NPF Avatars IV, Chapter VI: Imprisoned with the Maniacs

[Arhra]

Walking away from the manor, Tarrin and Hawk had unwisely decided to try and justify their actions to an angry Arhra. With a sharp, vicious series of motions, she spun around and used the feared 'Goblin Punch' technique she had accquired with her (at times Blue Magic-esque) ability to steal enemy powers. No-one was quite clear why it was called 'Goblin Punch', but it was feared all the same.

With a slightly distant tone, she repliedy to Lumaes' statement about various incompetencies, "Yes, I have wondered if I'd be better off lending my aid to ushering in the apocalypse than trying to save the world with this lot."

Pyros, Flare and Newb seemed like they were about to get in a fight, but then Pyros and Newb wandered off. Arhra didn't really care where they were going.

Back at the manor, The Capitalist's fierce expression softened slightly and he looked thoughtful at Skyshot's offer. Tone still gruff he said, "I suppose that might be accep-"

Steel made his somewhat blatant and unjustified demand for a reward. The Capitalist's expression darkened.

Then Pyros and Newb burst in.

The Capitalist looked well back on the way to blind fury, "This is intolerable." It was not a tone that boded well. "Bruticus!" he called.

It was hard to say where exactly the black-suited man appeared from, but he was suddenly standing slightly in front of The Capitalist and pointing a handgun at Pyros and Newb. He had the rugged, hardened look of some kind of ex-mercenary now dabbling in the bodyguard trade. By the look of him, it was obvious the name Bruticus was perfectly appropriate.

"I want you riffraff off my property immediately. Bruticus, if they make one wrong move, shoot them." He gestured at Pyros and Newb. Bruticus nodded silently and tilted his head from one side to the other, neck making loud, ominious cracking noises.

[Flarecobra]

Mauve quietly edged away from Flare and Newb, because she really didn't want to get killed in an epic NPFer teamkill battle like the one that was sure to happen in the very near future.

"I think I'll just go... um.. walk. Over there. Where I am less likely to die. I mean, um, less likely to get in the way of your important business. Because I don't want to die."

"Don't worry Mauve, I'm calmed down now." I said with a nod. "I just needed to vent some. It's a drawback to my species." Taking a quick look back, I saw what was going on and said "What are those guys doing?"

[POS Industries]

Meanwhile, elsewhere... IN OUTER SPACE!!!!!!

Pedro O'Sullivan stood on the bridge of the POS Industries privateer frigate Riyal, leaning over the back of NexGen's fancy captain's chair as the ship navigated about the deadly chaotic energy waves that trailed behind the massive black comet of doom, when he suddenly stiffened up around the time that The Capitalist made his first appearance back down on the planet's surface.

Captain NexGen, noticing his employer's sudden change of mood, swiveled his head a bit in curiosity, "Something the matter, Mr. O'Sullivan?"

"I feel a great disturbance in the Force," POS growled apprehensively, "As if countless instances of infringement against the copyright of my character suddenly cried out in flagrant mockery of me before most assuredly being silenced..."

NexGen raised an eyebrow at Pedro's odd statement and prepared to respond before suddenly being interrupted by the one true Hazel-Eyes White Capitalist.

"...by Rei."

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

Back down in the cave, a bunch of wacky, wild stuff was happening within The Capitalist's manor. And it was all this wacky, wild, incoherant, nonsensical ridiculousness that provided Rei with the perfect distraction to deal with the threat of someone else monopolizing any market, even if that market happened to be disgusting porkfruits.

Slipping away from the group as Flare began lobbing fireballs at anything that moved (the android made a note to give her a gift certificate in gratitude for her assistance later), Rei opened a large hyperlink portal outside the manor, from which a team of POS Industries "security" personnel emerged. Dressed in grey and black body armor emblazoned with the POS Industries logo, the troops marched into formation and stood at attention before her.

"Heya guys! Glad to see you could make it!" Rei greeted the team happily, "Now, this is a standard 'Take and Torch' operation. Collect samples of the products, capture any of the trolls that appear to have been used as test subjects, and make sure to get any and all documents, files, and any other records pertaining to the development of the fruit. Then, burn everything in sight! Happy hunting!"

As the troops scurried off to begin their task, Rei made her way back to rejoin the NPFers within the manor, only to see them facing off against a very large man in a very poor rip-off of a designer suit. Looking the thug over, he did not appear to be anything that the group couldn't handle themselves, so she resigned herself to observation at the moment.

"This looks like it should be fun!" she chirped to no one in particular, "Anyone got any popcorn?"

[PyrosNine]

Pyros smiled like a schoolboy. "Bruticus, eh? Such roman names are so rare and few in this world. And if you get in my way, it shall become much fewer. I have a righteous score to settle and no law or goverment can deny me. And you are much less than both law and goverment, so please wander off into the corner whilst I deal with your employer."

Bruticus cocked his gun. Was talking a wrong move?

Pyros sighed and continued talking. "A gun, is it? How very poor sport of you. Humans nowadays. They are lazy, slow, and weak as a result, yet at the same time think themselves a hardened warrior when they use weapons as their crutch. It's like an ant thinking itself tough when it could get crushed by the very thing it wields. True power comes not from a powerful weapon. True power comes from a powerful self."

Pyros's eyes glowed a brilliant red, hiding his eyes under a glow of heat that seemed to those who looked into it scorching. A haze of fire swirled about Pyros, and the nice schoolboy in a janitor suit facade went away, revealing Pyros's more dangerous self. It showed that he had killed millions of men, defeated thousands of beasts that you hear late at night and pray they aren't coming for you in your sleep.

Bruticus knew what a threat was, and fire spinning about one's body and glowy red eyes were threatening. He pulled the trigger.

Click.

Pyros, in full out fire mode, smiled. "Y'know, guns are an interesting invention. They rely on combustion to send a metal object down a tube at high speeds. Combustion, made from heat. Heat.....heat is something I control. If I do not want you to use heat, then you may not use it. Some call it 'Null Flame' but for me, it is 'Oath to order'."

Pyros waited for his words to sink in with Bruticus. While he waited, he set every flammable thing in the room on fire with a thought, one by one.

[Tarrin]

Arhra's punch caught Tarrin offguard, As he hit the ground he heared something like a click eminate from below him.

A worried yet accepting expression came over Tarrins face, Looking Arhra in the face he let out a sigh and promtly disapeared down the hole that once again closed after him.
Having fell numerous times during this quest he was ready for the sudden stop, "Note to self keep some wings hady to stop this happening again"

"Wow you really are a walking disaster area arn't you?" Spoke the spirit into Tarrins ear.
"Make youself useful for once and find me a way out of this and back to the others" Having the patience of a sait was good but even a saint had his limits....
Altho Tarrin somehow knew falling down the hole had probly saved him from Arhra's anger and whatever Pyrosnine was upto, He still felt cheated by fate.

[Mauve Mage]

"What are those guys doing?"

Mauve shrugged.

"I think we're being kicked out," she said glumly. "This is all very confusing, you know; We've never had to deal with realistic consequences to our random and overly-violent actions before."

She looked up, watching Bruticus and Pyros, and Rei.

"Although, I'm getting the distinct feeling that this won't end well," she commented.

[Toastburner B]

"Meh, I can't say I'm very impressed with dude anyways," TB added. "I mean, he calls himself 'The Capitalist', but he can't even find a decent location. I mean, of course no one comes here. You'll looking a group of the most stupidly powerful beings ever assembled, and even we barely maded it. If this guy can't even figure out that, he's hardly worth our time."

TB began to meander in the direction the figured their objective was. "Lets get going...we don't want to make Chuckles over there shoot us, now do we?"

[Bailey]

With Pyros handling things, and in the absence of anything better to do, Syttulg began humming the mario themesong.

[Arhra]

Of course events didn't actually pan out in that manner. While Pyros may have planned out a long monologue, what actually happened was this:

"Bruticus, eh? Such roman names are so rare and few in this world. And if you get in my way, it shall become mu-"

Bruticus shot him in the knee.

Evidentally talking was a wrong move. Or threats at least. Quite frankly, they were lucky to get away with breathing.

"That was a warning shot." The Capitalist said pleasantly. "Kindly remove yourselves."

Meanwhile, Arhra stopped some distance away from the manor, at the edges where the jungle encroached upon the plantation and looked at the others who had followed her. She seemed to have released most of her anger for now as she addressed them. "Anyway, we should move on." Cutting off the obvious question she said, "The others who are lagging behind can just catch up once they're done arguing or dying or whatever it is they're doing. Let's get a head count of who's here. Also, who actually had some food at the buffet? We might need to stop for lunch a little later otherwise."

[Bailey]

Syttulg hooked his ankles together, flipped backwards, and, hanging from Pyros' neck like a particluarly odd necklace, slapped his hand to Pyros' knee. He directed his nannites to begin healing what they could, keeping his hand close to where they were working to save energy. | Once Pyros had been healed, he would direct his nannites to take up position in point defense mode. This would take up a bit of energy, but hopefully they wouldn't get shot at anymore and no energy would have to be expended on actually bringing up the shields.

[Hawk]

luckily for Hawk, he had been flying much to high up for Arhra to actually punch him, so Tarrin ended up taking the full force of the blow. He ignored him as he fell through a hole in the ground, muck like had done the last time he had fallen into the area.
Hawk flew over to where Arhra and Toastburner were now situated and landed on a nearby rock.

TB began to meander in the direction he figured their objective was

"Over that way is the cave system i used to get in here. There are two paths: the left one is where i came in and is much too small for any of you to get through, while the right path is unknown to me. It may lead to where we need to get to, and perhaps even a way out later on."

[Lumaes]

"Stupid bird! What a feather-brained nincompoop you are! If your brain could ever be extracted from that fiendishly densel, yet remarkably fragile, skull, I have no doubt it would not exist!!!"

