Friendly warning in advance: if you don't like long chapters, this fic may not be for you. Although early chapters were quite short by my current standards (about 3.5 kilowords each), each one seems to be longer than the last - whenever I set a word limit, I go waaaay over it (did with essays at school, too). This one's over 6 kilowords long, so I re-iterate; if you don't like long chapters, don't read it and then complain about the length. :D
Disclaimer: see chapter 1.
By Gregory Cooper
7 - Vox e mortuus - Part 2
Everyone had gone off to bed in the Utonium household, but not all of them were asleep. Butch felt a sense of terrible foreboding about the events that were to transpire once they awoke the next morning, and couldn't shake it no matter how hard he tried.
"Hey Brick, you awake?" he asked, not wishing to disturb his brother if he happened to already be asleep.
"Huh...wha? Go to sleep already Butch..." murmured Brick, clearly not in the mood to talk at such an hour. He tried calling out to Boomer too, with a similar result.
"Ow!" he muttered, as Boomer grabbed up the first thing that came to hand and flung it at him. Caught unawares by the bedside cabinet flung at him, his head was smacked against the wall, leaving a small dent in it and his head throbbing with a full ache.
I think I'll just go outside and get some fresh air, he thought. Maybe it'll tire me out, too.
As quietly as possible, the dark-haired ruff slid open the window nearest to him and floated out through it, heading up to the house's completely flat roof, where he sat down and pondered, while gazing out at the lights of the nearby city, on what fortunes the morning would bring.
"Wakey wakey people!" Robyn yelled through loudhailer as she walked past the door to Bubbles' room. "T-1 hour to launch! Up, wash, dress and then downstairs where breakfast will be waiting for you! At the double!"
A large ball of black hair poked its head out from behind another door, and Buttercup's voice issued forth from it, saying "Ugh. Give it a break Robyn, it's way too early to be awake."
"Nonsense Buttercup!" Robyn yelled, still through the loudhailer. "It's 7:30 and you lot have an asteroid to destroy!"
"What about school?" Bubbles asked, as she bounced out of her room, already dressed in standard Powerpuff Girls' attire and busily brushing her teeth.
"Yeah, what about school?" asked Blossom, also emerging from her bedroom, having washed and dressed, but not yet having managed to tame her long auburn locks that had become tangled during the night. Her hair had grown considerably over the years, as Blossom prided it so much that she refused to have it even trimmed, never mind cut. Loose, her tresses now descended all the way to the floor.
"Don't worry, all taken care of," answered Robyn. "I called the school and informed them that you six will be absent today to fight evil. Miss Bellum said it was totally cool." After a slight questioning look from the three sisters, she hastily added, "though not in those exact words." All four girls collapsed in a fit of giggles, Bubbles foaming at the mouth with toothpaste.
Finally, all this noise awoke Brick and Boomer from their beds in the attic, and they washed and dressed at super speed, and appeared in a flash.
"Whoa, what's with all the noise?" asked Brick. "Couldn't we have slept in just a little longer?"
"Sorry Bricky, but you lot have a job to do. I, meanwhile, still have to go to school", Robyn said, pouting slightly. Brick gave her a conciliatory cuddle, while Boomer likewise greeted Bubbles with a good morning hug.
Blossom and Buttercup, not joining in the moment of bonding, noticed that one person was conspicuous by his absence.
"Where's Butch?" asked Buttercup, which would have drawn some teasing from the others, but for the fact that they knew all too well how she felt about the boy.
"I heard him walking around on the roof last night," said Brick. "Maybe he's worried about today?"
"No reason why he should be," said Boomer. "Just a dumb piece o' rock, isn't it?" The others naturally agreed.
Once the entire group were ready, they headed down to the kitchen to find that Robyn had already cooked breakfast, and that she was rather proficient at it too. Robyn had prepared a large stack of pancakes dripping with maple syrup, six whole continental breakfasts, and a massive pile of toast.
