NPF Avatars IV, Chapter VI: Imprisoned with the Maniacs

[Flarecobra]

"Ok, time for part two....time to heat things up!" I thouht as I started to launch fire attacks inside The Capitalist. Even if they bounced off and lit me on fire, I still managed to heat up the inside of The, and hopefully giving him some bad heartburn.

[Lumaes]

As he dangled precariously from his inexplicably suspended paving tile Lumaes had a long time to think about the symbolic significance of his dilemma.
At first he had thought that the ink was his ID’s self-conceptualization of his Jungian ‘Shadow’, his attempt to escape his own quintessentially dark nature in commercial consumerism was therefore manifested in the spiralling tiles. He chose to politely ignore the iridescent worms for the moment, but this theory quickly led to his next – which he believes you will best understand by reading the following flowchart.

[Ink] –[realistic]-> [Pen] -> [Paper] -> [Control of Ink] -------
|……………………………………………………/\.....................................|
[metaphor]……………………………………|…………………………………………....|
|…………………………………………………….----------[How?]…………………|
\/……………………………………………………………………|………………………….\/
[Inc.] -> [Incorporated] -> [Capitalism] -> [Defeat?]------>[Yes]
…………………………………………………………………………………|
………………………………………………………………………………[No]
…………………………………………………………………………………|
…………………………………………………………………………………\/
……………………………………………………………………………[Death]

That would explain why, by the time that flow-chart starts to make sense to you he is already well under way in constructing a rudimentary lathe, why you ask? To facilitate the woodchipping required to move onto pulping and pressing stages, stages critical in the manufacture of paper. Paper! Ink! Capitalism! Can’t you see it?
Checking the vines for tautness the spectre hoisted himself up into the peddlers’ compartment. The great, fallen bulk of a tree had already been lashed to the spindle with the aid of a primitive crane operated by an intricate system of badger-fuelled winches and pulleys.

With a great rattle and groan the infernal contraption lurched into action, it’s wooden carapace surging as the tree began to rocket round on its fixture, the sharp moose-jaw blade sending chips of old wood flying into a woven basket. Lumaes huffed and puffed as he peddled, routinely pulling levers in staccato sequence to keep the machine running, his attention shot to the panel in front of him as he was nearly deafened by the scream of the warning siren – something had gone wrong. The display indicated the main wheel had undergone critical structural failure; there was nothing he could do!

With an ominous crack the vines began snapping and tearing loose of their fixtures, the stripped log was flung from the disintegrating lathe, the tip having been chiselled to a point by the failing chipper.
It shot like a harpoon towards the huge bulk of The Capitalist.

[Inbred Chocobo]

As the capitalist tried to roll over him, IC just walked backwards. He was already trying to walk backwards anyway, all he had to do was let go to avoid being squished.

IC looked around. Obviously he wasn't draggin the Capitalist anywhere, but as he looked at the trolls, he had an idea. He ran at at the trolls, who looked at him and laughed. I mean, if a half-bird thinks he can take on half a dozen trolls, he must have something coming.

IC jumped into the crowd of trolls, and soon the great troll dirt cloud battle began. Troll limbs came flying out down at IC, who raised above the cloud, just to come back down, sounding like he just smashed the bones of a troll. The battle kept up on like this, with the occasional troll part flying out of the cloud to strike something. The only other mentionable part would be where IC popped out with a troll biting his left arm, and IC screaming to get it off.

Once the dust had cleared, IC stood breathing. All the trolls had been dismembered. IC quickly grabbed about a dozen limbs, stacked them together and started walking off.

As he passed Arhra, he suddenly stopped, and turned around. He looked straight at Arhra, who happened to be a little distracted with the vines cocooning him. So IC just reached him, yanked him out, and tossed him over his shoulder.

Then he was at the capitalist's mouth. Well, not in it, but close enough. He then shouted to Flare inside. "Hey Flare, shove all this stuff into his stomach would ya?" He shouted, then with one huge thrust, shoved both Arhra and about 8 troll limbs into the Capitalist. The other limbs went flying, since there was only so much room. IC shoved hard too, wanting to get it past the point where the capitalist could spit it out.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

"Hey errrmm... strange bird-dude bretheren...thing, out of the way! I'll make sure all that crap fits down his pie hole", Hawk shouted to Inbred, as he readied another concussive ball of air, and aimed it at The's mouth.

