnel that was the remnants of her holy hand grenade.

"Syttulg, put me down before I have to start harming you!" she warned. When this... ahem... subtle approach did not work, Mauve held an open palm towards his face.

"THUNDER!!" she snarled, and a bolt of lightning arched down from above to literally shock some sense into him. Mauve made her escape and started running back to the fight. "Sorry about the electrical damage!" Mauve called back sweetly, as though she hadn't just threatened him with bodily harm.

She was almost back to the others when something large and trollish stepped in front of her. It growled menacingly, tapping its wooden club against a meaty open palm. It didn't look like it wanted to chat.

"Fine," Mauve said. "Fine. This works too." An orb of electricity formed around her fist, and she readied herself for an awesome troll-versus-mage fight that might help her relieve some of her irritation--

Originally Posted by Hawk

"Eerrrrr, heads up....again!!"

Before Mauve or the troll could fully comprehend this warning from above, a huge tree came from seemingly out of nowhere and slammed down onto the troll, crushing it instantly and impaling it with its sharp branches. Mauve was knocked over by some of the longer branches, but she was otherwise unharmed.

"Wha..." She looked at the tree. She looked at the troll. She looked up at the sky. Then back at the troll. Her eyebrows knitted.

"DAMMIT!!!!" she yelled aloud.