"Mmm-mmm," said a boy's voice from outside the kitchen window, "that food smells great." The voice was accompanied by Butch, floating in through the kitchen window.
"So where were you all night?" asked Boomer.
Butch ignored the question, pulled up a seat, and took one of the continental breakfasts that he began eating at a fairly slow, steady rate. In between bites, he told them.
"I was on the roof," he said, finishing off a sausage. "I was thinking about what we gotta do today," half a poached egg followed, "and if Sutekh is as powerful as we think he is, we're gonna have a helluva fight on our hands."
"You're right," said Brick, eating his own meal of pancakes and tomatoes. "Which is why we're doing this armed to the teeth." Everyone gasped at this statement - no ruff or puff had ever needed to carry weapons before.
"I see what you mean, Bricky," interjected Robyn. "This...Sutekh?" Blossom nodded, "he sounds really powerful if he can do everything I've heard. But what would be any use against him?"
"Well," said Blossom, thinking carefully, "all those devices the Professor mentioned in his last message should be pretty damn useful to us. We can track his power readings, so we won't be flying around bustin' every asteroid in the solar system, and the super-spacesuits will come in handy. I'm not quite sure about the rest of it though. The homing beacons too, I guess."
"Any explosives?" asked Boomer, having finished his breakfast already.
"Explosives?" asked Bubbles, scared. "What sort of 'splosives dya mean, Boom-Boom?"
"Nukes", he answered simply, and the others just stared slack-jawed at him. "Go up there, plant them under the surface, and bye-bye asteroid and Sutekh!"
"Yeah well, nice and clean as that sounds," said Buttercup, "we don't have any. The Professor refused to ever deal with explosives, and that's one rule we're sticking with." Both her sisters agreed with her, as did Robyn and Brick.
"Guess it's just our powers then," said Butch, having also finished eating. "So when do we leave?"
"Well," said Blossom, taking charge, "we just have to all suit up, grab the homing devices and energy detector, and we can..."
DING DONG!
"I wonder who that could be?" said Robyn, going to answer the door. Everybody else got up from the kitchen table, and after quickly cleaning the kitchenware, moved into the lounge, where Robyn stood with Princess.
"Princess?" said Blossom, clearly confused. "What on Earth are you doing here?"
Princess just stood there, dressed in normal attire, and said "Nice to see you too, Blossom." "Yeah well, it's a...surprise, I'll say that", said Blossom. "Last time we saw you outside of school, you were being hauled off to juvenile detention about 5 years ago. Things have changed, I grant you, but I never expected to see you standing in our lounge and us having a civilised conversation."
"And yet here I am," said Princess, her voice completely devoid of its' previous nasal whining and sarcastic tone. "I've been monitoring the situation in Townsville recently, and I felt that I should offer my services to help you defeat the villain who killed your father."
Everyone, bar Butch, merely blinked at this proposal.
"You want to...ally yourself with us?" asked Blossom, stunned.
"Yes. I mean, I realise I can never be a Powerpuff - I've come to accept that fact through years of counselling. But I think I can help, and I'd like to try."
"Is this all just 'cos of you and Butch getting it on?" asked Buttercup, as crass as ever.
"No, of course not!" Princess said, indignance in her voice. "I just felt that we should try to put the past behind us." "Good idea," said Blossom, and Bubbles smiled slightly at the idea that a truce would be reached; she among the others most hoped for peaceful solutions to problems.
"Really?" asked Princess, wary of being tricked.
"Honestly," said Blossom, holding out her hand to shake with Princess. "I can't forgive, or forget, what you've done in your time, but maybe we can draw a line under it all and move on."
"Yay!" squealed Bubbles, hugging Boomer tightly, before turning back to Princess. "I forgive you Princess - you've realised that what you were doing was wrong, and you served your sentences."
"I don't", said Buttercup, to no-one's particular surprise. "You may not be my enemy any longer, Princess, but you certainly ain't my friend. And you never will be, either." So saying, Buttercup strode off towards the Professor's laboratory, intending to suit up and fly as soon as possible.
