Her gaze traced to the Newb, a look of annoyance falling over her.

What the hell are you doing here? You caused me enough pain with your damn Blue Magic. Then when you separated...god...do you KNOW how annoying it is dealing with a problem like that? Don't answer.

Her glowing hand went to rest on Newb's head, he could feel himself slip away from the real world. Soon, he found himself in the ethereal realm, the swirling lights and beauty sending a sense of awe through him.

Alright, let's start.

She spoke another word, creating a glyph that embedded itself in her hand. She dove it into his chest and a sudden writhing went over him. He could feel three in mind personas being ripped away from their holding place and formed together.

There, that's good enough for now.

And with a wave of her hand she and the newly formed Newb returned to the physical realm.

The door opened, it's numerous mystical, magical, and technological defenses gave way one after another. Kyuubi and the Kamen entered calmly, seeing the inside of the room for the first time. Or, at least the Kamen was.

It was a dark room lit only by the many monitors, and a few well placed red LED displays saying "Warning", "Intruders!" and "Danger! DANGER Will Robinson! DANGER!"

Along the walls were numerous computer desks with computer technicians typing, using the wall monitors. The technicians were mostly fem, or at least had a female avatar just to not stick out. The biggest monitor hung from the ceiling, and currently allowed Kamen for his viewing pleasure, himself. Kyuubi enjoyed having a good look at himself as well, seeing as this form was rarelly ever used, nor did Sub-Pyros get to look at himself in a mirror.

Sitting in the very back was a man almost completely covered in shadows, who sat in a spinny control chair before a ladder which led even deeper into the area. Kyuubi assumed it wasn't an escape, but felt no need to check it out. Some of life's surprises are best left as surprises. If a flaw could be found, Kyuubi was much more philisophical than Pyros ever was.

What was visible of the leader of this Defense Control, was that he wore a Gaian Army beret, and flickering metal was somewhat visible on a military vest. Obviously, he either found "Army-R-Us" in the Gaian Marketplace cheap, or he took his job seriously. Either way, it mattered little to Kyuubi. All that mattered was that they take three steps forward.

Kyuubi and Kamen took three steps forward, and from both sides the Aides leapt out armed with strange weapons. They looked a bit like the egon guns from Half Life, or a mix of a shotgun and the electric sniper rifle from Unreal Tournament.

"Hyperlink beams fire!" A lead aide cried out, and all three fired in unison.

A purple beam of energy flew out and at the two invaders, only at the last minute the Kyuubi barrier made itself known and pushed the energy back. Before the Gaian Defcon aides could yell "Oh Sh-!" they were gone in a flash of energy.

--------------------------
Where the other NPFer's are:
--------------------------
"-it!" The Gaian defcon Aides yelped as hyperlink portals opened above the party's head and dumped them out onto the ground.

They groaned as the impact with the ground had proved quite painful for their fragile bodies.

"Argh!! My spleen!" The first aide whined, rubbing his spleen.

"Ack! My pelvis!" The second aide whined, but didn't rub as it wouldn't be right to do next to his coworkers

"OH! MY GOD!" The third aide yelped, his leg being broken but not the top of his worries. He looked up painfully to see the NP forumites standing right next to them.

----------------------
BWAHAHAHAHAHa!
----------------------

Kyuubi nudged POS Kamen with a tail. "Well, that was exciting. But I believe you would be best one to ask the questions. I'll tell you if he's lying."

ThunderPaw dropped to the ground, landing on all fours, his brown bifurcated flexi-robe neatly covering everything that might otherwise be revealed.

His hinges squeaked from disuse, but soon they would run smoothly. He ran his hands over his bristling golden fur, and his ears struggled to escape a bandana. "I'm back together. Not all the way, but I'm getting there. I don't know how to thank you enough Goddess of Souls. I suppose that the way to start would be aiding to apprehend your brother without bringing harm to him." He patted at the small satchel he had at his side and checked the contents. Sure enough, everything he had had in this form the first time was still there.

