Author's Note: This is probably another messed up chapter. (Not as much as Gluttony though.) I still think I was smokin' something wrong that day. XD
Blossom's P.O.V.
The scent of warm blood instantly filled my nostrils. We walked to the edge of the misshaped platform around us and saw everything below and around us was an entire lake of steaming blood. People drowning clambered over eachother to get out. All around us, there were statues of mythical creatures such as minotaurs and centaurs I recognized from the books I read. There were towering masculine demons with black skin dipping cages full of people into the lake on the other side. There was a shore, which led into a dark forest, whose trees were gnarly thorn bushes and splintery charred trees. I could barely make out what looked like people hanging from these plants by their necks. I could tell from all of this harsh scenery that this must be the circle that handled Violence.
We all plugged our noses, making futile attempts at blocking the strong scent of blood. Bubbles gagged when we breathed through our mouths, the air even tasted like the stuff. So we just remained with our noses unplugged.
Him's falsetto voice spoke directly to us. "Come now, girls. Walk through the woods of suicides and you will meet a very familiar friend." He let out a deranged cackle.
The stone statues around the chamber came to life, or supposedly. They all formed two rows across from eachother and used their axes and swords to form a bridge for us that led down to the forest. I looked at my sisters. Bubbles looked up at the stone giants in admiration, probably remembering them from a bed time story the professor read to us. Buttercup actually looked surprisingly...nervous. She was shaking, twitching, and looking around nervously as if something was about to jump out at her.
I slowly stretched out a hand, being careful not to startle her. She flinched when my hand was mere centimeters away, but her tension lessened when she realized it was just me. "Oh, Blossom. Heh heh...I wasn't expecting you to be here..." She said as she looked around.
"Wha-"
Buttercup whipped her arm out as fast as lightening and she covered her scarred hand over my mouth. "Shush shush Blossom!" She said in a loud whisper. "We can't get through this place fighting...so..." She stopped and looked around to make sure nobody was listening. She leaned over and brushed my orange hair out my non-existent ear and whispered, " we have to be super careful." From the corner of my eye, Bubbles was seen looking over my shoulder.
I stepped away from my green sister. She looked down nervously at the blood lake below. It suddenly clicked. "Buttercup?...Do you get queasy at the sight of blood?"
Buttercup recoiled in disgust. "What? Why! I'm the toughest fighter, Red! I'm used to this kind of stuff..." Her shoulders sagged. "Or at least, I should be."
"It's about Minos, isn't it?" My frightened sister sprang up.
"No! Shhh! It was just and accident!" She put her hands over her mouth.
"I understand Buttercup. We were all a little shooken' up after that."
Buttercup put her hands over her ears and shook her head violently. "It was my fault, though! I stepped on the lever! And there was so much blood...so much blood..." She abruptly sat down and began to rock back and forth, the poor thing.
I knelt down across her. "Just forget Buttercup. Close your eyes and just think about something else."
Buttercup did so, and her face softened. Her eyes opened. She smiled and sat up. "I feel much better now Bl-BLOOD! BLOOD!" She curled back up into her 'crazy person' mode. This was getting us nowhere. I was barely keeping my sisters together, let alone myself. I could just feel the old me slipping away into obscurity, and me going crazy was the last thing we needed.
I scooped up Buttercup into my arms, still in the same position. "Come on Bubbles!" The blue Powerpuff nodded enthusiastically and skipped behind me. We got to the shore before the foreboding woods, and I shivered a bit. Something about this, depressing shadows made me feel like something wasn't right.
I gently placed Buttercup on the gray soil of the forest. "Buttercup open your eyes." I said in a quick yet monotone voice. Buttercup's eyes sprang open, and she looked back to normal. Sort of. She at least wasn't cowering like a little non-super powered little girl.
"Where are we?" She said with wonder. Bubbles and I simultaneously face-palmed ourselves. Was she really zoned out for the past two minutes. Oh well. Better not let her know.
Bubbles the chatter box was about to remind her, but I quickly intervened by casting b=Bubbles a threatening glance, and she stopped.
