Guacamole is for Winners (Penny and Chase)

"Hey, company's always appreciated" Chase told her as he walked into the arcade. Once in, he turned into sound, the glasses and clothes he was wearing falling to the floor. He quickly returned to the world of the solid, wearing his friction resistant suit he had put on before leaving the hotel. He pulled the sleeves down until he could put the gloves over his hands, followed by putting his mask over his head.

He came out of the arcade before Danny did. After waiting for Penny to put the robots in front of the hole in the building's wall, she walked over and placed her hand on both of their shoulders. Before Chase knew it, he had been teleported. He lost his balance, and for a brief moment, he was blind. The environment around him went from being the arcade and the beach, then he suddenly didn't know what was around him.

After a moment of gaining his bearings, he responded to Penny saying "I could be in and out of all these buildings in a flash, but I don't need to do that. Chase paid close attention to the buildings surrounding them. "I don't know about the 'dangerous' chemicals, but there's a girl in shackles in that building" he said, pointing to the building to his right.

Danny tugged on the sleeve of her super suit as she stepped out from Penny's office. Never before had she ever seen so many retro posters for games she never heard- or at least she assumed they were real. With this ladies hobbies and skills, anything could be true. "Wait what?" A hand wrapped around her waist and Danny- and luckily her lunch, made a time distorting leap to a new location. Actually, forget about the losing lunch comment; it just hit a trash can like a tsunami.

None of the side effects slowed down Chase. Before she could even begin to take bearing on the two buildings shadowing them, Chase made his way back with his report. No chemicals, but he found Bliss. "I was kind of hoping it was the other way around, but maybe Bliss will know where those things are."

Three floors beneath the Earth, more of the robots began to move the barrels of chemicals towards an industrial microwave. Half the vats lined the floor of the cylindrical device, leaving just enough room for the movement of robots to bring in more chemicals, while Bliss and Ashley sat off to the side of the crates, wrapped together with plastic wrap and the metallic shackles still containing their powers.

Each of the robots kept its attention towards the movement of certain death for the city, but would not mind taking a break to give the ole 'kill all humans!' a try. Even robots got bored after all. Still outside of the scope of the room remained anyone with a pulse or body temperature somewhere in the high nineties though.

Penny let out a long whistle at Danny’s impressive vomiting skills, as she lost her lunch upon arrival to the factory. “You ok there Blastoise?” she asked jokingly before turning back to Chase who had produced results faster than she had anticipated. She gave Chase a pat on the shoulder as she casually strolled past him and over to the wall of the factory build. “You’re sure this is the right building?” She didn’t bother waiting for a response, instead she placed her palm to the wall and let out a small chuckle.

“Well if they didn’t know that we were here before, they sure as hell will now.” there was a sudden gust of wind that seemed to originate from the wall that Penny was touching, before there was a bright flash of light followed instantly with a loud bang as Penny blew the wall wide open with an orb made of light. Penny turned around to face the two teens with a large smile on her face, as if she was impressed with her destructive actions. Conveniently, just beyond the wall that Penny had obliterated, was a staircase. Seeing as she was the adult, and held herself accountable for the safety of Danny and Chase, Penny stepped onto the landing first, before deciding that down was the way to go, and simply motioned for the two to follow her.

She continued to follow the staircase downwards into the belly of the factory until there were no more stairs to follow. All that sat before them was a metal door, which once again, Penny chose to kick in with her impressive strength, rather than opening it like a normal human being. The door blow off its hinges from the impressive kick and flew across the room, before smacking into one of the robots that was enroot to retrieve another barrel of chemicals. Both bot and door crashed into a wall on the far side of the room, before Penny walked into to see the villainous operation in the midst of being executed.
“well I’ll be damned” she mumbled as her eyes gazed at the room filled with murderbots, and barrels of dangerous chemicals.

"I've found that to be how most of my operations go, so it won't be anything new to me." The breath within her gut collapsed upon itself, sending an uneasy feeling throughout Danny's body. "That teleport thing you did however. We need to talk about when and- well, you should never do that again." It took more resolve than she would hope, but Danny eventually got herself moving behind Penny. " You seem pretty confidant about this, but we do need to make sure we save-" Most of Danny's words disappeared from her own mind as Penny kicked the door well into the room. "Damn."

