Big in Japan

Bliss took the cigarette within her index and middle finger and accepted the light. A few months ago Pain offered her the same gift for her conversation with him; this felt more deserved as ice dripped down from the ceiling. A long drag on the cigarette moved the composure of the tobacco into place and brought the flow of the smoke into her worthless lungs. Even without the necessity of breathing she could still summon up the flow of air to bring outside sources down into the depths of her lungs. "We should try to find a way out of this place. I'm sure no more trains will be coming for about fifteen minutes, so we should get to moving."

Her feet trudged through the ice tunnel with some support from ice along the soles of her feet to keep traction. Bliss learned that the stickiness of ice could make it so that she could take an unfair advantage over any adversary that tried to face her on her ice. Well this guy already told her not to freeze his shoes, so Bliss would just try to seem unnaturally graceful as she strode across the ice with Clayton in tow.

In between drags the cigarette fell just below the hem line of her skirt, hovering a few centimeters away from the leggings. She stayed just behind Clayton as the two made their way to try to find a maintenance access to take them back to the surface.

Clayton walked along the tunnel of ice with Bliss. It was not as slick as the one he slid down to get there, but all the same, his shoes did not exactly provide the traction he needed on the ice. Walking was difficult, but Clayton managed without complaint. He also managed to look kind of ridiculous as he tried to keep pace with Bliss and her unnatural grace. His hands stayed in his pockets and his cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth. He removed a hand from his pocket and briefly took hold of his cigarette to speak, “Where to now? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that our hotels are pretty far from safe.” He took one last drag from his cigarette. “But maybe it’s not such a bad idea to wait for them to come to us again.”Clayton flicked the cigarette away. It looked like they were not too far from a platform now. He was more than happy to get off the tracks.

"It would be best to avoid walking back to a platform. Some of these tunnels could take us back to the surface." Subway workers always needed side access points for them to bypass traffic and the obstruction of oncoming trains. The maintenance hatch looked like a common station that would lead them to a clear exit away from the scene of the crime.

While smoke filled her lungs ice dripped from the ceiling; Bliss could only guess at what would happen once the ice melted completely and the tunnel lost its stability. For all she knew another train could find itself wiped out when the pillars fell. "I gotta take care of something right quick." Short bursts of ice blasted into the ice wall that braced the tunnel. Slowly dust and bracing began to rumble down. Sensors would detect the faltering tunnel and cause the mass transportation system to buckle down until the city could muster up enough workers to fix it. "Once this tunnel comes down it won't be hard for anyone to know where we were."

In a few minutes the tunnel would lay in ruins. Bliss made sure to freeze over the electrical substation to short out the railing on the track. With the railing shorted out, the transit operators would need to call off any oncoming trains. Bliss worked her magic on the lock to cause the mechanism to break in the lock. All she needed to do now was pull a little and the door would open. "We can make our way out of here and find a place to lay low."

As she walked through the concrete tunnel brushing her hand over the large wires running down the middle of the tunnel, Bliss began to fidget with her phone. With muscle memory she began pressing in the pound for "1" and going back to the "back" button. Her fingers made the path, but Bliss kept coming back to the same response. Light broke through the way point of the door. "We're here. We need to get out of the town and find a way back to America."

Bliss was right; with the tunnel collapsed they would be a lot harder to follow. They might even be assumed dead. Clayton could only hope. He nearly offered to handle the lock for Bliss, but she handled it herself with ease. She certainly handled herself well. Of all the people in Japan to be stuck in such a situation with, Clayton was thankful to be stuck with her. “I see your value now.” It was the closest thing to a compliment anyone got from him in a while. “But listen…” He continued forward with her, “If you wanna head back to the states, that’s just fine with me, but the airport is where we’ll have to part ways. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have this, whatever this is, to follow me back to the only country I actually like.”

