Blood Reunion

A steady pounding echoed through the fish stench halls. Standing no taller than five and a half feet, a man accompanied by two guards, who shared nothing more than a poor demeanor and a taste in bad suits, made his way through the damp night. Moisture from an earlier rain still filled the pot holes of the city with the runoff from the tin roofs of the dock district. Headlights painted the sides of the alleys in a dynamic color as they chased the darkness down the parallel shadows; he came for a job, not a ride and a walk through puddles.

Latching mechanisms scraped along the rusted metal, eliciting a moan through the old bones of the building held together by rust and paid off building inspectors. Lights barely held true to their names, but gave enough of a glow to bounce off of the reflective surfaces of the ornate jewelry of the men guarding the large room. Broken windows from days longs since past kept the night air heavy and drenched the room in the aroma of humidity and fish. “Took you long enough to get him here.” A heavy set man with a pronounced lip and drooping brow stepped forward to accost the guards for their indiscretion.

“It’s quite alright, Mr. Salvatoni.” Wanting to do his work and make his money, the small man walked out from the phalanx of guards and pushed past the belligerent man. “This is the girl who took down the entire western portion of your syndicate?” A chain tautly held a hook down from the rafters with the tethered hands of a brown haired Asian woman on either side of the hook. “So she was an informant or a mole?” To keep her in suspense over the arrival of the new comer, the boss draped a black cloth over Bliss’s eyes to keep her in the dark.

“Please.” With no hesitation in her voice, Bliss offered her side of the recounting of her endeavors. “You should see what I did to the syndicate on the east side.” Sweat from the mixture of fighting and humidity stained her white, sleeveless shirt, and dripped down to begin soaking into the top portion of her jeans. Chains kept her knees and ankles securely held together while her boots laid on the ground just in front of her.

“She’s got some weird powers or something.” The large man stepped forward to shed light on the situation.

“Or something?” Bliss questioned. “Given the fact I’m not wearing anything that could hide anything natural deduction could tell you to rule out the something.”

Brashly Salvatoni stepped forward and grabbed the pony tail dangling over the blindfold, and pulled Bliss’s head down. “Now listen here you little…”

“Mr. Salvatoni.” With a chuckle at the reaction Bliss could elicit, the smaller man stepped forward and dropped his bag to the ground. “You wanted me to talk with her, because you couldn’t get anything out of her…” He took a brief pause. “…And I can see why.” Straps popped open to reveal a bag with an assortment of tools the man collected to perfect his craft. Scalpels and syringes did the trick in most situations, but the usage of thumb nails and vices always gave him a feeling of pleasure. “This is an art, you don’t hit the clay. You mold it.” His hands caressed over Salvatoni’s hand, and secured the release of his grip over Bliss.

“Go mold yourself in the bathroom.” With the violent pull of her head, the blindfold fell slightly out of place, giving Bliss just enough vision out of the top right corner of her field of vision to see the inhabitants of the room. While she surveyed the room, she could feel the bottom of her shirt lifting up to reveal her bare midriff. Familiarity with her powers led the syndicate to plan just for her ice powers in confronting her and in keeping her restrained. Both sides made efforts to stay one step ahead of the other, and Bliss exploited those advantages on most days to her advantage. Today was a bad day.

“I can make an incision here.” He strode his finger along her abdomen, causing her to squirm from the touch. “And then I’ll tap into the roadmap of her nerves. We can poke any part of her body from this location and get just what we need.”

“Don’t make it too long; I want this girl out of my hair in the next hour.” Five guards manned the perimeter of the room to ensure the safety of the man and the captivity of Bliss. Salvatoni harbored no mercy or remorse for Bliss, and saw no reason for keeping her alive in the first place. After hearing the news, Salvatoni made his way to kill her himself, but the powers that be called him off to let a professional add his touch. A deep syringe prodded through her side to take a large blood sample. The suction of the tube pulled against her side, causing her to contort her body into a “C” like figure.

“Unchain me and put my boots back on and I’ll let you walk out of here.” Bliss spoke towards the man with the brown satchel, but changed her tune to act as a deal with any man in the room. “Anyone does it you get out of here without any pain.” Soft movements of leather let Bliss know the man placed his syringe away. The next stage would involve the scalpel and she knew it.

