New Beginning 23: One for the Record Books

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

The wolf barley dodges, jerking it's head down as the blade flows cleanly over the top of his head and shaving it off. The werewolf backs off for a second, pawing at the top of its now bad head and thanking its lucky stars that it still had the scalp before reeling back for another lunge.

Then a meteor falls out of the sky and plows it right into the ground, where it remains whining under a ton of half-molten rock.

On the sidelines Vaultboy blows imaginary smoke off his finger. "No no, my friend. You were out."

The danger isn't over yet though, as the gorilla advances with wild abandon toward Mai SMASHING through the pillar Pilosthenes was standing on and barreling right towards her as the blond werewolf and four of her servants maneuvered just at the edge of the impending clash. The three Hexenwulfen, however, rush at the crumbling pillar in the hopes of catching Pilosthenes in his fall and ripping his weave from his head.

The silver one and the rest of his pack had rushed over to the table to try and pounce on Harriet, but she had exploded from the embers like a phoenix and bolted straight for Pilosthenes. They started to head over that way now, except for two that were tripped up by some ethereal string flowing from Knights hand. Enraged, they turned on the boy.

(Regal Silver Werewolf)
(Noble Blond Werewolf)
(9 Werewolves)
(3 Hexenwulfen)
(Red Gorilla)
(Knight)

[Myself]

A teenager, in regular clothes, arrives in the great city of Kethencia. Looking at his invitation, he realizes the true extent of his tardiness.

Looking at the events unfolding at the party, he realizes that a fight appears to be occurring. He steps back and watches carefully before selecting a course of action. He begins to consider alternate forms to assume for the best response. His default form, a household cat, seemed inappropriate for any sort of fight and the golem form he had used before did not seem necessary. He needed something better for this fight.

(EDIT: Spelling corrections.)

[Celadon's Penultimate]

(You know that the pillar was made of adamant, right? As in, the hardest substance in existence. A divine material. Can't be broken by mortal force. Just sayin'.)

The statue having been knocked out of his grasp, Pilosthenes grew frustrated. Not that it would break his concentration, though. With time to spare, four more tendril-locks shot down from his scalp, stamping down onto the ground with an angry thud. The Dasyarch Dignitary didn't even fall more than three feet from the height he'd originally stilted himself up to.

"Foul ruffians!" cried the Dasyarch to the approaching monsters, "And werewolves, to boot! You know, if he weren't so valorous and honorable on his own heroic merit, I might say that you give our dear Safarian Prince Shadowulf and his Wulf'n comrades a bad name!"

And there was no way in any of the mythologies' hells that he would take on an honorable combatant and come to the verge (perhaps) of victory, just to lose his bout to a group of rowdy interlopers. With that thought, he reached both hands forth. Eyes aglow, his power extended out from beyond his own head of hair, to the furry bristles covering the werewolves.

Like creatures unfamiliar to their own bodies, the werewolves hairs rose up, writhing and restless. A couple had been tripped up by a sporting spectator, but these, he would have to hogtie--nay, wolftie--himself. And perhaps a sniff of their hair so close up might even convince them to consider a shampoo to take care of that God-awful dog-stink.

And as they grew yet more and more entangled in their own growing, unruly masses of fur, they would make perfect projectiles, with which to meet the assault of the hot-headed Harriet.

(So, yeah, Dasyarchs can control ALL hair, not just their own. I probably should have mentioned that. Still, you can rest assured that Pilosthenes is, by no means, a cheater. He'd sooner lop off his locks, than cheat to win a fight.

And, bonus, werewolves make excellent weapons!

Also, apologies if you're bothered by me narrating a bit for the werewolves, GV. I sort of have to take them on, and also Harriet and Mai. I wasn't quite sure what else to do, without making myself monotonous. 'He grew MORE hair tentacles! And MORE! And yet MORE!'. Gotta spice it up. Hope you don't mind.