Protocol Kill all Human became more localized. And focused. Lasers fired with the precision of stormtroopers into the large turquoise shield Danny used to keep herself uncooked. Following the path of most resistance, Danny continued to reinforce her shield as best she could while working her way towards the corner of the room Bliss and Ashley occupied in their tied up state. Exposing them to robot fire would make for the worst hostage rescue in history, so Danny did her best to open up a line of offense by manifesting a turquoise crossbow and firing rounds towards the robots ever chance she could find herself not taking a daunting amount of fire.

Two robots went down, but the rounds continued with almost no stop. "Over here!" Ashley called out, trying to wiggle a little from Bliss, but the plastic keeping her sealed up tightly. "There's a lip you duck into, the robots can't shoot in."

"Jesus, Danny have you put on weight?" Bliss kept her eyes glued on Danny as she continued to use her phalanx to bypass the death barrage.

Danny placed her back against the wall while gazing down at the danger bound duo. "Bliss, I don't even know what to-"

Yet again Danny found it hard to sum up her feelings, but this time it came a little more physically. "Someone else wants a first row seat to the show I guess." A slender elbow with a metal pad pulled back from the hit to Danny's throat. Her knee drove into Danny's lower ribs, knocking air from Danny's lungs and leaving her open to an effortless toss to the ground by Viper.

"Stop sneak attacking people and acting like you're all that!" Ashley spoke up trying to kick at Viper's ankles, but failing in any attempt to even look effective.

"I can't wait til the two of you are silent for good." Viper delivered a swift kick to Danny's knee. "And now that you mention it, after reading up on Danny's file, she might have put on some weight. It made her slow, but maybe it will soak up some of the hit." Viper smiled as the raised her leg to bring it down on Danny's back.

Penny’s first thought was to charge in and start wrecking the place, after all that’s what she had been doing up to this point, the rules of the game had changed however. Where everything up to this point had just been minor obstacles with no real danger, Penny was now staring down a room full of highly dangerous chemicals and lined with plenty of murder bots. If that wasn’t enough, Penny also had to now consider the safety of Danny, Chase, Bliss, and Ashley. She couldn’t do anything to rash or extreme, if it were to place any of them in danger.  

Just as Penny was ready to formulate a plan, she noticed Danny was missing. Her crystal blue eyes began looking frantically till she spotted the young girl marching across the room towards the two hostages. The robots had their sights set on the moving target, completely oblivious to Penny. With the whole room distracted, Penny saw it as an opportunity to get the drop on the bots. She darted through the doorway and with the swing of her arm, she sent a disk of hard light arching through the air.

The force of her throw caused the disk to cleave clean through the heads of three of the murder bots, before ricocheting off a fourth one and finally coming to a rest lodged in the head of a fifth one. “Who needs aim bot when you’ve got a cannon for an arm.” she mumbled to herself before turning her gaze back to see if Danny had been successful in reaching Bliss and Ashley, only to find a mysterious woman hovering over a downed Danny.

Without wasting time, Penny gave a monstrous kick off the ground and launched herself at the mysterious woman, like a human cannon ball. Penny aimed to shoulder check the woman, which would hopefully knock her a good distance away. To ensure she got the maximum effect of her charge, Penny formed a small barrier of solid light around herself midflight.

"You're worst than Bliss!" Danny felt her face impact into the ground with the force of a boot on her back.

"Hey! She is not- um," Bliss retained her sharp brows, but let her jaws drop as she searched for words. "Thanks?"

While the boot held her pinned, it failed to completely grasp her center of gravity, allowing Danny to shift her back and let Viper's legs slide off her back. "Wasn't a compliment Oh Blissful One." Her hand wrapped around Viper's ankle just as Penny slammed into the bullying combatant. Not wanting her prey to go so easily, Danny wrapped her kung fu grip around Viper's ankle and held on for the ride.

It was a three slam fight. Viper slammed into the wall. Danny's fist slammed into Viper's jaw. Danny slammed Viper into the wall. Maybe a three and a half slam fight, but when Viper slid down the wall, it made Danny forget who was even counting. "Good thinking Pen- Oh my god!" Two of Danny's knuckles no longer looked visible; instead two black and blue marbles appeared to grow to form the bridge of her fist.

