Rise Against (Bliss and Alpha)

Footsteps. Always footsteps. Echoing, ringing, bellowing, singing. They always meant something ominous made their ways, but all Mitsuko could see was an arrangement of blue lights swirling around white orbs. They slowly turned into a new sensation of a color Mitsuko could only describe to herself as an iridescent shade of guruplue. The shade replaced itself with a face connected to a body. "Hey a girl person. You're pretty and have a nice frame. Would you like to model my line of clothes coming out soon?"

"First of all, don't call women 'chicks', you dick. Second of all, I got over the kidnapping when I heard about Bliss shoving you in a closet. Also, I got over it because holding grudges is petty and you had to threaten to blow up a school for it to happen. Third of all-" With fairly guessable tactics, Danny threw a mug at Zeta's head. "Be sore about that." She turned back to Data as he picked himself up off the ground. "You know what, sure. Let's play cards. First person to lose gets punched in the face by me."

Back on the other side of the city, Bliss walked through a less than empty hallway with a slew of guards laid out in her wake of destruction. The doors to a stairwell opened far in advance of Bliss. Too far actually. Holding these damn doors open for too long started to bug her.

"You're overlooking a few details in the- this guy likes to hear himself talk. I bet he even believes it." Sara watched as the next part of the ordeal played out with an exchange of personalities. "Two of those sound terrible, but for the teleportation, where can you send me? If you could untie me and send me somewhere tropical, I won't complain about-"

The doors flew off the hinges. Sara's ponytail whipped back as the bulk of the door flew past her. "I need some help right quick." Bliss lifted the table in the middle of the room off its legs and flipped it towards the back of the room to assist in their removal from the room. "I lost track of the cult, Don't know where Ashley is, and even if I were listening to Danny, she hasn't said anything in a while. The Hell's going on in here anyways?"

"Regime change." Sara held her hands up to Bliss for appropriate measures.

"Pfft" Bliss let a push of air through her closed lips in a sign of utmost respect to the political process. "Who cares? Corporate entities will just set up plants here to exploit the workforce and pay five percent tax rates anyways."

"She's apparently apart of the transition committee. She can teleport or knock people out."

"So, can I." Bliss grabbed Sara's hands and pulled her while throwing furniture around the room to cover her escape. "We have work to do. That asshole Travis owes me about nine or ten favors, and if Danny can beat the living Hell out of him he'll be even more open to helping me. We need to find Ashley first though."

The chamber beneath the city flickered in the light of torches set in a runic formation. "Can we just talk about-"

"Enough. Time is upon us. We found your princess. She's being prepared as the vassal now." Three armored men with shadowed features stood in a triangle formation around Ashley. Four men tended the braziers flames while shifting among the rest of their duties at the two sites adjacent to them. Braziers flanked each of the altars. One empty. The other with the Princess Rurik bound to a chair more securely than Ashley. Maybe for more security. Maybe they did not fear Ashley's ability to escape. When Ashley felt her left hand grow a little more loose, she knew they made at least one mistake.

With a mug colliding with his forehead, Zeta found himself stumbling backwards with a painful stinging flowing through his head. "Ow jesus, that really hurt." He grumbled with a frown rubbing his forehead gingerly, it would likely leave a bruise. "Playing cards? Well, not like I was told I can't play cards. So I'm up for that. What we playin?" He asked, seemingly getting more into the spirit of things, a spring going back into his step as he sort of approached the two with a single raised brow.

"Model your clothes?" Ellen questioned with a single raised brown, seemingly interested by the question pointed towards her. Pressing her hands to her hips, she considered the person that was laying on the ground at her feet. "I don’t know what your reason for being here but I have a feeling you're an annoyance." She noted letting shards of metal float around her, sharp points directed towards the female.

Lucius stepped into the presidential office, a slow chuckle escaping his robotic voice filter as he did. The remaining guards laid down their weapons, they were overpowered and outnumbered. The dictator of a president, Leonardo Vazov, sat at his chair with hands trembling.

"Mister President, don't be so tense. I'm not here to.....incinerate you or anything. I just want what is now mine, and that's that chair. You've been officially signed out of office my dear friend, and i'm giving you the chance to run and hide now, or be tried for treason." Lucius said, leaning over the desk as his optics stared into the mans very soul.

"You....you're a freak! You can't just take over our country like this! Its mine you bastard!" The president yelled back, breaking through his fear momentarily.

"It was.....for far too long if do say so myself. But now it's over, and the people of this country don't have to suffer under your rule any longer." Lucius said as he waved his hand, shackles appearing around the former presidents hands. He was then swept aside and thrown to the crowd just outside, and released.

