FFR: The Phantom Challenge

[igotrhythm]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

I realize you can't rush genius, but with the Gamewhore Tournament upon us, followed shortly by the official tourney, maybe you could write something to commemorate?

As it is, it looks like Engler has won...I'm quivering in my seat as I'm wondering who, if anyone, is going to save Guido's hide. Damn you and your cliffhangers as you take weeks to come up with the next part. >_<

[GamerShadow]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

Update: I have started writing Chapter 16, Part 2. However, I cannot post it for a few days due to my grandmother having died recently. Thus, I will be going to her funeral and wake tomorrow and Friday.

This story isn't over yet guys, stay with it. =)

[Xception704]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

Sorry to hear about your grandmother Gamer.

Keep on keepin' on. =)

[GamerShadow]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

Edit: Chapter 16, Part 2 used to be here. However, to make things easier on the reader, I decided to compile both parts into one post.

[Engler]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

After taking my leave for what seemed to be months, I decided to check out this thread, expecting it to be dead. Surprisingly, it's better than ever! Awesome job, GS.

[GamerShadow]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

Notice:

From now on, chapters will be released weekly, on Sundays, at ~8:00PM Eastern. They will be in full unless life decides to intervene; in which case I will have to shift the schedule back or post what I have in parts. I think it's about time I finished this story up; it's been almost six months since I started writing this.

Chapter 17 will be released Sunday, June 15th, 2008 @ 8:00PM Eastern.

[TK_demon]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

i just read the engler thread, then i just got done reading this. All of it was so great, I could barely keep my self from laughing. Too bad chunky ruined all the fun. :P

[GamerShadow]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

To give you a preview of what is coming up in Chapter 17, I decided to type a short little paragraph or so and post it here. I will start doing this for every chapter, so that you guys aren't completely in the dark. =P

Coming up in Chapter 17:
The Militia is slowing down greatly, but the noobs just never seem to stop coming. Squeek and Omega finally give out and accept defeat as the enemy army begins to advance towards them. Is this the end, or will six unexpected guests, including an unusually powerful fighter, be enough to turn the tide of the battle and save the day?

Find out this Sunday at 8:00PM!

(I am so evil. =P)

[Xception704]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

What the ****.

60 words has never hyped me up as much as these have.

Damnit Sunday, hurry up.

p.s. I got chills.

[DarkManticoreX2]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

Selling the identity of the mystery person for 100k credits. come one come all.

[GamerShadow]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

Manti, that info is priceless. You can't sell it. At least, not for anything less than a OMW AAA, a Crowdpleaser AAA, and Rubix's own rubix cube collection (assuming he has one.) And a pic of synthlight's true face.

Can't you wait 2 chapters or so before spilling the beans?

[DarkManticoreX2]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

Nope, Can't wait.








For the next chapter ................

[GamerShadow]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

A recap of Chapter 16:

GuidoHunter finally got down to business, attempting to take down Engler once and for all. But his rage turned against him as Engler toyed with the furious mod, and nearly finished him. But Stretchypanda had other plans. She whisked Guido and GamerShadow away before Engler could react, and allowed the two of them to rehabilitate in the Staff Hospital. But GamerShadow wasn't down for the count yet. After de-numbing himself, he left only halfway healed to find Specforces to inform him of the dire situation.
===================
FFR: The Phantom Challenge
Chapter 17:

The sun flared and relentlessly beat down on the TGB Army, taking complete control of the cloudless skies and ruling with an iron fist. Specforces, as well as the numerous war veterans stood sharp and alert, never letting their shoulders droop once. Their perfect posture made them seem like gods to the newer and less experienced recruits, who were completely slouched over like hunchbacks at the time.

Specforces had his mind on other, more pressing issues. He had not heard from a staff member other than Mal and Guido in the last week, and GamerShadow had not returned to update on his search for quite some time. To compound the problem, there was the fact that the path that the Army now tread upon was completely burnt and devoid of any life. Only the Army’s soldiers and the dust moved; everything else remained perfectly still, a painting of a distorted reality.

Tibs and Reaper both sensed the concern that Specforces had, but mentioned nothing about it. They simply marched right behind him in the front row of the unorthodox shape that started as the trademark perfect square, and ended more similar to a blob.

