NPF Avatars 6 Chapter 9: CEO, or Boss's Boss.

[mauve]

"Ah," Mauve said, tapping her chin thoughtfully as she regarded the oncoming NPFish horde. "So I'm guessing this was a bad time to pop back into the story."

Up until this point, the Mauve Mage had been otherwise occupied. She had discovered the ship's break room, and they had complimentary donuts and coffee for employees. All Mauve had to do was punch out one of the workers and steal his nametag. Not a difficult task, given that the worker in question had made a rather unpleasant comment about Mauve's fashion sense. No one messes with Mauve's hat.

"Oh well," she sighed, rubbing her forehead. "It's not like I haven't kicked my own Evil Shadow Darkness Side's ass before in past RPs. Now there's just... more of them. Including dark forms of people who I'm pretty sure could beat the crap out of me with or without the added element of burning hatred for anything siding with Pyros." She sighed.

"Oh yeah, this is just grand."


She shook her head and took up a fighter's stance, clutching her fists as they burst into purple flames.

"Time to pretend I'm effective!! Rocket Flare!" She thrust both fists towards the advancing army, and a swarm of spectral-looking firecrackers popped into existence around her. "HA!"

The swarm hurtled away from the mage and towards the army of anti-NPFers, diving into the crowds and exploding in blasts of mauve-tinted flames. Meanwhile, Mauve was already preparing her next spell, forming a glowing ball of magic energy between her outstretched palms. It grew to the size of a basketball, and Mauve threw it into the crowd. It barreled forwards like a battering ram, knocking aside anyone in its path before settling at a seemingly arbitrary point in the crowd. Mauve snapped her fingers, and the orb erupted in a shower of purple-black lightning bolts that shot through the ranks of attackers.

She mentally gauged her magic reserves as she prepared her next spell. These past two attacks wouldn't be massively deadly, but she hoped they would at least buy some time or thin the herd out a bit. She also hoped her magic reserves would last. She was running near full now, thanks to the donut break, but it was a large army and Mauve doubted they'd let her just waltz through them.

[Steel Shadow]

Who knew where he'd been or what he'd been doing? Why had he done what he did? And why had he returned now, of all times?

Well, I do, for starters, and frankly you're better off not knowing. I'll leave it with Arhra's immortal words from some time ago and pretend that they explain a damn thing:

Originally Posted by Arhra, like, two chapters ago

"He can control time." Arhra I said, feeling the need to point out the obvious.

And so it was that Steel Shadow could be found standing with the suddenly very small looking group facing the charging army.

"Alright guys...this is it. One last fight. Go for girl...I'll...fight them."

Steel hesitated. Normally he wouldn't. Normally he'd give Pyros a funny look then go find a deck chair or something to sit in until the real big fight could start. Or finding that break room Mauve spoke of. Or getting his pipe and... you get the picture. But this time.. this time it was somehow serious. This was the final fight, the end of days. And the likely hood of them actually winning this fight was low. He almost complained that this RP had no right to come to such a downer ending, but he didn't, because this was serious dangit. You can hear the italics.

"Get the girl, huh?" he sighed, appraising the army that stood between them and her. A lot were taking to the air, filling the room and obscuring her from sight, cutting off the most direct route to her at the same time. It would not be an easy task. On the other hand, fighting straight was out of the question. Against the mob he would last seconds, if he was lucky.

He began to chew his lip as he placed his 'Wizid' top hat on his head and began to hover. If he was going to die, he was going to do it in a top hat dammit!

"I'll try the direct route, right down the middle. Probably wont work, but it'll distract 'em. Send someone sneaky 'round the side, that'll do it." He spoke in calm orange, his sword gleaming in the darkness. Where the hell had this heroic streak come from, and could it be convinced to leave, please, like, right now?

Height and speed were the most important things. Height for manoeuvrability, speed for moverability. Leave the fighting to the god and co, he was trying to avoid as much fighting as he could. The world began to slow as a catchy techno beat filled Steels ears. What would a good end boss fight be without music?

...I never said good music. Just music.

As the army closed in, now in slow motion, Steel had time to think. But since most of his thoughts were on the subject of just how thoroughly screwed the party was, he decided to ignore them and charge ahead blindly. And so, like a gigantic orange bullet, he was off.

He dove under the first wave of challengers, slipped through a small gap in the second line, jumped the third. In fact it wasn't until he reached the sixth line that he needed to draw blood. That guy probably didn't need both his arms anyway, right? The seventh line was taken by surprise at his entrance, allowing him to get past pretty easily. Eight and ninth were ready by now though, and he had to fight, slow down And behind him the NPFers he'd gotten past were beginning to turn around.

