Danny and Diana, Those Meddling Kids

Elvis brought the duo to the big convention center where the Cheer meet was happening. With so many bright and colorful uniforms about, it was not not hard to find. Diana thanked their driver and they went in, just another two faces among many.

Cheerleader Diana was apparently now a thing as they emerged from the nearest girls' room. She cracked her knuckles and tightened her shoe laces, wondering if they were going to have trouble.

"So how are we going to find Bliss in this huge crowd?" Diana asked, looking around. With this many people, snacks and refreshments were only natural, and alcohol was available at a portable bar. The owner of the portable bar was sad though, since he couldn't sell liquor to the kids.

Elsewhere, clandestine meetings with the most competitive teams were going underway, far and away from prying eyes. After the demonstration with Rex Mason, the most desperate teams were slowly beginning to entertain the idea of metahuman grade strength boosters for sporting events.

Still no text back from Bliss.

"We need to just get down to investigating this environment and where the Edge comes- Bingo." A small display of physical feats under the guise of a completely legal substance took place off to the side of the main exhibit hall. Legal even outside of Vegas! A bright sign pulled a crowd, and the miracles of the demonstration kept them there.

A woman with a tightly pulled back bun and narrow eyes slapped a rolled up pile of papers into the palm of her hands. "I just need anyone who wants more information to step into the conference area. It will be a closed meeting. We have secrets to keep. Important and practical secrets." Two men stood at the doors of the conference room, ushering anyone into the room while keeping their eyes on the the woman before a sly smile formed on her face.

"Let's get in there and find something out." Danny put her phone in her bag and walked past the two men holding the doors. "Doesn't seem too bad on the outside, but the smell comes from within."

The inside of the room was cleared out of any tables or chairs. Only standing room for the demonstration in the fairly spacious, but still small, room. Danny took a place towards the back, wanting some information but less face time than those in front. The small material of the wall grabbed sound and pulled it through. "Keep an eye on the door. Others beside the woman we captured might come."

The demo room held a collection of older people in suits as well as young athletes from assorted teams from all over the State. Mostly they were the young unknowns in the local scene, who didn't mind a little edge over their competition.

A man in a white tank top and grey jeans, highly muscular- perhaps inhumanly so, with his blackened veins- performing feats of strength, bending bars of solid steel. Remarkably, after this, he puts on a jacket and a headset with mic, making him seem like a product advertiser. Diana made a worried sound, as the man was none other than Coach Goatee, not his real name.  

"... So as you can see, a single Edge patch brings a significant boost to physical strength, speed and endurance- a trait most useful to athletes. The effects subside quickly, and with the new formula it will be untracable in the system in as short as 18 hours." He explained with that Atlanta car salesman charm of his.

"What about side effects? A repeat of Rex Mason's post-win rampage at the victory party is unacceptable." One of the other coaches in the crowd asked.

"I assure you Rex Mason was already an abrasive personality, and his aggression was not due to the Edge. As you can see, I am still quite coherent." He sounded sure of himself, and was convincing the crowd as well.

It was good of Danny to keep herself and Diana in the back. If the Coach spotted them it would mean trouble. And not detention. Diana swiftly hands Danny a baseball cap pilfered from a bag. "I think we got what we came for. We'll have to tail the Coach later, or meet Bliss. This Edge is going to be trouble if we don't find its source, Danny."

Danny watched as the coach continued his display of athletic prowess bestowed to him through his super serum. A canister of the serum still remained in Danny's possession, but she needed to make sure the drop off point made her way to Vegas. The eaves dropped information about a captured woman did pick up registry with Danny. "Diana, They've got to have some back storage area or something where they take all of this. Let's try to hide in some crate or something and get them to show us their stash."

Finding Bliss became priority one in her mission. Gaining access to the supplies took number two. And, finding out what the coaches name was would end out her agenda.

The mild persuasion pulled most attention to the grandstanding coach as he pitched what Danny began to assume was none other than a super soldier serum. "Everyone looks distracted. Let's head for the crates." Ducking between consumers and customers alike, Danny found a crate of the good stuff and pried it open, with a little tetris level rearrangement, she carved out a cubby for herself to fit into while also allowing her to put a case of the serum over her. If everything went to plan, she would find out the back ground of this organization in no time.

Diana thought about Danny's plan for a moment, only. "Wait... if these crates are here then aren't they for sale? Hey there's something written here." Diana tapped the side of the crate where the return shipping address was written down, but unfortunately that dyslexia stopped her from reading it out loud.

