NPF Avatars 5 - The Universe, Breaking Us Down

[POS Industries]

"How are the energy readings holding up?"

"Stable. It looks like this is going to work."

"That's a good thing, I guess..."

"You guess? You don't get how amazing this will be if it works? We'll go down in history!"

"If there's any history left."

"Look, you know what you signed up for, and you know you can't back out now."

"Yeah, I know.... It's just....."

"What?"

"I can't get this nagging guilty feeling out of my head. Like my conscious just won't let me be okay with what we're doing."

"It's a job. You got bills to pay, and this is how you pay them. End of story."

"..."

"Still, I'll admit, it would at least be better if this place didn't look like an mad scientist's evil underground villain layer. You know, like if it wasn't so dark in here or something."

"Seriously, and that thing up there is like a massive blacklight. I swear, I never feel like I can get all the lint off me..."

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Spider-Bear had been doing his best to maneuver about the halls of the Old Mashirosen tower for a few minutes, trying to find a new angle from which to attack IC, when it suddenly felt rather chilly. An icy breeze drifted past, causing the bear to shiver despite how insulated it naturally was.

Moving further on, the scenery had become noticeably different, metallic walls and flickering fluorescent lights giving way to wood paneling, gumdrops, and candy canes.

A couple tiny humanoid creatures rounded the corner, causing the bear rear back on its hind legs and roar in surprise. The pair of elves stood frozen in terror, screaming as the bear instinctively brought its claws down upon them.

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Elsewhere, IC could hear a dull rumbling as the walls began to shake. The noise got louder and louder, until he could finally place its origins, turning to see a flood of seawater crashing down the hall way toward him, washing up the bodies of the slain gaians, a hiss of steam filling the air as the water rushed over the flamers.

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"I don't quite remember this being here before..."

The Rakshasa almost seemed to purr as she looked out over the strange new scenery she'd stumbled upon, having decided to investigate the noises she was hearing echoing about the halls of Santa's Castle and discovering a massive underwater palace with a massive melee in the very center involving a twin-headed dragon, a female mercenary, an endless variety of sea creatures, and a horde of nasty imps.

Grinning, the Rakshasa began working her necromantic magics, reanimating the fallen sea monsters and imps and commanding them to her own will in the brawl.

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As the godly siblings exchanged ineffectual blows and polite banter and shrugged off the attacks of the yetis, wolfweres, and others as if they weren't happening at all, a hulking form rushed through the middle of them, pushing the horde of monsters through the wall and tearing into them into a bestial rage.

It seems someone had taken Thod's food, and he was none too pleased.

But before he had a chance to really do anything important, he and the mob of creatures were suddenly blown backwards in a large explosion, falling through the air toward Mesden and Raiden.

From the hole in the wall, a trio of forms could be seen through the dust as it settled, revealing three of the most hideously malformed scantily-clad females imaginable.


"We are the Badly Drawn Naked Transformation Anime (Hentai) Women™, and we have been sent to KILL YOU!"

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"As much as I enjoy seeing you have fun with your work, Bruticus," The Capitalist stated drolly, "it would be appreciated if you would stop toying with this young man so we can move along and deal with the other intruders..."

As Pyros did his best to disregard the wound to his leg and charged at his newly-sworn enemy, Bruticus readied himself for the attack and quickly sidestepped the swordsman, swinging his pistol around and taking a quick shot.

The lurker standing in the doorway crumpled to the floor as Bruticus aimed his weapon back at Pyros.

"Friend of yours?" The Capitalist inquired to Pyros.

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It was an epic struggle between Nikose's digestive tract and the violent electric shocks of the lemon jam, but Nik's regenerative powers seemed to be making a victor of him, despite the pure unrelenting agony of it. Not that he wasn't used to this sort of thing by now.

TRIPLE TECH: PERIODIC TABLE!

