NPF Avatars IV, Chapter VI: Imprisoned with the Maniacs

[Flarecobra]

I just grinned. "Seems I've got the perfect counter. See, while it's true that trolls regenerate easily, they DO have a glaring weakness to Fire, and they CAN'T REGENERATE FIRE WOUNDS!" I said, calling out the last bit as I prepared an approate responce. Around me, the air began to spin slowly at first, but soon picked up speed. As soon as it was at a good speed, I held up my hands and started feeding it fire, setting the twister aflame, and sent it at the Troll horde.

[Tarrin]

Tarrin found a ladder, Noises from above eminated down, A battle? Either that or a Keg'er, Either way Tarrin started to climb the rungs.

The secret section of the trunk slid open and Tarrins head popped out in the middle of the fight with the trolls, Ducking back down as a piece of fruit or was it meat flew at the nearest tree, Splattering all around covering both Npfer and troll alike in pulp.
Tarrin quickly pulled himself out of the hole and found a sturdy part of the floor and prepaired a Meld for when it was needed, Untill then he watched as the group fought on.

[Arhra]

Bruticus ducked neatly under Newb's lightning arc and smoothly sent three snap shots back in Newb's direction. But this distraction proved of great aid to Skyshot as he launched his blindness spell. This time, Bruticus did not somehow shoot it out of midair, his only response a grunt of surprise as darkness descended over his vision. There was no telling how long it might last. Still, he did not need to be able to see to be able to kill people.

As Rei finished her poorly modulated address and fired a brilliant beam of energy, Bruticus was unphased. He moved like he wasn't blind at all, some quality in the cacophony of battle, the movement of air or some unknown sense for violence prompted him to point his gun and fire it.

Straight at the energy beam. The bullet hit Rei's attack halfway between the two and then there was an explosion. A blue ball of light blossomed briefly between the pair, shockwaves threatening to knock them down but Bruticus already charging forwards. The blind fighting the deaf.

As Flare began casting her spell, she hadn't accounted for one thing. The Capitalist and his minions were not the only enemy to watch for. As the winds picked up speed and she fed fire into it, the jungle itself quivered with fury and gathered itself for a great effort.

Rip you... smother flame-bringer... strangle...

The loam erupted upwards, twisting roots and wiry vines caging the vortex and writhing inwards. Root, branch and vine lanced into the whirlwind, interpenetrating the spell and ripping it into a confusion of dirt laden wind. Root and smothering earth thrust into their hearts, the fires burst apart into a brief flurry of cinders which smoundered briefly and then were gone.

But it was not yet done. Flare was within the bounds of this living cage. Within its woven together clutches, roots with tips like spears lanced at her, strangling vines moving to entangle and choke her.

Meanwhile, Arhra was in a fierce struggle of her own. On hitting that tree so hard, she was having some difficulty recapturing her wits and putting them back to constructive work. Intent on crushing their rebellion, she was slow to react when The Capitalist plowed into the tree she was in.

It shuddered and Arhra was shaken from her upside-down position to land heavily on her head. She sat up, rubbing her head ruefully only to get a heavy kick from The Capitalist, sending her rolling. With a strenous effort, she managed to turn the tumble's momentum to help her flip back to feet.

In the queue of her body's various complaints, her stomach told her it was starting to feel uncomfortably full. Adding insult to injury, the flow of energy she felt from her body's insufficient attempts to drain the stomach troll-fruit-thing's life force was making her feel light headed too.

It seemed she was on her own against the mighty girth of The Capitalist. And with stomach explosion seemingly only a matter of time, it wouldn't be getting any easier. Arhra leapt to the side as The Capitalist charged her again, skipping around his side and trying to think of a way she could deal with her stomach upset. She tried to keep her distance, frenizedly leaping around while The Capitalist plowed after her. A shot from Newb nearly hit her and her movements felt uncoordinated - probably from the food.

"I hate everything!" she declared.

[Flarecobra]

"Aw fuck..." I said, as I was caught in a binding trap. As I couldn't get myself unbound, I decided to relax a bit, and try to figure out how I was going to get free. Watching the movements of the vines, I struck upon a crazy idea. "The Capitalist isn't the only one that can change form...." I said, as I closed my eyes and started to shift back to slimegirl. As I lost solidity, I could feel the vines poking through me....and it wasn't the most plesent sensation in the world. As soon as I was able, I tried to make my way through the cracks in my vine cage, though it was slow going due to the fact that it seemed intent on keeping me in there.

[Skyshot]

Skyshot's swing knocked out the target troll, scaring the rest away from him for the moment. He took the opportunity to re-scan the field. Rei and Bruticus were going at it, Flare was handling things in her own bizarre way, and Arhra was having difficulties with The Capitalist.

He thought back to what The had said about the effects of his bacon-fruit on her. He suddenly got an idea so stupid, it had to work.

"Arhra!" He dove forward and swept his legs at The's knees, toppling him over. The ground shook from the impact, bringing down several of the trolls and perhaps a few party members. While The struggled to get to his feet, Skyshot put his hand on Arhra's shoulder. "I have an idea. See, my Harm spell causes internal hemmorhaging. If I cast it on you, I might be able to disrupt that troll-fruit-regeneration in there, and you can recover however it is you do that kind of thing. What do you say?"

