NPF Avatars 5 - Getting Smaller

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

The fire splashed harmlessly around Rhiya, creating a cloud of fiery haze. The cloud of fire momentarily obscured Rhiya's massive bulk, despite the fact that she filled slightly more than a quarter of the arena at this point.

And through the cloud of flames, Rhiya's head came snaking upwards, jaws open, snatching Black out of the sky from his cometary collision.

With a mouthful of Mage, Rhiya gracefully, artfully brought her head about in an overhead swing, aiming to slam him hard into the ground, before repeating the process until Black was as limp as a ragdoll.

[Red Mage Black]

'Well that was graceful.'
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Think you can hold in morph again?"
'As you wish.'

Once again, Black was covered in a large jade blob, suspended in the liquid inside. As Rhiya hit the ground Black gently bobbed up and down inside his liquid armor. Tentacles lashed to and fro inside her mouth smacking the top and bottom violently. 'Release me you oversized lizard.' Black shouted in his mind.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

After hopefully knocking IC back into the air and away from himself, Hawk had gone back to avoidance tactics, which wasn't easy considering that over-sized chaos dragons were being tossed around before once again going on the rampage and various animals were still running loose all over the place.

Needless to say, Hawk was doing some quite impressive off-screen dodging and weaving until he could find a good target. And then, unfortunately, he noticed the sudden loss of weight from the hammer on his back. What the hell?! He reached over his back and realised the weapon was gone. Either Fenris wants me to lose, or for some reason he suddenly needs it. Neither thought gave him much comfort really, but when Hawk checked to see if the auto return function still worked for him, he found that it did.

Whether the dissapearing weapon would prove problematic for Fenris or not was of no concern to Hawk.

Dodging on oncoming Rhiya once again, Hawk ran into one of those various animals that everyone seemed to have forgotten about, namely, the horse. Seeing the benefits that a mount provided he quickly swung himself up onto its back and readied his halberd. And so it was that Hawk began charging around the arena on horseback, ready to skewer anything that got in his way... and right now, what was in his way was a stationary Raiden.

[PhoenixFlame]

"Very well, then." Phoenixbot responded to Arhra, from atop the chaos-dragon the three (four?) were riding, moments before it capsized. The physics behind a massive dragon requires that it fall over in a similarly massive fashion, allowing it's comparatively massive crew the massive amount of time to masterfully execute a massive escape plan.

Or, in Phoenixbot's case, continue rocketing across it's bulk, propelled by the unholy fusion of a chainsaw and a zipline. Rocketing past Rhiya's neck in a clearly vertical arc, Phoenixbot fired her maneuvering thrusters at Apogee to land squarely on Monty's the Uber!Longsnake's head.

"Target Lock." She said to no-one in particular, leveling her PPC at point blank range with the Uber!Longsnake's skull.

"Hasta la vista, baby!" Was the pre-programmed rhetoric for such a situation, right before the discharge of a point blank energy cannon into the snake's cranium.

[Demetrius]

"You know who was much more pleasant than these annoying robots? Raggy. She'd probably be helpful... Hmmm. I think you should try to be more like her, yup!" Demetrius was hovering toward Pedro and looking slightly piffed as fembots began to swarm him under. Snagging one of the fembots Demetrius kissed her square on the mouth, and - *Whammo* A furious copy of Raggy stood there, gun in hand and brasier full of bullets.

"Care to share your love and give us a hand?" asked Demetrius, who laughed, snagged another bot and repeated the proceedure, several times (recieving several full armed slaps as well).

"Fun and productive!"

The Raggetts began to scythe through the fembots in a hail of hot lead and deadly beauty, clearing an area around the NPFer's, even Newb.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

Rhiya didn't stop. Her head rose again, and she whipped around and slammed Black into the ground again. The tentacles pounded feebly at her oversized maw, trying ineffectually to stop her from what she was doing best - trying to get a meal.

Slam. The earth cracked beneath her onslaught.

Slam. There were dents in the arena floor.

Slam. The ground shook and shuddered from the force of each impact.

Slam.

Slam.

Something went *pop* in Rhiya's brain. Huh. Food in mouth. Black's a contestant, right? I just need to slam him into the ground outside the ring and he's out.

No wait. That means you lose your meal. KEEP AT IT GAL!

With renewed vigor, Rhiya brought up her onslaught on Black's protective little bubble-tentacle... thing, quickening her pace.

[Red Mage Black]

'She's not giving up.'
"Gee, you think?"
'What are you going to do?'
"Remember when this happened last time? That time she swallowed us but I'm hoping for the same result."
'Need me to do anything?'
"Not yet I'll give you the cue when to transform."
'Standing by.'

Since it wasn't getting him anywhere, Black decided on a bold move. He moved towards Rhiya's throat and looked down at the abyss. "Somehow, this isn't as easy as it was before." He jumped down hoping for the same result as before.

[TheBlindMime]

As TBM slid painfully across the stage he remembered something he had long forgot. Hey, didn't Smokey the bear use to be my god or something?

TBM ran down the stairs of his suburban home, it was so many years ago now. He wasn't even a mime in training yet, just a boy looking for faith. "Hey mom, dad! I believe in Smokey the Bear!"

Mother and Father Mime: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

As TBM tried to figure out why his proudest memories of his parents always had them scream 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!' like when he mentioned he wanted to be a mime. He was probably just mistaken about what happened.... yeah.... mistaken thats it.

Just then memory of being struck in the hood of his... head in car form came shuddering back. Oh he did not diss the bandit car! TBM was onto his feet before he realized there were four of them. I'm going to kill you smokey the bear, then I'm going to light your favorite forest on fire for kicks! You hear me! Do you!