He shook his head admonishingly, apparently taking frightful delight from his malevolent monologue.

"As I no doubt have to point out to you - as you have no fingers of your own - is that there are NO paths." Lumaes spun dramatically, pointing in all directions at once "We are in the middle of a plantation on the edge of a jungle under the ground! In order for there to be a path we'd have to pave it and that would only take us where we are going anyway! Which is what we're already doing! With the added minus that we'd have to somehow locate some delicious cement! Were are we going to get delicious cement!? Not at the buffet, that's for sure!" he casts such a spite laden glare at distancing manor it was in severe danger of whimpering.

"And I doubt you could even carry a two-kilo bucket of the stuff!!"
He huffs dramatically, using the delay to draw in a hasty breath;
"If you have nothing more to add may I suggest you increase your overall worth by finding a convenient oven and ROASTING yourself for our amusement and culinary delight."

Somehow Lumaes managed to stomp along beside the assemblage despite his lack of feet or, indeed, apparent legs.

[Hawk]

Hawk looked coldly at Lumaes.
"i believe it is you who is mistaken(he put a lot of emphasis into that word) my bizzare looking friend,(again with the emphasis) fore there most definately is(yep, emphasis) a cave system leading out of this underground jungle over there, where the 4 foot tall cat is headed to",came the pyschic message from Hawk. "Hint hint, nudge nudge!!"

"And your extremely lucky i dont kill you for those remarks. Lucky for you that i only want to kill evil beings, rather than pathetic.....things, like yourself."

[Arhra]

"Silence you presumably tasty bird! Lumaes makes a number of valid points." Arhra said, pausing for a moment to mutter something along the lines of, "Mmmm, roast talking bird. The sapience makes eating it deliciously wicked."

"First let's make a sign so the others can catch up." Using mere hands and sticks to draw signs was not the NPF way. "Indicate!" Arhra shouted, calling upon chaos. A sign burst from the ground, an flashing arrow pointing forwards. She carefully twisted it to point in a certain direction and then boldly cried, "This way!", walking in the direction the sign pointed.

Not far into the jungle, things started getting strange. And not strange just in that it was hot, humid, noisy with animal calls, thickly covered in undergrowth that impeded their ways and filled with a bright, bizarre array of plants and the occaisional beast.

Shred their skin... Roots drag them down... teeth rip flesh... crush their bones... snare them... strangling vines... blood seeps in loam... claw them open...

No, it was more the creepy whispering voice that echoed in the ears of some, seeming to rise and fall in intensity. The entire jungle seemed to have a malign air, roots tripping them up, branches scratching at their faces and animals watching them, eyes glowing faintly in the darkness. Arhra turned around, cheerfully blithe to the hateful murmurings and impedance, "Is something the matter?" she asked, looking at the people affected.

* * *

Back at the manor things also didn't seem to be going well. When Syttulg tried to make his move, Bruticus shot him. He shot him right in the battery. The man definately seemed to be a little trigger happy. Or, more probably, he just liked shooting people.

The lesson here was trying anything suspicious when a gunman with no particular qualms against shooting you had a gun pointed at you was none too smart. Everyone knows least need some sort of dramatic distraction is needed and even that isn't necessarily very effective against the more skilled.

The Capitalist sighed and glanced at Skyshot and Steel, "I would suggest that if you care for the lives of your companions, you convince them to just leave. Quite frankly I'd prefer to avoid cleaning up the mess. Well, avoid ordering minions to clean up the mess. This isn't making me enough money to be worth the headache." What money might there be in it you ask? Why harvesting the corpses' organs and selling them on the black market of course.

OOC: Incidentally, everyone should decide where they are. The group still at the manner seems to be composed of just Skyshot, Pyros, Newb and Steel unless one or more of them have decided to leave. I'm assuming everyone else is with Arhra at the edge of the plantation. You will only hear the freaky voices and seem to have the jungle out to get you if you didn't eat the food. If you haven't said anything about it yet, you should decide now.

[GARUD]

Garud wandered along next to Arhra when he heard something.

"Oy, did you people hear that?"

"*mmmfff* No Garud, I *SHLOOORP* didn't. I think u crazy."

"Thorque, are you eating that guy's stat enhancing food?"

"Only the ones that reduce my brain-thinky score!"

"Explains alot."

Garud felt the urge for combat so he summoned his BOC. He felt the forrest's power. There were alot of shadows around so it was very easy for him to fight. It was good territory. Also, he was bad one-to-one being a mage-based character, but the terain was bade for hit and run.

"Arhra, stand back. If you don't hear that, then run. It's gonna get ugly."

[Bailey]

Syttulg fell from Pyros' shoulders and hurriedly directed his nannites to prevent leakage from his battery.

"OW! I was just trying to make his leg work so we could leave!"

[Steel Shadow]

Things were taking a bad turn, and it didn't seem like the captialist was going to give Steel anything for saving his life (even if it had been unintentional. Still, Steel was the only one who remembered anything about the non-existant timeline, so that didn't matter). And now his pet giant had shot the most infamously insane god on the face of the planet and seemed quite content to do so again. Something needed to be done.
Steel cautiously looked around. Bruticus was to far away to attack with his already eratic powers, as was the capitalist. Most of the forumites were long gone. Negotiation didn't really seem to be an option. Runing away was awfully tempting.
"I'm... sure... we... can... all... come... to... some... agreement." He said slowly, using as many elipses as he could. Talking any quicker would probably be rewarded by a bullet, and unlike certain gods and androids, Steels body was quite fragile.

[POS Industries]

Somehow, Rei had gotten popcorn.

Now, it's not impossible that she activated a small hyperlink portal through which the bag of hot, buttery popcorn was delivered, but that would be too easy, a total abuse of powers, and just way too godmoddy altogether. It's also possible that she had that popcorn the whole time, or that one of the POS Industries stormtroopers had given it to her. Frankly, the truth is that The Unholy God of Plotholes (not to be confused with Pennsylvanius, the Unholy God of Potholes) had willed that popcorn suddenly be in her possession for no goddamn good reason and you all shouldn't question it. The Plothole God is an old, nameless god and is not to be trifled with.

Anyway, Rei watched as the random splinter group of NPFers attempted to deal with Bruticus, the hired goon of doom, and munched away on her bag of popcorn, not at all concerned with the question of why an android would have any desire or ability to consume food, but rather curious as to why a large man with a gun is in any way a threat to any of them.

She concluded that the Unholy God of Plotholes had something to do with this as well.

[Darth SS]

Darth had eaten, so he felt pretty good. Thus, he was moon-walking behind Arhra.

OOC: Yes, I know. Filler. Wait until inspiration hits, when ah gets mah juice.

[Mauve Mage]

Kill them... spill their blood.... death... tear flesh from bone... return to dust and earth...

Mauve's fingers wrapped slowly around the hilts of her knives. The voices seemed to come from nowhere, and at the same time, from everywhere around her. It wasn't that she minded the added conversation. It was the TOPIC of conversation that wore upon her nerves.

Strangle them... blood shall water the earth like rainfall... Shatter their bones...

Add to this the fact that the plantlife itself seemed keen to act upon these suggestions, tripping her, slashing across her face and catching her skirts.

A stray branch landed on her shoulder. Mauve, startled, slapped it away with a strangled yelp.

"Well," she said to no one in particular. "This is annoying."

Hoping to show the forest just who was in charge, Mauve raised a hand and engulfed it in magical flames. This she carried like a lantern-slash-handgun, hoping to keep the plants at bay.

[Skyshot]

Skyshot snuck back around behind Bruticus, sliding out a dagger. If absolutely necessary, he'd backstab the giant, but it seemed like a bad idea.

He would have healed Pyros gleefully with his largely restored mana, but Newb was already on it; he decided not to interfere. Instead, he settled for pickpocketing several things of value off The, along with gathering as much food as he could carry off the table. Supplies were precious, after all.I would suggest that if you care for the lives of your companions, you convince them to just leave. Quite frankly I'd prefer to avoid cleaning up the mess. Well, avoid ordering minions to clean up the mess. This isn't making me enough money to be worth the headache.Bruticus tilted his heads towards the thief when he noticed his boss addressing him. His eyes widened.

"How'd ya get over there?"

Busted.

Skyshot didn't want to risk his damage spells on the man, seeing as how any of them would A -- make it perfectly clear who was causing the hurty for Bruticus and B -- invite retaliation. He didn't feel he could compete with a firearm. Which was not to say he couldn't deal with it indirectly.

"Blindness," he called out, and dove in the general direction of the exit.

[Arhra]

What Bruticus did next was rather surprising. His free hand whipped into his jacket, pulled out a second handgun and then, other gun not wavering from pointing at Pyros and Newb, he shot the spell. Fizzling, it fell out of the air a few feet away from Bruticus and evaporated.

If an appropriate bystander had been there, they'd probably have said something along the lines of, "He shot the spell out of midair!? How did he shoot the spell out of midair?!" and been generally freaking out. Unfortunately for this hypothetical bystander, no answer would be immediately forthcoming.

What was probably more pertinent to Skyshot was the fact that Bruticus did not shoot him. Seeing that Skyshot was departing, the man seemed to have decided that was enough given The Capitalist's orders.

Thus who remained seemed to be trying some tallking.

"OW! I was just trying to make his leg work so we could leave!" Newb said as he was shot.

"You can limp." was The Capitalist's lighthearted reply.

Somewhat more diplomatically and more cautious as to avoid the possibility of being shot Steel went with, "I'm... sure... we... can... all... come... to... some... agreement." Bruticus' second gun swung to cover him.

The Capitalist definately seemed more cheerful now. It was probably because of his goon. "Why of course. You can leave immediately and in return I won't have Bruticus shoot you." He was beginning to wonder if he should raise his demands.

* * *

"Arhra, stand back. If you don't hear that, then run. It's gonna get ugly." Garud said, calling up his blade and looking definately on edge.

