Bliss has a Terrible, Stupid Idea (Penny)

"Listen, I said are there any other ideas before going through the front door, and gave a back door entrance plan, so it's not fair to judge all the ideas off of one, and maybe they disabled the security cameras! Ever think of that?" Both of Danny's hands went down to her hips before she got a response about the good idea she came up with. It was a much better plan, and the front door plan did have major flaws to it. "You know what, that first plan was stupid and let's never talk about it again. New plan. The other plan." The cheerleader had a way with words.

And reflexes.

A piece piece of debris flew from the now shattered wall- scratch that, door- the new door. "Bliss doesn't pump her own gas and once texted someone fifteen minutes away to get her something from the next room over. I'm pretty sure she did not do that, but Bliss is full of, well not surprises. She's full of Bliss. Bliss isn't surprising. It's mean spirited, and petty, and you kinda want it to shut up even when it's doing something- I'm going where?" Danny's blank stare shifted as Penny told her the worst news she could take.

Penny continued to grin the whole time while she moved into position behind Danny. The young woman didn’t come to grips with what the eccentric bar owner had said until it was too late. Penny placed her hand on Danny’s shoulder and then grabbed the waist line of her pants. “Eyes on the prize sunshine!” With that brief warning being the only thing Danny was going to get in terms of a ‘good luck’, Penny used her newly acquired strength to send Danny flying through the air towards the opening in the wall.

Once Danny had disappeared out of view, Penny made her way over to the base of the wall and lined herself up with the new opening. The young blonde crouched down and then launched herself up to the opening, grabbing onto the ledge at the apex of her jump. Penny pulled herself up into the building and immediately began to look around for Danny. She had an uneasy feeling that this little rescue op was about to become a lot more complicated than it needed to be. “Danny! Danny! I didn’t kill you did I? Oh come on say something! Where are you!”

Penny didn’t bother keeping her voice down at all. She had figured that if a fight had already started then the need for stealth was nonexistent. As Penny advanced further into the building, bits of broken wall were kicked aside. Whatever had sent that large man flaying had some serious stopping power behind it. Several walls sat agape with a freshly minted hole in them and offered Penny and Danny, if she was anywhere to be found, a perfect path to the center of the building. As Penny moved along cautiously she could hear talking coming from further up ahead. If only she could find Danny they could head towards the voices and no doubt find Bliss.

“Damn it Glow sticks where did you go?” With each passing moment all Penny could think about was how Madeline was still at her bar when she left. The very thought sent chills down the young blonde's back. The sooner they wrapped things up here, the sooner she could get back to her bar. That was if it was still standing by the time she got back.

A plastic casing shattered to a thousand pieces against a metal pillar. The golem raised the only arm remaining attached to its body, swinging with the anger of a thousand comments remarking that the sun is a star. Two rows of servers fell to the ground, scattering their metal brains across the floor in a technomacabre scene. The bald man and their oddly joined Korean acquaintance scattered, leaving Bliss gazing at the golem from her pillar.

"Hey! Kidnapper's Code jerks!" Bliss tried to pry herself free, but could not make it past the multitude of knots keeping her in place.

"I got this." Keeping up with the Kidnapper's Code, Casanova stepped forward to defend his loot crate. "Just you and me and my-"

A jumble of wires sprung out from the ground, knocking Casanova against the wall. The pane of the window situated above his impact shattered, raining glass down on his position. A few pixelated birds flew above Casanova's head as he lay dazed by the resolution of the attack.

The golem lifted its massive arm over Bliss, beginning the downward motion to crush the Blissiness out of Bliss.

But, the arm did not fall.

Two turquoise blades made sure of it. Landing with her knees bent and her left hand on the ground, Danny flipped her way out of Penny's throw into a perfectly executed barrel cleave. "Over here Penny!" Not entirely sanctioned for competition, but Danny pulled it off with a hairflip and a follow up projectile bolt from her newly formed wrist crossbow. "Hey, Bliss. All tied up?"

Bliss looked like her nose was in the middle of trying to eat her lip.

