"Gah!" shouted MT as he realized he was falling behind. He sheathed his sword and took off at a run, only barely catching up to IC as the bird man took off again. "Gah!" repeated MT, booking it as fast as he could in armor to keep from falling behind again.

The hounen, easily able to keep up with their racial speed bonus and their aura of law, looked at each other. "These creatures lack haste. How many of us do you think it would take for one of them to count as a light load?"

The lead hounen, who had just spontaneously decided he was the lead hounen, shook his head. "Probably only two to four. So we can take three of them along," he licked his lips. "I get to carry the mauve one."

I did what I normally did when I had to travel long distances.

I took to the air.

I managed to keep up rather easly with IC, especally once he slowed down. When I saw that the others weren't, however, I stopped and said "Hey, I can carry someone who's light."

After a few cure spells, Mike and Phil exchanged a stoic goodbye because they're dudes and dudes don't get all weepy about the end of the world. Though, as soon as Mike was gone, Phil had a private moment behind some rubble, which was why he didn't greet IC when he magically teleported in. Rubbing his nose, he emerged to find himself left behind. "Wha? Where'd ebry body go? *snort*" Phil shaded his eyes, spying the cloud of dust left by his companions as they sped to the gate. "This won't do. •Summon: F1 Racer!" A blue, '85 Benetton bounced on the ground. "Hehe, sweet." Phil giggled as he hopped in and started the ignition.

As he roared past the NPFers, Phil tried to yell "So long!" but, having neglected a helmet, his breath was just sucked from his lungs. He then noticed that he was approaching the group again. That's odd, Phil thought, having learned his lesson about talking while in a race car.

Somewhere, along the whirlpool of time, a temporal eddy caught the current from Avvy Rp V and spun it through the web of Time.

An entity was caught in this whorl - this snarl of tainted future, snaring the poor fool and casting it into the past - that is, Avvy IV.

And on the way, this entity changed.

Reality rippled very briefly where all the current NPFers were at. It rippled gently, its waves causing the ground to go wavy very strangely and cause a brief moment of nausea for people looking too hard at the phenomenon.

And then something literally poured itself onto the ground at their feet, a pool of murky, shapeless darkness that wasn't shapeless for long.

An arm formed first, flailing in the air as it tried to pull itself up into some sort of standing position despite the fact that it was a puddle of darkness (one could see the hidden rainbows of OHMYGOD and pretty, chaotic colours swirling in the midst of the pool).

The arm managed to find purchase on the ground nearby and, like a swimmer pulling herself out of a swimming pool, Rhiya pulled herself out of herself, the puddle of messy blackness diminishing as it formed into herself.

"Oh my head..." Rhiya groaned, clutching her wingless, black-hued head. Something didn't look quite right about her. In fact, a lot of things didn't look quite right about her.

Rhiya looked as if she was black all over, with eddies and whorls of colour swirling underneath the darkness that seemed to emanate around her. Her body, too, seemed strange, as if it was in the vague shape of herself because she wanted it to be like that, and it was by her will alone that she was any shape at all.

In fact, Rhiya looked exactly like an elemental.

Made of purified Chaos, of course.

Elerhiya looked around, confused and bewildered.

"Where am I?!" she exclaimed, before realization dawned, and more colourful (in the literal and vulgar sense simultaneously) words erupted from what everybody assumed was the elemental's mouth.

[OOC: I'll write up Elerhiya's char sheet later on today. For now, UNI!]

The newly reinforced NPFers charged into the Gate, carving the warped reality before them. After being dropkicked, Arhra had seemed to swiftly recover from her brief attack of whatever that had been. Perhaps the medical benefits of such treatments needed to be examined more closely.

"There is something very important I need you to do." Arhra said suddenly to Hydra, utterly serious for once. "Go back to the Shadow Temple. Wait for me there."

"But-"

"Whatever happens, I need you to be safe." Arhra said, voice rough. "I'll come back for you."

Hydra gave her a strange look for a moment and then nodded solemnly. She turned and headed back the way they had come.

* * *

At the Sodality Headquarters, the smooth, slow progression of bureaucracy was just interrupted by news the barrier sealing away the Gate had just fallen. The Sodality did not like their stuff getting broken, particularly when said stuff was preventing the apocalypse. While the room was still dark, lit only by spotlights at each imposing desk, the High Council was in uproar, as far as it as permitted to be by operating procedures.

"We still have not completed feasibility studies for alternatives to the dinosaur rider corp in legion force organisation! Regulations clearly state we cannot deploy."

Another counciller had just submitted his Declaration of Intent to Verbalise Profanities and did so.

The man at the largest desk, who had never and perhaps would never be named, rose to his feet. His commanding presence radiated the pure glory of direction.

"Emergency procedures are now in effect. Initiate parallel bureaucratic processing!"

With due pomp, a section of each desk slid open, revealing a document, each counciller signing with a flourish.. Doors slid open, a solemn procession of notaries entering to witness. All done to due process, the lead counciller selected a key from a ring on his belt, inserted it into a box on his desk and turned it. The box opened, an ornate stamp rising up on a small platform. Resolutely, he picked the seal up, a section of his desk opening to reveal an ink pad.

"Parallel bureaucratic processing, APPROVED!" He stamped the document. There came a sudden scritching, like a thousand clerks industriously at work. Powerful forces had just been set in motion.

Such authority!

* * *

Plunging deeper into the area behind the barrier began to hurt the mind. It was bigger than it should be, stretching ahead, horizon warped. The Invisible Moon was looming huge in the sky, approaching faster than it had any right to do.

