A Little Voodoo (Clover/Madeline)

Madeline was to enthralled with the pirate shanty to pay any heed to the conversation going on behind her, even if she was included in it. She joyfully swung her upper body from side to side, slightly rocking the makeshift boat. It was a good thing the ride was on a track otherwise the demon goddess might have tipped the whole thing over by now. All the joy and glee on Madeline’s face faded into an abyss of annoyance and bitterness as the temperature drastically took a nose dive. Her head reared around slowly stopping once she had made eye contact with the older of the two Bliss’.

If the two women didn’t some form of friendship not matter how defunct it was, the demon queen might have actually used the cutlass she had in her hand. The fiery redhead showed restraint however and sheathed the blade by dispelling it. The amber orbs for iris’ glowed brightly in the dark confines of the ride. Madeline’s eyes fell from Bliss’ face and trailed down her body, stopping when she noticed the frost covered hand sitting in the water.

Madeline’s head snapped back around, noticing the large iceberg that had formed alongside the cart. The frozen abomination continued to grow in size, not doubt due to Bliss’ lack of concentration, then in one final push the iceberg collided with the boat. The sudden and abrupt stop knocked Madeline off balance. Luckily for her, she was quick on her feet, and she could fly to! She took a small tumble off the boat, before regaining her balance and coming to a graceful float next to the two Bliss’.

Her amber colored eyes once again fell upon the older Bliss. “Hey Elsa! Whatever’s got you wound so tight, you need to let it go!” she said with a rather large grin, far too proud of her terrible wordplay. “I knew I should have dropped you off in a volcano somewhere.”

"First of all, don't blame me for things publicly ever. Don't I pay you to be my PR person? Second of all, I'm pretty sure this iceberg is just a metaphysical representation of something dragging you down because of the many, many, numerous, thousands of bad mistakes you have made-" Then they more than metaphysically hit an iceberg. "Woah, what did you do to make your many transgressions materialize? You have some soul searching you need to do for real."

"You make ice..." Lil' Bliss held a few shards of ice in her hand, peering down at the evidence. "The other stuff doesn't even make sense..."

"You came from another dimension and are currently defending a demon, and you think what I just said is the most ludicrous thing? You're a little mor-"

"Maddy, Bliss is ruining Disney. Can we go?" Lil' Bliss hopped up and made her way to Madeline. "We can leave Bliss here."

Madeline’s boots softly touched down on the tip of the boat shaped cart. The red-haired goddess lowered herself into a crouching position as lil Bliss clamored over the front of the ride and made her way over to Madeline. Lil’ Bliss’ older counterpart had gone and done what she did best, which was ruining a good time. A slight bit of disappointment welled up within Madeline. Bliss wanted so badly to not be at the park that her own negativity rubbed off on her kid self, leading to lil’ Bliss no longer wanting to see the rest of the park, despite having an anxiety attack just moments ago. The demon queen let out a smile sigh as she looked over the two Bliss’.

“Unfortunately kid, We can’t just leave the ice queen here. You need a place to stay, and where I live isn’t exactly PG. I hate to admit it, but you’re stuck with your older self.” As much as the demon queen reveled in the suffering of others, having to live with frost the snow witch, was something she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemies, then again maybe she would.

Madeline’s amber eyes shifted from one child to the other. Though there were clear differences in size and of course actual age, it was beginning to get harder for the goddess of war to determine just exactly which of the two was the actual child.

Lil' Bliss walked over to the edge of the walkway and sat down, crossing her arms. "Can we go see the Epcot ball. It's supposed to be educational and show what future technology will look like?"

"You live in the relative future. You can go outside and see that without riding in a cart that goes five miles an hour. Hell, I probably built half of it." Bliss stepped out of the cart.

Then a portal opened behind Bliss.

A hand reached out, grabbing Bliss and pulling her into the portal.

The portal closed.

"Did you make Bliss disappear? If so, can we go to the Small World ride after? I want to know more about Denmark. Did you know vikings didn't really wear horns on their helmets? Oh, and ninjas didn't wear black garb, they dressed like farmers. It was kabuki theater that added black garb to let the-" No one cares what Lil' Bliss is saying, and I don't care enough to finish her diatribe. She probably ends with something else she read on a Snapple bottle or an educational video.

