"That depends entirely on which station/paper gets to cover the Seaking Diet," Mauve replied. "You give it the right publicity and half the civilized world will be eating them. I've already had offers from Women's Day and Family Circle. They're always looking for garbage like that. Seriously, every issue you'll see on the cover a teaser for this grand new diet that will help you lose a bazillion pounds. It's always right next to a picture of a gigantic chocolate cake which has to have more calories than there are people in China."

She paused, thinking.

"And anyway, the Fish Demographic doesn't really matter. They'll all be watching the network premier of Finding Nemo on ABC this afternoon. Stupid Disney subsidiary. They're showing their stupid movies DELIBERATELY during our special event! Jerks. I'm writing them a nasty letter." Mauve declared.

(OOC: You know I actually had trouble writing a response to this? Seriously, I've never even had to think about being overweight at any time in my life. Most people with Marfan Syndrome simply cannot gain weight. I've only ever had people make fun of me for being too skinny. o.O)

"Newb and Melfice don't count," Mauve said stiffly. "I'll bet Twiddy paid them to say that."

One of Newb's incarnations showed up at that point and started talking into the camera, discussing something that was over Mauve's head. The "magic" part she understood rather well, but the "mechanical" stuff was all Greek to her. Computers generally hated the Mauve Mage, so she stopped trying to learn how they worked long ago and just settled for "Kicking It Sometimes Helps." That became her motto for most things mechanical. Mauve smiled and nodded, wondering if Amalgam knew that the camera was turned off and then decided she wouldn't tell him. Keyman dragged him away moments later, apologizing profusely.

"Hey," Mauve said to Ecurt. "Check it out. Melfice is about to get into a fistfight with a bear. We need footage of that. Just make sure PETA isn't watching the station when we air it."

A strange shimmer surrounded Hawk, then shimmered out again after a few seconds. It appeared no one else had seen it, so it was likely not another NPFer up to no good, as would be highly likely in this place.

That can't be good. What the hell was that?

Making sure nobody else was watching, Hawk slyly moved out of sight, and pulled up the left sleeve of his jacket over the strange device that was clamped around his arm. With a few taps the device activated, it was clearly a technologically advanced piece of kit. And the reason Hawk was keeping it out of sight of his fellow NPFers? Well, they had only seen it once before, back when he had finally recovered his human form, just before the defeat of the Herald of the End Times.

OMG SPOILERS!

He had left then before anyone could ask him about himself (not that anyone probably cared), but since then he had gone back to his old life, and this device was part of that and was part of the reason he had come to this tournament.

But enough spoilers and half revealed revalations, let's get back to the present!

Hawk worked the device, and a holographical readout displayed reams of scrolling text in indecipherable characters, all moving too fast to read even if it could be understood anyway.

"Status report", Hawk commanded the device. It responded by ceasing the endless scrolling and focusing on lines of now stationary text. Apparantly, it was equipped with voice recognition software.

"Scan all anomalies to occur within the past 2 minutes", Hawk told it. The text flittered and changed, and was then still.

"Cannot confirm", it read.

"Then give me your best guess." Again the text changed in an instant.

"Propable high level temporal-space distortion."

"What caused it?"

"Cannot confirm, need more intel..."

"Ok... then can you tell me where it originated?" The text suddenly spasmed into overdrive as it calculated impossible equations and millions of factors. Then it suddenly stopped once again.

"... Cannot confirm."

"Useless!"

Hawk gave up, deactivated the device and moved back into the room with the others.

And so Melfice was mauled by a bear.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...ar_melfice.png

"I shall -urk- have you know -hey, I said over HERE- that this twiddy -WHAT DID I TELL YOU!?- did not -whoa- pay me to say that. You ARE -ung- looking fatter. THERE, FINALLY!"

Melfice had managed to drag the bear away from his plate of food. Without sustaining any injuries of the serious kind. Or what was left of his meal anyway. A scrap of salad. Melfice sighed and looked over at the buffet table. Which only contained very... strange contents now.

"I suppose nobody would be kind enough to share me some of their food? Nobody?"

((OOC: Oh, give me a break. That was the strategic mind power and advanced martial arts at work. I survived, okay!?))

Ugainius smelled the scent of fried chicken. "Where the hell is that smell coming from?" "Durrrrr, the buffet" replied his brain. "Uh, right, um good thing I didn't shout that." he looked nervously around to see if anyone heard him.

(OOC: OMG ugainius can smell teh evil pwrs. No, I'm just obsessing about chicken, thats all

"Oh," Mauve said. "My mistake, then."

She gestured towards Melfice with one hand and spoke one word. Lightning bolts arched down from the ceiling to converge on poor Melfice. Eh, he'd live.

Somewhere, Twiddy's house stopped being on fire. For now.

Nikose, who had been wandering around aimlessly, gave Melfice a great shove out of the way, and was struck by the lightning bolts. As he healed, he let out a cough and sputtered, "B-but I always thought you were pretty..." And went to change his clothes into not ruined ones.

Upon hurtling to the wall, CheshireThief took this time to reflect on the events leading up to his being hurtled.

Has it really been that long that someone would just -blatantly- pick me up and throw me? Well, at least I'm not competing... I wouldn't want to have to hurt anyone for their insolence...

With that, CheshireThief pulled the Universal Remote from within his jacket pocket and pressed the [Slow] button. He twisted (very slowly, mind you) through the air, eventually impacting against the wall at a very low velocity. Convinced that he was not injured, CheshireThief grinned and pressed the button again, cancelling the effect. Dusting himself off, he sauntered over to Rhiya, Pyros, and Raiden. He flashed a wink towards Rhiya as he popped a chicken nugget into his mouth.

((Marfan Syndrome? Sorry to hear that, Mauve.))

"A bear fighting Melfice? I can't wait to see that!"

Just as Ecurt was about to rush off to see the fight (which apparently wasn't that interesting after all), he paused. He sensed that someone else had arrived. Someone who felt like...

"JEN!"

However, unlike his usual greetings, involving rushing up, tackling her, throwing her up in the air and then forgetting to catch her when he saw some mysteriously appearing cake, he froze. He couldn't let his secret identity be let loose here, now could he?

As much as it pained him...she was the enemy. In Journalism, anyway.

"Quick! Mauve! Battlestations!"

"I'd love to share some of my food, but..." *clank clank* Demetrius banged a golden drumstick against his now full plate of golden, and inedible food, "Sorry my friend, seems as though Fate shows you some of the same favors She shows Her husband."

With that Demetrius sat down and amused himself by offering the Bear bits of food, "Golden they may be, but retain their aroma they have."