The Utonium Trials

Chapter 11:

Tests of Endurance

They were brought to another room- four lefts and a right from the entrance. Inside were three chairs shaped like those at a blood drive, with padded cupped armrests and a rotating table to hold various items. The rest of the room looked like a well-equipped doctor's office, or maybe even a lab, with many cabinets all around. Blossom expected as much. But for now she had a bigger concern. She glanced at Bubbles.

Bubbles's vision must have been much worse than Blossom thought. Either that, or her tears made seeing basic shapes nigh impossible. As they walked, Bubbles had careened into a corner as they turned left. She let out a meep of pain, but otherwise continued on without word. If it came to escape, Blossom considered it would be a great challenge with Bubbles being nearly incapacitated by her poor vision.

Blossom already began to climb into the chair as the voice from the intercom spoke, "Please take a seat and relax as several blood and tissue samples are obtained." Blossom took her seat and calmly placed her arm into the rest made for it. At this point, they seem to be taking a very cautious sterile approach. They seemed to be as afraid of the Powerpuff Girls. As afraid as Bubbles seemed to be of them. Buttercup was probably scared too, but she would acquiesce until the lab workers did something extreme. The men in the electromagnetic deflection suits waited several feet away, so as to not crowd them.

Bubbles had whimpered when it was mentioned that blood and tissue samples were going to be taken. She had a lot of trouble climbing into the chair, seeming unable to gauge the distance between places she could grip. Finally, she got so frustrated that she levitated up and sat back into the chair. Two of the men in the EM suits stepped back but otherwise there was no reaction from them, not even a sound. Buttercup spoke up, saying, "It will be okay, Bubbles. Don't worry."

Empty words, and at a cost. The voice came up again, saying, "Please, refrain from using your powers and talking." Blossom relaxed in the adjustable chair. This was the easy part. Soon the more difficult tasks would be at hand.

Bubbles didn't care that she broke rules. She couldn't see anything and they were going to drain her like a vampire, probably. She didn't even care anymore. Her crying began to slow, and she tried to figure out what was going on around them, as her eyes were veritably useless now.

When she had floated into the chair, she could hear the muffled exclamations from those in the suits. They had been surprised. She didn't know why. They were the ones who stole her vision. She had been told to get into the chair. She did as they instructed. Bubbles sat in the chair and tried very hard to relax.

One of the shielded suits began to pull things out of the drawers behind them. They placed the items on the tray attached to the chair. She couldn't see what they were, but she guessed at least one of them was a needle, and she saw four blurry colored things on the table. She didn't spend time guessing what they were; she had no idea. She heard a package torn open, and the man in the suit calmly motioned to the air beside her chair. Bubbles blinked at the blurry shapes. Even though the man was maybe two feet away, she still couldn't see the individual mirrored scales on the suit.

Finally, he calmly grabbed her arm and gently placed it into the armrest, placing the inside of her arm up. Bubbles didn't take offense, glad that he finally got the hint that she couldn't understand his sign language. He opened some package, and began to rub her arm, leaving some sort of orange splotch, which he later wiped up. During this bizarre ritual, Bubbles sat silently; her tears used up for now. She did flinch though when the needle pierced her skin, and wondered what her sisters were thinking about all this.

Buttercup saw the four tubes, each with a different colored cap. It didn't seem like a lot, but Buttercup couldn't remember the last time she had lost so much blood. Was it the time with the needle monster ten months ago? Definitely the time they had to fight that threshing blade machine sent by Mojo Jojo, but that was a year ago or more. It seemed like so little blood to lose. It seemed inconsequential, really, in comparison to all the fights she had been in before.

Prepared for the worst, the needle entered with a little pain, but far less painful than the snake thin. Which happened… just less than two weeks ago? Wow. She hadn't fought any monsters, but human ones, in that entire time. The longest vacation she had ever not wanted. The man in the suit attached the tube to the other end of the needle, filling it. Once all four were filled for each sister, the tubes were placed in three different chests which she bet were filled with ice. A quick peek with X-ray vision, confirmed it. She pushed her vision a little harder, and realized that she couldn't see through the walls, or the suits the men wore. Suddenly, they all looked at her.

That voice from above spoke up. "Refrain from using your powers. This is your last warning."

Holy crap, they knew she was using X-ray vision? She turned it off, quick, simply saying "Sorry!" She expected that they would get mad at her for talking, but once she settled in her chair, perhaps a little lower than before, they seemed to relax.

After taking the needles out, they took some skin samples, followed by some hair and then even some of their saliva. She had no idea what they were going to test, but they certainly grabbed everything they could. When Blossom, ever calm, said, "I require access to the restroom", the man collecting some hair jumped a moment, not expecting the words. He looked up, as if to God, and then he went to the cabinets, pulling out a plastic cup and lid. He handed it to Blossom, and motioned to a metal framed curtain in the corner of the room. Blossom seemed amused by this cryptic gesture, and calmly got out of the chair to behind the curtain. Buttercup couldn't believe it, but they were even collecting urine samples. These people were crazy. It's not like the secret to their powers was hidden in their pee!

