Hey guys! Christmas is almost here, and I'm hoping to release something Christmas themed in time for December 25th. Until then, I hope Chapter 6 will do.

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 6

Foghorn

It started as a pinpoint of light, brilliant and twinkling. Slowly, the light expanded, ripping space apart as it grew into a ring of sparking blue flames. Three women stepped through the portal onto the rooftop of the Townsville Beach Hotel.

The first woman, Bubbles, was the creator of the portal. She was in a silver full-body suit, skin tight and seamless, and in her hand, she held what looked like a wand with a glowing bulb at the end of it. She pointed it over her shoulder, and the portal winked away with a sound like radio static.

The second woman, Buttercup, was in a large black trench coat that seemed to have a mind of its own. It undulated in seeming defiance to the strong winds on the roof, clutching onto her small frame with a nearly humorous desperation.

And the third woman who was, of course, Blossom, was standing between them. She had opted for not changing out of her old duds, her costume from a bygone era when she was just starting out as Liberty Belle. Hence the swimsuit design, the large gloves, and the Timberland sneakers; they made her look like she'd been cut out of an outdated magazine.

Together, they walked to the edge of the roof and surveyed their surroundings twelve-floors from the ground.

The skies were hidden behind rolling, grey clouds, and the entirety of the beachfront seemed washed out, colour-graded in monochrome. Fast winds vexed the sea into a frenzy; it spat and roared with every crash against the ashen sand. And the air was thick with fog. They could barely see beyond the shore.

"I remember this place being a lot cheerier," said Buttercup.

"Is this weather natural?" said Bubbles, lifting her gaze to the clouds, and blinking when a drop of water plopped onto her eyelid.

"Probably not," said Blossom. "Give me a second."

And with x-ray vision, she pierced the veil of the fog. "Shit," she murmured.

"What is it?" said Buttercup, and there were traces of excitement in her voice.

"A giant robot," said Blossom.

"Oh," said Buttercup, her excitement deflating.

Bubbles raised a brow. "But that's what we expected, isn't it?"

"Yes," Blossom said. "But that robot is being led by at least a hundred boats, each with three to five Sons of Mojo armed to the teeth. That's at least three hundred foot soldiers."

"Three hundred foot soldiers?" Buttercup said, a little taken aback.

Blossom turned off her x-ray vision to look at her sisters. "It's an incoming invasion."

There was silence between them for a moment. Then Buttercup's lips spread into a wicked grin. Her eyes gleamed with malice. "Three hundred foot soldiers," she repeated under her breath. Blossom threw her a concerned look.

"Who are the Sons of Mojo anyway?" said Bubbles. "You mentioned them at home. I assume they're not the actual sons of Mojo?"

"No," said Blossom, "but they might as well be. They're an army of hyper-intelligent apes Mojo himself bred before disappearing. No one's sure what happened to him. He might have died from grief when he heard about the Professor's death, or travelled to the stars like Bubbles did. Either theory, plus a dozen others, are equally plausible. Anyway, the Sons treat him like a god, and they're fighting for a world where mankind has been eradicated and ape-kind is the globally dominant species."

"So…Planet of the Apes then?" said Bubbles.

Blossom shrugged. "Pretty much. Anyway, the robot's manipulating the weather; probably pumping sea water and transforming it into this fog."

"They wanted to hide the fact that they were coming in their numbers," said Bubbles.

"Exactly. Dammit." Blossom's lips stretched into a thin line, as she unlocked her phone to open the Liberty Alert app. "That also means the classification everyone got was wrong. This isn't a red alert. It's a—"

The red hazard symbol on her screen morphed into a pulsating black skull, just as the air was filled with a blaring, sonorous noise. The sound seemed to reverberate everything around them, from the skies above to the marrow in their own bones.

"An invasion," Blossom finished.

"Excuse me!" someone yelled behind them.

The sisters turned to see a man in a suit with his hands on his hips, looking worried. Behind him, security personnel waited by the roof access. He walked towards Blossom, casting Bubbles and Buttercup confused looks as he did.

"Johnson," he said loudly over the foghorn, shaking Blossom's hand. "I'm the hotel manager."