"By the people of Belarus, you are under arrest and officially impeached. Good day." Lucius said, taking a seat as the former dictator was drug off. He smiled at his new office, then took action, using the desks phone to get into contact with the Russians.

"Leonardo has been.....removed. If you wish to retain a good relationsip with the Republic of Belarus and avoid nuclear retaliation then you will call your soldiers back, off of our capital building." After that Lucius hung up, giving no time for a response. But soon enough, under threat of bombs and the lose of a major ally, the Russians backed down. It was at this point all Lucius' forces regrouped, and the remaining resistence was drug off.

"Find this Princess and tell her i would like to speak with her, if she truly has a right to the throne she will meet. There is no need for any bloodshed today." Lucius said to one of his soldiers, who ran off in search of the Princess along with everyone else.

Isalia simply teleported away at the sight of the rescuer, not wanting to waste time fighting her as the prisoner was pretty much lost. In the ministry of defense though, something else entirely was happening.....something less important.

"Go fish, i like that game." Data said with a smile as he dealt the cards out, then held his intently to his face, as if the others were trying to peak.

"Got any threes?"

The halls contained slightly less terror than they did a few minutes ago. Maybe not the worst change, but something about the low roar of mobs barely held back did little to build confidence. Bliss knew little of what continued to go on with the protesters establishing what control they continued to exert. The duo made their way back to the sewers so they could navigate their tracks more candidly. "Danny, it's Bliss. I need you to do something for me."

"Kinda busy." Danny tossed out the threes she stole from Zeta.

"I need you to go get Alpha and get him down to the sewers. Sara is going to tunnel us to where we think we need to be." Bliss dodged chunks of rock as Sara began to transmute the wall into a deep tunnel.

It's not that Danny did not want to help Bliss, it's just helping Bliss is always something requiring a good deal of willpower even Danny lacked at times."Oh that sounds really vague and like it won't-"

"Go get Alpha now or I'm going to start making a list of all the ways you remind me of myself when I was your age." Willpower found.

Danny hung up the phone and stood up and pointed to Zeta. "I need to speak to Dickface McDouchebreath right now."

"Did I tell you I think you're pretty? Cause I think you're pretty enough to be on the Internet. And not just weird websites, like good ones too." Everything in Mitsuko's mouth tasted like metal. Everything pointing at Mitsuko was made of metal. By logic, Mitsuko's mouth was full of things pointing at her. "Are we going to go hang out somewhere now? I think I need to lie down." Mitsuko continued to look up at Ellen from her position on her back.

"So we're just tracking Ashley's location and hoping that leads us where we need to go?" The tunnel expanded further down at just enough of an incline to allow Bliss and Sara safe footing. Bliss refused the answer and only starred at Sara. "Just asking."

It worked. Not to the full capacity of its potential, but Bliss peered her head out of a hole and looked down at Ashley, still restrained to a chair. A ten foot drop straight down to the ground awaited Bliss if she popped out from the ceiling, ruining any hopes of a subtle entrance. A shaking came just in Bliss' boots. No nerves. No anxiety. No apprehension. Actual physics began to give out in the wake of a violent tremor. Bliss plummeted towards the ground with Sara in tow.

An armored man stepped forward with an ornate hammer, vibrating from a recent strike. "Welcome to the Confluence. So we have an Orient. And, now we have two Jew rats."

"Woah!" Bliss stepped up from Sara and prepared herself for the dangers of the room.

"We can handle whatever the Confluence is, but lets step back from the racism."

"Actually, the racism is fine." Ashley peeped in from her chair. "This confluence thing is pretty nuts. He needs enough of a sacrifice and it will trigger a multidimensional rift allowing him to access any realm he wants."

"Doesn't matter, this guys toast and his Confluence can go to hell."

"Why yes. It can." The man cracked his neck as he swung his hammer in a forward sweeping direction. The distance of fifty feet mattered little as the massive impact swept over Bliss, sending her back into the wall. Bliss slowly fell to the ground, picking herself up a little, but finding her vision slightly blurred. "Ha! Her eyes are even more squinted than before!"

"I understand we are trying to kill each other and open gates to Hell, but can we stop with the racism!" Bliss picked herself up with a little help from a rock dais provided to her by Sara. "Plans on stopping this guy?"

Sara kept a wall up, but the impact from the hammer began shredding her defense in a way where Sara expected the knight to yell 'Here's Johnny!' when he penetrated it. "I say we just-"

"They have the princess down stairs. You need the jewels from the mansion." Ashley watched the back of the room as three more knights entered the fray.