"Let's just get out of here." I started marching through the woods, followed by Buttercup and then Bubbles. I looked up at the dead people hanging from the trees' spiked branches by their necks. A noose wrapped around their necks. What was the 'Wood of Suicides' anyway? The worst part about this whole journey (apart from the losing our minds and child innocence) was not even knowing what these thing were!
As we walked at a steady pace along the grey dirt road, I looked deeper into the twisted black trees. The shades holding swords and knives in their withered hands repeatedly stabbed themselves over and over again, as if they were trying to kill themselves. But they weren't. And with each jab the flinched as well as I. Buttercup was staring at the ground scowling, refusing to look up at these cursed people. Bubbles was skipping at the end of our line with her eyes closed and humming 'Over the River and Through the Woods" to herself.
Normally we would tell her to grow up, but now I would give anything to become blissfully unaware of what was really going on. But I can't afford to think like that. Not for my sisters, and not for the professor. And that is why I am the leader. After more winding trails in the woods of suicides, people killing themselves in horrific ways, and creeping shadows with creatures lurking inside, we finally got out of the disturbing woods. Or at least I think we did.
We wandered into a pitch black room, continuing to walk forward though. We made a sudden stop when we heard someone moaning.
"W-who's there?" Bubbles asked with a child-like innocence that only she could pull off.
"That...voice. So familiar...I recognize it. Which means I have heard it before, and I am fairly familiar with it."
The speech pattern gave it away instantly. "Mojo Jojo?"
Fire along the walls ignited right at that moment. And yes. Our arch nemesis is here. He strung up to a wall with rough metal hook going through his white gloved hands and booted feet with chains linking to the four corners of the room. I did a quick survey, and there didn't seem to be another way out. Bubbles and Buttercup gasped and covered their mouths at the sight of our old foe. He opened his dark pink eyes, and he frowned when he saw us. His face twisted into an ugly scowl.
"Where were you stupid little girls! Why didn't you save me! My life is cursed forever in Violence! Why! I don't understand. Sure I blew up, destroyed, bombed, burned, and annihilated Townsville as my idea a 'fun' but I shouldn't shave to suffer for what you three 'heroes' did!" He ranted on and on until I held up a hand for him to be quiet, and he instantly was.
I looked at his tattered purple cape, dented helmet, and clawed face. What did happen to him? "What happened Mr. Mojo?" Bubbles asked in the sweetest voice possible.
Mojo took a deep breath, revealing patches of missing fur under his arms. "HA! Like I'd tell you for what you should have prevented. I will not. You should have saved us. Saved us from evil, but no. You had to not be where the evil was. Instead I find you SPELUNKING IN A CAVE LIKE INDIANA GODDAMN JONES!"
His green face turned bright red he lowered his head panting. "Just leave me alone, Powerpuffs. You have caused me enough pain already."
We turned and started to slowly walked back with our heads hung low. I fear that we may have screwed up royal. What happened to Mojo? What did he mean by 'protect him from evil'? He was evil!
Once he was out of earshot, Buttercup said back in the forest, "He probably blew himself up with one of his stupid lab experiments." We all busted a gut laughing, not even the slightest bit disturbed or morally concerned we were making fun of a dead person. Especially one we know so well. We were laughing it up so much, I think that most of it was the insanity laughing.
With all of our eyes closed form giggling so hard, we didn't notice Him teleporting us through the means of a violet portal opening beneath us. We fell in and landed with a thud.
We stood up and opened in our large eyes to see what I thought was an actual oven. It was a massive chamber, filled with actual people jammed into the cracks in the wall. The Violent, facing down, vomited an endless downpour of lava onto the floor, completely made out of magma. There was a magical steel grate on each end of the chamber that drained the lava off into the other seven circles of Hell. The glow of the lava illuminated the entire room as brightly as New York Times' Square. We stood on a rusty metal platform with a post on the bottom leading down into the lava. I seemed unstable.
Him's flamboyant voice entered our ears. "Alright Powerpuffs! Time for the final task of Violence! Take this first."