When the samples were apparently collected enough to complete their menagerie, the voice came down again. "Please follow your respective caretakers." She thought that was all, but the voice continued a second later, "You will be reunited for dinner later today."

Buttercup hadn't even considered that they might not be returned to each other later. Buttercup saw that Bubbles shivering had grown markedly worse, rattling her plain white coveralls and making her kinked and thin blonde hair shiver and shake in front of her face. Once the words were spoken, Bubbles took a deep breath and the shivering slowed.

Buttercup decided to defy the rules, saying, "Don't worry, Bubbles. It will be okay." Blue eyes stared in the general direction of Buttercup, and seemed to give the barest hint of a nod.

With only the barest reprimand - "Please, no speaking until permitted" - the girls were led off into different directions, deep into the depths of the unerringly white hallways.

Buttercup was lead to a fairly small room, one with just a couch, a desk and an oversized chair clearly made for someone wearing the suit, set behind the desk. There were mirrors on all the walls but for the one with the door. The couch was barely padded, more a frame than anything else. The suited person motioned for Buttercup to get onto the couch as he sat in the chair. As he began opening drawers and pulling things out of the table, the voice came on again. "Soon, your caretaker will show you an image. Please say the first thing that comes to mind to describe the image."

Buttercup was confused. Of course, she would play along, watching her "caretaker" pull out a stack of cards, each the size of a normal piece of paper. He flipped up the first card.

Buttercup's confusion was not alleviated. "It… ah… looks like a pen exploded on the piece of paper."

Blossom's smile, which had been faint when the words of the voice fell upon them, was now wide. She was certain it would make them nervous. She didn't care. They were wasting time giving her the Rorschach inkblot test. Following this will be a basic Turing test, an empathy test, then Domitov's Sentience Measure. They were doing everything by the book.

When the first card was held up, she spoke calmly: "A Butterfly." The next card: "A fox." And the next card.

Once the test finished, before they moved on to the Turing test, the voice came on again, asking, "What is so amusing, Blossom?"

Blossom quirked her eyebrows at this. They were on first name basis now, were they? She replied, "I already know the answers to most of these tests. They were leaked onto the 'net eight months ago. I made it an effort to make sure I understood the tests, so I could better understand the monsters I fought. You are wasting your time here."

The voice ignored her, apparently uninterested in her opinion, and rattled off the next instructions for the next test. She kept smiling. She loved it when she knew all the answers to a test. It was even better when she knew what questions were going to be asked as well.

Bubbles squinted harder. "I… I can't see it from here… can you move it closer?"

She heard the faint indecipherable noise of the man inside the suit saying something. A moment of silence, then the man got up and went around to the other side of the table, just in front of Bubbles, and held the card. She squinted again. "I… it looks like a splotch of ink, but I think I can see a pair of trees in it." This was apparently a good answer, and they moved onto the next card.

Soon they finished this test, all of them blurry splotches on paper, and then went onto the next test, which seemed to be someone trying to figure out if she was able hold a conversation. The final test was on paper.

Bubbles was hopelessly unable to read the test, and was about to give up in frustration, when the sound of the door opening behind her gave her a shock. She turned around to see another suited man, holding a pair of oversized glasses, as if made for adults. The man offered Bubbles the glasses, which was apparently supposed to help her.

She took them, and awkwardly tried to put them on, and they fell off. She then picked them up and held the glasses to her head, looking through the lenses at the paper. She could finally make out the words, though the letters were still skewed and blurry. Still, she held the glasses to her eyes with her left hand, and circled her answers which seemed to all be about emotions. Once she finished with that test, they gave her another paper test.

She finished all of these, and offered the glasses back to the suited man, the one that was her caretaker. She figured he could get the glasses back to the friendly person who lent them.

He took the glasses and put them in the desk, before motioning for her to follow him again to somewhere new. She did so, trusting that the shimmering blur ahead of her would not lead her into a wall, because she couldn't discern the walls from the floors very well.

They got to a new test chamber, this one that contained… a treadmill?

"Please step onto the treadmill and keep pace as it activates."

Buttercup wondered if a prank was being played on her. "O—okay…." She stepped onto the treadmill, glancing to the side where the door was, seeing that her "caretaker" was leaving the room. The wall opposite the door was another mirror. She guessed they had to be one-way mirrors, so they could keep an eye on her, just like in cop shows.

The door "thunked" closed, and the treadmill started suddenly, surprising her. But it was just at a walking pace. Buttercup walked for several minutes, before the treadmill began to speed up slowly, to a fast jog for most adults. It was nothing for her, moving at a fast loping run, and she didn't even begin to breath hard. Another few minutes, and they sped it up again, this time, to a sprinting speed for most adult. Now Buttercup had to lean forward a little, feeling the air really start to flow though her lungs.