[Tarrin]

A weight lifted off Tarrin, just in time to stop his suffocation.
Looking up he watched as the bulk that was the, lifted up and traveled away, Tarrin stayed where he was gasping for breath and formulating his next move.

[Arhra]

Thod ran through the stinging nettles as if they weren't there. He could barely feel them through his tough hide. As Syttulg struggled with the awkwardness of attmepting to use saplings as tweezers, Thod ran through them as if they weren't there. The thin trunks bent and snapped into kindling.

As Syttulg staggered from the jarring shock of Thod hitting the trees, the overly muscular troll grabbed him by the head. Syttulg's head engulfed by two massive hands, clamped over his ears, Thod lifted him off the ground, holding him out at arm's length and began squeezing. Thod was going to crush Syttulg's skull like a grape.

Arhra discovered herself being roughly shoved into The Capitalist's gullet, forced with rough motions and bludgeoning winds by Inbred and Hawk. It burned in there and she felt choked of breath, cramped in by the stomach's close confines - filled with the presence of the troll bits, the vines still clinging to her and what she thought might be Flare. It was hotter than it should be, the result of Flare's largely ineffectual fire spells.

The energy radiating out of her turned a bad situation worse. The reversewood was firmly entwined about her, still resisting her attempts to remove it. Severed parts of troll stirred into life as they were fed power, twitching and growing as they regenerated and began growing into remembered wholeness once again. Her stomach was becoming increasingly distended and the terrible pain of its rupture, spilling out the half-formed, cancerous mass of the ever growing trollish fruit, seemed inevitable.

Even the spell she had cast to protect her threatened to grow out of control, tingling sensation of its ever-lengthening tendrils threading through her becoming maddening. The energy she released was even aiding The Capitalist.

The place where Arhra's mind dwelled at this time was not a happy place to be. It was shot through with pyroclastic pillars of crimson rage, slashing black curtains of bitter, black, hateful rain poured from a sullen sky and the ground trembled and heaved with pain and fear. Her thoughts on most of her fellow NPFers were murderous. She would enjoy killing them when the time came.

But so that time could arrive, she'd first have to weasel her way out of her current situation like that most cunning of animals, the tortoise. Reasonable plans had not worked. It was time for an insane plan. Trying to reduce or fight against her own energy release that was the inversion of her draining powers had been futile. Instead, she would make it worse.

Arhra forced energy out of her, pale form slicked with sweat from the exertion. The troll limbs about her suddenly grew like mad. Tiny weak limbs and a head burst out of a torso, other severed limbs twitched as the rest of a troll sprouted from them. She spasmed as her thrive-spell's tendrils thickened into something like the great swollen roots of an ancient tree, an intensifying throbbing that pulsed in time with her racing heartbeat. She felt her emaciated frame filling out again as enfeebled muscle rippled with strength again, layering itself over thickening bone. Arhra's head spun with vertigo as her body strengthened with each pulse, every fiber feeling as it was being filled with the growing tides of magic, pressed out to the point of bursting. Her stomach was obscenely bloated, mushrooming ever outwards. She felt like a gnat who had swallowed a giant.

She thrashed at the trolls that were coming back alive, most of them fully regenerated and growing into hulking brutes as energy continued to feed into them. The shreds of vines and the reversewood carried with her were growing, seeming set onto becoming a full blown jungle. Everything was glowing, the energy saturated everything, threatening to rupture bloodily out.

The Capitalist was monstrous - a great heap of flesh swollen to proportions beyond belief, light shining through his stomach, vague shadows cast by the less transparent bulk of the trolls inside him. He staggered, greatly encumbered from the vast bulk of his gut. More than half a dozen trolls were in there as well as the bulk of the troll-fruit in Arhra's stomach. His eyes goggled, great arms flailing at everyone nearby.

