PPGZ: Zero Project
by Exdeathmore
Chapter 23: Battle Under Mount Fuji! Zero's Plan Unfolds
"What!?" the girls asked the Professor. "You've found Zero's base!?"
"That we did," Utonium replied. "It took some time, but we think we've found the most likely location of second facility involved in the Zero Project."
"It was difficult at first, da-wan," Peach said, various cables coming off of his body, "but thanks to Ken, we found it a lot quicker than we would have!"
"What's all that stuff on you, Peach?" Kaoru asked.
"I hooked Peach up to our detection systems," Ken explained. "My guess is that if Zero had more black gas canisters, we could enhance Peach's detection power to find even the slightest trace of black gas. But there's good news, and bad news involving our discovery..."
"What's the good news?" Momoko asked.
"We've pinpointed the location of Zero's base to be underground, right beneath Mount Fuji."
"Mount Fuji!? That close!?"
"It seems so. The entrance should have been buried under the hardened magma from when Him made the volcano erupt, but somehow, Zero found a way inside."
"What's the bad news?" Miyako asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
"There was a very strong concentration of black gas in that area, da-wan," Peach said. "So strong, I almost shorted out!"
"We were forced to shut off all our detection equipment," Utonium said. "But now we are certain: Zero, and the second facility, are hiding under Mount Fuji!"
"Then what are we waiting for?" Kaoru said. "Let's get going! If we're lucky, we could catch Zero by surprise and end this once and for all!"
"Or, he might expect us, and set up a trap," said Miyako.
"Either way," Momoko said, "we'll have to go there sooner or later. The longer we wait, the more time Zero has to hatch another plan."
"I agree with Kaoru," Utonium said. "From what you said about your last battle with him, he was significantly damaged. It might be possible that he is still recovering, which give you the perfect opportunity to strike."
"Then it's settled," Momoko said, holding her hand out. "We'll finish this fight once and for all, together, right?"
"Right!" Miyako said, placing her hand on Momoko's.
"Right!" Kaoru also said, placing her hand on Miyako's.
As Powerpuff Z flew off towards Mount Fuji, Buttercup looked at Blossom.
"Um, Blossom?" Buttercup called to her.
"What is it, Buttercup?" Blossom asked.
"It's about that one day, when we we're fighting Zero... you really impressed me that day."
"True," said Bubbles. "You showed real courage in what seemed like a hopeless situation."
"Y, you think so?"
"Yeah," said Buttercup. "Bubbles and I were talking about it earlier... you remember how much we used to argue over who should be the leader of Powerpuff Z? Well, after that day, we think that you deserve that title most of all."
"Really!?" Blossom was shocked to hear that, especially from Buttercup. "…But I probably wouldn't have been that way if it wasn't for Zack... if it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't have found the courage to do what I did back then..." Blossom shook her head. "But, we're getting off track! We can talk about this after we kick Zero's tin can! Look! I can see the entrance to the facility!" At the foot of Mount Fuji, there was a large gate, leading down into the ground, surrounded by hardened lava.
Zero sat in his throne, still recovering from his injuries, as Sedusa placed a black gas canister in front of him.
"Here you are, darling," Sedusa said, "just like you asked." Suddenly, there was a loud, rumbling sound, and the entire room began to shake. "Wh, what was that?"
"They've found us..." Zero said. "I still need more time to recover... Sedusa, go and greet our guests, and hold them off as long as you can..."
"Yes, dear. Whatever you want!" Sedusa ran off into the shadows. After she left, Zero bent over and picked up the canister, holding it in his lap.
"They may have found me," Zero said, stroking the canister, "but they are far too late." He pulled the lid off the canister and began to laugh as the black gas enveloped him.
At the entrance to the base, the girls were forced to break down the large gate. Sparks flew as it hit the ground skidding. The girls landed inside and approached with caution.
"It's so dark in here..." Bubbles said. "It gives me the chills..."
"Me too..." said Blossom. "But we can't be scared now. Somewhere in here, Zero is waiting for us."
"Too bad you'll never reach him," called out a voice.
"Who's there!?" Buttercup asked, readying her hammer. Out of the shadows emerged Sedusa.
"This is as far as you'll go, Powerpuff Z," Sedusa said, grinning. "My darling Zero's plan is already complete, and when he sets it in motion, there will be no stopping it!"
"Why are you helping him, Sedusa?" Bubbles asked her. "You don't even know what his plan is!"
"I don't care! As long as I'm by his side forever, nothing else matters! If you girls want to take my precious Zero away..." Her nails extended into claws, and her hair began to writhe wildly. "...you'll have to go through me, first!"
"Then you leave us no other choice, Sedusa!" Blossom said. "Let's go, you two!" Blossom charged in, starting the attack. "Daifuku Shoot!" The yo-yo hammered into the ground as Sedusa leapt back.