They sped it up again, and she felt the muscles begin to burn in her legs and arms. Now, she could fly much faster than this, but running had its own pleasures. Unlike flying, she could feel the burn. Even when she played soccer, moving at the slow normal speed, by the end, she could feel her muscles just mildly exhausted. It was why she chose to play soccer. Soccer is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, outside of monster fighting.

They upped the speed again, and again. She felt like she was racing an express train. Her breath was becoming labored and she ran. She looked at the mirror to be suddenly shocked, nearly losing her footing. Behind her, she could see there was a faint green blur. How could it be green? She wasn't wearing her dress, but this ugly white coverall. Yet behind her, that blur was definitely green.

Wait… did Blossom say something about this? What was it she said? Sometime a year ago… something about light? She had been talking about rapidly decaying particles of light or something, when they reached a certain speed. It didn't make any sense at the time, and besides, she had been writing a story at the time. Buttercup didn't bother listening much.

She didn't have much time to contemplate the light, as they sped up the machine again. Now she had to focus. Any faster and she would have to start using her ability to levitate to make her steps go further. They sped it up again and she started bouncing a little, keeping herself in the air for a hairsbreadth of a moment. The voice came on, saying "We will be slowing the treadmill. Don't be alarmed."

Buttercup appreciated the warning, her breath was coming in fast, and she would have run straight into the wall ten feet away if they hadn't warned her. She was a little relieved when it slowed down. She was breathing hard, like she had been a good fight.

She finally stepped off of it when it stopped, and the door opened again, revealing, presumably, the same person who had lead her around before. "Please follow to the next chamber once you have caught your breath." Buttercup nodded, her breath returning quickly.

She followed them to another chamber, completely empty. It was a smaller room, completely cylindrical, and covered in white and black panels. The door was shut behind her, the caretaker leaving her alone again, and the voice said, "Please levitate five feet above the ground."

Buttercup's brows furrowed, "That's it?"

She didn't get an answer, but figured she would go along with it. She floated into the center of the room, about five feet up. She stayed like that for what seemed like a whole hour.

Then they took her to another chamber, asking her to hold her breath underwater as long as she could, and then some more.

By the time it seemed like ten hours had passed, after so many tests, Buttercup was tired. Not unbearably so, but all the tests wore on her, and when it was announced they were going to eat next, she let out a sigh of relief.

She was hungry, and after all this, she was ready to see her sisters.

"Dinner" was what looked like bad mushy porridge and water. Blossom was mildly hungry, but she felt it was just a reaction to the years spent eating. She had long suspected that she and her sisters were eating out of habit, not requirement. Not for the short term, at least.

They had been told not to talk about the tests administered, and that they would have thirty minutes to talk, before sleeping in separate chambers.

They gave each other hugs, and each of them asked about Bubbles. She was doing better than earlier, but was still certain things would get worse. Blossom couldn't imagine why; she had never told Bubbles how bad this could become for them. Usually she only panics this badly when she actually knew what was going on. She had only mentioned it once, to the professor last week.

Before Blossom could follow that chain of thought any further, Buttercup asked her, "How long have we been here?"

Blossom looked back at her, asked, "Did you mean since we arrived here, or since we have been taken by the Global Regiment for Extrahuman Management?" Buttercup rolled her eyes, and Blossom knew what she meant. She smiled, saying, "It has been fourteen hours and ten minutes since entering their custody, or twelve hours and thirty five minutes since we have entered this compound."

Bubbles sighed, "Just four hours more then." Blossom didn't say anything, but Buttercup said, "Yeah, as long as that lawyer is a good as he says he is."

Blossom sighed mentally. Bubbles nodded, "Yeah he is. Blossom said so. Right?"

Blossom smiled at her, to make her feel better, and said, "Absolutely." She wasn't going to tell Bubbles the truth. Bubbles was smarter than she was given credit. She would find the truth far before eighteen hours had passed, now that Buttercup had planted the seed.

Bubbles lie awake in the cot given to them. The bed could scarcely be called a bed, with just a bedframe with a plastic surface and the barest minimum of a threadbare pillow.

In the room was a toilet as well, plastic and easily broken if she wanted to. Intended for use, but she couldn't use it as a weapon or something. These people really thought they were monsters. She sighed. She stared up at the ceiling, what she could see of it. She hadn't slept. She didn't know how long it has been. She was not good at keeping time. She lay awake, knowing they knew she was awake.

She didn't care. She wouldn't sleep until daddy came to save them. She held out all night, staring at the ceiling.

The door chamber opened. In its place was her caretaker. He carried himself a little taller. She popped her head off the cot to look at him. She heard the crackle of the speakers activating before the voice came on again. "Please follow your caretaker to the next test chamber."