"Danny are you okay?" Ashley peeked to try and see Danny's plight.

"Danny, get over here and untie us." No need to turn her head at all. Bliss knew exactly what needed to be done and who needed to do it.

"I think I broke my hand- and are we about to die still?" The bots all sat in organized heaps of rubble, but the vats still sat front and center in the microwave device. "Bliss, how do you break a microwave?"

"It came like that! I didn't do anything-"

"How does it work and how do I make it not work?" Danny began to form a large pillar of turquoise energy to take care of what ever Bliss told her.

"It uses vacuum tubes to generate microwaves, but hey, that thing looks expensive and steal-able, so maybe you go easy on it and those chemicals too." The argument Bliss made fell on the deaf ears, but her advice rang loud and clear.

"Penny! Break that thing real good!" Danny pointed as she assisted with her turquoise constructs to attempt to skewer the giant microwave.

"Well, I guess no one gets what they want today."

A heavy breath escaped from Danny's lungs as she continued to push her effort into stopping the chemicals from catalyzing. "Bliss, I'm about to find a roll of duct tape just so I make sure I don't kill you after I save you."

Penny did a slight fist bump as her shoulder check sent Viper flying straight for the wall, a look of surprise and shock however replaced the smile on her face as Danny went along for the ride before burring her fist in the baddies jaw. Penny looked on slightly dumbfounded as Viper’s body fell limply to the ground. “That was one hell of a combo we jus- OH, HOLY SHIT!” Penny spouted seeing the state of the teens knuckles after the whole altercation. All Penny could do was sit there with her hand over her mouth *That has to hurt like a mother…* she thought to herself.

Danny’s tenacity seemed to know no bounds, as she completely ignored the condition her hand was in, all in favor of sticking true to their main objective, or at least the one with the highest priority, which was the dismantling of the large industrial microwave. Danny wouldn’t have to tell Penny twice to smash the machine to pieces, wrecking stuff was the one thing she excelled at more than videogames. She drew her arm back and began to form an orb of light in her palm, before it abruptly faded and she snapped around to face Danny “Hey! Who’s the adult here?”

She shook her head with a slight smile on her face as she turned back to face the microwave. This time however, her stance had changed, instead of having her arm drawn back, it hovered by her waist like if she was in some sort of old fashioned shootout from a wild west flick. “DRAW!” she shouted before pointing both hands, mimicking pistols, at the chemical filled microwave and opening fire on it with a barrage of golf ball sized projectiles from her fingertips. Penny let off a full salvo of shots until she was satisfied with the microwaves imitation of swiss cheese.
“that’s for my damn arcade” she spouted off before launching one more blast of hardened light at the machine.

"I will admit you're older than me, but playing video games all day may or may not disqualify you as being an-" Just as a hum began to rise up from the machine, a roar burst from Penny's imaginary guns. Well, the beams held some substance to them, but her fingers would not register with ATF, even though someone should probably look into what Penny used those things for. "You couldn't just shoot the thing that was about to destroy part of the city?"

"Most of the city." Bliss stopped trying to force her escape. "Like, a considerable amount more than just what you probably think would be destroyed with a microwave and some-"

A turquoise blade grew from Danny's hand, allowing her to saw through the plastic wrap. "So more than just starting a small fire so you need to redo your kitchen?"

"Watch it, Tamamoa." Bliss slid her hands under her legs and pulled them around her shackled ankles to give herself a little more room to exert a little control. "Just cause you broke into Ramona Flower's nerd lounge doesn't mean you get to start throwing around advice and whatnot."

"Just be quiet for a minute. We're going to get out of here with that lady over there for questioning and we're going to go for a not so fun ride." Danny turned to Penny with a grimace, still holding her swollen hand. "Is there any chance the second time is less terrible?"

Satisfied with her work, Penny turned away from the machine and made her way over to the two hostages. “Just cause I run an arcade doesn’t mean I play games all day.” she said with a smirk approaching Ashley, and using her freakish strength to tear apart the plastic wrap. She peered out from behind the chair and looked at Danny with a smile on her face “eight hours give or take” she said shaking her hand side to side as if unsure of the exact number, she also gave a slight chuckle at her own joke. After opening the arcade her play time had dropped considerably, and these days it was all about maintaining a respectable business.

