When Darkness Takes Over It Will be Like One Big Nine Inch Nails Concert (Madeline)

What a turn of events, Madeline had pretty much expected the woman to mop the floor with Xander, but then a serious role reversal occurred. The demon queen stood in silence for a moment, though that was most likely the extend of the man’s power, which paled in comparison to hers, it was still impressive to see, especially when she had seen what Bliss was capable up to this point. Madeline crouched down beside Bliss, with a slight look of confusion. “I had something extremely witty to say for when you whooped his ass, but then he went all Miley Cyrus and came in like a wrecking ball and now here you are, on the floor and I’m pretty much at a loss for words”

Madeline stared at the floundering woman, with a hand on her chin, just what was she going to do with her now. She gave a shrug as she couldn’t possibly think of how to address the situation in its current state, and Xander’s voice was beginning to tick her off just a bit. “For someone who hasn’t talked much all night, you’re awfully chatty all of a sudden.” Madeline moved away from Bliss’ body and began to undo the tape that had been wound around Heather.

“Did you know about that?” she asked Heather, while pointing at the angsty man with her metal hand. She continued to undo the tape around Heather’s body, while the woman struggled to get to her feet, whatever she got hit with, definitely did a number on her, but if she recovered any time soon, she’d more than likely leap up from the floor and tear out Xander’s throat and for that Madeline deemed it necessary for the dysfunctional duo to not be around when Bliss regained her composure. “you two get out of here, I’m not done with our friend.”

Her words were met with simultaneous sighs from both Heather and Xander, prompting her to instantly turn around and seize them both in chains formed out of a shadowy flame, the look on her face made it clear that if she got any more lip from the two she would turn them inside out. To that end, the two rushed out of the basement, leaving just Madeline and Bliss.

The look on the woman’s face showed she was no stranger to being in situations such as this, but Madeline couldn’t help herself “This happen to you often?” She couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. “Need a hand?”

Assuming that Xander had hit the woman with a spell of some kind, Madeline pointed her finger at Bliss, causing the debuffing sigil to appear below her. Hopefully that would do the trick, and it would rid Bliss of her pathetic writhing.

The duo of darkness committed fully to their new dark lord. Well, kinda. "Everyone knows about me. It's so lame that people think they know me just because of the darkness inside me."

"Must. Kill..." Bliss finally rolled over onto her side. Her balance caught up with her, pulling her back down to the ground on her back.

Heather got more talkative as more tape came off of her head. "Oh, Xander is so raw and full of anguish. His parents didn't let him listen to the radio as a kid."

"As if I would want to. A bunch of songs about how we should spend money to make our meaningless lives more memorable. The only way to truly have meaning is to realize how meaningless everything really is."

"Anger. Swelling..." Bliss only needed to gain control so she could absolutely lose control, but gaining control was just outside of her very limited reach. Luckily her anger could take a little break as Madeline removed the unnecessary distraction of Xander and Heather. "Now, I'm good! Time to drop the Bliss-hammer on-" An wanton display of telekinesis would shoot out to throw Madeline into the wall. "Oh, you're not him, but still a pretty good target to attack. And this never happens to me; Death Cab For Cutie got a lucky shot!"

Madeline couldn’t hold back the angst she was feeling, just being around these three. A slight head shake of disapproval, and a roll of her glowing amber eyes came in response to Heathers puffery of Xander’s abilities and Xander’s utter bitchiness. She could only let out a sigh of relief when they had left the basement, but it wouldn’t last long as Madeline was sent flying unexpectedly through the air and into one of the basements exceedingly weak walls. A loud thud echoed out as Madeline’s heavy body slammed into the wall. She shrugged off the impact as though it was nothing, but turned to Bliss with an arched brow. “Really? Just gonna fling me into a wall like that without buying me dinner first?”

One could tell by the tone of Madeline’s voice that she wasn’t upset with what had just happened. Instead her tone and wording gave off a slightly friendly tone. Despite what the woman had been saying all night about finding out what Madeline was up to, and that she saying how she would send her back to whatever hell she was from, the demon queen retained her indifferent outlook towards the woman, who she knew could or would be a powerful ally to have.

