Avatar RP VIII: Chapter VII: Timing

[Arhra]

Steel looped back the attacks that had been piled on Arhra II with his Fury enhanced time manipulation, forcing her through the travesties of lightning, fire, exploding penguins, unicorn horns and Japanese schoolgirls again and again until he hurt his clicking finger.

The Time Knight felt a powerful killing intent envelop him. Burning, crimson eyes bored into the back of his skull like diamond augurs. In them seethed an insane, inhuman rage that would never, ever die.

And then it abruptly vanished.

But Arhra II had been in front of him all this time.

"Bard, you're alright!" Arhra I shouted with glee behind him. Bard had died twenty times due to the vagaries of Steel's time magic as the faux-white mage had attempted to heal him. But now the summoner was alive and the pacifist Arhra's happiness was forcibly reinstated all thanks to the miracle of positive energy.

Arhra II had picked a target and it seemed even attack repeats wasn't going to sway her from it. Overcast fell from the heavens, an impossibly wide smile on his faces and made his declaration.

"Magic is silly. It always seems to blow up in your face."

Arhra II apparently agreed, continuing to advance on Etna Bishoujo without any magical attacks.

Etna Bishoujo slowly backed away from the slowly approaching Arhra II. "Geez, why're you so mad at me?" she said falteringly, clutching her spear. "I mean, all you wanted were the Fury Pills, right? And you got 'em all. Most of 'em, anways."

She bumped into Overcast, turning just enough to catch him in the corner of her eye. "Please, if you're not an evil version of who I think you actually are, I could use a little help here."

"Just get behind me and try to get your energy back. I'll see what I can do about her." Overcast said, pulling of his gloves and stepping between them. He hoped to touch her and apply a quirk.

Stepping forward, he swatted at a few of the strange mosquitos that were buzzing towards Arhra II.

Blank boxed, he looked in her eyes and reached out one hand in diplomacy.

"Just so I can get a good gauge at where I am at right now, is there any chance the two of us can talk this out and maybe go off disarming bombs together? I'd really like that."

Arhra II looked back with swirling red pits full of crazy rage.

Meanwhile a swirling mass of cherryblossoms appeared beside Etna Bishoujo. "Don't give up yet Bishoujo!" The whirlwind called, Rose taking shape in its center, "We still out number her, if we attack her with all our strength, she's sure to fall!"

Crackling bursts of pale pink and gold lightning danced over Rose's hand as she turned fully toward AB. "I know exactly what you need to fight again-" The sorceress threw her hand, open palmed, toward Bishoujo, "-a new look!"

The pairs original costumes were restored. And AB's mana too.

"If we're going to defeat Arhra II," Rose said, adjusting a wristband, "we're going to need to get serious, that means representing ourselves, not some random characters." She grasped the hilt of her dagger. "Remember to support me, kay?" She smiled at AB.

Rose vanished and reappeared in a flurry of cherry blossoms, far to the left of Arhra II. Arhra I and Bard; Rose; and Overcast and AB formed the points of a triangle, their enemy in the middle. All that was left was to wait for Overcast to finish whatever he was doing.

AB jumped the gun and started shooting.

"WAIT! TILL! I'M! DONE!" Overcast shouted at the cosplayer. He gave her a piece of his mind in the form of his exploding head.

"Wait until you're done?" AB said, picking herself up after getting slammed into a wall. "Are you even listening to yourself? That bitch just stole all the Fury Pills and is trying to kill us, even though all we really wanna do at this moment is stop the countdown."

Armored coughed up a little blood, then picked up her sword. "Fine, you wanna negotiate with crazy-ass bitches, go and negotiate. And when that countdown reaches zero and the universe or whatever blows up, you can tell us how much progress you made. I'm sure it'd be enlightening."

Surprisingly, Arhra II did not try to stab anyone at all during this time, choosing instead to conserve her strength. Her only motion was the tips of her wings flicking, trying to swat the buzzing swarm of mosquitos away.