"As you know, we shattered in stages. You have just helped us move back up from the fifth stage to the fourth. Do not worry, if we manage to get back up to our original form, it will most likely have been through your help, and we will be able to regulate ourselves. I can't think of a reason that the problems we caused might happen again." He hugged Mesia, and a small amount of static energy transferred from his capacitators to cause her hair to stand up slightly.

"Once again, I thank you for this second chance. My only regret is that it had to be Raiden we were going after when I finally found you." He held up one furry hand and pointed at the cyborg implants with his other. "I have no idea how useful I'll be against him." He frowned for a moment. "Why am I being so terribly verbose? It's as if I'm speaking for- ah, three people. I'll have to find a way to correct this. There again I could talk people to sleep now. But they might as likely decimate me while I debate with myself. Okay, I'm just going to stop talking now until I straighten out my thoughts. Agreed. Agreed."

That rendition of Newb now known as ThunderPaw bowed deeply to Mesia and walked away to sit crosslegged on the floor, waiting for the group to be ready to move forwards.

The Gaians popped into existance right next to Mauve Thief. Her eyes narrowed. Mauve looked over her shoulder at the others.

"I may be mistaken," she began, "but it appears that our new little friends here are not of the lurker/noob/flamer variety." She looked back down at the obviously-pained Gaians. "No, it seems what we've got here are the Let's-Send-Gaian-Trash-to-the-NPF-While-We-Watch-From-Elsewhere variety." Mauve set the PSG down. The gun would be too swift a demise for these people.

"Glad you showed up. We've been wanting to meet you for some time now," Mauve said to the unfortunate Gaians.

Newb glanced over, and his smile widened. Rows of gleaming yet rusty teeth shone. "Your plane of existence caused me pain." The horde of ninja rabbits which had been multiplying came together and surrounded the Gaians. "Why don't I use you for practice? My teeth and hinges could use a little work. I wouldn't want to steal the fun from the others though. Why don't I let them start and gnaw on whatever bones are left, sucking out the marrow. But then, it could be that there won't be any marrow left once they are done with you. Quite a dilemma, one for much deliberation. What do you think?" He growled, his teeth just in front of the face of the nearest Gaian, who promptly pissed his pants and fainted. "Now now, it's no fun to hurt you if you aren't awake for it." He rubbed his hands together, and then touched his nose with each finger. "CLEAR!" He pressed his nose against the skin of the fainted Gaian, instantly bringing him back to wakefulness with a combination of nervous spasms from the electricity and shock from the sensation of being lovingly caressed by a piece of defrosting liver.

It was obvious that the aides were threatened by the Mauve Thief. Of course, they knew on the hierarchy of NPF hard hitters Mauve Mage was pretty low, but as a thief, she could certainly do some damage. Or at least steal their lunch money.

Then Newb did his frightening display, and one of the Gaian aides raised his arm like a school boy. "Would you stay away from me if I tell you I wet myself...terribly?"

Newb sniffed at the air.

"Yes, but only because I despise the scent of fecal matter. Wetting yourself was only the beginning of it." Newb stalked around to the other side of the group from the aide who had forgotten his toilet training. "So, anybody here still clean enough to eat, or have you all shat yourselves?"

There were times to be proud and to save face, and there were times you shoved feces on your name.

The entire group nodded heartily. One even moved his pants about to prove his point, and a distinct sloshing noise was heard by all.

As the would-be Gaian assassins vanished to wherever the hell they might have gone, Negative Kamen looked around the room to find it filled with no less or more than himself, Kyuubi Pyros, and the Gaian Commander-in-Chief. There was an efficiency about teaming up with this particular form of Pyros that the Kamen rather liked, all the way down to the core of his Pedroness.

"So," he said calmly to the Gaian leader, who sat trembling in his special captain's chair, "Let's get down to business. It would be nice to have a table and some chairs to do this in, but that's all superfluous, I suppose. Anyway..."

