NPF Avatars 5 - Capitalism Has Made It This Way

[POS Industries]

The next thing Hawk saw was a doctor smiling at him as he laid in a hospital bed.

"Ah, good, you're awake," Dr. McCompetent greeted Hawk, "It looks like the operation was a success. Oh, what operation? Well, it looks like you took quite a licking in that tournament, so they sent you here. Had to try a radical new treatment I devised involving transplantation of cloned brain tissue among other things, but you seem to be right about back to one hundred percent! And those people at Gray's Anatomy said that a capable practitioner of medicine wouldn't be as interesting as the horndogs they ended up casting! Ha! Anyway, now that you're all back up to speed, my instructions are to send you off to relax in that lovely spa facility they have over at POS Industries. Ta-ta!"

And in a flash, Hawk was off to battle the fembots.

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"Round One has come to end!" Rei announced as the crowd cheered, "Let's hear it for your eight quarter-finalists! Krylo Killian, Mesia Denostaya, Inbred Chocobo, Pyros Neinian Nine, PX-05, Rhiya Ravenwing, K.P. Morgan (via representation), and a bear!!"

Rising to their feet, the roar of the crowd drowned out the sound of a missle screaming through the air. However, the explosion of its impact upon the private box that floated above the arena suddenly brought them to a hush before sending them fleeing.

Rei was the first to react, charging up her energy as she called to the other NPFers, "Oh no! That ThresherChief guy's private box is about to crash! I'm gonna destroy it before someone important gets hurt! DOOM CANNON!!"

As he blast hurtled toward its target, Rei was caught off guard by a large group of robotic shock troops that attempted to catch in her a pincer attack, guns a-blazin'. Dropping quickly to the ground, she met up with the eight assembled NPFers in the center of the ring. "Guys, this is bad. We're gonna have to--"

Suddenly, a voice began laughing as a flat screen monitor displaying a shadowy figure floated in the air toward them. "MUAHAHAHAHA!!! Greetings, Rei! We have come to seize control of your sweet, sweet assets! If you would be so kind as to--"

"Wait a minute," Rei said inquisitively, "Doug? Doug Doukhobor, is that you?"

After a brief pause, the shadowy image was replaced by the face of a squat, balding man with a nasally voice. "What the... How did you know?!"

"Your name's written on all your stuff," Rei informed him. pointing to the arm of the nearest battle droid, which indeed had the name Doukhobor Laboratories printed upon it.

"Oh, well that's just great!" he whined, "I go through all the trouble of... You know what? I'm not going to let this ruin my day! Prepare for your destruction!"

From over the horizon, a large disk shaped object flew over the arena, sprouting six legs, two massive claws, and a pair of protruding eyes as it set down on the ground before the NPFers.

"Say hello to my little friend," Doug cackled, "the Cybernetically Reconfigured Arthropodic Battler!"

"Wait..." Rei quirked a brow, "C.R.A.B.?"

"Yes."

"So, it's a giant enemy... C.R.A.B.?"

"Yes."

"Okay, just making sure," Rei shrugged contentedly, "NPFers, assemble!"

[Mesden]

While robotic and cybernetic doom descended on the finalists, Mesden's body was lying down around the area where Krylo had shot her, with a hauntingly powerful blue specter-like figure above it.

"Oh Jesus, Krylo, did you have to? Now I have to fix it up a little more." her omnipresent voice echoed in the very being of any living being within a few dozen miles of her, and quickly she began to resculpt the body to fix the bullet wound and grievous gash in the torso.

"Stupid Krylo, messing up my physical body...And there we go!" her ghostly voice was very chipper at the end, and quickly the indefinable being flew back into the body, which instantly sprung back to life.

"That's the last time I stop a robot from blasting you, Krylo." she half pouted, half threatened before retrieving her weapons and walking towards the hail of shock troopers.

[PyrosNine]

Ignoring Phoenixbot for the moment, the Fed's drifted away like the smoke they were arresting her for, returning the battlefield to normal. Well, with the exception of anyone in the crowd who got high when the getting was good. Lousy hippies.

At the sight of the oncoming enemy, Pyros knew he needed some intel. Normally, he'd contact Ecurt, but sadly Ecurt had fled for the relatively safe employment of Mauve.

So, in this case, he'd just make up an imaginary Ecurt and contact him...

Originally Posted by Frequency 140.92

Pyros: Para-Ecurt!

Para-Ecurt: What is it, Pyros?

Pyros: ...I have encountered some sort of cave demon. I....I don't think I'll be leaving this place alive.

Para-Ecurt: Pyros? What is it? Are you feeling okay?

Pyros: Other than the gut wrenching terror I'm feeling at the moment, I'm fine!

Para-Ecurt: Calm down Pyros, it's not a cave demon. It's a Doukhobor Cybernetically Reconfigured Arthropodic Battler!

Pyros: A what?

A Doukhobour Cybernetic

Pyros: Oh god! It's looking right at me!