"Let's taaalk." she said to the box headed man. How crazy.

No handshakes seemed to be on the agenda.

Then a large metal capsule burst out of the ground behind Overcast and AB. Shyria climbed out and looked down at Arhra. "Hello darling," she smirked. Flames danced between her teeth. "MISS ME?"

"Who are you?" Arhra II said blankly.

"Bishoujo?" Rose called across the triangle that Arhra II was at the center of, "Let's just leave the homicidal box to his negotiation, I think I'd like to explore the Tower. I'll grab Bard and the pacifist Arhra and we'll all have a wonderful time together." She paused before glancing toward the rest of the group. "The others can come if they feel like it."

Rose began to happily skip across the square toward the locations of said White Mage Arhra and Bard to recruit them. "Would you want to go?" Arhra I asked Bard as she cradled him.

Arhra II didn't seem to mind?

[Astral Harmony]

"Well, if you guys're gonna go, I might as well. Can't defeat Arhra II by myself."

Her boots allowed for pretty much no traction, and it would be very easy for her to slip and slide all over the place if she tried to walk through the ooze. Armored sheathed her sword and holstered her gun, then carefully followed Rose, ensured that out of the choices between fighting Arhra II or exploring Kurosen Tower, the latter was probably less fatal.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

"No one you know, I just needed a quick and dirty badass quip to accompany my appearance." Shyria replied, stretching her wings and settling in behind Overcast. "Anyhoo, I'm just here to observe and make sure these peace talks go as smoothly as possible. She smiled again, showing off as many teeth as possible. "And to to teach you a proper lesson about diplomacy if they don't."

[Overcast]

AB didn't like the whole blasting her into a wall thing. That was fine, he didn't expect she would. He let himself slide into a bit of a relaxed state as she scolded him about trying to talk to some crazy psycho rage inflicted sorceress. Not that he really cared, they had been jointly attacking her in fast motion for a quite a while now and hadn't really done anything at all. They could keep smacking at her like a baby punching a brick, or they could go off solving the bigger problem while he risked his ass talking to her.

Not like she was chasing after everyone leaving anyway, and while he didn't like that look in her eye she wasn't doing any sort of casting and seemed to want to talk to him. No handshake though, which was a shame because he would have liked both the insurance of a friendly gesture, and the opportunity to play roulette with her power levels.

Ah well at least he wasn't dead yet,

"Kaaay."

He let out just to match the extended use of the letter a. He let his hand drop now because that was just getting awkward, he wished he had a watch to tell him how much time they had left. With all the Steelish shenanigans he really didn't have a grasp on that right now,

"I'm sure you are plenty able to kill most of us right now. Last time I faced someone with some fury in them they cut open my Box. That isn't even supposed to be possible. So I'm not going to be so funny as to fight with you. Though there are quite a few bombs around that seem pretty keen on killing everyone here, and the pills do run out eventually. With time knight on the scene I can imagine that the bombs might last longer than your fury will, and because of my silly actions I may have changed some of them to firecracker level and others to End Of The Known Universe level."

He scratched at the Box in embarrassment, really it was that emotion that had him leaving for space to begin with, he felt bad after doing that and just didn't want to be around anymore. As usual he found himself back here, but it had taken a moment to nurture his pride up in space,

"Anyway, I've seen this universe from the Void and believe me it looks better on the inside. I think it is in everyone's benefit that we get rid of those things somehow. And since you have reality breaking level power I bet you are more than capable. After that we can all go back to either killing each other for whatever the reasons are(I really don't know because I'm always a plotline behind) or not. I guess it really hinges on how you feel after being on the same team for a little while."

He lifted up his arms in a shrug, he preferred option two because while he was sure that he could count on Steel to keep making holes in the fabric of reality for him to sneak into he didn't really like dying. It was a tiring process and it always left him hungry and weak when he came back,

"So what do you say?"