Initially, POS had intended to be a bit more smooth in his dealings here. The Gaians had signed a fairly bad deal with who-knows-what and now found themselves staring down the barrel of annihilation. Honestly, he had expected them to be quite a bit more receptive to the idea of maintaining their existance, so much so that they'd be far more apt to negotiate.

Of course, they had not. In fact, a bunch of what were most likely office workers had leapt out of the shadows in one futile, last ditch effort to attack. Obviously, there was no logic or reason to be found on any level of the Gaian civilization.

Well, not until now.

"You see, Generalissimo Gaian Guy," the masked man continued, "One of two things is going to happen here. One involves you signing over control of your forums to my company unconditionally, whereas my people will begin rebuilding your operation, reformatting your entire system to operate on a much more respectable level than it is now."

The Kamen's voice, while being direct and to the point, had been uncharacteristically chipper during these proceedings. It was his salesman routine, an act that came rather naturally to him, but he felt the need to drop it now as he continued, "The other possible outcome involves only two of us walking out of here alive, while the first has all three of us leaving here as friends. So, what sounds more appealing to you."

Oh wait, no, there was that salesman voice again at the very end.

The Gaians were afraid of her. That amused Mauve to no end. Seeing how this may come to her advantage, the ex-mage decided to force a negotiation.

"Well, it would seem that you Gaian higher-ups are too wimpy to do anything but soil yourselves," Mauve said pleasantly, inspecting her fingernails. "Quite disappointing, really."

She sighed and ran her thumb over the edge of a nail.

"Now, seeing as how you gentlemen sent out an army of YOUR destructive forum trash onto OUR city, with the clear intents of harming us, it would be perfectly within our rights to brutally massacre you right here and now," Mauve continued conversationally. She stretched her fingers and examined her cuticles. "You see, that's kind of how we deal with invasion here on the NPF. And I must admit that my colleagues and I," she gestured towards the other NPFers, "have been looking forward to doing just that."

If any of the Gaians had anything left in their bowels, they were emptied.

"So," the ex-mage said. "Unless you guys feel like telling us, oh, I dunno, why you attacked our city and who you're working for, my friends and I would like to start the satisfyingly one-sided battle to the death now."

Darth didn't even bother to dignify the Gaian's existence with words. Instead he decided to speak with actions. Deftly, he grabbed his P90, pointed it at the head of the nearest Gaian, and took off the safety.

"Mm-hmm."

(OOC: Gaian Leader Guy's dialogue comes courtesy of Incendius.)

It was the Gaian General's turn to speak. "You forget option number three," he stated, trying his best to broadcast confidence, "The option that you are mostly ignorant of what is actually going on and most of the events and people of this little escapade."

The Negative Kamen stood perfectly still, allowing his adversary to speak his piece. It was only fair, after all. Whether the man's words would be taken under anything more than brief consideration was a different story.

The Gaian continued with his speech, "Number one, you actually think all of Gaia participated in this? If so you're a fool. This, where you are standing now and where this all has come from is merely one of the districts, the sub forums/boards. Truly, it is even one of the more tame ones, this little cleen up would have been very different if other parts of Gaia had participated."

He took a sip from a glass of water which sat on small table next to his command chair. "Number two, you think threats will effect me or my position. I, honestly, am safeguarded against all your attacks. Even if you think and know that you have bested one of Gaia's mods, already learn that he was merely a mod of this particular sub board/forum, and thus was low in the hierarchy. I myself am a super moderator, having domain over all the boards, though I usually stay close to this one. Also, within my access are several admin devices, which with my full knowledge of them I could easily use to at the very least banish you from Gaia. Furthermore, I have full confidence in my abilities at escaping any situation you would throw at me, even if I am not capable of taking down your little god," the general stated with a smug grin.

The Kamen grew a grin of his own, but remained silent. It was a rare treat for him to be on the receiving end of someone else's villainous monologue. Frankly, he was rather enjoying the show.

