The house was amazing. No, the mansion was amazing. Dark, dead-looking trees hung over the grey, gloomy mansion. Torrents spiralled to the sky, ending in sharp points. Huge windows loomed down on me as I went and flew down next to the entrance.
I had decided to visit Mojo simply because it was the 10 year anniversary of the magnificent day when the villains won the war. People had died, people had suffered but we still won. We beat the Powerpuff Girls and we beat everyone. Villains reigned supreme and all the goody-goodies had finally bowed down before us.
My brother, Butch was the first one to be murdered. The green girl slit his throat. The dumb idiot was to busy killing my brother she didn't notice that her blond sister was being beaten to death by thugs and robbers.
It was fucking great I tell you. It was just excellent. Sure some of our guys bit the dust as well, but it was still freaking awesome. Sure Sedusa died a pretty gruesome death with that chainsaw, and Boomer had a rock dropped on his head, but…it was super fun.
There were a few survivors. Not many. Princess got out, she was the one that blasted the green puff dead. The Mayor had somehow made it out alive, although no one knows how the heck he did it. Of course Mojo survived, he did most of the damage. I don't know what happened to Him, I think he went back to Hell after we won.
But everyone else got it. The Professor, Miss Bellum, Fuzzy, the Gangreen Gang …everyone. We all remember how Fuzzy got blasted by his own boom-stick and how Mojo strangled the Professor to death.
But there was one person everyone whispered about. Blossom. What happened to her? Where is she now? But one thing for certain was that we had never, never seen the cool, calm leader go so crazy. When Buttercup went down right next to the Professor's corpse and Bubbles wrecked body. She went…she went psycho.
She killed Fuzzy. She killed Sedusa. She killed the Gangreen Gang. Dear God, she almost killed Him. But when we stood victorious, everyone defeated, she was no where to be seen. And we haven't seen her since.
As I looked up at the mansion's tall walls, I shook the thoughts away from my head. Mojo's lab was one of the first things to be destroyed so he went and moved into this house. He had kept himself locked inside it ever since we won. He didn't even join in the celebrations. Anti-social freak.
I knocked on the towering, wooden doors and waited. The sound of light pattering feet and then the creak of the door opening and I got a good look at my Dad Mojo Jojo.
He had gotten thinner. A lot thinner. The bags under his eyes had gotten more obvious and he had a lot of grey in his fur. I noticed that he was limping and remembered when Princess got the green brat the blast hit him in the leg as well.
We just looked at each for awhile. From the way Mojo was looking at me, I had changed a lot in the past 10 years as well.
"Come inside, Brick," he said and limped inside the huge mansion.
He lead me down the spiralling corridor and I had a good look around. There were oil paintings on the walls, all of them featuring long lost ancestors to whoever had previously owned the house. Beautifully painted vases and sculptures lined the walls. The carpet was a deep dusty red and so thick it was like walking through quicksand. There were no lights, only candles flickering along the walls.
I noticed at once, something very strange about Mojo. He was quiet. So quiet. My childhood memories of him was always of long rambling speeches and constant noise. But now, he hardly uttered a sound.
We walked up a flight of stairs and down 6 other claustrophobic corridors before we made it to the living room.
It was enormous with a towering ceiling and a chandelier hanging from the roof. A long cushy marron sofa sat in the middle of the room with a black coffee table in front of it. A huge empty fireplace stood in the corner of the room, even though it was freezing and a grand piano sat opposite. The curtains to the big bay window were shut.
"Sit down, Brick. Make yourself comfortable, snug and cosy. Relax for that is what I have told you to do and I would like to be obeyed, meaning I want you to do as I say, which means I want you to relax on the couch that I am referring to right now."
I can't explain how good that rambling speech made me feel. To see the normal Mojo back was just something I can't describe.
Mojo left to go to the kitchen and when he came back he had a few cans of beer and some cheese and crackers. I opened a beer and slugged it. Mojo followed suit.
We talked a lot. Talked of lost friends and dead enemies. We talked so much the sun started going down. Mojo asked if I'd stay the night. I nodded. He said there was a spare bedroom next to the bathroom.
"Have you ever wondered what happened to Blossom?" I had asked earlier that evening. But Mojo refused to talk of it.
