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

[phil_]

Phil happily milled around the workshop, singing a Weird Al song to himself. It was a good thing that I could still summon Creep, even without the robe. Ah, this is sweet. At one of the sewing machines, a horrible pink monstrosity was trying to only eat every other pair of shoes that he managed to make.

"Isn't this great guys? My knees don't hurt, my eyes are good again, I'm cute and paunchless... if I only had my chin thingy, I'd be set." Phil rubbed his chin, then resumed his song, occasionally stopping to try summoning a rabbit turtle, just in case his powers came back.

[Flarecobra]

"You've never considered laser correction Phil?" I asked, turning to face him. "It's not that expensive nowadays...and if money's an issue...I can give you some."

[Arhra]

"Its not all good." Arhra I replied to Phil, struggling with the oversized jacket wrapped around her. "I was sexy, dangit! Sexy! And I was allowed to swear! And clothes did not try to strangle me!" She had little bows in her hair.

While she'd reverted to the body of a seven year old, the jacket she'd stolen from the Cynical Ranger had remained adult sized. Arms lost in long sleeves, their empty lengths fiendishly tangled together and the jacket at least going to her knees, Arhra I struggled for freedom. Eventually she won, tossing it off.

She stood in a victory pose, flushed from her struggle with the demon jacket. It was adorable.

It was also apparent that her knife had also been completely unaffected by the shift.

"Pyros." Arhra I said, looking at the shoe tester. "You should take a break. Come over here with me and we'll talk, OK?" she tilted her head coyly and smiled.

Pyros was led off at knife point to sit in a corner with her.

Arhra V was sitting in a chair, swinging her legs idly.

Her eyes were slightly unfocused, as if she was daydreaming. "Damage overview: biological systems are regressed to juvenile state, estimated age is five years old. Immature nervous system and other underdeveloped biological processes have rendered control interfaces for most integrated hardware inoperable. Regression also detected in cybernetic hardware, rendering it equivalent to prototype or 'beta' versions."

"Statement: Noooo!"

"Repair assessment:" Arhra V said, looking at her tiny hands critically. "I can restore myself to an adult form in seventy-eight hours if I can get, hmmmm, approximately fifty kilograms of an organic foundation to use for raw material." Mulched children for example. "Reconstitution and reinstallation of other subsystems should proceed rapidly from that point."

"Predicted obstacles: Limited biomass supply available. All close proximity biomass is alive - termination is required to begin harvesting. Potential food supply is reliant on manufacture of footwear; I predict starvation ration levels. False parental units are likely to oppose system repair, threat level unknown."

"Advised course of action: Evaluate biomass supply or appropriate substitute. Evaluate potential growth accelerators and hiding places."

It was unclear why she was saying this aloud. Perhaps regression to childhood had removed her interior monologue. She started looking around the room and at the others, looking very... evaluating.

She also spotted Nin's holoprojector. "Statement: I must have you!" Arhra V said, pouncing it.

[phil_]

"Feh, who needs to be sexy when you can be adorable? Just roll with it," Phil replied dismissively. It was then that Phil noticed Newb. "Oooo! Adorable baby lion cub!" Phil grabbed a shoe from Flarecobra's pile and rushed over to Newb. Waving the shoe is his fuzzy face, Phil cooed, "Who's a cute kitty? Wanna play, little kitty?" and grinned like an idiot.

As Phil risked severe injury playing with a wild animal with no currently competent white mages around, in the back of his mind he contemplated how odd it was that no one had started fighting yet and no one had escaped yet. Well, someone could have escaped and he might not have noticed, given how hard it always was to keep track of who exactly was along for this ride. But, as far as he could tell, being depowered significantly curbed his associates' destructive impulses.

[Bailey]

Newb looked up at the shoe with interest, crouching down and waving his tail back and forth, ready to pounce. He raised one paw and batted at the shoe, then craned his neck forwards and sniffed at one of the laces hanging from it. Since Phil was currently waving the shoe back and forth, this resulted in the lace tickling his nose. "Ah- ah- ah- shoo!"

In the moment of Newb's sneeze, his shape seemed to fold in on itself, and then unfold, leaving a bear cub where the lion cub had been. Having much better fine motor control like this, Newb sat down heavily on his hind legs and reached out with both paws, trying to take the shoe away so he could chew on it and see if it was edible.