In front of us, a gleaming yellow orb faded in before me. I could feel my sisters' gaze watch over me. The orb took shape into a lowercase t, and then become a solid in that form. It dropped, and I caught it with both hands. What was this thing supposed to do?
"Alright girls, let me explain: If you keep holding onto that infernal object, I will not go near you. But to advance, throw it into the lava! I will personally bring you three into a world of pain for all of the pain you have caused others. It's simple. And eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and so on. You won't die, though, but the pain will be very present. Make your choice! You have one minute!"
I kept staring at this object, not even daring to break my gaze from the green jewel in the center. My worn out sisters stepped in front of me.
"Well Miss Leader?" Buttercup chimed in with that annoying and disrespectful nickname.
"I-I have a plan." I stuttered, still thinking about this insane plot I conceived.
"You always got a plan, Red." I looked up and saw Buttercup with her arms crossed but a concerned look in her tennis ball eyes.
I did a slow doubled take between my sisters and this object. I gave a small chuckle and said in a low voice, "This is a good one."
I tossed the artifact into the fiery depth below.
"What was that!" Buttercup exclaimed.
Buttercup took an angry step forward, and I feared she might try to push me off of the edge. "Look girls. Him is right about one thing." I waved my hands in front of me, as if someone was accusing me of being guilty for something. Well, maybe I was.
"We've spent our entire lives fighting, and using violence. And not just to others physically, but also vocally. I mean, we're always arguing and fighting with others and amongst ourselves."
Buttercup's expression softened to the level of Bubbles'. "This is still the STUPIDEST plan ever. What is it really for, Blossom? Morality? Cut me a break. I'm just gonna do this for professor. But when we leave this place, I think we should hold a town vote on who should be leader."
I rolled my eyes. She'll understand, eventually. Him's shrieking laughter was heard behind us. We turned and saw the devil himself hovering before our very eyes. He pointed his crooked nose in the warm air sniffed. "Is that Heresy I smell, Buttercup?"
"Shut up you deranged freak!" She put her hands on her hips.
"That stung Buttercup. That really did." He patted a claw over his black heart.
There was a bright flash, and all of us were in a whole new area, with what looked like a...desert? In Hell? We were all chained up on a brick wall planted in the sand, our arms and legs were spread apart.
"Let's begin...shall we?" He said in an unusually low and slow voice.
He hovered over to a scowling Buttercup. He put one claw on her jaw and forced it open. He carefully put a lobster claw on her two front teeth and he ripped them out. Buttercup screamed bloody murder as scarlet liquid sprayed like jets of water out of her mouth.
"Buttercup!" Bubbles and I cried out together.
Him waved them in the air. "All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth!" He sang.
He reached in again and plucked out a molar. He receded his blood coated claw and Buttercup let out another ear piercing scream.
"A tooth for a tooth, darling." He growled.
This painful and gruesome process repeated until Buttercup had no teeth left. Her mouth was covered in blood, and she was letting out choked sobs. She hung her head low in shame, not allowing us to see her sweaty, tear streaked face. Him lazily tossed the claw full of teeth behind him. The pearly whited pelted the smooth sand.
"Next, Blossom." I gulped and uselessly struggled against my chains.
He opened up his right claw and slowly moved it towards my eye, the one that was completely red because of Brick back in Lust. My eye was larger than Him's claw, but that didn't stop him from what he was going to do. I tried closing my eyes, but the lids were budged open by some unknown force. The curved, upper half slowly sank into my dark red eye. The loss of half of my eyesight was spontaneous. I howled in pain as it seeped deeper into my socket. I could feel warm blood and tears sliding down my dirty face. Though my own screams deafened me, I could barely make out Bubbles screaming my name, and I couldn't see Buttercup because of this bastard clawing my eyeball out.
Him's smile stretched to the very edge of his face, and I shuddered at the fact that this was the happiest I have ever seen him. He slowly turned his claw clockwise. I screamed in pain, begging for Him to stop. But he wouldn't listen. The pain was unimaginable, as I felt the vessels and my optic nerve become twisted together, and I soon lost it. I started to thrash against the wall, wailing with each agonizing flinch Him made with his claw. The chains made movement impossible though.