Everyone seemed to be abandoning ship, first lil’ Bliss then the older Bliss. Both made their way back to the rides walkway via the back of the boat shaped cart. The ride had barely made it out of the gate before Bliss had thrown her mini tantrum, which was a good thing, otherwise they would have had to trek back through the thigh deep water. With the two Bliss’ stepping off the ride, there was no longer a need for Madeline to remain on the ride either, so she followed the two, all the while, just hovering slightly off the ground.

Older Bliss and her little counterpart continued to bicker back and forth. Their union was definitely volatile to say the least. It was a miracle that the older Bliss hadn’t tried to freeze lil’ Bliss in a block of ice by this point. Just as the two continued to argue a strange portal, the likes Madeline had never seen before, appeared behind the grownup version of Bliss. A mysterious, disembodied hand reached out from the void and took hold of Bliss, before pulling her into what every dimension the portal originated from and then closed abruptly. The whole incident happened in a matter of seconds and left the demon goddess at a loss for words.

She looked down to lil Bliss after being asked if the portal was her doing. Madeline gave the small child a blank stare. She wasn’t entirely sure how to respond at first. If she said yes would lil Bliss be upset with her? If she said no would the kid have another anxiety attack? These questions didn’t really matter as the smaller Bliss seemed to already be over the whole thing and was already looking forward to seeing the rest of the park. Madeline’s metal palm collided with her face as she let out an aggravated sigh. “They’re hopeless” she mumbled to herself before grabbing little Bliss by the hand and bending over to look her in her little adorable face. “You know if you want to see Denmark, I could take you there directly. No need to get on some silly ride for that.” she said with a worried smile, awaiting whatever barrage of emotions she’d get in response from lil’ Bliss. Meanwhile in the back of her mind she continued to wonder about the mysterious portal that had whisked the other Bliss away, doing her best to pick up on any residual traces of magic.

Madeline neither confirmed not denied sending Bliss away. Lil' Bliss could deal with it later. Right now, she could just go one knowing the entire day might be getting more positive. "Go to Denmark? But, I don't have any passports. Or a change of clothes. And I'm supposed to be home so I can do homework. Or, do I not get to go home ever again? If you made Bliss disappear, and I don't have any way to prove who I am-" Lil' Bliss needed to sit down. "We can't just go to Denmark." A slew of reasons all passed through Lil' Bliss' mind, turning her merely into little Bliss. No one likes someone called little Bliss.

"Maybe you should just bring Bliss back. But-" Lil' Bliss stood up and took a breath. "I can go to Denmark. It will be okay. Everything will be just fine." After a short breath left Lil' Bliss, she reached up to grab Madeline's hand. Not once does the fact she is about to illegally enter a nation with the help of a demon cross Lil' Bliss' mind. Probably for the better as the discovery of new- and evil- forms of life would most likely trouble Lil' Bliss greatly as her mind truly processed it.

-Mars-

Bliss tried to pull her wrist out of the manacle keeping her on the table to no success. A suction tube rested just before her, running over towards a tank. It all blocked out the wonderful view of Mars. And the cannon pointing to the sky. "Is that thing pointing towards Earth?" The major amount of helium around the room made Bliss' voice higher pitched than usual.

The number of blue creatures in their white puffy suits continued reading meters and monitors all throughout the tiny room. "We are building a laser capable of terraforming Earth into a more largely based helium planet."

"Oh cool, so you guys can corner the birthday party balloon market. Way worth the expense." A meter on the side rose with a boink. "What the hell was that?"

A big eyed creature with a rectangular device floating between two of his four arms stepped forward to see Bliss. "We abducted you so we could power the laser by turning your snarkiness into pure energy."

"What a stupid idea! You built a machine to make helium on a distant planet with the most idiotic power supply ever imagined. Wow, you guys sure are an advanced lifeform." The boink turned into a ring. "Now what?"