[Bard The 5th LW]

"Yeah sure why not," Bard said in response to Ahrha. He was about to tell her that he could walk, but he had the feeling that if he did that she would just drop him onto the floor. "I'm OK with letting box-guy talk things out."

"Good luck," he said to Overcast, giving him a brief thumbs-up. He wasn't sure where he came from, but he honestly decided to not worry about it.

Geist took the moment to reform, a bit shaken from the failed swarming. 'Not sure what made me think that was a smart idea,' he noted in his thoughts.

"Diplomacy eh," he said aloud as Overcast began talking to Ahrha II. "Bit different an approach as to what I'm used to, but I'll give it a try." He needed a bit more formal a look though. He knew just the thing!

Bow-tie!

With his new formed bow-tie of +5 charisma, Geist was ready to engage in peace negotiations of the most virulent variety.

[Arhra]

Backed up by Shyria and a Geist in a bow-tie, Overcast had opened negotiations with Arhra II in the ruined plaza outside the Kurosen Tower as the seconds ticked down. In the background, Arhra VI was rummaging through an oversized bag on her scooter.

"No one you know, I just needed a quick and dirty badass quip to accompany my appearance." Shyria responded to Arhra II's non-recognition, crouching behind Overcast like an enormous housecat ready to pounce.

"It was baaad." the hunched figure of Arhra II informed the dragon, drawing out the last word.

"Anyhoo, I'm just here to observe and make sure these peace talks go as smoothly as possible." Shyria smiled toothily, "And to to teach you a proper lesson about diplomacy if they don't."

"Talking? We are talking, just like real people! Even though I hate you." the excessively winged one told them. Because it was better to be talking than fighting. Even though she was itching all over from tiny bugs. "I hate." their enemy added for emphasis.

Overcast told Arhra II he was pretty sure she could kill a lot of them, but he was also pretty sure the bombs he assumed to be buried pretty much everywhere were going to kill them even more. Thus: team-ups!

"So what do you say?" he finished.

"You don't know who started the countdown." Arhra II sang with malicious glee. "You don't know anything at all. You're all going to diiie."

6:21

* * *

There was agreement with Rose's plan to poke around in the Kurosen Tower.

"Be careful." Arhra I warned everyone. "We could be up against anything from killer bees to an Egyptian god."

First danger: ankle deep in slime. Those jams had left a clear, fruity trail into the interior. The place was dark, lit only be spaced out, occaisonally broken emergency lights and was a maze of winding pathways, strange rooms and bridges over unexplained ravines.

But fortunately someone incredibly hostile had already smashed her way out. It was a simple, unpleasant matter to follow the slimiest, most damaged route. Arhra I boosted her aura to compensate for the poor lighting.

The scattered jams still being generated and they weren't the only threat. Ahead of them there was the whirring of still functioning machinery. Traps and monsters were being directed to the damaged areas.

The NPFers had fights from unexpected angles on their hands.

* * *

In the NPF Science Laboratory, the battle had entered an uneasy pause while Dr Ethington soothed her emotional pain with ice cream.

It was a passive-aggressive war for scientific dominance between an avatar of chaos wrapped in a crunchy, cyborg shell and a moping southern belle cowgirl with a forest of prehensile hair who was also a fire god. Dr Ethington and Arhra V had changed signs; moved lines dividing up the floor-space; stolen lab equipment, interns and coffee mugs from each other; and even left notes lying all over the place.

Arhra V had taken advantage of the pause. She had been in the process of switching over to a new chassis when disaster had struck, leaving her stuck in an underequipped, underaged cyborg body. Arhra V felt at a physical and psychological disadvantage as a minor and so she'd decided to complete the upgrade while Dr Ethington was busy. Having all her equipment online would help with the other, less immediate issues as well, she was sure. Doing it fast was horrendously wasteful and inefficient but thanks to the Fury Pill she'd taken, she was in no danger of running out of power any time soon.