Clayton already wished he had another cigarette. “I plan on putting an end to my dad’s dumb game here so I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder, you know? If we part ways, I can’t promise I’ll be successful. I mean, they’re probably just after me, but they know your name and all that, so like, just don’t blame me or whatever if they come after you next. Ok?” He was beginning to ramble again. His people skills were constantly in need of work. “Yeah…”

He began to think she was actually better off parting ways with him. God only knew what happened to the scrawny Indian. Wherever Clayton went disaster followed. It would be a shame if Bliss were to fall victim to it. They were nearly out. Another twenty or so feet and she could go her way he could go his.

"Are you trying to ask me to go camping in a non-gay way? Because the words you're looking for are 'Bliss, I'm stupid and can't do anything on my own and need you to help me overcome my daddy problems.'" Brown eyes rolled back under plucked eye lashes. "Times like these make me glad I don't have a job or responsibilities or..." Then she remembered. "Okay. I guess helping you would make us friends. Best friends. Superfriends."

First, she would need somewhere to live for the brief time that they would spend in Japan. She had relatives, but after her outburst at the legal proceedings they may not welcome her. Or, they may not know what she said because they don't speak English. Either way it didn't give her a good network in her home country. "Okay, do you have any ideas, or is it my job to figure things out while you stand around trying to be John Constantine minus everything cool about Constantine?"

At this point in her plan all hopes of making those ten million dollars disappear without a trace had in fact disappeared. Without a trace even. Stopping the ever present danger of Doctor Necrodium stood as Bliss's most important plan, but if playing Neverwinter Nights taught her anything it is that any wide scale job meant you needed to do every stupid little side quest. Bliss pulled out her notebook and held it in her hand while breathing a sigh of discontent and resolution. "Alright Minsc, let's go rescue that black chick."

Clayton rolled his eyes both at Bliss rolling hers and at her super-friends comment. It seemed as if she would be sticking around for whatever reason. That was fine with him but he needed a plan otherwise he would just be wasting time and risking both their lives. He thought back to his stand off with his father for a second. There was something he noticed on his father a pin on his jacket. Nori had been wearing one just like it. Clayton knew he recognized it from somewhere; specifically a building he passed on the way to the train station when he first ran into Nori. It was too obvious, which meant it was probably a trap. A trap he did not want to walk into tired, on an empty stomach and in damp, wrinkled clothes. Those were problems requiring immediate attention. He would tell Bliss about the logo pin later.

“Waitaminute. You read Hellblazer? Marry me.” He had not touched a comic book since 2022, but remembered John Constantine fondly. “Come on. Hungry? Because I sure as hell am. I'll fill you in on my plan later.” He lead the way forward past Bliss. Clayton was unsure of where he was headed, but how hard could it be to get lost for a minute in a city so big? He remembered the cellphone in his pocket and quickly chucked it to the ground which left it in pieces. ”Just to be safe.” He could always get a new one later.

"I'm guessing it's Japanese food. This must be the first time you've proposed if you think just because a girl is hungry and know rough sub-culture she will go for that." Bliss muttered off facetiously to the recommendation of lunch at a time of crisis. "I guess it makes as much sense as wandering the streets while we decide what to do next." And it did. The phone crashing against the sidewalk beside her brought back the feeling of uncertainty with her earlier misadventures. She never lost the severity of what she did, but this only served to strengthen the knot tightening in her stomach. "Right. The plan."

Bliss tugged at the bag to her side and lowered her head. She let out a sigh, knowing this misadventure would only lead her away from entanglements. Spinning webs of conflicting and swirling oddities among the troubled population seemed to fall on Bliss. Misfits and miscreants swarmed Bliss like a magnet of misfortune. "Some family you got there. But before you go on about the plan, and before we get carried away with sushi, what kind of danger are we in right now?"

