The TBM plushie began to clap as REI began finishing her introduction of Pedros Nihilem, he looked around as he clapped excitedly slowly dropping the tempo of each clap until the real TBM just pushed the things hands to its side. As the final TBM Naruto clone dispersed and he felt his intelligence raise to its usual low he eyed the sight before him with much confusion. "Hey Pedros." He said as if he saw an old acquaintance walking down the street. Then after a short pause, "So... why did you involve all of us in this? I mean if you were helping Doug with his evil plans so you could suck out your extra lives with a machine you obviously designed.... why was all this necessary. Cause I mean, I died. Like, like you did right over there." TBM pointed to the god's mortal coil in a way that assured everyone that he didn't believe the god knew he had once been in there.

"So.... why go through the middleman? And make us spend all this time fake saving you when the only real danger you were in was from yourself and your own plans?" He quietly contemplated on more thing before asking, "Also if your the god of nothing.... and I'm an athiest... where does that put us?" It was quite disconcerting. TBM was sure he was going to have to build a temple in the name of POS and something about that seemed so very, very (very) wrong.

"Wait, what? What's all this then?" Mauve demanded. She looked from the still-dead Pedro to the creepy-lookin' Pedros Nihilem. "No, seriously: WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??"

Nihilem and Rei didn't seem displeased or even surprised at all by the past few events. Mauve guessed this was all part of some super-duper master plan that she, as per usual, had been left out of. God of Nothing? What exactly was that supposed to mean? Wasn't Rei worried about the fact that the real Pedro had, as they say in Monty Python, ceased to be, was no more, was an ex-capitalist?

Mauve, confused and annoyed, extended a hand and started snapping her fingers to get some attention.

"Oy. You guys." she said to Rei and Pedros Nihilem, irritated. "What's this all about, huh? Start talking or I start taking out my anger on some machinery." She looked around, noticing with some disgust the featureless wall of Gaians that surrounded them. "Make that machinery and Gaians."

"Wait, what? What's all this then?"

"So... why did you involve all of us in this? I mean if you were helping Doug with his evil plans so you could suck out your extra lives with a machine you obviously designed.... why was all this necessary. Cause I mean, I died. Like, like you did right over there."

"No, seriously: WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??"

"So.... why go through the middleman? And make us spend all this time fake saving you when the only real danger you were in was from yourself and your own plans?"

"Oy. You guys.... What's this all about, huh? Start talking or I start taking out my anger on some machinery.... Make that machinery and Gaians."

"Long story short: Blame Raiden," the almost fully-formed Nihilem replied to their more than reasonable queries, "But if you want to know why I wanted to go such a roundabout way, it's honestly because it didn't seem right to not involve you all the way to the end...."

Nihilem shuddered slightly, and the whole world around him began to shake. Strange dark strands formed from his body, giving off no light and seeming to pull the air around them within like an endless vacuum. The stretched outward, tearing through anything they touched and simply causing everything in their path to cease existing on every level.

They were making nothing from something. From everything.

"Yuh oh," Rei yelped as she continued hovering high above the NPFers, "Looks like the final stage is starting up."

Nihilem nodded, smiling, "I guess we'll have to finish this discussion later. You know, if you're still alive later. Oh, and Rei...."

The shaking excelerated and the energy surrounding the nascent god began to crackle and expand. The ground shook apart and buildings were wiped away by the dark wisps. Even through all this, the was an oh-so-brief hush that fell over the city as Nihilem finished his order.

"....Wake the locals."

"Okeedokee, Pe-chan!" And with a snap of her fingers, the massive account freeze over Gaia was lifted and everything sprang to life. A hysterical panic ensued, the more reasonable vainly trying to escape the coming apocalypse while the more vile entities simply went about their wantonly destructive business.

No matter what the mob was doing, the NPFers were clearly caught in the middle, while the birthing pains of this new "Pedros Nihilem" tore Gaia apart around them.

Religion.
 

"But if you are a god of nothing, then you yourself are nothingness and nothing can't affect something because nothing is non-existant. Only something can affect something else, so if you are warping this world around you then you must be something and if you're something then you are not nothing. Which would mean you cannot be the god of nothing. And if you're not the god of nothing then you must be the god of something..." TBM had become lost in his own rambling, logic wasn't his strong suit. Still though one had to wonder, what the god of nothing would do, if anything. "Either you're not a god at all or a jerk. The god of jerks... yeah, GOD OF JERKS!" TBM flipped Nihilem the bird for good measure. That'd show him.