There was a locked room and it was full of hair. Ropes of hair churned like a rough sea or pit of snakes, threatening to wash over the table tops. It was as hot as an oven, plastic chairs sagging and notebooks on fire.

An armoured hand thrust out of the morass. Arhra V followed it, long hair cascading down her back. Rising to her full adult height, she stood waist deep in her own hair.

"Aside from underestimating hair growth, huge success." the cyborg said proudly, feeling herself to check for anything that had gone horribly wrong. Her metallic parts were glowing red-hot. "Should have thought about the waste heat some more though." she added, the air shimmering with heat around her.

She grabbed her hair, gathering it back into a crude pony-tail and sliced it off with a blade that flicked out of her other wrist.

The severed ends of the hair in her grip writhed then finer-than-hair-thin wires shot between the gaps. The wires thickened and drew the cut sections back together, fusing them as if they'd never been cut.

"Maybe I overengineered my auto-repair a little." Arhra V conceded to herself.

She realised something else: Dr Ethington was going to think that she was copying her.

Damn. Damn. Damn! went Arhra V's thoughts as she grabbed the completed Dragon Breath Assist Kit off a table and forced the door open, a tidal wave of hair spilling out in front of her.

She was going to need a bigger lab.

[Overcast]

"No, I won't die. I never die. Because I'm not really here."

Overcast started walking towards her, the Box blank as before in his approach to the wing heavy Arhra. He wasn't in any hurry to do anything, but soft power wasn't working. No good working to her sense of goodwill, nor her sense of survival based on the world around them. So he would have to work with hard power. He didn't have much, but two pieces were still in him,

"You'll die though. Shyria, she'll die. Gheist, maybe I don't know if he is ever really alive anyway. I'd have to ask Bard. At any rate everyone will die. But not me. I've never had the power to force myself fully into this universe before. So even if something breaks the Box, the avatar of my very existence, I'll still be alive, just exiled out to the Void again until I am granted access."

He walked to Gheist and whispered softly in his ear,

"The talks are not going well. If you can get me a fury pill I would significantly feel better as this goes along, for now...I'd start running."

He reached his hands out dramatically towards Arhra II, the Box suddenly sporting a large toothy grin and a huge eye above it,

"I've seeeeeen you. I can chaaaaange you. And you will diiiie."

All the grins were over, blankness returned, and he laid his hands down,

"You don't have to die. I don't want to kill you. But no one is better suited for the job than I am, and I will if I have to. So, last chance, will you help me? Or is this going to have to happen?"

[PyrosNine]

The lab was suddenly a hairy place. Orders were already made for double- no, triple, the amount of shampoo and conditioner for proper maintenance and that crisp, shine that was proof of healthy hair.

"Patrick! Nooo!"

The wet, grabbing bits of hair were slowly sweeping Patrick away, as he waded up to his knees in locks in dire need of Pantene Pro-V.

"Just....make sure the report the cyborg requested gets to her....so that my sacrifice won't be in vain!"

"Patriccccccck!

And with that, Intern Patrick was pulled away by the mass of wet, emotionally charged hair, off to work on Dr. Ethington's scientific project P*, which he would work upon for a half hour before finally getting a snackbreak and get carried off by a cleverly placed vending machine intern-stealerbot.

The good doctor herself was sipping southern style coffee (boiled over an open flame next to some dumplin's and drowned in sugar) from a mug labeled "V for Extreme"

At the moment, she was considering all the possible uses for the Kurosen, putting project P* and the experiments on the Furian particles on the backburner for now (though the first was indefinite, she was pretty sure Vin Diesel was the key to the second), as the timer and the efforts of Arhra II couldn't be something good. She had to figure out what the darker Arhra wanted, why she'd been followed by some other figure who happened to use fire for some reason, and whether she was truly to blame for the timer.