"Thirdly," the Mod continued once more, folding his hands in front of his face, "You might have seen we have already withdrawn our forces, and even halted our attack, for we are finished for now. You have destroyed a commendable amount of our undesirables, and for that we thank you. Honestly, I'm surprised you're still here and attempting to plow further through Gaia while your 'friend' is currently conveying all your companions to what shall be a very interesting encounter, of which even I am not sure of the outcome."

Almost as an afterthought he added, "I can convey you out of Gaia if you wish, I don't really think with all your services rendered to us that any ill will should be felt on our part, even the destruction of that particular mod was not unwanted in some corners."

Negative Kamen nodded as he feigned taking it all in. Whether what the Mod said was true or not was yet to be revealed by Kyuubi Pyros. Of course, what really mattered was if the man truly believed what he was saying. Either way, it was irrelevent. "I see, yes," the masked man breathed, "all very good. Still, there are some problems. The biggie is that, while I don't speak for my godly associate here, the fact is that I'm not the least bit concerned about what's happening in NPF at the moment. Either they stop Raiden, which doesn't bother me, or Raiden annihilates them, which doesn't bother me, either. For most of them, death is only temporary anyway."

The Kamen's tone grew ever colder as he spoke, "The reason I'm here is because I'm very angry with you. While this whole adventure has benefitted me greatly overall, the fact still remains that thanks to all this, the Mashirosen tower was irrepairably damaged, forcing me to destroy it. I worked long and hard on that project, and I don't like seeing it all go to waste. Lastly..."

The Kamen closed his eyes as dark energy swirled around him, enveloping the man in shadow. A moment later, he reappeared, now without the tuxedo, top hat, cape, cane, and mask. His eyes were hazel, his hair was brown, and he was casually dressed with a long black overcoat. He was now in his true form.

"...I just don't care for your tone," Pedro stated, raising his right fist and pointing at the Mod, "HEART!"

A beam of energy shot forth from the ring on POS' finger, enveloping the Gaian Mod in a warm, glowing aura. Almost immediately, the Mod's countenance changed from that of forced arrogance to an expression of pure kindness.

As the light around him faded away, the Moderator blinked confusedly for a moment before looking back up toward Pyros and Pedro. "What.... whatever was I thinking?" he asked, smiling happily, "I've made a terrible mistake and I insist that I make amends. What can I do for you? Anything, just name it!"

Yes, this was much better.

Gaian Aide Backstory, GO! Plus, dark forebodings...
 

"Well, he was honest about having Admin devices, but foolish to think he could have even lifted a finger to use them. He was correct in saying there were stronger mods out there, but considering our current placement and my powers, they would have difficulty even getting here. But what I have learned about Raiden and the others is just as I have worried. We'll need to move faster." Kyuubi summed up the lying/truth factors.

"As for everything else, he was lying his (pardon my poor language) 'ass' off. Though he did become quite truthful after you used that Captain Planet ring. I do think it might be bad for his health, as he had a electronic heart, and your ring just stuck a real heart over the metal one. So hurry up and make your demands before he dies." Kyuubi calmly stated, although being quite anxious.

Raiden was out there somewhere, nigh unbound, and the others were being sent to the one pulling the strings. It was not a good combination. He'd have to plan, and plan well for the next few moves. And he'd have to do it fast. Because beyond the need to protect the others and stop raiden's unbinding, there was another problem just biding it's time. Just biding it's time...

------------------------------------
Back at the Dark Temple...oooh...aahhh...
------------------------------------

The gaian aides whimpered, but one found a voice. it wasn't his though, and instead it was the voice of a scared girl. "We....we....We work for General NexGen! We were having trouble with an overpopulation of our unwanteds in Gaia, and some guy the Gaian President met said that he had a plan that would get help us and him. He said that there was this place where they didn't have as many unwanteds, as they had fierce forumites. And that we could dump ours there. Naturally, we had considered and attempted this, but all the forums like yours had superior shielding and an access code preventing us from doing it." The Gaian Aide twiddled his thumbs as another checked his pants to see the damage.

