NPF Avatars IV, Chapter XIII: Fire Three!

[Arhra]

On the ground again, Arhra struggled weakly, trying to climb back to her feet. On the whole, it could have been worse she decided - she could have an annoying man shouting in her ear, "Pain! Pain is your friend! Feel the burn!"

She might as well take this forced break from combat to get back to work on the important explosion channeling spell she had left sadly neglected. Trying to concentrate and weave the delicate magic, Arhra found her leaden arms not responding properly. She grunted in frustration.

If I could somehow free my mind to work on this, things would be a lot better. Arhra thought. Hmmm... maybe if I split myself... but I don't know if I could do that. Of course you can do it the thought came. You've done it before, haven't you? Well, yes... Arhra's mental commentary temporised But I don't have th- Just focus!

Head aching and bullying herself into giving it a try, Arhra focused. She clumsily pulled one arm, webbed with leaden flames, to the nape of her neck. Something flickered there, like a dark and brilliant jewel, and there was a white flash. Arhra jerked, a sylph-like shape separating from her body. She looked over herself - seeming to be mostly glowing, translucent, and largely featureless and then down at her real body, still enmeshed in weighty flames. "It'll do," she muttered, bending down and taking the incomplete spell off herself, dropping a ball of chaotic energy in return.

Back on track with the spell, Arhra was moving to get a better vantage point when she spotted the Chozo battle suit clad Phil.

She gave a gasp of joy. "Samus has come to save the day! (Obviously wearing the gravity suit and thus explaining the blue colour)" Arhra exclaimed. Then Gina came into view behind the armoured hobbit, restoring perspective and then manhood after neatly rapping Phil on the head with the fabled Staff of Gender Inversion, long thought lost.

Telling herself it was wrong to feel dissapointed - Samus was a very busy woman - Arhra loped up to Phil. "Hi Phil." the sleek, ghostly image said with a smile. "Charging the Caryatid? Good idea! Don't mind me, I'm not technically here."

* * *

Speaking of the Caryatid, she was busily fighting Hawk and Flare in the scattered remains of the fog cloud the water attack on her had created. Nikose was nearby, still pinned on a spear and possibly on fire. Hawk was attempting to interfere with the Caryatid's fiery attacks and freeze her with winds, unfortunately hampered by the fact that windchill is impossible to do inside volcanos.

"Ok, you're not the only one that can play with fire." Flare told the Caryatid, lashing at her armoured torso with two swords formed from flame and then drawing back, ducking and weaving to avoid a counter attack.

"Playtime is over children." the Caryatid told her sweetly. The Caryatid reared up on her serpentine body, flinging the two blades she currently held at Flare. She gestured to the side, fingers stabbing up and closing in a wedge, and the lava beneath Hawk erupted, fiery whips of molten rock whipping at Hawk like a magma kraken. Not that any such thing exists.

Swaying over to a pillar, she selected a new weapon. Holdng it it angled to the side, it was a sight to induce gulping. A heavy polearm, metal hafted and ending in a wicked blade, the Caryatid began whirling it around, surrounding herself with a series of deadly strikes. Sheets of flame lashed out with each sweep of the blade. She slithered towards Flare, each razor arc getting closer. The whole of her attention appeared to be taken up by the pair.

* * *

Not too far away, Arhra was watching the ongoing battle of Magmagatorah and Hydrazilla, cursing her continued immobility and left with a splitting headache from the split. "Once was bad enough." she muttered, trying to decide what possible use she could make of the magic she had left herself.

Hydra seemed she would be the clear victor in an open battlefield, but the magma beast was taking definate advantage of the lava pools all over the place. It took a step backwards, dipping one foot-jaw in the lava, gulping it in greedily, and then spraying the stuff at Hydra from the jaws on it's arms. Hydra dodged to the side and then the creature charged while she as off-balance, trying to rush her into a pool of fire. The two terrible lizards were locked together, Hydra scratching at the ground, feeling herself slowly getting forced back.

Arhra struggled against the leaden flames again, this time managing to get into a crawling position. She had to do something, but she was as slow as a snail with all the clinging weight of the fire. It definately was having a strengthening effect; she could feel the incremntal thickening of muscle it was causing, but it was too slow.

Then it hit her, a spell use that definately would probably not backfire!

She lifted the sphere of magic and tapped its power. "Accelerate!" she choked.

[Flarecobra]

I started to fly upward, figuring now would probably be the best time for my strongest attack. A whitish-green ball of magical energy was forming in each of my hands, as I extingusihed the flame weapons. as I rose up to the ceiling, I saw the bladed polearm she had and knew that if I got hit by that, I'd be a gonor. I just hoped that I could get the Terra-flare charged enough to deal some damage.

