Buttercup stepped cautiously towards the dead hyper intelligent evil monkey before her. "What the hell…" Buttercup trailed off, taking another step.
"Hello, Buttercup." Mojo spoke in the same accent he had in life. What was that accent, anyways? It was almost as indescribable as that other voice, the one that had been in her head for so long…
Buttercup didn't believe her eyes, and not as a figure of speech. She literally didn't believe it. A couple of memories from the last few hours had found their ways back into her head, and she knew she couldn't trust her own perception anymore. Not since she signed that contract so long ago. Every thought she was thinking could have been implanted artificially by Him. Like that one. Or that one. Or the one before that…
"Please, have a seat." Mojo invited her to sit on her own bed, as if he owned the place. Wait a second… wasn't he supposed to repeat what he said a bunch? Granted, Buttercup didn't remember too much about him in the first place, but the repetitive speech was kind of hard to forget. The fact that he was there in the first place distracted Buttercup from the thought pretty fast, though.
"Mojo… Jojo?" Buttercup said, waving her hand around in front of her like a madwoman. She had to see if he was really there, or if it was just Him playing tricks. If it were a trick, then why would he let her think that it was a trick? So she could doubt herself?
"Yes." No joke, that's what he really said. Not, 'Yes, it is I, Mojo Jojo!' or even, 'Yes, I am he.' Just 'yes.'
Buttercup found that her shaking legs (she hadn't really noticed how wobbly she was from having Him in her head until now) had finally brought her within arm's reach of Mojo. To Buttercup's relief, her disturbingly pale hand (she had spent the last twenty years indoors) phased right through the now smoky image of Mojo Jojo.
So he hadn't resurrected from the dead. Good. Maybe he was a ghost, but at least Buttercup wouldn't have to fight a zombie.
"So you see that I am not really here," Mojo said, motioning as the smoke reformed to Buttercup's bed. "Please, sit. We have a long talk ahead of us."
Buttercup sat stupidly. "You bet your ass we do." He could hear her, right?
"Hmm." He could hear her. He stared blankly at Buttercup with cloudy white eyes. Hadn't they been constantly bloodshot during his life?
"So?" Buttercup shifted on her bed and blinked a few times to make sure she was seeing right. Mojo was still there, in a certain way… his ghostly, sort of spiritual presence felt oddly familiar. Kind of demonic, really.
Mojo walked closer. "My, you've grown up so much since I last saw you clearly, Buttercup."
What the hell did that have to do with anything? "Thanks, dad." The absence of repetitive sentences made Buttercup a little uneasy. It was one of the few things she had to link Mojo to the monkey she remembered. Vaguely. Really vaguely.
Mojo stared at her longer. Then he blushed and smiled awkwardly, which looked absolutely terrible with his green skin and pointed teeth. "You would think that after planning this for so long, I'd know what to say first."
At this point, Buttercup had an epiphany. There was no Mojo. It was all Him. He was the one putting Mojo in her head; not, well… Mojo Jojo himself. He wasn't really there at all. It was all an illusion.
Or maybe that thought just then was the illusion. Maybe Buttercup thought that so she wouldn't listen to any of the information a real Mojo Jojo might give.
Crap. This was going to be a bit of a problem.
"Maybe I should explain first."
Buttercup cocked her head nervously. "You don't say?" She was trying to be all sarcastic and all, but, strangely, it wasn't working. After Him… he was bound to posses her again, and it made her so queasy that it messed with her characteristic caustic sarcasm.
Mojo made himself comfortable by shifting his weight to one leg. He didn't look very comfortable at all, but that might have just been because of the things he was about to say. "Right, then. I probably won't have as much time as I'd like, Buttercup. I'm using my Master's astral projection apparatus, and he might come back to check on it any minute now."
Buttercup furrowed her eyebrows. "Your who's astral what thing?"
Mojo sighed. "It doesn't matter. Anyways, I-"
"Who's your master?" Buttercup really needed to know why Mojo was there, but she couldn't help but ask.
"Him. I've gotten used to calling Him my Master."
A few memories flashed in Buttercup's head. Not enough to matter, but they still flashed. Him, a chair, a room, and Mojo, all at the same time. Had that really happened?
