NPF Avatars IV, Chapter VI: Imprisoned with the Maniacs

[Flarecobra]

I had FINALLY managed to get myself freed, and reformed into a humanoid form. Seeing him freak out at the distruction of him manor, and at Arhra's instructions, I grinned, just as a vine impailed itself on me. "Damnit....don't you plants ever learn?" I said, as unknowingly, the morphing stone that allows me to shift glowed brightly for a second, which in turn caused my body to glow. "Wha? Hm....that was weird.." I said, as I moved off the stunned vine and headed over to The. "Hey! Lardass! Yeah, I'm talking to you!" I called out at him, as I prepaired and launched a Flare attack on The.

[Tarrin]

Seeing the Capitalist rolling around the battle he decided to give a few pounds of nastiness from his direction.

"Spirit Bind" Where the elephant once stood now a mixture of two creatures stood, The main body of the form was most deffinately a African Rhyno, However the armor plates that covered it's body was from some other animal either turtle or armadillo.

Lining up the Capitalist Tarrin put the peddle to the floor, Charging with full force Reading himself for the impact that would come Tarrin lowered his head, The three foot horn now leading the way to his target.

"You know if this misses i'm gonna look reall bad" Was all that ran thru Tarrins head.

[Darth SS]

By about this time, the food hit Darth. Hit him hard.

He collapsed onto the ground in the fetal position, started shaking uncontrollably, and started vomitting. Between geysers, he managed to yell "The purple elephant monkeys are everywhere!"

Obviously, it was a sobering sight. His wallet also conveniently fell out of his pants, and right next to a puddle of vomit.

[Bailey]

Syttulg getting shocked was the last bit of energy the nannites needed and they planted a completed sliver of reversewood into the core of the stat enhancing tree. Syttulg wandered back over to the tree, muttering about homicidal teddies, and resumed his target practice and snacking fest.

Hawk, Thorque, and three trolls all got blasts aimed at them.

[Arhra]

Though The Capitalist was angered at Mauve's destruciton, it was only a setback. The plant stocks were easily recoverable, they grew fast and corpses made excellent fertiliser. Evne so, he decided he was going to smother her for the insult. Of course, then she had tree troubles and other people attacked him so he postponed his plans.

The Capitalist did not seem particularly concerned when the flare spell of Flare's literally bounced off him. He deliberately took it on his gut, rebounding it towards some of the others. "You'll have to do better than - ufff!" He had just been charged in the side by a rhino. Or at least a reasonable fascimile of a rhino. If rhinos were armour plated that is. But even a rhino horn jabbing him didn't seem to be hurting him much. With a surge of his bulk, The Capitalist literally hurled Tarrin away, towards Flare, and then launched himself into the air. He was going to come down on Mauve, Flare and Tarrin in what was quite probably the world's deadliest belly flop.

Unaware of the mysterious effects of the reversewood, Thod plucked a fruit off the tree and munched on it. His expression turned to one of puzzlement and then rage as he spat the fruit out. This was not the fruit he was used to. Beady eyes settled on Syttulg who sat eating the fruit, some instinct of who was to blame giving Thod a target for his rage. Or perhaps it was simply because Syttulg was the closest living thing.

Whatever the reason, Thod lunged forwards with disturbing speed, swinging a giant fist at Syttulg. It was the arm the tree was tethered to, such force snapping the chain tying the troll and the tree together and sending it swinging around with lethal force. The tree itself was unbalanced, the large pot of dirt it sat in for transport not preventing it from tipping over.

Arhra was trying to keep on task, but it didn't escape her notice that several people seemed to be having serious problems with trees. The Capitalist or his minions hadn't even touched them and they were being defeated by trees. She would laugh, but laughing hurt.

With The and Bruticus looking occupied for now, all Arhra's troubles right now were troll based. The long term troubles involved a troll bursting its way out of her stomach, but she was trying to ignore the slowly mounting pressure in her innards for now. The short term was merely the trolls between her and the fruit that she hoped held a solution.

She charged forwards, a pair of trolls charging right back at her. It looked quite uneven a matchup - two hulking green brutes who stood head and shoulders above the slight, dark haired and black garbed figure of Arhra. Fortunately, although her draining powers were otherwise occupied for the moment, she still had a smattering of other powers.

A closer look at her showed one advantage. Arhra was disgustingly fit - body supple and leanly muscled, her general physical aptitude from the huge amounts of energy she'd absorbed in this incarnation. In fact, she was physically stronger than either of the trolls, having gained inhuman strength by virtue of her ability theft. There was no outside sign of her stomach troubles, save for a slight bulge of her belly.

This closer look would reveal another advantage to the perceptive - Arhra was on fire. A flaming aura was something else she'd managed to steal off some enemies (surprisingly enough they had been called 'flamers').

The trolls were momentarily confused by being attacked by a screaming madwoman who was on fire, this giving Arhra all the opening she needed to flying kick a troll right in the face. Naturally, this troll did not appreciate a flaming foot to the face. It rocked back on its heels and then swung its club at her. Arhra ducked beween its legs, evading the attack of the other troll too and then spun and jumped on the trolls shoulders.

It wisely dropped its club and tried to grab her as she wrapped her legs around its neck and began a spirited attempt at pulling its head off. The other troll obviously wasn't so wise as to the nuances of why attempting to smash a enemy grabbing onto a friend with a large club is a Bad Idea.