The nice thing about energy blasts, he reflected as he cut down a particularly unimaginative avatar (Well, ok, the Master chief with wings requires some sort of imagination...), was that they damn hard to aim in crowded conditions. Given the crowds here, no one would use them unless they didn't mind hitting their allies. Of course, he amended as he dodged backwards just missing being hit by a rather nasty looking disintegrator beam, this was the NPF. Friendly fire was advertised on the brochures.

The opening the blast made gave Steel the opportunity he needed to resume his reckless charge for the girl in green, but it didn't last for long. This time the one who intercepted him was familiar.

"Yo there. Leave him to me, would you guys?" said the handsome man in orange who parried Steels time sharpened sword with his own.

[PyrosNine]

Originally Posted by Steel Shadow

The world began to slow as a catchy techno beat filled Steels ears. What would a good end boss fight be without music?

...I never said good music. Just music.

Coincidentally: Final Battle Music

This works too.

[Flarecobra]

I looked around, wondering what the hell happoned. The The Evil Shadow-People Army showed up. I took to the air, and looked at the Mob. "I think we may need a bit of help here..." I said to myself, then I saw something streaking up at me, and I dove a bit to dodge it. "And at least some of them have anti-air moves....and there's never a tank around when you need one. Or a nuke."

[Thadius]

Off to the side, a green dot appeared. This dot rapidly expanded into an oval, and after a few seconds, it was torn open from the inside by demonic claws. The claws widened the hole, and if someone had been looking at it, they would have seen that the hole was actually a portal to another dimension. It grew bigger and bigger as the claws ripped into reality, tearing it asunder enough for three beings to step through.

The first was Daimo, the Planar Lord. He looked in most ways similar to Mac, save for the permanent sneer carved into his face.

The second was Thadius, but he looked changed somehow. As though all the time he spent in whatever sub-dimension he'd been hiding in had warped him.

And the third was a ghostly apparition of The Slayer, the one who had torn the rift in reality in the first place.

The moment the three were beyond the hole in reality, it sealed itself up again. The three evil entities looked at the battlefield before them and grinned. Then Thadius spoke. His voice was certainly a lot deeper and more commanding than it had been.

"Daimo, go to Big Mac, turn my iPod to song number seven, give him the guitar I gave you, and force him to play along to the song. We need as much bardic help as possible."

Daimo nodded and went looking for Big Mac. The Slayer looked at Thadius and inclined its head. Thadius nodded and began drawing a circle on the ground. Once that was done, he started putting demonic runes and the like on the inside. Once he was done with those, he looked back at the army in front of him and grinned.

"Showtime."

[Intern Nin]

Upon hearing the infamous “What is a man?” speech, what was left of Nin’s detective side sent him crawling slowly towards Krylo. But since he was just a pet turtle, the most he could do was bite the Dracula impersonator, in which case the mod might retaliate by simply kicking Nin into the horde of dark clones. Nin, being small turtle full of urine and balsamic dressing, didn’t pause to consider this as he slowly made his way towards Krylo’s throne.
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The mechanical shark who was at the helm of Nin’s mindscape did realize the dangers of a turtle taking on creepy, floating transvestite head unaided and decided to action.

“This is the only thing I know how to do!” McShark yelled as it swung a baseball bat into the piece of equipment controlling what Nin identified himself as. The numbers on the monitor once again spun like a slot machine. McShark leaned in to see the results.

Turtle: 1% Detective: 1% Ninja: over nine thou- err, a number that was way bigger than 100.

“…What?”
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Back in the world where actions mattered, the turtle Nin stopped dead in its tracks. The tiny turtle grit its nonexistent teeth in pain and began to grow. As it grew, the tan trench coat and pants Nin wore began change as well. They began to darken and the collar of the coat stretched out and enveloped his head like a ninja mask. His fedora melted and molded itself until it resembled a kabuto helm. Two horns jutted out from the left and right sides of the helm and an ornate and very spiky crest popped out of the front of it. Meanwhile, his trench coat and pants had finished transforming into a black gui with the Miyagi ninja clan’s symbol (an eye in a mason jar) emblazoned on the arm. Nin stood with his arms folded and his eyes glowing through his mask.

“I… am the Ultimate Ninja, complete with hot and cold running water!” He shouted out triumphantly. Then he unfolded his hands and looked from side to side.

“That was a- um, a Digimon reference. In case you didn’t catch it. Um, I guess all of you are too busy taking on this new-found evil at the moment. Probably was a bad time for me to come back from the brink of insanity/primal mind set. Well, I suppose I should make an effort to help the side that’s less evil. I may have had an animal’s brain, but I remember that Ross guy saying something about playing a part in causing the destruction of the last NPF. Well, I guess I’m still fighting alongside Pyros then. Huh, and here I was expecting some sort of plot twist that would make us turn against Pyros. Well, time to get to work. You!” Nin pointed at Krylo.