Smokey while not completely avoiding the sight of TBM seemed to give no care to his threats. Hey! Can you hear me or not you stupid bear?... Why doesn't it sound like I'm talking? TBM looked down reflexively to check on himself, first and foremost like most men he needed to make sure his genitals were still there. He then saw two orange furry paws in front of him. Oh... cwap.

He was a small orange fox now, Smokey had indeed cut to the truth of TBM with his mighty magic shovel. Even TBM had no idea he had to be a spirit fox to have the foxes powers. "FUCK YOU SMOKEY THE BEAR! FUCK YOU!"

TBM willed these words to be screamed at the top of his lungs, but they did not come out at all the way he expected, they were accompanied by a shimmering blue light that was a bastard mix of fire and lighting, I can fox fire? bitchen! TBM hoped that at least this might do something to that damn Bear, his religions barely a religion. Some days TBM wondered if it wasn't just a money making scheme, Lord Xenu fire god in space was a hard pill to swallow.

[Fenris]

Fenris was just about to receive his hammer, when it suddenly vanished. "Oh shit." Fenris spun his sword around and pulled out his banstick.

"Don't. These. Things. Ever. Stop. Coming?!" Fenris shouted, having easily destroyed over 300 of them by now. Fenris waved his banstick and another thread barreled through, clearing out debris and killing several of the fembots.

Fenris had to fight his way closer to Pedro, if he was going to be of any use at all. The other fembots, however, did not seem to want Fenris to help Pedro shut down the auto replicators. Fenris cracked one across the head with his banstick, causing her to explode.

"That's new. Me likes."

[Arhra]

OOC: Since I already had this mostly written when RMB posted... screw it! I'm doing it anyway!

As Arhra wheeled and dealed with Phoenixbot and Krylo, RMB followed Krylo's path up Rhiya's tail, activating his fire boots trick again and then jetting at Arhra, swinging a giant hammer-Latis at her.

"Can you not take a hint?!" Arhra exclaimed, dodging to one side, hand raking out and sliding over the hammer as it passed by, touch siphoning energy from Latis.

It was then that Monty headbutted Rhiya in the belly, forcing her up and toppling backwards. Feeling the reasonably horizontal surface beneath her, suddenly changing to vertical, Arhra turned and got moving. Running practically on all fours as she scampered spider-like up the shifting slope, Arhra got over the shoulders. Essentially trying to remain on what was closest to horizontal at that moment in time, Arhra finished up on Rhiya's chest when the excessively proportioned dragon hit the ground.

She grabbed a convenient spiky bit and hung on for dear life, using the almost forgotten wisp of chaotic magic she'd called up before to simply wrap around another protrusion as Rhiya skidded along the ground. If the arena wasn't so open and empty, surely that sort of impact would have caused some impressive damage to the place.

"This is somehow your fault. I am going to shoot you now. With bullets." she told Black grimly, despite him not being near. It was more for her benefit. With Rhiya breathing chaos over some of the stands in a tantrum as she slowly clambered back to her feet, Arhra quickly repositioned herself back on Rhiya's back, where the neck began.

A spot of rampaging later, Black tried to attack again, this time opening with a cloud of flames over much of Rhiya's body. Arhra sat in the middle of it, looking angry and concentrating. Flame that touched her simply was snuffed, Arhra draining the energy from it, fortunate she was strong against more diffused attacks like this.

Black made like a meteor and Rhiya swallowed him, then trying to slam him against the floor, like a thrush trying to crack open a snail when Latis encased him again.

"Uh, Rhiya? Let me try something." Arhra said, "I have a... uh... nutcracker here." She unslung the KSR 9000 from her back, pointing it up at Rhiya's large head, sighting through the scope, "Hold very still."

She could see through Rhiya, inside her mouth to where Latis was tethered into place by ropes of her jade green substance, the central blob they all tied to still swaying about from Rhiya's attempts to dislodge and crack it. Black had probably been shaken silly by it. A tweak to the auspex and she could see inside that too, a cocoon filled with (presumably breathable) fluid, Black suspended within.

The muzzle of the KSR 9000 swayed side to side, in imitation of the motion, making the primary target lock neatly bracket him. She was shooting at a person enclosed in a tight space that, itself, was inside another confined space. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Arhra worked out the equivalencies as roughly being this:

Black - Fish
Latis - Barrel
Rhiya - Truck the barrel is being stored on?

"You should know, I don't have to lock on three times to fire this thing." Arhra politely informed her target, precisely one fraction of a second after pulling the trigger.

Another pale streak of flame that vanished to nothing within a meter, payload sent on its cross-dimensional trip to Black shooting. Inside Rhiya's mouth, right inside the protective cocoon Latis had created for Black - if Arhra had gotten her aim right - said payload unphased.

The bullet travelled the further few inches it had to, then detonated on reaching the target space. Rhiya's mouth was now home to a shortlived ball of destructive energy, surrounded by an violet field designed to pull unfortunates into the center.

Unfortunately for Arhra, RMB chose this approximate moment to try and put his own plan into action. The timing was so close, it was difficult to see what would get him first - killy energy or Rhiya's throat.

This time though, Arhra hadn't thought of the practicalities of bracing against the recoil of one's oversized weapon, being aimed upwards at a high angle, while standing on the unstable footing of the back of an oversized dragon she had just created a reasonably violent gravity effect inside the mouth of.

"Curse you gravity!" Arhra cried, feeling herself begin to fall backwards, "You win this round!"