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Post by Rider on May 20, 2005 13:54:38 GMT -5
YAY GREAT CHAPTER. Wow, I didn't do some hair-brained idea in this one. XDDD [glow=red,2,300]I figured I'd cut you some slack. Anyway, thansk everyone! *hugs*[/glow]
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Post by ncwidt5895 on May 21, 2005 19:34:00 GMT -5
Ooh, good chapter Rider^^
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Post by Crystal on May 22, 2005 1:20:13 GMT -5
“… Guys, we’re ninjas, right?” “Yeah, Eri,” Crystal said. “Your point being?” “We’re godmodders, too.” “Godmoders.” Stal clenched his teeth. It was a pet peeve of his. “So we can just… I don’t know… teleport out of here?” … … … “Wow.” “Wow indeed.” “See you guys at the Vitae entrance?” “Hai.” “Hai. See you in a few.” LMFAO! That = hilarious. XD
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Post by Rider on May 24, 2005 7:04:26 GMT -5
Veritas Vitae Part Thirteen
“Why the heck does the bad guy always have to have killer robots?!”
“Dunno, it’s like lasers. It’s just one of those things that a bad guy usually has.”
“Why?”
“Wait a minute, does it have lasers?”
Tseer!
“Gav, next time, don’t ask.”
“Yes Ms. BlackCrow.”
They kept running through the hallways, growing closer to the din of battle. A laser fried the wall above Gav’s head. Knowing that he drew closer to the battle, Gav notched an arrow onto his bow. Sammy’s hands glowed black. “AZARATH METRION ZINTHOS!”
They entered the battle with a bang, a flash of darkness. I was blown off my feet. “Yeah Sammy!” Fj0rd called, jabbing a spear into the robot’s eye socket. Gav’s arrow shot true like a thunderbolt, catching the beast where the greaves met the rest of the leg. The robot limped, staggered, one bronze hand sweeping downward and catching Puzz on the back of the head. Poor girl went down like a sack of potatoes.
The battle raged for what seemed like eternity. Flames lanced across the room. Our weapons scarcely made a dent in the metal, and we were forced to aim for cracks where the beast’s plates fit together. NSQ jabbed her pokey stick into the robot’s left arm and pried a plate loose. “Oooh, pretty sparks!” she cried with glee. Finally seeing the tide of the battle turning in our favor, we attacked the exposed area. Kiddo used her spear to hack through the exposed wires when a fireball whizzed past her head. “Holy crud! Kat, watch where you’re aiming those things!”
Elycien and Luna managed to grab a hold of the creature’s right arm and helped each other upwards. Elycien jammed her cutlass up one of the robot’s steel nostrils. “She’s gonna blow!” Lunagirl screamed, jumping onto a curtain and swinging away like Tarzan. Elycien jumped off the creature’s shuddering face, and it exploded behind her like a scene from Charlie’s Angels.
Seven tons of metal robot practically fell on the entering trio of ninja ex-captives.
“Well,” Crystal said, a bit miffed, “I see you don’t need our help.”
“Eri! Crystal!” I raced over and embraced the two ninjas. “Oh yeah, and Stal too.”
“Haha, very funny.” Stal paused. “What is Nick doing?”
Nick approached the smoking robot, sniffed it, decided it was the closest thing he’d get to a fire hydrant, and lifted his leg.
I winced. “Come on guys, let’s find the moron who runs this pit full of morons.”
“When we find said moron, what’re we going to, erm, do?”
I smiled at Fj0rd. “I’ll figure that out as we go along.”
* * *
HTML groaned. “You’d think by now they’d figure out not to send their legions of hastily-repaired robo-maids at us.”
“I think they mean to stall us,” Crystal said with a smile. “And while they can slow us down, they can’t stop us.”
NSQ giggled. “More pretty sparks!”
A robo-maid came and hit her over the head with a mop.