It was some family he had. Best of all was that it was, to his knowledge, all the family he ever had. Clayton shrugged his shoulders, “Dunno.” He continued walking without even turning to face Bliss. That answer would have been good enough for him; he knew it would not sit well with her, though. “My lunatic father said something about needing a replacement, right? And he was wearing that bomb thing. My guess is that he got himself mixed up in something retarded and wound up some sort of slave. Probably offered me as a replacement if they'd let him go. Who better than his son, right? That's my guess for what kind of danger I'm in. No idea what they'll do with you. Maybe they'll kill you or maybe they'll leave you alone. Who knows? Bet you wish you didn't decide to be so helpful today, huh?”

He could make out the sign of what was apparently a restaurant of some kind further on down the street. “So, would it be racist to ask you what exactly that sign says and if you know if that place is any good?”

"Sometimes bombs just symbolize a father's desire to get closer to his only son, or how many sibling you have, or whatever." Bliss shrugged her shoulders as they made their way down the bright lights of the street. Every thing beamed down on them in a vivid display of fluorescent lighting. It gave no compensation for the stars the tacky lights blocked out, but it made picking a restaurant a little more easy. "I don't think people want me dead. But, I don't think they want me to be left alone." It felt odd to brag about herself, but she knew how much she loved it. "I'm pretty sure I'm more important to them than you or your dad are. Even with him showcasing what a truly terrible person he really is." No irony or inflection hung on her words; she said exactly what she thought.

A couple of the nouns on the signs started making sense. She thought about how racist it would be if she took advantage of the fact he thought she knew about this stuff, then she saw the arch. It seemed fairly familiar and thought back to her childhood. Not her early childhood, but growing up in Nebraska. "It's a McDonald's dumbass." Bliss stepped forward and opened the door. "And I wouldn't say it's good." All of the lights and culture of McDonalds looked more like what you would expect from an EPCOT feature of Japan. Odd calligraphy from Meido era styling made her wonder why would any locals come here. Giggling from the corner of strangely dressed teenagers reminded her that kids are stupid. "I'll get a table. I want nuggets, fries, and a diet coke." Bliss made her way to a table away from the windows and threw her bag down on the table. After pulling out her computer she made her way through her more recent transactions and tried to access the damage she did.

Ace sat in his room, wide awake "This is not how i should be spending the night, i should be out fighting crime like i used too" Ace said to himself, he didn't like this curfew that was put on him, "Its for your own safety" Ace mocked "Safety my tuccus, i mean seriously, we were attacked in the middle of the night by giant robots, and those safety doors didn't do shit" Ace grabbed jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie and put them on. He pulled the hood over his head and put on his grappling hook, opened the window and jumped. Now this would be stupid if you couldn't fly or had some form of stopping yourself tom hitting the ground at such a speed that you would shatter into a million pieces when you hit the ground, luckily Ace had a grappling hook so he was fine. He latched on to a balcony of a nearby building and swung "WOOOOO-HOOOO!!!!" He exclaimed "I never get tired of doing that" he swung his way down to the rooftops, Ace was no parkour-er by any means but jumping from building to building was easy enough.

After about an hour of swinging and rooftop jumping Ace encountered a gang of thugs mugging a woman he counted 10 thugs, instinctively he jumped down. "Geez guys, 10 on one, give the girl a break" the thugs turned around, it might have been shallow of him but he immediately noticed that all of the thugs were asian. They rushed at him "You guys just don't get it do you?" Ace clocked one of them in the face but got hit by a pipe, Ace fell in a corner "No more talking" said the man
"Is that glitter on your eyelid?" Ace asked winded, Noticing something on the man's face, it drew a few chuckles from the crowd and turning the man he had asked red.it gave Ace just enough time to shock 3 of them, knocking them out cold "Now can any of you do maths?" A punch was thrown at Ace, Ace responded with a duck, "10-3= What?" Ace toyed with the criminals. A man ran at him with a bat "DIEEEEEEE!!!" he screamed
"Wrong Answer" Ace grabbed the Bat and used the mans momentum to throw him into another man "Aaannd Another one bites the dust" Ace counted the score in his head "The Answer was seven by the way, to all of you wondering" Ace was punched in the gut but didn't go down "Sorry, no prize" Ace smirked as he punched the guy in the face "Ok, where was i?" He noticed the 4 still left standing "Oh Yes, Now do you guys want to-urk." Ace reached for his neck which was now exposed, the hood must have fallen down in the process of beating the crap out of the thugs, his fingers wrapped around something embedded in his neck, a dart "Oh for crying out loud" Ace fell forwards and started to blackout the last thing he remembered was the mens shoes *Nike's* He thought before blacking out into a haze.