As if possessed, Specforces jutted out his left hand, and everybody in the first six rows stopped on command. The newbies did not realize that the command had been given until they bumped into the rear ends of their comrades, which angered the veterans slightly. A moment passed, and only the wind guarded them from complete and perfect silence. Specforces’s eyebrows furrowed a bit as he called out into the open air, “GamerShadow! I know you are there! Reveal yourself!”

Many soldiers thought that the heat had finally gone to their leader’s head. “There’s nobody here but us,” they whispered to themselves, “what is he doing?” Even Tibs raised an eyebrow at Spec’s strange command. Reaper merely shrugged, and Afrobean began to think of possible reasons for such an outburst.

The confusion was soon put to rest as a small puddle of an unknown indigo substance appeared on the ground, fifteen feet away from Spec’s jungle camo boots. It slowly rose from the ground, and formed into GamerShadow’s body shape before finally shifting back into GamerShadow himself. Before Specforces could speak, however, GamerShadow alerted Specforces of the dire situation. “Specforces,” his tone was rushed and slightly panicked, and his left hand was clenching a small object in his left pocket, turning it, feeling the grooves, “It’s Engler. He’s stronger than ever. It...” GamerShadow mysteriously put emphasis on it, which confused a few of the veterans, “...it told me that he’s going to attack The Garbage Bin.”

Specforces immediately wheeled around in terror, and began to launch orders at the top of his lungs. “Soldiers! Into your emergency transport positions! We make it to TGB by nightfall!” At his command, Reaper roared as he transformed into the Death Dragon. Tibs sprouted wings that spanned fourteen feet, and Specforces sent in a request to have his battalion lifted and brought over to TGB via aircraft, which was readily approved.

Within minutes, the TGB Army had assembled in their transport positions. Tibs was carrying Seth in his transformed feet and hands, and Reaper had about twenty people on his back, ready to ride a somewhat scaly trip to TGB. The remaining personnel were stationed on troop carriers that Specforces had designed earlier in his military career.

“GamerShadow,” Specforces sent him a private thought, due to the carriers making too much noise to speak, “After we touch down, I would like to have a talk. This is important, so “the mission” is temporarily on hold until this is resolved, ok? See you in about an hour or so.”

Reaper, Tibs, and the carriers that were lifting the TGB Army into the sky ascended into the air as one, and flew at maximum speed towards The Garbage Bin. Everybody knew that they had to make it by nightfall to reinforce the Militia, or else all hope would be forever lost.

The afternoon clouds continued to lazily drift by as if nothing new had happened on the bloodied soil below. They cast their comforting shadows on various areas around The Proving Grounds, which was still erupting with violence and conflict, the lives of thousands melting down into nothing but corpses which lay piled to the heavens.

Nobody noticed the inconspicuous beams of pure white light that shot down from the sky during the struggle for the final frontier. They arrived at the rocks which surrounded and shielded The Garbage Bin from harm, and left behind six figures, who surveyed the busy scene below. Five of the figures appeared to be normal citizens of various countries of the FFR world. One glance at them would reveal to many that they were members of rather high status. The other, however, had concealed his true identity with a full-body ninja suit. A satchel rested by his waist, tied by a rather flimsy string to a pitch black waistband which was made for concealing small items.

The first person to speak up was darkshark. His hair was dyed a navy blue near the tips. When viewed from exactly the right angle, the hair appeared to resemble a plethora of fins jutting out of the water at once, like a grand alliance of sea monsters on the hunt for their prey. The rest of his tall, thin body however, was rather bland; he wore a plain white t-shirt with dark blue jeans, and his sneakers appeared to be at least a year old with its torn soles and matted laces.

“This is quite the battle, wouldn’t you all say?” Darkshark initiated the conversation with an obvious question, which he hoped would break the silence that existed between the six members.

“It’s almost depressing to view this sort of event,” another voice responded, “Is violence really the only solution that people can employ?” In his left hand was a rubix cube, which was constantly rotating and shuffling in every which way as the man tinkered with it without looking at it.

“Rubix,” another, deeper voice replied, “are you always this pessimistic, or is it the unbearable heat that is getting to you?”

“No, Hammy.” MrRubix answered, “It is neither of those. The fact that so much time and so many lives are being needlessly consumed is a factor of annoyance to me. Why can’t everybody just make peace and leave one another alone?”

HammyMcSquirrel, who had his hands shoved in his pockets, turned to look at Rubix, who had just solved his cube for the umpteenth time, and was in the process of randomly shuffling it to solve again. Hammy shrugged, and looked at the others, half expecting one of them to answer Rubix’s rhetorical question.