"Can I come with you?" asked Princess, hopefully. "I know you're going on a mission into space, and I came prepared."
"I doubt that," said Blossom, but Butch butted in.
"Sorry babe, but this one's too big. This guy's dangerous - like, god-like dangerous. Trust me, you don't wanna be nearby when it goes down."
"Butch is right, Princess," added Brick. "And I'm glad you're staying behind too, Robyn," he said, giving her a quick kiss on the mouth and then leading the other ruffs and puffs down to the lab in search of Buttercup and the equipment.
Princess and Robyn just sat down on the couch. "Huh", said Princess, "so this is what it's like to date a superhero." "Yep," said Robyn, "join the club." Then smiling, she added, "well, we'd better get ready for school while they gear up."
"You're still going to school?" asked Princess "while they're up there fighting God-knows-what?"
"Not God-knows-what," corrected Robyn. "Just a God. I'll tell ya on the way to school." And after collecting her books for the day and saying goodbye to their boyfriends and the others, Robyn and Princess headed out to Princess' car - a chauffeur-driven Ferrari - and headed off to school.
The six super-powered teens had been flying through space for over an hour, heading in the direction that the energy scanner indicated Sutekh - and his asteroid - were.
"How much further?" asked Buttercup, getting more than a little frustrated at how long the journey was taking, and how little everyone else seemed to be bothered by this fact.
"About a million miles less than the last time you asked, BC", said Brick, over the suits' 6-way intercom, with minor irritation at Buttercup's asking this for the tenth or so time.
"Which is to say," added Boomer, helpfully, "that the scanner says it's about 5 million miles past Mars."
"Yeah. We should be there in about another half hour," said Blossom, "so just save your breath, ok?" Buttercup just grumbled under her breath in response. "I heard that", Blossom said sharply.
As they approached Jupiter, they finally caught sight of the giant meteor. In space, it was impossible to tell how large it was, when the only reference point was Jupiter, hanging silent and motionless beneath it. As they approached, however, they saw that what they had thought was the asteroid was in fact merely its' leading edge, and by the time they landed, they could tell that it was massive as it had its own gravity. Not as strong as the Earth's by any stretch, but there was a definite downward drift.
"Whoa...this thing is massive; anyone got a plan for destroying it?" asked Butch. All six children gaped in awe at the sheer size of the rock on which they now all stood.
"Umm...perhaps we should've asked Congress for some nukes after all", ventured Blossom, laughing nervously.
The asteroid was indeed enormous - roughly the shape of an American football, perfectly even and smooth right across it's entire surface. It was easily over a megametre from head to tail, and over half as much around at its widest point. The first plan was to simply hit it, as it was frozen solid and they figured that they were strong enough to just shatter it into tiny shards, destroying it and their nemesis in one go.
Bubbles stood back and watched as Blossom and Brick attempted to analyse the material it was made of, and Boomer, Butch and Buttercup all prepared to throw their hardest punches at the rock at nearly the same point.
"Guys!" Blossom yelled out through the intercom. "Don't! It's too..."
Too late. Buttercup and both the boys had already struck out at the rock beneath them, unknowing of Blossom and Brick's findings, and were flung back a short way off the surface, all three cradling sprained wrists. They quickly flew back down as Blossom finished what she had been about to tell them.
"...tough", she said, exasperatedly. "Brick, you wanna explain?"
"Sure Bloss." Brick turned to the others, and addressed them through the intercom. "You see, this dust is only a thin layer on the asteroid's surface. Underneath, it's pure duranium." Bubbles was the only one totally surprised by this fact, as Blossom had found it out too, whilst the remaining three had learnt of it firsthand.
"Hang on", said Buttercup. "How do you know about duranium?" she asked, curiously. Boomer spoke up as he wandered over to Bubbles.