[Nikose Tyris]

Nikose, Naked, was still attempting to figure out how to get the GIANT ASS SPEAR out of his CHEST.

So rather than get worked up about it, he decided that he'd just lie there until someone helped his ass out.

[mauve]

"Well, so much for our PG13 rating," Mauve sighed. "Nudity's gonna put this RP into at least the R rating."

"Hey, neat. The Caryatid's spear-knife-sword-whatever." Mauve said, seeing the blade that was currently stuck between Nikose's ribs. She gave it a nudge with her toe to see if it would fall free. "Hm. It appears to be lodged in a ribcage." The mage stepped down on poor Nikose's shoulder to brace herself and pulled on the spear. It came free from its bloody target with a loud SHLUCK!!

"Coooooool." She spun her new weapon in her hand. "If only I knew how to use this."

She kept it anyway. I mean, most video game characters could equip random weapons and know how to use them automatically. Maybe role playing game characters worked similarly..? Meh, probably not. But hey, it looked cool.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

This is how Rhiya died.

... again.

It's also why interracial love can be very hard to fathom, for the language of one creature may vary greatly with the language of another. Hence, the result of the combination of genes and hence, offspring, is usually from the misunderstanding of language.

One of the magmagators nudged the other with his tail and flicked his head towards Rhiyagator.

"<Hey, check out that chick!>"
"<I know, HEY BABY! Wanna make out?>" the other gator yelled at Rhiya, who shrank away.

The new form gave Rhiyagator a new ability - the ability to speak in mimigator. However, it did not confer unto her the power to understand other lizardkind languages.

So what she heard was: "~Ugly! What banana is crystal like the blue of a bamboo's butt?~"

Her reply - "~Uhh, I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying,~" - was likewise misunderstood as:
"<Hey there Hum Palot. I hope you're not busy, cuz I'm single!>"

"~Hark the colors of sharks and mystical powers! There will be hell and jelly to comprehend!~" ("<Didja hear that? She wants me!>")

Another gator slithered up, hissing angrily. It spat out, "~Crumbling goes souls of a pink panda!~" ("<Hey! Who's this [censored: very bad word]?! Szares, are you hitting on that bloated lizard?!>")

"~What the hell is going on here?!~" Rhiyagator rumbled, only, to the magmagators, it just seemed to infuriate the new one more while the other two seemed somewhat hotter. Oh jeeze, what am I saying?!

"~CARROT when you toilet the bridge!~" ("<STOP hitting on my husband!>") *WHUMP* Searing pain thumped into her left flank, and Rhiya cried out in pain.

She tried to get away, but now there were more magmagators crowding around, arguing and yelling in nonsensical verbage. The one that had attacked her drew back for another slap with its strong, heated tail. A brawl broke out in one group (the males) about whatever they were yelling about (Rhiya thought it was weird they were fighting over bike wheels and boulders) and it looked like a couple were looking angrily in her direction.

And then Hydra and abominagator came into the scene, rolling about on the ground, crushing anything that got in their way while they bit and clawed at each other.

Unfortunately, Rhiya couldn't get out of their path, and was subsequently pummeled to death.

~~

Subrhiya found herself tapping her toe angrily as she rose out of the crushed and mangled corpse that was her previous body.

"Well, I never!" She managed while waiting for her body to respawn.

[Nikose Tyris]

His scream echoed as the sword thing was pulled out, and got cut short. "Jeez, couldn't you have been more delicate?" Nik moaned. He got up, and promptly charged the caratyd that was about to slice-and-dice Flare, and ducked in to hug her tightly. "Please stop hurting my friend." He said sadly. "She's a nice girl!"

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

What's this? MAGMA WHIPS now!! Whatever will they think of next?

Having already been attacked from the lava below only minutes before, Hawk had been keeping a closer eye on it for more magmadiles just in case. Never the less, he was expecting magmadiles, not tentacles of lava and so was almost taken by surprise. He had been intending to fly straight up if any more lizards came at him, but having semi-sentient lava coming after you pretty much put paid to that idea. Putting on a burst of speed Hawk flew straight ahead instead, trying to get as far away from any lava as he could get.

The tendrils of fire lashed out at him in quick succesion forcing Hawk to dodge sideways and start zig-zaging in order to escape. What made it worse was that the whips, liquid rock as they were, found it very easy to flow after him as he dashed back and forth on his erratic flight path. It was kind of reminiscent of the fighter jet scene from X2, only with lava pillars forming from below, rather than tornados from above.