Para-Ecurt:Pyros, it's

Pyros: Sweet Jesus! it's coming closer!

Para-Ecurt: Pyros, Listen!

Pyros: It'll tear me to shreds!

Para-Ecurt: Pyros, you've got your Flametongue, right?

Pyros: Yeah but...

Para-Ecurt: All you've got to do is stab it, you can get a ration that you can later consume to recover stamina.

Pyros: Are you insane? A Knife is useless against those Massive claws! They could rip a tank apart! Jesus Christ!

Para-Ecurt Pyros, get your act together! You need to destroy the enemy troopers!

Pyros: Jesus Christ!

Para-Ecurt: PYROS WILL YOU JUST SHUT THE HELL UP AND STAB IT!

Pyros knew what he had to do. Just remember the techniques taught to him by Raiden about CQC, and how it's utterly useless against giant robot crabs.

Pyros ran into the crowd of C.R.A.B.s, sword swingin'.

[Red Mage Black]

"Why the hell do I keep getting pulled through portals!" Black shouted finding himself near Fenris. "So buddy, need help?" He asked the mod sarcastically. "Of course you do. What do we have here?" 'Besides a bunch of killer robots.'

[Inbred Chocobo]

IC had finally recovered, but the tournament was already over. It kind of sucked he didn't have a hand in taking out the last few competitors, but he came out on top, so that is all that really mattered. IC looked at the robot that had shown up. "Well crap." IC said, with a slight squeak.

Well, he might as well try something. IC charged towards his opponent, running up one of the legs. He ran up, aiming for the underbelly of the giant C.R.A.B.. He might as well see if he could hit the weakpoint for massive damage.

[Nikose Tyris]

Nikose had retroactively grabbed Black and brought him to Fenris again so as to keep the storyline from glitching.

Nikose pushed black along behind Pedro. "You go- Fenris and I will hold off these guys." Nikose said firmly. Nenyel lashed out a tentacle and gently struck Latis, in a movement that was somehow admonishing and loving at the same time, although the owners didn't hear any words passed between the weapons.

"Go, you silly ass!" and Nikose gave Black a hefty kick, sending him after Pedro.

[Red Mage Black]

"Time line..... glitch..." Black's mind boggled at the thought. But yet again another portal he was pulled through. Of course he was more then happy to help the owner of this fine company. He rushed after Pedro hastily. "You need help getting through what now?"

[Arhra]

Appearing at the spa, the kneeling Arhra was a picture of abject sorrow. Her great plan had been foiled by the actions of an idiot and a robot. The cruel hand of fate had cast her out of the arena, denying her the visceral thrill of glorious, bloody victory. There had been so many people she had still wanted to kill. Now all that precious bloodlust would be wasted.

She then noticed the warning message flashing on the KSR 9000's display. It informed her that the gun's ammunition power cell had been depleted and she should replace it with a new one. What?! Arhra thought. It shoots bullets! BULLETS!

It was all too much for her.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Arhra screamed to the skies, a cry of utter loss. Her beloved gun was out of ammunition. Reloads didn't even exist, meaning it was little more than a glorified paperweight now. Arhra sniffed as she thought of all the good times they'd had together.

The fembots crowding the luxurious spa room Arhra had appeared in decided to make their presence know. Eyes glowing an evil red, one of them stepped forwards, "You seem tense." It said sympathetically, "Would you like a relaxing massage?" The infernal machine was undoubtedly planning to prey on Arhra's vulnerability, allowing it to perform a spine extraction.

"I AM SAD!" Arhra screeched, surging to her feet. In her outburst of sorrow, Arhra went on a rampage of complex destruction. Sculpted bodies were transformed into the grotesque via the medium of violent dismemberment.

Arhra came back to her senses surrounded by weirdly artistic arrangements of fembot carcasses. At some point along the line, she'd sealed the doors, the noise of more fembots pounding on the doors dimly coming through.

"Evidentally they've gone rogue." Arhra finally concluded, hearing the occaisonal anti-meatbag sentiment expressed from behind the doors. Looking at all the sparking robot parts and realising they meant a lot of robot power cores, a plan began to evolve in Arhra's mind.

It was now clear what she had to do. First she would have to devise some means of recharging her weapon. Next, she would have to go back to the arena and kidnap some of the finalists, maybe do more than just kidnap if they put up too much of a struggle. It was their own fault really. With competitors missing, the match organisers would have no choice but to move the others up to fill the bracket. If she was lucky, they'd just move them up in order of last eliminated. If she was unlikely, they'd randomly pick people. That could mean a lot of kidnapping.

Eyeing the room full of raw materials, Arhra set to work, trying to rig up a recharger for her weapon. She didn't entirely know what she was doing, but on the plus side, she didn't know whether it was impossible or not. Whistling merrily, visions of her glorious weapon restored, Arhra began connecting things together and occaisionally bludgeoning stuff with chaotic magic.