The clashing and crashing of both metal and plastic alike continued to rage on just up ahead. Penny continued to march in the direction of all the noise, completely unprepared for what she was about to walk into. As soon as the blonde entered the room she took note of several things she was not expecting. One was the small group of shady looking individuals feeling the scene of the crime. Two was a very large amalgamation of shitposts and tumblr user rants all piled into a pixelated beast of pure trigger. The third and fourth things came at the same time, a man being launched into a wall with enough force to cause tiny pixelated birds to begin circling his head and Danny leaping flawlessly into action to save the bound Bliss.

Penny walked out of the shadows while giving a slow round of applause for Danny’s terrible pun. “Flawless execution, really stuck the landing there!” Penny’s gaze never once focused on the raging data beast, instead she chuckled and pointed to the knocked out individual. [color:0ef8=f28b59] “I used to be able to do stuff like that!” she said in reference to the pixelated birds, and not alluding to the fact that she no longer possessed the same power set she once did.

Her attention turned away from Cassanova and over to Bliss who looked ready to murder everything in the room through shear force of Bliss. “Is there ever a time where you don’t find yourself in a bind?” The young bar owner couldn’t help but crack a small smile at her own terrible pun. Penny then proceeded to circle the pillar Bliss was bound to and tore her bindings apart as if they were paper. “So what’s the deal with the walking y2k bug over there anyway? And better question, how the hell do you find yourself in these kinds of situations?”

The quick cut of the ropes dropped Bliss down to the ground. A much more appreciated position of power. "Oh that's great. You guys got jokes. I wonder how those jokes are going to do against that thing." Bliss let her finger do the talking as the clang of metal sounded out in the distance.

Along with the sound of metal, also shot a completely different sound. Two turquoise blades sliced through the arm of the golem as Danny backflipped her way behind the creature. The metal appendage fell to the ground, sending out a sound loud enough to let Bliss know Danny handled something. Darting off of another server, Danny conjured a step for her to take flight from, plunging her twin turquoise blades deep into the server's robo brain.

No motion of force could hold the behemoth in check while it fell forward. Danny shifted her weight back and rode the creature down, ending with a basket toss with a direct approach to Penny and Bliss. Turquoise bars would wrap around Casanova's arms and legs along with the bald technaut and the seemingly oblivious Korean girl. "Bliss is recon. I do all the clean up."

Wires flew out from the corpse of the creature, wrapping Danny up. With no sensation of gravity, Danny found herself lifted in the air without a care in the world. Except her safety, and the safety of others, and the immediate threat of this beast.

"Good job clean up." Ice would form around Danny, freezing her from the shoulders down. While the creature tried to reform itself, Bliss would focus her energy into the ice ball, letting it explode outward from Danny, creating a shrapnel blast to pierce the creature. An ice slide would conjure under Danny, sliding her back and dropping her off at Bliss feet. "Any questions, cheerleader?"

"Is it dead?" Danny pushed herself up.

"Um?"

Penny watched on with a blank expression painted on her face. She wasn’t sure whether to be impressed with Danny’s outright badassery or if she should be angry for having her time wasted liked this. After all, seeing the young woman handle the entire situation by herself made Penny question why her assistance was even required in the first place. The data creature hit the ground with the sound of a dying fandom and all Penny could do was sit there and shrug her shoulders. “Not bad I guess.” the young bar owner said with very little enthusiasm.

Penny’s crystal blue eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw that the data beast wasn’t down for the count just yet. She immediately got ready to jump into the fray and free Danny from the monster's clutches, only to get upstaged once more, only this time it was by Bliss. At this point she couldn’t tell which was worse, getting upstaged by Danny, or getting upstaged by Bliss. Then several shards of ice embedded themselves in her body and that was when she had her answer. Getting upstaged by Bliss was much worse. Penny clenched her fists tightly as she could feel the stinging sensation from the various cuts that had appeared on her body. The ice had already melted due to her unnaturally high body temperature and now the wounds were beginning to close.

The young blonde turned to face Danny and Bliss with an annoyed look on her face. “Are you two done?” she was already over the strange techno monster and had chosen to focus her attention on Bliss’ would-be captors. “So what do you guys have planned for them? I’m pretty sure they all aren’t going to fit on my bike….Just sayin.” she said, looking at the still unconscious Casanova and his bound accomplices.