A massive combined elemental attack plowed through the chamber from the cluster of jams. Rei reacted as quickly as she could, erecting as much of a shield as possible around herself in hopes of deflecting the attack. Though surviving, the force of the blow sent her tumbling to the ground.

How the other NPFers fared is anyone's guess....

[Bailey]

Where Red and Green had stood, the first of their relife gems glowed and activated, bringing them back just in time to get killed by the triple tech, thus using up their SECOND relife gems.

"Oh you've got-" "-to be kidding me."

Blue, meanwhile, having been struck with splash damage from the prior deaths of his triplets, had been casting first aid on himself at the exact instant that the triple tech struck.

Because of this, he was somehow able to exploit some sort of programming error and simultaneously hang on with one HP and slightly recharge his MP.

"That was... lucky. First Aid. First Aid," Blue said, casting the spell twice more to bring himself back up to full health.

"Speak for yourself." "We're getting pummeled over here. I'm just about ready to use my Escape Claws to get-"

The rest of his sentence was lost as Red and Green were both run over by a stampeding pants demon.

You see, Pants is a very peculiar element. You can't really use fire on it, because what is fire but heat, and warm pants straight out of the dryer are, as everyone knows, rather comfy. You can't use ice on it, because pants are meant to keep your legs warm, so using something cold... well... you might as well not bother. Electricity is slightly more effective, seeing as how nobody likes wearing statickey pants, but usually this mostly just has the effect of causing the pants creature in question to stick to things.

Use some sort of crazy tripletech, now... and the poor Pants Demon doesn't know what to think.

This is most obvious here, where the Pants Demon in question has just run through a door while it was closed. Well... a door which used to be closed.

In any case, it's off running through some hallways where the NPFers and the Jams aren't, and the time limit on its summoning is likely to run out before this battle is finished, so it's not like we care anymore.

Now... where was I... relife gems, relife gems again... amazingly lucky timing... ah! Yes! Getting run over by a panicked Pants Demon!

Okay, so Red and Green had just died AGAIN, and here's Blue with two relife gems still.

He looked at the smudge marks on the ground which used to be the other Keymen, and then looked at the gems, which had a warning label on them saying something about how it was not meant to be used by one prismatic triplet on another, whatever that means.

Blue set one of his relife gems on Red, and one of them on Green. Then he activated them.

Maybe he should have read that warning label...

[Mesden]

Mesden was...very shocked at why enemies just came rushing in to interrupt their fight. It was annoying -- only moderately less annoying than Raiden himself, and that was saying something. With a sigh, she hopped far away from Raiden and the semi-animal enemies and closer to Thod -- but made sure to stay out of his direct reach.

With a compassionate voice that would warm the hearts of the most frigid of fiends, she consoled Thod with a few words, "That mean, ugly, sketchy and loud thunder god took your food, Thoddy. He said it tasted great and that he doesn't care if you got any. That's not fair, is it?" She scanned the area once more and figured that it was definitely hopeless to fight these off herself, and that Raiden is not the kind of person you give your back to, because A) Screw Raiden and B) He's a sick sick freak and we all caught the innuendo there.

Mesden chuckled internally for a second before heaving a great sigh, stretching her arms out and calling out with the weariest of voice, "It's Caturday!"

[Nikose Tyris]

Nikose felt himself tumbling around, surrounded by Fire, Ice, and Lightning.

He felt his flesh being scorched, he felt the hair and clothes being ripped from his body.

He felt pain, so deeply that it shook his core.

"These aren't truly beings with minds..." His agonized brain shouted. "These are nothings!" He moaned the whisper, feeling the ice freeze the very blood in the veins of his arms.

Nenyel let out a tinkly sigh. "Not everything can be redeemed- some things must be destroyed."

Nikose felt the blood flow with renewed vigor as his body pushed the shards of blood-ice through his skin, as the blast resided, leaving him charred and naked, as well as a rather new feeling.

Rage.