“Maybe I should start by removing your tongue.” With the scalpel pointing towards her mouth Bliss kept her head lowered to give a feint and to allow her to take sight of this man. Taking him by surprise, Bliss threw her elbow into his hand while darting her knees into his stomach. Salvatoni almost chocked on his own realization he would finally get his wish. The loud breathing of his poor respiratory system made it easy for Bliss to motion her body into just the angle to send the balls of her feet into his chest.

Anticipating the motion, but knowing the limitations of his reflexes, Salvatoni braced himself to intercept Bliss. His hands wrapped around her ankles, but not before she swiftly kicked him in the chest, sending him to the ground, and propelling Bliss forwards.

Catching her as she swung forward, a guard wrapped Bliss in his grip to try and gain control of the situation. His leveraging of her form allowed her the hold she needed to get her bound hands off of the hook. While the guard still held Bliss in his arms, she forced the chains against his throat to take him to the ground. Trapped under the pain of the cold metal he watched as the bound and blindfolded woman acted in accordance with exactly what he noticed. Bliss read the direction of guard movement through the small opening in her blindfold and propelled herself up at the expense of the man’s health.

Ice shot out of her hands to drive the next two men back into the fish crates. With her hands no longer above her head, the guards needed to take an assessment of the situation to engage Bliss. Fearing her untimely responses and unbridled power, they decided to take Bliss up on her offer. Salvatoni would most likely take revenge on the guards and Bliss for this insult, but as the men announced their plans and began untying Bliss, they felt better about their situation.

With her blindfold completely removed, Bliss surveyed the room and the destruction she caused. “There were five of you?” She said in surprise as the guard unchained her hands. “I only planned on fighting four. Probably could’ve taken me if you had both charged me.” She rubbed her wrists and began to walk towards the metal door. “Oh well.” Chains of ice conjured from her hand and ensnared the overweight crime boss. Frantically, he clawed at the ground to keep himself from the cold justice Bliss would take out on him. “I’m taking your boss in; you guys should get a better line of work.”

Getting cops to come into the docks district at night took some persuading, but offering up a man who eluded them for so long felt like dropping a bucket of blood in shark infested waters. Even with Salvatoni apprehended, Bliss still knew she managed to let the man with the silky voice escape. He and his brown bag made it out with a vial of her blood. Nothing good would come from anything she just though, but she didn’t plan on doing anything else tonight anyways.

The cab ride through the vacant streets of the neon lit causeways hypnotized Bliss into thinking there could be some beauty in this city. Such a dumb notion grew on the closer she got to her townhouse next to Central Park. Slamming the door behind her and tipping generously, Bliss walked past the Dakota and into the adjacent townhouse complex. A green light pooped up after she slid her card along the gateway monitor. Everything in the garden stayed in perfect harmony as she left it, and in her sleep deprived stupor she failed to notice the disturbed door.

After sliding her card and pressing the door open with her back, Bliss turned on the light to illuminate the ornately decorated living room. Each piece of antique furniture placed just perfectly for her tastes, all lined against the wall circling a large glass table with a pair of ivory carved elephants surrounded by fashion magazines. The feeling of gratitude to sink into the couch came to a sudden stop when she sank into an unfamiliar piece of furniture. “I don’t remember reupholstering my couches with an Asian girl.”

"I would say 'make yourself at home', but I'm guessing we're past such simple formalities." Coming home to her most recent stalker made her uneasy, but she seemed mostly harmless. The tone of her voice contained more annoyance towards the previous events of the night then the mere appearance of the girl she donated her identity to. "I'm not going to have to replace a window from however you got in here, am I?"

Bliss got to her feet and started on her way to the kitchen. If she needed to entertain for a little while she would need something warm in her cold shell of a body. "Don't sit on the sofa behind you. It is for decoration, not sitting." Beauty at the expense of comfort fit Bliss to a tee. After her departure from Ashley's modernist apartment, Bliss decided to surround herself with the old style of the lost generations. The sofa taking part in the conversation came from the estate of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Bliss intended on keeping it in the same pristine manner she picked it up in. Each pillow adorning the silky cushions could start any number of conversations over the life and times of the Roaring Twenties or of the Wasteland, but Bliss greatly enjoyed the secrets of some things to stay locked in her mind.

"It'll be about five minutes for the tea." With her forearms pressed against the counter parallel to the wall, Bliss leaned over and stuck her head over the bar separating the living room from the kitchen. Markings on her wrists still ached from the length of time the syndicate kept her, but after Tyuki went to bed she could nestle down in her ice bath and heal up. "You want to tell me what's up, cause not to be the biggest bitch in the universe, but given the house you used to live in, you couldn't afford anything in this part of town."