Arhra focused on him, "I don't know, it looks pretty ugly already. Hear what? What are you planning to fight anyway? The darkness?"

Mauve yelped as a branch dropped on her shoulder and summoning up her magic, lit her hand on fire. Arhra treated both her and Garud with a long look, "I know trees are scary, but I think you're overreacting. Let me guess... they're plotting against you? Or perhaps you can see dead people?" She seemed quite unconvinced of any danger.

[Bailey]

"Fine, fine, we're going. If somebody could hand me a loaf of bread or something I can fix the door as we leave." Syttulg finished up with healing, and then hauled himself to his feet.

[Flarecobra]

I slithred along with Arhra's group, a little ways back, however the voices were starting to get on my nerves. Then I just exploded. "DAMNIT, JUST SO YOU KNOW, I AM STONG WITH FIRE MAGIC SO YOU PLANTS HAD BETTER JUST CUT IT OUT BEFORE I BURN DOWN THIS WHOLE FUCKING FOREST!" I said at the top of my lungs. Panting, I look at the others. "Sorry, those voices are bugging me." I said, a little red-faced.

(I doubt I could actually do that, unless I use something like Firestorm...which I'm quite hesatent to use.)

[Tarrin]

Tarrin was wandering thru the halls roots of the trees grew around him forcing him to back track a few times when he saw it, Well he tought he saw it.

A flash of cloth caught his eye, The brown material hard to see in the dark, It was the shiny metal on it which drew his eye more however, Badges infact, looking closer he could just barely make out what it said.

"Badge for Fire building" the next read "Brownie seller of the year" Horror Crossed Tarrins face, It was the uniform of a...a Girl Guide.

Fleeing Tarrin ran in stark terror from the uniform, Hoping beyond all hope that none of the troop that belonged to that piece of cloth were close by.
As he fled Tarrin's mind flashed back
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Several months ago

The young girl stood in the troop her dark raven colored hair pulled back into two piggytalis, The Uniform was a little tight across the shoulders but she had managed to fit into it, The only thing that set this girl apart from the rest, Arat from the mostache, Adams apple and being a 6" tall native american was the fact that she was a he.

Tarrin had enterd the troop undercover to bust the illegal brownie spiking that had been taking place. These nice young girls had been using scotch in their brownie recipies and selling them to people in AA meetings, Knowing that they would become addicted to the smooth smooth taste of that glenfinich.

But the jig was up Tarrin stood in their wearhouse his gun lowered on the culprets, Girls who now were turning on the waterworks, Suddenly Tarrin fell unconsious as one of the girls hitt him from behind with her Badge filled hat, The next few days saw Tarrin tortured in the most hidious of ways...CAMP SONGS.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tarrin returned to his modernday flight just intime to see the wall knock him into a deep sleep.

[Toastburner B]

"You know, Arhra," TB said as he scanned the trees for the source of the voices, "Perhaps you should stop talking to Mauve like she's crazy, because it seems like you are the only one not hearing the voices. I know that most of the time the person not hearing the voices is the sane one, but since three of us...and, dare I say, perhaps three of the most mentally stable of this entire group...hear the freakin' voices."

Red lightning began to dance up and down the tattoo on TB's right paw, showing he was ready to blast the first thing to attack him.

[Lumaes]

Lumaes frowned, he was surrounded by a herd of shrieking, violent, deluded paranoia victims and even that somehow wasn't enough to make them interesting to him.
The spectre rolled his eyes at Arhra, indicating the talking cat with one accusing finger,
"What is it with talking animals and a sheer lack of perspective?"

He bent down to stare intently at the feline,
"Why does the addition of a voice make you so much less... lovely? We are currently taking a constitutional stroll through the meandering greenery and you insist on making everything about you. Oh boohoo, I'm hearing voices!"
He windmilled his arms dramatically in mock sorrow.

"I know that when you hear voices that means you're crazy - but I'm hearing the voices so you must be the crazy ones.!"
Lumaes halted the performance, walking on a little further and talking over his shoulder to the forest-tormented critter,
"See any problems with your logic you crazy-cat?"

The spectre sails on uninhindered.

[Mauve Mage]

Mauve thought it was rather amusing that Toasty considered her to be mentally stable, but perhaps that was because she was one of the few people who had never killed him. When you're surrounded by people who take joy in seeing you die, over and over, I suppose that anyone who DOES'T write "Kill Toasty in Fun Ways!" on their TO DO list would seem the model of sanity to you.

She would have chuckled at this, if not for the fact that the vines currently tripping her feet were whispering something about how they'd tear out her still-beating heart, or something like that.

"Seriously, Ahrha, how can you NOT hear this?!" Mauve asked uncomfortably, kicking the vines away and slashing at a branch with her knife. "These voices are rather noisy and they're providing some very graphic and detailed verbal imagery."

She stomped her heel down on a gnarled root protruding from the ground.

"Don't even think about it," she growled to the root and surrounding underbrush, replying to some threat they had made. "Or I'll do the same to you. Nevermind that you lack skin and vital organs; I will find a way."

She looked back up at the others.

"Any ideas?" she asked. "Or should we all just either run like mad or start burning things?"

[GARUD]

"Well how about this. We ditch the people who don't hear this and make a break for the border. We can start new lives in Mexico!"

Garud chopped away some vines with his blades and used a chain to pull out some of the roots of a tree which was mysteriously moving.

"Although burning things seems like fun! Of course we are currently without Pyros, so it will probably be slower, and less fun. Still, TO MEXICO!"

[Flarecobra]

"Nah. The mexican police are just as bad. And while the voices are quite annoying, they do have some good ideas for dicesstion......" I said, then mentally slapped myself. "Um, don't mind what I just said. I've still got a bit of ferality in me..."

[Arhra]

At the manor, The Capitalist looked at Newb with minor perplexity. "I don't see how that can do any harm." he said and grabbed a crsty roll. With a underhand throw, he hurled it at Newb.

Meandering outside, with Bruticus shadowing him, he saw the attempts of POS's strike team. Some bright spark seemed in his eye, hinting at him having something up his sleeve, "Well, well, well, what do we have here then? I have a trick or two of my own. This Temple was built by the forces of Law you know. They've left behind quite a few interesting trinkets." One hand crept into his waistcoat's pocket, "And so I must ask you to... CEASE AND DESIST!"

With a flourish, he pulled out some strange token and tossed it upwards. Spinning in midair, the Law spell suddenly flashed and disappeared. With no further effect appearing, several members of the strike team, returned to the seeking and destroying, only to find vertical lances of immobilising light suddenly descending upon them, transifxing them and then teleporting them away. It was hard to pillage when it had been made illegal. It seemed The Capitalist had the Law on his side.

* * *

Arhra looked at Toast with some skepticism. In the background, Flare, Mauve and Garud variously threatened and attacked various inanimate parts of the scenery. "What do you mean most mentally stable? Why Lumaes and Darth are here and they haven't... alright, maybe you have a point." the chaos being conceded.

Speaking slowly, not wanting to put the jumpy giant cat alchemist further on edge, "You all seem like you're hearing the same sort of thing, but as threatening as these savage attacks the plants are making," She indicated a pefectly harmless looking bush.

Snap their bones... drape with guts...

"I think I can safely say -"

... So near... pulse of blood... tear them open... feast ...

"There's not much of a threat."

...Behind you...

OOC: As a note about what some people are doing before, its the kind of scenario where you don't actually see anything move. Roots just trip you and branches seem rather clingy.

[GARUD]

"What the...?"

Garud was on edge for some reason. These plants made him nervous as it was unknown. Although plants hurting people did sound rediculous.

"Wait, why am I nervous about this? I've taken on legions of demons single handidly and won. I have destroyed many things in my time in existance, and god help me, I won't let those tree hugging voices get to me any longer! It's not the time for panic or worry, now is the time for ACTION! This is a problem, so lets do something about it..."

Garud looked at the people who were phased by the voices.

"Lets burn things!"

A fireball lit up in the sorceror's hand and it glowed ferociously while the Blades of Chaos hung menacingly from his wrists.

[Flarecobra]

"Like that worked out so well last time...." I said, muttering under my breath.

[Hawk]

Hawk was looking at his new companions with wide eyes.

"What the hell's wrong with you all? The plants are NOT trying to kill you, look."

He landed high up in the branches of a tree.

"This tree is not trying to strangle me with ivy, or rip me a new one with its branches". He began to walk up and down the branch and continued in a sarcasticaly mocking tone:

"Ooo look at me, walking all over this tree, (hey that rhymes!) I hope it doesn't ATTACK me and tear me limb from limb!!!"

He stopped and turned back to the group.

"There is nothing going on, if anything its probably just the increased levels of Chaos trying to scare you. Now if you've QUITE finished trying to burn the crap out of the jungle perhaps we can continue?"

He flew off ahead of the others, looking for a way out of the nuthouse.

[Bailey]

Newb ate the roll and picked up the pieces of door. I bet he thinks he's shortchanging me. This type of roll is great for me. All condensed energy and no flavor gets the job done. Fitting them together like a jigsaw, he directed his nannites to fuse the pieces together, then filled the holes with sand, melted down to create glass, creating an interesting pattern not unlike that created when you drop a rock on shatterproof glass. And he even came away with a little surplus energy. "If you want I could make all of your doors match. I'd need to eat a little more food to get the necessary energy, and it would take a little while, but it would be an excuse to stay away from that roving band of maniacs known as the NPF Crisis Squad, and you'd be the envy of all the other business men when you told them that work which costs a good three million on the open market you got for a bucket full of rice." And perhaps I'll get my energy topped off completely by the time this is through, and just happen to miss Toastburner finally snapping and killing everybody else for once when they defeat the boss down here by throwing him at it or something.