A montage later, the spa room looked like the disturbing innards of an alien spaceship. Cabling snaked all over the place, and the remains of fembots had been strung up like ornaments, flayed open, jack and ports wired to each other. It was questionable where Arhra had managed to get all that resin from.

Arhra gently connected the last few leads to the KSR 9000 and lowered it into the jacuzzi, the mess of wires slithering over edge as it sank to the bottom. A definate mad scientist edge to her, Arhra cackled. "I'll show them all! Commence recharge!"

A discordant buzzing began, the fembot remains thrashing and light flickering unsteadily. Arhra looked around with worry. "Live damn you!" she yelled, whipping at parts of her array with strands of chaotic magic, "LIVE!"

There was a spark, strings of explosions running throughout the room and then the jacuzzi exploded, steam clouding the room. Everything went dark. Coughing and stumbling, Arhra made for the center, fear for the results driving her. Seeing what had happened, she stood stunned.

It appeared that instead of recharging the KSR 9000, Arhra had somehow managed to turn it into a robot. She was cute too.

This newborn robot, in the first few moments of existence found herself suddenly sprawled on the floor, a crazed looking Arhra on top of her, wrapping her in an embrace that could probably kill bears, face just inches from her own. "Excuse me... You're putting dangerous amounts of strain on my endoskeleton." she said weakly.

"I'm sorry." Arhra said, "I... I'm just so happy!"

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

This was odd. Very odd. The last thing Hawk remembered, he was charging towards Mesden at high speed, when all of a sudden, he was here. He assumed something Very Bad had happened, probably something so terrible that either his memory had been erased because of it, or the surgery to repair the damage wasn't quite good enough.

Either way he was out, that was his tournament over. It was a shame really, he had had big plans for that money, but now the other npfers would never know...

Well, time to move onto phase two then, the other reason I came here today.

Hawk was only now examining the room he was in, and it didn't look like the luxury spa he had been told about. In fact it looked like a warzone. That explains why Fenny needed the hammer then, and probably begins to answer my own questions. Then he noticed the approaching Fembots.

Hawk sighed wearily. After having just fought some of the most powerful beings in the universe and coming in 9th (more like 8th, Hawk though, I suspect the contest was rigged in favour of that bear!) he didn't really expect trouble from a never-ending supply of Fembots.

The Ascalon flashed out, you can guess what happened next...

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Fourty three seconds later Hawk was making his way down a corridor, taking down the occasional Bot along the way, following the general direction of the carnage to locate the other forumites. He soon came upon a large group of the marauding massouses pounding to get into a room on one side of the corridor. Hawk dispatched them with little trouble and then eyed the door suspicously. If the Fembots were trying to get in there, it was likely one or more npfer was in there. Hawk decided to check it out and see if he could find out what was going on around here.

The device on his arm became visable once more as he rolled back his jacket sleeve and typed a few things into the control panel that formed out of its surface. With a series of beaps and other computer sound effects ripped straight from every concievable fictional source Hawk found the override command and the doors slid apart. Inside was a sight too terrible to describe, but it basically involved an Arhra molesting a robot.

Hawk just stared for a few seconds before speaking, "I don't even want to know," was all he had to say.

[POS Industries]

"You need help getting through what now?"

Pedro skidded to a halt, turning to face Black and pointing his cane in the direction from whence they came, "I need the fembots stopped from coming this way! Why are you here? Go help your friends before they die or something!"

"Pe-chan?"

"Oh, now what?" He sighed, attention turned to the holographic Rei next to him.

"The arena's under attack," she informed him, "Looks like Doukhobor labs is responsible for all this. I retract all the hugs I ever gave that guy when he worked here!"

"Wait, Doug's attacking us? He does realize we're kinda busy today, right? Can you ask him if he'd maybe come back tomorrow?"

Rei shook her head, "I doubt he'd be willing to listen. He's brought a giant enemy C.R.A.B. and everything!"

"Well, then we'll just deal with that problem after this one," Pedro shrugged, taking off back down the corridor toward the power conduit, "Let's hurry and get this mess shut down as quickly as we can!"

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IC's attempt to attack the C.R.A.B.'s weak point for massive damage was interrupted by a couple assault robots that had taken position beneath the monster, who immediately began firing at him with shoulder-mounted chainguns.

The C.R.A.B., meanwhile, began targeting the approaching Pyros, a blue light glowing from its mouth just before firing a massive freeze ray at the charging deity.

The android Rei had taken to the air again, readying another doom cannon attack as a couple robotic troopers fired rockets at her, forcing her to throw up a forcefield as quickly as she could. Even still, the explosive impact was enough to send her reeling back down to the ground, landing next to Krylo.

As for the bear, he was a bit worn out from all the fighting and pie eating, so he just trotted over to the far end of the arena and took a nap.

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Back at the spa, the fembots were attempting to push outward from all sides. Beneath the control room, the droids had begun tearing through the walls and ceiling to get to Fenris' group. Meanwhile, in the main spa area, more of the mob was trying to fight its way out to attack the rest of the building, forcing the NPFers on that side to keep them contained as best they could.