We're Doing That Good (Tyuki)

The tracker reading said she was about forty meters away.  No signs of movement, but within the twisting turns of the complex, forty meters in a straight line could turn into a mile through these corridors.  Bliss's rubber soles slid gently across the concrete floor of the plant hidden beneath the Budokan.  Under the guise of a music festival headlined by Tyuki Gold and her band of people Bliss couldn't keep straight, Bliss set off an operation to infiltrate Clement Corporation.  The only problem Bliss encountered was she already tried this unsuccessfully.  

And she had no idea anyone was planning on doing it again.

Hoping the popularity of Tyuki's group and the new found resources of her suits and companions, Bliss placed a little faith in the works of others.  Her faith brought her into the depths of danger with a tracker to try and recover what she could from this misadventure.  Trusting the responsibility of Ashley with high tech suits, and what she deemed an 'unstoppable' team of badass Japanese popstars with attitude, came at the fault of misappropriated paperwork filed through the wrong department.  The concert and the break in completely fell outside of Bliss's scope of influence on what she thought Ashley actually did for the company.

The only reason she stumbled across the discovery of the operation and the newly minted Popstar secret agents happened because of an air conditioning malfunction in the Tokyo apartment Bliss took up nesting in. In her regular abuse of power, Bliss hoped to use one of the power suits to repair the unit, only to find all five suits missing.  Picking up her tracker and following the blinking light brought the jean clad Bliss into the heart of the Budokan with her atlantic scarf hanging over a black turtle neck.

Twenty meters now.  

As she came across what looked like the door she needed, Bliss placed her cheek against the  side of the wall and tried to listen in.  The sound of metal against metal sounded eerily familiar to her.  Nothing in a good sense, but old memories of familiarity shrouded in complications always took a while to traverse through.  

With no noticeable signs of activity, Bliss looked down to her scanner.  Looked good.  Pressing her shoulder against the door so her torso could pry the door from the frame once her hand pushed the handle down, Bliss slid into the room.  A metal clanged against the arm of a chair in a rather obnoxious way.  Irritation ran high in Ashley's eyes as she tried to signal Bliss over to her by flailing her head from side to side with her ponytail acting as a counter balance.  A piece of tape disabled her mouth from participation, so Bliss took her own assessment of the situation.  "We're doing that good?" Bliss ripped the tape off with no mercy.

Ashley bit her lips as she stomped her feet in bound unision against the ground.  "We're doing a little better."  Her blue skin suit bore the marks of some kind of electricty along the torso and thighs, but it slipped past her intitial response to Bliss.

Flicking the tape off of her fingers, Bliss closed her eyes in a paused irritation.  "Where's Tyuki and 'the people know one cares about'?" Bliss assigned a loving name to Tyuki's band.  

"I don't know."  While Ashley gave her lack of information, Bliss went to work examining the cuffs holding Ashley's hands.

"What is the silver lining to this mess?"

"We're inside of their base, past their security."

"I'm trying to pry their security off of your wrists girlfriend, so maybe we should keep our eyes on some easier priorities."

"Shouldn't you be pro at escaping from things like this?"

"Watch it, captive." Bliss leaned forward to press a threatening finger into Ashley's face.  "First off, you never insult the person freeing you, especially if they still have the duct tape they pulled off of your mouth right by them; second, these things are pretty tough and are rigged with a knockout gas if you break the seal the wrong way."

"Break it the right way then."  Ashley offered up as advice.  "Aren't you smart enough to get it taken care of?"

"Again with the liberator abuse. Is this chair and predicament really that comfortable to you?"  In annoyance, Bliss contemplated angrily tripping the device just to show it who was boss.  She then realized she didn't own this complex and would wind up in a terrible situation, so a minor pause recentered her.  "What captured you anyways."

"Robots with electricty guns and some kind of organic material making them move in a more natural way."

"That was concise.  I'm glad I rescued you first. When's the last time you saw Tyuki and her girls?"

"When we first came in.  Things got bad fast."

"And then they got worse."

"You ripped tape off my mouth."

"You deserved it."  ust knowing the pressurized gas sat on such a hair thin trigger made Bliss weight her options. Her infiltration went smoothly, so breaking cover to save one person seemed counter productive.  "Not only will this cannister go off, but it will trip an alarm too."

