Chapter 115: The God-Damned Calvary
[Townsville High, 10.03pm]
The Powerpuff Girls knew that evil clouds with red lightnings flashing within the clouds are a sign of something evil. For it to appear above Townsville is a sign that something very wrong is happening to Townsville. They turned their attention back to the black armor-clad operatives, wanting to know what is happening to their beloved city. Instead of an answer, the Powerpuff Girls were answered with Boomer grabbing the closest Powerpuff Girl he could reach for
"Hey-EEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!" Bubbles shrieked as Boomer hurled her away towards the skies with all his might.
"Bubbles!" Blossom yelled, her rose-pink eyes wide with shock.
"What the fuck!" Buttercup demanded an answer as she grabbed Boomer by his collar.
"Look." Boomer answered with a particularly serious expression at odds with his usually happy-go-lucky attitude.
Blossom and Buttercup were perplexed by his expression before something else caught their eyes. The area around them is illuminated as if it was day time, and the Powerpuff Girls immediately looked up to see their sister flying past a rapidly closing dome of white flames. The dome closed just moments after Bubbles flew past the barrier and now the two remaining Powerpuff Girls realized that they are trapped within the school grounds.
"Wh-when?" Blossom is shocked that she did not notice such an obvious dome forming above them.
"Moments ago." Boomer informed.
"But how did you even-?"
"I'm quick." Boomer shrugged.
"But do you really have to toss Bubbles?!" Buttercup slapped Boomer's head.
"She's the one I can reach, so she will have to do." Boomer rubbed his head,
"Looks like Boomer's quick action gave us someone on the outside. But now we need to figure out how we-" Blossom was cut by a choir of angry voices.
"There you are, you vermins." Blossom, Buttercup and Boomer froze as they heard the choir of voices speaking at once, the furious choir of women and children alerting them that the demon had made short work of its distractions.
The unearthly demon soon entered into the periphery of their sights, and the heads of the blood-drenched demon slithered on their elongated necks like a nest of vipers. The spider-like legs maliciously took each step with the intent to do harm, with the macabre separated arms rotating around slowly like a ferris wheel. The other armed men with them immediately aimed their rifles at the blood-drenched demon, but it paid no heed to the danger posed by the rifles.
"Well," Boomer turned around to face the demon, "This sucks."
"Well, " Blossom followed Boomer's lead, "Of course it sucks."
"Well," Buttercup turned around last, "This fucking sucks."
"You vermin...you think you can stop me? You are underestimating Her." The livid voices betrayed the true emotion lying beneath the passive black-eyed faces.
"The fact that you think that we can stop you is good enough news for me." Buttercup smirked.
The smirk apparently set the demon off and the sound of toiling bells violently reverberated through the air, causing Blossom, Buttercup and Boomer to yell out in pain as they held on to their ears. Blossom saw Boomer collapsing on the ground with his eyes rolled up and blood flowing from his eyes, mouth and ears. Blossom realized that Boomer's hypersenses made him especially prone to attacks that bombard his senses. The copper-haired Powerpuff Girl looked around only to see that a worse fate had befallen their supposed saviours. Blossom covered her mouth, trying not to throw up. It is only because of the protection offered by the MAGI that prevented the Powerpuff Girls from experiencing the extreme effects of the deafening sounds.
"BOOMER!" Buttercup yelled as she went down by Boomer's side.
The blood-drenched demon charged towards them like a rampaging hydra, taking advantage of the Powerpuff Girls' lull in their defenses. Blossom's rose-red eyes captured the image of the monstrosity galloping towards them, knowing well that she is now the only one that can react in this situation. Blossom's color palette turned much paler, being almost white in color. She immediately knelt down on the ground, placing her hand on the ground. The ground froze quickly and violently, spreading out in a fan-shaped wedge outwards from Blossom.
The frozen ground reached Her in an instant, and the first two pair of Her's spider-like legs immediately shattered at making contact with the frozen ground. Blossom's expression turned sour as the demon managed to hop from the ground and clung on the school building. The multitude of arms immediately shot away from Her's body like missiles and they are all aimed at one target; Blossom.