The demented being, out of nowhere, tore his lobster appendage out of my eye. With all of the veins and optic nerves twisted around his claw, part of my brain felt like it was ripped out. Him materialized a small mirror in front of me, and I managed to stop screaming and open my other eye for about four seconds.
"Oh Blossom! You look ready for a night out to town!" He giggled at his depraved joke. He was right. I looked just fucking gorgeous. My bow was ripped and tattered, not even resembling it's usual horn-like appearence anymore. My face was coated with a mixture of blood, dirt, and tears like my sisters'. And the inside of my destroyed eyeball was like a cone. The sides had veins dripping blood at a rhythmic pace sticking out. There was a slight discomfort at the desert blowing sand into my wounds.
"Now just add a little plague..." He muttered as if he was a hair stylist. "And you are ready for the ball!" As he talked, he opened up his mouth and a swarm of flies surrounded by a disgusting swamp green hue ascended from within. They buzzed over to me and nested in my eye. Within seconds, the remains turned into a sickly green color, giving off a pungent odor. The flies disperesed and soared away into the dangerous wilderness of the desert. Pain quickly settled in, but I was to tired to scream.
"An eye for an eye Blossom. An eye for an eye..." He explained.
I knew what he meant. All of the memories of punching a monster's eye out came flooding back to my mind. I silently weeped to myself, wishing secretly that this would be over soon. Him seemed disappointed at the reaction I gave. The mirror disappeared when a small sand cloud summoned by Him swept it up and vanish.
"Next: sweet-little-Bubbles." His face stretched into a broad grin. His black lips spread to the cornors of his eyes. Poor Bubbles. I heard her start inhaling rapidly, and I saw sweat poor down her face. But when I looked into her eyes, she didn't have fear...but determination.
"I'm not gonna cry." She said boldly.
This only made him even more giddy. He reached out a claw and placed it open under Bubbles right arm. Like scissors, he slowly and agonizingly snipped through Bubbles' arm. Each snapped vein and blood vessel made Bubbles swallow another thunderous scream. I felt Buttercup, as well as myself, cringe with each loud snap. Blood ran down the wall on Bubbles' side from her wrist. She was very close to breaking. I could see it in her strawberry red face.
When Him was halfway through her wrist, he suddenly became enraged that she hasn't screamed yet. "HOW DARE YOU DEFY YOUR NEW MASTER!" He hollered.
The infuriated demon took half a step back and he clapped his lobster claws together. Bubbles let out a blood curdling scream as her body crumpled. At the very moment of the clap, he shattered every bone in Bubbles' little body. Bubble's weeped, her tears dripped into the blood soaked sand at the foot of our wall.
Him huffed, seeming satisfied with himself. "That's for every bone you broke, and every creature's limb severed."
I weakly opened my eye, Buttercup slowly lifted her head, and Bubbles' eyes shot up to view Him without moving her neck.
"I think that just about accounts for all of the physical pain you have caused. And now..." Him whisked us away with another red cloud.
When the smoke cleared, we were actualy standing up. We looked at each other in surprise. We all looked good as new! All of our scars, bones, and injuries accumulated throughout this journey were healed. Our dresses and stockings looked brand new. I raised both hands and felt my perfect bow intact. But despite feeling one-hundred percent better, we didn't laugh. Or hug. Or even smile. We just felt like we were dead already. Maybe we were already there, and our insanity was playing tricks on us. Bubbles cold blue eyes remained locked on something behind me.
"Blossom? What is this place?" She said innocently. Before looking behind me I did a quick glimpse at her wrist and I saw that it was okay now. I just realised at that moment my full eyesight returned! I looked behind me along with Buttercup and we saw a giant door the size of the one back in Greed tower over us. It was a dull gray and it looked like it should belong in a midevil dungeon. We all knew this was the entrance to the eighth circle of hell. And then we will be reunited with our father.
All of the pain and sacrafices we made, and we will finally rid the world of Him and become reunited with Daddy.
Author's Note: Almost there! Reviews are always appreciated (wink) XD
