Honoree (Forcie and Pat)

Someone wanted to honor Bliss. Or, at least list her as a number of positive people in the world for meta human causes. Ashley hid the fact others would be honored too, but Bliss found out. She always found out. Let those first couple of 'good' people go up and get awarded. Bliss planned on being fashionably late, so the world could see what they were missing, just like Ghandi.

Sitting in the green room with a sleek black dress extending into a ruffle towards the top of her knees, Bliss kept close watch on the bottle of water in her hand. Two straps intertwined on the other side of a chair on the far side of the dressing room while Bliss kept her bare feet up on the counter. Another text ran across the screen of her phone; Ashley told her the council was needing her for a touching montage after a text from Danny wanting to know what her problem was.
Didn't matter. People could wait a little while longer.

Danny sat with her fingers attached to her phone. Her face matched the red fabric of the dress she wore falling halfway up her thigh with strapping wrapped around her lower leg. The next honoree stepped up to give a keynote over the importance of patience with those who did not willingly accept them. His voice combed over the awkward silence left when Bliss failed to show up after the third time her name rang through the speaker. Ashley sat on the other side of the table spinning circles around the face of the phone in a formal white dress with a loose pony tail. The silence sat between them in the chair Bliss failed to occupy.

An organization seeking better relations and accountability between metas and society launched the first annual Meta Honors in a downtown auditorium in San Francisco, marking what they hoped would be the beginning of increased awareness of meta good in society. Tables filled the room with men and women all seated in their best suits and dresses. Small displays of freezing water into ice cubes and heating up other people's food made for quick dinner laughs, but the dinner itself stayed increasingly mundane through the honoring of minor achievements.

The reel planned for Bliss highlighted her contribution to the defense of New York City when all the other metas failed and her endeavors in business and technology, but the absence of the conceited diva made for a silent reel.

Lurking in a building nearby the auditorium, a woman cracked open a crate. She waved away the dust rising before her with a webbed hand while looking up to the metavillains she contacted for a warm welcome to the first meta honorees. Scales covered her face in a dark blue tint, contrasting the white hair running down her shoulders. "The plan is simple. You kidnap Ms. Fukuyama and replace her with this android. Then, you let me detonate it within the auditorium at the precise right moment. If all goes according to plan, there will be a shortage of heroes to get in our individual ways for power and we can put an end to all this hugging and hand holding. So, get to work." A simple enough plan, but not fully accounting for everything.
Mainly Bliss is mean and fairly dangerous. And Danny can punch stuff.

A rally for the rights of metahumans, now that was an interesting concept when he thought about it. The interior of the sleek black car was rather spacious, and something about it reflected the wealth he had at his command. Apparently someone had known him well enough to contact him about this rally for some kind of rights with metahumans. Sure, he could understand why they needed to be controlled, beings with the ability to level cities by themselves was really something that was to fear. Sitting across from him was Zeta in a mask, dressed up for a job much like the newly demoted Theta. Ever since her demotion, the female had grown rather angry with around everything in general. Not that Alpha had ever really bothered himself with something like that, if she had a problem she could take it up with someone that cared.

An organization had been seeking some kind of accountability between humans and their superhuman relatives, if that would do any good was something many people would ask. Of course there were the good intentioned metahumans but also those that wanted nothing more than to make the world burn. While he was by no means a metahuman, Alpha still saw the benefit in villainizing superpowered beings, things that his own public identity would benefit from. The meeting for him took place in a building beside the rally, dust having settled over the floor in a thin veil. It suggested that this place was one that had gone without use for a small while, making it perfect almost for meetings within the shadows.

The unknown woman in scale had spelt out the plan, which sounded almost camp in execution but had a certain charm to it. Even if only some of the heroes were taken out, that was more heroes dead than before this. It would make taking New York over from the underground much easier. ”Kidnap the Asian bitch and blow people up. Got it.” Zeta said with the mask filtering his voice well enough.

Deathbringer had been brought over to San Francisco to do something remarkably similar to something he had done not too long ago. Crashing a rally where the subject was metahumans for nefarious purposes. There were a few differences between this one and that one in New York. The two major ones was that this one was about appreciating metahumans for having done good things rather than gaining support in the effort to oppose and possibly eliminate them. The other was that he wasn't the one organizing the attack on it. Instead Jacob was carrying out somebody else's plan. Doing so felt kind of weird actually. It had been so long since he operated entirely on another's terms that it left him feeling a bit empty. Like there was nothing here to actually accomplish. Perhaps there was a way around that. He would just have to improvise.