"The handcuffs?"

"Yeah, apparently they don't want people escaping." Bliss rose up and knew she needed to find however many allies as she could before she made the brash movement of setting off these alarm cuffs.  "I'm going to go do some house calls."

"What about me?"

Bliss pushed the tape back over Ashley's mouth in case someone checked on her. "You'll be fine; I won't be too long and between you and me, I have way more faith in me getting this done than anyone else you brought along." So Bliss set off to find the four members of Girl Alive to put together a wrecking crew to take this place down.

Off in the distance a multitude of doors rang out through the cavernous enclave of the subterranean complex.  The first few openings came without anything out of the ordinary interval Bliss expected from a single person. The door slid in one and a quarter seconds to a full opening, then, once it hit a point horizon, it fell back in and and a half seconds. The doors further down worried her.  Now the intervals came at three seconds following by a three and a half second fall back.  

Too long for anything good, but too short for anything concrete. Bliss fiddled with her tracker to try and get a lock on where the others were, but only managed to make the low battery alert come on. The beeping rang out through the halls and died down just in time for Bliss to hear the sound of alerted voices moving to investigate the situation. She couldn't hide in the narrow halls and finding a room would be a dangerous gambit. Bliss hardened her fist with ice and got ready to see just what this place was up to.  

As she banged her frozen fist into the palm of her hand she heard the discordant sound of an argument. Luckily, so did the guards coming to investigate her. A brief delay in the confrontation would stand for now, but the lack of substance in the argument and the high pitch whine caught the unmitigated attention of Bliss. Time to get to work.

Guarding a dysfunctional group of j-pop stars fell to a surprisingly well armed security force. And they had a robot. Towering at eight feet with a bipedal frame and two hulking arms teeming with electricity, the behemoth's red scanning head surveyed the situation for possible complications. Voices raised as a team of men, poorly equipped with interpersonal communications, went about arguing and threatening girls in their late teens. And losing. Bliss slipped in behind the party, who failed to be as alert about doors staying open as Bliss. The placement of each girl in the room alarmed Bliss. She wanted to trip the alarms on their bindings quickly, but with each girl being so far apart, it would take too long. Bliss started to think about who to blame for this.

"Warning." The robot pivoted and struck out towards Bliss with a prod. Getting caught in her scarf, the surge of electricity began to burn through the cloth while sparks leaped and singed along Bliss's cheek. "Intruder."

"Make sure no one else escapes." A small beat club expanded into a quarter staff with a jolt sparking at the business end.  "I'll stick with her."

Flipping the material around her neck to free herself from the grasp of the robot, Bliss spun over her shoulder and came up with a hard uppercut aimed at the guard's chin. The crash of metal chipped pieces of Bliss's ice fist, but her resolve pushed him off of his feet. Following through with a strong right, Bliss gave him her business end and put him on the ground.

A stinging jolt dug into Bliss's back. It just missed her main nerve bundle, but still shocked her kidney. Dropping to her knees with her fist slamming into the ground. The robot released a spray of water to knock Bliss to the floor and move her closer towards the man guarding Kyrie.  Before his staff could break against her torso, Bliss threw her legs back and came out between his legs. She threw both her elbows into the crevices of his knees to split him further than he would like. With his balance off, Bliss rose up and flipped him over her shoulder.

Two down. More water shot out to push Bliss against the wall. With the spread of the tide over her, any kind of ice would only freeze Bliss in her entirety. Not the situation she hoped for.

"I see we're having a good demonstration." A woman clad in a powered body suit stepped from behind the drone. The glare of the energy forming around her hands beamed off of the tint of her glasses.  "Now, I can have you demonstrate for me."

"You should be careful what you hope for."

"Don't worry." Two hulking robots came through the door to support Jules against Bliss. "I always do."

The shrieking of the band at the dismay of their leader duoig under Bliss's final nerves.  Not only could she barely stand up against the wave the three robots shot against her, she now needed to contend to Jules sizing her up. Only her attention passed over Bliss.

Jules shot a rancid blast of heated plasma towards Tyuki. The intensity burned with animosity and ill intention. With her preoccupation with a lesser target, Bliss took it upon herself to try and remedy the situation for Tyuki. A blast of ice shot from her hand and froze over Jules fingers on her left hand together. Sadly, the water dripping off of her body froze and covered Bliss from palm to shoulder.