None of them made direct contact though, which was fortunate, but Hawk could feel his flesh blistering slightly from the near misses and the incredible heat that emanated from them. That's gona sting in the morning. Eventually after much weaving and diving, Hawk made it a safe distance away and found himself near Mauve, who appeared to be trying to do a class change and become some sort of Dragoon Mage or some such. He fluttered down and landed on top of her head, leaning over to speak to her upside down.

"Mauve dear, leave the meleeing to those who melee and put the spear down.

Oh and if you happened to have any Nul-Blaze type magics handy now might be a good time to use them on the both of us, I fear a large amount of lava may be about to bear down on us," he said with an strange amount of calmness, looking back to see if the tentacles were still after him.

[mauve]

"Jeez, couldn't you have been more delicate?" Nik moaned.

"Probably," she said. "But honestly, this was like pulling off a Band-Aid. Better if the pain's quick, right? Well, that's how I'm going to justify it today, anyway. Besides, you lived, didn't you? And you no longer have a sharp metal object lodged between your ribs. That's good, right?"

She was now examining the elaborate metalworking on the spear as she spoke. Mauve wasn't an expert in weaponry, but she could tell that thsi thing was well-crafted and of high quality.

Suddenly a strange weight descended onto her head, pushing the brim of her hat down further on her forehead and into her eyes. Despite the fact that Skyshot took her hat waaaay back in the Earth Temple and quit the RP before he could give it back, it was now back on her head. No one knew when this return had taken place, or how, and Mauve felt no need to clarify. Anyway. Suddenly, an upside-down hawk head appeared in her line of vision, drawing her attention away from her new toy.

Mauve dear, came a familiar voice, leave the meleeing to those who melee and put the spear down.

"Awwwww, no fair!" Mauve protested. "I can't do anything fun!"

Oh, Hawk continued, ignoring Mauve's protest, and if you happened to have any Nul-Blaze type magics handy now might be a good time to use them on the both of us, I fear a large amount of lava may be about to bear down on us. The bird head disappeared as Hawk turned to look for something.

A wave of intense heat scorched the back of Mauve's neck.

"Said lava is right behind me, isn't it." she sighed. She rubbed her temple with the hand that wasn't clutching the spear. "Greeeeaaat."

She whipped around, probably almost throwing Hawk from his perch. Both hands shot out in front of her before she even saw the lava, gripping the haft of the spear and holding the weapon out horizontally.

Living ropes of molten lava converged on their now-static target. The deafening hiss of steam rang out and mixed with a strange, intermittent electric buzzing. Mauve's mouth curved into a defiant sneer.

To an outside observer, it would have appeared that the lava was curling into a nearly perfect concave circle around the mage and hawk. The more attentive viewer would notice the angry purple sparks that erupted every time a new tendril of magma added to the odd sculpture. They may have even noticed the faint purplish haze that surrounded Mauve and Hawk, although this was difficult to see beyond the searing glare of the flames and lava.

Beads of sweat began to form on Mauve's brow. She shifted her weight, now looking as though she was struggling to hold back some great opposing force. And she probably was. Mauve had managed to create a three dimensional shield around herself, and consequently Hawk, and was now devoting the majority of her attention and energy to maintaining said shield and avoiding a painful and lava-filled death for as long as humanly possible.

The lava, however, had just the opposite goal. It was pushing against the shield from all directions, wrapping around it and trying to overwhelm the wall of magic energy.

"Well this is just peachy," the mage grunted through clenched teeth. "To answer your question, Hawk, I have spells that nullify or reverse the effects of elemental magics, but I'm not sure if lava counts as being particularly magical. I could've --uh oh." she shifted her weight again as one side of the shield warped inwards from the pressure of the magma. Slowly the shield reformed itself. "I could've tried casting them on us, I guess, but there was still a large chance that we would've ended up being barbecued anyway. This shield had the highest probability of actually working. But it is based on the level of magic energy I have, so I can't do this forever. Ideas?"

[Arhra]

You know, this is quite absurd really. Arhra thought to herself, looseing magic in an attempt to resolve the flaming weight dilemma. I'm inhumanly fit! My psuedo-vampiric nature means I convert anything I eat into energy. Every time I do that it even gives a tiny boost to my physical make-up and, well, I'm greedy. Not to mention I can accquire handy attributes like enhanced strength by draining the right person, which I have! I don't get fat, entropy avoids me, and I have muscles like steel cables. It's pure upside! She squirmed a little, the ball of magic turning into crawling webs that clung to her.