The ceremony was going on in an auditorium where a bunch of honorees would talk about what they believed in and whatever other nonsense they would mention and be thanked for their efforts. Having to listen to them would probably be sickening to him. Maybe even more sickening than the trivial politicking he heard at the anti-metahuman rally in New York. Aye, people and their useless agendas.

Anyways, Deathbringer was currently in a building near the auditorium along with some others that had been paid for their services. He recognized some of them, others he didn't. There was also Alpha, whom he was not sure he could trust. Deathbringer noted to himself to keep an eye out for him.

A crate stood before the woman that had brought everybody here, and in that crate was a robot designed to perfectly resemble one of the honorees of the ceremony. The target was Bliss Fukuyama, a noted philanthropist and one of the metahumans that was known for being present during the destruction of New York. Perhaps this wasn't so bad after all. He had a chance to kill Bliss. "Oh, this should be fun. Very well, time to get to work." he said to the woman covered in scales that was essentially running this operation. "So tell me, how should we go about carrying out this plan of attack?"

"Is she going to show up any time soon? The boy wonder over there went from giving me creepy stares to angry stares. oh, he's back to creepy." Danny made eye contact with a twelve year old with a cranium stretching out into a forehead several inches beyond a normal crest. "I hear that kid played in radioactive material because he got tired of being made fun of for being a conehead and thought super powers would make people think it was cool. I highly doubt-"

"Don't worry; she's texting me. 'Writing rap lyrics about self. Can Asian people say 'N' word? Google pls.' Well, maybe we can get a third dinner. Where'd the cart guy go?" Ashley let her phone down more gently than Bliss let her down. Before Ashley could push herself away from the table, an elderly man with a passing fancy in the past rested his hand upon her shoulder, smelling of cigarettes.

"My friend and I were making a wager. I bet him I could not only answer the first question you thought of, but also predict the question you would ask, now I know you're thinking-"

"Can Asian people say the 'N' word?"

His hand left her shoulder as he turned back. "Well, can't win em all."

"Okay, Danny I've got an idea." Ashley said to an empty table. "Well, can't win em all."

Bliss continued her relaxation after painting herself into a rap corner with the word 'silver'. With all the attention her absence caused in the past hour, her phone began wearing down on battery life, presenting her with an excuse for not showing up on time. "Already been texting though. Maybe people don't know how time works. I'll Google that." Bliss stood up and picked her heels off the back of the chair, hanging them from her finger while Google confirmed people were not as stupid as Bliss hoped. "They're only dumb when you need them to help. The fuck was that sound?" Something stupid this way came.

Alpha found himself semi-surprised to see that he would be working with someone from The Ultra Gang, the leader to be more exact. Considering his precarious position with the enigmatic meta-human, it seemed that he would have to be more careful than evert to avoid his ever suspicious eye. Not that it should be too difficult, unless of course he was following him more than he was aware of anyway. Still, they had a pro meta-human rally to disturb, and sadly they did not disturb themselves, so that was why they were there. As for them doing so, he would need to know what the first step of this plan was, unless of course he was supposed to think that up himself. Which Alpha had no problem with, as working things out himself was always something he had a better time doing than letting others do it for him.

Already he was thinking of a few ways this could go, most of them potentially messy but that was the intention of the bomb they would plant in the rally. A nefarious and most underhanded scheme, but then again sometimes those means were required to reach a desired end, at least in the quickest time possible. Zeta was ready to get this started, but something told him that the thought of killing someone did not sit too well with the poor male. He wasn’t as hardened as he would have many believe, which only meant that the fact he could put up a front like that was more a testament to his acting skills than anything else. Regardless, they had a Bliss to kidnap and so that was what he planned to do.

He had to consider her security and how to do deal with them as well, unless they didn’t have any sort of shielding from mind control, then that only made his job so much easier. As for information on the rally, it seemed that the aforementioned Bliss was late to the party, which meant that she wasn’t even there. It made things much easier for him, he didn’t have to worry about possibly kidnapping anyone in front of a crowd. As for hunting her down, well that was a different story altogether.

So searching for her, that was what he was doing and finding her was much easier than Alpha would’ve expected. ”You were harder to find than I thought.” Alpha stated simply to Bliss, the mask giving his voice an almost mechanical quality.