"You're still here?" Jules burned away the ice. "We'll see how your friend does against my drones. We can see how you do against me."

Bliss charged forward and spun to throw the momentum of her frozen arm towards Jules' head. It slashed the air and brushed along a soft cheek. Jules locked her right arm with Bliss and bent her over. With only one good arm, Bliss fought off the plasma attack by freezing Jules at her feet and swinging under her. More of the water froze and Bliss found herself without an arm to direct her ice. Laughing at her dismay, Jules reached down to start burning the ice away. Catching her unaware and at odds, Bliss kicked both feet square into the back of Jules. Falling forward, Jules felt her ankles hyper extend, but let the pain pass. Bliss moved back towards the suspended walkway to try and get help from Bonnie.

Each of the drones moved with a quickness outside of the regular mechanical movement. With lightning reflexes of organic material and the resiliency of a machine, they continued to try and overwhelm Tyuki before she could escape.

"I'm over here Bliss." Jules fired a heated shot towards Bliss, missing her wide to the left.

"Cold feet?" Bliss said with a smirk as she turned to take delight at the snared Jules.

"Look behind you." Stepping from the ice she melted away, Jules pointed behind Bliss.

"I'm not falling for..." The shot Bliss laughed off was never meant for her. The super heated plasma burned through the support of the scaffolding and caused Bonnie and her chair to fall from the elevation onto Bliss.  

"You're the one being fallen for, my dear." Jules fired a heated shot at Tyuki to give her drones a little help, then turned to see Bliss and Bonnie. "Had enough?"

"I've always had enough of you." Bonnie's chair kept Bliss pinned to the ground under its dire weight.

"I know." Jules flexed her fingers and pressed Bliss's head to the ground under her heel. "I need something defrosted."

Even in the frigid force Bliss conjured up, the chill of the floor stung slightly more given the heel Jules used to force her face upon the metal. Knowing Bonnie could do nothing to dislodge herself from the particularly bad situation she found herself in did no favors to Bliss in regards to escaping before this trap could fully swing shut. "This is kind of troublesome isn't it?"

"Not really." Jules held her foot firmly. "A lot of people want all the power they can get out of New York. Excavators from legal and illegal sources all flock there and turned it into a military state, but they aren't looking in the right places." While Tyuki flew around, Jules lifted her foot off of Bliss' neck and thrust it down upon her frigid arm. A resistance to cold did next to nothing when the shards broke off and cut the skin along her arms. "Before Necrodium went and got himself killed, he left behind a few gifts. And one of those gifts is how you got that ice you like to throw around." A final strike broke against a broken Bliss. "I'm going to crack you open and get it out."

"Get what out exactly?"

"I don't know yet, but I'm sure after a few cuts of the knife I'll know exactly what I need from you..."

While pressing her heel deeper into Bliss' back, Tyuki flew across the room to throw Jules back along the wall. Before Bliss could warn Tyuki about what she discovered in Ashley's handcuffs, she heard the release of the gas spew into the air. With a heightened resistance from her ice and a little healing, Bliss got away from the knockout gas before it could spread further. Bliss went down to one hand and looked around through foggy eyes.

"There's a gas in some of the handcuffs." Bliss tried to crack the elbows of her frozen arms, but only managed to topple over. "I guess we found which ones."

Not amused, and biding her time off of the gas spewing along the room, Jules set her gaze upon Tyuki. None of the other band members garnered her attention and Bliss proved to be out of service for the time period, so Jules decided to hit Tyuki where it would hurt the most. Blasts of plasma flew throughout the room at the scaffoldings to bring down the house on Kyrie and individual blasts flew to burn through Bonnie.

Leaping to her feet, Bliss ran and knocked Bonnie to the ground before a shot of plasma burned into her torso. "Don't take that the wrong way..." Bliss muttered as she held her side. "I didn't want to get holes in my powersuits."