As it was, the Kurosen could do alot of things. Power the city, for starters, charge weaponry, make it's wielder somewhat indefatigable, and there were some notes on turning the entire city into spaceship that some time traveler dropped on her lap back when she was in 8th grade and socially awkward, but that had only been followed through so much before she no longer took it seriously. Also, she could swear the time traveler owed her some money....what would the interest be since then?

Oh, she was getting sidetracked. Whatever. It was time for some action science. She knew enough about Furian particles, she had a few thousand pounds worth of research paper on Valkyr weaponry and systems, and had set up thirty orders of Raspberry sours from the local bar.

Her glasses dimmed to block out the bright sparks of science that has action, as a neon blue table lit up, and a class IX omnitool emerged from the depths of her hair, lying in the room.

An android's immobile form was sprawled along the table, alongside numerous pieces of alien debris, and stuff stolen from radioshack. Blades and lasers popped out of the multi-dexterous omnitool, and science began to work.

Until one wayward strand of negative emotionally charged hair got snagged on a strand of cybernetic regenerating hair, resulting in:

"Ow! Gosh that smarts like a beesting the size of ol' Texas!"

A new order for 3 kilos of anti-tangle solution was placed, and marked "Urgent."

* * *

Pyros escaped from what he had, he admittedly asked for, unsure about his future prospects in the adult entertainment industry, and wondering if he should call Arhra II the next morning.

In the meantime, he booked it down the hallway to get into a fight, as he'd not done anything notable for the last hour or so, Avvy time.

Instead, he found himself facing a giant fan. Sadly, it was neither a massive cooling device that utilized a current of air, nor someone who was particularly fond of the Giants football team. No, it was a man the size of ol' Texas wearing a "P9 FTW" T-Shirt and it was hard to tell what else he wore thanks to his girth, beard, and general unpleasantness to look at.

"OH EM GEE, I can't believe it! They told me if I waited here, I'd meet you, and I know, I know, it's NPF City, your stomping grounds, but I CAN'T BELIEVE IT, I'm HERE, and you are RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME!"

"Umm...yeah. I'm kinda am. Good spacial awareness and all that. Well, I guess I'll..."

"I just want you to know, that I. am. your. BIGGEST. fan. Though yeah, I am pretty big! AHHARHARHAR."

"Yeah...big."

"I have all your writings, images, posts, and every heh, 'Ave-y', on my computer's hard drive, because *snort*, you were in every one of them!"

"Well, not all of them. In fact, I wasn't in a few, either not for the majority or not at all, due to a-"

"Oh yeah, well, you were in all the Good ones, am. I. Right? Heh. Heh. And I've also got a myspace and facebook account dedicated to you, a geocities fanpage that is most definitely the definitive source on all that is PIE-ROSE Nine! I'm even on your Twitter!"

"I have a twitter?"

"Yeah. I'm like, the only one following you right now. WOOT! FIRST! Yeah, I said woot. Because you say it instead of saying Whoo, because you're so crazy like that. And I am really, really sorry, I just have to apologize, for my Deviantart account and those unauthorized images I sold on T-shirts, but I just felt, that you would be so much more complete, if I shipped you with Sephiroth-Goku the Stampede and you could purge him off his devil-angel vampirism with your cat-god angel fire."

"............" Pyros couldn't move. It was as every thing in the world had suddenly gone horribly, horribly wrong. He actually wished he was back with the tentacles. He wished he was back underwater in Atlantis. He wished he was in a cold JC Penny while all his friends were taking four hours to try on new clothes that they wouldn't actually end up buying. He wished he was in an underwater JC Penny's amidst tentacles while Arhra II tried on the entire store.

"Oh, wow! Ellipses! And are you making run-on sentences with questionable grammar with your narration doubling as an internal monologue?"



"EJECT! EJECT! EJEEECT!"

Pyros threw down a smokebomb and GTFO.

"Oh. Cool! He made a reference....OH CRAP! Did he leave any hair or skin traces behind so I can clone him and have a crossdressing furry army! BWAHHARHARHAR!"