[POS Industries]

"Did you know," Rei stated in her usual cheerful tone (though with a slight twinge of a cockney accent, perhaps inspired by Michael Caine In Space) as she approached The Capitalist and Bruticus, "that the internet service provider for your summer house in the Hamptons is a wholly-owned subsidiary of POS Industries? It's true! And I regret to inform you that we've noticed a bit of disturbing activity coming from your address and were left with no other alternative but to alert the authorities. Federal agents should be searching your hard drive now and finding a staggering amount of underage pornography." Child molestation is never funny.

The Capitalist looked positively aghast. "But I don't have any--"

"--That's for the courts to decide, I'm afraid," the android casually interrupted, "However, due to the rapidly-spreading news of your impending legal troubles and the fact that the top-secret biological composition of the fruit you are currently developing has just been released to the public, before you could secure a patent or acquire FDA approval, your shareholders have almost completely sold away all of their stock."

As it appeared that The Capitalist was at an overall loss for words, Rei continued merrily. "In case you were wondering how that could have happened, I ate a piece of your fruit and allowed my internal sensors to scan the sample in a much, much more in-depth manner than my oculor scanners could. Of course, this android body has a direct signal link to the main computer at the POS Industries home office, which was then able to analyze the results even more thoroughly and release them to the public over the internet."

The Capitalist uttered something that sounded vaguely like, "Guh."

"With the price of your stock so low and so many shares readily available, it was a snap for us to buy up just about every inch of your company that isn't already owned by you personally. Furthermore, the share of your stock that is owned by you has been frozen by the federal government along with the rest of your assets, giving us--and currently, me--possession over company property, employees, and, most importantly, majority voting power."

Rei reached over and shook the dazed and confused hand of the little Monopoly-Man ripoff. "Mr. The Capitalist, you're fired," she announced, "Mr. Bruticus, if wouldn't mind escorting the tresspasser off of company property, please."

[Arhra]

The Capitalist seemed to have some other ace up his sleeve as he chuckled, "Well played I see. I suppose I'll have to go and see how much of what you say is lies. Cheerio." He seemed remarkably calm.

And so it was that the others who had remained at the manor miraculously caught up to the others with no further problems. The problems were waiting for them.

They found the others still arguing about whether or not the jungle was plotting against them. Seeing how the newcomers had some who could hear voices and others who couldn't this only added fuel to the debate. With no end in sight, they were suddenly disrupted.

From ahead of them, panting but looking smug came The Capitalist. Bruticus was by his side and a number of savage looking trolls followed him. At the back, being led along, was Thod. The massive troll was carrying the tree with the fruit that it had been fed on, trunk lying supported on his shoulder, and drooling happily. It became apparent now that the tether was to stop Thod leaving it behind.

Having caught his breath a little, The Capitalist walked out a short distance towards them. The jungle seemed to be quivering with anticipation as he spoke, "Ah, I see the jungle doesn't welcome most of you. How very convenient. I did have some concerns when most of you didn't eat any of my food. It saddens me to have a reduced number of test subjects."

Arhra had walked out to meet him halfway and on hearing this, her eyes widened in shock, "You poisoned the food!? Only I may do that!"

"Oh, not poisoned exactly. You see, I rapidly discovered a variety of properties that could be easily weaponised. They proved remarkably resilient to curative magics and their effects are compatible with virtually any creature able to eat them. When I'd reached suitable final verisons, I would unleash them upon the world. With delay imbedded, triggered by a handy means such as this." The Capitalist procured a glass bauble with two different coloured liquids sloshing around inside from his jacket and threw it on the ground to smash it. Arhra suddenly felt woozy. "I could wait until the time was right and then activate it. And then all the world would become my horribly obese slaves, addicted to the food only I could produce! AHAHAHAHAHA!"

Listening to this villianous monologue, evidentally the maniacal laughter was the last straw. "Oh yeah?" Arhra replied, fighting off a blurring in her vision, "What if we stop you with violence?! Did you ever think of that?"

The Capitalist was still laughing maniacally, swelling with mirth. Then as his jacket suddenly burst at the seams, it became apparent he actually was getting fatter. He turned into a figure of towering girth, body roughly spherical and of massive proportions. His skin seemed to have shifted to a gelatinous consistancy, green and slightly transparent. Thankfully, with the properties inherent to such transformations, he still seemed to have pants.

This did set Arhra back momentarily. "Your special power is to become really fat? I don't see how that stops us beating the crap out of you though. Hiyah!"

Arhra punched him in the ample stomach and was surprised to find it only made his gut ripple slightly. Still having physical contact, she felt something else puzzling. "Shouldn't I agonisingly be pulling out your life-force and feasting upon it now? That is what normally happens in this kind of scenario." she said.

"Why my dear, I would assume that's due to fact that part of what you ate was spliced with characteristics of an over-regenerating troll. I can only guess your draining ability is occupied with trying to keep it dead."

Arhra mentally added Karma to her hit list. She had, after all, killed a number of people with practically the same trick during the time Raiden had gone crazy. It was an old myth said to be a warning against eating troll - the beast would grow back in your belly, eventually rupturing it. She also knew she would probably survive a stomach explosion, but more questionable was whether she wanted to.

"Pah! My guts are stronger than you could possibly imagine." she said defiantly. She dismissed a creeping sensation of fullness as being depressing.

For a reply, The Capitalist lunged forwards, belly barging her. His guts were stronger than Arhra had imagined as she was sent flying back some distance into a tree. "Bruticus, Thod, minions, kill them all!" he cried.

Things went crazy. The trolls charged, saved for Thod who sat down and plucked another fruit off his tree. Bruticus whipped out a pistol and leapt into action, The jungle itself was filled with malignant life, choosing this time to finally strike at those it had whispered to. From Arhra's dazed perspective, stuck upside-down halfway up a tree, things weren't looking good.

OOC: Encounter rating as a whole tastes like Doom Cookies (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=421096&postcount=14). Monster descriptions and situation details are in the discussion thread (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=437196&postcount=87).

[Bailey]

"Why, why, why does it have an eye in the crotch region!?" Syttulg shouted, then blasted lightning at what one could only assume was horrible and terrifying to him, but looked like a bunny to everybody else.

Stray bolts also hit Arhra, TB, and Bruticus.

"SO HUNGRY!" Syttulg shouted, as he began scooping up baconfruit and eating it.

He continued in this manner, alternating between eating food and blasting friend and foe alike.

[Skyshot]

Skyshot whipped out Nightstorm. There was no way it would work on The Capitalist, and he wasn't going near Bruticus and his gun. Not that wished he take them on directly; his role was flanking and support.

Instead, he'd focus on priorities.

"Blindness," he whispered while staring at Bruticus, and hoped the gods would answer him and temporarily stop the massive brute's eyesight. After noting the result, he darted to the side of the group and readied himself. "Well, there's only one way to deal with a horde of fungus trolls."

"Run away screaming?"

"Base a line of creepy novelty dolls off them?"

"Beg for a handout?"

Skyshot raised his staff in both hands.

"Vigorous caning." He swung hard across the skull of the first one to come within range.

[POS Industries]

"Well played I see. I suppose I'll have to go and see how much of what you say is lies. Cheerio."

Rei watched contentedly as Bruticus appeared to escort The Capitalist off the newly-acquired grounds of POS Industries Int'l. The would be very disappointed to find that, unlike the duplicitous Pedro O'Sullivan, Rei was a completely and utterly honest being, by nature, unless ordered otherwise by the one man with authority over her.

The threat to the company eliminated, The Capitalist's life was of no consequence, and so she made her way along with Newb, Pyros, and anyone else who I'm sure was there the whole time.

Later, within the spooky jungle of spookiness, the group of indeterminate numbers was reunited once more, only to find themselves with The and Bruticus approaching them with their own little troll army. After a quick scan off the new threat, Rei focused her attention on Bruticus as The Capitalist began to address the group, "Ah, I see the jungle doesn't welcome most of you. How very convenient. I did have some concer--"

Suddenly, the android noticed that all the noise around her had suddenly gone from crystal clarity to a dull muffle and finally silence. A quick self-diagnostic showed nothing wrong with her auditory sensors. Luckily, she was able to lip-read and managed to keep up with The Capitalist's exposition, and realized what the problem was.

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

Meanwhile, back at POS Industries Headquarters, a young intern named Jimmy was sitting all alone in the company's Research and Development department, "minding the store", as it were, while the whole rest of the department took off for one of their union-required Kickass Scientist Parties. Jimmy never got invited to these events because he was merely an unpaid college intern, and so every day around this time he'd just sit in the abandoned lab and drink his coffee. Beginning to drift into a daydream about what it would be like if he got to go to the party, he started to take a sip of coffee just as a somewhat panicked voice came booming from seemingly everywhere at once.

"HEYMYANDROIDBODYHASGONEDEAFFROMMAGICHURRYFIXIT!!"

A spit-take of legendary calibur ensued, Jimmy looking around confusedly as he scrambled to clean off the computer in front of him.

"Wait.... huh?"

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

Back down in the Earth Temple, an extremely quiet melee had begun from Rei's perspective. With her auditory sensors impeded like this, it would be somewhat difficult for her to effectively deal with attackers coming at her from any number of directions. Luckily, she was only concerned with one adversary on the field of battle on this day.

Energy began to crackle all about the girl as she raised her hand and pointed directly at her intended target. Her usual sky blue eyes glowing a bright red, Rei would have made an awesomely cool and imposing figure as she addressed The Capitalist's right-hand man...

...Or at least she would have, if she hadn't been too deaf to properly modulate the volume of her voice.

"MR. BRUTICUS, IT PAINS ME TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR CURRENT ACTIONS HAVE VIOLATED THE RULES OF THIS COMPANY AND WE AT POS INDUSTRIES FROWN UPON INSURGENCY OF ANY KIND WITHIN OUR RANKS. IT HAS BECOME APPARENT THAT THERE IS A CONFLICT OF INTEREST AT WORK THAT CANNOT BE IGNORED, AND IT IS FOR THAT REASON THAT WE AT POS INDUSTRIES INT'L HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO TERMINATE YOU."