"Not to be that guy, but it was your job, so did you get them?" Bliss ran towards the breach in the wall and shot a violent blast of energy into the knight's breastplate. No response other than a glare came from Ashley. "We need a new plan."

Before the plan could arise, the wall fell. One massive swing from the hammer lashed out, sending Bliss and Sara back first into the wall behind them. "Or, an escape route."

Lucius was getting impatient now. Sure the protestors and his forces had taken the place, and by law he was head of state, but there still lurked forces that could quickly change that. This was a sensitive time, and he had to make sure he played it right. The Russians had mostly moved out, yet he was still detecting people nearby that weren't a part of this party. Worse, motion sensors in the pipeline below were being tripped. Something was going on down there, and he intended to find out what it was.

"Hector, swarm some bugs into the sewer. Get me audio at the very least." Lucius said from his office chair. The voice of the AI rang through the intercom system, having already uploaded itself into the Palace's mainframe.

"Yes sir." He said, then mobilized the bugs that Lucius released from a vile. They crawled away at high speeds, doing their work. Eventually they would make it to the sewer, and overhear some rather, well, disturbing conversation.

"So let me get this straight.... This person wants to open up a rift in reality with a sacrifice, and this group of people that includes the girl that beat Alpha's head in in Springfield that were originally here to stop me are now trying to stop said rift in reality from happening?" Lucius asked aloud to the AI. A faint sigh fell over the room, and then a tired answer.

"That's about the size of it, yes." The AI said, almost amused by it. Lucius didn't actually believe there might be a rift opening up. Well, he definitely thought it was possible. But did that mean just anyone with a sacrifice could just open up a portal to hell?

"......Ugh. Lock the Palace down, no one in no one out. I'm going down to greet these sewer rats." Lucius said as he stepped out of the office. The walk outside was long and he had to stop several times to move around crowds, but eventually he made it out and found himself crawling into the sewers. He landed in the water below, looking at the disgusting area around him. He used a ball of energy for light.

"Never been so glad to have an air filter....." Lucius said as he walked toward the sound of crashing and yelling. He wanted everyone down here flushed out. He also wanted to see what ridiculous ritual was being cooked up.

(Alpha has been skipped)

Mitsuko did a whole lot of nothing.

Under duress of terrible stories from Bliss, Danny made her way out of the missile silo and into the chaos of the streets. Each string of calamity pulled more taut as the fires polluted the skies. Wearing something similar to a signifying uniform made her egress more complicated, but the sewer systems did offer a terrible, albeit maneuverable, travel route. "Bliss, no one has seen Travis, so he hasn't seen my fists. I'm heading to-"

"No, no. Change of plans." A burst of rocks showered down towards Bliss as a telekinetic wave threw the rubble and a hammer back towards the wall. "We need gems or jewels or- I don't know, rocks that look special."

"They're in my satchel." Ashley worked her hand out of the restraint keeping her hand cuffed to the chair. "It's in an access terminal at the intersection of pipes 17 and 45."

That information sounded useful to Danny, but all you can eat crab sounded like a good idea to Red Lobster until they met America. "Do they have numbers on them?" A key bit of information to slip into a very vague lock.

"No, but I made a mapping. It's in your visor." A telekinetic blast knocked the back of the chair apart, letting Ashley slip back to her feet.

Sure enough the visor pulled up a map of the inner workings of the city including the layout of the sewers. "I carried all my books freshman year, because I couldn't find my locker."

A chain wrapped around Bliss' ankle, pulling her quickly to the ground. "You go to an elitist school designed by an acid dropping hippie. This is a functioning city. I'm pretty sure the numbers are all adjacent to each other." One blast came from Bliss' right hand, pulling the chain from the knight's hand.

A second blast blindsided the knight in the side of this head. "They aren't. Pipe 17 is between 89 and 56."

"This place deserves a portal to Hell." Even with one knight felled, the landscape still did not look indicative of a sure victory. "You two, princess. Now."

Sara summoned a wall of earth between her and a severe hammer strike. Ashley grabbed the wrist of Sara as the duo took off towards a collapsed building towards the back of the chamber, drawing the attention of a Templar. His attention shifted as his back piece drew closer to Bliss under the pull of her telekinesis. One wild swing from his hammer blew right past Bliss' cheek as he slammed into a pillar. The look of accomplishment on Bliss' face distorted as the flat head of a hammer smashed into her lower back. Dirt and runes met against her cheeks as a rough deluge of spit shot from her mouth.