A large cross-shaped spinning projectile made contact with the missile of arms, intercepting them in mid-air. The resulting collision caused a large explosion, and Blossom turned around to see Buttercup with two crossed arms. Two spinning vortices formed around Buttercup's forearms and fists, and the vortices ignited into a greenish-yellow flame. Buttercup's coat combusted and burst opn to reveal her halter back sleeveless shirt covering athletically lean and muscled body. Two spinning vortices manifested themselves behind Buttercup's back like wings of a butterfly, glowing with a yellowish-green that matched the intensity of the Powerpuff Girl's own pair of eyes.
"You are going down bitch." Buttercup said coldly. In a flash Buttercup had disappeared from Blossom's view, and Blossom turned her attention towards the only target within their vicinity.
The furious exchange of attacks between Buttercup and Her is so intense and fast that Blossom only managed to see a blurry image of thir exchange. The multitude of Her's arms traded with Buttercup's fists and kicks, but none of them landed a blow on the torso or heads of their opponent. Blossom knew that she will not be able to match Buttercup's physical prowess, but instead she will use her intellect to find the gap in Her's defense to strike at.
Blossom looked around and saw that the fallen soldiers had combat knives. Seeing the chance, she went over to the bodies and started to take the knives. Thought it pained Blossom that her act is akin to looting the dead, her pragmatism of taking these knives to be used by someone that could use them won out. One by one, she took the knives away from the corpses.
"Six knives. Blossom uttered to herself as she hold three knives on each hand in the space between her fingers. It is not like her to use weapons, but Blossom believe that the situation is dire enough that she will make an exception.
Blossom's rose-pink eyes watched attentively as her sister and the demon continued on with their furious exchange, and Blossom sensed the dryness in the air. Buttercup's Jetstream is a very intense martial art, and it can even create its own micro-climate. Blossom studied the habits of both fighters as they both attempt to vanquish one another. Each blow was parried and countered, but each counter if followed by another parry of counters, and Blossom would have appreciated the exchange if the situation is not so dire. Part of the school itself is being demolished in the exchange, and Blossom is glad that the fight is not waged when the school is filled with students.
Blossom picked up one of the knives and channeled her cryogenic powers, turning the steel blade into an icy, translucent blade. Blossom had never tried to channel her powers into anything else other than herself, and it is time for her to experiment with her powers. Her eyes moved with rapid speed as she tried to catch the movement of the hydra-like demon and keeping in mind that her sister is engaged in close-quarters combat with the monster. Blossom's struggling eyes is compensated by her prodigious calculations and she is now attempting to predict what and how Her would move about.
There!, Blossom immediately tossed the blades towards a blank spot only for the demon to appear a split second later. The blade struck deep into several of its heads, and the heads immediately froze. The spread of the frost spread down towards the elongated necks, but the demon noticed the attack and decapitated the frozen heads with several of its numerous arms. The frozen heads impacted on the ground and shattered like glass, and Blossom smiled.
Blossom's smile immediately turned into dismay as she saw several more arms were launched towards her direction and she was forced to evade the incoming attack. Blossom jumped from side to side and backwards as the arms impacted the ground, stabbing the ground like large iron rods. Blossom struggled to evade each attack, and it is only through her quick calculations of where the arms will land allowed her to avoid being stabbed.
"Ah!" Blossom tripped and she fell down on the ground. Her eyes spotted the last arm flying towards her and in a moment of surprising clarity, Blossom opened up her legs. The hand stabbed the ground between her opened legs, barely missing her hips.
"Thanks for the distraction Blossom!" Buttercup thanked her sister and she took the opportunity to close in on the demon at near-point blank range.
Buttercup swings both her arms, creating a two spinning stationary energy projectile that merged into a cross shaped spinning projectile that launches with exponential speed. Buttercup's legs immediately formed a vortex surrounding her ankles and she immediately did two somersault kicks, unleashing two more lime-green spinning, vertical, ring-like projectiles. The demon is unable to block all of them and the resulting impact exploded and a great vacuum formed itself at the epicenter of the strikes.
