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« on: January 26, 2012, 01:34:02 AM »
Well, this went in a totally different direction than I thought it would... all buildign towards a bigger plot though, I promise!
CHAPTER THREE: COCOON, FLYING LESSONS AND FEET
Frono didn’t bother to ask what the beeping sounds coming from Doodler’s jacket was. He had other things to worry about, like the continuous hammering of the pub door.
“Well, nothing is going to happen if you just stand there,” said Aero, tapping the side of his leg with one of his hook swords.
“Frono, your test can’t begin until you open the door,” said Doodler, taking the watch out of her pocket and viewing the stats on screen:
Aero: 1000HP/3000PP, Doodler: 2000HP/3000PP, Frono: 50HP/10PP.
As he walked towards the door, Frono clutched the cube in his hands even tighter, feeling for the first time the pulsing edges against his skin. He knew it must be time to prove his worth as a Raider…he just wasn’t sure if he was ready. The door came closer, Frono unaware that his feet were moving him towards it. His pulse quickened with each step, the knocking continuing to grow louder. Begging for distractions, Frono heard the skid of the wooden bar stools, knowing Doodler and Aero had gotten up and were preparing for battle. The door was now in front of him. Frono took a deep breath, put his hand on the handle, tugged and revealed—
No one.
Frono stood, shocked. He looked around the outside of the pub, taking in the European design of the buildings around them, looking for the knocker.
“Ahem.”
Startled, Frono looked down and saw a funny looking black shape, its eyes just visible under a black mask.
“Congratulations!” said the blob. Frono backed into the pub to observe the shape from a distance. As he did so, he saw more tiny shadows appear on either side of the door.
“You are our 1,000,000th customer!” The semi humanoid thing said, stepping closer to Frono, crossing the threshold.
“Frono! ATTACK!” cried Doodler, rushing towards the door. Aero braced himself for impact.
“You are our 1,000,000th customer!” cried the Spam Ninja just as loudly, his comrades now rushing into the pub by the dozen. “Click here, little raider, to claim your prize! DEATH!!!”
With those final words, the lead Spam Ninja leaped at Frono’s face, mouth opening Pac Man style to reveal rows of sharp teeth. Before he could touch Frono, Doodler knocked the spam ninja to the side with all her might, barely missing Frono’s nose. As the ninja was hurled through the air, he started disintegrating into little black bits of binary dust. There was a moment’s pause.
And then all the spam ninjas attacked.
Zooming in from every crevice they could reach when Frono opened the door, they rushed the elder members first. Some melded together to form larger Spams, others continued to talk in grated commercialized nonsense. The first batch that attacked Doodler were quickly dispatched as she used her pencil in a combo of bat and spear- batting away ninjas in droves and stabbing individuals with her sharpened lead. At the same time, Aero was using a technique he’d invented himself. Grabbing two or three ninjas with his hooks, he threw them back their comrades, forcing them to meld and chopping off their heads as large Spams before they could disentangle themselves. Soon, the pub was littered with the binary dust, and it soon moved up into the air as Doodler and Aero continued moving around the room and each other, getting rid of as many ninjas as possible.
Frono, awestruck by the display, shook himself off and began punching any ninja he could reach- it was his only means of defense. The ninjas disintegrated, but only after Frono had punched them two or three times and he felt his exhaustion for so little payoff take effect.
Suddenly, the ninjas changed tactics and halted their whole assault.
Slowly, as a collective unit, they turned to Frono.
“HOST. HOST.HOST. HOST. HOST.”
The chant began, all the ninjas moving towards Frono, like many tiny, dangerous lions cornering their prey. Frono clutched at his cube which was pulsating even harder now and had started to glow again.
The ninjas sprang and before Doodler or Aero could reach him, Frono was engulfed with the oncoming spam ninjas, who had started meshing into a cocoon around their new host.
“FRONO!” cried Doodler and Aero, who began to chip away at the ever expanding wall of spam, but were stopped as three hulkian SPAMS pulled them away from their efforts. A barrage of blows were thrown, the two members eventually jumped back from the attack. Doodler’s left arm was bleeding and had a shuriken in her right thigh; Aero’s head and mouth were bleeding, but was otherwise uninjured. The pile was so large now that Frono’s frame wasn’t even discernable.