"Oh crap, someone's coming. I gotta go." Diana had no time to find herself a crate, nor pull Danny out of the box without compromising their presence. The lid was placed back on and the crate of cheerleader was shipped off... not very far, since a sports team of another school was opening the crate in their own private conference room.

Danny would come face to face with some rival sports team's Coach and "top" players. "Hey, who ordered the cheerleader?"

The school's assembled students looked at their crate of Edge and cheerleader. One of the female athletes- a Judoka by the looks of her physique- decided to make an accusation. "Hey that uniform. Isn't that Lady of too Many Sorry's? Is she a spy or something? Or trying to steal our Edge?"

A few hours ago Bliss made her way down to the event center to try and find Danny and Diana. The five foot six woman with the personality of Kevin Garnet continued to sip on a mojito as her flip flops slunk across the tile floor. Bliss still wore a pair of pink shorts from her soiree at the poolside with a blue bikini top tied nicely around her loosely falling pony tail. The major ingredient for Edge did not take Bliss long to isolate, but she would still inform Danny never to call her for chemistry work again.

It was the moving bar that spelled doom for Bliss.

Some of the problems to the plan Diana brought up made sense to Danny. Unfortunately, the motion already set in and no means of wishing could break it off. A few more stops and the cart would come to a complete stop. The crates started to come off, and with them Danny's hidden sanctuary crumbled around her. "Oh, is this not the information center?" Standing up made it worse. At least tucked away it removed how many of her rivals could grab her. "It's Too Many Sorrows, but I'm guessing all of this can be done away with some kind of- I don't know, letting of me get back on my way. I need to meet up with a friend of mine."

"Kids, grab her." The team's head coach, a blonde female in a nice business suit, instructed her students.

"What...? Coach... Are we going to kill her?" One of the students asked with trepidation.

"What? No, we're not gonna kill her! you're highschool students, not supervillains." The female Coach turned her attentions to Danny. "No... we're gonna report her to the sports commission for espionage. With so many Junkie athletes at Sorrows, this'll make sure they'll be permanently banned from competing. Get her!"

The large conference room had no more than two dozen souls, the athletes of various sports that fully intended to use Edge, including Karate, Basketball, and Curling. There was a sizable number of opposing cheerleaders too. They slowly gang up on Danny, trying to trap her in a corner, the exit oh so far away. Like 20 feet or so.

Diana had followed the crate to a large, closed door conference room where presumably an interested party of buyers had gathered. She struggled to think how to get in, when she sees the mobile bar unattended down the hall. She grabs it and starts making her way to the conference room.

The room outside of the cart grew smaller. Even her cramped little hideaway seemed far more spacious than the vitriol surrounding her. "Yeah, are you planning a death trap, because that might make me more hostile." Bringing out the bracelet would definitely change the scenario, but- well, yeah, Danny was going to change the scenario. "Pretending to let you capture me so I can find out what you are planning to do might be a good idea, but I'm just going to tear into all of you Edge junkies." A turquoise baton emerged from Danny's wrist. Her resolve double down, but her action remained squashed. Time to see what this Edge would be capable of accomplishing against a skilled combatant.

"Ms. Fukuyama, you discovered the key element behind our formula." The tightly wound woman walked a circle around the hamster ball Bliss found herself in. Inside the computer control room within the center of the event center, no cameras or unexpected guests would walk in on the heavily guarded supply of Edge or its surprise guest. "Impressive."

"Not really. I don't even do chemistry. I work with computers and physics. Your set up is just easy to dilute." For the first few hours of captivity, Bliss tried destroying the ball, but to little effect.

"That may be true, and it is. That is why we've decided you will make out the next batch. If you don't, we will find the others you were supposed to be meeting and make you more open to the idea."

The doors swing open to the rival team's surprise, as the mobile bar and Diana provided an unusual sight.

Diana saw what was going down, sensing the negative chi of the Edge using rivals directed at Danny. From the teachings of Miyamoto Musashi, or maybe Sun Tzu, she could have given battle now and show these kids a real ass-whoopin, but their school would lose the war. The reputation war, to be exact.

"Hey guys. The booze is here!" Diana exclaimed as she explored an alternative: She used her chi powers on the beer kegs, sending vibrations inside the wonderful golden beverage.

In an act that would break the heart of alcoholics everywhere, she kicked the cart into the middle of the young athletes, and once Diana let go of her chi the beer kegs explode, causing every teen to go to ground. Beer gets everywhere, and the convention's security staff were soon on their way.

Diana rushes to Danny's side amidst the chaos. "...Let's get outta here."