“Oooh, now there are pretty stars…”
“Here we are,” I said dramatically. “Guys, careful what you say here. We can’t give this guy material to beat us over the head with. In fact, someone duct tape the pooch’s mouth shut. Yes Ishmale?”
“I still need to go potty.”
I groaned. “Head back to the robot chamber. Do it behind the robot. Huggs, could you escort him?”
“Rider, Rider, Rider.” Huggsy put his paw around my shoulder. Women go to the bathroom in pairs. Men go solo. Men don’t say to other men, ‘Hey, I’m going to the bathroom, wanna come with me?’ That’s not how the world works.”
“It’s a fact of life,” Ishmale added weakly.
“Huggs, at least make sure he doesn’t get lost or attacked by anything. The rest of you, let’s go.”
Eri turned the doorknob. “Crud, it’s locked.”
“I’ll take care of that,” I said, beating the door repeatedly with my shield.
Ken grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me aside. “Rider, you shouldn’t be lecturing the rest of us on how not to give the Vitae staff any material. You’re a walking bundle of material yourself.”
I winced. “Let’s just get this door open.”
“How?”
“Maybe if we built a giant wooden badger…”
“HTML, don’t say it.”
I knocked on the door. “Mr. Vitae owner, I invoke the rights of parlay!”
I heard some shuffling of papers, a bang, some curse words and footsteps. “I’ll negotiate.”
I paused. I recognized that voice.
“You’re not who I think you are, are you… Cow?”
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Post by Kat on May 24, 2005 7:56:20 GMT -5
Dude. COW?! XD CLIFFHANGER! XDDDDDDDDDDD
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Post by Crystal on May 24, 2005 8:34:58 GMT -5
It could be his evil twin, maybe.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2005 9:46:12 GMT -5
Veritas Vitae Part Thirteen Ken grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me aside. “Rider, you shouldn’t be lecturing the rest of us on how not to give the Vitae staff any material. You’re a walking bundle of material yourself.” That's the second time I grabbed you by the wrist to keep you from getting too violent. I feel like your conscience
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Post by Rider on May 24, 2005 11:38:57 GMT -5
Veritas Vitae Part Thirteen Ken grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me aside. “Rider, you shouldn’t be lecturing the rest of us on how not to give the Vitae staff any material. You’re a walking bundle of material yourself.” That's the second time I grabbed you by the wrist to keep you from getting too violent. I feel like your conscience [glow=red,2,300]You sound only slightly happier about it than I am. [/glow]
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Post by neonick on May 24, 2005 11:44:19 GMT -5
... What if that robot still had power? <__< What if it electrocuted me through my privilages? *Shivers* Still, good part... but I think I'll just sit in the corner, crying at that thought, for the next hour or so. ;__;
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2005 12:31:28 GMT -5
Cow? COW?! HOLY CRAP! *falls over*
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Post by Gav on May 25, 2005 0:21:19 GMT -5
*gasp*
EBIL CLIFFHANGER.
Everyone's doing stories... I'll never keep up having to read all of them...
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Post by Rider on May 25, 2005 18:34:33 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Thanks guys. New part coming soon.[/glow]
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2005 18:38:54 GMT -5
Yayness! ^-^
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Post by hmlanden on May 25, 2005 21:29:10 GMT -5
I was mentioned twice.....
Cliffhanger ebilness! *leans forward so far she falls out of her chair*
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Post by Rider on May 27, 2005 18:54:04 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]OK, maybe "soon" was the wrong word. ^_^;[/glow]
Veritas Vitae Part Thirteen
“Cow? Who is this Cow of whom you speak? I’m the kid you met on the chat boards, you dumb NTWFer!”
(I scared you all there, didn’t I? Come on, you were all thinking it was Cow. XD)
“Nothing, never mind.”
“You wanted to negotiate with me?”
“Kat, you talk. I’m going to make a fool of myself.”
Kat stepped forward, clutching her wand so hard that her knuckles turned white. “Mr. Vitae Owner, we want you to stop making newspapers.”
“And we want cheese!”