Then out of nowhere came a great spear of blazing fire, silently puncturing into the Capitalist's giant, gelatinous gut. A fraction of a second later, they were hit by the sonic boom.

The Capitalist exploded. Like a string of popcorn, the trolls inside burst, torn open and no longer able to hold the energy inside them. The energy was an explosion of vitality, the vines and other trolls caught in its wake and, saturated as they already were, disintegrated like planets caught in a supernova.

For those possessed of incredible visual acuity or who had been looking in the right direction to see it fired, identity of the hypersonic missile was revealed. It was the immense trunk of a tree, stripped to make it a straight shaft and tip honed to make it a crude harpoon. Fired at irrational speed from an exploding lathe designed by a mad specter called Lumaes, air friction had ignited it. Hitting The Capitalist, already verging on overload from excessive energy, he'd exploded like an over-ripe melon.

Melting jelly giblets rained down for a while the blazing ball of energy where The Capitalist had been slowly diminished. It abruptly blinked out and Arhra stood there at the center, looking fairly normal although it seemed her clothes had sprouted leaves in one or two places. The reversewood had been destroyed. She was minded to check if there had been any permanent side effects from what she'd been though, but she had something very important to do first.

Crimson eyes locked on the gaggle of NPFers. They were madder than a whole herd of crazy cows. "I think I'm going to start maiming you all now." Arhra said, "As soon as you all stop dancing with the falls of light like that. So pretty... lift you up and all the little rainbows... they sing... Can you... can you hear their singing?..." Arhra swayed and fell over, snoring loudly.

OOC: I'll leave you to decide what exactly happened to you Flare. Needless to say, coming very close to exploding from energy overload was probably a part of it. Not to mention that explosion. Presumably, blobbing back together would be required.

[Bailey]

Syttulg swung his legs up and attempted to kick off of Thog's chest, and then tried to run towards the stat fruit tree.

He needed more energy, and the food tasted good.

[Flarecobra]

I, meanwhile, made up about a good tenth of the splattered material, and some had been vaporized in the explosion. Needless to say, it will take a long time to recover from this.

[mauve]

Mauve, caught in an unusal stroke of good fortune, had been struggling with a mass of vines and a lone troll when the Capitalist exploded. This meant that the troll that had once been a menacing enemy had now become a welcomed meatshield from the projectile capitalist chunks.

"Huh," Mauve said, pausing in her struggle with the plant life to note the troll that was now covered in sticky Capitalist and Flare goo. "That was awfully convenient."

[POS Industries]

Rei tumbled backward, reeling from the force of Bruticus' dropkick. She fell awkwardly at first, then more gracefully as she reduced her gravity field to let her bound gently to a stop. Returning the gravity around her to normal, Rei raised up, eyes glowing a bright red as a look of surprise crossed her face. The android had never felt pain before, and as intriguing a sensation as it was from a merely analytical standpoint, she couldn't really say she cared for it at all. No, it triggered an emotion in her that was entirely new.

Anger.

Electromagnetic energy crackled around Rei as she summoned up her next attack, unleashing a massive wave of destruction in Bruticus' general direction as she yelled out, "DOOM CANNON!!"

Bruticus, listening to every sound around him with full intensity, raised his gun in the direction of the energy beam that hurtled toward him and fired off five shots, the first of which struck the wave dead on and detonated as the remaining four sped toward his mechanical opponent.

Rei was suddenly at a severe disadvantage. She could see the explosion caused by the collision of her Doom Cannon and the first bullet, but due to her magical deafness, she was unable to tell how many other shots, if any, had been fired afterward. Her only option was to attempt to take out anything that might be headed for her before it was too late, and so she quickly leaped upward, channeling energy around her and twirling through the air, sending bright white blades crashing down between her and any oncoming projectiles.

"SPIRAL PHASER!!"

As three of the bullets were intercepted by her energy waves, Rei landed just in time to spot the final bullet a split second before it hit and attempted to form a forcefield around herself before it was too late. There was a quick flash of light as the shield formed, but as the dust settled, the android's body laid crumpled on the ground, the red glow fading from her eyes as they stared unconsciously off into the distance.