"GROMBIES!" TBM-plushie screamed as he tugged roughly at TBM's ear. Whirling around fiercely TBM slammed a fist into the first Gaian's face, whose cohorts immediately scrambled like roaches under a light. Lousy buggers couldn't stand the sight of someone defending themself. The TBM-plushie snapped into action as well, "Fox-fire!" a small burst of fire and lightning struck the grombie who took flight as well, only until he ran into a large group of zombies and various other evil looking creatures headed for TBM. The grombie turned with a smile, well as much of a smile as a grombie can muster that is.

"Dammit," TBM was running out of options quickly, this world was ending and quickly, he had no way to leave of his own accord (quickly), he'd tried logic and he'd tried fighting. Neither worked very well. With options running so low, so quickly, he felt as though he had no other choice now. He (quickly) clasped his hands, (quickly)dropped to his knees and stared up into the heavens (slowly), "Please god, I know I say you don't exist but deep in my heart I know you do. So please just this once, help me out." The grombie was getting close now. "PLEASE HELP ME GOD! HELP ME PYROS-NINE!" He'd done it. He'd prayed. He felt strangely dirty for calling out a god's name.

Well now nothing left to do until the end of existence.

[ooc: apparently POS wanted me to hop back in again, so I guess here I am!]

After what seemed like an eternity wandering the planes of Limbo (where Rhiyan had last been thrust into like a newborn babe), a battle with a gigantic chaos kraken with thirty-six eyes and indescribable colours, a wrestling match with her alter-ego self, a trout-fight with a fish, and some other unnamed doo-das, Rhiya (who had finally managed to figure out how to revert to her old self after a bit) managed to find the conveniently-placed exit.

" 'Conveniently placed Exit for People Re-entering a Story,' " Rhiya read the sign above the massive gate. She frowned at the title, wondering what the hell it meant. But obviously it lead out of the damned limbo plane, so it would mean she'd be able to get away from the place where she was 'safe'.

Rhiya spied a Periwinkle giving chase behind her, swore repeatedly (the words coming out in the shapes of colourful butterflies) and didn't give a second thought before she leapt through the gateway.