"While we wait for your friends to get here-" The tightly wound woman dragged a hose closer to the ball containing Bliss. "Let me go ahead and speed you up on accelerating what I want. You were dressed for the pool."

"Hey! You can't just pour water into- oh my god that's cold!" Water splashed against the reinforced plastic shell, causing Bliss to recoil against the wall. "I'm going to- um, I'm going to- well, I'm going to-"

"Oh stop talking. Your planning is why you're in a ball to begin with." The woman walked back to her computer and pushed it back to the ball with Bliss. "Tick tock Bliss. Use that brain of yours while you still can. I hear drowning is a terrible way to go. Especially if the person who is drowning you watches while drinking bottled water."

The plan to beat every person in the room with a baton no longer needed to take place. A great start to the next part of this plan. Beer kegs began to explode, dowsing the room in a terrible aroma. "Couldn't we have used something that doesn't smell like Loser Alley? All we're missing is setting a cargo crate full cigarettes." Danny put her hand over her mouth to keep the smell from raining into her mouth and nose.

Danny ran through the door hoping to to find a hallway to unravel this horrible operation and possibly find wherever Bliss happened to be.

Chaos was the in word to use to describe the situation. The ki-enabled explosion caused a minor shockwave, Getting police and security to head for the hall, with all those bottles of Edge scattered about to be found. But Diana needed the situation to completely blow its top.

"...A mass shooting would be a tasteless joke so..." Diana stopped in her tracks just for a moment. With everyone distracted, she pulls the fire alarm. "FIIIIIRE!" The whole building was now alive with frantic activity, with most people running out of the many conference rooms, making checking easier. The only room that didn't immediately evacuate in a panic would definitely contain...

"... Bliss!" Diana called out, stepping into the room with the regional suppliers of Edge. This room didn't have puny little kids from other schools, but big full grown thugs, armed with Melee weaponry. Which gave Diana an excuse to lock the doors behind her.

"Alright. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way." She said in an assertive tone, warning everyone against violence yet also encouraging it.

"Who are you?" Said the evil business-dressed woman who was operating the hose.

"Ugh... Diana Mendoza, Dayanara Tamamoa. I knew you were meddling kids, but this is a whole new level of interference. But that ends here, today." Their school Coach emerges from the crowd of suppliers.

"And you coach..." Diana glanced at Danny. They still didn't get his name. She pointed at the goatee'd Coach. "You give our school a bad name!"

With deft hands, Diana produced a shuriken from her pocket, and for a second made the Coach flinch. He wasn't the target though, as Bliss's ball was quickly punctured by the razor sharp projectiles.

Seeing Bliss in a giant plastic ball help Danny feel both better and worse about this situation. The armed guards did not help. Nor did the old coach from Our Lady showing up. "Great, you say my full name but you can't call her Princess. Awesome."

"You know there are kids in Africa who don't get any vowels in their names." Two shurikens broke into the side of the ball, but failed to give Bliss a quick way out of the prison. "Well, that was under-" Two constructed bars of turquoise light split the ball in twain. "That works." Bliss hopped out from the ball, grabbing half the plastic ball with telekinesis, plunging it against the wall to trap three armed guards. The laptop floated from the table under control from Bliss, striking the tight haired woman across the head, sending her to the ground.

"Time for a new job coach." A large bar constructed out of her bracelet, allowing her to bar the entrance of the rest of the guards from entering the fight. "I know bringing up the budget cut you delivered to the cheerleading squad last year seems out of place, but that's just one of the things you're paying for right now."

"Don't encourage him." Diana turned towards the errant Coach. "Much as I don't like the guys on the football team... selling this poison to kids ends now. teenagers should run on chicken salad and creatine shakes!"

The Coach however, remained completely calm, even at seeing Danny's powers and Diana's skills. "Cheap uniforms will be the last thing you should worry about, Danny... Princess. All of you! Get them! And use the new EDGE!" His demeanor changed in that moment, going from collected to ballistic.

The Coach brought out a syringe of Edge, a much more concentrated form of the usually ingested drug. The other guards decide to power up as well, taking vials of the stuff. After a few seconds of grunting, stomach cramps and dilated pupils, the room went from full of generic goons, to a room full of goons hopped up on Edge. Also, everyone took off their coats. No sense in destroying good clothes.

Their performance was quickly apparent, as they closed the distance on Diana. She delivers beatdowns with fists and knees, but the goons don't go down too quick. They endure Diana's beating, and even manage to toss her into a wall. Some of them were even foaming at the mouth. "Ow... These guys got alot tougher... now this is more like it!" She wipes the blood from her cut lip, and indulges her screaming warrior tendencies.

