It's Where Orcs Go To Make It Big (Ryan)

Danny hated not wearing socks with her shoes. It felt a little better than the precession of events leading to her walking around in sweat drenched tennis shoes, but it still didn't leave her with any better options of where she needed to find a new benefactor for Prodigy. A few days ago, a message from Abby told Danny to hop over to New Zealand to meet with Bliss Fokukama, rich girl and horrible conversationalist. The message went out to several other members of Prodigy, but as of now, only Danny found herself walking through the back hills of New Zealand.

Getting to New Zealand through airfare made Danny glad to finally get on the ground after seventeen hours. She felt good walking from the terminal to baggage claim. Then it took a turn for the worst when her luggage failed to land in the same place and time as her. No supersuit Prodigy suit and no socks. Not a great start for this trip, but a start nonetheless.

And it looked better back then.

Now, she found out the address she took a cab to was the wrong side of the town. Then, her phone died. A charger would fix that problem easily, but she would need to get her bag as soon as the airport found where they put it. So, now Danny walked through rural New Zealand next  to the filming location of the fan pleasing set of The Shire to meet with a new benefactor for the group.

Normally, Ryan was not one to want to leave the little continent that he lived upon, but for the sake of heroism he could make an exception. The destination was New Zealand, wherever that place was anyway. All he knew was that he had to take a plane out to there, and Ryan had never been on a plane within his short life. Through the entire ride, his heart had been hammering within his chest while he thought of the friend that would be left behind while he went out, not that he went without informing Silus about his going out. The idea had actually hit him, so one could not say he wasn't improving within the intelligence department, because he was doing just that for the most part. If Ryan had his way, he would be back there soon enough, hopefully soon enough that it would not have even felt like a long time.

Upon touching down, Ryan was more than happy with being on the ground once again, dressed in the usual clothes. Ryan tugged down upon his beanie to keep it there, blinking softly as he took notice of the small rain drop falling from the clouds above him. They were supposed to be meeting with some sort of new benefactor, whatever that was, and since Ryan was part of prodigy, he had a place within this thing. This had lead him to walking through an unknown location, until he saw what looked like a familiar face. A small smile formed upon his lips as Ryan ran up to them, trying to catch up with Danny. ”Danny!” He called out to catch her attention.

The most important thing on Danny's mind at the moment fell from its perch when she heard the sound of her Prodigy partner. "Well I'm glad someone other than me could make it. You don't happen to have a pair of socks on you?" Wandering through Middle Earth was surprisingly warm and even more surprisingly lacking in affluent rich women wanting to fund groups of young metahumans. "If you're here than I know I didn't make any kind of mistake in going to the wrong place, but we need to figure out where Bliss is."

Watching from behind the circular windows of Bilbo Baggin's home at the end of Bag End, a woman with eyes of coal gazed out towards the young heroes. Snakes manifested from the curls in her hair and slithered down towards along the smooth silk of the dress clinging to her hips. The shadows cast by the lights around the hall embraced the snakes with girth. Growing stronger and larger with each pass of darkness, the snakes burst forth from the round door stretching a full fifteen feet with two daggers protruding from their mouths. Poison dripped with a thick black viscosity, eating away at the grass with each drip falling to the ground.

"I think we just found a lead." Danny twisted her bracelet as one of the snakes lunged to grasp her in its jaws. More grass turned to a pitch black ash as the snake missed the quick step by Danny. "We just need to make sure we don't die before we can get to the bottom of this." Two of the snakes would begin to circle around both Danny and Ryan, looking for a time for their attention to wane and allowing an opening to appear for an attack.

Ryan was here to save the day, but sadly it was not with a pair of socks. Normally he would have cursed his lack of preconiscience, but he doesn't even know the word, so no point in cursing the lack of something you don't understand. ”I have sucks but...their on my feet. Sorry.” He said, before offering an apologetic smile, then noticing that this scenery looked rather familiar, almost like out of a bad movie or something. However, now they were supposed to be looking for Bliss....who was Bliss anyway. ”Find out where Bliss is? Got it.” He did not know what he was looking for, but he would help find it anyway, because Ryan liked to think he was a good guy.

Little did our hero know, the lead would come to them, rather than them having to hunt this lead down like the metaphorical rabbit. It involved snakes with dagger teeth, which as far as he knew they did not have. Why did these snakes have dagger teeth and why were they trying to bury these dagger teeth into his neck? Danny ha avoided what could have been certain death, before the two serpents began to circle around them, almost is if waiting for a chance. This was his chance, or so Ryan thought as he unleashed a burst of ice from his fingertips, aimed to try and trap one of them within ice. ”Um Danny.....whats the deal with the snakes?”

"They want to kill us." Rolling towards the center of the snake in the middle, Danny wrapped herself around the scaly body and flipped it over, stealing its momentum from snapping at Ryan. "We shouldn't let them do that." The second snake snapped and shot to bring its grips into Danny. Sharp teeth tore through skin, but the jaws ripped out a large portion of the snake Danny grappled. "So, we're going to fight them." Danny went to work wrapping the body of the snake around the mouth of the one bearing its teeth.

Once a little help came from Ryan, the snakes would disappear back into ashes and shadow. "Yeah, we just need to find Bliss. I think we've figured out why there are complications-"

"Bravo. Bravo." A woman in a veil would step forth from the hillside home clapping her hands with tepid enthusiasm. Laced gloves with a scale like stitching ran up both of her forearms. Even in the heat of the day, she seemed unphased in her black dress and oversized brimmed hat. "You've done well. Well enough, that I think we should discuss a deal between myself and your puny little group. Little meta humans? And you find other metas? I have so much to teach you." A yellow tint stood out from beneath her veil on either side of her nose. "And so much to gain from you."