"I can make a cart and then we can hook it up to your bike." Danny began contemplating the exact dimension a cart would need in order to fit everyone, especially Mammoth, when the howl of a wolf rang out.

Bliss turned to the metallic hunk of junk, building a giant ice boulder over it, then simply dropping it. "Did that thing just howl or is there-"

Through the breach charged a magical wolf-like creature adorned with a young girl clad in a black tights with a blue skirt bouncing with each forward move of the enchanted wolf. He bore his savage teeth as the small girl clumsily dismounted from his back, slowly lighting a chain of firecrackers, and tossing them a few feet away from her.

"Come on!" Lil' Bliss urged her larger companions. "I brought Ryzo, so we can get everyone out safely. We gotta go thought, cause it's dangerous."

"Oh my god." All thoughts and designs in Danny's heads left as she witness Lil' Bliss fully sprung into action. "That is the cutest thing. She's trying to drag criminals to safety."

Lil' Bliss struggled with the little bald man, until Ryzo made his presence be known by lifting the man onto the wolf's back. Ryzo continued with the rest of the prisoner pick up while Lil' Bliss remounted. "Okay, everyone. Good job! We can go now!"

"D'aw!" Danny waved as Lil' Bliss began to set out from the back of her borrowed wolf.

Bliss pulled Mammoth in from the alleyway telekinetically. "If you think that's cute, you should see what she turns out to be."

"Don't ruin this, Bliss."

Penny nodded in agreement with Danny’s idea of creating a cart to carry all the unconscious criminals in. A few streaks of blood cascaded down her cheek from a cut that had been taking it’s sweet time closing just below her right eye. “Ok, yeah that could wor-” The young blonde’s attention was taken away from the conversation at hand, to a breach that had opened up on the other side of the room. Her crystal blue eyes went wide at the site of the massive wolf and the small child riding on its back. “That is definitely something you don’t see everyday.”

Penny watched on in both confusion and intrigue as the little girl leapt off of the wolf’s back and lit a string of firecrackers. As the small child attempted to drag one of Bliss’ captures over to the large wolf, Penny leaned forward and squinted her eyes, there was something awfully familiar about that little girl. It wasn’t until the last unconcious villain was placed on the wolfs back that Penny made the connection. “Oh my god. There’s a little you!?” she said turning to face Bliss with a mixed expression of glee and disbelief.  

“Well then! I uh….hmm…I suppose you still need a ride right?” Penny said, turning to face Danny, not entirely sure of what to do in the moment. She looked away from the young woman for just a brief moment. Her gaze fell upon the data monster that Bliss had brutally crushed under a boulder of ice. She wasn’t sure if the thing could really be killed and part of her felt like lighting it on fire just for the hell of it. She shook the thoughts from her head and returned to Danny, thoughts of whether or not to teleport the poor girl out of there swirled through her mind.

"Yep. We need a ride." Bliss walked over to the bike. "I'll sit up front, VIP and all."

Danny did not want to ride in the back. At all. She earned that seat. But, calling Bliss names would not solve anything, and her mother raised her better than to sling mud. So, Danny would just wave her hand. "I'll find another way back. I've got a meeting with a team of superheroes to meet with. They need someone cool and inventive."

Lil' Bliss ran back into the room with her arms swaying, only to have them collapse to her knees. "Hey..Guys...we gotta get going!" She waved her arm as her legs pushed the rest of her out of the room. "Follow me!"

"Yeah!" Danny smiled as she grasped her hands in a semi cheer. "Follow the way cuter Bliss. Into a better tomorrow!" She struck up her leg in a three quarters cheerleader stance.

Bliss wrapped her hands around Penny's waist, while looking back to Lil' Bliss then to Danny. "I feel like this is some weird setup, but at the same time, I feel something in my heart that feels like appreciation. Thanks for assisting in my plan Penny. You too Danny. Now let's go help Lil' Bliss succeed at her first mission!"