Plus, in case you missed it, the Shadowulf to whom Pilosthenes refers is not me, but rather, the Safarian werewolf prince I created, who ORIGINALLY bore the name)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

No Wulf, that's the statue. You never specified for the pillar.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Bleh, sorry. Got confused. Was sort of tired when I wstarted posting. I can edit later.

[The Narrator]

"Oh crap, we're fighting?"

Narrtor jumps up, hair jumping wildly....  He ties his hair back.

"I hope this helps.  Now to get battle ready!"

He dons his boots, and gloves.


"Who's ready for dis beatdown?!"

[Zaleramancer]

Zale uses confusion!

ITS SUPER EFFECTIVE

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

As the wolf that she'd attacked was blasted by a meteor, Mai took stock of the situation. More wolves than she'd like, plus a gorilla, a hair-wielding fighter, a fire elemental,  and... a... knight... Time for something different. Mai points the tip of her katana at the gorilla, breaths in then cries out, "TEMPEST!"

Several lights flash into sight around the length of the blade before flying at the beast randomly.

(Mai isn't that good at ki-based offensive techniques, so the blasts aren't that powerful. They can take off a bit of hair but they can't break bone)

[Myself]

Seeing the chaos beginning to unfold, I call in the armada to watch from orbit, ready to contain any damage.

[The Narrator]

CONTENTS DELETED

The author has deleted this message.

[Myself]

My fleets begin to gather in orbit, ready to provide assistance in any form to the ground. Some crews equipped to deal with riots land and walk around the streets, not interfering until danger presents itself.

Meanwhile, I ready my powers, continue shapeshifting to a form of preference and explore the now-slightly-chaotic city.

(I saw this thread abnormally silent, so I took the opportunity to try to spark some life into it.)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

As Mai's attack strikes the now entangled gorilla and Knight pulls back seeing that, despite his reservations, the people in the ring had things well in hand Vaultboy noticed an awful lot more guys in riot gear that earlier. " People can't have any fun at all without someone coming in to spoil it. Better end this before whoever these guys work for breaks out the mind control."

He two fingers and points his hand at at each of the combatants muttering to himself, "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollars let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, moe."

"Shows over." he says, chopping his hand down.

At that moment, it was decided: Pilosthenes and Harriet lost the contest.

(But HOW is up to YOU!)

"Well, I'm hungry. There must be some other food place at this party." He said, looking around.

"I thought you said you wanted to tape the contest?" Said Knight, walking back over.

"It's over already."

"No it's not." Knight said, confused.

"Yes it is. Trust me." Vaultboy replied dismissively before looking down at Root. "Hey kid, you know any good places to eat around here?"

[Myself]

The people in the riot gear, noticing that they are being distracting, decide to watch the events unfold; the fight seems to be going smoothly. They deactivate their forcefields, which in turn makes their armor and shields vanish. Holograms and polymorphic material-based clothing allows them to assume the appearance of normal party-goers.

(I've realized that their presence may be distracting from the action and could spoil the event. For now, they'll just sit back and do nothing and when this arc ends, they'll leave the planet.)

[Zaleramancer]

Suddenly, the blazing comet that was Harriet imploded with a small pop. The now bald girl hint the ground and bounced a few times before crashing into a nearby window.

The other girl watching just sighed. That had been a bit underwhelming. But at least she could nick one of those nifty belts. As she pondered this, she felt the sudden prickle of her ears that indicated a sudden shift in local gravity fields. Something really big had just showed up a good bit above them.

With a startled expression, she covered one eye and stared upwards. The pupil of uncovered eye began to grow until the entire of her eye was covered in blackness. Visual acuity doubled and redoubled, and through the faint haze of atmospheric distortion, she could make out a great many large ships.

Well, that can't be good.

Blinking her eye back into normality, she tapped a silvery ring and then spoke into the brown gem on it. There was a brief flash of radio static and then..