"Hey. How do you do?"

"Not great at the moment," he said, folding his arms in an attempt to mask his anxiety. "Would love an explanation as to why a red alert just got upgraded to a black alert."

"I'm guessing you didn't evacuate the hotel?" said Blossom.

"It was a red alert. We didn't think it was necessary. But now—"

"I understand. The fog misled all of us."

"It's off season, but I've still got about five hundred guests here. I don't know if we can clear everybody out in time. Do we still need to?"

"Better safe than sorry," said Blossom. "Go back inside, and try to get everyone to gather on the compound. We have a plan."

Johnson nodded and strode off, disappearing through the roof access with his security guards.

"We have a plan?" said Bubbles.

"Standard protocol," said Blossom. "We need to end this."

"Duh," said Buttercup.

"No, E.N.D. as in E-N-D. E for 'evacuate civilians from the danger zone', N for 'neutralize the threat', and D for 'detain the suspects'. That means no killing." She gave Buttercup a look.

"What are you looking at me for?" Buttercup snapped. "I was a monster hunter, not a serial killer."

"This isn't like when we were kids," said Blossom. "We're accountable to the people, and to the courts. We screw things up and we could face jail time."

Bubbles smiled and cocked her head. "Things sure have gotten complicated since we left huh?"

"Things have…" Blossom paused grimly to find the right word. "Evolved." She looked at Bubbles. "How fast are you?"

"You want me to evacuate the hotel," said Bubbles. It wasn't a question.

"We need to move them as far away from the beach front as possible."

"You know I'm not the Flash right? When I move like that, I'm not actually moving fast. And there are limits to how long I can slow down time."

"Give me a run down."

"I have three gears. My first gear slows down time by 0.5 for ten to fifteen seconds with a one second cool down. Second gear slows down time by 0.25 for five to ten seconds with a three second cool down. And my third gear: 0.125 for a maximum of three seconds with a five second cool down."

"And your max speed at normal time flow?" Blossom asked.

"I've clocked maybe a hundred miles per hour?"

"That's more than enough," said Blossom. "Use the second gear. That should bring your relative speed up to—"

"Four hundred miles per hour," they said together.

"Nerds," Buttercup muttered.

"Be right back," said Bubbles, as blue sparks filled the space around her. In a blink, she was gone.

"Alright," said Blossom, turning to Buttercup. "You can help me with the foot soldiers before the mecha gets here."

"Help you?" Buttercup smirked. "Jesus, you really are full of yourself huh?"

Blossom rolled her eyes to the heavens and ran her hands over her face. "Oh my God, seriously? Are you going to take offence at everything I say?"

"The apes are mine," said Buttercup.

"Really?" Blossom said dully. "You're going to fight three hundred plus soldiers on your own?"

"If Bubbles and I weren't here, would you have taken them on your own?"

"That's not the…that's different! I'm—"

"Stronger than us?" said Buttercup. "I'll only say this one more time." And as she spoke, a green aura began to envelop her body, emerald flames licking at her flesh and lifting the strands of her hair like she was in zero gravity. "This isn't ten years ago, and I'm not that powerless little girl anymore."

A plate of green glass formed beneath Buttercup's feet, and Blossom watched it lift her off the roof and carry her down; across the swimming pool and the gazebos, over the chain-linked fence and down the cliff side, towards the vast belt of beach sand.

Buttercup landed gently on the ground, her hands summoning twin swords of green light as she did. The first boats had just started to arrive on the shore, and the apes—in their camouflage uniforms with weapons strung across their backs—had begun climbing out. They noticed Buttercup and stopped in confusion.

"I won't use a single spell on you," she said to them, as she spread her feet apart, assuming a fighting stance. "You aren't worth the trouble."

One of apes swung his rifle around, and Buttercup shot towards him, flitting across the sand in a haphazard zigzag. The air exploded with gunfire, but the bullets ricocheted off the face of her sword, which she was spinning in front of her like an industrial fan. Her other blade sank through the rifle, a hot knife through butter, and then divided it into several pieces like diced salami. She smashed her forehead into the ape's nose, immediately snuffing out his consciousness. She twirled around, delivering powerful kicks to the other two apes who had shared a boat with him. Apes from a nearby boat opened fire on her, but she'd already leapt into the air. She fell upon them swinging.