“Either way,” an aggravated DJ_Swabber crossed her arms and tilted her head by a miniscule amount, “We should stop the battle before any more people die.” Her eyebrows were furrowed, and she clearly was itching to get in her fair share of kills for the day.

“Something isn’t right.” Swabber, Rubix, Darkshark, Hammy, and igotrhythm turned towards the ninja-like figure, who was still monitoring the battle intensely. “There shouldn’t be this many people assimilated into this small of an area. This can’t be an unorganized assault; no one country has this many people that are willing to fight.”

Igot gasped as he pointed down towards a lower spire in the chain of mountains, which was located about a quarter of a mile down. “Look! It’s Omega! And I think I see Squeek in there as well! You can tell by the glare from their banhammers!”

The others opened their eyes wide and looked in the direction of igot’s finger. All five of them confirmed his statement; Omega and Squeek were indeed swinging their banhammers violently, and sending countless enemies sailing through the mid-afternoon air. Every second or so, a brilliant glare would blind their eyes, which only supported igot’s proven theory.

“My god igot,” Darkshark gasped, “you’re right. It is them. What in the world are they doing here, and why would they have their banhammers out? I mean, there are a ton of people here, but they can’t be fighting all of them, can they?”

The ninja-like figure once again input his thoughts. “They have to be. If you look closely, the majority of the forces are idle, not fighting. If the forces were split to anything resembling a fifty-fifty, then they would all be fighting. This needs our immediate attention. If we let them fight on their own any longer, then they will surely die.”

Everybody nodded, and jumped down the mountain one at a time until only the figure remained. He looked toward the horizon, and tried to make sense of the situation. “Is this what he was planning?” He thought to himself, “He can’t seriously expect to defeat us with a force this lacking in skill and power. Oh well, I guess I should get this over with.” With cat-like reflexes, agility, and speed, the figure leapt down the spires as if it were his playground, and advanced towards the enemy forces.

Omega and Squeek retreated up to a higher spire, where they had to catch their breath. Squeek’s left knee gave way, and he dropped his banhammer onto the ground. “Omega,” he barely managed to articulate his thoughts as he fell backward onto the stone, “I don’t think I can keep this up any longer. We’ve been smacking their brains out for half the day, and they still don’t stop coming.”

Omega knew that they were trapped like fireflies in a jar at this point. He too was panting heavily, and also dropped his banhammer as the veins in his arm throbbed and the muscles seared with intense fatigue. “I’m not doing so well either, Squeek. But what else can we do? We must have banned over two thousand of these damn noobs, yet they continue to come. This might be it.”

Squeek smiled, and tried to laugh, but only ended up intensifying the pain in his stomach and lungs, which caused him to emit a light, painful groan. “It was nice knowing you, Omega.” He managed to speak before violently coughing and rolling from the sharp pain inflicted on his abdominal region.

The noobs had now reached the base of the spire that Omega and Squeek rested on, and began to climb up the fifty feet of rock that separated the exhausted warriors from their seemingly imminent demise. Omega and Squeek lay on the ground, completely sapped of their strength, and awaiting their ends. Suddenly, a familiar voice called out to them.

“What is this? Nap time? We have work to do guys, we can’t be resting up on the job like this.” The voice belonged to igot, who landed on the spire on which Squeek and Omega rested, along with darkshark and Swabber, who picked up the two exhausted warriors and fled into The Garbage Bin to find a spot for them to rest.

igot now faced the entire hoard of enemies climbing up the spire on his own. He stared them down as he lifted his arms and hands and extended them forwards as far out as they would go. Without warning, visible sound waves shot from igot’s palms, and impacted the rocks and the enemies simultaneously, which caused the rocks to shatter and the noobs to be forced backwards.

Other fighters could hear igot fighting from up to a half a mile away. The timings of the pulses mingled with one another, and created an addictive beat that startled the senses and caused the noobs to lose their will to attack for a brief moment.

Taking advantage of the diminished offensive power of the enemy force, MrRubix allowed the rubix cube in his left hand to levitate around his head, acting as both a projectile reflector and a close range weapon. Even when fighting, MrRubix still continued to solve the rubix cube, turning the sides infinitely with nothing but his mind. His next action was to cut off one of the spires that created the maw which engulfed the Garbage Bin. He began to move it with his mind at high speeds, crushing, stabbing, smacking, and smashing tens of hundreds of noobs within seconds. MrRubix yawned as he scratched the back of his head; the advanced psychokinesis made his head quite itchy at times, and itchy heads only served to annoy him.