The fan's attention quickly flitted toward the next group of people.

"OH EM GEE! It's the ARMORED BISHOUJO GIRL AND THE MOHVE MAGE! I NEED TO GET MY CELLPHONE CAMERA AND POST PICTURES ONLINE!"

* * *

In the upper rafters of the Kurosen tower, Ryu the Gangsta Ninja chilled fly, knowing the worst was most definitely below him, and therefore someone elses problem. He just sipped his Sun-Drop and listened to his MP3 Player and prayed that the feeling of disease would leave him shortly.

Sadly, this reprieve would not last.

"Keeerah!" screeched some sort of Avian beast.

Pyros/Ryu turned.

Perched on another rafter, was most definitely an eagle.

Pyros was, at that moment, a ninja.

With it's right wing, it made a horizontal motion along it's own neck, and followed the motion with a masterful screech.

"Shi-!"

The food chain was in full swing, and Pyros was on the menu.

*Project P, the favored first and foremost choice by experts in all fields in terms of experimentation to solve any problem: Is it Pyros's Fault?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Originally Posted by Arhra

"You don't know who started the countdown." Arhra II sang with malicious glee. "You don't know anything at all. You're all going to diiie."

Originally Posted by Overcast

"He reached his hands out dramatically towards Arhra II, the Box suddenly sporting a large toothy grin and a huge eye above it,

"I've seeeeeen you. I can chaaaaange you. And you will diiiie."

"What is this, a Rami film?" Shyria thought to herself before looking back up at Ahrha. "Anyways, think of it like this; you can have a lot more fun bouncing around an intact universe doing everything from backstabbing your friends to kitten watching than you would being all non-existy and stuff. It's in your best interests to help us." She looked back at Overcast. "Besides, do you really want to go through your non-existence saying you got your ass kicked by a Lovecraftian cereal box?"

[Steel Shadow]

Steel was not one for cowardice.

No, sorry. That's a lie. Cowardice is awesome.

On the one hand, there was a mysterious tower of traps and doom and probably some sort of explosive hallway. On the other, Arhra II and a box that was trying to negotiate with her. And somewhere, a being made of hate that didn't like him.

Really, this was getting silly. II didn't look all that dead, and no one was attacking her, so Steel's offensive actions were limited. And now he was in a good mood, since Rose had given him his cape back. So, maybe less mindless violence?

"Exploring time!" Steel decided, redoing the clasp of his cape and posing dramatically. It worked much better with the fabric fluttering in the wind behind him. Of course, he still looked ridiculous, but that's just him. No amount of fashion fixing would fix it. "Good luck Box man, Shyria!" And so he ran off after the others, into the tower.

"Hey, Bard, I've lost track. Are you ok yet? I can totally try fixing you again if you like!"

-------

Little known fact: Brains have the density and consistency similar to that of cottage cheese that's been left out of the fridge all night. This, it was soon discovered, also applied to floating telekinetic brains.

“Ewww, I just got this cleaned.” The Time Knight muttered, peering down at the outside of his cape with disgust. Brain matter dripped down it in a rather sickening fashion. He shook his head and let the cape fall back into position, resolving not to use it as an impromptu shield ever again, while simultaneously resolving to wash the thing 5 times when he got home. And that was when the floor caught fire.

-------

“Why are there never any railings on these walkways?!?” A somewhat charred Steel asked, speaking rather loudly after being partially deafened in the room of terrible secrets (which had declared for all to hear that he was not, technically, a knight in any fashion or sense at all). Below the narrow bridge, many vats of elctric acid bubbled away, ever ready for an unfortunate adventurer to slip and fall. Since most members of the current party could fly though, it was wasted effort.

-------

“WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSS?!?!?!?!?” There was much fuss when the bee guns opened fire. Hey, some people have phobias, y'know? "BEES!!! MY GOD!!!"