I mean, when you're supernaturally strong, does a small increase in apparent brawn actually mean anything? she ranted on, for now was a time rich with internal monologuing. In fact, why are flames even weighing me down? If they were this heavy for a normal person, it might kill them. Unless the flame's apparent weight is proportional to the strength of the creature they've set on fire, in which case... oh no...

The acceleration spell suddenly glowed, blending into the flames that covered her. It consumed all of the magical power the other her had left her for herself. There was only so much Arhra to go around after all.

The flames flowed over her quicker, the webbed tracery of flame coating her boosted by the spell. Arhra had almost gotten used to the exhausting burning sensation the flame caused but now she felt like thousands of red-hot needles were jabbing into her skin. She surged to her feet, muscles swelling with strength. The clinging flames seemed stretched thin, but then a second later they thickened, burning with new intensity as they swept over her strengthened form.

The weight jumped up with it, bringing Arhra to her knees. Well, this sucks. she thought. Her other self had all the magic, so there was no arcane solution for this. It's too cumbersome to try and put myself out by rolling in the dirt, she'd have put herself out before if it was that easy, I'm already weakening it as much as I can with draining and that ice attack I stole is too slow and fires it away from me. Nothing else I have can put out stupid burly flame. Wait! That's it! All those stupid burly heroes just use their brawn to solve problems!

Body prickling all over as her slender frame gained bulk a second time, Arhra forced herself to her feet again. Assuming she'd have to somehow punch her problem until it went away, Arhra gathered her will and was promptly hit by the rolling ball of angry lizards that was Hydra and the abomigator.

"Damn you universe!" a battered Arhra shouted as she was carried along in the scuffle, warped flame leaping from her to crawl over the reptilian pair. "DAMN YOOOUUUUU!"

* * *

"Woo! Capture spell done." Arhra's ghostly other self muttered, her weave of chaotic magic complete. "Now just administer the finishing blow!"

This looked a little more complicated than it was to say.

Arhra looked over the scene. She was a spectral creature, her flimsy body largely incapable of directly interacting with the world. Hydra and her other self was busy dealing with other problems. The third one was clearly out of the question. Rhiya was clinically dead and the nymph was, in her esteemed opinion, useless.

Hawk and Mauve appeared to be trapped in a magical shield wrapped in constricting lengths of fiery tentacles. And the pair of former members of the pants brigade - Fenris and Mammoth - were nowhere to be seen. Hopefully they'd miraculously flip out and kill elementally aspected guardian constructs designed to protect universal Law. Arhra wasn't greedy. It would be enough if they just killed one.

Closer in, the Caryatid seemed to be deciding what to do with Nikose and Flare. Nikose had charged in, running through an opening of the series of firey great slashes the Caryatid was beleaguring Flare with and arms stretched out to wrap her body, just above the waist, in a hug. "Please stop hurting my friend." he said sadly. "She's a nice girl!"

"You will burn." The Caryatid said, sneering down at Nikose. She ceased swinging her weapon, holding a hand, palm outstretched, out at Nikose "Burn." she said, sparks leaping from her hair. The air around Nikose simply burst into flames, the Caryatid obviously meaning to cook him alive. Her gaze turned up to Flare, arm rising with it. "Burn." she said again, a fireball exploding around Flare.

It looked like it might be up to the hobbit.

While Arhra had total faith that Phil would be able to pull it off, she also knew it would be prudent to invest in a back-up plan. She rushed over to the magma wrapped shield bubble with long, loping strides and then pressed against it. she felt brief heat as she insinuated her being through the shield bubble. Arhra felt fortunate the the shield was permeable to her almost insubstantial body. Prolonged contact with that lava would definately have been bad for her.

So it was that Mauve and Hawk had an apparition of Arhra slide through the shield bubble, lightening the ruddy light of the magma with the faint white glow of her misty flesh. "Say, I thought I'd better check on you. Oooo, nice spear," Arhra said, spotting the weapon in Mauve's hands. "There isn't anything I can do to help is there?"

OOC: And yes Mammoth and Fenris, that is free reign to flip out and attack.

[Flarecobra]

I just grinned as I asurbed the energy from the fireball. Some of the scrapes and bruses that I had were gone, and I was feeling more energized. At this point, I figured it'd be now or never. "Right back at ya." I told her, firing off the Terra-Flare, the blast impacting her arms. As with most detonations of this type, a small shockwave was formed and didn't have to travel far before it hit the body of the Caryatid. During this time, I took the oppertunity to drop down, angling my decent to aim at the vanes on her back.