“I have questions that need answering. So stay on your throne until I get back.”

Nin spun around, took a step forward, and then quickly spun back around.

“I mean it. Please stay where you are until I’ve taken care of my other business.”

Nin leapt off into the shadows and reappeared behind Thadius. He then kicked the former assassin lord in his back, sending him falling on the ground.

“That was the first of many to come! Consider it payback for trying skewer a fragment of my personality. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to begin operation ‘Retrieve the godlike being’.” Nin leapt back into the shadows and reappeared behind one of the dark clones. He quickly snapped its neck, punched a few nearby clones, and began to ramble.

“Ninja Pizza, home of the nice slice!” He said as he cut another clone’s head off with his bowie knife. He then jumped up on top of one of the clones head and then ran across the crowd.

“We’ll deliver your pie, loaded with pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers, tofu, and yellow scarf’d teenaged girl, to your door within thirty seconds or it’s free!”
===============
“Wow,” said McShark who was watching Nin’s actions, “he’s doing pretty well, despite there being more than one ninja on this team. We should’ve tried this setting first!”

The sparks shot out of AERD and the numbers on the monitor connected to it began to spin around. McShark ran over to the screen.

“No. Oh, no. Oh, no.”

The screen displayed, Turtle: 0% Detective: 0% Ninja: 0%

“NO!”
================
Nin fell off of the head his foot was currently planted on and hit the floor. He grabbed the sides of his own head and his ninja gui began to morph back into a trench coat. The helm lost its horns and crest and turned back into a fedora. The ninja mask shrunk back down into his coat collar, revealing a non-turtley face. Nin now possessed a slightly chubby face with a paler complexion, a largish nose, two ears, darkish brown hair, and a chin covered in light stubble. He was now human again.

Nin pushed himself onto his knees, rubbed his head, and then gave a yelp when he discovered he had hair on his head.

“What?! What is…” He looked at his hands and saw that he had five digits. “Ah! It can’t be! Not again…I can’t lose everything again. No…” Nin closed his eyes and began cry manly tears of sadness. While he did this, one of the variants ran up and grabbed him. Nin quickly broke out of his incredibly masculine sobbing and knocked the dark clone back.

“I’m still here.”

Nin pulled the cosmic battery out of his coat and stabbed it into the replica.

“I still have this!”

Nin lifted his opponent above his head as the cosmic energy immolated the presumably evil opponent. Nin pulled the battery out of the burning body and threw it in some random direction.

“AND I’M STILL AN INTERN! C’MON, LET’S DANCE!” Nin shouted in a fit overconfidence. Then the army began to circle around him.

“…Help.”

[phil_]

Phil considered the captain's words for a moment, then decided with a shrug, "Eh, whatever. After all this, I'm fine with being pointed at some bad guys and let loose."

He then struck a dramatic pose. "At least I get to use some of the strategies for fighting the entire forum I've devised over the years. First, weeding out the noobs. •Summon: Zombie Black Mage!" With a puff of acrid black smoke, a zombie in blue robes and a face-obscuring hat appeared by Phil's side. "And now, •Summon: Rod of Undead Command!" Phil raised a hand to catch a nondescript stick as if fell from nowhere. Waving the stick at his minion, Phil ordered him to, "Go over there, away from me." The zombie complied.

While the zombie shambled away, Phil took a deep breath and yelled, "Hey, look! It's Black Mage! I bet he's signing autographs and stuff! Better rush him en masse!" And, lo, the ears of many a poster who never leaves the hell the is the 8-Bit Theater sub-forum did perk up, and suddenly a wall of BM fanboys crashed through the crowd. The zombie, being a zombie, was quickly overtaken in an unlikely reversal of the normal "horde of zombies overtaking a single human" dynamic.

And now, for the part where this becomes more than making fun of people entirely capable of reading this who never will. Phil called out, "Zombie! Magic! Nuke! Target self!" And thusly were the Black Mage fanboys and the zombie who wasn't actually that Black Mage incinerated, thinning the herd by at least a quarter.

"Now that I'm no better than Thadius, having randomly killed maybe a hundred people, nor better than Intern Nin, having done so in one post with no danger to myself, it's time to randomly slaughter some more people for no reason other than being too apathetic to come up with a more peaceful solution! •Summon: Gutts!" Phil's stick that he should have summoned back with the zombie chihuahuas disappeared, and a large, scarred man in black armor, wielding the world's most ridiculous sword, appeared.

"Huh? Where the hell am I? Where are Casca and the boat?" growled the man as he grabbed his sword.

Phil, wishing that he still had his Deathblock, pointed at the crowd of NPFers and said, "No time for that. Hey, I think those guys might know where Griffith is, maybe you should slaughter them until they tell you pleasedon'thurtme!"

"Griffiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith!"

And that's how the NPF army found itself facing a very large, violent man with a very, very large sword and no way for Other Phil to counter it (Oh, better summon Griffith oh wait you can't 'cause he's like a god times two). Watching his destructive handiwork, Phil sighed and said, "Man, he sure does love killing people, doesn't he?"

[The SSB Intern]

Into the brain of SSB:

"...To be hanged at strike of noon. Mr. Scorpion's charges include 6 counts of murder, arson, thievery, exposing himself... twice, stealing candy from babies, stealing candy from teenagers...

Scorpion had long stopped listening to Picard Intern's drawling and pondered whether a psychological imprint could actually be hung. With the crew back at full capacity, Scorpion was relieved of his duties, then by SSB's orders gotten rid of. Or at least the crew tried.

After several days of watching Scorpion hanging 3 feet off the ground, tensions began to mount. Body odor was widespread. The captain viciously dealt out blows to his subordinates like an unbalanced nun.

"Mhhh.... somebody get me a gun."



Back in the outside world, less self-important things were happening. Phil's summoned giant swordsman was getting clone blood everywhere. SSB remembered the scene from Dr. McNinja where Ben Franklin's clone died (the first time). He chuckled.

But what if clone blood DOES have serious side effects?

Very casual-looking, SSB analyzed the abundant clone juice.

Hmm, doesn't seem dangerous... but it does contain generic dark matter. Perhaps I could make... but for what purpose. Plus, I'd need a power source...

“AND I’M STILL AN INTERN! C’MON, LET’S DANCE!”

Wait, Nin, Intern? Dancing? Without his knowledge, his legs ran to the crowd around Nin and punched out the parallel copy of Regulas Tera. Then he launched himself over the crowd. He could see Nin.

Yep, he's an Intern.

SSB landed in front of Nin. He had some people to kill if he was going to find out why his brother's a turtle. And why his name is so screwy.

-------------------------------

Captain SSB with shaking with excitement. He pointed the shotgun at Scorpion."Now to do what I've been waiting for all my life."

"You wanted to shoot things." A member of the crew muttered.

"YES!" The captain shouted.

The alarms broke the tension. Lights were flashing andMr. Scorpion became incredibly luminescent. They now noticed the writing on the canister-like platform the hung scorpoin from.

NUCLEAR REACTOR
--------------------------------

"I'M GETTING TIRED OF NAMING ALL THESE OPTIC BLASTS."

An odd noise came from SSB. Then he coughed and a grown man in a scorpion costume was released from his eyes.

"Huah, Master!"

"Ludwig, kill."

The waddle doo pounced on him and stabbed him with the lightsaber. Meanwhile, SSB squeezed the blood out of his robes and into his pocket.

"Okay, let's fucking do it!"

*Ding*

He reached into the pocket and pulled out a boom box. He inspected it, then tossed it over to Nin.

"You know what to do Thomas."

[Thadius]

After being randomly kicked in the back and insulted, normally Thadius would seek whoever had done these acts against him and stick knives in said offending persons. However, his mind was focused on one thing: Getting home. Currently, 'vengeance' did not enter into his plans, and as such, the NPFers were safe. For now.

"Come, Slayer, it is time now to fulfill the destiny left to us all those ages past."

The Slayer nodded, and walked to occupy the same space as Thadius did within the circle. This was made easier by the fact that The Slayer did not currently have a body. Thadius raised his hands to the non-existent sky and a bolt of lightning somehow struck him. When the smoke cleared, (Because all cool transformation sequences are capable of producing smoke) in Thad's place stood the Slayer, but with one vast change on the inside: For the first time in his life, Thad was fully in control of The Slayer's awesome killing capacities.

"And now for phase two!"

The huge demonic entity turned to the spot in reality that it had originally clawed through, and panted a little.

"Woah, okay, maybe I should wait a few minutes for phase two. I didn't think transforming would be THIS draining..."

The Slayer sat for a minute, breathing deeply, trying to regain his lost strength.

[POS Industries]

"I'm sorry, did someone just try to take credit for my totally awesome destroying of the universe?"

A figure in a black business suit hovered above the battlefield, glowing red eyes glaring down at the world below with contempt. In his right hand, hanging at his side, the lifeless body of what appeared to be a dark approximation of Mirai Gen was held by the throat. Suddenly, the body was released, tumbling limply toward the ground. Shadowy threads of absolutely nothing followed, pulling the air around them into the emptiness left in their wake, enveloping the body of Dark Mirai and devouring him to his every last molecule before impact.

The man slowly descended to earth, landing in the midst of the non-dark NPFers. By all accounts, it appeared to be Pedro O'Sullivan. This was mostly true.

"Because it sounds like someone just tried to take credit for my totally awesome destroying of the universe!"