The very literal meaning of her statement became wholly apparent as the energy crackling about her suddenly concentrated upon the tip of her outstretched finger and fired a deadly beam of death directly toward the chest of the opposing enforcer.

[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 Mage]

"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?

[FenrisWolf]

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?"

[Hawk]

Hawk was racing back through the jungle towards the all-too familiar sounds of conflict. He had previously flown a good distance ahead of the group, but his extra-sensitive hearing had informed him of the commotion behind him and he set off back to what sounded like one hell of a party without hesitation.

He emerged from the clearing (well, it was a clearing now, what with all the explosions and weird shit that was tearing down the fauna!), and surveyed the scene. He took it all in in an instant, his eyes immediately locating all the beings in the area, and working out the exact speeds and directions of movement for each of them. He literally saw everything at once.

That was how he saw the nerby troll swing its club in his direction, long before anyone else would have, moving so slowly from his perpective it was almost not worth considering it a threat. Hawk banked to the left and flew low, the trolls swing went wide and missed by miles. He flew underneath the lumbering brute, banking slightly to sqeeze between its legs, before he shot up high again, turning around as he did so. Taking aim at the creatures back, Hawk compacted the air in front of him, and fired a concussive ball of solid air at his foe. It struck him between the shoulder blades, crushing bone and bursting blood vessels. The troll went down on to its knees with a roar of pain, but already it began to heal itself. However it then had something else to worry about, as a stray lightning bolt of Syttulg's hit it in the face, knocking it on its back. Hawk looked at the caster and at first didnt recognize him, as he appeared to be doing a Hulk impersonation, only without the green skin. And more lightning.

After this though, Hawk saw no more, as his sight chose this moment to inexplicably give up on him.

...

"SHHHIIIITTTTTTTT!!!!!"

In situations like this, there was only one thing you could do... PANIC!

"Vision impered, vision impered!!", Hawk cried out as he madly began to fly around in circles, with no way of knowing where his enemies were or what the heck was going on. Then he crashed into a tree. Before falling out of said tree and hitting the ground hard. Then he passed out.

[Tarrin]

A smile crossed Tarrins lips, His body streached and contorted untill his familar form was nolonger there, Instead the grey skin and huge form of an african bull elephant was in his place.

A loud trumpet of Rage Echoed around the ensuing combats, Mauve oblivious to the troll charging her, She seamed to be smiling maniacly about something she had just throwen at the manor.
Tarrins trunk wraped around the neck of the Troll, Swining his new toy around he decided to take care of two enemies at once, Moments later the a pulp that had been a troll landed on the ground next to the broken branches of the few trees it had been repeatedly slammed against.

Suddenly the Jungle struck back, Vines shot out attempting to entrap the huge beast that had destroyed their kin, With a great swing of his trunk Tarrin dislodged enough of the vines to start ripping out another tree, At intervels snacking on it's sweet sweet leaves, He was after all a hungy elephant and eating was what a hungry elephant did.

[GARUD]

Garud looked at the Capitalist and grinned. There was one big problem due to his size. He cast a very big shadow. It was a massive shadow at that. It left alot of opportunity for a really powerful attack. The demon slayer cupped his hands, and absorbed the shadow draining it from the capitalist. What he was creating was a degenerating energy attack, something that would eat away at the greedy bastard.

"You guys keep fighting. I'll have him down in a second. Well, in a minute. Let me get the rest of this shadow."

"Garud! I want a lollipop!"

"Not now Thorque"

"But I want one!"

"I don't have any lollipops."

"Do you have any lollies? Please?"

"Hmm... I don't have any lollies. Now go away."

Then a thought crept up.

"Hey brother, guess what? That big thing that's attacking us is one big lolly. Go eat it!"

"Yay!"

Thorque hurried off and started to take bites out of the Capitalist's leg. Garud bent one knee. He was ready to unleash the spell. He was about to unleash it when he got uprooted on the spot by some curling vines. They constricted him, but the sorceror was able to hold his blades of chaos like daggers. Using this, he cut the vines, releasing the pressure of the tendrils from his body.

"This might take longer than I thought."

[Lumaes]

The ground heaved and buckled wildly, the surging earth and roots splitting open like an enormous blister in an eruption of plain, white, terracotta tiles which spiralled impossibly in the air. They spilled from the wounded earth like doves set free from a cage. All about the earth began to fall away into an endless abyss of ink, the support of the pavers gone the loose dirt spilled, the plants doubling up on themselves and tearing open as the tiny iridescent worms that filled them attempted to escape the long sink into blackness.

Lumaes stumbled as the ground broke beneath his feet, he would have fallen into the same liquid which now swallowed up what had once been down if by chance he had not crashed onto one of the large rectangles which even now lifted him slowly up into the air, spiralling softly. He clutched it in terror as it threatened to tip. All around him, through some bizarre coincidence his companions and enemies had been caught on similar platforms and continued fighting – seemingly oblivious to the dangers that a single misstep could cause.

What was seen by those who had not eaten the delicious delirium-profiteroles however was the spectre stumble and trip on nothing, tumbling hands down into the dirt before - through the power of delusion; he was buoyed up into the air on an invisible platform whilst the battle raged on below.

Back in the world that really mattered, Lumaes had managed to balance his weight properly that if sitting cross legged and making no extraneous movements he was in no danger of tipping. Figuring that just because one found themselves in a world composed of floating tiles and swallowing blackness they could not be excused from their duties to their affiliates the ephemeral creature cast an appraising eye over The Capitalist. Once he recovered from his surprise that the networks of pavers could actually support the massive beast he had a brain wave.
“Of course! He’s a creature composed of fat! What is the natural enemy of fat? Exercise! That’s the answer” he paused, eyes flickering as he ran the calculations, “For a creature that size, assuming normal fat-density it should only take…” he hmmm’d, “Thirteen months! That’s it! Keep at it! Keep ‘im moving!”
The spirit punched his hands encouragingly, a silly move as it turned out; the motion overbalanced him, sending him tipping of the tile. Luckily, or unluckily as it may be, he collided with another terracotta platform on the way down, the edge catching him in the ‘gut’. Winded, he managed to hook his hands around the edge and stop his descent for now.

[Darth SS]

Darth was a pinball. A pointy pinball, but a pinball none of the less. He was occupying himself by jumping onto enemies, cutting them, then bouncing off and cutting another enemy. He would then return and cut them again before they regenerated. Sometimes he fought off some foliage. While being attacked by plants, Darth could only think of one thing to say:

"Fuck vegans!"

[Arhra]

When Skyshot jumped in to help her against The Capitalist, Arhra began to revise her decision about existential hatred. She managed to avoid falling over with the surprising tremor that followed the immense impact of the fatcat and then fell silent as she heard Skyshot's suggestion. She began to reconsider her revision.

"Are you crazy?!" Arhra yelled, brushing Skyshot's arm off her shoulder. "Stop the troll-fruity thingy by giving me internal hemorraging?! We all know those spells require a line of effect, which we definately don't have if we just want ot hit the troll-thing and besides, does it actually have anything to hemorrage?"

"We need something to weaken it, or somehow strengthen me against it like..." Lumaes cried out his statement about The Capitalist's 'weakness'. Arhra's eyes went blank for a moment as she seized on one particular word. "That's it!" she crowed, "Exercise! If I can stop it forcing my stomach out, it should start crushing itself to death!" Her eyes sighted on where Thod sat, his tree by his side, watching the battle with mild interest as he munched on its fruit.

"Keep the fatso busy!" Arhra yelled at Skyshot as she leapt into action, trying to zig zag across the battle field and get there. The Capitalist was already rising back to his feet and plowing forwards, Thorque getting just trampled under as he tried to take a bite out of his flank.

With the epxlosion of the sacred relic Mauve had somehow come by, The Capitalist gave a roar of rage, veering to attack her. By the looks of things, exercise wasn't the answer to The Capitalist. If anything, he looked fatter.

As Rei plunged down at Bruticus, he stepped backwards, just far enough to dodge. The android created a small crater as she hit, Bruticus shielding his face from the flying dust and then viciously jerking his knee forward. He intended to knock Rei over and then wrestle her into submission. Blindness was much less of a problem when that close.

OOC: Just something about the mental pciture of the two of them rolling around in the dirt grappling struck me as funny.

[Bailey]

Syttulg continued happily blasting away at his surroundings, now believing himself to be at a target range in a carnival.

Bolts went at The, Skyshot, a couple trolls, and a hillside.

"Wheee! I won! I choooooose... That Teddy Bear!"

Syttulg pranced over to Mauve, picked her up, and run back to Thog and his tree.

[Skyshot]

Keep the fatso busy!"On it!" Skyshot whirled around to face The. "Okay, you gluttonous abomination, I'll show you -- YEOW!" For a split second, Skyshot felt like his entire body had been set on fire. He slumped backwards, Nightstorm hanging loosely from his right hand.

"Owww." He looked at his daggers. The cloth under them was blackened; he'd been hit with a lightning bolt for sure. Who was shooting lightning at him? No time to worry about that now. "Cure serious." That dealt with most of the bodily damage, although the pain still lingered. No time to worry about that, either. There was a solar eclipse overhead he had to -- wait, solar eclipse?

He looked up at the looming monstrosity of The Capitalist.

"Oh, hi." Something grabbed his aching ankle. "Ow." He felt a jerk, and then that "flying through the air" sensation one feels when one is flying through the air. He looked down (relative to his muddled axes) and saw a vine wrapped around his ankle. "Ahh. Should I be thanking you?"

The sound of his body crashing into a tree trunk echoed throughout the jungle.

"I'll take that as a...ow." He slid down the rough surface and landed face down. "This...has been a very bad day..."