While plasma flew around the room, one of the security guards grabbed Yui and fled the room with her in tow. If these girls were powerful enough to bring down the guards and drones, keeping hostages would be the only way to outmaneuver them. Jules did a great job of keeping an onslaught up to distract the room while her 'clean up' team arrived on the spot to give some much needed back up to the fight. Two men in power suits moved to push Bonnie off of Bliss and apprehend their target while two more drones moved to secure a perimeter to trap the others in a triangulated riot hoses and plasma blasts.

The blistering shards of broken ice ripped the bruised skin. A return of movement to limbs she could barely feel troubled Bliss; never before did the feel of ice do such damage to her. With Tyuki moving about the room to save her hapless bandmates, Bliss turned her attention to offer Bonnie a hand up, before realizing the pain would impact her to the point of needing to let out a yelp and dropping the girl to the ground. "This could be troublesome with Jules-"

Just as Bliss turned to survey the area, Jules delivered a swift blow from a lead pipe to Bliss's collarbone. Knocking the wind from Bliss's lung and the elevation from her torso, Bliss rolled on the ground in pain. She turned to put an arm up only to feel the hard impact swipe her forearm from underneath her. Already in pain from the subjugation of her arms from her own powers, Bliss now took on the bone crushing force of the harsh, metal pipe.

Jules fit the pipe in front of Bliss's neck and pulled Bliss back against her chest. Pinning her in place, Jules slid her hands towards Bliss's face with her hands aflame. Moving from her position of resistance, Bliss quickly scrambled her reflexes to cut off Jules' advance and freeze her hands over. Each particle of water used to waylay the defense Bliss used froze Jules to Bliss.

Tyuki's flight pulled Jules off of Bliss, shattering the ice bond and leaving a harsh impact making it difficult for Bliss to breathe without horrible pain.  Jules would try to wrap herself around Tyuki and put her hands at the origin point of her wings and make an attempt to burn her wings off. "We can see if they grow back later, but now, you've come to need them to much."

Bliss went across the room to lift Kyrie off the ground and make an attempt for the door. The detention block had too many doors for Bliss's liking. Ice pulsed through the ground and splintered the doors at either side of the room. Metal doors broke and found themselves replaced with barriers of hardened ice. "My ice isn't breaking like it used to. I can make the stuff, but-" Not knowing who she was talking to or why she would mutter those words, Bliss decided to keep the information to herself. "We've got one way out." Bliss would take Kyrie for the adjacent door to try and split the group up to find Ashley and Yui.

Bliss needed to be somewhere else, but somewhere else did not need her quite like this place needed her. Seeing the powersuit diverted the attention of the drone and guard to Kyrie over Bliss. Vitriol sparked from the end point of the stun gun as it raced for Kyrie's midsection. It fell just short of its target with ice falling from the prods. A splintered shield of ice stood in between Kyrie and the drone. Snared in place, the guard fought against the ice keeping him planted while Bliss grabbed Kyrie and high tailed it. "We have somewhere else to be."

Following the path she once blazed with much more expedience than before, Bliss ran back to where she left Ashley. Throwing her shoulder into the door, Bliss burst into the containment room to find Ashley where she left her, no worse for the wear. "We need to go." Bliss ripped the tape from Ashley's mouth and covered the cuffs in ice.

"Leave it on or leave it off..." Ashley licked her lips. "Just stop ripping it off." The cuffs snapped and a gas began to permeate through the room. The bindings around her feet limited her mobility, but Bliss grabbed Ashley around the torso and carried her out while a shrieking alarm began to sound.

"Take Ashley and get somewhere safe." Forcing the bottom bindings with her ice, Bliss left the duo to make their escape while Bliss set her focus on rescuing Yui from whatever grasp she still found herself in. Commotion sounded as the hot zones increased in quantity and intensity.  Bliss Obi-wan Kenobi'd her way around a trio of guards making their way to the main detention block and slipped into a security room. A slew of monitors tied together the collective eye sight the complex could oversee. Bliss froze the two guardsmen attending to the surveillance in place and surveyed the scene. Tyuki continued to battle with Jules while a swarm looked to descend upon the poor girl and her hopelessly outmatched drummer. Traces of guards moved from camera to camera as they flooded the wall with motion to stillness, but Bliss locked down on something troubling to her.