Buttercup was a marvel to behold. She zipped to and fro, swinging her blades so swiftly that it looked like she was trapped in a nest of bright green arcs. Apes yelled and screamed as they were relieved off their weapons and knocked out with elbows to their faces, kicks to their chests, and hilts to their necks. She moved farther into the water to meet the incoming boats, her feet planted firmly upon the surface of the sea. She didn't sink. She glided like a surfer by magic, her blades growing in length to rip through the wooden hulls and sink the soldiers into the cold water. Occasionally, her left-hand sword would morph into a chain and she'd wrap it around an ape's neck, yanking him into the air with her so she could collide a knee with his face. Some of the apes started diving into the water in a wild panic, but even they weren't spared; a kick across the face was all it took to take them out. Bodies upon bodies started to wash up on the sand. Blossom counted a little more than a hundred unconscious apes in the sand from her place on the roof. It was a disconcerting sight.

A burst of electrical energy and Bubbles was back, standing next to Blossom.

"What is she doing?" Bubbles said. "Is she taking them all on her own?"

Blossom sighed. "Yup."

"Hmm. She's taking damage," said Bubbles matter-of-factly.

Blossom only shrugged.

Not all of Buttercup's attacks were flawless. The farther she travelled into the water, the more apes with whom she had to contend at a time. The waves were angrier too, and it was harder for her to control her movements with every swell and collapse of the sea. Bullets were finding her flesh, even if only by grazing it. A laser cannon blasted her off her feet, and she sank beneath the waves for a few seconds. But then she was back, bursting out of her would-be salty grave with a glassy kusarigama. She spun the chain-sickle over her head, and fired it at the holder of the cannon. The chain wrapped itself around the ape, the sickle attached to it sinking into his right breast. He shrieked as Buttercup wrenched him out of the boat and met his face with a chain-wrapped fist. One of the apes had a harpoon gun for some reason, and his aim was true. The harpoon went clean through Buttercup's shoulder, and she cried out in pain…a second before grabbing the harpoon's rope and using it as a tether to streak across the water and smash a light-construct axe through the boat.

The unconscious bodies on the beach were increasing in number. It was almost two hundred now, and there were more apes flailing in the water.

"Whoops," said Bubbles, pointing down. "Some of them got past her."

A few of the apes had managed to escape Buttercup's rampage, and were now sprinting across the sand towards the city.

Bubbles turned to Blossom. "May I?"

Blossom shrugged half-heartedly. "Why not?"

Bubbles disappeared with a burst of bright blue lightning. Soon, she had reappeared on the beach, and was flickering here and there, taking out the apes Buttercup had missed.

Blossom watched her sisters make short work of the Sons of Mojo. And slowly, but only very slowly, like a tea bag steeped in cold water, her mild irritation was suffused with pride. She started to wonder, if it was finally time for her to let go of her guilt. A decade ago, after that…catastrophe…what a nasty surprise it had been, realizing what she had done, what her hubris had caused. To retain her powers while her sisters had lost most of theirs. To see Buttercup, who had arguably been the proudest of their abilities, who had relished the sweat and the pain and the heat of battle, who had been the most reluctant to participate in Blossom's little experiment, be affected the hardest. Reduced to almost human. It was a miracle to see what she was capable of now. Her sister was a badass mother—

A beam of pure white light cut through the fog to hit Buttercup, and the explosion was audible over the foghorn, a pillar of sea water rising several meters at the point of impact.

"BUTTERCUP!" Blossom screamed. She blasted off the rooftop.

Buttercup's body was like a ragdoll, twisting and turning through the air towards the sand. Blossom caught her mid-air and floated down with her body. Bubbles was already there to meet her, as she laid Buttercup carefully on the ground.

"Is she okay?" said Bubbles.

"Shit, I knew this was a bad idea!" Blossom said. "Buttercup, can you hear me?"

Buttercup's flesh was red all over, a deep rouge underneath her skin, like she had been stuck in a giant microwave. And her cuts and bruises were a lot worse up close. She was bleeding all over.