"As I was saying," Mojo picked up as he started pacing slightly, "I came to you in the same way my Master has in the past, before you died…"
Buttercup remembered the carefully hidden candle pentagrams she'd have to make just to call Him over. Imagine that – she had to try to get Him over. Satanism is all fun and games (and bargains) until you've been to hell and back.
"…so I could tell you something very important."
Buttercup's interjecting though had cut what Mojo had said, but she really didn't feel like making him repeat himself. He was probably pressed for time, and Blossom had told her to be take other peoples' needs into consideration… Blossom? Why was she thinking about Blossom?
Mojo shifted around, unnerved by Buttercup's chilling silence. "I've been helping you for a while now, Buttercup. You and you siblings."
Buttercup started. "My siblings?" How uncanny was that? She was just thinking of Blossom! Wait a minute… Blossom made one sibling. Mojo said sibling. Plural.
"Blossom and Bubbles, and…" Buttercup didn't catch the last bit, but it didn't matter. Mojo confirmed it. He had been 'protecting' (he couldn't be trusted immediately, of course) Bubbles too. Which means she was alive.
Buttercup's mind violently flashed back twenty years. A laser. The blast, the scream, the peeling skin. Rough actions, rude words, and physical torture. The Incident. All to her own sister. The one thing that had been stabbing her with guilt for two decades.
Bubbles was alive. If Mojo was telling the truth, which he probably wasn't. Buttercup was in a hospital after being mauled by demon ants, for fuck's sake! How was that helping her?
"I've been trying to delay his plans as long as I could, and I have to say that twenty years of changing Satan's mind is no easy task."
Yeah, right. Why should Buttercup believe Mojo, anyways? Trusting him would be like trusting Him. She definitely heard Mojo in hell, and he was definitely comfortable there. He was a servant, wasn't he? A minion.
Kind of like Buttercup had been.
"But I've done the best that I could. Apparently, it wasn't enough. He got to you, and he's closer to infiltrating Blossom than he's ever been before."
Of course he is. He's motherfucking Satan. That's what he does, is screw up peoples' lives.
Holy hell, was Buttercup defending Him?
"Trust me, I know the feeling. I fell to Him too, twenty-five years ago."
Now that caught Buttercup's attention. There's no way that statement was actually approved by Him. It had to be original.
"It was the worst. The things he made me do…" Mojo shuddered. "The absolute worst."
Those were obviously Mojo's own, good intentioned sentiments.
"I fought Him internally, of course. I was pretty good at it, too, thanks to my chemically enhanced brain. It's why I talked repetitively – that was Him trying to catch up on what he said after I pushed him out for a split second."
They had to be Mojo's thoughts.
Mojo stared at Buttercup for way too long and sighed. "But enough about me. I came here for a reason; I have to tell you some things. You've been sent to hell too clueless too many times for me to just stand by and watch. You deserve an explanation… Are you with me so far?"
They had to be…
Mojo waited to see if Buttercup was playing along.
"Yeah, I'm with you," Buttercup said reluctantly. She was probably falling for another trick, and she was probably going to kick herself later, but she was so intrigued…
"Good. Hopefully, by the end of this, those ants and peppers will make a tad more sense. And the possession, and how your siblings fit into all this."
Though Buttercup couldn't wait to hear his explanation, she really felt like running away from Him.
***Author's Note***
Can Mojo be trusted? Is he helping or hurting, or not even there? And why did Mojo say 'siblings' instead of 'sisters'? Such suspense. Much anticipation. Hopefully.
And just so you know, TheHiddenGenius, I've never been near an actual mental institution. My mom worked at one for a little bit (like, a really little bit), so that's as much as I know without making stuff up. I'm just trying not to be over the top with it; I try to make Buttercup chapters (when she's not possessed, of course) a bit more non sequitur, a little more erratic. That's all. When Him is there, all bets are off.
Well, thanks for reading and reviewing! Sorry for the delay guys; the site wouldn't let me log on the last few days because of an 'authentication error'. But seriously, you guys put the weso in awesome… never mind, that doesn't work. But you're still awesome!