There was a ripple in space-time continuum, and then the gate was still.

~~~

On the other side, Rhiya stumbled into a warzone.

"Waitaminute! This isn't NPF! Where the hell a--"

Famous last words? Looks like Rhiya just said them as a grombie (the very same grombie approaching TBM) trampled over her. There was a distinct Rhiya-shaped puddle on the ground, and the grombie was forced to bend over and pick out the sticky mess that seemed to stick to its foot like annoying bubblegum.

... Somehow, it was still Pyros' fault. But at least the Grombie was a bit more preoccupied in scraping Rhiya's remains off its foot instead of approaching TBM. Rhiya's death actually saved somebody.


"....fuck." was all Sub-Rhiya could say as she waited for herself to respawn somewhere else.

"Where is it Rei!" IC called out to the robot floating way above them. As a bunch of Gaians descended upon them, IC merely stood still, grabbing the first one that dared come into his reach. He used it as a sheild against quite a few others, killing the one that came first after quite a few excruciating blows. Tossing the lifeless body aside, IC stepped back, avoiding one of those turn-to-nothing tentacles, however some other Gaians didn't quite do the same. Spinning in his step back, IC grabbed another Gaian, this one caught off guard for he was going after another NPFer. However IC tossed him aside, and into one of those tentacles, forcing it to curl around the Gaian before turning him to nothing, saving whoever that was about to be destroyed.

The next one that showed his face got flung upward, in an attempt to get Rei's attention. If it was at all effective, IC's shouts should hopefully be heard. "Where is that wand Rei!"

"Hm. What would happen if you introduced a substance that stands between everything and nothing, having qualities of both everything and nothing into a God of Nothing? In theory, it sounds like paradox mania... Or maybe holy/light magic would work," Wizzle continued theorizing thoughtfully. "You never know. In any case, let's find out!"

The cat mage frowned, missing the presence of the magic-amplifying necklace he usually wore. That is, until he noticed on the ground near the reforming Nikose. Wizzle walked over and snatched it from the ground before turning and walking back to the position he held earlier. "It's good to see you again, Nikose, but why do you have to keep taking my stuff? It gets annoying," he told the regenerating figure, without turning back.

Without further ado, Wizzle replaced the air that was located where the necklace was once located and felt the familiar effects. It was almost as if some special effect that involved the circulating of a camera around the spellcaster, waiting for the inevitable change. Suddenly, he rippled with a magical energy, causing him to glow somewhat from it. "Oh, yes, the power. It feels good to be back," the anthropomorphic critter said aloud to no one. In a somewhat giddy mood, it seemed he was talking more than usual.

Wizzle, alive with the twilight magic now literally sparking around him, jumped about fifteen feet in the air and was held suspended there by the energies surrounding him. At a safe distance from the two other floating figures, of course. It was wonderful, he thought. He no longer needed to concentrate to utilize the magics and they were stronger than what was considered normal. Grinning and looking eerie as he did so from the warping magic around him, the cat mage pointed at O'Sullivan's Super form. "O'Sullivan!" called the airborne feline, "The Nothingingness is inferior to the Twilight! You're going down!" He pointed with a "thumb" towards the ground below to emphasize the words.

Glowing further at the thought, and still wearing the malevolent grin, he stretched both forearms out and beckoned the twilight. It responded and began to gather around him, from this world, from others, from the Twilight Dimension that Wizzle sometimes inhabited. It accumulated, and still he called it, requested its strength. The cat mage actually giggled before focusing the magic between the two paws that were held out together in front of him, towards O'Sullivan. "This is your end!" was all that could be heard as the tremendous blast of twilight magic was launched at the God of Nothing.

The two plushies on the ground were avoiding the large feet around them and thinking what a show-off Wizzle was.

Pyros sighed. "Another fool of nothingness, for once the world is nothing, so will you be. And creation is much more difficult than it looks, trust me on this one." He cut down the attacking Gaians that drew near, and left the fleeing ones be.

"I wish I was home, so that I didn't have to deal with your madness personally! This was supposed to be my vacation!" Pyros fumed.

***
Ecurt sighed. Not Gaia again....

"Well, Miss Mauve, have this all doubly recorded, and if you give me enough time I can probably rig up a transciever to broadcast the world's eminent doom to the world. I'm sure they'll want to know. This is quite possibly the biggest scoop we'll land!" Ecurt explained to his boss.

"But firstly, think we could get a safe distance away from all that nothingness? Or I'm afraid we'll have nothing to report."

****

Pyros was shocked that the game of Cat and Mouse had ended so abruptly. Cendy had taken much longer to give up by and far! Be it as it may, Pyros knew he had to get back on track.... but first, there was a nearby Wendy's. Carolina Classic it was!

As he enjoyed the coleslaw, bbq, and beef patty with crisp lettuce and sharp cheese, he felt an itch.

It was a strange sort of itch, the likes of which only came about less frequently as the years go by....but it had nothing to do with jerks trying to end the world.