The room were I slept in was icy cold. The bed was saggy and soft and the blankets were suffocatingly warm. I tossed and turned trying hard to fall asleep. But I just couldn't. A tree branch kept on whacking at the window and the moonlight shone in brightly on my face.
I heard a sound. A whispering, crooning lullaby. I recognized it as Mojo's voice. Why was he singing to himself?
I slowly got out of bed and shivered. The sound was beautifully creepy, haunting and soothing. I tentatively floated out into the corridor and looked down into the pitch blackness. I carefully took a candle from the wall, and peered around. There was a flight of stairs in the far left corner and the music was drifting down from it, so I made my way in that direction.
As I climbed up the stairs the sound grew nearer. I was getting close. As soon as I reached the top of the stairs I realized this was the top floor. The floor was brighter and less claustrophobic than the other corridors.
The song was floating out from a half-open door at the end of the corridor. I half-recognized the song, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was.
As I got closer to the door, I blew out my candle. I looked, trying to be as quiet as I could. I blinked.
Mojo was sitting on a four-poster bed stroking the hair of a young woman in her twenties. The girl's head was resting in his lap and he was singing gently to her. She was wearing a pale pink negligee and her hair was a vibrant orange which fell around her face.
But the thing that caught my attention was her face. Her face was eerily blank and her sleepy pink eyes looked like nothing was going on behind them. She looked like she hadn't had a proper thought in years.
Suddenly, abruptly Mojo stopped singing. I started and looked up from the dead-looking woman and up to Mojo. He was staring at me with the most terrifying fury I had ever seen.
I gasped and raced away as fast as I could. I flew down the stairs and into my room and buried my head under the covers. I felt like I was 5 again, that time I had burst into Mojo's room only to have him scream at me to leave at once. I thought I had would never see him that angry again, but after tonight I guess I was wrong.
Well it turns out I know what happened to the famous pink puff everyone whispered about.
The next morning I was dreading seeing Mojo. I knew I would have to face him sooner or later but the thought of it gave me nervous shivers.
Sooner or later my stomach got the better of me. I flew down into the kitchen to get some cereal.
When I went into the dining room I jumped. Mojo was reading the newspaper and sipping coffee. Maybe I could quietly go back to the kitchen before he…"Sit down Brick," his voice demanded. Too late.
I nervously sat down next to him. He was looking calm and peaceful. But I was still on edge.
"I see you have met Blossom," he said finally. I tried to say something but my mouth was all dry.
"As you may have realized, she isn't in a very fit mental state," he continued.
I ate a spoonful of cereal and tried not to make eye contact. "What happened to her?" I asked quietly. Seeing the once cocky and bright leader of the Powerpuff's so blank and empty creeped me out a lot.
Mojo stared at me as if I was insane. "What's wrong with her? Are you completely stupid? Do you no brain cells in your head? Is your head empty and not being able to see the blantly obvious? Unable to see what is right in front of your eyes?"
The monkey glared at him for a few seconds. "Blossom is a perfectionist. She always needs to have the best plan or the best work. Her ideas are always the better in her eyes and she strives to be excellent at everything she does."
Here Mojo took another sip of his coffee. "10 years ago she failed at the most important things in her life. She failed at protecting her family. She failed at protecting the innocent. She failed at being both a sister and a leader."
I remembered the insanity that exploded through her when she saw her only family dead on the ground. She had gone psychotic.
"I found her a day later near the railway tracks. She had seemed to not be able to use her magic abilities anymore. And in the past 10 years she's stayed with me I have never, ever heard her speak a word."
I looked at him, confusion slowly dawning on me.
"Why'd you take her in? I thought you hated her?" I asked.
Mojo flinched when I said that. He slowly turned away from me.
"I would like you to leave now Brick," he said.
Five minutes later Mojo had told me not to come back anytime soon and slammed the door in my face. I stared for a few minutes. Looking up at to the top of the house I saw a dark silhouette in the window. The shape was brushing its hair.
As I flew off, leaving the gloomy grey mansion behind me, I knew I would never mention a word to the other villains about this.
That night when I was in my bed I suddenly realized where I had heard the lullaby from. When I was 5 and Boomer was having nightmares Mojo would sometimes but not often sing him back to sleep. The song that sent my babyish brother nodding off was creepily beautiful and soothing.
But we never mentioned this song to anyone. Not even to each other. Ever.