Madeline pulled herself out of the small impact crater her body had made in the wall and took a few steps forward. She stood there with her hands up, who and Bliss had been doing this little dance all night, the only question was ‘how was it going to end?’ and the answer rested solely in the hands of the ax wielding, people throwing, overly assertive woman that lay before the demon queen. "I could do this all night Kitten....so what's it going to be?"

The first act of aggression came as the axe flew out of the wall and into Bliss' open hand. The second act of aggression involved Bliss talking. "You possibly made an event less bad, but you also possibly made the event happen in the first place, so- time for this kitten to show you her claws." Bliss forewent channeling her inner Sailor Moon, because deep down everyone knows Sailor Moon was the worst person to lead that group- a revelation that changed Bliss' early childhood. No, Bliss channeled her inner Sailor Mars. "First one to die loses."

First Bliss needed some room to operate. A wave of telekinesis formed up from Bliss, spreading through the room with enough force to put everything in a more downright position. With some room to get situated, Bliss leaped forward with axe over head in an effort to bring it down on one of Madeline's horns.

Madeline watched as the woman ripped the fire ax from the wall, and called it to her hands, what she was not expecting was the telekinetic burst that followed soon after. The shockwave was enough to level all the shelves and standing object in the basement, partial forming a makeshift arena for the two to fight in. Madeline had been solely focused on bracing herself when the telekinetic blast went out, so when she finally looked up, Bliss was already on the offensive.

There was just barely enough time for Madeline to do anything, but there were a number of options she could have gone with, but all of them involved being in close quarters with her assailant. Madeline didn’t want to harm Bliss, at least not yet, she was hoping to turn this situation around and gain the woman as an ally, but if this assault continued and there seemed to be no winning the woman over, then Madeline was prepared to fight. With this in mind Madeline took the best possible response to Bliss’ attack, which was simply side stepping the downward swing.

After sidestepping the attack, the demon goddess slowly backed away from Bliss. She looked to put distance between them and as she back peddled, she held her hand out to her side, summoning a sword-spear, which was just a broadsword blade attached to a pole. Madeline wasn’t looking to actually use the weapon to attack, but what she was planning or hoping was that Bliss would be a bit more cautious, and less inclined to continue with bull rushing Madeline. All of this was in hopes of slowing down the fight and giving the woman a chance to calm down, or at least give Madeline a chance to convince Bliss to stand down. Madeline kept her amber colored eyes locked on her target, and slowly began to circle around her.

Once her swing met the air, Bliss turned to face Madeline with one hand stretched towards the demon in the form of a finger gun. One blast of telekinetic force rang out to try and throw Madeline against the wall. This time, Bliss would keep the pressure up and try to keep Madeline pinned. "It's not that I don't believe you, it's just that I don't trust demons. So, what is your plan for coming here tonight and why do you need new followers?"

Feeling confidant in her hold over the demon, Bliss walked forward to put the axe head precariously close to Madeline's head. "I've never been known to be a demon hunter- at least I don't think so, but I'm sure I can fit the niche just well." Bliss stuck her head closer to Madeline's. "So, what's it going to be? Oh, and don't do the demon thing and lie about anything, because I'll know. You demons think you're good, but I'm Silicon Valley. i know fake, spiritual pandering."

Apparently Bliss didn’t like the idea of being kept at a distance, or just really wanted to keep the pressure on the demon queen, either way Madeline was slightly more prepared this time. The goddess slammed the blade of her spear into the ground and used it to brace herself against the force of Bliss’ telekinetic blast. Madeline never took her eyes off of the woman, making her fully aware of the incoming swing. She didn’t even so much as flinch or blink as the ax head was brought close to her neck.

As Bliss leaned in, Madeline did the same, almost bringing the two women nose to nose. Her gleaming amber eyes peered into the deep brown eyes of Bliss. There was definitely a lot of hidden ferocity in both their eyes, but Madeline remained over so cheeky when it came time to converse. “You know I really like you. But you’re making it really hard for me to keep this spear from protruding through your torso.” She gave a slight smirk, hinting that she might possibly have been kidding. To be honest the Demon Goddess was still on the fence about how far she was willing to take this fight.