Crsh. Unknown armada entering Kethenican orbit, you will identify.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Okay kid, whatever." Vaultboy says at the Plants indecision. "What about you Knight, you know a place?"

"There's a lovely bakery in town." He offers. "Unless you start a fight in it, that is."

"They were annoying." Vaultboy counters. "Besides, a fight would have happened anyway. It's seriously like people are always just looking for an excuse. My way at least no one got hurt."

"Gang way." Shouted two Kethencians as the carted the broken body of the werewolf that had been hit by a meteor between them. Even through the mask Vaultbuy could feel his new friend giving him A Look.

"That's a werewolf, there's no silver in that meteor, he'll be up in like a day." He said.

"Is knowing the composition of meteors also one of your powers?" Knight asked pointedly.

"No, but I can become four different types of bee."

[The Narrator]

*Narrator begins to read a book*
"I guess I'll keep myself occupied until something comes my way...."

[Zaleramancer]

Harriet pops up from the wreckage of the building she collided with, and begins busying herself by wrapping a multi-colored turban around her now bald head.

"That was fun. Didn't expect the wolves though."

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Traveling to another world?" Vaultboy asked as he and Knight exited the bakery.

"Yesh." mumbled night, his mouth full of a honey glazed roll. The boy hadn't stopped popping them into his mouth from the large cloth bag he had that overflowed with the things. He took a big swallow that Vault swore was him downing the entire thing and continued. "You see a friend of mine, an schoolmate actually, wove a very powerful enchantment that I need to dispel. That's why I came to this event. People from other worlds have gathered here and I was hoping that I could find some way to get to his homeworld from here. There I might find some way to break the enchantment. I don't suppose you could..."

"No, sorry. I came by invitation. I can't jump from world to world as I please." Vaultboy thought on it a bit. "Why can't you just get in contact this friend of yours?

"It's embarrassing, but I can not meet him again. If I were to meet this person again, the consequences for both of us would be terrible. Completely awful! Totally catastrophic!" Knight replied, his voice growing higher in octave with ever sentence.

"Okay, okay, asking this guy isn't an option. I get it." Vaultboy said quickly, seeing as he had stumbled on a touchy subject. "So, what then? What are you going to do there if not look for him?"

"Search out someone knowledgeable of Aeons magic. No spell is perfect. Nothing is forever. I just have to find some flaw in its workmanship to crack it, but I can not do that unless I understand the fundamentals."

"Right." Said Vault, nodding. "I can't get you off world. I'm hardly any good in a fight. I am definitely not a people person. Buuuuut, I've got nothing better to do until the finish scraping the robot off the sidewalk back home. So, let's see about getting to Aeon. It's got to be at least as interesting as here anyway."

With that he spun around to face the party goers and brought his hands up to his forehead, placing one finger on each of his temples. "Now, be amazed at another of my myriad, semi-random powers. SIREN SIGNAL!"

Nothing happened, though Knight reacted with appropriate shock and awe anyway at this apparent demonstration of power. Throughout the party, however, a signal was emitted. A signal designed to draw someone to the user. A siren signal, if you will. A signal that put no thoughts in anyone's mind, didn't control anyone. Just made sure that a specific type of person would, by pure coincidence, end up coming this way. And that specific person was "someone with the willingness and capability of taking him and knight to Aeon."

There was no need for the pose he was making, but Vaultboy was determined to hold it until this person arrived.

[Zaleramancer]

From a nearby cafe, a person with blue skin and wholly white eyes steps out and crosses the street, taking care to avoid dirtying his suit. He stands near Vault and Knight, looking out towards the road with the deliberate eye-contact avoidance that all people waiting in groups for things share. A pocket watch is pulled out of his jacket and examined as he begins to tap his foot.

[The Narrator]

*Narrator is still reading*

--

Thank you,
Derek A. Haynes: Plant Biology Major
Senior, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
North Carolina State University
cell: [phone]