An ornate dragon wrapped around a jackal laid inches away from Bliss' face. A sharp edge protruded from the edge of the hammer laid so calculated in front of her face. "Your Jew friends will not save you or the accursed princess."

"Seriously, I don't know what century you came from, but cool it- what do you mean accursed?"

Danny made her way downtown, walking fast, no faces to pass, and she was not even close to being homebound. "So pipe 32 is next to 89, and 89 is next to 17, which intersects with-" Danny tapped her visor one more time to scan the pipes. Plumber's Quest could take its ego and shove it. Mario never had to actually identify the things Danny pushed through even though he did fight a turtle dinosaur. But, Mario never found a satchel with gems in it. Danny did. Well, a satchel at least. Her heart felt like it crawled into her throat as she dug her hand into the bag and felt the smooth texture of the gem. She locked in the coordinates for where she could see the visor from Bliss and began to make her way. "Got it Bliss."

"Great. Now get here!" Bliss put out her last words before the headset was torn from her head. Metal and plastic shattered under a weighted boot. A pair of shackles connected Bliss to the ceiling over the sacrificial circle she rescued Ashley from moments earlier. "That guy I threw against the wall looks to be in pretty bad shape. Maybe we just cut out losses and use him for the sacrifice instead. Just spit balling ideas."

The bugs continued to feed Lucius audio, and, well, it seemed like the least professional professional heroes were in town. They acted like closing a portal to hell was like going to the grocery store. Lucius didn't know if that was because they dealt with things like this on the daily or if it was because of their general stupidity. Regardless, he had to figure out just what was going on here and then put it to an end. He made his way down the sewers until he came across a few men with firearms. They were swiftly knocked out with a nullified gust of red energy that knocked their heads into the walls.

He looked around, other then those goons nothing of interest was around. He really wasn't in the mood for cat and mouse. But turns out, he was quite close to Bliss' destination, standing right near pipe 17. So at the very least he was going to get some answers, possibly. That or he would just have to knock some more people out.

"First order of business: renovate palace sewers."

The end of Bliss' signal did not sound as planned as her angry decrees typically ended. While it gave Danny some solitude, it did forebode a darker transgression soon to come. The gems she grabbed would in some way assist with whatever it is Bliss cooked up for her plan, but she would find no instructions in her visor on this, no hints to be found by following a map, and certainly no pipes in odd places to at least give her a trail of bread crumbs.

"When this thing opens you know what happens right?" Bliss continued to dangle above the sacrificial altar. "This isn't some sort of, 'the higher power will tell us' deal is it? Because if so, your planning and relegation need some work, and-" Bliss kept moving in a circle to keep her back from facing the man in the golden armor with the dragon mace. "My idea about just sacrificing the guy in the coma is still on the table. Let me loose, and I'll-"

"Enough. I do not know if your people speak too much or your gender does, but-"

"Wow." The brightest light in the room belonged to a massive crossbow attached to Danny's forearm. "I don't know if the possible racism is worse than the possible sexism, but either way, you're going down." One bolt propelled across the room, catching a red armored knight square in the chest. His backward momentum ended with part of the wall came down on him, leaving behind what Danny hoped was an unconscious man.

"Danny! Priorities!" Bliss rattled the chains holding her in place.

"I got the gems." The bow began to shift into a large physical shield while a short sword appeared out of Danny's other wrist. "Shut up while I save the whole thing."

The massive blow from the dragon headed hammer knocked Danny back into a spin. Darting out with finesse, she struck through his shoulder with her short sword before returning back to a defensive stop. Two more massive blows landed in such a quick succession Danny could barely keep control of her shield, let alone balance. As the knight kicked Danny in the side with his boot, he sized up for his mortal blow to the younger combatant. "I actually don't know what you are, but this is where you meet your end."

The hammer came down especially hard. Bliss gave it all the extra push she could muster, making the knight lose control and barrel over, slamming his head into the wall with a great amount of concussive force. "She's vaguely ethnic, possibly Indian." While still strung up, Bliss made good use of her telekinesis to tip the scales to balance Danny more favorably.

Finding the Princess only took a few minutes and left no cracked skulls. Of course the princess would be in some kind of devilish coma, but at least it did not involve any guards. "We get her back to the top, and we find out whatever this cult is planning." Ashley ran next to Sara, whom secured the physical job of hoisting the princess along for the ride. "I don't know why cults pick the places they do."

"Belarus is fine." Sara allowed Ashley to take to the stairs first before trailing. "It's Egypt you gotta look out for. And, I don't trust anything coming out of Russia. Or Germany."

"True, true, but-" Ashley attempted to break on a dime, but a solid shot from Sara sent her spilling back into the sanctum. "Why is it pulsing like that?"