Ace awoke in his bed, sat up, dripping in cold sweat, *It must have all just been a dream* Thought Ace. As soon as he thought that Sim burst into his room "Ace they're back" She said, she had lost all her composure, usually Sim kept her cool in situations like this,
"What? Who's back? Why are you so distressed?" Ace asked her.
"They killed Sean, Max is holding them off, you have to-" Sim stopped talking as a metal spine skewered her and a giant mechanical monstrosity walked into the room. Ace jumped out of bed, suddenly his surroundings changed, he was wearing his usual civilian clothes and, what was around him, the wreckage of the cafe they had fought at in New York. the metal spine on the creature turned into a fist it grasped Ace by the neck "How does it feel Ace, to have your whole life fall apart" The thing spoke with a mixture of accents, and a mixture of voices, like someone a copy and pasted words from other peoples mouths. It dropped Ace and he fell, the floor beneath him disappeared and he fell down and down into the darkness below.

Ace woke with a jolt, the room was very dark, a dimly lit bulb overhead lit Ace and the seat he was sitting on, everything else was pitch black. Ace tried to get up but he was secured to the seat, wooden cuffs secured his wrists, elbows and legs to the seat while a strap secured his waist to the seat. The strap he could break through but the wooden cuffs would take some work. Ace was about to start working on getting through the cuffs when he heard a noise to his left, like a shoe hitting a wall. "I knew someone was in here, you wouldn't mind telling why i'm in here and where here is would you?" Ace asked the noise, he probably wouldn't get an answer but hey, it was worth a shot.

With a flip of a switch, the doctor brought light to the darkened room. The florescent lights flickered briefly as the large complex machines against the back wall of the room also sprang to life. Before him was his latest subject, a boy no older than fourteen. His employers had been watching the boy’s exploits closely since the incident involving a music crazed kleptomaniac and an orphanage put him in the public eye. Under their instruction, the doctor tried numerous times to replicate his abilities. All but one attempt suffered immensely before dying. The one that did not was still a part of their organization, but one fluke was not enough for them; they wanted something they could mass produce. It was sheer coincidence that the boy’s biological father was deeply indebted to the corporation. The father was lead to believe that his son was being brought to him as nothing more than a courtesy and that once he captured his other son as replacement for himself that he and the boy would be free to go. The reality was that they were just going to keep both sons and kill him off.
The doctor’s new job was to figure out a way to extract Ace’s powers and find a way to give them to others; even at the cost of his life. It was almost strange to him that he knew so much about his subject yet they knew nothing about him. No matter how often he was told to forget it, he could not forget that his subjects were all human. He decided to introduce himself, “Hello, Ace. My name is Doctor Yamada. I’m afraid I can’t tell you exactly where you are right now. All I can tell you for now is that you’re in a laboratory in Japan. I just need to run a few tests and then you’ll be returned to your father. Ok?” The chubby, balding Doctor Yamamda put on as soothing a smile as he could manage. There was no reason for Ace to die frightened.

---

Clayton placed a tray of fast food on the table and seated himself across from Bliss. “All the different shit on the Japanese menu and you stick with nuggets anyway, huh?” He shook his head, and unwrapped his Japan-exclusive Teriyaki McBurger, “It was a bitch ordering all this, you know. Cashier either doesn’t speak any English or he’s very good at pretending he doesn’t.” He took a glance at the two drinks on the table and realized he’d forgotten which coke was Bliss’s diet. “I think this is yours.” He pushed one towards her, hoped he got it right, removed a napkin from his pocket, and held it up.