----
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, the giant tube’s cap had burst with a tower of white energy. Nyosan, Toasty and Lego all stared at the tube, as a clanking, metallic sound began to issue from it. While Lego and Toasty had put themselves in a battle ready mode, Nyosan could only stare as, from within the tube, a giant, mechanical claw extended out of the encasing. Another claw appeared soon after and both arms lifted, revealing inch by inch the fifty foot tall, bronze colored, completely terrifying death robot that emerged. Its glowing red eyes focused on the three warriors and Nyosan could only just make out an insignia on the robot’s forehead: 4Kids Inc.
“Oh for the love of..” said Nyosan, disbelieving, yet scared to death. “Lego, you don’t seriously expect us to take this thing out, do you?”
“Of course not,” said Lego, unsheathing his katana. “I expect YOU to.”
“Wha—,” yelped Nyosan but before he could finish his sentence, a giant explosion sent Nyosan flying to the right. As he flew through the air, he saw the giant robot had extended his arms and expanded several panels, revealing all kinds of guns, from Gatling guns to missile launchers.
Nyosan slammed into a tree, got up and started running just in time to miss another rocket exploding behind him. He started running back towards Toasty, knowing that his best chance was to stick with the guy with the long range weapon.
As he reached him, Toasty let off several shots, all of them connecting to the nuts and bolts that kept the guns attached to the clawed arms. Several of the robot’s scarier looking guns fell into the sea, but the robot was undeterred. Another rocket was let off, but with one shot, Toasty caught it in midair, causing an explosion and smoke cloud in between the two parties. As Nyosan gazed around, he noticed Lego was nowhere to be seen.
“Ahead of you!” called Toasty from his perch.
Looking closely, Nyosan could only just make out a green speck on top of the robot, cutting into it with his katana. He had used the smoke cover of Toasty’s midair collision to reach their foe undetected. For now.
“Nyosan! You still have your cube?” asked Toasty, jumping down from the tree.
Nyosan hadn’t let go of it the entire time and only nodded in response.
“Good,” said Toasty, as a green blur whizzed past them, hitting the tree Toasty had just vacated.
“Lego!” Nyosan ran up to him as Toasty raised his gun to take out another few rockets. Lego wasn’t badly hurt, but his forehead was bleeding.
“Nyosan, this is your test,” the green cat said, rather calmly in the newbie’s opinion. “I’ve already cut an entrance for you so you should have a pretty easy time of it,” he explained, taking out his watch.
“An easy time of what? What do I have to do??” demanded Nyosan, and behind him he heard the clanking of large metal. Turning briefly, he saw the robot had decided rockets were useless and was moving on to the automatic weapons.
Turning back to Lego, Nyosan asked again: “What do I have to do?!”
“It’s simple really,” said Lego, opening the watch again. “You’re going to reprogram the robot for our side.”
With that, Nyosan felt himself being lifted by the collar and the seat of his pants . With one epic grunt, Toasty sent Nyosan flying across the ocean, straight through the smoke clouds of the explosions and towards the twenty foot tall death robot.
Toasty: 800HP/1000PP; Lego: 900HP/900PP; Nyosan: 50HP/10PP, -1 Morale.
-----
Nyxy stood and stared at the horrors above herself, Monster, Coryn and Rob, sure she was imagining things. There was no way a giant hand covered in green lit binary code could be ripping open the sky. There was no way the rest of its body was emerging, humanoid in shape, but lacking any facial features except for slightly larger bundles of binary where it’s eyes should be. There was no way it had lowered its 100 foot self to the ground of the city and was now towering over them, menacingly. And now there was no way it was reaching for them, an odd glow starting to form in its hand…
“NYXY! DODGE!!”