"Pops...I mean, Mojo, told us about it once. And Him showed us a huge weapons arsenal made of the stuff when he brought us back the first time", he said quickly. Everyone decided to get swiftly back on track with the conversation.
"So what now?" asked Bubbles. "How can we destroy this rock if it's oblivious to our superpowers?" Blossom smirked at her, and Bubbles pouted. "What? What did I say?"
"Its 'impervious' Bubbles", Boomer told her, as Buttercup and Blossom both burst in uncontrollable giggles for a few moments. Once their little giggle fit had passed, they all noticed that Butch was trying, futilely, to drill through the metal using his eyebeams, which were passing harmlessly through his helmet's visor. The beams kept bouncing off the metal and back into his eyes; it didn't hurt, but it was very aggravating nonetheless.
"Butch, give it up bro, it's useless" said Boomer, as Butch changed position slightly and struck Brick instead with a much stronger optic blast. This pissed Brick off as it singed his fringe, and he began to vent steam inside his suit.
"Butch, what did you have to do that for?" he yelled, flinging his arms about wildly at his cowering brother.
"Sorry Brick, I didn't mean to hit YOU. I was trying to break the meteor."
"One," said Brick, through clenched teeth, as the dust on the rock's surface started to sizzle and pop periodically, "it's an asteroid. A meteor is much smaller. Two, we already know it's Chemical X superpower resistant, so why? Why, Butch?"
"Umm, guys?" interceded Blossom.
"What?!" They both shouted at her. Most of the dust had now become so heated that it was freely floating away from the asteroid's surface, and a large metallic expanse was now revealed around them, as far as the eyes could see. This metal was, more importantly, now glowing a dull red.
"Something's happening," said Blossom, and the children all floated up from the surface as they could feel the heat prickling their skin through their spacesuits. The metal continued to glow, changing from a dull red to a dark orange, then to a bright yellow, and finally began to split right along it's length in absolute silence.
"What on Earth is doing that?" asked Buttercup, in awe.
"Me", said Brick, quite simply. "It happened when I got angry at Butch. I could feel myself getting hotter, and I just willed it away from me...and it must've moved to the asteroid."
Whatever was doing this, whether Brick had developed pyrokinesis or something entirely different had been behind it, more cracks were forming and spidering across the surface, now thousands of kilometres below them as they retreated to avoid burning up.
"What temperature does duranium boil?" asked Boomer, innocently, as they stared agape at the sight. Small pools of molten liquid were drifting away from the main body and floating up past them in all directions.
"I dunno," said Buttercup, entranced by the sight around her.
"The Professor did some experiments on duranium once, to see if there was any weaknesses which could help us to avoid getting caught by Mojo", Blossom said. "He managed to create spot heats of twenty thousand Celsius in a furnace, and it didn't even MELT."
Brick, all this while, had been concentrating all his mental energies into creating and projecting as much heat energy as possible at the now molten mass. He found that already the power was coming more easily to him; anger at Butch's pointless actions had been the catalyst, but once the dam was breached, the flood need not be forced much.
All at once, it split into small chunks of fluid and there was a soundless explosion as the asteroid was totally obliterated before them. Brick sensed its' destruction and opened his eyes. Once the spectacle was over, a man flew across the empty distance between where he had been trapped in the centre of the asteroid, and floated in front of them.
"Hello. My name is Sutekh", he said, calmly and simply.
"But...shouldn't you be dead?" asked Blossom. "We destroyed the asteroid...?"
"And for that, I am truly thankful," he said in a flat, emotionless voice; in truth, he sounded much like a computer speaking. "I have been trying to destroy that lump of rock for seven thousand, seven hundred and seventy seven years. That is why I choose not to kill you where you are right now."
"Puh-lease,", said Buttercup, derision evident in her voice. "Many have said that over the years, always right before we beat them to a pulp."
"Yes, but you can't always win," he said. "It's impossible - everything dies eventually."