Elerhiya just popped out of nowhere, confused.

"Oh hi." Arhra said. She was in a question answering mood. "You're inside the Gate of Chaos while the Invisible Moon is coming plummeting down to open it and usher in the end of the ordered universe. Because of the Herald, that sexy fiend!"

There came a clap of thunder, a sound to make one think the sky had been rent in twain.

"And the Invisible Moon just hit atmosphere!" She turned for a second. "Also, what the hell is that?!"

It was something huge and shining, a great battleship and it was approaching the Gate at what appeared to be several times the speed of sound.

* * *

Continuity allows easy identification. Rilan, the commander of the Sodality strike team that had assaulted the NPFers back in the Water Temple had gone rogue. Frustrated by the lack of action from the Concordant Sodality, he had taken matters into his own hands, stealing what was ominiously called a Super-heavy Enforcer Mechanoid First Class.

He'd just arrived on the scene.

With a sudden backwash of thrusters, the hurtling ship halted. It hovered in midair, reconfiguring into a giant robot, shining white. It bore a mild resemblance to the Sodality Legionaires and golems that the NPFers had encountered before, appearing to be powered by a sinister blend of magic and technology.

Rilan looked up at the dark orb of the Invisble Moon, clouds swirling about it as it forced its way through the atmosphere. Praying he was not already too late, Rilan made the robot raise its arm, pointing a rather large energy cannon at the comet, considerable energy build-up appearing about its muzzle.

A burning lance of light shot forth, parting the clouds. It pierced the dark comet, the colourful corona flickering and dying, the noxious, dark atmosphere burning off, boiling away with a cataclysmic explosion.

He gave a sigh of relief, but then the tattered darkness parted, revealing the true form of the Invisible Moon.

Vast structures were revealed, great monoliths, bigger than sky-scrapers. Warp fires crackled about them. The blast had not even scratched their dark surfaces. These pillars were ponderously descending, the purpose of the pits dotting the Gate suddenly becoming clear.

But these monoliths were not alone.

About them was a great locust swarm, twisted nightmare shapes, neither quite vessels or living creatures. Descending with the pillars, the countless masses of star-spawned horrors screeched a paen to Chaos.

Rilan considered his options as the swiftest of these new enemies split from the main mass, rushing at his robot.

* * *

"This... I did not foresee." The Herald watched the unfolding scene with the colossus. Rilan had made his choice, charging a second shot to fire at the center of the Gate itself before the beasts of Chaos reached him.

"Everything is coming together. All power is within my grasp." The Herald paused, steeling her resolution. "I will not let it slip through my fingers." Gathering up her own might, drawing on power than she had not sunk into the cometary beacon, the Endbringer prepared to make her move.

* * *

The NPFers saw Rilan's second attack. Another lance of blinging light shot forth, the power of Law behind it. It was unbent by the warped spaces that dwelt beyond the barrier, a clean shaft of destruction.

Power pulsed, the land and air warping, swirling about each other into a twisted shield, taking on unearthly hues as the beam struck it. The beam splashed, running through the maze of the shield's surface, baffled, confused and ultimately consumed.

"The Herald stopped the attack." Arhra reported. She swayed suddenly. "She's counter-attacking!"

The shield the Herald had erected bubbled and boiled, spraying off energy as it was gathered in and reshaped. Reforged, it hurled itself forards, a gigantic flaming spear of chaotic matter streaking at Rilan.

* * *

Rilan barely dodged, the attack clipping his mecha's side, leaving sizzled chaotic protomatter behind at its touch. His mind methodically ran thorugh the possibilities as the mecha's defense systems destroyed the clinging matter.

Sympathetic energy resonance detected.

One of Rilan's tactical displays zoomed in, highlighting a number of figures running towards the Gate. Scanners indicated one of them, displaying a highly abnormal energy signature.

Rilan looked at the display. His expression darkened. "How is this even possible?"

He was left no more time to act. The creatures of the dark moon were upon him.

* * *

And so it was, the center in sight. At the very center was the greatest of the pits. A projection of stone, thin only compared to the width of the great wound in the world, thrust out into the abyss. Upon it the Herald stood, awaiting the end.

Clustered about the pit, between the NPFers and the Herald, were mishapen, lumbering creatures, appearing to be a last line of defense. The monoliths were making their final descent, the teeming masses of the space faring swarm coming with them.

Time was running out.

OOC: There were originally plans to insert a battle with a Ship of Chaos captained by a sailor scout and crewed by a mix of skeleton and mutant pirates here. However, due to budget and time contraints, as well as the fact POS (that scene stealing hack!) has done something similar with the sailor Reis, this scene has been dropped.

"Well this isn't good," Mauve said, watching the strange creatures as they lumbered closer and closer. She was currently standing behind most of the other NPFers, MP levels still not at max power. She looked over at Rilan, hopefully. "Maybe Rilan and the monsters will just kill each other off...?"

Of course, that was highly unlikely. She sighed and drew her knives.

"All right, all right," she said wearily. "I guess we should help or something."

Nikose began stretching loosely, as if he needed to limber up. "Hey, Mauve, have you ever heard of a 'Nikose-doken?'" He asked innocently. "If so... wanna try one when you're fully charged?" Nikose dug into his cape, completely ignorant of his surroundings, and pulled out a brick.

The squad of Hounens weren't sure quite what was going on, but they knew they didn't like it.

"Oppression waves!"

So... they began using their ability to turn chaos as normal pallys turned undead.

"Ok...let's just cut though these things!" I said, and fan forward, slashing, pearicing and cutting with my spear, not really caring if I was really doing any damage.