"I guess beating you myself isn't quite what you want..." Jules stood to her feet while the phalanx of guards entered the room. "Maybe you need some options." Pulling a tablet from one of the guards entering the room, Jules showed Tyuki the options she laid out for her. Tied to a chair with a piece of tape over her mouth and a vest full of explosives mounted to her chest, Yui kicked and squirmed from an undisclosed location. "Option 1 is you help me get Bliss here and under control..." Jules zoomed in closer to Yui. "...or Option 2, you get a new bass player."

Bliss checked the room number on the camera with a map located on the control panel. It would take her a minute, but Bliss could make the trek. She just needed to be prepared to take out whoever Jules left to guard Yui and keep the bomb from turning into a truly explosive situation.

A good deal of ruckus filled the conjoining hallways. Somewhere, something bad played out in spectacular fashion. Now Bliss could focus on getting to the auxiliary room as fast as she could without minding stealth. She pushed past the doors before they could fully open with every bit of haste the quickly weakening woman could muster to save the bombstrapped girl.

Diving through a narrow opening as the doors split, Bliss kept her balance while stealing focus. Yui squealed from her obvious disposition and kicked her bound feet against the ground. Bliss sprinted and with a slightly more gentle hand, peeled the tape off. Yui screamed in agonizing pain bellowing on par with the supernatural. Bliss covered her ears and fell to a knee before putting her hand over Yui's mouth. "That's fine!" Bliss yelled. "I didn't need to hear those frequencies anyways!"

"You'd be proud of your friend." A swift blow came from behind and knocked Bliss to the ground. A heel converged over her throat, pinning Bliss back to the ground. Peering down from behind a blinding light, a haunting silhouette spoke brazenly from such an elevation. "She's barely said a word this whole time."

"A lame joke?" Bliss grabbed the ankle of the woman and began to force ice through the texture of her pants. The ice fell apart and slushed down onto Bliss, the coldness turning her exposed skin a dark purple.

"I cooked up a little something just for you." The light broke the shadowy features and painted the woman in all her splendor. A labcoat hung over a business suit made from a synthetic material gleaming in the light. Her frame stood considerably larger than Bliss's and the comparison became for pronounced as she reached down and pulled Bliss off the ground. A slender needle sprung out from her wrist and into Bliss's neck. Thriving in pain, Bliss kicked out to try and land a shot on the scientist. Sadly, it landed to no avail as the second needle penetrated her skin.

Yui grew more nervous with the distress of her rescuer taking center stage. Bliss falling limp to the ground did nothing the alleviate her troubles. "I'm sure you feel a little light headed. Maybe slightly dizzy. The discomfort in your ribs isn't from the injection though." Reeling back, the scientist landed a shot square in Bliss's ribs before she kicked Bliss over. "I want you to get real comfortable." Blood pooled up on the ground from the puncture wounds. Water began to pour out from the usual spots of ice and intermix, the oil from her hair segregating the blood into subsections. All the symptoms her tormentor listed visited Bliss like furies befalling Orestes. "You're not so tough."

"My heart is beating again." The sensation felt so foreign and antiquated. Years passed and Bliss never thought she would feel it again. The confusion set in against the tide of ill tidings from the daunting figure taking pleasure in her dismay.

"We fixed you..." The woman took the vials from her sleeves and placed them in a pack around her waist. "Or broke you, depending on how attached you were to your cryogenesis."

"Stop it!" Yui screamed. "You're hurting her!"

"That's the idea my girl." Pulling a phone from the same pack, the woman dismissed the injured combatant as flippantly as an irritating child. "Ms. Jules. I've taken what we need from Bliss. Do we have any other use for her?"

"Yes." Jules pried away from Tyuki by surging a great deal of plasma through her body and igniting it. The grapple would turn toxic to the close quarter Asian, giving Jules a moment to collect herself and her tablet. "Give Bliss the star treatment and then meet me at the fall back point. Tyuki..." Jules turned to reacquaint herself with the adversary. "I've made a fourth option. We have a little trade. Just up this hall is a room with two people you care for very much. In two minutes, they explode. I've got what I want, now I guess it is time for you to get what you want. After all, without your capture, I doubt Bliss would be in the compromising position of helping me. I guess fighting me could give you an interesting story to tell new people when you are trying to forget those you let die though." Without waiting for a response, Jules walked through her guards and began to leave the room. "Oops, you only have one minute. Silly me."