[Bailey]

Two of the shots hit the joints in Syttulg's hands, while the third hit a hastily erected shield and ricocheted off towards Flare. Syttulg barely noticed as he gripped the food in his bloody meat-mitts. He did wonder why he only had enough energy to launch a single blast that time, this one towards a bird which had chosen the wrong moment to land on a branch overhead.

Meanwhile, his nannites panicked. His intellect had already fallen below that required to maintain a mindlink with them, and it was plummeting fast. They began to drain energy off of him to manufacture something magical...

[Flarecobra]

The blast hit the vines my cage that enveloped me, as around the base, I had started to ooze out, but it was slow going.

[POS Industries]

"Okay," Jimmy the intern said cautiously as he finished cleaning up his desk, "Slow down a bit and say that again."

"Oh, oops!" Rei's software incarnation giggled, "Sorry about that. My android body's gone deaf. Deaf from magic. Magic from fruit. Fruit from evil. Say, where is everyone?"

Jimmy glanced around the abandoned R&D department of POS Industries headquarters and sighed, "Oh, they're just off at that party thing they have everyday..."

"The Kickass Scientist Party?" Rei's disembodied voice gasped in dismay, "You mean I'm missing it? Awwww, I love those! Stupid quest to save the world...."

"Uh, right," the intern replied, worried that he might say the wrong thing and get reported to Pedro O'Sullivan, before getting back on track, "Did you say magic? Wait, did you say fruit? Why were you eating fruit? I mean... Wait.... MAGIC?!"

"Yep. Magic. Anyway, I need to be not deaf anymore. Wanna help?"

Jimmy shrugged, "Well, as long as it isn't at all weird that there's magic involved. I probably don't have a choice, anyway, do I?"

"Nope!"

*********************

Back in the cave jungle of doom, Rei's hardware incarnate was not at all surprised to see her beam attack countered by Bruticus in this manner. It was, of course, apparent that the thug had been blinded by Skyshot's spell, but it was equally apparent that he couldn't care less and for good reason. Rei had noted earlier that Bruticus' gunmanship allowed him to do amazing feats in the field of projectile weaponry, but she had yet to see what else he could do.

And what better time than now?

Using her energy manipulation abilities to create a shield bubble around her in the hopes of deflecting any incoming bullets, the android leapt into the air as Bruticus charged in her direction, her internal gravity field generator reducing the force of gravity around her and sending her soaring overhead. As she floated several meters over Bruticus' head, the gravity field reversed, multiplying her body weight by a factor of 10 and sending her hurtling at high speed down upon her target.

Channeling the full force of her descent, Rei had every intention of delivering it to the large, gun-toting man through her clenched fist.

[mauve]

"It really wasn't very nice to use your luncheon guests as test subjects," Mauve commented flatly to the gelatenous Capitalist. "You're not a very gracious host. As a businessman, I would have expected to stab us in the back AFTER the goodwill meal."

The Capitalist, however, seemed to be preoccupied with Ahrha and Skyshot, so he made no reply.

"Oh, I see," Mauve continued. "So now you're going to ignore me and pick on the girl who's about to explode instead. Very brave of you."

All around her, Mauve's teammates were busy fighting off trolls and plants and bodyguards. The plants that had been attacking Mauve seemed to prefer tackling the Flarecobra problem, so for this brief moment, Mauve was relatively safe. The mage sighed and shoved her hands into her pockets, sidestepping a waving branch.

"I should probably do something," she mused to herself. "Ahrha and Skyshot look like they need a moment to solve the stomach-explodey problem, and... Oh hey, what's this?" She pulled something out of her Pockets of Near-Infinite Holding. It was green and egg-shaped, and it had an ornate gold pin at the top.

It was the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, in all its Monty Pythony glory. Mauve wasn't sure why she had one in her pockets, aside from the fact that she saw the Holy Grail movie again the other day and decided that it would be awesome to use one.

"Well this is convenient," she commented. She was about to hurl it at the Capitalist, but realized that her teammates in the near vicinity probably wouldn't thank her for it. So what else could she do with a Holy Hand Grenade that wouldn't cause any surviving NPFers to teamkill her?

A wicked smile crossed her face as she looked back over her shoulder. It would certainly distract their "host" from Ahrha and Skyshot...

And lo, Mauve did pull the pin from the holy hand grenade, and did procede to count to three. Then she hurled the relic at the Capitalist's manor, towards the testing and research facilities. The trolls nearest to the area watched it dumbly.

"Thou shalt then lob this, the holy hand grenade, at thy foes, and they, being seen as naughty in Mine eyes, shall snuff it," Mauve quoted sternly, folding her hands as if in prayer. "Monty Python, Book of Armaments. Amen."



The following explosion was very impressive. Mauve would have commented on this, but it seemed that the foliage had decided that she was indeed a threat and resumed their attacks on her. But hey, she blew up a building! That was pretty cool, right?

[Fenris]

Fenris was there doing...stuff. And other stuff. Mainly 'cause he's still confused as to what's going on. It appeared to be a battle, but he wasn't sure. As to where he had been up until this point, he was just being quietly knocked out by a stray rock or something. He awoke at the sound of the large explosion, caused by Mauve's grenade.

"Oh my head... what's going on?"