”I still think people are all as dumb as you think.” Zeta chimed in.

”Atleast you’ll be in good company then.” Theta then added.

One part of this plan involved kidnapping Bliss so that she could properly replaced with a robot designed to look just like her. The trojan horse method being put to good use. In the meantime, Deathbringer just let everybody else take action. He would stand back and watch to see what they would do, all while waiting for the opportunity to act. To him, a lot of these people looked completely lost. Their incompetence notwithstanding, the plan was still underway.

The target, Bliss was eventually found in a different place than the auditorium, by Alpha and his cronies. Yeah, it would be Alpha that would wind up finding her. This was something that he should have seen coming. Oh well, nothing for him to do right now. Deathbringer hid in the shadows of a building as he watched to see if Alpha would successfully manage to kidnap Bliss as was intended in the plan.

Enough time passed for Bliss to appear fashionable. Too bad the same could not be said for the creepy metahumans all gathered together in the auditorium. Why did all the good metas all look like the guys the chess beat up to feel good about themselves? Oh well, Bliss thought as she strapped the buckle on her shoe; at least she could enjoy a few minutes of peace and quiet before people who did not know her told her how many great things she accomplished. And then a voice rang out. "Yeah, no shit C3P0, it's why I'm back here and not hanging out with all those other assholes. Now, if you don't mind, I've got a lovely date and some other chick with an attitude about some villain she hates to get back to."

Bliss made her way towards the door before two other teenagers stepped into the room. "Are you the welcome committee from Prodigy or something? Because I'm pretty sure the check cleared and if it didn't, I can cancel it if you think this is how we're going to conduct business." The things spewing from their mouths sounded more patronizing to, well, everyone. Not the kind of entrance anyone with good intentions would make, which made Bliss feel more strongly about using bad intentions herself. "Yo, MAL 3000. I'm taking it these are some kind of lackeys you use to make yourself feel better about yourself. As a matter of fact, I think they were both up on Prodigy's Instagram account after Danny did what she does. Someone got a little upset and took it down of course, so I'm figuring that was you."

Not calling herself the smartest woman in the world for nothing, Bliss decided to even the playing field to give her a better numbers game. Two blasts of energy would try to throw the two hench(wo)men through the walls, before Bliss would bring down a support beam on the two of them to pin them to the ground. "Looks like we're even." Bliss cracked her knuckles. "Shall we?"

Alpha had seen the psionic blasts coming, but that didn’t stop them from throwing both Zeta and Thea against the wall with audible thuds. He was however harder to take down that that, surrounding himself with a small field of psionic energy that caught the beam brought down upon him, snapping in two and falling to the ground on either side of him. ”That was rather careless of you Zeta.” Alpha said with a soft chuckle, the younger male cursing as he pushed himself off from the floor.

”Bitch blindsided me.”

”I don’t recall any sonic shotguns being used.” Alpha offhandidly mentioned tugging on one of the leather gloves, and glaring at Bliss. ”However I think I can take this woman well enough.” In a split second, the support beam that had been brought down upon him would rapidly splinter, reduced to many small pieces rather than the large chunks, rising into the air.

”I’m sure they won’t mind if I bring you in with a few splinters.” A few of these shards would shot out with efficiency, aimed for non-vital joints, ones more meant to keep her from running than anything else. If they also kept her from using that power of hers, well that was just a plus.

Oh, well this was proving itself to be a rather entertaining thing to behold. Taking this little gig was definitely shaping up to be worth it. I mean seriously, getting to watch firsthand as Bliss and Alpha tear each other apart would just be a great thing to behold. For Deathbringer, it mattered not who won this little scuffle, or in what shape they were in afterwards. For all he cared, they could both die. Though he kind of hoped Bliss would prevail just so he could kill her himself.

Almost as soon as the target was found, the fighting began. Alpha's cronies were nearly taken out almost instantly by the power that Bliss had. "So that's what she can do. Their powers are practically identical to each other. That should make this even more fun." he thought as things continued to unfold.

"Hey loser! Get your own powers!" A blast from Alpha hit Bliss in the knee, sending her to the ground. A grimaced look overtook Bliss' composure as she let loose a blast of energy to attempt to push Alpha against the wall. Standing came up slow and full of throbbing pain in her knee. "That hurt you jerk! You know what? You look like you could use some back up." Throwing her hand towards the two lackeys she put in a downward position, Bliss would grab Ellen with a touch of telekinetics and throw her at Alpha. "Two heads are better than one after all."