Penny helped Ashley out of the chair before turning to Bliss with a gasp “First off…rude, second off, you still owe me.” she said giving a slight pout before turning to address Danny’s concerns about fast traveling from their location. She gave the girl a slight pat on the back “That depends, was that all you had left in the tank?” Penny said pointing upward with her thumb referring dazzling display that had occurred when they arrived. Penny gave their girl a reassuring wink, the teleport wasn’t that bad the second time around.

After gathering everyone together in a tightknit group Penny looked them over “Alright everyone, make sure your holding your partners hand, wouldn’t want anyone to get lost along the way now would we?” she said jokingly before making sure everyone was sharing contact in some way before placing a hand on Danny’s shoulder and *poof*

In the blink of an eye, they would find themselves right in front of Penny’s arcade. Almost instinctively she stepped back away from everyone, just in case they felt the need to decorate the pavement with their lunch.

The second trip actually felt worse for Danny. Most of her access lunchage painted the floor of the lab they just infiltrated, but a good dry heave felt in order. Bliss tumbled to the ground, rolling over on her back with her legs in the air to make any attempt at gaining some balance.

"That really sucked." Ashley kept her head pressed against the ground to balance herself out until she realized how gross the floor looked. "Bliss! Get off the ground!"

"What?!" The surroundings outside of the grimy little arcade gave Bliss every reason to hate her rescue. "Dammit! This outfit is new. And cute!" Bliss popped up to a sitting position with the shackles on her ankles still keeping her powers subdued and her legs from moving. "Get these things off!"

"Not until you pay for the arcade you wrecked!" A letter from the sign above the store crashed to the ground.

"There is a criminal laying within earshot of this stupid conversation who could pay for all of the damages, but you're attacking the hero by refusing to let me out of bindings, which makes you seem kinda shady in all of-"

"Bliss! Stop being belligerent! Danny! Unlock us now!" Ashley grew tired of the fiasco, as well as the looks their outfits and unwanted accessories drew.

Feeling obliged by a more reasonable argument yelled from a different perspective, Danny gave her bracelet a quick rub and produced a construct within their shackles, cracking the locks and allowing the duo to finally make their way to freedom.

"Just so everyone is clear-" Bliss rubbed her tender wrists. "I'm not paying for anything, because this is your own fault!" Bliss used both hands to point at Danny and Penny, splitting the blame.

Penny felt just the teensiest bit bad, that Danny had a rough experience with fast travel twice. In all honesty, it took Penny a while to adjust to the sensation, when she first learned of the power. She couldn’t quite see why Ashley and Bliss were calling the ground filthy, Penny had paid extra to have a crew come out every other week and clean the sidewalk, so the only filth they could have been looking at was most likely some gum, and left over bits from the robots, that the teens and Penny had smashed earlier.

What really got Penny was the fact that no sooner did Danny go off on Bliss about paying for the damages to the arcade, one of the large neon letters came crashing down. Penny wasn’t even sure how that was possible considering the bots had only punched holes in the roof and the side of the building. The resounding bang seemed to extinguish all life within Penny as she just stood there in silence, as if her very being had left her body, and all that remained was an empty husk. She snapped out of her trance when Bliss began placing blame on Danny and Penny. She turned to Bliss with a rather blank expression.

“Maybe you should take a few classes on how not to get caught. Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation now would we? And don’t drag Danny down, she did nothing wrong either.”

She walked over to the unconscious Viper and picked her up, before turning back to Bliss again with the same look on her face.
“It’s nice to know this is the thanks I get for saving your sorry behind, and the city to.” Penny’s words had a sort of defeated tone to them, as she began sulking back to her arcade, with the villain in hand. She had poured a lot of effort into building this place up to what it was, and seeing it in a damaged state made her slightly depressed, knowing that it would be a little while before she could reopen the arcade for business.