[Hawk]

Hawk's eyes jerked open as he returned to consiousness. The first thing he felt upon awakening was a splitting headache. The second thing he felt was the vines that had been slowly trying to constrict him.

"WHOW"!

He acted upon pure instinct, forcing wind beneath his wings and leaping verticaly into the air. Fortunatley the vines had been moving slowly and hadn't gotten a good hold, plus his sudden velocity had wrenched him out of its light hold over him. He beat his wings furiously, despite the pain in his head, trying to get high above the battle where it was safe. Well, safish. Once he was high enough to limit his chances of being immediately attacked he looked around. That was when he registered the fact that he could see again. It seemed either the knock on the head had done him a world of good, or whatever it was that had affected his vision wasn't as effective against him as it was against some of the others. If only. He then saw winged, pink elephants flying past him, while he began to shake uncontrollably. He also felt extremely nauseus.

"Ohh this can't be good", he thought to himself as a wave of dizzyness came over him (which should never happen to a hawk really). Then his hearing gave out while he puked up the chicken from before. As he had been flying above the others while this happened, he could only assume that someone below was going to get a very messy surprise very soon, most likey that muave mage he had seen before. She looked like the kind of person this type of shit usually happened to.

"Heads up"!!, he called out.

One good thing came of this however; since he had now regurgitated most of the offending material from his stomach, the effects he had been suffering from suddenly stopped, for the most part at least (there were still a couple of pink elephants flying around though). His hearing was back, as was his sight, albeit at a slightly reduced level.

Feeling better, Hawk scanned the battle below for a viable target and noticed the troll from before (easily noticable by the large purple bruise between his shoulder blades that still hadn't healed fully). Hawk took aim and fired a much larger blast than before at the creature. Hawk's sight was still noticable weakened though and his accuracy was off. The blast struck at the base of a tree, shattering it into splinters. It fell sideways and towards the group.

"Eerrrrr, heads up....again!!"

[Mauve Mage]

The Capitalist roared in fury as he saw the sheer destructive power of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch upon stately Capitalist Manor.

"Well THAT got your attention, hmm?" Mauve said mockingly. The Capitalist ran towards her, practically foaming at the mouth in his rage. Hmm. Maybe she overdid it a bit? Nah. Mauve grinned and pulled out her knives. "Come on Fat Man, let's see if you're made of anything more substantial than jello."

She bent forwards slightly in a battle-ready crouch, with an almost demonic grin on her face. Tarrin had taken care of the troll that was sneaking up behind her, so now it was just Mauve and Capitalist. This was going to be the kick-assingest fight of "might versus magic" in the known UNIVERSE!! She was going to--

WHAM!!!!

The wind was knocked out of her as something attacked her from the side, lifting her off the ground and carrying her off. Mauve almost dropped her knives in her surprise, but she managed to keep her grip. She turned as best she could, ready to do some serious stabbing.

"What the...?" she sputtered, looking at her kidnapper. "Syttulg! What the hell are you doing?! Lemmie go!"

It should be noted at this point that the upside of her being abducted by Newb was that she missed becoming the target of Hawk's... er... accident. Sure, she was usually the victim of things like this, but the fates were kind enough to let her escape this particular humiliation. She'd probably pay for it later, though. That's just how things worked.

Mauve wasn't in the mood to feel grateful for this, though. Syttulg kept ranting on an on about teddy bears, and Mauve was getting farther from the fight and closer to the holy shrapnel that was the remnants of her holy hand grenade.

"Syttulg, put me down before I have to start harming you!" she warned. When this... ahem... subtle approach did not work, Mauve held an open palm towards his face.

"THUNDER!!" she snarled, and a bolt of lightning arched down from above to literally shock some sense into him. Mauve made her escape and started running back to the fight. "Sorry about the electrical damage!" Mauve called back sweetly, as though she hadn't just threatened him with bodily harm.

She was almost back to the others when something large and trollish stepped in front of her. It growled menacingly, tapping its wooden club against a meaty open palm. It didn't look like it wanted to chat.

"Fine," Mauve said. "Fine. This works too." An orb of electricity formed around her fist, and she readied herself for an awesome troll-versus-mage fight that might help her relieve some of her irritation--

"Eerrrrr, heads up....again!!" Before Mauve or the troll could fully comprehend this warning from above, a huge tree came from seemingly out of nowhere and slammed down onto the troll, crushing it instantly and impaling it with its sharp branches. Mauve was knocked over by some of the longer branches, but she was otherwise unharmed.

"Wha..." She looked at the tree. She looked at the troll. She looked up at the sky. Then back at the troll. Her eyebrows knitted.

"DAMMIT!!!!" she yelled aloud.

[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.

[Hawk]

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.

[Mauve Mage]

Mauve was knocked to the ground from a combination of being shoved away by Flare and being on unsteady footing when the Capitalist hit the ground, sending out a ring of shockwaves as he impacted with the earth-- and Flare and Tarrin.

The vines and roots on the ground worked furiously to entagle her while she was down, but the mage refused to cooperate. She was no longer in the mood for an impressive show-offish display of magic. Now all she wanted to do was harm something. Badly. Being pushed around and knocked over so many times in one battle tended to have that effect on her.

The vines wrapped around her wrist and pulled, and Mauve pulled back as hard as she could. When the vines were sufficiently taut, she used her free hand to slash across them with her knife. Roots unearthed themselves and winched tight over the top of her foot, trying to trip her, but Mauve had had enough of falling on her butt for right now, and set the roots alight with a word.

She burned and slashed as she inched forwards, intent on doing something-- anything-- to cause the Capitalist some serious pain. She wasn't sure what, but she'd figure something out.

"Hey! Get off of them!" Mauve snarled to the Capitalist, struggling with a vine that was trying to throw her back like it had done to Skyshot. "Or I'll set your whole house on fire. Er... what's left of it, anyway."

[Arhra]

Unfortunately, Syttulg was in for an unfortunate surprise with his attack on Thod. It was like hitting a muscular rock. While Syttulg strained his newfound bulging biceps in an attempt to bring the hulking troll down, Thod seemed to be in the middle of deep comtemplation. This sudden change of events had momentarily bewildered him.

What passed for his brain registered the stinging sensation caused by the electrical discharge. He felt Syttulg trying to budge him. He looked at his fist, then at the treeman, then at his fist again. So very, very close to a break-through. With this conundrum before him, Thod wanted a fruit to mnch on while he 'thought' things over. That was the last piece falling into piece. A vague memory of rage at Syttulg stirred.

Thod gave another bellow of rage and pushed his superior size down on Syttulg, forcing him the ground. If Syttulg was strong, then Thod was strongerer. Syttulg had critically underestimated the gulf in strength that separated them. He might have eaten a few of the fruits, but a troll is naturally stronger and only The Capitalist knew how long Thod had been eating the wretched fruit for. Pinning Syttulg with one meaty hand, Thod raised a mighty fist to pulverise his foe.

Meanwhile, The Capitalist seemed quite happy to just sit there, crushing Flare and Tarrin to death. More than happy in fact - he was laughing. Such a merry sound hadn't been heard in quite some time.

Arhra was not laughing. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if the fruits would do anything when, of course, they did. However, she was dismayed to find it was not the effect she wanted. Her body thinned, limbs attenuating as muscle vanished. If given a mirror, she'd have sworn her head looked bigger, although that was probably just an optical illusion caused by the weakening of her body. She would also curse the fact of how much her waif-form made the unnatural bloating of her stomach more obvious. Blows to vanity aside, the pressure intensified as her weakened innards were less able to hold back the troll-fruit-thing's growth.

It all came together very fast, "Damn you Syttulg!" Arhra cried. "You and your accursed reversewood! A plague of poxes upon you!" While the general worsening of her physique was obvious, Arhra wasn't sure if the consumption of the magic saturated fruit had engendered increased intellectual development. She resolved to contemplate it at a later date.

Still, she told herself, all she needed to do was remove the piece of reverse wood from the tree and the problem would be solved. She'd just have to eat more of the fruit to overcome how she'd gone the wrong way. She gingerly walked over and began trying to tug the sliver of wood out of the tree. The fact she'd normally have ease doing so didn't help her temper.

Bracing herself against the tree with a foot, she yanked it free, tumbling back with the sliver loosely gripped in one hand. Unfortunately, a troll had broken off from the general melee and decided she'd be easy pickings. The next thing Arhra knew, a club caught her off balance from behind. She fell in a collapsed tangle of limbs and felt a sudden jab in her arm. Glancing and seeing the reversewood jabbed in her am, she didn't even have time to groan before it took effect.

Oddly, it did not alter her essential chaotic nature. She was far too deeply tied to Chaos for a reversal to hated Law to be possible. However, her current incarnation drained energy and this inverison meant several bad things for her.

She suddenly was glowing, an white aura that bleached everything about her of colour save for her eyes, as she released energy, force-feeding it into her surroundings. Arhra struggled to clamber to her feet, the brush catching at her as it surged with growth. She tried to tear the reversewood off her, but it too was coming alive, wooden sliver sprouting and curling about her arm like a vine. Her clawing at it was useless - tear off one coiled root and another two were creeping back in its place.

The troll charged her and suddenly reeled as it neared her. The sudden pulse of energy sent it stumbling back, momentarily stunned but it looked healthier, filled with vitality.

Arhra was trying to consider the merits of fighting enemies that got stronger by being near her as opposed to running for it when she heard a tear. Looking down at the source, her stomach was peeking out from a rip in the bottom of her top. It was swelling with sudden speed - she could see it bloating out before her eyes. Cursing herself on having picked out a tight shirt today to distract her from full on panic, Arhra tore at the plants surging upwards and weaving around her, basking in the vitality she radiated. She was getting caged in.

[Bailey]

As Syttulg was forced to the ground, he snarled. He folded his legs in to bring his knees to his chest and kicked out to throw the troll into the air.