Okay, he had been assuming that they were trying to kill him but the answer did sort of verify his question anyway. ”No, we shouldn't.” Ryan agreed, keeping an eye upon the strange snakes with the even stranger fangs, prepared to freeze them into snakecicles. With a little help from Danny and his icy powers, the little reptiles were made short work of. Which meant they were safe from evil snakes, but then came the question why they were being attacked by said malicious serpents. Dispersing in ashes and shadow, the next great answer would require to be found, except not by him. Danny seemed like she was more than capable of doing the detective work.

”So umm...where should we look for her?” He still had no idea who this Bliss woman was but apparently she was important. Maybe Bliss was a man, dang, he was being really sexist right now...can you even be sexist against men? Sexism aside, they were confronted by a lady in black, which probably meant she was evil. Frost danced along his fingertips, turning the normally pale flesh a slight blue color.

Without even needing to think about it, Ryan took a step back from this woman. Something about her screamed danger, with a dash of pure creepiness. ”She looks like one of those weirdos that bakes peoples into pie, I don't trust her.” Ryan stated to Danny. ”I bet she has something to do with the weird snakes.”

"Picked up on that one Ryan." Standing before the darkened lady smelling of ash, Danny looked upon the work bestowed upon the snakes. They slowly disintegrated, mixing into the dirt around them. Strands of darkness traced back their path to the woman in black, their darkness soaking into her fabrics. Soaking until there was nothing. "Definitely picking up on that."

"I don't need to speak with both of you. Not at once. Perhaps later." A slender finger slithered across her face, pushing a trail of smoke in its wake. "Now, if you don't mind, me and your handsome companion have some business to attend to with a very important someone. You-" Whether it was the stitching in her glove or the visage of her controlled movement, the extended index finger of the veiled woman took to look as though it hissed some vile warning itself. "Need to go in that hovel and disarm a bomb."

"I don't know how to-"

"Too bad. That bomb will collapse the ground around this little amusement and trap everyone in an inferno. That sounds bad." The veiled woman's shadow slithered behind Danny, materializing and pushing Danny towards the little house in the hill. "Come, come. Go, go." She spoke up to Ryan and Danny respectively. "I'm sure someone in there can help you with the bomb." Shadows in the ground opened up a stairwell leading down, into the deep places of the Earth. The dark places of the Earth.

So, he wasn't the only one that had noticed that this weird woman was no good at all, which was good enough for the male. The snakes crumbed into ash, before mixing into the dirt, as if they were never there in the first place. Another clue to her evil revealed itself, but then again Ryan was just thinking of how to deal with the strange sorceress. Something was said about a handsome companion, though that had only caused Ryan to look around as if wondering what she was talking about. ”I thought you like cut the red wire or something.” Ryan muttered, looking around upon hearing something about a bomb, which was likely absolute nonsense, but then again he knew nothing about putting out bombs.

Either way, the woman would urge them into the underground thing and that was where they would go. Ryan would let Danny go in first, and probably survey the situation before he did anything.

An arm slithered into an entwined embrace with Ryan's. "No, you misunderstand. It will just be me and you. Your friend has other places to be, don't you?" She would lead Ryan deeper into the complex until she came to a crackling wall. "Welcome my little water pistol. You will be most greatly exalted here. You will be much more than anyone else ever thought. Even greater than you believed, and far greater than anyone in your little agency would lead you to believe." Behind the wall stood an archway etched with carvings of dragons and satyrs. As the duo approached, the archway would show an elaborate throne room. "Come, I will show you the water of your life."

Water ran through pillars leading to a large pool in front of a regal throne adorned with opals, rubies, and citrine gems. A plush green silk backing drew the softest of feathers and wool into place to create a pleasing cushion. Seated upon the throne of power covered in black furs with a soft red fur running the course of her shoulders sat a woman bathed in the splendor of of her flames breathing from her hands. "Hello, little boy. You do not need to fear me. I am more than either of your other benefactors would ever be for you. What you may come to call me in the future is yet to be soon, but for now, you may call me Misaki."

After her parting with Ryan, Danny rushed inside of the little hobbit hovel. Just as promised, a large bomb dominated the dining room with multiple clocks and wires running all throughout the device. "I thought someone was supposed to help me-"

"That would be me."

"Oh my god!" Danny fell back against the wall. Inside of the mirror stood Bliss. A Bliss noticeably annoyed Bliss with her arms crossed firmly against her stomach. "Why are-"

"Shut up." With no time for dumb questions, Bliss pointed towards the bomb full of decoys. "You need to pull the bomb in the middle out. Then find the purple wiring and the orange wiring and interchange them."

Danny found a purple wire, but kept digging to find one fully matching the description. "Wait, I can't find a purple and orange wire-"

"That's because they are separate. I clearly stated that. Try to be a little smart while disarming this please."

"At least I'm smart enough to not be suck in a mirror."

"If that bomb goes off you'll wish you were stuck in here."

Switching out the wires let Danny take a breath of relief. "Okay, so we're good."

"No. That was step one. Stop assuming you know things. It's like you want to die here." After a few minutes of arguing and new learning of how bombs worked, Danny saved the little amusement park from certain flaming death. How to get Bliss out of the mirror remained a total mystery, but Danny could deal with that later. Bliss however, did not feel so patient.