"Puerto Ricans are so racist." Steam rose from the edges of the plastic, circular cover over the cast metal tea maker. Deep brown liquid seeped from the mouth of the maker into the pitcher in a cascade next to the rising steam from the collected substance. "Yeah." Bliss flipped her tongue down to reiterate stating the obvious of her answer to Tyuki's question about a rough night. "You know how it goes, get on the radar and nothing good happens." While she kept up the lax conversation, she grabbed two tea cups from the cabinets above the bar.

"Dying in a ditch is below me, but it is nice that you cared enough to illegally enter my residence without doing any structural damage, and oh look, you did bring a bag." Bliss set the cup of tea in front of Tyuki and then grabbed two pillows from a shelf along the wall the living room and kitchen shared. Hoping Tyuki's ancestral connection would lead her to understand how to use them, Bliss tossed a pillow in to the side of Tyuki, before resting her knees in front of the coffee table. "So, what kind of trouble are you in that you would break into my house on such a pleasant night; you could sleeping in a park or a subway."

"I've been around in the less lit areas of the city." Over the course of the last few weeks, Bliss managed to rout most of the smaller sections of the syndicate she came into contact with at the convention. While her actions did enough to force them to recoil into the bowels of the city, recent activities proved the syndicate still possessed the resources to maintain some fight. "It looks like those guys have some sort of lab where they are..." Bliss poked at her side. All of the bruising she took before faded away, and the feel of comfort almost felt foreign to her. "Well, you remember enough, so you should be able to deduce they had some kind of lab, but I still haven't located it."

She noticed her conversation topics kept dragging the younger girl into areas she might not want to delve into. "Where are you staying now that you aren't living with those guys?" An aroma from the tea filled the room. The scent would take some time to dissipate, but the relaxing feel of the Sleepytime tea would put her out long before the smell outgrew its welcome. "I'm guessing you've done good enough to stay out of trouble for the most part." As she continued the conversation, she could pick up on the cues from the air around Tyuki telling her the younger girl just wanted to know Bliss occasionally thought about her. "I kept tabs to make sure those guys didn't come after you." She actually didn't. "I kind of lost track, but I hope you stayed safe." She didn't. "You're still alive, so that's a good sign."

"Anyways..." Bliss finished off her tea. "I'm thinking of crashing."

"Yeah nightmares are rad." While dragging her finger around the mouth of her tea cup, Bliss moved into a state of merely repeating the last key word she heard and adding the word 'rad' to the sentence. After the words came out she looked perplexed. "Rad may not be the word. We can just say it's the opposite of spidey or something." Bliss tucked her knee up to her chest and wrapped her arms around the appendage, while her head rested on top of her knee.

The night moved on with Tyuki speaking about her new living arrangements, and Bliss made an attempt to soldier through her recounting of her new friends and life. Whenever she felt her drowsiness would overtake her, she dug her nails into the legs of her jeans to wake herself up. "Lifetime membership is good, but don't only go to the gym to get in the hot tubs. That's not how you get in shape, and none of the hot tubs are hot anymore." While she ranted about the minor irritants she encountered with real life, Tyuki asked about a spare bathroom. "Yeah. You can go just down the hall and to the left."

As she got up, she started to wonder why she asked for a spare bathroom. She broke in and probably used the bathroom already. Maybe she rummaged through the place and used Bliss's bathroom and wanted to make it seem as though even though she entered illegally she wasn't so abrasive as to use the bathroom without proper permission. Maybe it really didn't matter. "It doesn't matter."

She headed off to her bedroom, assuming Tyuki would make her way back to the floor to sleep on. Any other day she might of thought of offering her a bed in the spare bedroom, but she could always wait. After crawling into bed and pulling the two comforters over the three layers of wool sheets, she finally nestled in. Anyone else would drag a night's worth of anxiety and sweat into bed, but the ice water coursing through her veins kept her in a perpetual state of pleasantness. Minus being Bliss.