"Sarcasm doubles the energy supply." An alien turned from taking measurements on a console. "At this rate, we should be able to inhabit Earth within a matter of relative rotations of the planet we currently have landed upon and the revolution of the planet Earth."

"You guys are smart enough to develop space travel and kidnapping portals, but you don't have a word for 'day'? That is the dumbest-" Another boink rang out in the back. "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The demon goddess began to wince and even cringe as lil Bliss seemed to teeter just on the edge of another panic attack. Here she was the demon goddess of war, ruler of Arcadia, and she was figuratively shaking in her boots because of a child’s flair for panicking at just the slightest deviation from her own mental schedule. Madeline breathed a sigh of relief as kid Bliss seemed to work through her anxiety and eventually pull through. Despite the day she was having, Madeline considered the little girl a trooper and gave her caring pat on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t say that you’ll never go home, but….It’s definitely going to be a lot different than you remember. That is if your older self doesn’t try to seal you away in some morbid icicle tower or something.”

The demon queen gripped lil Bliss’ hand firmly and snapped her fingers. In the blink of an eye, the dimly lit interior of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride was replaces with a sunny snow covered village. The new dynamic duo was in for a treat, or at least lil Bliss was, since snow in Denmark rarely hung around thanks to the low elevation and warm coastal winds that swept inland. Madeline relinquished the young girls hand and immediately wrapped her arms around her torso in an attempt to keep her body away from the harmful cold. It really wasn’t even that cold, but just the sight of snow or anything ice related made the demon goddess shiver in disgust.

“Well, here we are kid. What do you want to do first? Nothing is off limits with me, cut loose.” she said, turning to the bite sized version of her friend. The snow beneath Madeline’s heavy boost crunched as she shifted her stand. Madeline began to bounce her left leg up and down, eager to get someplace warm. *Hopefully she’ll pick a coffee shop or something. I swear to god I’m going to level this town if there aren’t any fireplaces.* she thought to herself.

"Wait I have powers." Bliss looked down at her wrists and then stopped giving a shit. A telekinetic blast sent the monitor towards one of the grey creatures while Bliss pulled her restraints off one by one. The angry ball of energy, ice, and vampirism launched the first all out assault on Mars, sending the frail aliens and their snark powered laser cannon into complete disarray.

"I think they are famous for chocolate, and since it is a known fact, it is educational. Mom and dad will let me eat all I want if they know that." Lil' Bliss looked around the rest of the street to find what she wanted to spend her time looking for with Madeline. "Oh, wait, they make Legos here. I have plenty of Legos, but you can never have enough. I had more but my dad stepped on some with his foot and threw some of them away. That wasn't nice of him. I wonder if him being mean is what made me turn into the older Bliss."

Before the conversation could carry on any further, a text message found its way to Madeline, because Bliss literally brought cell phone coverage to creature born from Hell. Maddy, it's Ashley. Bliss is on Mars and needs a way back. Could you go and pick her up. I'm tired of waiting for date night and NASA said they can't schedule any missions and don't know how Bliss got there. They did say they noticed a cannon. Not sure if those are related, probably are, but maybe they aren't. Anyways, get me Bliss. Please and Thank you, Ashley XOXO

Madeline followed the pocket sized Bliss down the lightly snow covered sidewalk of the small village. To be completely honest, the demon queen was trying her damnedest to pay attention to the small child, but she found her mind wondering at times. Rather than keeping her eyes on lil Bliss, Madeline was on the lookout for anything remotely entertaining. *Why did I have to open my mouth. We could have still been at Disneyland.* she thought to herself as the two continued to stroll down the street. It was pretty safe to say that no one in this small village had ever seen anything quite like Madeline before.

The demon goddess tucked her hands into the warm cozy pockets of her leather jacket, all in an effort to stay warm from the harsh chill that filled the air. To the residents of this sleepy little town and her child companion, the cold was insignificant, but to the fiery redhead, it was like being constantly pocked with little thumbtacks all over. Eventually Madeline couldn’t take any more and removed her metal hand from the warmness of the jacket pocket. A small pitch black flame flickered to life in her palm and instantly provided the demon queen with some much needed warmth. The sudden materialization of the black fire caught the attention of several individuals passing by.