All that aside, Bliss had asked some questions of the demon queen, and she felt ever so obligated to give her would be assailant the answers she sought. “I’m more than just a demon you know, I was once considered a god. Many civilizations in the past used to revere me as a god of war.” Madeline peered to the ax out of the corner of her eyes, though it posed no threat to her, it was still rather distracting to have such a crude weapon held so close to her. She lifted her metal arm and attempted to gently brush the ax away. “I’m only looking to restore my reputation and status as a god, and for that, I need people to spread my influence around.”

As sincere as that may have sounded, Bliss had been on to Madeline all night, and even if that was close to the truth it would have most likely sounded very skewed or the least bit vague in terms of detail, but Madeline wasn’t about to tell this woman her life’s story, nor was she going to start monologing like some clichéd comic book villain either.

"Oh, okay, you just want to restore your status as a dark god of war, my bad." Bliss kept the axe, but found a new reason to grind it. "I don't know if the fact you like me is good or bad, but you can't just use your influence like a data mining program you install in the recent patch to your operating system so you can backdoor people's hard drives and hope they love you for it. Even I acknowledged I was doing something wrong." Not in front of a court, but right and wrong can be fairly selective for some people. "So you can only get power if people like you? Are all demons fifteen year old girls, or are you just mad no one wants to take you to the Heaven Hell Sadie Hawkins dance?"

Realizing she took the conversation well past her own ability to push an advantage, and remembering how much better Madeline would be at hand to hand, Bliss let up a little with her threatening grip. "Now, as you know, demons can't just walk around, spreading their influence. There's enough weird religions around, and I don't have time to get stopped on the way to work to be asked if I would like to hear more about their evil demon queen. I've met you. I know too much about you probably. Now, I can't let you just spread your evil influence, but I could always use some help. Are you any good with Public Relations? There are some tech nerds crunching my latest glitch, and I wouldn't mind if they turned over to the dark side."

Madeline began to ease her grip on the sword spear she had pinned into the ground. Tensions had eased up a bit, and the demon goddess let out a mental sigh of relief. This night had turned out to be a lot of fun for the millennia old matriarch and she would have hated for it to end in blood shed, then again there was still a chance that could happen if Bliss didn’t like the responses that Madeline gave her, so with that in mind, the goddess chose her next words carefully, as she opened with a playful response.

“Being liked by a goddess isn’t a bad thing right? Besides I thought we hit things off rather well.” she said pressing both her index fingers together and flashing the woman a pouty face as if she had just been scolded by her mother. The expression faded as she took on more of a dumbfounded expression, not entirely sure if this conversation was about her anymore. “Are we still talking about me here? Did someone stand you up at your prom, do I need to have a chat with them?” she said with a chuckle before addressing the other statements made by Bliss. “I’m not hijacking anybody’s minds, people don’t have to worship me if they don’t want to, they make that decisions themselves. And no, getting people to worship me does not give me strength, I’m plenty strong without their praise.”

Madeline snapped her fingers causing the sword spear to vanish with a puff of smoke as she leaned up against the wall behind her. “I’m just really peeved no one remembers who the hell I am.”

Madeline kicked of the wall and leaned in to get closer to Bliss, with a large smile on her face. “Good thing I’m not a demon then huh?” she said in response to Bliss’ claim of demon’s not being able to just wonder around at will. While she was in fact very much so a demon, she took her title as goddess much more to heart and preferred to be referred to as such. Either it made it easier for her to except all the crookedness she had done of the years and would continue to do, or it helped her get away with all that crookedness, either way to the civilizations of old, she was a goddess, and soon the modern world would come to realize that as well.

Madeline perked up at the opportunity to mess with people “Normally I’d ask for something in return for handling a request, but because I like you, I’ll do it for free. Got an address?” she said as she gave the woman a mischievous wink.

Often a sudden change of events can be a welcome one. Other times, the welcoming of events comes far too soon to tell just what the outcome will foretell. Bliss decided against taking either of those to mind, instead opting to come very close to literally shaking hands with the devil. "Now that we've gotten these unpleasant interviews out of the way, we can get back to the important things at hand. I believe we were drinking and about to get to dancing. Also, I'm going to mop the floor with an emo kid the next time I see him."