The third continued for the other two.
"Well, then he said he not only had it, but he could also cripple your defenses and allow us to get in more than normally possible. The higher ups thought it was good idea, just to at least fraction of our current number down, and couldn't hurt us in the long run. All the guy asked in return was that we send as many Gaian unwanteds as possible. Which we were more than happy to comply with."

The second stopped checking his pants. "And it worked, just as he said. We were able to send our Gaians directly into your forum, and aside from a few non-connected power systems, we were unhindered in teleporting mass amounts. The guy who gave us this info even kept calling to tell us where to deploy them for maximum effect. The numbers of our unwanteds dropped dramatically within minutes. As of my last watch, we were down to 1/4th of what we used to have. Even some of the greater unwanteds were happy to see them go, and agreed to help in exchange for some benefits. Like Fidem."

The first whined and pouted. "Ohhh!!! Why did you have to get that fire god over to our forums? I lost my entire neighborhood!"

"I do think it might be bad for his health, as he had a electronic heart, and your ring just stuck a real heart over the metal one. So hurry up and make your demands before he dies."

POS quirked a brow at Pyros. He considered pointing out to the god-kyuubi that there was a stark difference between between the figurative heart and the blood-pumping physical one, but decided not to. Still, time was of the essence. The Heart ring's effect only lasts for a few hours, and there was no time to dilly-dally. Reaching into his coat pocket, Pedro pulled out several pages of paper that had been stapled together and folded and approached NexGen.

"Simply put," POS stated, unfolding the papers and handing them to the Gaian General, "My demands are exactly what I stated. Sign over the forums to my company, and we enter into a bold new era for Gaia. What do you say?"

NexGen skimmed over the contract and pulled out a pen. "Well, everything certainly seems like it's in order here, so I'll go ahead and sign."

As the mod signed on the dotted line, POS turned to Pyros. "I'm going to assume that godhood comes with notary status, yes?"

Kyuubi heard POS"s thought about the heart ring, and did twirled his tails only slightly faster. Some fools did not fully know the power of the items they possessed. Didn't he know of the planeteer that used to own that ring? And his having a too big a heart? And then dying from it after eating too much sugar?

"I risk being somewhat cliche, so forgive me." Kyuubi lifted one of his forepaws and placed it on the bottom left hand corner, making a paw-stamp. The document immediately gained a gold sheen and Kyuubi shaped watermark.

Mauve continued to examine her nails as the Gaians sputtered out their hasty explanation. Nothing like a few threats to get people to cooperate.

"That's an interesting story," she said, stifling a yawn. Casually, she drew her knife from its sheath. "Not sure it was what we were looking for, though. You know, you could have just ASKED Nuklear Power if we could fix your noob problem for you. Most of us are quite fond of random forum undesirables destruction; you probably wouldn't have even had to pay us to do a little exterminating job. But no. You preferred to take the more dangerous route. What you did could be considered a full-scale forum invasion. You basically declared war on us. And we don't like that."

She looked over at Darth and smiled grimly.

"As you can see," she said, "We're not overly happy about all of this. I really can't stop my friend Darth here from shooting your brains out. So if you don't have anything to say about who this mysterious code-supplying gentleman is, or give us any other valuable service or information, I might have to let him and my other friends here do what they do best."

Haeru had watched the interview for a few minutes before getting bored. "Who cares who he is? He's in here and he's inviting us for a chat. You can keep questioning them if you want... but I think I'd prefer to just get this over with.. and get away from the stench," she said before turning around and walking straight down the hallway toward the inner sanctums of the temple, prepared to plant a bullet in anything else that appeared, out of nowhere or otherwise.

Haeru's words rang quite earnestly to Mesia. With a nod she followed swiftly behind.

This will all be over soon...

Fenris, having taken forever to get used to his split conciousness, "piloted" the RoboHobo, which was waging war on its own against the Gaians.