Angry tears flowed down Blossom's face. "She's such a dumbass! What was she trying to prove?"

Bubbles had Buttercup's wrist in her hands. "I feel a pulse. At least, she's alive. I saw her put up some kind of barrier before the beam hit. I'm sure she'll be—"

Buttercup's eyes flashed open.

"Buttercup!" Blossom gasped.

But Buttercup's eyes were unfocused, fixed on something that neither of her sisters could see.

"No," Buttercup whispered, as her eyes started to glow blood red. "No, don't let him…please, don't let…" she croaked, writhing.

"Don't let who?" Blossom said. "What're you talking about?"

"Um, Blossom…" Bubbles said, showing her Buttercup's hand.

A tattoo of a ram's head had appeared on Buttercup's wrist, and crescent marks were beginning to form, spreading down her forearm.

"This is for sure out of my wheelhouse," said Bubbles.

"Buttercup? Snap out of it, Buttercup!" Blossom said, shaking her sister.

"Run," Buttercup moaned. Her voice had gone polyphonic, and the second voice overlaying hers was deeper, darker. "You have to run…"

Blossom gave Bubbles a desperate look and then, drawing her hand back, she smacked Buttercup across the face.

Buttercup passed out again and the black markings on her arm faded away. The sisters stared at her breathlessly, only exhaling again when they were sure the weird phenomenon was over.

"What the hell was that?" Bubbles asked.

"I don't know," said Blossom, standing up. "But we're done playing games."

She rose through the air, drifting towards the sea. The mecha was finally here, a three hundred metre monstrosity made of an amalgamation of metal alloys. It looked like an over-fed cyclops, bulky and lumbering, with a pulsating white orb in its torso. Blossom floated towards the mecha.

The white eye started to glow, releasing a sound like a hundred million angry hornets. Giant exhausts on its shoulders released streams of steam, as the colossal machine began powering up to fire the same beam that had put Buttercup out of commission.

Blossom didn't flinch. She just kept floating towards the mecha.

Then, with a piercing squeal, the mecha released its beam at Blossom.

And Blossom…swatted it away with her hand. The beam bounced off her knuckles, streaking across the sky like a bolt of lightning.

Bubbles blinked in disbelief from the ground.

Then Blossom flew up. Up, up, up, towards the darkened skies. She broke through the grey ceiling of cloud cover, flying higher and higher still, until she was a speck in the infinite blue of the stratosphere. Then she drew a fist back, and started to plummet.

Her body was a meteor, wrapped in wind resistance and fire. A ring of displaced atmosphere boomed behind her as she broke the sound barrier. She slashed across the sky, leaving a vibrant red trail of excess energy and chasing cloud in her wake.

The cyclops looked up just in time.

It was like a hydrogen bomb. Blossom's punch pinned the mecha to the ground with a brutal instantaneity, gravity multiplied a thousand fold. The earth shook, and the sea detonated, rising several hundred feet into the air.

The shockwave was tremendous, and Bubbles had to lean forward to keep from being flung backwards. She heard what sounded like a tower of champagne flutes crashing down, and looked back to see that every single window of the Townsville Beach Hotel was shattered. The wind from the impact cleared the fog and parted the dark clouds overhead. And as the sea water came back down, pitter-pattering in the form of rain, Bubbles looked back at the mecha.

The giant robot was completely wrecked, a pile of scrap metal half-submerged in the water. And standing on the rim of one of its exhausts, holding up the simian driver of the mecha by his throat, was Blossom. A ray of sunlight seemed to have chosen her specifically, falling down to shroud her in a halo that was borderline divine.

And just like that, the foghorn stopped and the beach was quiet again.

"There's no way she was always this strong," someone croaked behind Bubbles, and Bubbles turned to see Buttercup back on her feet. She too was staring at Blossom's triumphant scene, incredulous.

"No," said Bubbles, slowly turning back to stare at the one they called Liberty Belle. "None of us were."

Thanks for reading this! I've been trying to work faster on the chapters, and I hope I can put out at least two more before Christmas Day. Please leave a review on the way out. I love hearing from you guys! Take care of yourselves, and Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays in advance!