Just as Madeline was getting acclimated to the warmth of the flame, and was able to finally take in the beauty of the quaint little town, a new annoyance would present itself. Madeline’s ears picked up the faint buzzing sound of her phone in between the loud crunching of the snow beneath her feet. Instead of relinquishing her flame and giving up what little semblance of warmth she had, Madeline attempted to retrieve her phone out of her left jacket pocket, with her right hand. After fiddling around for several seconds she was able to retrieve her phone. Madeline let out a sigh upon seeing the text from Ashley. *How the flying f**k did she end up on Mars?* she thought to herself after reading the message.

Well something had to be done. Madeline couldn’t just leave Bliss on Mars, no matter how much she wanted to, but what was she to do with lil Bliss? The demon goddess let out a sigh, she had no other choice really. With a snap of her metal fingers, the black flame dispersed and with it the warmth and comfort the demon queen so deeply coveted. She quickened her pace to close the gap between herself and kid Bliss. Upon reaching the small child she gave her a light tap on the shoulder. “Hey, I got a question for you. How would you like to visit another planet?”

Bliss was about that life. And now, those aliens who ran away from Mars knew Bliss was about that life. "Stupid aliens aren't even from Mars. I thought I discovered life, but it ends up no one- hey." No one else remained in the space base save Bliss. "I'm the first person on Mars. I discovered Mars! Well alright. Now I need to not die on this planet. Is that a terminal?"

Pressing her finger against what looked like a button, Bliss attempted to activate what looked like a recording device. "I should have asked one of those guys to translate all of this. Oh, yeah and the cure for diseases and stuff." A small blue cylinder slid out of the terminal under Bliss' control. After some static, Bliss could see her own image reflected in the screen. "Oh, I jacked those aliens up and I look good as fuck. Good job Blissy."

A clear throat brought Bliss to an upright position, fixing her bangs as she looked to see if the black mark under her eye was dirt or a bruise. Dirt. Mars dirt. Maybe she should just keep it there as a souvenir. "To anyone watching this, I discovered Mars. I know it sounds odd to say you discovered something people knew about for centuries, but those people can suck it. I found Mars. Mars, discovered by Bliss. That's how this whole thing goes down. Unfortunately, I don't know how to get back, so it looks like I have to Matt Damon the shit out of Mars. I wonder if there is a fridge full of potatoes and a giant septic tank around here."

While Bliss continued her diatribe into the recording machine with no broadcast capabilities, another portal opened behind her. While she turned to give Madeline a mouth full for being late, a wave of shock hit her as the only thing she saw were turtles coming through wielding oddly misshapen hammers. They bobbled around in a line formation while their poorly fitting helmets barely covered their heads. "We have found you princess! You must come with us to see the king immediately!"

"First of all, I'm going to go exactly where I want to go. Second of all- is that guy riding a cloud?"

In fact a small creature with a fishing pole burst through the portal riding a cloud with a smiley face on it. His line hooked the back of Bliss' sweatshirt, pulling her off her seat and into the portal.

Lil' Bliss shivered in her shorts as the gusts of wind continued to blow against her. "The Small World ride was probably a lot warmer." She sniffled. "And they would let me see Chile too. We aren't even close to the Lego factory." Lil' Bliss continued to let out a whine as she complained to no one in particualr, but hopefully Madeline. Yet again a show of demonic magic impressed Lil' Bliss with its practicality and ease of use. "Another planet? Like Kepler 452-b? It's just like Earth, but bigger- and they say life can be sustained there? That would be cool. It isn't on the Small World ride either." Lil' Bliss held out her hand and unprepared for disappointment.

Back on Mars, a small man with a plump belly and mushroom hat sat next to a large flag pole stretching out of the Martian compound. Once the portal materialized, the clicking of Madeline's boots woke him from his slumber. He wiped away the grogginess from his eyes and stood up, coming about halfway up Madeline's stature. "Thank you for coming, but your princess is in another castle. She's been taken by the evil king of half dinosaur half turtle people to a kingdom full of mushroom like plants. There's bricks everywhere. It's quite nice if you overlook the kidnapping problem facing the kingdom."