Hammy also used the enemy’s lowered guard to turn the tide of battle. He began to dart through the enemy ranks at supersonic speeds, crashing his way through countless enemy units with the force of a train. From a distance, battered bodies flew through the evening air in every which way, sometimes landing on their fellow comrades and killing them as well.

By the time Darkshark and DJ_Swabber were able to join the brawl, there were only a few hundred noobs left. Noticing that their once impregnable mass in numbers had been dwindled to a dot on the surface of the FFR world, they turned around and began to retreat, only to find a lone warrior standing in their way.

“And just where do you think you’re all going?” The man stepped forward, wielding no weapons, and wearing nothing but a muscle shirt, and loose, baggy jeans. “This is The Garbage Bin. When you fight here, you don’t leave, not if you are winning, not if you are being brutally murdered like you are today, and certainly not if you get a little boo boo and have to run home crying.”

Apparently, this didn’t gel too well with the mob of noobs, who outnumbered the man more than two hundred to one. One of them raised their fists high into the air, and shouted in the usual indecipherable language, “pH33r uZ!!!1!1!” The others followed, and soon, all two hundred of the irrelevant obstructions were waving their hands in the air like pansies, shouting phrases that didn’t mean anything like they were the messiah’s words of salvation.

The man smiled and patiently crossed his arms. He stood still, and decided to let the noobs play their little games for a minute or two. Everybody else, who had fought their muscles to the brink of oblivion were watching intently. They didn’t speak a word.

Swabber hopped over to darkshark in the brief moment of silence, and stood next to him as she whispered in his ear, “What is he doing?” She was intent on finding out what was happening down below, but she didn’t wish to interfere with the man who was single-handedly preventing the enemy’s escape.

Darkshark smiled as he answered Swabber’s question without looking at her. “Don’t worry about it. He’ll take care of it. Two hundred to one is nothing for the likes of him.” Darkshark knew that this show was about to be one that could not be missed, and he wasn’t going to let anything pull him away, even for a second. He didn’t dare blink. “Just watch,” he told Swabber, “You aren’t going to see anything like this ever again.”

The man stuffed his hands into his pockets, and chuckled to himself. “You wanted me to fear you, is that it?” He spoke loud enough for everybody to hear, including Squeek and Omega, who were currently sitting down, resting and healing up so that they could resume their normal moderator duties as soon as possible. “Well,” the man continued on, “I don’t do fear. In fact, you’ll be fearing me in a second, understand?”

This caused the noobs to fly into a blind rage. They shouted obscene phrases of all sorts, and gave the man the crudest and least civilized gestures possible. Some were cracking their knuckles in an attempt to get the man scared, while others were flexing their muscles, as if they were showing off.

The man took a step forward, and at once all of the noobs ceased whatever they were doing. A massive aura of power had just been released from its containment, which happened to be the man himself. “By the way,” he lowered himself into a fighting stance worthy of praise by even the most experienced fighters, “the name’s Jimerax, but that’s irrelevant. You’re all going to be dead soon anyway. Oh well, have fun in the Dead Zone!”

===============
A preview of Chapter 18:

Jimerax wipes the floor with the last crowd of noobs as if he were sweeping away dust. But the war for TGB is far from over as the horizon becomes darkened by the bodies of more soldiers than thought possible, one million, by the mysterious ninja-suited man's count.

The TGB Army makes a triumphant return just as the fight begins, but SethSquall doesn't appear to be holding out too well as the noobs begin to overwhelm him with sheer force of numbers. Has the final blow against SethSquall been struck, or will he be able to save himself and the world from death?

[Xception704]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

what the ****.

why does seven days seem like a ****ing eternity.

insane work Gamer.

p.s. favorite line rofl.

MrRubix still continued to solve the rubix cube, turning the sides infinitely with nothing but his mind.

[igotrhythm]

Re: FFR: The Phantom Challenge

Holy crap; you actually included me? I'm honored. Truly I am. I like my attack form too. One of these days I might actually make a role-playing character like that. You're too busy dancing to the beat to realize that the thing being beaten on is you...