“Before I start on my retarded plan. Do you know what this is? I just want to make sure this isn’t some kind of dumb clothes company or gay thing or something, because I noticed both my dad and that gay kid had this on them.” Scribbled on the napkin was the Taoist Bagua symbol for Lightning. Clayton genuinely had no idea what it meant and figured he should ask to be sure before going on, “Because its also on a building I passed on my way to the train station earlier. I figure its probably the most obvious trap ever and that we should just walk right in.” He gave a thumbs up with his free hand.

---

“So that’s it, huh? You’re just gonna kill me, take the one kid I do give a damn about and the one I don’t even like? After all I’ve done for you damn japs? That’s just fuckin great.” Washington growled into the phone from behind the wheel of a limo with as convincing a fury as he could manage at the supposed news he just received. He knew what they were going for all along. The company never did give his mind much credit.

“I never said we were going to kill you Mr. Wray.” The voice responded through the phone.

“Well, shit, you and I both know that’s the only way I’m gonna let you. You’ve probably got your finger on the button to blow me up right now, don’t ya? Go ahead and push the damn thing and kill us all already. The bride of Frankenstein here and I are sick of putting up with you faggots anyway.” He rolled his eyes at Nori who was next to him in the passenger’s seat. The teen seemed to take offense to being called the bride of Frankenstein. Washington did not give a damn.

“I’m sorry.” The man’s voice apologized.

Washington assumed that would be when he would push the button. He hung up the cellphone and tossed it out the window. “Good job shorting out this vest, kid. But did you have to kill the help?”

Nori nodded, “They only would have turned on you or slowed you down, sir.”

“If you say so. Still think I coulda just payed ‘em.” Wash shrugged.

“We don’t need them. I almost killed your son by myself earlier and I’ll be ready for his cow of a girlfriend this time. I don’t understand why you’re going to all this trouble just to get to know a kid you clearly didn’t want in the first place. Maybe you’re the one that’s ‘gone faggot’.” The venom in Nori’s words sprang from jealousy. He could do everything Ace could do, Wash already knew him, and he already looked to Wash as the father figure he never actually had. What made Ace so special? It was unfair.

“Boy, if I didn’t owe you my life right now, I’d smack the shit out of you for even thinking that. You better knock it off. If Clay don’t pull this one off, you’re gonna be the closest thing I have to a son, and if I don’t tolerate that kind of talk from you now, how do you think I’m gonna handle it then?”

Nori could not help but hope Clayton failed.

Less interesting dinners at McDonald's most likely occurred around the world. While Clayton continued on about Bliss's dismissal of her heritage, Bliss shook her cup in dismay. "You got me ice? Have we met before?" She gave him a look through slanted eyes and a tilted head. "Listen, I grew up here, so I know what the food tastes like. If I wanted to not pay attention to someone be disappointed in me not eating Japanese food, I would go to my grandma's house." Ketchup squirted out of the packet and onto the paper mat covering the face of the tray. Clayton pushed an image across the table while she dipped a fry into the ketchup. "Never seen it." While she chewed she always took measure to move her hand over her mouth. "I guess we have a lead, and a resolve."

The next few minutes would probably be the last moments of peace for a while, so Bliss decided to savor them with chunks of chicken rolled into nuggets. "I don't know how your dad knows me, but it can't be good. I guess the good thing about it is that I just got these ice powers a little while ago." As she continued her way through her meal she decided to let a few things come to light. "Once we get out of this mess, there may be a new job that could be of interest to you. You'll need to go to New York for it, but it should be worth your time."

Getting help without fully addressing the problem would be the best strategy for now, so Bliss decided to get the conversation back to what Clayton wanted to address. "When we make a shot at this place, how do we do it? Are we going to stick together or split up, and what are you going to do in the case of a fight? You aren't exactly useful in that department." Sometimes the smartest girl in the world said really dumb things.