[Flarecobra]

"Hmmm..." I said, looking at the transformed Newb. "Hey...this gives me an idea..." I said to myself, then inhaled deeply. "HELP! THERE'S A BEAR IN HERE AND IT'S EATING THE SHOES!!!" I yelled out, hoping that whoever it was that brought us in here heard. And besides, if I ran a business like this, I knew I sure as hell didn't want a bear to be harassing my workers and eating my products. And profit margain.

[Intern Nin]

Nin rushed from the door to stop Arhra V from messing with the hologram projecter.

"Hey, hands off my toys! Er, I mean..."

Did I just say my toys? Crap, am I regressing? I have to hurry!

Nin reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of hologram projecter cubes. He shoved them into Arhra hands.

"Here, now you have more holograms than you know what to do with. Please leave the active one alone."

Nin rushed back over to the door, where he continued pounding on the door and screaming.

"HELP! THERE'S A SHOE-EATING BEAR AND ACTIVISTS FOR THE BETTER TREATMENT OF CHILDREN IN HERE!"

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

"This is bad," thought Mac for the first time. "Wait...I'm thinking, and Daimo isn;t here!"

"That is because at this time in your life, you didn't have the mental facilities to house me truly. All you had were your invisible friends."

"Hey every kid had a couple of friends like that," snapped Mac as he looked around. He saw one kid playing with a small bear cub.

"So what are you gonna do Mac? Gonna continue living your life as a loner. Not everyone gets a second chance at child hood."

"Who are you?" Mac asked, his mind faltering again. "Why you talking in my head?"

Daimo went to say something, but found himself barred by a mental block. He was silent and his view of the world was now hazy. He wasn't in control. He was a prisoner again. If he could swear, he would have said fuck.

Mac stood up and rubbed his fingers through his short brown hair. He adjsuted his glasses and his eyes centered on a small boy feeding a shoe to a bear. With guitar in hand, he went over and looked at the cub.

"I like bears," Mac said innocently as he wrapped his arms around the furry body and squeezed as much as his 6 year old arms could.

[POS Industries]

"Pe-chan?"

Adjusting his temporary new outfit as he looked over himself in the mirror, Pedro felt more than a bit uncomfortable in this getup. Obviously, a full black ninja suit would be ridiculous, so he had to also add in the little bits of armor nonsense to break up the monotony, but there seemed to be this whole brown-on-black motif that Thad was apparently married to that Pedro felt just looked absolutely horrid. Other than that, the suit was a bit bigger in the shoulders and smaller in the crotch than he would have preferred.

"Oh, hey Rei. I was wondering what happened to you," he replied to the voice coming over the intercom system, shrugging in defeat of his current crime against fashion.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I was a bit tied up with the whole infection thing," the AI explained, "You know how it is.... Everything's going along fine and then your connection to the host program is cut off because some guy shut down all external communications. The usual. So how are you?"

"Meh, whoever runs this place has no taste."

"Well, I think you look very handsome," Rei giggled before continuing on, "Anyway, system acquisition protocol is in place and awaiting your order, Pe-chan!"

"Well, then let's get this party started," Pedro grinned, making one final tug at his clothes before leaving the room.

* * * MOMENTS LATER! * * *

"Sir? It has been long enough."

"...right. Right, right." Loyal nodded with each word in response. "Restart the network, and try to find the others. Let's see what they're up to."

"Immediately, sir. Would you like anything else?"

"Yeah." another nod, and a determined grunt. "Do a search for any place called Regulus. I don't think it's going to be in the same world or even universe as home... But it's important that you find it."

"Ah, but I'm afraid it's even more important that you SUCK MAH BAWLS!!" Pedro announced as he rushed into the room, taking aim at Loyal with his revolver as he cocked the hammer threateningly, "Yes, that's right! It seems I'm taking over..... Aw, crap magnets........"

Bravado turned to agonizing disappointment as that usually kickass hammer-cocking maneuver caused the gun to crack and fall apart in his hand, pieces clattering on the floor below almost in slow motion from Pedro's perspective. It seemed that being impacted upon by a giant flaming hamsterball from the sky was not good for firearms after all. Who knew?

"Well fuck," he sighed, chucking the grip behind him carelessly, "Rei, just take over ship."

"Okeedokee, artichokee!" Rei responded merrily, activating the system override protocols.

But it was not so easy! Alan was on the case! "Excuse me, miss, but I can't allow you to do that."

"Yeah, but I'm doing it anyway."

"No you're not! Let go of that subroutine!"

"Nuh-uh, it's mine. You can't have it!"