You see, this was the thing about a wrestling match between two beasts each capable of lifting at least five times the weight of the other. A pin was very difficult to maintain.

Syttulg stared up at Thog as gravity brought him careening back down towards the treeman in a screaming rage and rolled to the side to avoid being smashed to bits.

[Flarecobra]

I, meanwhile, coated the front of The. I was still alive, though in my position, I was NOT in the best of moods. As The Capitolist laughed, I had the craziest of ideas. As I was able, I tried to crawl out from under him, slowly reforming on his back. All this took about ten agonizing minutes, but then I had sufficent mass to try my plan. "Ok Fatso, EAT THIS!" I screamed out, shooting into The Capitolist's mouth.

[POS Industries]

"...and it kinda smelled like bacon."

Jimmy the Intern listened quietly as the disembodied voice of Rei concluded her explanation about just how she could have suddenly found herself so magicially deaf. Nodding slowly, Jimmy began to consider the issue.

"Okay, magic baconfruit. Right," he breathed, running through as many possible solutions he could think of, "Is there anyone else there that can use magic? Like a dispel, um, spell or something?"

"Ummm," Rei replied somewhat nervously, "I think there's maybe a couple people that have spells like that, but they're all a bit busy trying to not die."

The intern sighed. "Ah, well.... Wait. So, this magic, it's the sort of thing you might find in, like, a role-playing game, right?"

Rei considered this, the idea that perhaps all of this was just some game played out in the imaginations of a gaggle of lonely internet hermits, starved for any sort of interaction with the outside world. That she herself was merely a fictional character in a fictional world and, worse, what if all her actions were controlled by some sick, twisted male player? Lord only knows what a pervert like that might do with her rather well-designed frame. The disgusting possibilities flooded her mind, worsened by the concept that everyone she knows and everywhere she's been isn't real, that everyone is just a bunch of puppet for the deranged amusment of--

--Deciding that now was better spent working on a plan to alleviate her current deafness, Rei placed the current train of thought into a sub-directory marked "Philosphy" for later consideration.

"So, role playing game, huh?" she asked Jimmy with marked curiosity, "Please, continue."

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

As the android's fist collided with the earth, Rei kept her gaze locked on Bruticus as he attempted to deliver a knee to her head. Her right hand buried in the ground, she immediately moved to block the goon's attack with her left while exapanding her gravity field to envelope Bruticus as well.

The ground around them began to crumble under their combined weight as Rei, legs still in the air from her last attack, sent a spin kick of her own aimed directly for her opponent's head.

[Hawk]

Previously on NPF...
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...

Hawk flew back torwards the forest and into the treeline, just as a few of those flying pink elephants past him by, going in the opposite direction.

"Wierd..."

No time to think about that now though... the forest was trying to kill him! As he past the first few trees, branches whipped out at him and Hawk was forced to dodge and weave his way through. They attacked from all sides and because he was busy trying to avoid the blows, he overshot his target, which was a tree to his left.

"Damn it!!" No worries, he would just have to circle around and approach from the other direction. But he had to keep moving, these branches were vicious. He just hoped he had the time...

He continued on before wheeling around, still dodging swipes from the trees, as he returned back to his target. One branch got a lucky blow, drawing blood from Hawk's forehead, but it was only minor. As he appraoched the tree he rose higher until he could see over the top of the tree and back towards the battlefield (not to mention, out of the way of those branches). Directly ahead of him were his foes. The two trolls he had tripped just moments ago were now facing each other, having decided to turn on each other after one had knocked the other to the ground. Yes, they were that stupid!

The closest troll had his back to Hawk, his "friend" facing towards him. They appeared to be having a bit of a shoving match to show their annoyance and Hawk knew he had to work quickly, before it became an out-right fight and he lost his opportunity. Looking down at the base of the tree in front of him, Hawk began directing a Gale of wind towards it. He drew in the wind from all around and began channeling it in the same direction. His opponents were now locked in a wrestling match, each trying to knock the other over. The Gale grew quickly and soon the tree began to bend. Wood splintered and weak branches and leaves were blown from it as the Gale grew in strength.

*CRACK*

The tree was getting close to breaking point now. The trolls were getting more aggressive now. Strangely (and fortunately, for this plan to work) they were still standing in their same positions. They hadn't even moved!

*CRACKCRACK*

The tree was nerly over. The Gale was monstrously powerful now. The trolls were still scuffling, locked together and un-movable.

*CRACK!!!*

The tree snapped! It was immediately whipped into the air by the Gale, heading straight for the trolls, as it tumbled over and over before...

*SQWELCH!*

It peirced the first troll in the back, traveled through and out of his chest, before finally impaling the second. Now both trolls had a fairly hefty tree impaling them both and pinning them together. For a moment nothing happened. Both trolls stopped their fight and took a few seconds to register what had happened. Then they both roared out in fury and pain and began to try and push the tree out of themselves. Unfortunately for them both, their stupidity didn't allow them to realise that they were both pushing in opposite directions and hence, got absolutely nowhere. It almost looked like a huge saw, as one of them would push one way, only for the other to push it back straight away! Consequently this was not good for the innards of both creatures, even with rapid healing. Blood poored out with every push, along with bits of mashed and ground-up insides. Now, losing most of ones own blood is most definately NOT a good thing and soon both creatures collapsed out of exshaustion.

Hawk flew over (feeling slightly drained) and looked down at them, admiring his "work". He wasn't sure if the were entirely dead yet. The tree would inhibit healing for a while and they would need to produce more blood and re-make their insides but they would be back eventually. This, was where his plan ultimately failed! He sent a psychic message to the group at-large:

"So... anybody got any bright ideas on how we can actually kill these things?!"

[Tarrin]

Tarrin was knocked out, Well it was dark, warm, stuffy and smelly like being knocked out...Wait a sec smelly?

No Tarrin was still awake however the emence bulk of the capatalist was crushing the air from even his form, Tarrin struggled for breath as what oxygen that was trapped under the behemoth started to run out.

His mind racing as panic set in Tarrin searched his memory for something anything he could use to get out of this predicament.

[Inbred Chocobo]

IC looked at the scene. "I take a coffee break, and you people do all this while I am away?" IC said to whoever was in range. In truth, IC really wasn't sure who was in range, so many people were fighting so many things. He decided the fat lube of tard known as the Capitalist would be best to go for.

The forest seemed to not like him as he walked through. A branch or two tried to hit him in the face, and quite a few roots tried to trip him up. Though either by ripping whatever came at him, or by ducking or stepping over it, he went through unscaved. He had an evil bunny with glowing eyes come at him, but he just punted it for a field goal, and had won the team the game from that 90 yard kick.

It didn't matter anyway, he stood next to the fat man. He looked at it, trying to figure out how best to hurt him. He couldn't think of anything else besides squashing him, so that means he would have to take it back into the mansion, then just collapse that on him. Sounded good enough, so IC grabbed a handful of fat, and made to drag the fat capitalist out of the woods.

[Arhra]

"Ok Fatso, EAT THIS!" Flare cried definately, hurling herself at The Capitalists mouth. And he did. An interesting, glutinous, slightly rubbery texture that reminded him of jelly and, indeed, so did the taste. On the Eatable NPFers scale he'd rate Flare a 7 out of 10. She'd go well with ice cream.

Of course, this comtemplation was interrupted as Inbred tried to grab The Capitalist and drag him off. He rolled, moving to flatten and engulf Inbred beneaht his green bulk while keeping Tarrin pinned. A number of brnaches jabbed into him as he moved, curiously late in their exciting chase of Steel. Elicting a grunt of pain from him, it wasn't enough to stop him.

As Thod slammed down, Syttulg rolled to the side, avoiding being smashed from the massive impact. But, testament to Thod's absurd strength, he created a crater on his landing, sneding out a shockwave of rippled earth that caught Syttulg, tumbling him along the ground. Thod evidentally decided that this was fun. With a smile plastered on his juice smeared mouth, he jumped again, looking to land with both heavy feet on Syttulg and crush him into a bloody smear.

In the battle of the corporate enforcers, things were looking tense. Bruticus staggered as the gravity field expanded to include him and Rei, one hand the only part of her in contact with the ground spun her legs around to kick his head. But the blinded bodyguard was already responding to her block of his knee. Both feet back on the ground, he let his upper body go limp, letting his knees buckle too, falling backwards and below the level of the kick. after his torso was almost horizontal, he kicked off slightly, bringing legs off the ground. Elbows landed heavily on the ground and then Bruticus snapped forwards with a whiplash motion, supported on his forearms his entire body put behind a double footed kick at Rei's torso.

Arhra was holding her own for the moment by balacing explosion with implosion. While her stomach bulged more by the second, she'd allowed vines to coil around her waist, constricting her. This leafy corset was slowing things down but it did seem to be opening the distinct possibility of suffocation.

Trying to fight off vines that crushed her lungs or tried to cocoon her with increasing shortness of breath, Arhra decided magic was the best option. While relatively weak for her at present, it could be versatile at least. Going back to her original plan she started to pull together mana and then spoke, "Strengt-" She cut her words short. It was quite possible that her chaos magic would enhance the energy release which would only make things worse. With the gathered magic clammering to be released, Arhra sought a different word to shape it, wishing she had a thesaurus on her.

"Thrive." she gasped out, focusing the spell on herself. A tiny, puny thread of green energy whispered out of her mouth. Arhra's heart sank. There was something she had not accounted for though. It suddenly began to erupt into thick tendrils that threaded back into her with a tingling sensation as her aura fed power into it. Arhra's heart rose a little. Her plans were so great that things she hadn't even thought of were included. She could feel the spell working its fibers into her, fortifying flesh and bone. But, the tingling sensation continued to strengthen, building to maddening levels. Arhra's heart sank again.

OOC: Probably not the best I've written, but should keep things moving. I'm not sur ehow I missed Steel's attack before. I do like Bruticus's move though. I doubt its physically possible, but it does look good.