The flames in Buttercup's arms turned into a vapor-like form and the precipitation of liquid soon started to drizzle upon Buttercup and Her. With two more swipes of her arms, Buttercup unleashed two more blue-ish green projectiles towards the demon's body. The projectile sliced through several dozen arms and also necks of the monsters, but Buttercup is immediately swatted away by the remaining arms. Buttercup crashed down on the ground right beside Blossom, and Blossom immediately turned around to her sister's direction.
"Not bad Blossom!" Buttercup cheered.
"SHUT UP!" Blossom yelled in anger.
The loud bell-like screech stopped the two sisters from bickering with each other. Their eyes soon met the countless eyes of the demon before them, and both of them thought to themselves that they are seeing more heads and arms than ever before. Indeed some of the heads and arms soon pressed upon the ground for support, and still there are more heads slithering and coiling around in anticipation of a strike.
"Shit...that bitch's a real hydra." Buttercup sweated, and she knew that this is something that she had faced only once in her life.
"For each head cut off, nine more will grow." Blossom uttered, and she knew within herself that this is something she had faced only once in her life.
"Blossom...this reminds me of that time we went to the future and..." Buttercup wanted to tell her sister what she felt, but she paused knowing that doing so will admit that they are facing something that they can never win against.
"I remembered." Blossom assured her sister that she shared her dark-haired sister's desire to not admit to the inevitability of an opponent that is beyond their capability to defeat.
"So...what is the plan Blossom? Boomer's down for the count, and we're the only thing stopping this monster."
"We do what we always do; we fight."
"That's the spirit Blossom."
Without warning, a dark red beam pierced through the skies and hit the monster straight in the chest, causing the demon to buckle. Blossom and Buttercup were caught offguard by the beam's presence, and their surprise is further compounded when half of the monster's heads disappeared in a flash. The large eruption of ichor erupted from the stumps, only for countless more heads to violently burst to replace the severed heads. Blossom and Buttercup looked around to see where these attacks were coming from, only for several large, pin-like missiles to rain down upon the many-headed demon and engulfing it in a burning cloud of and Buttercup looked up to see that the battlefield is joined by three individuals with bright red skins.
"Looks like we found Her." A female monotone voice answered, belonging to a slender woman with braided blonde locks of hair with half her face covered up in a high collared black long-sleeved jacket over a black Cheongsam that revealed her long shapely legs. Her
"El Diablo was right." An accented Hispanic voice joined in the conversation. A man wearing a long white trenchcoat buttoned only at the first button looked at the Powerpuff Girls with his grotesque bat-like mask, with his pristine white appearance interrupted only by the black sash around his waist and the black bandanna wrapped around his head. Resting upon his shoulders is a large obsidian-colored paddle-like weapon with large, vicious chainsaw-like blades mad that is as wide and tall as the man wielding it on his shoulders.
"We stop Her, we can move on to It." The third voice, a gruff and harsh manly voice pointed out in a clipped second man appears to be a large burly man with silver-hair and beard, with his face bearing the scars of a grievous burn. A green military uniform rested upon the man's broad shoulders, and the white and blue horizontally striped shirt is at odds with his red skin.
"What are they doing here?" Blossom asked herself.
"Whatever it is, this is really bad for us." Buttercup answered, not realizing that the question that Blossom asked herself is not meant to be answered. Blossom agreed that the presence of three of the Lunatics is a further deterioration of their situation, for the three that appeared here are the ones that are perhaps the most aggressive and militant of the Lunatics.
"Oh look, your favorite one is here too!" The bat-masked gangster pointed towards Blossom as he spoke to the female Lunatic.
"Indeed, the red-haired Mui Mui is here." The blonde Asian woman winked at the Powerpuff Girls as her feet touched down on the ground just a few feet in front of the Powerpuff Girls.
"Him's minions...This is a surprise." The demon spoke, its countless voices having the properties of cold ice.
The other two Lunatics landed beside the female Lunatic, and it appeared that the Lunatics are ready to take the fight to the demon itself. Blossom and Buttercup looked around once more, wondering how these Lunatics entered into this white-flamed prison that the demon had erected around the school. Something makes no sense to Blossom, as there are no forced entry into the dome. Unless...
"Blossom...what are you thinking about?" Buttercup's question snapped Blossom out from her thoughts. The red-haired Powerpuff Girl faced her sister, and there is a great concerned look on her sister's face.