Coryn’s yell roused Nyxy and she flew to the left, separating herself from the rest of the group as the hand came down, a beam of green binary code dissolving the street below them into little pieces of disappearing data. Before she could move again, the figure caught her in his hand, raising her up to his height. As she struggled to get out of its grip, Nyxy could feel her cube being pushed uncomfortably into her stomach from her sweater pocket, where she’d put it while climbing the building.
The black behemoth raised Nyxy to eye level (if it had had eyes). Suddenly, a great wave of pain was sent through Nyxy, and she screamed, sure that every nerve of her body was being prodded and pulled. The pain ebbed away as soon as it had come and the giant spoke in a booming voice.
“Nyxy. Status: Newb. Threat Level: Insignificant. Usefulness to Ralph: ZERO.”
With that, the giant threw Nyxy down towards the ground so fast she didn’t have enough time to react. Bracing for he inevitable death, Nyxy covered her head. She didn’t die, however and when she had the strength to comprehend this, she raised her arms and saw Rob had flown down just in time to catch her. Above him, she saw the bursts of energy from Coryn’s swords hit the giant in the head and some sort of zombie like creatures attacking the giant on Monster’s orders, scrolls unraveled and glowing a yellow, haunting color.
“Nice save Rob,” she breathed, Rob flying them to the ground.
“Why thank you,” he said, landing in the same place the original three had arrived in. “now, do you have your cube?”
“Right here,” said Nyxy, reaching into her sweater pocket. But something was wrong. “I don’t believe it!”
“What? What’s worng?”
“My cube is gone!!”
“WHAT?!”
“It must have fallen out as I fell!”
The two stared at each other. Then, at the same time, began running around the blocks, searching desperately for the small cube. Above them, the fight was not going well. Coryn had released several bursts of energy, transported via wormhole around the giant to attack multiple weak points, but without a face, it was hard to tell if the creature felt anything at all. Monster’s ghouls and zombies weren’t doing much better, fighting until their fists and legs dissolved, even resorting to biting the giant, but Monster knew he was wasting too much energy for too little payoff.
Before Monster or Coryn could think of a different strategy, the giant’s body suddenly convulsed, and arms sprouted from the giant’s torso, grabbing Coryn and Monster. Both of them felt the same wave of pain and just as quickly as it had come, the pain left.
“Coryn Sken, Monsterful,” the giant said, his booming voice reaching Nyxy, who hurried her search even more. “Status: Moderator, Hero. Threat Level: Average. Usefulness to Ralph: High. Calculating risk of Absorption..” Coryn and Monster both struggled harder against their kidnapper at these words. “Dammit!!” yelled Coryn.
Below them, Nyxy, had turned and was looking up at the hopeless scene above her. In a moment of desperation yelled: “HEY YOU! BEFORE YOU “ABSORB” THOSE GUYS, MIND TELLING US WHO YOU ARE?!”
The giant looked down at Nyxy, his grip on Coryn and Monster unrelaxing. “Question Understood. Answer in Progress: Start: I am the memory of all things evil. I am the lost hopes and dreams of unwanted artists. I am the torment of various anime and manga forums. I am the disappointment and displeasure of cancelled scanlation websites. I am the embodiment of all things bad, evil and horrible about manga and anime. I am the worshipper of those who would seek to discredit anime and burn manga. I am… VERUS. Master Virus of the darkest points in otaku’s souls. End.”
“Ah. Ok then,” said Nyxy. With that, she turned and ran away.
“Calculating: Coward,” said VERUS, walking towards Nyxy.
Rob, who was still searching for the cube, rose in the air during VERUS’s speech and saw the entire scene unfold. Coryn and Monster were out of action. VERUS was striding towards Nyxy, gaining every second and Nyxy was running towards a building.
“You idiot! He can still reach you in the building, keep running!” he called, flying as fast as he could. “I don’t want to save you a second time!”
But he saw something that made his heart skip a beat: Nyxy wasn’t running at a building, but instead to the side of one, where there was the tiniest glimmer of white…the cube! Nyxy had reached down and grabbed it but before Rob could feel any kind of relief, VERUS’s foot came crashing down on top of her, flattening half a building as he did so.
-END
But to be continued.