Sammy put her hand over Nick’s mouth. “Where is that duct tape?”
“I cannot provide you with either closure or cheese. I can, however, be bribed. You see, words are my Philosopher’s Stone. From them comes unlimited power. Gold without measure. Immortality. People will be remembering me for years to come. But all I want is more.
“Miss Kat, what I want is your words. The power to control the Neopian Times. To harness your words and fit my meaning. I want to tell you what to write and when to write it, or I shall slowly run the NT out of business.”
“You can’t do that!” Forgetting that I had agreed to let Kat speak, I ran to the front of the room. “The people won’t stand for it!”
“Those same people who formed an angry mob outside your forum?”
I paused. He was right.
“Come in.” He opened the door and I gazed around at his office. A normal executive office, filled with cushy chairs, gold-plated pens, shiny paperweights and the like. “Hey, I wonder what this paperweight will do if I throw it at the wall?” NSQ asked.
“Get out, get out!” The Vitae owner pushed NSQ out rather forcefully. Nick slipped by him and promptly began to shed on the furniture. “Not on the suede! Bad doggy!”
Nick bounded out, grinning like a pup.
Fj0rd stared at the room in wonder. “How much do you think the Vitae makes?”
Wanderer shrugged. “5 neopoints per paper… they must sell a lot of papers.”
“More than the NT?”
“I’d guess so.”
“Now you see the true extent of my power.”
“Power is an interesting term,” I said, unwilling to let this perfect chance for a job go by. “The Native Americans used dried buffalo droppings as fuel for their fires. Heat power, light power, all generated by total and complete…”
Kat elbowed me before I could say something that would set the filters off.
“But power is power, Rider, no matter what the source. And I have you at my power. You and your precious NT.”
“You…”
“That’s it!” Mindela said, throwing her arms up in despair, “I’m getting the duct tape!”
“Mr. Vitae Owner,”
“Please, Kat, call me Bill.” Remembering the power and authority he was supposed to be wielding, he quickly added, “Mr. Bill.”
I couldn’t help but jab him again, singing, “Here comes Mr. Bill’s dooooog!”
Everyone stared.
“What, no one remembers that old TV show with the clay people and the hand…”
Mindela came back with the duct tape. She held it up threateningly.
I shut up.
“Well, Mr. Bill,” Kat continued, “Let’s get a few things straight. I’d sooner see the NT die than see it controlled by the likes of you.”
“Would you, though? Because the NT is the one thing keeping this world on the brink of sanity. If there were to be only one newspaper in Neopia, would you rather have my paper, rotten through and through? Or your paper, which might retain an ounce of purity? That might retain a single white feather from a Weewoo’s wing?”
Kat paused…
Carrie answered for her. “I could never see our NT corrupted like that.”
“But then again,” HTML piped up, “I could never see Neopia corrupted like that.”
“Neopia’s already corrupt,” Plushieowner said, thinking back to the mob outside their front door. “It’s the nature of humans and Neopets to follow like sheep and attach themselves to the nearest semblance of a leader. And the semblance of a leader is not a person who is great, but a person who makes a lot of noise about being good.”
A shadow fell over HTML’s face. “If that’s the truth…”
“It is.” I was surprised to hear myself say. I knew about noisy men. Actually, I knew a lot about noisy men. Look at my past Tabloid husbands.
“So now what,” Nick asked, scratching behind his ear, “we roll over and play dead?”
Kat piped in. “Neopia hangs delicately in the balance, and we’re just a bunch of kids. It might not be as dramatic as saving the world from a warlord by questing for a jewel, but it is our Neopia.”
“Bill said that words hold power. Maybe they hold the power to overthrow him,” suggested Kiddo.
There was a brief silence.
Fj0rd sighed. “I can’t find the right words.”
Even the great Kiddo seemed despairing. “Nor can I…”
How could we make a decision like this? As Kat said, we were only a bunch of kids.
A bunch of kids in a lose-lose situation.
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