The bombvest fit loosely over Bliss's turtle neck, but the straps stayed in place under the scrutiny of a great deal of squirming. Bliss struggled to wrest her hands free from the duct tape wrapping them together simultaneously trying to free her arms from the tape holding her back-to-back with Yui. Both girls were spared the awkwardness of conversation by the tape reaching across their mouths. All leverage Bliss tried to gain in her lower body felt trapped by the bindings around her legs and ankles. Slowly the numbers on the vest ticked down. They ran in just the sequence to push Bliss beyond normal behavior and into a more frantic kind of survival. Grunting in frustration, Bliss turned to see Yui silently muttering something sounding like a prayer.

They would need an angel.

Bliss struggled and grunted her way into a seemingly more uncomfortable position. All her efforts merely pressed the sticky ends of the tape against each other to tug away at the hairs on her arms. The pain became ever present, but it woke Bliss up to the situation more abundantly. Her weariness began to fade to the peripherals, but what remained in the central chamber made her snort in disgust of her regular audible disgust. A little red dot hung just outside the corner of Bliss's eyes, a tiny camera. Jules wanted to cherish this moment for sometime she guessed. A sadistic pleasure for an amoral woman, but Bliss wondered who else would bare witness to her early demise.

A loud, unpleasant sound burst in the background. Bliss furrowed her brow, turning the softness of her forehead into a harsh crevassed canyon. Bliss slunk her shoulders down and let her eyebrows crawl down to narrow her eyes. "Utterhuker." Bliss slid further down the seat only to hear the crackling sound of the tape without the sound of it breaking she longed for. The sound in the distance closed towards Bliss and Yui. Gently, Bliss felt the soft clammy hands of Yui latched onto hers in an attempt to hold her hand in comfort. Bliss contorted her cheek in disregard at such sudden and unrequited attention, but let her heart grow ten times that day and slid her fingers into Yui's grasp to give her support.

The doors burst open and Bliss's eyes popped at the intrusion. She threw Yui's hands away and tried to break her jaw free from the bindings. A quick level of muffled instructions and anger spewed into the tape but never into Tyuki's ears. Tyuki broke the bindings and the flesh attached split. Bliss would have bruises for a few days from the roughness, but once Tyuki undid the straps on the vest around herself and Yui, Bliss put it to herself to find forgiveness. Until Tyuki ripped the tape from her mouth. "Careful!" Bliss yelled with no sympathy or thanks for the timely rescue. "Great! Now we get to all die together instead of..." Bliss found herself lifted from the ground and soaring towards the ceiling. Tyuki shot them out of a tunnel from the impact force of her fist.

The heat flew past the trio as they emerged from the tunnel and onto the stage in front of the largest stadium in Tokyo. Tyuki said something Bliss found dumb. "No!" The enraged woman turned a judgmental finger towards the band and its manager. "This day has sucked and this day was expensive. This is part of the show. This is part of the show." A vein in Bliss's forehead bumped furiously while her eyes bugged out. She grabbed the microphone and put it to her mouth, hitting it with her palm to make sure it was on. "This is part of the show." Covering the microphone with her hand, she pointed the members to their respective areas. "Get to it. Bow." She breathed out a little breath and continued to speak into the microphone. "And now, Tyuki..." Bliss shot her hand back in abduction. "And the people no one cares about."

Ashley helped show Bliss the correct way off the stage, while the house lights went down. All sound went live and the stage became bathed in the glow of the touring stage lights. The very expensive stage lights, Bliss thought. "Cancel the show. She must be high." Bliss shuck off Ashley's arm and pushed her against the wall. "And don't give stoners very expensive suits."

"We're fine too, thanks Bliss." Ashley tried to prioritize things she failed to take into consideration long before while she got out from Bliss's pin.

"Do you know how many of those suits almost got destroyed? All of them." With the expenditure of energy and the drain of the day, Bliss collapsed to the ground.

"Um." Ashley pulled Bliss backstage and sat her on a couch. It didn't seem like much to Ashley, just the toll from the heroics Bliss worked out, but the extraction taken from Bliss would take sometime for Bliss to get back to health. "She's just a little tired." Ashley explained to a few onlookers. "Not used to this much excitement on the road."