Madeline’s trailed down towards the little girl’s outstretched palm. Did she break the news to her now, that they were in fact not going to be visiting an exotic foreign earth? Or did she just wait till they got to Mars to let the disappointment set it? Regardless of whether or not she told the girl, was of little concern. The demon goddess had to devise a way to get the two to Mars safely. The only way to do that was to first teleport to Arcadia, use the realms mystical energy to boost Madeline’s tracking abilities, and then teleport to the giant red rock in space.

The last thing Madeline wanted, was to be held responsible for killing a small child, let alone one as adorable as lil Bliss. “Ok I’m gonna have to ask you to cover your eyes. Otherwise don’t blame me for what your about to see. I am warning you now after all.” The warning probably meant little seeing as how the red haired demon planned on going to her castle and not anywhere else in her hellish realm, but with Arcadia, there was no telling what you’d run into. Firmly grasping lil Bliss’ hand, Madeline snapped her fingers and the two were whisked away to the demon queens home dimension.

They would trade out the snowy countryside for a dimly lit, very large open room with rows of pillars on either side. Sitting before Madeline and lil Bliss was a tall set of stairs that led up to the queen’s throne. Though the detail was lost in the darkness of the room, the red glow that emanated through the chair, showed that it was carved out of an obsidian-like material. Madeline held on tightly to kid Bliss’ hand so that she wouldn’t wander off. They wouldn’t be sticking around here for very long anyway. Once Madeline had pinpointed where Bliss was on Mars she’d snap her fingers once more and off they went.

The difference between Madeline’s throne room and the Martian base was like night and day, primarily because the base was comprised of many glass panels that provided a nice clean view of space. The base seemed pretty advanced from what Madeline had gathered from a glance but there was something missing. There was a severe and utter lack of one loud mouthed ice queen. The demon goddess’s fiery red plume of hair whipped from side to side. Her amber eyes failed to locate the kidnapped Bliss, but what they did spot was a strange looking little being that was more reminiscent of fungus than a person. He sat next to a flag pole, a useless pile of nothing. There he was staring at Madeline with a smug little smile on his mushroom capped head and stupid potbelly. “Your princess is in another castle” she said in a mocking tone as she crept up to the little freakish being.

Madeline’s metal hand lashed out and gripped the little beast by what she assumed was its neck and brought it’s face close to hers. Her amber colored eyes were brimming with rage. “Listen here you little shit. I have had a very long day. You are going to take me to my friend, or so help me I’ll use you to make an omelet!”

The way magic worked always seemed stupid to Bliss. But, then again, magic never did anything good for Bliss either. In high school, she never managed to get her combos off in time against a high aggro meta, and in adulthood, it kept trying to kill her or worse- transport her to weird worlds full of turtle people and give her weird princess clothes that she hoped to never be seen in again. But, magic lived in the same world as Bliss. Or, maybe next door, but it came over a lot. Typically taking Bliss back with it whether she wanted to go or not.

Now, a vat of lava bubbled a good twenty feet under Bliss. Luckily Bliss was tied up above the lava as to not allow her to drop to her death. The white and pink princess outfit with silver shoes could drop to its death once Bliss found an adequate replacement, but for not, it kept her decent in an indecent place, so she would bear and grin the clothes just as she bore being suspended above lava was better than dropping into lava.

"At last princess. I have you in my clutches." A massive creature with an elongated snout bearing severe teeth stepped forward. Rows of spikes crowned the back of his head until the ran into a massive shell. "The growth of dead follicles sprouting from your head was yellow last time, but I would know you anywhere princess. And now, I will bring my wrath down on your people's unsuspecting and stupid heads."

"First of all, don't get high and mighty for kidnapping me; it happens more than you would think. I've got a bad habit of locking myself in my closet, and I would admit to anyone I didn't assume was about to get dropped into the idiotic vat of lava you are standing over. Second-"

A row of teeth snarled out a snarling roar. "No, princess! You will-"

"Did I say I was finished?! Shut up!" Bliss still hovered above the scaled king with her legs dangling. The heat from the lava mixed in with the leggings of her outfit made for a very uncomfortable combination. "Second, your plan was laid out in full by a guy in the 80s who thought gorillas were donkeys. So, let me guess, that axe behind me is to cut the bridge you are standing on."