Lights flickered on around Ace, he wanted to shield his eyes, and a balding asian man came into view. He explained to Ace where he was and that he couldn't tell him any more."Listen Doctor, if i wasn't a nice person i would fry you right here and no- wait, Did you say father? I don't have a father, Im an orphan, the closest thing i have to a family is my friends, and i don't have many of those either." Ace stopped feeling sorry for himself and started freaking out * OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD, Ok Ace stay calm, your just stuck in japan with a man you don't know, Apparently he's a doctor, this could be that same guy that made me run around San Francisco. And apparently i have a father now, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!, Whats going to happen next!! I know one things for sure, no one will save me, this is what i get for sneaking out at night.* Ace's thoughts overlapped each other, it was clear he was freaking out, no matter how defiant he sounded, the sweat on his brow and the slight jitter of his left hand was a dead giveaway *What was that dream about anyway* Ace had stopped thinking about his possible imitate doom for two seconds to think this *It might just be a tranquilliser induced haze, yeah, that's what it is. Ok plan, plan, plainty plan plan. lets just get as much info out of this guy as possible, good plan* Ace tried to calm himself but he was still pretty obvious that he was freaking out.

There was a short pause after Ace's last statement, then Ace began his demands "Now doctor, your going to tell me who my father is and where the hell i am, and why while your at it, Don't feed me some bullshit like 'Its your annual checkup' we're in japan, there must be some really huge reason why i'm here. If you don't do that, i may just not be a very nice guy anymore" Ace said to the doctor "Im quite fed up of the kidnapping thing, and people think its funny, cause im a kid, and they're 'napping' me, and people say villains aren't witty"

“New York, huh? Yeah. Sure. Have your people call my people, or whatever. Does anyone still say that?” Clayton shook his head “Anyway, I’m just gonna walk into the building with this thing on it, ask to see my dad, knock him out, find the HDIC, do the same to him, maybe take their wallets, and then call it a day. Because, contrary to your belief, I’m not at all useless in a fight, so all I need you to do is stand there and look pretty. Think you can manage?” He took a final bite of the slightly disappointing burger he practically inhaled. “Whenever you’re ready.” He spoke with his mouthful, and stood up to leave. His manners were less than spectacular.

---

 
“You know, Washington, sir, I’ve been thinking” Nori said from the passanger seat of the vehicle

“Congratulations?”

“About your plan. It’s dumb. Why send one of your retard babies in to save the other one, when I can just go in there and do it for you. That way you’ve got the little one you want and then when the big one inevitably fucks up, you still win.”

“Now see, that was the original idea but I thought you’d be too pussy for it, so I just sent a man to do it. Clay might be an idiot, but my boy is a man. I’m sure he can do it.”

“Bullshit, sir. Let me have this one. I know the building a little and I’ve never let you down before.”

Nori’s face was turning red in frustration with his mentor. He was certain he could accomplish the task at hand.

“You wanna go in there and face those snakes, you go right ahead. I’ll meet you there. Just try not to fuckin’ die, ok?” Washington simply shrugged. He was not going to deny any help offered to him with the situation at hand.

Nori gave a determined nod and exited the car before making jump into the streetlight. He would travel through the wires all the way there. It was his once chance to prove his worth to Wash, and he refused to let him down; although it would not be his fault if both of the sons were to meet with unfortunate accidents.

---

The boy made it clear that he did not want to be there. Unfortunately for him, the doctor could not allow him to leave. He had a lot of work to do and precious little time to do it. He was not allowed to be concerned with the effects of putting the patient under again so soon. Rather give Ace any actual answers, he simply drew a small pistol from the pocket of his lab coat, and fired a small dart into the boy's neck. Ace went down in a matter of seconds, and the doctor moved him to a table near the machines to begin his work.