Nikose propped himself up with one hand, the charred and Icy skin falling off in clumps as it healed, Making Nikose seem like some kind of rotting corpse, and he stood. and where the pendant still danced on his chest, it flared, and his body was cured again, granting him the body of a healthy man once more.

Albeit naked.

"Okay, and now I'm mad." he stated, before pulling out Nenyel in shortsword form, and charging at the nearest jam, and golf-balling it with the flat of the blade towards the nearest wall, bludgeoning them around the room shouting angrily and incoherently at them. Completely ineffectually, but still quite angry.

[IHateMakingNames]

Originally Posted by Mesden

"It's Caturday!"

And lo, he was summoned.

[Mesden]

"CAT," her voice was thunderous, like the hordes of a million nations descending upon the feline, "Eliminate the Girls!" she pointed towards the wreckage formerly known as A Wall where the Hentai Girls stood, still in a flashy, colorful, seizure producing stance.

She knew what was about to happen, and the thought warmed her heart and made her...giggle? Yes, Mesden giggled at what was to come!

[IHateMakingNames]

The cat used one of his greatest techniques on the girls.

[Inbred Chocobo]

IC looked behind him when he heard what sounded like a toilet exploding. You know, those kind of sounds tend to need investigating, and he was glad he did. From behind him a giant freaking wave of water was coming. So IC did what everyone else would do in his situation. Run away screaming.

Of course, IC was lucky in his running away. First off, he was fast. Quite fast, so he was able to keep dry. Second, he just happened to pick the path of the bear, so while it was dealing with the elves, IC lept over them all and went on his way around the corner, leaving the wave to clean up that mess.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

“Renée, something odd’s going on.”

“This isn’t the best time,” Renée said, as she grabbed and flung a few of the mobbing sea creatures away from her. The floor shook as Arhiyara charged the comparatively diminutive soldier.

“No, this is important.” Renée swatted a few of the imps out of the air with an armored hand, and began to run at the gargantuan diamond-beast.

“What is it, then?” Taking a deep breath, Renée fired a wave of green grenades in her path to obscure her position. Despite her burning lungs, she held her breath as she entered the milky cloud and burst from it like a bullet riding on a mixture of an enhanced jump and the flight powers she was granted.

“Something odd’s going on with whatever pseudo-reality you’re in. The forms seem to all be bleeding together. I think we can use this to our advantage for future fights, and Arhra’s never been one to pass up a chance at treachery.” Renée landed on Arhriyara’s diamond hide and scrambled her way to a spike to steady herself.

“I... see what... you’re getting at,” she replied, no longer in control of her breathing. And so, she released her weapon, letting it rest on the strap, and took a quick calming breath. “Hey, Ar... Ari... Ara... Hey, whatever you are! The walls between this bubble and the next are, apparently, breaking down. What say we go have ourselves a little fun with the other contestants before we finish this?”

[Arhra]

"What?" one head replied, looking puzzled and still eyeing Renee hungrily. She snapped a passing imp out of the sky, like a dog snapping at flies.

"Yes!" the other head hissed immediately in reply to Renee, simultaneous with the first head's query. This head's eyes were glinting with barely contained glee.

It was difficult to say which one was more unnerving.

Arhiyara seemed to consider this predicament. "One moment please." the second head said, holding up a single clawed digit. She took a step forwards and both of her necks snaked around a corner, apparently to discuss this idea in private. The panicked shouting of several surprised fodder-class monsters could be heard.

Some indistinct draconic rumbling later, there came a sudden exclaimation, "There will be cake?!" There was another indistinct reply. "Do eeeeet!" came in response. Both heads returned, one looking happy and the other seeming very pleased with itself.

"We have decided we will take you up on your offer." the head that had been pro-alliance said. Or at least, it seemed to be - it was hard to tell them apart. Given that her other head was humming to itself about cake, it was probably true.

"Are you ready?" Arhiyara asked Renee, shuffling on the spot as sea critters milled around her feet, eager to stampede her way through the undead horde ahead of her.