The Coach, getting the best stuff, goes to the crate of sports supplies to find things to throw. He finds javelins and discuses, which he throws with immense strength and no shortage of skill at Danny.

The pin Bliss implemented kept the goons at bay until the Edge took root. The three roid ragers threw the plastic bubble across the room, shattering the prison. A telekinetic blast sent the three men from their crash course with Bliss, but failed to slam them against the wall. One punch flew towards Bliss, catching her in the gut. Bliss came three feet off the ground and landed on her posterior.

On the other offensive, Danny watched as her constructs failed to keep the men at bay. She quickly summoned up a baton and shield to defend and offend, but the lack of her first action meant she never got to the second. The strength of the goons pushed Danny back into the wall, but she summoned enough finesse to squeeze out, landing a shield slam to the back of one of the goon's head. Her baton swiped the second man in the back of the knee, immobilizing him.

Everything started to go Danny's way until she turned around. A discuss flew in her direction, but broke against her shield. Her expectations for a second discuss did her no favors as a javelin landed under her arm. Two more javelins arrived, pinning Danny to the wall. The coach met Danny's gaze as he held another javelin. "I think we just found a new batch of tests for an experiment."

The coach looked over to his men and waved for them to grab a roll of rope and some duct tape.

Diana was made to work for her results, but without her sword or cybersuit, she could only drop three men with three more still standing, panting and gasping. They might have been hopped up on Edge, but Diana's attacks could still be felt.

One man was clutching himself between the thighs, doubled over in terrible pain. Diana dropped the guy with Monkey Stealing The Peach, the name of the technique indicative of what the peaches were.

A second guy's face was partially caved in, eyes swollen black. while a third guy twisted his leg completely from overextending his kick, his weak bones unable to cope with the tension.

Diana staggered against a crate, more battered and bruised than most times in her life, her knuckles raw and her guard still up. She saw Danny wasn't doing so well, the Coach demonstrating some skillful throwing, more than just the Edge.

"You gonna... give up yet..." She taunted them, practically leaning on the crate as her head was becoming blurry.

"You got guts, kid. But, we got the Edge. You're karate gimmicks ain't worth nothin." They give her that, before they move in to finish her. Diana Thought about it, and maybe they had a point. She had been taking them head on, relying on Karate too much lately. Perhaps a touch of Aikido was in order.

She looked at the container she was at, and realized it contained Edge doses. Aikido teaches using an enemy's strength against them. So...

"If you like Edge so much... have some more!" Diana ducks past their swift grabs and sticks needles into their bloodstreams.

"Stupid kid, you're only going to make us stronger." The goons deride Diana's actions, and attack again, adrenaline driving them to even greater heights of speed and power. Diana evades, keeping her distance and avoiding direct combat. Until...

"UUUGGHHH! AAAAAH!" The injected goons clutched at their hearts, as their bodies could no longer handle the strain of the excess Edge. With still so many strong goons though, she decided to capitalize on their common friend's abilities.

"Bliss lady! A little teamwork! Give em more of the good stuff!" Diana shouted to the woman with the telekinesis, throwing a container of the Edge syringes.

Diana moved closer to the same situation Bliss and Danny fell prey to until she took the matter of Edge into her own hands. "Wait, don't take it yourself!" A relief came over Danny as Diana strayed from injecting herself, but took umbrage with her injecting the goons. "We can find another way to do this!" Wiggling eventually shook the javelins off of Danny, letting her slip down. A strike to the back knocked a goon over, allowing Danny to help Bliss off the floor.

"I think she's got the right idea." Bliss grabbed one of the syringes and lifted the others up telekinetically. A turquoise bar wrapped around Bliss' arms, pinning her. "You know how telekinetics works right?"

"No one move!" The tightly wound woman stepped forward. "This display of ethics is greatly amusing, however, we need to be going." A high pitched noise rang out from a device in the woman's hand, shattering the syringes in Bliss' hands. "If you're done, I'll just have my men tie the three of you up and we can be on our way."

"I don't think we're done lady." Danny broke the bars around Bliss and turned them into a baton and shield.

"Have it your way." The same ringing, high pitched sound continued to invade the area from the woman's cane, triggering a massive migraine in Bliss, but merely slowing Danny down. A quick parry knocked Danny's baton away with a counter to hit Danny in the gut. Every move Danny could think of came slower to her while the woman looked completely immune to the high pitched ring. "Had enough?"

"Diana...I need a little help."