Bliss dropped the axe like a mic. All in all, Bliss made worse decisions before in her life, and this one might just come out with her in the positive. Sending a demon woman to kill Venus did sound like a good idea. Over a few drinks, maybe Bliss would bring it up jokingly, and then hint that in no way was she joking. It always came back to killing Venus.

Music continued to pour through the halls as the festivities resembled a cage fight more so than a concert. "Hey, Madeline, this is really killing the mood. Wanna cut it out?"

Madeline gave the woman a rather cheeky smirk as she agreed with continuing the night where they had left it before getting involved in this basement beat down. “You know, I wouldn’t even stop you from whooping Harry Potter’s ass if you wanted to go for round two.” she said with a chuckle. The two made their way up the winding stair case and back to the dance floor where the overly depressing music had been replaced with the thunderous war cries of the frenzied individuals who were still somehow standing after Madeline had persuaded them to beat each other to death. The demon queen let out a slight sigh of disappointment *Humans are such a letdown* she thought to herself, seeing that there were still plenty of survivors struggling to stay on their feet.

Madeline took one step from the doorway and immediately cringed with each step as she made her way across the blood soaked dance floor. After stepping over several unconscious or dead individuals, Madeline made her way back up to the top of the bar, which was also surprisingly as the floor. She let out an almost deafening whistle and the fighting quickly came to a halt. “Alright that’s enough fighting, you’ve all let me down. Clean yourselves up and let’s get this party started again.” the people in the concert hall were all simultaneously pulled out of their berserker like state, and soon the music started back up.

Madeline hopped down from the bar, and turned around in relief as it appeared the bartender had somehow come out of this whole ordeal unscathed. The man gave Madeline a slightly horrified look, that was only met with a raised brow and smile. He slowly made his way to his feet and began to prepare drinks for Madeline and Bliss.

Madeline spun around and leaned against the bar and looked over to Bliss. “Well all in all, I’d say tonight turned out great, what about you?” Before she could get a response she noticed a familiar plume of red hair headed her way and let out a very aggravated groan. “For the love of me!” she said under her breath before locking eyes with Heather and Xander and signaling for them to head back into their perch, or at least stay well out of Bliss’ line of sight.

All of the calamity of the slap fighting and pushing finally came to an abrupt end. "If you wanted a blood bath, you probably should have picked a less, well, you see where I'm going with this." The bartender started up just where he left off a few hours before. "None of these guys look like they know how to handle themselves in a fight."

All the raging hormones in the world could not keep Xander from wanting to take umbrage with the rhetoric spewed from the mouth of the soon to be crunk Bliss. However, some forces from outside of this world kept him in check. One day he would have his revenge on- "Wait, I totally beat her up. Why am I plotting revenge?" His eyes caught with Madeline's for a moment. A short moment, but enough of one to dissuade him from his mutinous mindset for the time being.

"But, it doesn't really matter. Other than not being able to draw circles correctly and dressing like Hot Topic threw up on them, I'm sure most of these kids are idiots." More courage juice poured down Bliss' throat. "I don't typically make deals with otherworldly creatures, but I think we share a common language." Bliss extended her drink to tap Madeline's glass.

Madeline agreed silently with Bliss, she shouldn’t have had such high expectations of carnage when the target group was just a bunch of angsty teens dressed in goth. She let out a small sigh as she reclined up against the bar, looking at the mindless fools dance about. They had completely forgotten about what had gone down only moments ago. “Bunch of oblivious idiots.” she said raising her glass and taking a swig.

Madeline turned to Bliss with a grin and tapped her glass. “To be fair, It’s not every day you that you run into me either.” Even with the party under way, the overall atmosphere was still bleek, thanks to the overly droll music that the band insisted on play. The night wasn’t going to end like this, not if the demon goddess had anything to say about it. With that, she pulled herself away from the bar and over to who she assumed was in charge of the band. She whispered in his ear for several seconds, and soon after, the tempo of the music changed, and things began to get a bit more lively.

Madeline then made her way back towards the bar and slowly approached Bliss “C’mon, you can’t just hang out at the bar all night, let’s get dancing. And with that Madeline made her way back out on to the dance floor and began to cut loose.