"We don't know!" A recently freed Bliss back away from the altar as the ground began to fluctuate more uncontrollably. Lines of energy split the masonry adjoining the ancient den of slumbering mystery. "It just started getting really angry and-" Before the rest of her time could go towards the greater gap of knowledge, the greater gap of nothing burst into something. A vibrant something, pulsing with a dark purple energy. Tendrils of energy burst forth, attempting to seize the greater collective of heroes assemble in the room, but only managing to wrangle the three incapacitated knights into the gaping maw. "Well, we're going to assume they're alright for now, but at the same time not want to wind up where they are." Bliss looked over to Danny as the duo huddled behind a colonnade.  

"Wait, it's getting more tame." Ashley peaked out as the now forming portal began to shift more towards the side of the room her and Sara took refuge. "I don't know if that's good or-"

"Bad!"

"It's always bad!" Bliss and Danny took to the chorus as the tendril burst forth, plunging into the chest of the Princess. "It's always, so bad!"

A gasp came from the princesses mouth as her eyes shot open. Both of her hands wrapped around the tendril with malice. "I've got it."

"Wait, what?" Rock formed to shield Sara and the princess from any more tendrils, but Sara's rock could do nothing to break the barb sticking into the young woman's chest. "An idea or this thing?"

"Both. I can hold it here, but I need help." From her seated position, the woman exhaled deeply. As her lungs began to seep out air, so did the tendril begin to recoil. The energy with the altar broke the sides of the barrier, leaving behind a portal with entrances on each side of the rectangular structure. For now it remained at ease. "I can go in there, and it will be appeased, but someone needs to go in and get me back. You'll need a devil."

Speak of the devil and Bliss knows contacts. "Are you kidding? A devil? I know like three. They all love me!"

Danny stared at the calm portal before turning to the princess. "Of course they would."

So Lucius continued to traverse the surprisingly complicated sewers, not really saying anything. He was beginning to think maybe he should just dismiss this as the ramblings of twenty something year old girls and cultists, but this did concern him he supposed.

Eventually, he actually ended up finding what he was looking for. The group of people and, well, what looked to be a portal that was pulling things in, including some random knight looking guards in red armor. An interesting sight, but one that wouldn't bother Lucius. He stepped from out of his passage and into the more open area, where everyone was, overhearing the last of the conversation.

"You need a devil to close a passage to hell? Isn't that a sort of 'key locked in the trunk' situation? Unless of course it just means a sinful person. I don't know anymore with all this supernatural talk." Lucius said, getting straight into the whole thing. There was really no point in introducing himself, because he wanted it closed just as much as everyone here. Hopefully they recognized that.

The portal sat safely enough behind a wall of stone, taking away the direct threat to everyone in the room. Then walked in a minor threat when compared to an all encompassing portal to Hell. "There are so many keys all over the world. The wilder ones are more fun at parties, but this one is cooler than- speak of the devil."

The break forth of the Queen of Thrones shattered the earthen wall. A slew of tendrils flung out in a limp fashion as the remaining tendrils formed up a grand throne to present Chelle to the masses. "That will do it. I guess we're done here." The pulsating energy began to weaken to a more controlled state. "Nice arrival. How's Tyuki doing? I don't know who's running this place, but if you want it, you got it."

Ashley walked forward to shake hands with Chelle upon her throne. "I'm not sure Bliss can do that, but-"

"If you need servers set up, I'm your girl. How are the servers I set up for you working?" Bliss continued to keep up her small talk while Danny and Sara made for the exit, knowing the navigation of the sewers would be problematic at best. "So, this princess needs to stay here and make sure this portal doesn't accidently pop out another Madeline." Bliss put her hands over her heart. "Love her to death, really do, but holy hell do we not need another."

Lucius could safely say he didn't know what was going on. There was talk of devils and keys by an Asian chick, and now this woman on the throne..... He had half a mind to just bomb the sewers at this point, but the situation seemed under control. That said, the fact a portal to hell could be opened in his basement was a little concerning. He figured he would cross that bridge when he came to it, though.

"........Would you all get out of the sewers now? I really don't feel like dealing with demons today. I have a liberation to complete." Lucius said, mostly speaking to Bliss and this woman on her throne. He assumed this didn't usually happen when a government was overthrown, but then again he had never done so before this......

"So apparently you can shut this thing...... Go ahead and do that. I'll see you later, hopefully after i die." Lucius said to the Demon Queen before turning around. He would no doubt investigate the area the portal had opened in later, but not while everyone was still here. Right now he had more important business to attend to.