After she rested her head for a moment, she decided to go back to the living room and inform Tyuki of the spare bedroom. Tyuki probably did something at some point to deserve the accolades of sleeping in a bed, so why not let her in on the secret. "I've got a spare bedroom you can sleep in. Just don't touch anything that looks like you could break it, because you probably will..." Bliss led on down the hall and flipped the switch inside of a room she almost never came in. The light sank into the dark green walls and reflected from the gold orbs on the bedposts. A queen sized bed sat in the middle of a room surrounded by paintings of oddly disfigured grotesques circling a large, fiery chasm. "...And all of this stuff is old and antique, so I can't get any new stuff." Quickly Bliss moved towards getting twenty cats and turning into a crazy old lady, but until she finally slipped that switch, she wanted to go to sleep.

Gwharr ground his teeth as he ambeled towards the building. It had been a pretty hard decision to come here, it felt so strange though. It was not all that long since he had met Bliss, but after the whole Fight with Ibis and the loss of Aurora, it might as well be several millenia ago. Most people that knew him would definately say that he was not really a creature that adapted well to different enviroments and eras, and by each passing century, he gradually got more and more stale, and less and less interested in what was happening in the world around him. The more time that had passed, the more time he spent dreaming of the time that had passed. It seemed as if he had been happier in the past, and that the future was fated to bring him nothing but pain and misery. However, when he had fought Ibis something had happened to him, and he did not know what. Maybe it had something to do with the adrenaline or the fury he had felt towards the beast, or maybe it was because of aurora, maybe the love she awoke within him when they met, or maybe it was the grief that she left as a parting-gift when she died, to be honest he had no idea, but he knew that something had changed him. Maybe it was even some sort of residual-energy that had gotten released when he pounded Ibis into gravel. Doctor Necrodium had somehow turned Ibis into an intelligent, coherrent individual, so maybe whatever it was he did to the brute "contaminated" him as well.

He had hidden away, trying his best to get to terms with his new inteligence, but it was all so strange now. He made connecteions he had never been able to make before, and whilst he somehow felt that his priorities should evolve along with his mind, they did not. Still, this new intelligence might be able to give him a new lease on life. Perhaps he wouldn't be forced to live in a sewer anymore. He had no illusions that he could live unnoticed amongst the population of New York, but perhaps he could get himself a fancy apartment and become an insanely rich shut-in somehow.

At any rate, he was feeling rather confused, and he was about to rectify that by visiting a friend. Bliss may be a genius, but he was not there to ask her for advice or help, merely to say "hi". After all, he wasn't all that sure he wanted to break the news to the people around him just yet.

Being a caveman, entering the building was little problem. A weird little man in silly clothes tried to stop him from entering the building, but he quickly stopped trying when Gwharr ate his silly little hat. He then quickly moved up the elevator-shaft untill he found the right floor. Of course, he probably could have taken the elevator, but the thing had a weight-limit of just eighthundred pound, and it felt like a dumb idea to risk it. As he arrived at the door, he snorted frustatingly. Of course, it was locked, and knocking did not really come natural to a being fo Gwharrs proportions, so instead he merely pulled the door of its hinges and entered the apartment. Aftera brief search he found the fridge, made himself an impressive Vinegar-hamburgerdressing-salami-and-tomato-sandwich before once again resuming his search, and soon enough he soon found a sleeping woman in one of the rooms. He almost missed her because of the darkness, since i was very hard to make out the details, but the snoring was an unmistakeable sign of life. He had no patience to wait for her to get up, and since he had helped her save new york, he figured he had the right to barge into her house and awaken her at any hour he pleased. However, as he turned on the light, he made a shocking discovery. . .

"Ye'r not bliss!" he roared as he raised his humungous fists to beat some answers outta her!

Night crept on with the subtle approach not spared on her living arrangement. The application standards of her townhouse came with a rather strict guideline on visitation, both hours and level or...uncouth. While she turned, moving her wrapped legs around a body pillow, a rummaging of belongings echoed through her house. During the first few moments it brushed by her consciousness as nothing more than the midnight strolling of a house guest, but her attention soon became more alerted when the situation turned.

A crash of sudden noises rang out from the lower floor. Bliss rolled out of bed to snap herself awake to the accusations of people not being her and others not breaking things. Fidgeting with the switches along the hallway, Bliss brought the familiar sound of the flicking of lights along with the illumination to the otherwise windowless hallway. During the onslaught of distraught reasoning and blunt accusations, Bliss saw no reason to assume anyone other than Gwharr decided to stop in. Before she could make her way off of the staircase another matter delegated itself to her attention. A plate sat atop the counter, used, but not put away properly.