'Okay... AutoPilot...' Fenris muttered to himself, searching for a way to turn off the AutoPilot. No later than he thought it than he found himself in control of it, rather suddenly. The RoboHobo collapsed comically, due to Fenris not knowing what he was doing.

He turned the AutoPilot back on and took a conveniently placed course on RoboHobo control, which he passed admirably in the meantime. Interestingly enough, he met and lost his first girlfriend there too, but that's another story.

'AutoPilot, off!' he thought, swiftly using his new hammer to knock the head off of a Gaian, while firing a swarm of Beer-bottle shaped rockets at a group of Gaians behind him.

'Radar... gotta love it.'

He then jumped high, high into the air, and unleashed a swarm of his bumbs, which were miniature explosive devices that went off when enough pressure was applied to them. Using his jump jets, he glided over to the next large swarm of Gaians, and landed directly in the middle of them. Untieing the cloth along his bindle/knapsack, he grinned a mechanical grin. Using robotic dexterity, he retied the cloth without revealing any of the contents within, and stored it in some compartment on his body. Weilding the bindle-stick, he spun it a few times, and unleashed some insane staff-fu that would go excellently with a wicked guitar solo.

After he had taken out several of the Gaians, he was greeted by the survivors, who quickly surrounded him closely. He grinned his mechanical grin and set his "staff" on the ground and balanced, with both hands on the head of the stick, and lifted his feet off the ground. He spun around, and turned his jump-jets on, with his legs fully spread, to create what was basically a flaming circle around him, with the Gaian's faces level with the flames.

Fenris got an idea. Being a hobo, one doesn't exactly have the best personal hygeine. Using some of the grease that is mandatory amongst all stereotypical hobomen, he created a gigantic ring of oil around him. Then, grinning his mechanical grin once more, lit it aflame. Suffice to say, the Gaians in this particular area were no more.

A red bleep appeared on the RoboHobo's radar, followed by a swarm of red dots. A portal from Gaia had ripped itself into the battlefield, and the Hobo, still feeling confident that he could handle anything Gaia threw at him, headed over to the portal.

"hay, asl!" one of the Gaians shouted upon seeing him.

The only answer Fenris had to offer him was a swift punch to the face. The other Gaians went from "omg hi!" to "wtf, u noob, u suk!" mode, and started to attack. Fenris grinned his mechanical grin again as more and more Gaians poured out from the portal.

'This is gonna be fun...'

Krylo (Kryla?) was right, Mauve admitted grudgingly. As much fun as it was to psychologically torment the morons who let the Gaians into NPF, the REAL bad guy was waiting just inside. They'd probably need all their strength for that battle.

"Aww," she said quietly. "And I was having fun..." She brushed her hands on her pants legs and looked over the Gaians.

"Okay, she's right. We don't have time to mess around with you guys." She grabbed one of the cleaner Gaians by the collar and dragged him over to the edge of the cliff. She cupped one hand around her mouth like a bullhorn.

"HEY GAIANS!" Mauve yelled. "You wanna know the reason why you're getting your asses kicked over here and you can't go back? Because this dude sent you here!" She tossed him over the edge, letting him roll down the mountain to the ground, where the remaining noobs, lurkers, and whatnot were trying to avoid the RoboHobo. Like a zombie horde in a bad horror flick, the Gaians converged on the fallen man. I won't go into what happened next.

Mauve turned back to the others.

"See you later!" she said brightly, going after Krylo (Kryla?). "Don't mess with us again!" Whether the other NPFers let them go or killed them was no longer her concern.

The takeover had been swift and brutal. The fact that General NexGen was not the actual owner of Gaia made little a difference, especially when it turned out the actual owner of Gaia was his 4 year old niece whom Kyuubi persuaded to allow the takeover for a chocolate covered lollipop.

Pyros, who remained almost as his sub-concious's sub-concious, was capable of lamenting the loss of a perfectly good sweet.