Penny’s brow raised in confusion as Bliss called shotgun more or less. The young blonde found herself staring at a nearby wall, the ground, and then back to Bliss, scratching the side of her head they whole time. “You uh…You don’t get how motorcycles work do you?” there was no way in all of Arcadia, Penny was going to let Bliss try and sit on the handle bars regardless of how uncomfortable or impossible it seemed. Despite all the thoughts swirling through the young bar owners mind, she hadn’t actually taken into account that she’d have to fit three people on her bike. The thought had somewhat been brushed under the rug as she had just assumed that Bliss would have hitched a ride with her little self.

If it wasn’t for Danny speaking up Penny would have still been thinking about how to manage the whole transportation thing. The Arcadian champion even found herself taken back a bit when Danny proclaimed she had a meeting with a superhero team. *Those actually exist?* Penny thought to herself, unaware that Bliss had motioned over towards her. Penny’s crystal blue eyes drifted up as the little girl rushed back over to the three women, beckoning them to leave.

The young woman couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at Danny’s little quip as she decided to follow the smaller and much cuter version of Bliss. “Ooh that’s good, You should totally use that as a slogan or something.”

That’s when Penny was completely blindsided by the sudden embrace by Bliss. The situation was a bit weird, as she wasn’t sure to feel excited or morbid fear as this was something she was most definitely not expecting. There was a clear sign of fluster on Penny’s face as her cheeks turned red with embarrassment. “Did….did hell just freeze over, or is this actually a thing that’s happening right now?”

The young blonde let out a sigh before flashing Bliss a friendly smile. “Think nothing of it. I’m always happy to help….or in this case just stand around and do nothing. Now lets get outta here.”

A notification came to Bliss' phone, highlighting the location of Ryzo and Lil' Bliss. It did not look like any precinct, safehouse, or meta prison Bliss ever knew of. A busy market district typically did not want to see either of those things smack dab in the middle of a festive night. Bliss did her best to keep Penny on the right track as her motorcycle tried to keep up with a massive wolf.

Then the notification stopped. In front of a Pizza Planet. "What the what?" Bliss stepped off the bike and put her helmet on the seat. "I feel like the police's image may be a little too soft at this point."

Inside, Lil' Bliss commandeered a large enough table for herself, Ryzo, and everyone in Casanova's crew to take a seat- with two openings for Bliss and Penny. As soon as she spotted Bliss, she immediately waved down her larger alter ego. "Over here!"

"You have a mammoth with you. I think I can see where you are." Stepping over a loose strand of tickets, and darting between running children, Bliss made her way to the table and plopped herself down. "So, you were on your way to the prison, and you got hungry?"

"They said they wanted to celebrate my first success." Lil' Bliss chewed off a piece of cheese pizza, keeping her mouth closed with precision as she chewed.

"We got her a cake." Mammoth grabbed a piece of pizza with a giant hand, then swallowed it with no problem in one gulp. "She was very brave."

"Yeah, that's great." Bliss put her right cheek on her hand as she canvassed the table. "You're all going to jail."

"We didn't actually do anything wrong." A well manicured finger extended from Casanova's hand. "We were trespassing, but that isn't a jailable offense."

"Kidnapping." Bliss shook her head with her cheek still pressed firm.

"Citizen's arrest." The technonaut used a laser to cut his slice of pizza. "You were attempting to defraud an insurance company, so we placed you under citizen's arrest."

"That's so stupid- and will never hold up under any-"

"Shhh!" The Korean with no motive pressed her finger to her lips.

"Yeah, so everyone learned a lesson, so no one has to go to jail!" Lil' Bliss pressed half a slice into her mouth as she slurped it down.

"We all forgot our wallets at home, so can you get the tab?" Casanova looked around as Bliss finally pulled her cheek from her hand and sat up.

Bliss pulled one of the pizzas from the middle of the table, placing it in front of her. "If I'm paying, I'm making it worth it. Eat up Penny."

Getting directions from Bliss was just about as hectic as it was to ride blindfolded. At the point Penny would have actually preferred the blindfold. The pitch black bike dipped and skidded through the busy streets. Each pitch and shift of the bike only served to put Penny a little more on edge as she feared that taking to sudden of an action would throw Bliss clean off the back of the motorcycle. With her luck it would happen to. The young blonde’s bike came to a skidding halt in front of the pizza planet and her reaction matched that of Bliss’.