Another grab for the ceiling would try to grab a vent grate and pull it down to slam over Alpha's head. That was the plan, but it never came. Alpha's blast hit Bliss in the hand, causing her to recoil in pain, cursing in her native tongue under her breath. At least the beginning of her attacks made something, but the finishing move really missed its mark, making Bliss scramble over towards a side door. Flinging it open, Bliss faced the interior of a small closet. More curses came as Bliss found escaping would not assist her.

Danny continued down the hallway, checking her phone for any messages Bliss would send her. None came. With a heavy sigh, Danny turned the corner and saw a familiar idiot laying on the ground, complaining about being blindsided. It was too good. Walking while a melee played out only a few feet away gave Danny enough space to sneak up, bash Zeta in the head with a strong palm led with her cell phone, and continue into the doorway of the dressing room. "How are the lyrics coming?"

"I need a word that rhymes with loser."

Danny noticed the rest of the room and felt her annoyance go up when she knew Bliss was the less of several evils. "Alpha? Fu-"

"Alpha? This guy? Tell your boy toy to get his own powers. His are pretty weak." Bliss hid the lower half of her body behind a counter before rubbing her knee with her injured hand. It did not make anything better.

”That was the intention Miss.Fukuyama.” Alpha stated almost amused by her reaction to being hit, keeping a calm demeanor while he continued to combat the telekinetic. He had yet to see her capabilities, so for all he knew she could be equal to him in power or skill. This was shown when she picked up Ellen, throwing her at him with a motion of her hand. It seemed like he would have to react to that, stopping her with a thought and letting her stay there suspended within the air for a moment. ”Theta, you’re in the way.” Alpha stated with a motion of a hand as she would be freed from his invisible grasp.

”I might have to cut this short, you’ve made this whole fight a little dangerous.” He wouldn’t play around with a fellow telekinetic, for he more than anyone knew how dangerous she could be. It seemed that his own attacks had been enough to make the woman scramble off, but not enough that he would chase after. He had faced someone that ran away, and they were only setting up traps. Another angry curse, drew Alpha’s attention to a rather familiar face that caused an annoyed growl to silently roll from his throat.

Zeta was busy whimpering about how now his head hurt because she had hit him pretty hard with something. “Goddammit, that is just not nice.” He growled, rubbing his head while pushing to his feet.

”You have an interesting time Miss Tamamoa. I assume you’re here to stop me from….well what I’m doing here.” He would have done something about her, but well he had someone else to deal with her. ”Sadly…I don’t have time to play. So I hope my stand in will do.” Almost as if following an unknown que, a thin but durable chain would fly out from Theta’s wrist, aiming to wrap around Danny’s throat and jerk her back.

Hiding behind a counter would not save the woman, as he tore a good portion out of it and tossed it aside. ”Hiding won’t do you any good. You could always just come with me like a good girl, save both of us so much trouble.” Not likely she would, and so he unleashed a psionic blast meant to incapacitate more than anything else.

"Okay, so I wonder how long this is actually going to take." Deathbringer wondered bemused as he continued to watch the battle between Alpha and Bliss. Alpha needed to hurry up and defeat her so that she could replaced with that android with a bomb in it already. That or get himself killed so that he could finish the job. Either or would work, honestly. Then again, there was always the option of taking them both out himself. Oh, he was liking the thought of that option.

The two of them kept throwing their attacks back and forth, and only the extras seemed to be taking any real damage. They were supposed to be helping their boss, but instead were just getting caught in the crossfire. It was almost comical watching them get knocked around so much. Oh hell with it, it's definitely funny. Jacob's moment of joy was nearly brought to an end when he saw Bliss attempting to escape. "That's no good. She can't be allowed to get away." he thought as he watched her try and get out of here. Alpha was actively trying to prevent her escape though. Good for him. Let's see how he does though. Perhaps it was finally time for him to step in.

A new development arose when someone else showed up. A young woman that seemed vaguely familiar to him. Alpha would refer to her as "Miss Tamamoa". Nope, not ringing any bells. Meh, he could figure it out later if need be. For now, it was time to get involved in this little confrontation. Deathbringer pulled out the handle of his sword and released its blade as he stepped out into the open. In the same motion that he emerged from the shadows, Deathbringer swung the blade to unleash something that tore through the air to slice apart the counter that Bliss was hiding behind, and possibly her too.