Rei was, for all intents and purposes, dead.

Bruticus paused for a moment as he blindly discerned his opponents position and slowly made his way toward her lifeless frame. Standing over her, he nudged her with his foot a couple times to she if she would react before reaching down, grabbing her throat with his left hand, and dangling her body in the air before he began to squeeze, digging into the artificial flesh of her neck and slowly crushing everything beneath.

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

"Okay, you're sure this is gonna work?" the AI's disembodied voice asked nervously.

"I think so," Jimmy the Intern replied, eyes locked on the screen in front of him, "If the status effect that caused your deafness operates like the sort of thing found in a role-playing game, then such an effect should be dispelled if the player dies. Now, while your android body doesn't exactly die like a human being, it's possible that you can simulate death in such a way that would dispel any and all debuffs once you were resurrected..."

"...Or, in my case," Rei completed the intern's exposition, "once I'm reactivated?"

"Exactly."

"Okeedokee!" Rei proceeded merrily, "Let's get on with it, then! REBOOT!"

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

As Bruticus crushed what would best be described as Rei's spine, his blindness left him very much unaware of the fact that the android's eyes had suddenly begun to glow again. Of course, it should be assumed that he was tipped off about her reactivation around the time his ribs were crushed into about a hundred pieces, a result of her fists pummeling rapidly into his chest at full force.

"The hills are aliiiiiiiiiive," Rei belted out in perfect pitch and with an absolutely lovely vibrato, spinning around to deliver a final kick to her opponent's chest as he reflexively released his group, "with the sound of muuuuuuusiiiiiiiiiic!!"

Bruticus fell to his knees and, whilst coughing up blood, raised his gun toward the approaching andoid, but was unable to fire before she grabbed his right hand in her left and crushed both the gun and the bones of his fingers under her iron grip with a sickening crunch.

"MY GAWD," she yelled out over his gurgles of agony in a thick Oklahoman accent as she reeled her fist back, then slinging it back toward the thug's jaw, blood and teeth spraying forth as knuckles and face connected, "HE'S BROKEN IN HALF!!"

She began repeating this motion over and over, Bruticus' jawbone cracking dully with each stike as Rei continued yelling to no one in particular.

"STOP...."

The punches increased in speed, the sound of cracking being replaced by a wet, nauseating squish.

"...THE DAMN..."

After the last followthrough, Rei delivered a backhand to the red mass of organic tissue that used to be the bald head of Bruticus, breaking his neck with one loud final crack at the exact instant that his master suddenly exploded.

"...MATCH!!"

Bruticus' lifeless body slumped to the ground as the red glow faded from Rei's eyes, returning to their natural sky blue as she looked down at her right hand which now dripped with a thick coating of her fallen opponent's blood. Inexplicably, a flourish of trumpets began playing celebratory music from some internal speaker buried within the android's body as she started jumping up and down a raising her arms excitedly.

"I won my first fight ever!" she cheered, "Yayyyy for me!"

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

Back in the big, empty R & D department at the POS Industries central office, Jimmy the Intern sat alone, waiting for any news from the field. Finally, he cautiously spoke up.

"So, um, did it work?"

A couple seconds passed before Rei's voice suddenly replied from everywhere and nowhere at once. "It sure did," she said happily, "and the threat has been neutralized! Thank you soooooo much for your help!"

"Oh, heh, sure," Jimmy chuckled shyly, "Just doing my job..."

"Well, actually," the AI corrected, "you were really doing someone else's job, and it occurs to me that we now have a full-time position open in our Research and Development department. Would you be interested?"

Jimmy literally jumped out of his chair. "Uh, yeah! You mean it?"

"Of course! Welcome to POS Industries!" Rei confirmed excitedly, "Oh, and I think that if you leave now, you can still get in on the Kickass Scientist Party upstairs!"

The newly dubbed Jimmy the Scientist started to make his way to the exit, calling out behind him, "Oh, god, thank you!"

"Sure, have fun! Oh, and if you happen to see Johnson, tell him he's fired!"