"They entered the school before Her erected the field." Blossom revealed her thoughts to Buttercup.
Immediately another wave of toiling bells blasted through the air once more, causing Blossom and Buttercup to cringe as the sound rang painfully in their ears. However, Blossom and Buttercup noticed that the sound only served to annoy the Lunatics rather than weakening them. Indeed one of them is particularly infuriated by the sound. The bear-like Russian and the blonde Asian are now glaring at the abomination standing before them lividly.
"So...Her's the source." The slender woman spoke to the other Lunatics.
"This make things easier." Medved said stoically despite his particularly livid expression.
The countless arms of the monster are now forming themselves into various objects that heightened the threat of the demonic being. Some of the hands formed themselves into a wing-like network, while other formed themselves into sword-like appendages and missile-like racks. The demon fired off a barrage of arms towards the five individuals, causing everyone to intercept the missiles in their own way. Medved took his coat apart, and his skin and body burst open to reveal a large ursine-like humanoid with porcupine-like spikes and launched the spikes towards the arms, impaling them in mid-air before the spikes explosed spectacularly.
Murcielargo pointed his fingers and fired a barrage of beams from his fingertips, incinerating several dozen arm-like projectiles. Buttercup fired off a large crescent-like energy projectile that sliced through the arms that met its path. Blossom blew with all her might, causing a gust of sub-zero winds to meet with the arms and the arms shattered under the pressure of their acceleration. Only Tigress did not bother to do anything resembling an intercepting action, and all the arms that aimed for her immediately disappeared in thin air.
Blossom's perplexed look of how the attacks disappeared is soon replaced with a memory of what Tigress can do, and immediately a cacophonous choir of screeches is heard. Blossom watched as the creature itself is impaled by a barrage of its own arms, and she was once more reminded of the spatial manipulation abilities of the Asian Lunatic.
The Lunatic known as Murcielargo immediately burst into action, and his movement almost did not register in Blossom's mind. Immediately Blossom and Buttercup heard a ringing voice that disoriented both of them and they soon saw their worlds in black and whites. Blossom have heard about this ability before from both Bubbles and Boomer, and it is the signature ability of the Los Noches gangster. Their senses are much duller than before, and Buttercup now understood why Boomer had a great difficulty with the Latino Lunatic.
"Melchior!" Buttercup called out to her MAGI armor.
"Yes, milady?" The suit answered back in its elderly voice.
"Rev all the sensors up!"
"Acknowledged."
"Blossom, ask Balthasar to do the same thing with your suit! You'll need it!" Buttercup dislike the situation for all these monsters have powers that defy logic, and they will need every little sensation that they can feel to get through all the interference.
Suddenly a loud crash happened beside Buttercup and she looked down to see Murcielargo embedded into the ground. The masked gangster erected his torso up, rubbing his head. Buttercup's eyes were focused on Murcielargo's injuries, for his legs appeared to be dislocated and mangled from his crash landing. The gangster however appear to be shrugging off the particularly shocking injuries, and Buttercup wondered if all Lunatics were impervious to pain as this crazed gangster.
"This bruja is a tough one. Medved, Tigress. We might need to bring more to the fight." Murcielargo advised his two comrades.
Good, we will get to see what these Lunatics are able to do, Blossom thought to herself. Knowledge is power and knowing what are the upper limits of these Lunatics will allow her to better strategize on how to defeat them once and for all.
"Alright." Tigress answered, and the woman snapped her fingers. To Blossom's utter awe-struck shock, the monstrous demon is no more. Buttercup noticed the same sight a second later, and she shared her sister's shock as well.
"What-the?" Buttercup frantically looked around to spot the monstrous demon, but the demon is nowhere in sight.
"There. I believe that is what you would consider 'more to the fight'." Tigress stretched her arms.
A dark toiling sound reverberated from somewhere, but it appeared to be muffled and it felt as if space itself is trembling creating an indescribable sensation to both Blossom and Buttercup. Several more muffled vibrations rocked their entire body, and Blossom realized that Tigress had trapped Her in an interdimensional prison. That unreasonable rationale is soon shattered by reality shattering itself revealing an escaping many-headed demon. Blossom is taken aback by such an absurd concept happening before her eyes, and she watched as the many-headed demon crawled out from its interdimensional prison.