"Bubble Champagne!" Bubbles let loose a swarm of bubbles, but Sedusa rushed right through them, slicing them apart with her nails. One of her locks lashed out and wrapped itself around Bubbles.
"Bubbles!" Buttercup cried out. "Swing Sonic!" She launched a bolt of energy from her hammer, tearing the living hair apart and freeing her friend.
"My hair!" Sedusa screamed as it came back to her. "Look what you did to my beautiful hair! I'll make you pay for---"
"Enough!" shouted out a voice. Out of the shadows, Zero appeared, completely recovered, not a single scratch on his body.
"Zero!" the girls shouted.
"Zero, darling!" Sedusa ran over to him, hugging him. "You've come to rescue me again. You're too sweet, my dear..."
"Sedusa..." Zero said, looking down at her. "You have done an excellent job. Because of you, my wounds are healed, and I am ready to carry out the final phase of my plan..."
"Oh, that's wonderful, darling..."
"However..." Suddenly, Zero's blade shot out of Sedusa's back. The girls gasped, and Sedusa let go of Zero, her eyes widening.
"Z, Zero, my dear... w, why?" she asked.
"...there is no place in my plan for you," Zero said to her.
"But... I thought that we... that you..."
"That I what? Loved you? Such a thing is a contradiction of my existence!" Zero pulled his blade out of Sedusa, and kicked her to the ground. "I don't ever remember saying that I loved you, anyway. I only said you could stay here."
"Sedusa!" Bubbles cried out.
"Zero...!" Buttercup glared at him. "Turning on your own helper like that... you're even worse than Him!"
"Hmhmhmhmm... I'll be waiting for you, deeper inside, Powerpuff Girls Z..." Zero slowly faded away back into the shadows.
"Running away again, Zero!?" Blossom yelled out.
"...I'm such an idiot, aren't I?" Sedusa asked.
"Sedusa!" Bubbles rushed over to her. "Are you going to be okay?"
"Why does it matter...? I'm nothing but a monster, your enemy..." She looked to her side. "Ever since that day, the day I was set free, I thought that freedom was all that I wanted, all that I needed... but it wasn't. When I saw Zero... when he saved me, let me stay at his side... I felt special... then I realized what it was I truly wanted..."
"Sedusa..."
"I wanted to be loved. I wanted Zero to love me, just like Souichirou... loved... Sakurako... but I guess that was just a foolish dream... wasn't it...?" Sedusa closed her eyes, and black gas began to leak out of her body. As the gas left her body, she slowly faded away, leaving nothing but the red snake necklace that she always wore on the floor.
"Zero..." Buttercup shook her fist, "that no good, double-crossing son of a...!"
"That's enough, Buttercup," Blossom said. "Cursing him isn't going to stop him. Zero will pay for all the pain he's inflicted on everyone. We'll make sure of it!" Blossom and Buttercup rushed ahead into the shadows after Zero. Bubbles took one final look at Sedusa's necklace.
"Sedusa..." she murmured. "It wasn't foolish for you to want to be loved... you just looked for it in the wrong place..." She then followed the girls into the darkness.
In the deepest, darkest chamber of the facility, the girls stumbled through the darkness, trying to find Zero.
"Zero!!" Buttercup yelled, her voice echoing through the room.
"It's over, Zero!" Blossom shouted out. "Come out and show yourself, you coward!"
"I am not hiding..." Zero's voice resonated through the room. Then a single light appeared on the far side of the chamber, and there sat Zero in his throne. "I am right here. Welcome, Powerpuff Girls Z... to Ground Zero."
"Ground Zero?" Buttercup asked. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"
"It is in this very location," Zero said, standing up from his seat, "that I will trigger the beginning of the end of the blight known as mankind."
"What!?" Blossom gasped. "You're insane!"
"We'll never let you get away with something like that!" Bubbles said.
"You don't seem to understand the situation you're in," Zero said as he slowly approached them. "So allow me to illuminate it for you!" He snapped his fingers, and suddenly, the room slowly started to light up, one section at a time. The girls looked around, and what they saw left them almost breathless. Every last inch of wall in the chamber was lined with canisters full of black gas.
"There's so many of them...!" Blossom said.
"There must be hundreds, no, thousands of them!" Buttercup added.
"Yes," Zero said. "And this is only the beginning..."
"Why?" Bubbles asked. "Why are you doing all of this? What do you possibly have to gain through destroying the world?"
"I have nothing to gain," Zero replied. "It is simply... the nature of my existence."
"The nature of your existence?" Blossom asked. "What does that mean?"
"Heheheheh..." Zero chuckled. "I guess since you've made it this far, you're entitled to know the truth. Tell me, do you know how all of this started?"
"It started when Zero, the original Zero, woke up from his stasis, didn't it?"
"You're close, but incorrect. Why, do you think, that Zero awoke in the first place? It is because someone, or something, woke him up. Do you know who or what was responsible?"