Nor was it a flea, (Pyros had a collar for that), but an unanswered prayer. Few neccesarily prayed to Pyros nowadays, opting to a much more favorable text or email to his email address, or even a PM. Otherwise, Pyros would be an incredibly itchy fellow, which explained many great disasters that befell man before such things were invented (Great Chicago Fire. It weren't no cow!).

But this was a pure prayer, and as such, was a novelty. Who would bother praying for Pyros at this hour, when he was so happily eating foody stuffs? But alas, it was a person on his top listen list, which went as follows:

1. The Blind Mime
2. Ecurt (if he'd only call me!)
3. Mauve
4. Rhiya (used to be number 2, but I sense that she used my name in blame.)
5. Flare (In denial!)
6. Garud (Where the funk is he?)

Mime! Mime was calling! Pyros hadn't seen Mime for awhile, so obviously he wanted to get together for some coffee and some unadulterated madness! Wheee!!!

Pyros made a flaming circle with his hand, revealing Mime's face to him. There seemed to be an awful lot of action going on behind him, but that was to be expected. He was the blind mime. He tended to cause things without seeing them. Or seeing things that weren't really there, and miming them into existence.

The 40 year old cashier lady, along with most of her customers, stood in awe.

Pyros waved to Mime. "Hi Mime, what's up? Been fighting against the clown mafia any?"

****

Somewhere, a red light beeped. And someone wasn't very happy about it at all.

"'The End?'" echoed Mauve. She sighed and wearily ran a hand through her hair. "I don't like the sound of that. Although it can't really be the end of the whole world, because there's supposed to be a zeppelin involved when that happens."
"Couldn't agree with you more, Camera Minion Ecurt," Mauve said. "Not sure how far we can escape though, being surrounded by Gaians and Nothingness." So she did the next best thing.

Mauve threw together another shield around herself and those nearby, just in time to deflect a fireball hurled at them by a nearby flamer who was too stupid to notice that his entire world was being torn apart by Nega-Kamen Nothing-God-In-Progress.

Mauve ignored him and his kind and focused on the crystals surrounding Nihilem. She still wasn't entirely certain what exactly it was he was planning (and doing), but she still had to have a plan for what to do should he turn his Nothingy Wrath on her and the other NPFers. The crystals were obviously power sources, like the Kuro and Mashirosens. Would a blast of magic energy help destroy them or overload them, or would it just charge them further?

Until Mauve had enough time and evidence to work out the answer, she focused on maintaining the shield. No point in letting anyone on her side die before they knew what was going on.


"Seeing as how things don't look well for us," Mauve, still annoyed, called to Nihilem, "I don't suppose you'd mind explaining things a bit more for us now? Before we get ourselves killed for reasons we don't understand?"

"Hey Pyros!" TBM said excitedly, it had been like hours since they'd seen eachother. Or minutes. It was hard to tell time in Avatar. "Not much, oh and I'll worry about those idiots when they start using car bombs that will explode anything larger then a clown car. So whats up with you, HEY ARE YOU AT WENDY'S?!" TBM could really go for a Spicy Chicken Sandwich and some fries. He peered deeper into the portal which disconcerted the Cashier at the least.

"GAH!" TBM-plushie screamed as he backed up into the side of TBM's head, he was thrown from his perch as TBM turned to see the cause of his distress. The Grombie was pressing his face into Mauve's shield, trying vainly to get through.

"Oh right," TBM said like a stoner who just remembered his neglect to visit the store for munchies beforehand. "Hey buddy, I mean, God. So... um, POS has created some sort of abomination of the Kurosen and is becoming the god of nothing, but in doing so he's destroying all of Gaia online (not that I mind) and us (which I do mind) there seems to be no way to stop him..." A now dirt covered TBM-Plushie managed to scramble back up to TBM's head, giving the slight appearance of a bun shaped hairdo. "Help me Pyros-Nine, you're my only hope!"

"Eep..." TBM-plushie whispered quietly. TBM turned to see the Grombie joined by at least a dozen zombies pressing their faces into the shield. TBM turned back to the flaming portal with a forced look of calm (which didn't look very calm at all).

"Hurry."

"Alright my good man! But I'm afraid it will take me awhile. Gaia is a godforsaken land, which is why Krylo left it and . There is no vestige of the higher magics there for me to port with all my power intact, and then it'd take awhile for my power to catch up with me. But fear not, I have a speedy vehicle of doom!"

"For now though, i can't just leave you and the others emptyhanded. I give you....THIS!"

Hurled through the firey portal was none other than a strange, tri-pronged gun with with twin fires at the end.

"This gun is a pre-techno-magical device that was the hyperlink portal's predecessor, modified for a more portable form. It creates a magical rift that can make a doorway between two points, however there is a limited range between those two points that is allowed. Furthermore, it can't be made on certain surfaces, but at least REI can't mess with it with her hyperlink engines. Hopefully, this should help you out somewhat. Stay safe!"

Before Mime could even ask how it worked, Pyros closed the portal.

"Now to action! I must save my fellow NPF-ers in mock chivalry, even though I'll probably charge them for it later!" He yelled, his voice ringing through the Wendys, it's customers still staring at him, burgers half chewed lying on their tongues. "But first, a soda to go!"

Like a red streak he blazed through the tables between him and the soda fountain, grabbed a cup, filled it with a mix of mountain dew and some stupid energy drink, and left without paying.

