You Should Learn to be a Little More Trusting

Each echo through the substructure brought Bliss close to her final goal. She pressed her hand against the door of basement level one; it coursed through her hand, maximizing the beat of her pulse within her palm. Her ice pried the door ajar, giving her enough room to squeeze her small frame through the door.

Before her opened up an expanse of tower generators sprawling before her in tight columns, stretching from the ground to the second floor ceiling. A catwalk parted the major columns, with subsections of the scaffolding running to the main power breakers positioned in the center of the massive room. Each step along the metal grate rang out against the bearings bracing the catwalk over the first floor. Through the gaps in the walk she could see the cables feeding the core from the outstanding towers.

Eagerly, she felt the joy of her undertaking moving closer to her. With the set backs and odd occurrences stacking up Bliss expected the worse.

And, found her foresight rewarded.

Blocking her path to the core stood Julia, the cold eyed woman forcing a metal fist into the open palm of her glowing hand. Her wide stance blocked the free movement of Bliss past her in either direction without warranting any kind of retaliation. "How are you?" Julia asked with no remorse as she stepped forward.

"Fine." Bliss wrapped her fingers around cold steel guard rail. Frozen particles began to etch out from her hands and pour into the crevices between the screws lining the rails. Ice barbs gained the momentum from the growing ice and lunged their ways not for Julia, but for the generators lining the room. Knowing the results from the earlier skirmish put her in a bad position, Bliss decided to try going down the path of less resistance by merging from a path of lots of destruction.

Julia fired off a blast from her hand, passing through the ice and impacting against Bliss's shoulder. Sparks rained down from the pierced generators, catching flame from the electricity bursting from the cut wires, fueled by the water flushing into the generator. Heat seared from her under the singed outfit, pushing Bliss against the rail. Bliss stared down at the volatile floor below her. The sparks from the generators carried themselves along the cables and ignited an electrical fire beneath the catwalk.

"Lose-lose is good enough I guess." Bliss pulled herself up along the guardrail, hanging over the smoke rising from below.

"I never lose." Smoke flooded from the ground, separating the two with a thick pillar of blackness. Julia continued her barrage against Bliss in feinting effort, as the smokescreen eventually choked out any vision she could make of the colorfully dressed adversary.

Not wanting to take Bliss up on her offer of a lose-lose scenario, Julia made her triumphant retreat in the face of the loss of a potential asset company, but also in the loss of a serious thorn in her side.

Smoke and fire filled the room in a thick cloud. Fire sprinklers failed to deploy. All the handy work of the girl who Julia neglected to remember didn't need to breathe. With her unique physiology still intact, Bliss managed to bide her time in the increasing hostile room. Her ice covering her up from the worst of the flames, while she began to conjure enough ice to plow through the ceiling and into the alley above.

Concrete splintered and broke as Bliss made her way out of the blistering hell below. Accompanied with a cloud of flame, and dressed in her anime inspired outfit, Bliss hopped down and looked down upon Archer Roland and the distraught Nate. "Doesn't look like he'll be out for too long. He dies. It happens."

Just like everything this too came to an end. Death had no hold over Archer Roland. The demon with bat like wings sat and watched him in all his disturbing countenance. It would not say a single word, just like always. As he began to fade, due to the healing factor Archer had come to understand, the being did something he had never done before. He spoke. “You are not like the others Mister Roland. I cannot grasp you with my hands. You elude me like so many men and women wish they could. Why do you work so hard to meet me here?” Its voice was like a thousand blades on a chalkboard in Archer’s mind. Something he had never felt in his life, even when compared to the many deaths he had come to know. “You are an oddity to me. Perhaps next time you may shed some light on this for me. I wish to learn more about you,” was all he said before the light of the world broke through.

“How long was I out this time?” Archer asked as he lazily sat back up from his position on the ground, his blood no longer staining the ground. He looked to his left and say Bliss standing high above him. Perhaps she had been the savior this time around. He called to her, “You know this might just make us even if you were the one that saved me. You know for that one time in Germany.” He gave a toothy grin to her as he waited for some manner of answer, almost deaf to the world.

Then the sound of the alarms and the smell of smoke flooded two of his senses, “Do we always have to destroy a building when we meet?” He laughed for the first time since he arrived in Japan. Some might find it odd but this was the only thing that could lift the man’s perpetually depressing nature from the mud. This was the only thing the man that lived in death that made him feel alive anymore.

"It, just, happens!" Bliss shot back out of annoyance. "The meaning of 'it happens' really doesn't leave itself open to many interpretations. He died, it happens--oh he's back." Apparently the level of excitement deescalates when someone comes back from the dead. "Well, yeah--" With no real recipient to her message, Bliss examined the landscape of the alley. It possessed all of the old caveats she came to expect from the dangers of the job, but she really could not place her finger on what major gain she fetched from this. "Put some ice on it guy." A clunk of ice fell from her hand and towards Archer's stomach. "Wherever you need it."

"Well, I'm going to leave, because with what just went down, why would I stay here?" The long approach from the noise infested stadium offered Bliss reprieve into anonymity, her favorite place. But first. "Can I get one of those things?" She pointed to the cigarette resting from Nathaniel's lip. "Been one of those days."

It took a few hours for the place to really get run down. The fire blazed on well into the night, Clement kept a tight lid on the security clearance of an emergency workers getting in. They even went out of their way to claim Bliss as a casualty, a business partner whose ineptitude in the generator room led to a major electrical fire. Bliss didn't really know who penned the press release on that one, but dying in Japan seemed like a good thing. For a while at least. Archer Roland isn't the only guy who can die and come back.

A chunk of ice fell into Archer Roland’s lap with more force than the woman had probably anticipated, though it was hard to tell when the woman accidently hurt people or did so deliberately. “I’ll have to use this next time I suppose. You know, after I come back there really isn’t anything left to put ice on,” he said to his once again companion. “It’s a nice gesture though. I’ll cherish it and all that.” Bliss left without saying much more, fading into the crowd and noise. Something told Roland that was where she preferred to stay and given her apparent lifestyle he could not really blame her. “If you still have my number look me up some time. Maybe we could get drink,” He called after her retreating back. The life of a hero, or whatever she was, was a tragic one that rarely ended happily. Even over the many years the beginning and end of heroes, rather modern or Greek, had not changed that much.

Turning to the man that had accompanied the two of them, “Well, it was nice meeting you. You’re good at what you do, I suppose.” Archer then brought his camera up so that he would be able to inspect it. The object was still working, remarkable given the excitement that had come to pass. Archer continued to speak as he brought the tool to his eye and snapped off a couple pictures. This would make for a much better article then some lame J-Pop parade or whatever he had been here for. “You might want to get out of here. I’m only gonna stick around for a little while longer so I can get some pictures,” He said half heartedly.