"Not enough." Medved chuckled before the Lunatic tore its own skin apart once more, with blood spilling out from the self-inflicted injury. Instead of exposed muscle and sinew, a mass of blades revealed themselves. Blossom gasped as the barrel-chested man pulled more of his skin and revealing an organic, reddish brass-like substance. The pin-like structures peeled along with his skin to reveal a sword-like mane running down his glistening reddish brass-fibred body. Two large, elongated hammers on the back his large and broad shoulders, clad in the same scaly, sword-like armor. The head of the Russian gangster now appear to be a odd triangular shape, with an opening at the front of his head.
"So...we are going that way huh." Murcielargo sighed before the bat-masked gangster took out his mask to reveal a faceless smooth black face and a set of large ram-like horns grew from his skull and rested on his shoulders. The ears of the Hispanic gangster started to elongate into long and sharp tapered ears, and the bandana unveiled itself to let loose a stream of long and wild waist-length black hair. Murcielargo's fingers took on a reptilian talon-like appearance, and the hand grabbed on his trenchcoat and pulled it away, revealing a pair of black coat-like curled chiropteran wings with each divided into three segments giving it an appearance of trench coat with coattails. A form of surreal and unnatural blackness surrounded Murcielargo, and the sound of shrill, rat-like chirpings accompanied the darkness.
But the most extreme transformation of all belonged to the one known as Tigress.
Her body started to flicker and flash like a glitch on a computer screen, flashes of white breaking out from reality like an insult to the rationality of the known universe. Her form remained as such, and Blossom understood an unbelievable quantum paradox is happening before her eyes. The flickering form soon took on a more sinister aspect as Blossom saw flashing images of a white, feline-like animal interlaced with the glitching image.
"That's bad...Hey, Blossom...that's bad isn't it?" Blossom heard her sister's husky voice asking for her confirmation, but Blossom is utterly stunned to silence by the new appearance of these newly transformed Lunatics.
Blossom soon sensed something else coming into her attention; the sickly-sweet smell of Red Candy. No, Blossom reiterated, this smell is far too unnatural to be called sickly sweet. It is more an embodiment of something far more primal, and the aftertaste of the smell is felt on her tongue. The sweetness is almost a burning sensation, and it felt wrong in every sense of the word. The air continued to permeate with the smell, and Blossom is unable to hold in her disgust anymore. The visor to her helmet opened up and she immediately threw up.
"Hey Blossom! Blossom!" Blossom heard her sister's voice, Buttercup's voice being right next to her. Blossom felt a resting hand on her shoulders, and Blossom wiped her mouth.
"The sweetness...it's makes me sick." Blossom answered.
"Yeah, barely holding it in myself." Buttercup answered, and Blossom can see that Buttercup's face is paler than before.
A whistle interrupted the two girls' conversation, forcing the Powerpuff Girls to turn their attention to the source of the whistle. The two Powerpuff Girls did not appreciate that the whistle sounded like a cat call, and both of them are now staring daggers at the smooth-faced Hispanic Lunatic. The villain balked at the intensity of their stare but he managed to reconstitute himself before he asked them a question that caused their face to widened with surprise.
"Joining forces?"
"Why?!" Buttercup questioned the Hispanic gangster's intentions, unable to accept that their enemy for the past few months is offering to join forces.
"Why not?"
This is not the first time Blossom and Buttercup had been offered to work alongside their rivals and enemies to defeat a common threat. But they were never offered a chance to work together with their enemies in such a candid manner. The other two Lunatics did not even bother to say anything to Blossom and Buttercup, for their attention are focused on the demon.
"We accept." Blossom answered, causing her sister to pause in shock.
Blossom understood the absurd situation that they found themselves in and knew that it is better face one enemy than four enemies, each having powers beyond human reasoning. Blossom gulped, knowing that what she did might be a double-edged sword and these Lunatics can turn on them at a moment's notice. But that is the life of a temporary alliance of convenience, and now she will have to play by the ear.
"Good. Time to party girls." Blossom sensed that if the featureless face had an expression, it will be that of a smirk.