*Wasn’t the little Bliss supposed to be taking the bad guys to the police?* she silently thought to herself, partially happy that it wasn’t a police station at all. By this point there was no denying they had a description of her bike. She’d been spotted fleeing so many murder scenes by this point that it didn’t matter if all her victims were low life gang bangers, she was pretty much a serial killer by this point. Penny stuck close to Bliss as they made their way into the small pizzeria.

As soon as the door was opened, Penny’s ears were immediately assaulted by the loud screams of children as they playfully ran about the place. The little scamps trounced about the place pretty much unsupervised, they were worse than Penny’s costumers at this point. Looking over Bliss’ shoulder Penny could see the extremely large man, even sitting he was unbelievably tall. Penny’s eyes then dipped down slightly to see lil Bliss sitting amongst the criminals her little arm waving frantically through the air trying to flag down Bliss and Penny, it was quite adorable really.

Penny sat down in one of the open seats that had been left for her and kind of just sat there not sure what to make of the whole situation. A small chuckle escaped her lips as lil Bliss explained that the team wanted to celebrate her first successful mission. “Well If I would have known that, me and Bliss could have stopped off somewhere to pick up streamers and party hats.”

Penny placed both her arms up on the table and hoisted her chin up with her knuckles as she looked at all the food the lined the table and listened in on the little argument going on between Bliss and her former captors. The young woman instantly perked up at the mention of Bliss’ true escapade. Her crystal blue eyes shifted in Bliss’ direction with a smug look. “Oh really? So you were just gonna leave that little bit out I see?” Penny then reach forward and pulled the box of pizza away from Bliss and over to herself. She grabbed a slice of the pizza and took a bite of it while leaning back in her seat, still looking at Bliss as though she were expecting some sort of explanation.

"First and foremost, look how cute Lil' Bliss is?!" Bliss tried to divert Penny's attention with her hands while Lil' Bliss pulled all the toppings off her pizza with one bite. "Isn't she- okay, fine, it was a victimless crime. No one gets hurt."

The laser point ended, leaving the pizza cut perfectly. "We already told you, it steals money from the company."

"Oh no, I'm hurting a faceless corporation full of bureaucrats. Victimless crime!"

"While we're on the topic." Casanova looked over to Penny. "We're pretty sure Bliss might be on the slippery slope to villany-"

"You guys are villains!" Bliss pointed to each of the four, ending with a limp point on the Korean girl. "Maybe?.. Hey! I'm not getting lectured about villainy by you guys, just because I tried to get some money to help fight crime since crime took all my money. Questions?"

"Do you want more pizza?" Lil' Bliss grabbed the last slice.

"Yeah."

Penny’s head shifted back and forth as she tried to keep up with the banter between Bliss and the Casanova gang. The young blonde found herself nearly choking on a bite of pizza as Casanova turned to address her about Bliss’ recent shady behavior. There was an odd mix of coughing and laughter as Penny waved off the would be villain’s remarks. “Bliss, a villain? She couldn’t even find herself out of a wet paper bag, and your telling me you’re worried about her becoming a villain.” Penny continued to laugh before taking another bite of her pizza and then cleared her throat when she received a barrage of not so friendly stares from the group of villains.

The young blonde fired back with an arched brow. “What? It’s not like any of you are any better. I mean Bliss out smarted you all for crying out loud.” Obviously this was as less received as Penny’s nonchalant attitude towards Bliss’ recent behavior, but at this point the champion of Arcadia couldn’t care any less. Penny leaned over the table and grabbed a hold of the pitcher of water and poured herself a drink. One of the many disadvantages of being a raging fire demon was that the young woman was always thirsty, a feeling she wasn’t truly fond of.

Penny could feel the angry scowls still burrowing a hole right through her soul. For some god unknown reason, the others looked to her as if she were the designated voice of reason. “I uh…um. I mean, that’s terrible, Bliss you outta be a shamed of yourself. Is that the kind of example you want to set for the obviously better and cuter you?” Penny again waived it off with a small chuckle. “You know what, don’t answer that.”