"Haha, but no one would ever think to jump over me and use it to do such a-"

"Did I stutter?! I just laid out your plan moron. No more plans, just deals. Untie me. Send me back to Earth. Hire a Human Resources manager for your workers, because lets be honest, you probably aren't living up to all the standards a resourceful manager should be, and then I won't go tanuki on your ass."

One massive foot took a step back. One of the king's hands fell over his chest as he lowered his head. "So, I can't invade Earth and enslave all of it's people? And, I have to pay my workers overtime?"

Lil' Bliss took hold of Madeline's hand yet again. This time offered all of the disappointments Bliss promised her younger self. "Hands over eyes. Got it. Like, for a surprise?" The smell of roasted sulfur began to assault Lil' Bliss' nostrils at about the same time the horrible screaming came. "Should I count to ten? I'll do that. I bet we're at a carnival. Or, a haunted house." Another chain of screams went out. "Definitely a haunted house. Are there clowns? Clowns give me the creeps, and when I think about them-" Another huff of breath began to swell up in Lil' Bliss' throat. "Uh, um." Rapid breaths in close succession began to swell up, ushering all of the signs Lil' Bliss typically gave of a panic attack.

When Lil' Bliss opened her eyes to give herself a quick release, she found herself in a wonderland. "Cool. Computers. And a flag!" Sparing no time, Lil' Bliss ran over and jumped on the flag pole, lowering the white flag. "Is this a space station Maddy?" Once the white flag came all the way to the bottom, a portal opened behind Lil' Bliss, opening into the final castle. "Um, Maddy, you shouldn't hurt him. He might want to be our friends."

The little mushroom man was mere moments away from being roasted alive. Madeline’s frustration only continued to mount as the little beast sat there in her clutches with a smug little look on its face. Just as the demon goddess was ready to vaporize the mushroom man, lil Bliss pulled through with a clutch save. Her curiosity led to a sudden urge to leap onto the flag pole. The flag lowered and a portal appeared seemingly out of nowhere. One would have thought that someone who could make portals with the snap of a finger, would find this whole ordeal pretty ordinary, Madeline however, did not.

The red headed demon stared at the portal with an expression of confusion. “That…That doesn’t even make any sense!” she mumbled. Her amber eyes turned to the little mushroom creature in her hand. With a small shrug she tossed the little creature over her shoulder and into a portal to Arcadia that had opened up on the floor behind her. Madeline proceeded to walk towards the portal, gently taking hold of lil Bliss’ hand as she walked past. After coming to a stop just a few steps before the portal, Madeline turned to the small child at her side. “I’d probably cover your eyes again. Can’t be to certain what we might run into on the other side of this thing.” with that she turned back to the portal and let out a loud sigh. Her grip tightened around lil Bliss’ hand slightly just before she stepped into the portal. "The things I do for your older self."

The demon goddess was partially expecting to be greeted by some brightly lit hell covered in bright colors and more fungus looking creatures, but instead when the two passed through the portal, they found themselves in a dimly lit corridor. “Huh. This place kinda feels like home….Only with less screams of terror and fire.” She turned to kid Bliss, who had cupped her right hand over her eyes to shield herself from seeing any unwarranted terrors. Seeing as how nothing stuck out at the moment, Madeline gave the girl a small tap on the shoulder. “Coast is clear kiddo. You can stop covering your eyes.”

Things seemed relatively straight forward from there, the hallway was a straight path. There didn’t seem to be any obstacles, nor any doors on either side. The end of the corridor was illuminated with an orange colored light. Keeping her hand firmly wrapped around lil Bliss’, Madeline would lead the small girl to the end of the stony corridor, ever wary of what could possibly be waiting for them at the end.

"I don't like doing work!" Both of the giant dinosaur's fists slammed onto the table before him. "I have people to do work for me. I don't pay them either! Their payment is not being eaten!"