"Enough cryptics!" Buttercup said. "Get to your point!"
"Very well..." Zero's eyes began to glow. "...It was me. I woke Zero from his twenty-year slumber."
What...?"
"That's impossible, though!" Bubbles said. "You only showed up after the original Zero woke up!"
"Wrong!" Zero said. "I was there long before that. If you're willing to listen, then I shall tell you a tale... a tale that begins nearly 21 years ago..."
It all began with the greed and ambition of a single man... a single man, who ended the life of one, and ruined another's. The man paid for his sins in blood, and as punishment, his executioner was forced into a deep slumber... one that he was never to awaken from...
That executioner... was the original Zero.
For 20 years he had slept. Although his body was asleep, his mind was wide awake. As time passed, his hatred for mankind grew. He loathed them, despised them, for destroying his life. And then, it happened...
"What happened?" Blossom asked.
"You should know the answer to that," Zero replied. "After all, you were involved in that incident... one year ago."
"One year ago...? Ah! The iceberg!"
"Yes... the iceberg. Everything always begins with that iceberg..."
My existence began the day that iceberg was destroyed. At the time, I was but a single glimmer of black light, the essence of my originator's soul. As fate would have it, I reached the underground laboratory where Zero was, still slumbering, his hatred still growing. I felt it as soon as I entered the machines there. Such intensity... it changed my nature completely, transforming me into an entirely new entity. I was no longer just a spark of some demon's soul...
I had gained my own sentience.
I manipulated the machines in that laboratory, and awoke Zero from his slumber. It was I who set him loose upon the world, feeding off of his still-growing hatred, growing stronger as I did. It was I that also created the first seven canisters of black gas, the ones he used to wage his self-righteous crusade against Tokyo City. He was to be my ignorant pawn, until an unforeseeable element entered into his life...
The element known as "Momoko Akatsutsumi".
The day Zero met that accursed girl, I slowly began to lose control of she revealed her true identity to him that day in the laboratory, I urged him to kill her, but he refused. He let her go free, and in a blind rage, began to destroy the laboratory. I would not allow my existence to end there! Fortunately for me, I discovered a way out. The machinery in that lab was connected to this facility. Before he could finish destroying everything, I transferred my essence to this facility, taking with me all of the hatred I had absorbed. Without a pawn to manipulate, I was helpless, which is when I decided to create a physical shell of my own, so that I could carry out my plans myself.
That shell is the Zero you see before you now.
"If what you just said is true..." Blossom said, "then that means...!"
"Yes!" Zero said, his eyes glowing brightly. "I am the black light that released Zero from his prison! I am the one who helped him create the seven Sin monsters! And because of you, Momoko Akatsutsumi, I had lost my pawn! You had nearly ruined my entire plan, just because you became his friend!"
"It was for the better, then!" Blossom said. "You were nothing but a parasite, feeding off of his hatred! This is what Zack meant when he said, 'hatred only breeds more hatred'! Then the black gas is...!"
"The collective of all of that man's hatred, given physical form by my essence! And from feeding on that hatred, that power is amplified exponentially!" Zero raised his arms in the air. "All you see around you is the fruit of twenty years worth of hatred! Even this mechanical shell that speaks to you now is only another fragment of my being! And now, the time has come for me to become whole again! How amusing it is, that one person's hatred, started by the greed of another, would lead to this world's destruction! Ahahahahah, ahahahahahah, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!" Zero began to laugh maniacally, and suddenly, the entire room began to rumble. The canisters lining the walls began to crack, and one by one, shattered, releasing their contents into the room. The massive cloud of black gas began to encircle Zero as he was lifted into the air. The ceiling then began to break apart, pieces crashing down near the girls.
"We've got to leave, now!" Blossom shouted to the others. They nodded, and flew out of the chamber as fast as they could.
"You can run," Zero shouted at them, "but you cannot escape the wrath of twenty years of hatred!!!"
As soon as they reached the exit of the facility, the girls' compacts began to beep. They opened their compacts and saw the Professor on the display.
"Girls," Utonium asked, "what happened in there? We lost contact as soon as you entered the facility!"
"Professor, call the Mayor!" Buttercup said. "Tell him to evacuate the city! Something's about to happen, something really bad!" Suddenly, the entire city began to rumble and quake. The girls looked behind them so see Mount Fuji erupt into flames.
"It's happening again..." Bubbles said.
"It's just like last time..." said Blossom. "…? Wait, what's that?" She pointed to the peak of the volcano. A giant hand rose out of the burning magma, clutching the edge of the crater. Then, another hand appeared, clutching the other. Finally, what appeared to be a gigantic, monstrous version of Zero emerged from the lava, the plate over his mouth replaced with rows of sharp, jagged, uneven teeth. "Is that... Zero...?" The enormous creature let out an ear-splitting roar, one that could probably be heard around the entire world.