With a crack, it caught Arhra a glancing blow on the leg and hit the troll's shoulder. Arhra gave a sudden burst of effort, perspiration sheening her limbs as she tried to ignore the troll's fumblings at her, and then she succeeded at her goal. The troll still in one piece saw the crazed look in her eyes as she jumped off the first troll as it fell and wisely decided to run for it. It didn't look back when a head sized object hit it from behind.

Hobbling a bit from the blow to her leg, Arhra left the twitching troll behind her. It would probably recover - the things were amazingly hard to kill quickly - but it would be out of action for long enough. The fruit laden tree in front of her, Arhra savoured the moment. She was aching all over and when she prodded her stomach it was definately protruding further than it should be, but here a solution was in sight.

In an astounding display of gluttony, Arhra practically inhaled at least a dozen of the fruits. They had a pulpy texture to them, a little like a large grape. Pausing to breathe, Arhra waited for it to have an effect. Of course, she didn't know that the fruits had been meddled with...

[Steel Shadow]

Steel had been quiet since leaving the mansion, mostly moping because the capitalist hadn't given him anything. That and the seemingly murderous forest tripping him every few steps was why he arrived late to the battle.
Seeing the NPFers and their various opponents, Steel weighed his options. He didn't really have a good area attack, so he should leave the trolls to the others. Although revenge on Bruticus was tempting, Rei appeared to have that covered. Which left...
Steel unsheathed his sword. He was going to enjoy this. And he would have, had the ground not suddenly burst open beneath his feet, roots hurling him into the air. Maybe a normal person would have been surprised. Steel was just annoyed. He spun round and hovered in mid-air, looking back at his attacker. The roots were stretching after him quickly. Only pausing to swear in a heroic way, he dodged to the side and swung into the trees. He looked back to see if they were still after him. Bad move. He turned back to see a tree branch coming straight at him. He swerved to the right, missing it by inches. But now there were more coming for him. It seemed every tree was coming alive to strike him down.
He weaved, dodged, ducked and jumped his way around his foliage foes, trying to escape the roots, but they just kept coming. Ever played final fantasy 9? It was like that. But with flying.
Steel turned round. If he couldn’t lose them, he might as well make use of them. He flew through the trees, roots and branches flowing behind him. His target came into sight. This’d teach him to be grateful. Steel headed straight for the capitalist, going around him at the last second. Hopefully his pursuers wouldn’t bother.

[Flarecobra]

"Shit...MOVE!" I said, quickly shoving Mauve out of the way...hopefully. "This is going to hurt a lot...." I said, right before I was splattered....again.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Originally Posted by Newb

Hawk, Thorque, and three trolls all got blasts aimed at them.

Fotunately for Hawk, he had just at that moment accelerated towards the ground after his Air blast. He didn't even notice the lightning bolt that flew past him!

He came to a stop in mid-air about ten feet above the ground, and looked over the crushed troll. It appeared to still be alive, but quite trapped for now, what with one arm pinned underneath it's back, leaving only one free arm that seemed unable to get a good purchase on the tree and push it off him.

"Well, I certainly never thought that would be quite so effective". This gave Hawk a brilliant idea, but before he could act on it two trolls flanked him and moved in for the attack. But Hawk had already realised that these creatures were both immensely slow and incredibly thick, a dangerous combination.... for them!

As the troll on his right swung his huge club toward him, Hawk tucked in his wings slightly and dropped straight down about four feet. The club flew over his head as Hawk spread his wings again and caught a slight updraft which kept him in the air. Hawk heard (and saw slightly, out of the corner of his eye), the second troll as it too swung its weapon at Hawk, this time though the attack came from behind. It came as close as one foot away before Hawk suddenly shot upwards and perfomed an immpecable loop-the-loop, and the swing passed underneath him. As he came out of the loop Hawk flew down low to the ground and decided on the best way to deal with these two. They were slow. They were stupid. They would no-doubt try and follow his every move as Hawk began dashing in and around the brutes. Flying between their huge legs, circling around and around them and figure-of-eighting them they soon became both slightly dizzy and apparently confused as to what to do. They tried to lash out with their clubs a few times, but missed easily. They pivoted, trying to keep Hawk in sight. They tried to stamp on him when he flew too close to their feet. Unfortunately for them, they tried to do all of this at once and it didn't take long for one of them to stumble, having tried to stamp and turn at the same time!

The troll fell and collapsed into his comrade, knocking them both to the ground with enough force to shake the ground. But Hawk was already flying away, ready to begin the next phase of his plan...

[Tarrin]

The form of the Capatalist flew thru the air towards the trio, It's great bulk decending quickly,Flare was able to push Mauve out of the road, Flare and Tarrin however wern't as lucky as the behemoth landed on them.

Parts of Flares slime form shot out everywhere, Tarrin not having the obvious advantages of Flares abilities was engulfed under the folds of fat.

[Bailey]

Normally this would have meant the end for Syttulg, but fortunately he had just spent a significant amount of time eating and burning through a massive number of the fruits before they had been altered. He rubbed his head where he had been struck, looked at Thog, and roared in rage. He lunged at the (other) musclebound abomination and allowed his electricity to flow freely as he tried to force the troll to the ground to make it easier to beat his face to a pulp.