"And how is that going for you?" Bliss kept dangling in her precarious predicament of peril in her dazzling depiction of a damsel in distress. "Typically when real tyrants take over- you need to take not of the fact I said real-"

"Your snark angers me!"

"Oh, build a laser out of it like the last guys." If looks could kill, Bliss would need fifty weaknesses to balance out her power. "You don't get to take over worlds because you do dumb things and an Italian plumber in a red hat is going to drop you in lava."

"How do you know of the prophecy?!" An earthquake of a shock ran down the spine of the terrifying, tyrannical tyrannosaurus. "We needed your picture box to be hooked up with a box device that turned small unopened books into-"

"Okay, I got it, you don't have our technology and are using dumb analogies because you aren't so great at-"

A sudden invasion of personal space pressed the tooth filled maw of the tyrant into Bliss' face. "I will devour you!"

"Okay!" Bliss let her own scowl run rampant. "You need to untie me. Then let me go. Then you need to re evaluate everything that is going on."

"You will never be free princess." Both of the massive creature's fists smacked into the plating of his shell. "And you don't get to eat this week, because you are too fat."

Blood almost pushed the eyeballs out of Bliss' head. "Excuse the fuck out of you?!"

Lil' Bliss took Madeline's hand out of habit and walked through the portal. Madeline's other hand covered Lil' Bliss' eyes for a moment until Madeline let her take stock of the room around her. A shadow began to grow on the ground as they continued down the path. The ever watchful eye and habitual investigation pulled Lil' Bliss' attention above her. She grabbed Madeline's hand as a blue block with a stern face surrounded by blade like appendages dropped. The appendages shock for a brief moment before the block lifted back in the air. "Why would you put that in the hall? Don't these people need to walk here?"

Counting the steps, Lil' Bliss would move forward when Madeline told her it was safe. Slowly, they would eventually put themselves next to the door. "I wanna open it." Without Madeline's direct approval, Lil' Bliss would open the door, pushing into a room extending one hundred meters in a straight line. A large staircase would lead to an elevated platform where the massive lizard kept his throne room- but before Lil' Bliss spotted a man chained to a wall with a lizard in hard armor standing nearby.

A burst of courage came to Lil' Bliss as she broke away from Madeline and moved towards the imprisoned man. "Hey, do you know where someone who looks like me is. Looks like me but older. Way older. She's like eighteen probably."

"Aye, I have witnessed the terrified screams of interrogation coming from the upper level. Sometimes they continue on for what seems like hours. Days even. Maybe months. I can no longer stand to think of time." The lanky man moved his head in a circular motion as he tried to remember time.

"I think she was kidnapped twenty minutes ago. Maddy, how does time work in this place?" Lil' Bliss needed her trusty sidekick Madeline to help her in this case. "Why are you imprisoned here? Are you in jail for something."

The old man's head rose to face the girl before looking down in shame. "I'm the man who decided to put the letter 'L' in the word 'Lisp'."

A sharp poke of a stick jabbed in the man from the plate mail clad turtle from behind him. "Yeah, thuck it atthole!"

This castle continued to get stranger and stranger. From the narrow carridors to the odd traps, the demon goddess was beginning to worry more about lil Bliss’ safety over rescuing the older version. The two finally came to a large open room with a towering staircase on one end and to the side was some sort of interrogation area of some sort. A tall lanky man was manacled to the wall with a strange turtle-like creature in plate armor standing guard. Lil Bliss summoned up courage out of nowhere and marched off to question the prisoner, completely ignoring his shelled jailer. It was hard to tell if the whole ordeal was beginning to have a positive of negative effect on the little girl, as her sudden acquisition of courage was something Madeline was not expecting.

Madeline let out the strangest sound that lead into all out laughter as kid Bliss described her older self to the skinny male prisoner. “You should try adding an extra 50 to that 18 you got there” she said in between laugher. She immediately arched a brow and stood up straight. The man had actually given lil Bliss a straight answer. Her older counterpart was just up the massive flight of stairs. Finally the wild goose chase could end and they could return to earth where they belonged and put this whole ordeal behind them, preferably with copious amounts of alcohol and other nefarious things.