***
Taro Yamada did not get to work very long before he was interrupted. First by the sounds of and alarm. Commotion on the first floor. He assumed it would be handled before it could ever reach him and continued to work despite the constant blaring. Ace seemed soundly out on the table hooked up various machines through electrodes various places on his body. Doctor Yamada analyzed both the readings from the machinery and from the scanned DNA on his computer. He was confident he would discover why Ace's unique abilities had been so hard to replicate in the past. Unfortunately all his hard work was to go to waste. There was a surge in power the delicate machinery connected to Ace could not take the strain. The machines hummed fast and loudly as their power was pushed to levels they were not fit to handle. The lights in the room flickered. Yamada jolted up when his monitor went dead and his computer began to smoke. Finally, the machinery in the room could take no more and gave out. The machines attached to and scanning ace sent an unusual surge through his body before and sparked before exploding. The room went dark and Taro glanced around rapidly and confused. The room was in the same pitch black state it was when he entered, though this time he could feel another consciousness behind him.

“Who is there?!” He cried out in his native Japanese

“Relax, Doctor, it's only me.” The assailant replied.

“Nori? What is the meaning of this? What's going on?”

“Sorry, Doc.”

The half-hearted apology was all Nori could offer the man. He reached out his hand and in a spark of purple that lit the room for a brief moment, Yamada was no more.
The rooms generator kicked and lit the room again. Nori walked from the charred body of the man who gave him his powers to examine his new rival on the table.

"Oh, I can do that." She said exasperatingly as thought it came off as an insult. "I can do that and then some. I'm the one with superpowers dick. What do you do? Get frozen in ice." She went back to her diet coke. "Thought so." After the back and forth of insults and unpleasantness that existed between and within Bliss and Clayton they finished their meals and made preparations to make a grand entrance. "I can look pretty doing the ugliest things imaginable." Bliss spoke through a mouth full of nuggets.

The trip over consisted of mutual condescension making arriving at a potential death trap seem like a step in the right decision. Ice began forming in Bliss's hand to begin her plan on distracting the guards. Within a few moments the ice formed spherical shape before Bliss made an effort to throw it through the window. As she released the ice chunk stayed locked in her hand. "Dammit." She muttered as the ball of ice slammed into her leg. Without the final stage of her plan coming to fruition, Bliss placed an ice barb in between her hand and the ball to force it loose. "Let's try that again."

This time she winded up with more form and threw the ball towards the window along with a blast of ice to cement it to the wall. "Stand back Seacrest." Bliss stepped in front of Clayton to move to finish her job of destruction. Pushing more ice into the wall it began to collapse under the invasive force. Bliss may not control ice with the best precision, but she could manage to take one nail and nail another one with it.

Ace awoke with a jolt, no tranquillizer induced dreams this time, straight out and straight back into life. he looks down, he was missing his shirt, there were burns at various points on his body "Oh my, this is not good." Suddenly, like something had just kicked in he sensed there was something human shaped around him, like a sixth sense. Instinctively he whipped around to face the figure, he was an asian man, more like a teen though, his clothing confirmed that he was indefinitely in japan, Ace couldn't say much though, he was only in his loose fitting jeans and barely anything else. Ace went to charge his fist with electricity but he couldn't conjure anything "Bastard" Ace muttered as he threw himself off the bed. only to be pulled back by the straps on his feet, the ones around his wrists had burnt off when the blackout had happened.

Ace was now hanging upside down from his bed struggling to release his feet from the straps, they gave way and he fell to the floor, there was an almighty smack as his bare stomach hit the floor, "That's going to leave a mark." Ace grumbled,
*Ok now i need to get the hell out of here, wait, that guy is still there, damn, lets see, maybe he's a good guy?* Ace thought
"I don't suppose your a good guy, hell, you don't even need to be a good guy, just not trying to kill me" Ace spoke to the asian teen. While this was happening he tried to use his new ability to access the situation, He could sense the asian man, and to lesser extent he could sense either a man laying down or a corpse next to him, and next to that corpse/sleeping man was a gun or something that resembled a gun. *Ok, il need to get to that if i can, but i cant exactly move without flopping about, that tranq must have done a number on me, i might just lay here for a bit.* Ace thought to himself as he laid on the floor.