"What about you?" asked Brick. Sutekh turned to face him directly, and the boy noticed that Sutekh didn't seem to need to blink.
"I won't."
"But you just said...?" asked Bubbles.
"Everything dies. Yes, except me. I have the power to halt the process of aging. And you were all under the impression that destroying the asteroid would kill me?" Six heads nodded in reply. "A myth - one I myself concocted, in the hopes that fools, such as yourselves, would attempt to bring about my ultimate downfall. In fact, the reverse is true; I am now free, and there is nothing you can do to stop me. Not that you could have before, that is."
"You have no idea how powerful we are", said Butch, boastfully.
"Oh. Is that a challenge?" Sutekh questioned. "Then please, give me a demonstration of your 'powers'."
Sutekh blinked suddenly, surprised by the spontaneous reversal of positions of Brick and Blossom. "You can teleport?" he asked.
"Don't be thick," said Brick, "teleportation's imposs...." before realising that the voice that issued from his lips was too high pitched; it had a feminine quality to it that he recognised. It was Blossom's voice!
Blossom had also noticed, and felt a cap resting atop her head instead of her ribbon; they had switched places, though neither knew that the now deceased Him was behind this bungled plan.
"Au contraire", said Sutekh, "Him was capable of teleporting." Boomer was the first to pick up on the use of the past tense. "Was? Don't you mean 'Is'?" he asked, and Sutekh shook his head.
"No - was. He was a thorn in my side for centuries - a sycophantic twit with a penchant for power that was only matched by his incompetence. I felt it necessary to excise him, permanently."
"You killed Him?" asked Blossom, incredulously, and everyone turned their attention to Blossom in Brick's body. "We've never been able to...I mean..." she trailed off, murmuring, as Bubbles glanced at her quizzically.
"Quite. Which is why you are not a threat to me. That said, a challenge has been issued, and I've been looking forward to a good fight. I don't hold much hope of finding it here, but I might be pleasantly surprised", he said, floating back to give himself more room.
Butch was the first to launch himself at Sutekh; flying at several times the speed of sound, he flew straight at Sutekh's stomach, but didn't even come close to hitting him.
At seemingly the very last moment, Sutekh moved to the side with such speed that the other children never even saw him move; one moment, he was in Butch's flight path; then, he was floating off to the side, and Butch was shooting off into space. Butch turned around and tried again, this time flying so fast that he became nothing more than a dark green blur against the blackness of space and the yellow-brownish of Jupiter's atmosphere.
Again, Sutekh moved so fast that he simply appeared to shift directly from one position to another without passing through the intervening space at all. Brick (in Blossom's body) and Boomer joined him and the three positioned themselves around Sutekh, and began throwing assorted barrages of punches, kicks and optic blasts him, none of them even coming close to their mark.
Blossom (in Brick's body), Buttercup and Bubbles floated a little way off, watching this non-battle; Sutekh easily evaded everything the boys threw his way, and didn't retaliate whatsoever, which only infuriated them even further. Buttercup grew agitated and tried to join them.
"No, Buttercup! We don't know what other powers he has - he's obviously incredibly fast; even with supervision, I can barely see the blur as he moves."
"Well tough - if Blossom's down there, I'm joining in!" Buttercup stated adamantly, and flew down to join the boys in delivering wholly useless attacks.
Sutekh got bored of easily evading all the assaults, just floated in place. As the four moved in on his position, a light blue aura surrounded his body, which expanded into a bubble that grew and grew. As it reached them, they were repelled forcefully, each coming to a halt some ten million kilometres away.
"They posed no challenged", Sutekh offered in explanation. Blossom took this as a cue and began her own attack, signalling Bubbles to stay at a safe distance.
She flew forward and then came to a halt a few metres from Sutekh.
"Ready for a strategic attack?" she asked, confident it would work. Even this man couldn't dodge at the speed of light.
"Please, by all means be my guest," he said, totally unruffled by events so far.