Something good started to move for Bliss. Alpha began lifting the counter in front of Bliss. By lifting it, he gave Bliss a perfect weapon to use against the pompous shit of telekinetic. As it moved closer to him, a smile formed over Bliss' lips as she started to roll under the counter and come up with a surprise blast directly into Alpha. "I wasn't hiding. I was waiting." Her plan fell apart as quickly as the counter did.

Once Deathbringer entered the fight with the slice of a sword, pieces of the counter fell down upon Bliss. Her blast missed, putting a hole in the wall and destabilizing a piece of the ceiling to fall towards the heads of Alpha and Ellen. "How many of you are there? Danny- oh shit." Bliss used a possibly ill advised telekinetic pull to loosen the chain around Danny's throat to save her young counterpart. With no shield available for her defense, Alpha sent his incapacitating blast towards her. Her attack faltered, no time to erect a defense, and a new combatant in the field, Bliss felt her odds change, and then she felt a blast of telekinetics take her senses from her.

Danny continued to struggle with the chain around her throat, but could only manage to give herself enough air to breath. A final rub of her bracelet gave her the leverage to snap the chain, but the exertion took a toll on Danny. She fell to her knees and watched the room spin in circles until it finally went black.

Ashley checked her phone again to see if Danny sent any new updates on the situation at hand. For the tenth time this minute no response came from either Bliss or Danny. Tugging at a loose strand on the table setting, Ashley pulled off enough string to wrap around her finger. A numbness came over as the finger turned to a purple. In the time it took for her finger to return to the regular flush of pink, Ashley checked her phone three times and received zero responses.

While Alpha felt as if he were doing well on his own, something told him that Deathbringer jumping it would have made this go along much easier. Yet he had a feeling that the meta-human would have preferred to have him die, despite the fact that he would likely have lost a lot of resources that his little gang was gaining from him. Luckily he had Ellen to deal with Danny by wrapping the chain around her throat, or rather she was trying to do so anyway. As the counter was torn up and thrown away, that gave his foe enough of a chance to counter while he was throwing it away. Time slowed down as he saw the woman moving, raising a hand to unleash a blast right at his face. With so little time to do anything, all Alpha could do was make a shield before his face that took enough of the force to prevent him being knocked out.

A crack ran across his mask, as well as a dull crunch through his nose, coppery blood beginning to run from his left nostril. He made a note not to let the woman hit him again, because even with protection she could do quite a bit of damage. Meanwhile Danny had managed to snap the chain, but fell to the ground tired. ”What’s wrong Danny, no snappy quips this time around?” Theta would snap as the broken chain would levitate within the air like two vipers, lashing out to wrap around Danny’s wrists and bind her up by pressing her to the ground.

”You are just making this weird.” Zeta noted with a frown standing to his feet.

Bliss was taken by the blast, if she was knocked out Alpha did not know. ”Well now.” Alpha noted with a smirk, turning towards the direction of Deathbringer who had decided to weigh in on the fight when it was nearly over. ”That just leaves you Danny, and the odds just aren’t in your favor.” he noted without arrogance, but he was confident enough in his victory.

"I have such good timing." Deathbringer muttered to himself after witnessing the results of his entrance into this battle. In just one move he turned the tide of this battle in his favor. He swung his sword to fire an aerokinetic attack, and it would lead to Bliss getting knocked unconscious. Granted it was Alpha that delivered the blow that rendered the crazy Asian heroine unconscious, but that mattered not for him. This part of the job was complete, and they could proceed to the next part.

Even though Bliss was out cold, the battle wasn't quite over. There was still the young woman known as "Tamamoa" to deal with. She didn't seem too keen on letting them harm Bliss. She also wasn't faring too well against the combined might of Alpha and his two lackeys. Deathbringer watched the little fight with vague amusement for a moment before addressing Alpha. "Do you have this under control? If so I'm going to go ahead and take our target back to the scaly woman that's paying all of us for this little gig."

Deathbringer finished talking to Alpha and started walking over to were Bliss now lay. He proceeded carefully just in case she wasn't actually unconscious and was playing possum. Now standing over her, Deathbringer would kneel down and grabb her by the back of her clothes and tried to lift her off the ground. Now, was she actually out cold? This will probably be the point that she takes action if she was faking. If not he would lift her over his shoulder and begin to carry her back to where their temporary employer and the bomb holding android were.