Without wasting a moment, Madeline grabbed lil Bliss and put the small child on her back. “I highly doubt you’d like to climb all those steps yourself. So hold on tight kiddo.” she said before breaking of into a light jog towards the steps.

The towering staircase served as a dauntless last obstacle for the demon goddess to overcome before she could get her friend back and put an end to all this madness. She let out a chuckle as she thought about the entire escapade while climbing the steps. For someone who lived in a literal hell, this whole adventure was wearing out its welcome. It took several long minutes for Madeline to reach the top of the stairs, the heat raising with each passing step. She stopped occasionally to ensure that lil Bliss was ok before she continued upwards.

Once at the top of the stairs, Madeline let the little girl down off her back and then quickly took hold of her hand in case she felt another sudden urge to rush off again. They were already trying to hunt down one Bliss, it would be a literal nightmare if Madeline had to track both of them down. At the top of the massive stair case was a long almost unending bridge and smack dab in the middle of it was another one of those turtle monsters, only this one was enormous and had a spiked shell. The giant monster had its backed turned to Madeline and lil Bliss, and was looking up towards the ceiling. The demon goddess yellow eyes trailed up to see who the beast was addressing and saw Bliss hanging from the roof in a princess outfit.

Madeline let out a loud burst of laughter upon seeing Bliss and could barely keep herself together. “Oh my! That is priceless. I’ve gotta get a picture of this.” she said, still cackling like a hyena as she reached into her jacket pocket to retrieve her phone for a quick snap shot of the Bliss piñata.

Lil' Bliss hopped up on Madeline's back, taking her offer of escaping a mountain of stairs before her. "I want to live in a house with stairs so I can slide down them whenever I want. I'm not allowed to slide down the stairs because my mom says I might get hurt and my dad says I might break something." More stairs disappeared as the well toned demon god moved with an infernal grace. "Hey, you're good at this. Want to come slide down the stairs sometime?"

"God crap." Bliss looked out from her perch to see Madeline and Lil' Bliss move  towards the isolated bridge. "Oh sure laugh. Have a good ole time. Yep, just keep laughing. Okay, stop. Will you stop?" Out of all the bad things to happen to Bliss in the past five hours, she rated this seventh. The fact it should be one made it all the more worst, pushing the picture taking to eight. Bliss furrowed her brow as she began computing just what her brain tried to play out. "I'm going to hack your phone and delete that you know?"

Emerging from the side of the room, the towering turtle of tremendous tenacity stomped the ground. "Fool! You will not get the-"

"Will you shut up! I'm talking right now." Bliss shot a gaze to her captor. "I don't have anything to say right now. But, you can still shut up."

Pressing his foot behind his adjacent leg, the tyrant bashfully looked to Madeline. "Will you please take her? Kidnapping her was a mistake. And, I wear, we won't kidnap princesses anymore. This one has showed us the error of our-"

"Oh for fudge sake, Madeline, do your demon whatever and decapitate-"

A vibrant eruption of flame and universal darkness began to spiral from a vortex emerging from the lava pit beneath the bridge. Feeling his time was at an end, the tyrannical lizard ran to the nearest exit he could find, leaving behind any responsibility for this endeavor.

A face ablaze with fire, dripping lava from its reaches peaked from the lava. It soared through the air with shoulders cast in shadowy plate stretching out across a bulging chest. A hammer of shadow with a head of lava held together with nothing more than pure, unadulterated hate and malice. "This puny mortal is mine! I, Xanerthid the Maleficent, Destroyer of Worlds, Caster of Darkness, and holder of an Unheard of 850 Credit Score, claim Bliss as my slave to finish the rest of her days working as my personal assistant."

"Great Maddy. If you had untied me, we could have been running right now." The amount of princess clothes and lava made for a very uncomfortable situation for Bliss to dangle from. "Instead, you can remember me with all the- wait, you have an 850 Credit Score? Is that a FICO score?"

A mouth of pure darkness opened. The world trembled. "Of course, puny human."

"Maddy, you're out of your league on this one."