Brick's body began by firing a single optic blast at Sutekh; unsurprisingly, he dodged it with no effort. Undeterred, Blossom fired off a short volley of optic blasts all in Sutekh's general direction, as the others watched on.
Sutekh saw the first blast creeping towards him and slid sideways to move out of its' trajectory, thus placing himself in the way of another laser beam. Just as easily, he moved the other way and then spun around to slide between two further shots. The next for came at the same time, all around him, and he bent his body in way that the human body normally does not allow so that he looked like he had been folded back at the waist. Without pause, the next three discharges whizzed by, requiring Sutekh to spin on the spot and twist his torso at a ninety-degree angle to his lower half. As the last of the broadside moved past and off towards Jupiter's surface, he straightened himself up turned to face Brick once more.
Six faces stared blankly back at him, and he sighed in obvious exasperation. "This is a waste of time. I have plans to execute now." He turned and was about to fly away, when at Blossom's sign all six arranged themselves around him, ready for round three.
Sutekh, however, had different ideas.
"Now is clearly not the time for you to face me - you still have much to learn if you are to become worthy of being my adversaries", he said, as once again he easily dodged every eyebeam attack, punch and kick they attempted to land on him. Their unique powers were useless; Bubbles' sonic scream would only deafen her comrades (Sutekh was not wearing a helmet or spacesuit), Blossom's ice breath was similarly useless due to her helmet.
Buttercup endeavoured to employ electrical abilities, and fired a massive lightning bolt out of each hand. In the event, all that happened was that her intercom system exploded in a fury of sparks.
"What on...Buttercup? Can you hear me?" shouted Brick (as Blossom) into his own intercom.
Buttercup looked at him, realising why she couldn't hear what he had said, and mouthed back "No - my comms are down."
"You idiot!" he shouted into his mic, "These suits are insulated against electricity!"
Sutekh looked on, sidestepping attacks, and muttered, "Fools" to himself. Then flying around Blossom in Brick's body as she swung at him, Sutekh kicked out at the pre-occupied Brick and Buttercup. They were sent them flying off into the distance at a horrendous velocity. Having done so, he simply vanished from sight, teleporting down to Earth.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH............."
Brick screamed in fear, and no small amount of pain, as the single kick sent them hurtling across the vast expanses of space, so fast that the stars themselves appeared to be moving around them...
Buttercup, at the same time, was also screaming her lungs out at the top of her voice, in spite of the fact that her damaged suit meant that Blossom could not hear her. Of course, if she had known it was actually Brick, not Blossom, she would have screamed even louder still.
Occasionally, a brighter light would flare up nearby to them for a short moment, before fading away into a glowing afterimage. For each star that they passed close to, their speed was reduced, until finally, after an age seemed to have passed for the two teenagers - whereas it was in fact mere minutes later - they came to a relative stop close to a small, rocky planet orbiting a massive blue star.
Brick turned to Buttercup and asked, "Where are we?" Buttercup, after a few moments to work out what had been mouthed, shrugged and replied to her sister, "Hell, if I know." The pair descended towards the planet beneath them.
"Blossom! Buttercup! If you can hear me, PLEASE respond!" shouted Blossom into her microphone, not wishing to confuse things even further by calling for Brick while she looked like him and vice versa.
How could this happen? She thought. Maybe Him did this to Brick and me...before Sutekh killed him, obviously. It's just the sort of thing he'd try, too. And where could Brick and Buttercup be now...?
"How far away do you think they are, Brick?" asked Bubbles, feeling scared and lonely in the blackness of space. Blossom wanted so much to give her sister a big, comforting hug and let her know it was her, but couldn't bring herself to admit this piece of weirdness was happening; not right now, anyway.
"I dunno Bubbles," she said, trying to ignore how different her voice sounded and imitate Brick's speech patterns. "Assuming Blossom's radio is still working, then it's gotta be a long way as her reply signal hasn't reached us yet."