Pressing through the hall with a lit resolve and fluffy, white house shoes, Bliss walked into the volatile situation wearing her blue and white stripped pajama pants. "Which one of you didn't put the plate in the dishwasher!" Bliss exclaimed over the commotion between her familiar partner and her new protege. A strand of brown hair rested over her furious brow as she began to take into account the situation. "Great my partner from the stone age meets the girl from the stoned-age." Slacking her weight back onto her hips, she crossed her arms.

He snarled at the newly-awakened girl , baring his pearly white teeth like a wild animal, and whilst they seemingly were the teeth of a carnivore, the canines were far larger and more dangerous-looking than their human counterparts As the woman proteste her innocence, seemingly swearing that she did not break anything, Gwharr paused momentarily, mostly because he had not expected it. Most people in such a situation would beg for mercy or possibly shriek. Still, Gwharr was still certain that this woman was a witch of some sort, who was inevitally going to utilize her witchiness on him. "No break? No care! Break you! Raaaargh!" He roared as he was about to bring his massive fists down, however, a familiar shape appeared in the doorway. He had rarely seen bliss in anything but her heroing-gear, and in his caveman-brain it was rather odd to see her in striped Pyama-pants. Wasn't really properly Bliss for some reason. Still, as soon as she had opened her mouth it was obvious that it was indeed the Sarcastic Sourpuss he called friend. Nobody but bliss could be so devastatingly dry in the face of a murder-in-progress.

Gwharrs manical snarling expression of rage and drool was gone in a flash, replaced by a good-natured smile. His massive fists that were about to smash "The girl from the stoned-age" into a hard-to-get-rid-of-stain in one of Bliss very expensive antique rugs. were quickly utilized to straighten out his pinkish purple new "Pimp-coat", and just for the sake of things he adjusted his matching hat ever-so-slightly. He then placed on the floor as he ambled over to his old friend. Despite his fandy new intelligence, he still preffered to walk with the aid of his arms, akin to a chimpanzee or gorilla. Sure, he knew how to walk on too legs, but it was simply more comfortable this way "Blissie! does my old eyes good to see your Friendly, Frowning Face!" He exclaimed, a big, stupid grin plastered in his face, as he

[/b]"Huh. Guess ya aren't a witch then. Sorry 'bout the whole "trying-to-kill-ya-dealie", pal."[b] He said slightly awkwardly to the aptly named "Girl from the Stoned-age". He was quite certain that it wouldn't go a very long way when it came to mending the metaphorical bridge between them, especially since they hadn't seen eachother before. Still, it was probably a good idea to try to at least do something. If Bliss trusted her enough to let her sleep under her roof, then he might as well try to keep somewhat civil with her untill he could figure out what sorta person she was himself.

"Don't worry, you only have to apologize if you kill someone or do damage money can't pay for. I'm not holding you in contempt for psychologically scarring people..." Bliss thought to all the times before. "Not anymore." While Gwharr moved away the bed, Bliss took notice of his attire. The purple suit and frivolous hat caught her attention, but paled in comparison to the white teeth he bore. "How did you afford dental work? I'll get started on building you a tooth brush to keep up the good work."

The time in between the attack on New York and the double home invasion Bliss fended off brought a level of disconnect between her appearance of Gwharr. Outside of the odd get up and newly remodeled mouth, he looked like he carried a lowered stature. In the wake of the turmoil , Bliss found it easy to overlook the weight it bore on those around her. She took off for her own, after assembling a team to defend the city, but once the calamity faltered into the dust and rubble of broken buildings, she took her leave. Maybe she cashed in a little too soon for the good of others.

"Gwharr this is Tyuki." Bliss extended her hand to motion to the girl whom launched out to grab the falling doll. "Tyuki, Gwharr." While her hand motioned back to Gwharr, she noticed a look of hesitation between the two. It only went without saying the tension probably came somewhere from the abrupt waking Gwharr inflicted on the young girl. "I guess since we're all up now at..." In the pitch to get to the room in such a hurry, she never warranted any attention to seeing the time for herself. "4:27, a good time to be awake..." Her tone dropped from the sincere to the ironic, but she faltered in trying to remember if Gwharr understood irony. "Gwharr, I can't remember, do you understand sarcasm, or do you think I like being awake right now? Oh who cares, I'm making bacon."