In front of the Wendy's, the shocked staff looking at him through the building's great glass window, he did something far more shocking.

"T-R! SHOOOWTIIIMME!" he yelled into his watch.

The ground began to rumble.

Manhole covers began to quake, erupting steam as something mighty began to roll through the ground. There may have been screaming from the local populace.

The Turquoise Railcar was on it's way!

"Ok, someone tell me exactly wh....HEY!!" I said, as I felt a grab on my butt, which caused me to whirl around and sock the groper square in the side of the head, then launched a blast of fire at the Gaian's body, lighting it on fire. "Ok, where the fuck are we, and how do we get out of here?"

"Why this is just a bad dream." Arhra Two told Flare in a disinterested tone. "There is no way out bar one. Kill yourself - slit your wrists, drown, it matters not. You cannot dream your own death and so your mind will flee back to the waking world. All you need is the will to try it."

It was a hobby of Arhra's to give truely terrible advice. She was also debating the merits of whipping out her own somewhat damaged artefact of universal armageddon that had been previously been misused to such ends as giving TBM super powers and raping the space-time continuum.

Nihilem was answering reasonable queries, but it remained to be seen how he would react to an unreasonable one. What could be called an unreasonable query at least.

"Who are you?" Arhra One asked. "I do not mean what, that you have already claimed. How is self evident. I want who. Let us establish continuation of identity. Who are you?"

Arhra Five was lining up a shot. Hidden away in the mysterious recesses of a composite robot, she was getting ready to hurl the Robohobo's hammer at the Pedrosen. You could seldom go wrong by smashing mysterious crystals. She was sure she'd be able to hit even a fat italian plumber at this range, and the crystal was a much larger and more stationary target. Wanting a clear shot and to be sure of the situation, she waited for the time to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice.

Four had made the fortunate discovery that her shapechanging was of the costume merging variety and not the "Haha! All your nice clothes got shredded!" kind. Although there was the possibility that it only worked for tight fitting clothes.

The important part is Arhra was now a dragon. She bore a suspicious-but-not-quite-the-same resemblance to Rhiya's dragon form. Their temporary fusion had seemed to leave its imprint on some of the Arhra duplicates. While spiky, she looked less crystalline and more organic than Rhiya, possessing an iridescent hue rather than Rhiya's crimson lit black.

Delicate jaws swung out on a long neck and plucked a troll from the Gaian swarm. "Mmmm, tastes like flamebait." Arhra purred. Similarities seemed to go a little deeper than just appearance.

Onboard the newly reforged Turquoise Railcar-

Pyros sat in his command chair, deep in thought. This was a delicate situation, and everything was on the line, the here and now determining the fate of days eons ahead.....If one wrong move was made, it would be the end. The end of everything!

"Just pick the [expletive removed: I"M BAAAAACK!] drink you [expletive removed: Term for one who drinks soda lower parts.]!!" the tormened soul of John Lennon whined, his former all bodiedness much removed after the union of the the 3 spirits into the Yellow Submarine.

He himself took much of the same role as of Gilliam II, the Outlaw star's AI, except his mastercontrol of the ship was actually through nerves and physical manipulation, not technology. It was a perk for repairs, but never much of a perk for the poor bloke. Especially when there was a place where you could kick him if he ever didn't open the doors fast enough. But he no longer had control over the furniture, and had a tiny John Lennon avatar wearing a duck costume that served as his method of communicating throughout the ship.

"Oh fine, I'll take an orange soda, but if if doesn't go along well with my sandwich then you'll have to deal with my indigestion." Pyros said. "HAIRBALLS EVERYWHERE!"

"Nooo! NO PYROS HAIRBALLS! I HAVE NO NEED OF NEW HAIRBALL FASHION JUST YET! BUT I HAVE GREAT IDEA! NOT ORANGE JUICE, BUT TAPIOCA BANANA RADISH JUICE! IT GOOD FOR YOU! I HAVE OLD FAMILY WAY RECIPE!"

Yoko had not yet been exorcized, despite a thousand attempts by priests, saints, and John lennon's own attempts of ripping off a piece of the ship and hurling her far, far away (she crawled back.). Fittingly, she has taken over the ship's navigation, and radio. Which is why Pyros made damn sure she couldn't take over his mp3 player, and had canceled most karaoke nights.

The crazed fan was successfully exorcized, but sent back in part of a deal made with Death Pyros had made for his ride back. After some time spent in a psych ward and the best drugs money can buy except when stolen when the pharmacists's weren't looking, she was actually pretty mellow.

"I am pleased to serve you, sir." She said in a daze, taking Nein's order and wobbling over to the kitchen.

"Very good. This ship is moving at top capacity, and I'm fairly sure your creepy fan won't pass out in my sandwich. Estimated arrival at the Gaian border?"

"Sod off, I don't [expletive removed: Did he even GO to college?] know! Do I look like a [expletive removed: Your adspace here!] for you to [expletive: Only $4 per word!] using me for a [expletive: 30 viewers daily!], that's what it is! Oughta be ashamed of yourself!"

"Ono?"

"WE BE CLOSE IN 3 MINUTES! I KNOW MATH, JOHHHHNNYYYY!! BUT I AM DETECTING MAJOR BADNESS IN STRANGE PLACE! WILL YOU PROTECT ME, JOHHHNNNNYYY????"

"My self! Major badness! That's a step above NORMAL badness! I only hope we get there in time..."

"Yeah so we can just chuck her [expletive] ass at it and let it all even out."