As Penny walked away after her interjection in the always terrible post battle negotiations with Bliss, Danny decided to take it to another level. If Penny felt downtrodden over this, an overblown battle on new grounds would only make things worse. So Danny decided to fall on her sword. "Bliss. Your outfit is very nice. Would you please take care of-"

"No. This is-"

"Danny, we're going to take care of this. Don't worry." Ashley stepped over the unconscious villain and walked after Penny. "We're both very sorry about the damage done to your establishment, but we are both very, VERY, grateful you could help us save the city- and our butts." The more diplomatic of the two looked into the arcade to see the damage looked pretty bad. "I'm not sure if we can use this place for a meetup point again since- well you were here when it was found out, but we might still need you in the future since I don't know if Danny could have done this without you. Bliss and I would like that, wouldn't we Bliss?"

A pair of crossed arms waited as Bliss muttered something and gave a roll of her eyes.

"Wouldn't we Bliss!" Ashley sharpened up.

"Yes. If we are measuring success by the city not being blown up and the perpetrators being brought to justice-"

"Um, yeah, we are, because that is what happened." Danny kept her hands on her hips as her head turned to Bliss.

"You saved the city. And you saved me and Ashley, so- thank you."

Ashley lit up hearing Bliss give thanks. "Was that so hard?"

"Yes! It was." Bliss let her arms drop as posture dropped.

Penny’s eye little up like twinkling stars when she was met with Ashley’s kind words. At least one of the two former hostages was willing to acknowledge the help they had been given. Penny couldn’t really hold anything against Bliss, that’s just how she was, difficult and often rude, but still an overall good person. Penny did agree though, having a meeting location was a good idea when Bliss had originally brought it up when she placed the original tracker/ briefing protocol in the Qbert machine, but a popular and often packed arcade posed some concerns, case and point being the attack that had occurred earlier.

The enthusiastic arcade owner was always willing to be of assistance, so at the prospect of being called on in the future, she gave a nod to Ashley, before shooting a death glance at Bliss
“Of course! You can always count on me” she finished by looking back to Ashley with a big grin on her face.

Penny’s gaze shifted to the inside of her arcade and the few knocked over machines, and mess left behind by the panicked patrons, it was definitely going to take a while for her to clean up the mess, and she wasn’t entirely expecting the others to help her with the cleanup. She turned to face Danny, Bliss, and Ashley.
“Well I should probably get to cleaning this place up a bit. Place needs to be spotless for tomorrow. What about you guys?” She said as she stood one of the knocked over cabinets back up with one hand. She was certain they had better things to do than just sit around and watch her clean.

If looks could kill, Bliss would have died long ago. Same thing with death traps, lawsuits, and offbeat villains, but Bliss kept on surviving to spite them all. "Those people suck."

"What?" Ashley pressed her hand against the door frame, keeping herself from entering the wrecked arcade.

"Nothing. Let's clean a place!" Bliss got her attention focused on a row of damaged game cabinets Danny began trying to fix up. "Danny! You're doing it wrong."

Ashley stood in the door looking over to some downed cabinets. Telekinesis took hold and pulled the downed machines back into place. A broom levitated into her hand while a second one levitated over and patted Bliss on the back. "Bliss, you're doing it wrong."

The cleanup took a few hours, as the four moved arcade machines back into place, and swept up or vacuumed most of the debris that lay scattered about the floor. The Arcade was in a decent enough state that Penny would be able to open for business the next day, but for obvious reasons, the holes in the roof and the one in the wall remained untouched.

Penny let out a small sigh of relief, she wasn’t entirely sure if she’d have the place in working condition, but the addition of three pairs of extra hands to help out made it possible. All that was left was to thank the three for helping her out. She gathered Danny, Bliss, and Ashley in the center of the arcade.

“Thanks a bunch, you three. I really appreciate all the help.” She looked the three over, stopping her gaze on Bliss, and gave her a polite nod. All things considered, they were even….for now. The four remained in the arcade for a while longer, discussing the fate of the unconscious villain they had apprehended earlier, before agreeing to let Bliss and Ashley deal with Viper. With their business all wrapped up Penny bid farewell to Bliss, Ashley, and Danny as they all walked down the sidewalk and out of site.

Penny returned to her arcade and headed up a flight of stairs located in the back of the storage room, and into her small flat about the arcade, where she eventually plopped down on the couch and passed out after watching tv for a little while. Today was one hell of a busy day for the eccentric arcade owner / proud hero and she wouldn’t ask for anything less.

Fin…..