"Hey Bloss, check it out!" said Buttercup, as soon as they broke through the total cloud cover in the planet's upper atmosphere. Below them stretched a large expanse of farmland, as far as the eye could see to the north, with rolling green hills to both sides, and a sandy coastline to the south. Up ahead, hovering above the farmland was a massive city full of skyscraper buildings whose tops vanished back up and into the high cloud formations.
"Interesting," Brick said. "They seem to have invented some sort of anti-gravitational device and used it to move their cities so that all the land is free for agriculture."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever Bloss," Buttercup said, plainly not listening to his speech. "Maybe they can send us back to Earth...or at least could help us out?"
"Well, it can't hurt to try", Brick said, conceding. Buttercup however was already zooming off towards the levitating architecture.
As they approached the city, trying to find someone who could tell them more about this, Brick was the first to notice that it was oddly quiet.
"BC, dya hear anything?" he asked, flying up alongside her.
"No, but maybe that's 'cos we still have our helmets on", she said in reply. "The suit's meters show it's safe to breathe", she added, removing her helmet and holding it under her arm. Brick did the same.
"Strange - I still can't hear anything. Maybe it's further away than it looks," she suggested to Brick, who shook his head.
"That would mean it would be absolutely massive," he reasoned, "plus we've reached the edge already."
The two set down at the edge of the city and proceeded on foot, looking for anyone who they could talk to. No signs of life were forthcoming.
As they walked, they looked around. All the buildings were in the very literal sense of the word, "Sky-scrapers". Each towered over them for at least three hundred or more floors, and were all made out of poles of some incredibly hard and shiny metal that gave off a faint light blue glow, and what looked like glass. It wasn't glass however, as when Buttercup yelled "Hello?!" at the very top of her voice, none of the windows shattered. Buttercup's yells were by no means powerful compared to Bubbles' sonic scream, but could still shatter glass easily enough.
"This is getting creepy, Bloss", Buttercup said to Brick, who laughed in response.
"Why - just 'cos there's no-one here?" Buttercup nodded her head firmly. "OK, I'll admit it's quite bizarre..."
"Why would anyone build a city and leave it deserted?" pointed out Buttercup, to which Brick couldn't find an answer. "I get a strong feeling something happened here - something terrible."
"Like a war? But there's no signs of violence, no blood, no bodies...nothing", said Brick, looking around intently for anything out of place. "Except for that", he said, pointing to a large metal spike sticking out of the road up ahead. Upon approaching it, they saw that it was skewering a piece of paper that looked like the front page of a newspaper, except that they couldn't make out what the article was about. They didn't need to though, as the photo alongside the article told them all they needed to know.
Bubbles and the three Rowdyruffs had been floating in space above Jupiter and its' moons for several hours now, and oxygen was beginning to become a slight issue as they waited for word from Blossom about her and Brick's current predicament.
"Still no answer!"
"Didn't the Professor also make a gadget that could find these watches, wherever they are?" Boomer asked Bubbles, who nodded eagerly in reply.
"Yep!" she chirped, "It's in the lab I think - he made it in case he needed to find them; or us, for that matter."
"Of course! What are we waiting for then?" asked Blossom, and Bubbles, Boomer, and Butch turned around to face her. "Let's go home, we can use it to find where they ended up!" The four immediately set off on the long journey home.
Upon entering their house in the dark of night, they all shucked off their space suits, put them away, and began rooting around the Professor's laboratory in search of the necessary machine.
"I found it!" Butch cheered, and then on closer inspection, "You found a toaster, moron", Boomer said, pointing out what it actually was.
"Yeah well, you done any better?" "As a matter of fact, no I haven't" Boomer replied, "but Bubbles just found it, didn't ya?" he asked Bubbles, who pointed to what seemed to be a portable TV. Upon switching it on however, they found it was indeed the device they had been looking high and low for, as it showed their positions clearly in the room.
"Hey, that's us", said Bubbles.