With one fell swoop, the Hyperlink portal generators were all shut down, the last transmission to NPF being those in battle with the RoboHobo. Kyuubi realized he'd have to help Fenris after this. Usually when one's brain was put into a giant robot, it was hard to get it out.

With the takeover done, Gaia set to rebuilding itself. But Kyuubi still had things to do. "POS. Do what you must here, but I must leave. I intend to use one of the Hyperlink portals to return to deal with Raiden, lest the machinations of one I loathe shall destroy us all. I must settle an old score, and right a great wrong."

Kyuubi nodded to POS and walked out of control room, all four paws softly padding the ground. "Also, I still hate Gaia, and can't wait to get the hell out of it."


----------------------------
Back at NPF
----------------------------

The Gaian aides huddled together in fear as their own gaians desired to settle the score. They could not run, for the only direction to run was with the NPF warriors. And they expressed an even greater desire to kill.

One Gaian pulled out a R.Y.N.O.

The aides suddenly became religious.

Garud followed her fellow group members, and hopefully heading to Raiden. The demon slayer had a few tricks under her sleeve... or more likely, starting to grow out of her back. The blood inside her body turned black as night. He was close.

"Almost time..."

Pedro nodded to NexGen as everything was officially in order and followed after Pyros to the Hyperlink portal. "Oh, no worries," POS chuckled to the Kyuubi," I'm done here for the time being. Once Raiden and his sugar daddy are dealt with, I'll make this place into something more useful. Like a parking lot or something. Let's get going."

As the two casually walked to the Hyperlink generator, Kyuubi mentally punched in the controls. A visual aid screen showed their destination, NPF. At it's current zoom, several major landmarks could be seen, some of which were created just that day thanks to our beloved heroes(?).

The image zoomed in on the area where the portals had opened last, showing the vast battlefield before the mountain temple where NexGen had said the others were. Kyuubi chose this as a perfect spot to go, and powered up the generator. But just as it whirred to life, and the red "Go!" button lit up, Kyuubi spotted something else on the monitor.

Someone in fact, who was busy attempting to use an advanced communications device. Someone very familiar.

Kyuubi altered the jump coordinates. For the first time anyone had ever seen, Kyuubi smiled. It was a sight to behold, and filled all who saw it with a general uneasiness and a good guess something painful would happen soon.

Kyuubi and POS entered the portal...

-----------------------
Back at NPF:
-----------------------

Fidem was hurting. He could regenerate no doubt, and he was the greatest god-mod he knew, but the events earlier were definitely a strain. Even if he was sound physically, his mind was wrecked. He pondered terrorizing what was left of the city to get his hands on some Mod strength Tylenol, but first he needed to check back in with the Gaian Defcon. He couldn't seem to get in touch though, thanks to that damn bitch that had flung him from his portal. It was only logical that after her entrance into Gaia, she broke the portals just to keep him from following.

She was lucky she'd done so, for if he'd caught her, he'd have done some of his own wrestling moves on her. Mostly grapples. And she'd be naked.

Yeah....after this was over he'd need to find some female company. There was only so much death and destruction to satisfy a god-moder before he turned to porn, and he'd been aching for porn before this whole brouhaha had even begun. But he'd have to get to Gaia first before he could even touch his bank account, as a precaution used by the Gaians to keep him from just running off.

And as said before, he couldn't get into contact with Gaia. Even when portals in the distance opened up, he still couldn't contact them, nor could he get to those portals in time to use them himself. He could create a portal, but long time ago in some Internet physics course he'd taken before he turned evil and started destroying things, he'd learned that creating a portal then taking the device that made that portal through it was a no-no. It would make all that was in the portal be compressed to the size of a pin-prick, then explode with a force big enough to rip the land a new one.

Realizing there wasn't anything he could do was never fun for a god-mod, but this was such time. Fidem reached into his clothes and pulled out a cigar, and lit it. His cigars regenerated when he did, one of the few customizations he made to his god-modding persona. "They'd better contact me then, the a$$holes."