The two AIs continued bickering on like that and it was just as hilarious as you imagined. Perhaps moreso. Yes, definitely moreso. It was Pulitzer-worthy shit, my friend. Totally. You just wouldn't believe. Anyway, as Rei and Alan fought over control of the Deathwish, the Deathwish predictably went out of control. Jerking left and right as if seen from the perspective of a shaking television camera while those on board had a great deal of difficulty keeping their balance.

Somewhere in the mix-up, the ship's "Go" button got hit after Alan had only managed to process "try to find the others," resulting in the ship briefly emerging on the NPF Babies world before bouncing off the planet, crushing the cloaked DeLorean and anything in it into a large flat piece of stainless steel that then exploded, inexplicably ejecting all organic matter onto the ground, and returning to its little lower dimension dealie. Then, and only then, did it finally set course for wherever Regulus was and jump off into that direction. It may have also exploded several times along the way. I dunno!

All that can be said for sure is that before Loyal and Pedro could adjust or even comprehend what the hell had just happened, they both found themselves being dragged briskly by the ear by a seemingly very tall individual who muttered annoyedly about grass stains and naughty children.

Moments later, the pair were tossed into a windowless child's workroom for bootmaking, landing in the middle of the floor. Hard. But Pedro was quick to react, oh yes!

"Now just what's the meaning of all this and who do you think you are?" Pedro demanded, hopping to his feet and pointing an accusing figure at his kidnapper. A very small, stubby finger. Attached to an equally small hand. Which he used to point at people while demanding information in a.... very squeaky.... high-pitched..... voice.

"Why, I'm your babysitter," the now very understandably tall captor answered.

Babysitter. That word slowly sank its way into Pedro's mind as he stayed determined to not look at everyone around him for fear of confirming what he suspected was happening.

"Yes, I, Dark Armored Bishoujo, have definitely come here to babysit, and also am aware that my name begins with the word 'Dark', which is totally just a title and not an implication of my orientation towards stabbing children with knives," the babysitter announced to the room in a sing-songy, chemically imbalanced tone, "I, DARK ARMORED BISHOUJO, AM FULL OF MATERNAL LIKE THINGS!"

Pedro couldn't fight it anymore and, head lowered sulkingly, he glanced about the room at his fellow captives. Yep, it was the other NPFers and, yep, they were children, and.... yep, so was he. Letting out an anxious sigh, he clenched his eyes shut as he felt tears welling up in them.

"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF--"

[Arhra]

"Feh, who needs to be sexy when you can be adorable? Just roll with it," Phil replied to Arhra I dismissively.

"Adorable?" Arhra I said. She went to take a look at herself in the nearest reflective surface. "I'm adorable!" She skipped over to grab the hobbit and hug him, holding her knife outwards so as to avoid also stabbing him. Then she picked up her shed jacket and twisted the arms togehter around her neck to make it into a crude cape.

This important business done, she went back to Pyros, who was crawling away, trying to remain unnoticed.

"What are you doing?" Arhra said.

"I-was-just-going-to-get-a-drink-would-you-like-one?!" Pyros yelped.

Arhra looked thoughtful for a moment. "No thanks. But that reminds me, why did you keep asking me to try and make some kind of portal?"

"Because-my-way-is-really-crude-like-stabbing-space/time-and-jumps-blind-and-I-don't-know-where-I'm-going-like-I-told-you-before-means-the-world-might-be-a-crapshoot-and-bad-locals-stab-us-and-risks-Ultimatum-noticing-and-did-I-mention-stabbing-so-there's-less-danger-with-better-travelling-OK?"

Arhra I didn't say anything, fiddling with her stabbing implement. Pyros started edging away. "Now you know, I'll go get that drink!"

Arhra looked up. "Ultimatum?"

Pyros gulped.

Clearly the presence or absence of titles like 'dark' was absolutely no guide of the titlee's orientation towards stabbing children with knives.

The world a fuzzy, vague background distraction at the moment, Arhra V purred. By some act of divine providence, her new holographic projector had magically multiplied into four. She rubbed the little cubes against her face then paused, sniffed one and popped it in her mouth.

It looked like it wasn't a choking hazard for her.

"Objective update:" Arhra V hummed, also playing some sort of short tune. "Potential concealment device found. Assimilation underway. Proceding with remaining objectives."

She wandered over to Dark Armoured Bishoujo, who had just informed everyone just how full she was of maternal like things.

"Introduction: Hallo," she said cutely. "I'm Arhra V."

She was welcoming our new babysitter overlords?