"Of course, we're still wearing our watches", said Blossom, and switched hers off and removed it. As she turned it off, the others noticed that one of the dots of light vanished from the screen. "Zoom out, Bubbles", Blossom instructed.
"Okey dokey Brick", she said, and used the computer's very basic controls to zoom the image out. The three dots indicating Bubbles, Boomer and Butch's watches all moved in to the centre of the screen as the scale at the side changed from metres to kilometres, to thousands of kilometres, then to millions, then millions of millions. As the display changed to show tens of light-years, a look of sheer horror dawned on Brick's face.
"Oh no...." Blossom said, her voice barely above a whisper. Still the display didn't show Blossom and Buttercup's signature dots. The scale was now representing thousands of light years...
"There they are!" shouted Boomer, so loud that the others jumped back in fright as he pointed at a tiny dot on the edge of the screen, which the computer display's scale told them was..."seven hundred thousand light-years?!?"
This was turning out to be the longest day of their young lives.
"Sutekh?" Buttercup ejaculated in a squeaky voice. "When the fuck was he here?"
"Who knows - does it matter? All we need to know is that he WAS here, and that explains why this place is so lifeless."
"You mean..." asked Buttercup, afraid to finish her own question, "you think he - murdered everyone here?"
"Sure looks like it", Brick said, turning on the spot. "You said it yourself, BC. What's the point of an empty city? Except, it WASN'T empty - and it looks like he was here recently; there's no signs of disrepair that occur over the passage of time."
"Now what do we do?"
"We try to find some way back home. Though I have a feeling that it's gonna take a miracle. For right now though, we should find a better place to spend the night."
As the four earthbound children floated up towards their respective bedrooms - Blossom catching herself just in time and heading to the attic with Boomer and Butch instead of into her own room - the TV came on of its own accord, and the DVD player kicked into life again, resuming playback of the Professor's DVD. After a few seconds, the static cut back to an image of the Professor once again in front of the camcorder, this time with his lab as the backdrop.
"I can only hope that you will find some way to stop him - before he destroys all life. It's a terrible burden to put in the hands of children, but I know you will acquit yourselves brilliantly anyway."
They as one turned to face the screen, and listened as he continued talking. "On another note, I've discovered that your bodies, powered as they are by Chemical X, having truly astounding healing powers. I don't know how far your regenerative abilities extend, but I found that some cell samples I took from you in one of my earliest tests of your DNA were still growing. That's rather extreme, I think it was kept alive by the way I stored it, but you may be able to re-grow entire body parts over time; who knows...? Also, it means that your bodies don't age. Barring severe accidents, it seems that you six will live...forever..."
Once again, the image cut to static as Blossom's voice was heard off-camera. All four stared at the blank screen, and finally Blossom spoke up.
"If we ever find Buttercup and Blossom, we don't tell 'em. There's no need to freak 'em out even more." The others wordlessly agreed, too stunned to do anything else.
As all six children settled down to sleep that night, two separated from the other four by a vast distance, they all prayed, I hope we can do this.... Meanwhile, Sutekh was back in his new Earthly palace, masquerading as a humble warehouse, planning his next move. He would need followers...an army of willing followers.To be continued...
Author responses and thanks:
Ivygreen: Glad you liked it - I hope you're saying you like lengthy updates, 'cos this one is even longer, at a little over 6 kilowords (6074 to be precise). Any longer, and I'm gonna have to start splitting my work and posting it in multiple parts (a good or a bad thing?).Dooly: Sorry about the long wait between chapter 10 and 11 - I think that's made most people think twice about reading new parts since a)they can't remember what's happened so far, and b)it'd take too long to re-read. Well, that's my own fault, so I don't hold it against them.
Yep, fighting a god will be very hard - the first real taste of them fighting him is in this chapter. This one's gonna take more than just lots of training to overcome... Evil Grin The "R" rating allows me a lot of leeway - that's not the last death there'll be in this fic, I'm fairly sure... :D