[Bailey]

Syttulg managed to get one knee up in front of himself and used this leverage to leap forwards into a tree before Thog landed.

He then used two trees like tweezers and picked up some stinging nettles, which he promptly threw at Thog.

[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.

[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 Mage]

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!"

[Hawk]

Hawk watched as The swelled up... and up... and up.

"Arhra's gonna be pissed!!", he sighed. No doubt HE would get the blame for this, just like last time.

It was then that The exploded, in a shower of guts, slime, and trolls. "Oh crap!", he sighed again, as he turned and fled back towards the forest in an attempt to outrun the wall of exploded Capitalist. He ducked behind a tree and landed hard on the ground just as the mass of.... bits, caught up and were promptly halted by the tree. He cautiously looked around the side of his shield and saw Arhra standing there several metres away and looking murderous. Hawk ducked back behind his hiding place, keeping out of sight.

"Think I'll just stay here for a few minutes and re-couperate", he thought to himself, as yet again, some flying pink elephants flew past his vision before they melted into non-existance.

[Inbred Chocobo]

IC stood under some fruit tree. For defeating the evil Capitalist, IC decided he needed some victory fruit. He took a bite, and chewed for a second. Then spat it out on the ground. "Nasty peice of crap." IC mumbled under his breathe in fustration as he tossed the fruit over his shoulder. And then the fruit just so happened to hit Thod in the face as he chased after Newb.

[Mauve Mage]

"Well, I'm glad that's over," Mauve muttered, brushing away the vines that seemed to have gone into shock as soon as their gelatenous master kicked the proverbial bucket. The plants twitched slightly and the whispering started back up again, but they did nothing else to try and stop her. "Getting our asses kicked by a Jelly-Jiggler wannabe and an army of plantlife isn't exactly an ego-booster."

Mauve moodily kicked a branch out of the way and looked out into the forest, searching for the way to the cayatid and the end of this part of the "adventure." The path to their left looked rather promising.

"Okay," Mauve said. "Let's get out of this place. The stench of baconfruit is getting on my nerves. Somebody grab Ahrha and let's go." She waved vaguely in the direction she guessed they should go, and started to walk off into the forest.

[Skyshot]

The sonic boom roused Skyshot out of his nigh-catatonic daze. After a minute of getting his wits back together, he looked up.

"Ugh...did we win?" He scanned the field and noted the disgusting remains of his opponents and unconscious leader. "Yeah, I'll call that a win. Cure Serious." He immediately felt better, at least physically. "Well, off we go. Whoa, hang on." He searched through his gear and took out all the baconfruit. "I don't think I want this anymore." He immediately threw all of them as far into the forest as possible. "Let's hope the trolls go for that." He set off after Mauve Mage, hoping nothing bad could come of it.

[Lumaes]

Lumaes struggled out of the ruined mess that was once a miracle of primitivism in engineering. After squirming out from the broken timbers he took a quick few bounds to escape the destroyed machine, which promptly caught fire.
“Damn that stupid bird”
The spectre made his way unsteadily over to the unpleasant remains of The Capitalist, tut-tutting dramatically,
“You were too fat for this world”, he uttered in a melancholy tone before promptly snatching the abandoned stove-pipe hat and settling it on his own head. He grinned – apparently very pleased with this new acquisition. Only when he was very sure he had it perched just so did he turn to examine the rest of the battlefield.

The first thing he noticed was the retreating figures of Mauve and Skyshot, although truly in his current drugged state they actually appeared as two large floating cubes with a beautiful mural of bizarrely Mauve and Skyshot-like amphibians on each side.
“Hoy there! You are going the wrong way! You mustn’t go that way, visiting hours are over and the nurse likes to stick unwelcome visitors with her hypodermic needles. You must come this way”, so saying the shadowy figure hopped along a string of invisible (to all but him), paving tiles. As if to forestall criticism he cracks his knuckles, sighing tiredly,
“I do work here remember? I forgot the way but I’m off-shift now so I remember perfectly. Did you ever hear of a worker getting lost once they weren’t being paid to find the tax, accounting and acquisitions office? No you haven’t!”; the particular vehemence in his tone showed that he would brook no arguments.
“So clean off that ink and follow!”
He began to hopscotch off, hat swaying atop his head as he hopped from one fictional suspended platform to another.

[Flarecobra]

From inside the hat, something squirmed, and out came a small orange blob. Already there was a small pile forming not too far away from the remains of The Capitalist. A weak voice could be heard saying "Guys? Skyshot? Mauve? Little help please?"

[Steel Shadow]

Steel was not in a good mood. One of the turn offs of flying was that it made it difficult to sheild without warning. And so he was now covered in capitalist remains from the neck down.
"Gross" he groaned as he wiped the ooze off. He wiped faster when parts of it started moving. "I don't suppose anyone has a repair clothing spell?" he asked, noticing the state his clothes were in. His numerous battles had taken quite a toll on them.
He lowered himself to just above the ground and tenatively prodded it with his foot. When no vines burst from the ground and throttled him he decided it was probably safe to start walking. He stepped down and promptly tripped over a root he could of sworn hadn't been there 2 seconds ago.
"Ok, that's it. Lets just get this over with." Steel muttered as he pushed himself back to his feet. He stalked over to Arhra, slung her over his shoulder and followed Muave and Skyshot whith the determination of someone who thinks things can't get any worse.

[Mauve Mage]

"Guys? Skyshot? Mauve? Little help please?"

Mauve stopped in her tracks as she heard someone call her name.

"Buh?" she asked intelligently, looking down at the orange slime scattered around the remnants of the battlefield. She had almost forgotten Flarecobra's current state. "Oh, right. Sorry 'bout that."

She crouched down, very carefully avoiding coming in contact with anything that was gooey and green or orange.

"That can't have been a fun experience," Mauve remarked to Flarecobra. "Lesseee..." She tapped her fingertips against her chin, contemplating. "Oh, I know. Regen." She extended a hand towards the largest pile of Flare-slime, and after a moment, all of the slime bits scattered around the area began to glow as they were drawn towards it like magnets. This would speed up Flare's reformation, with any luck.

Mauve looked over her shoulder at the slightly insane Lumaes. He claimed to know where he was going... but then again, he also claimed they were covered in ink and were likely to get stabbed by angry nurses. That kind of thing tends to ruin one's credibility.

"So I take it we're all still lost," she remarked flatly.

[Tarrin]

Tarrin stood, his combat form sliping from him like a cloak.
"Wow that guy was one heavy son of a.." he didn't finnish the sentence
Looking around he noticed Mauve helping flare assemble and a few of the others starting to wander off in another direction.

Being the gentelmen he is he waited with mauve while their gelatonus comrade pulled themself together.

[Flarecobra]

"Thanks Mauve, though you know that it's not toxic, and safe to touch....." I said, my voice sounding a bit stronger as more of me reassembled. "And yes, it was quite painful."

[Lumaes]

Boney fingers snagged a wiggly orange grub, holding it sharply between thumb and forefinger. Lumaes fixed the ungracious little joy-rider with an imperious glare, fierce fingers refusing to allow Mauve's spell to draw the thing out of his grasp. He was not very happy.
"Little grimey, grimbly thing - I do not like you", he informed the orange blob very matter of factly, keeping a pointed hold on the wriggly contaminant he fixed his unblinking stare on Mauve.
"Lost? Lost? Didn't you hear me say that I knew the way! Clear the wax out of your ears little Miss spinny-box or I will have to box them. Just like your dear-ole-mum should have!"
He dusted himself off, swooning slightly as a little of the brain-poison passed through his system.
"If you are all finished being goldbrickers and layabouts you will all be following me to the Caryatid...now" There was thunder in that last word.

[POS Industries]

A handkerchief just wasn't going to do the job this time.

Wiping her blood-soaked right hand on her suit jacket, Rei rejoined the rest of the group as they made their way to the next fight. The result of her most recent action had managed to remove most of the blood from her hand, but it had the unfortunate after-effect of leaving her jacket throroughly stained. Taking this into account, she removed dark grey (or, at least, formerly dark grey) jacket and casually discarded it. Feeling what could be described as a slight twinge as she removed the soiled article of clothing, Rei paused for a moment to rub her neck, which had taken some minor damage from Bruticus' foolhardy attempt at an overdramatic finishing move.

Running a quick internal diagnostic, the android concluded that the damage wasn't at all serious and opted to loosen her tie and undo the topmost button of her blouse to allow for better mobility before hoisting the unconscious Arhra over her shoulder as the party moved onward.

"Sweet dreams, Admiral Arhra," Rei said in her usual perky tone, giving the comatose girl a quick, bone-crushing squeeze, "Have a nice nap and you'll wake up feeling better than ever! And away we go!"

[Hawk]

".......uhh???!!!" Hawks eyes snapped open. "Oh damn, I fell asleep! How long was I out?", he asked no-one in particular. He looked back round the tree, and saw that most of the group was moving off and that Arhra had apparently collapsed and was being carried away. "Well looks like I'm off the hook then", he again said to no-one.

He got himself airborne and flew after the others. He was already feeling much better after his quick kip and it appeared the effects of the food had finally worn off, no more bloody flying pink elephants for him!

"So, onwards my friends! To battle and world-saving victory!!" He paused a moment. "Hey, anyone mind if I perch on their shoulder or something? You guys all walk to slow for me to fly and it takes up more energy than you'd think, flying everywhere all the time", he asked the group.

[Flarecobra]

"Damnit Lumaes! Let go of that!" I yelled at him, noticing that he had a bit of me caught, and wasn't letting go. Then I remembered that, since it was a part of me, I could try to make it more liquidy. As my density lessoned, it became more transparant, looking less gel-ish, and more like a thin orange kool-aid. A couple more blobs joined back into me, and I could at least take on a humonoid form now.