Suddenly, he felt a crackle of energy fill the air surrounding him. "Huh?" A portal? Were they finally sending a portal?

"About damn time!" Fidem stood up with indignance, until he noticed something. The location of the energy, the pinpoint, the focus....they were exactly where he was.

Before he could curse, the air and the very space lit up and warped, cleaving him in two. Then, came the burst of energy that came from a portal opening up. Fidem was surrounded by light, and-

BAAAAMF!

The portal opened, spilling it's contents of Fox and Capitalist onto the barren wasteland the battlefield had become. It's passengers delivered, the portal closed and dissappeared.

Kyuubi looked nonchalantly yabout the ground they stood upon. "Oh dear. It appears I teleported onto someone. How rude of me."

Bits and pieces of Fidem, each no bigger than a cornflake were sprinkled about the battlefield.

Mauve headed into the temple after Garudia and Krylica, holding the PSG in her arms like a rifle. It was dark and eeriliy quiet inside the great temple. How the hell could a building made of highly-reflective material that housed a being of pure lightning be so damn dark inside?!

The theif fiddled with a control on the side of the weapon, triggering a small electronic hum as the machine prepared whatever it used as ammo. Mauve might not be able to cast spells, but she could still shoot, and she intended to do so. She'd give Raiden a nice system shock.

And then she'd find the dirty bastard who was responsible for the sailor fuku incident and give him/her some of the same.

Thunderpaw loped easily along behind, occasionally trailing his claws on the walls, leaving massive gouges to show which way they had gone.

The NPFers walked down the dark hallways deeper into the temple. After several minutes of walking, they eventually come upon a vast hall. It's wide, dark, and mostly empty. There are, however, a few things in the hall.

At the far end of the hall, a strange floating orb of energy was hopping about what seemed like a half-made Raiden. The orb was making him a new body. Behind the body forging, there was a figure in a mask playing with the Kurosen and Mashirosen. When the group walked in, the masked figure turned. He was mostly hidden in shadow, keeping his form an enigma.

When Haeru saw the Kurosen he moved quickly, sliding one of her guns away while training the other on their true enemy's forehead. Honestly, there were only two things keeping her from pulling the trigger--first, and foremost, the mod bracelet should be operational now, but she'd need time to recalibrate it to the Kurosen, and, secondly she didn't know what kind of powers this villain had, so she may need that bracelet operational.

She decided, instead, to stall. Every half-witted villain the world over has the need to make some stupid jackasseried attempt at a plan exposing evil speech--it was like they were all insecure little puppies that needed to be validated, 'Yes, you jerkwad Sephiroth knock off, that was so VERY clever. Such a good boy'. 'Idiots. Oh well, may as well use it to my advantage...'

"Who the hell are you, and what are you planning on doing with the Kurosen?" Haeru said, her tone rather violent, as she stealthily slid her free hand into her pocket with the mod bracelet, beginning to adjust it while it was still out of sight.

Kyuubi waved it's tail, and with a flash, all the bits and pieces of Fidem were packed in hundreds of air tight containers that few could ever open up. With another wave, the containers were stacked and labeled.

FI-Dough!
Fun for the whole family!

Then, Kyuubi scattered the cans through the ends of the earth. "I once liked Fidem. I knew him once, long before these events, but we went our seperate ways. He wanted to be the best god-modder there was, but when he realized he could never be a better god-mod than I, he parted ways with me forever."

Kyuubi walked towards the temple, still mentally talking. "Now it'll take awhile for him to reassemble himself, but i won't kill him. For he's just yet another misbegotten soul trying to make up for his gaping flaws by seemingly being invincible. In truth, I pity him."

Kyuubi and Kamen walked the lonely path to the temple, but were unassailed by any Gaians so the walk was very brief and uneventful. There may have been some of Kyuubi's magic done, for the two reached the temple's doors quite quickly.

"....Raiden is near." Kyuubi whispered, lowly growling.