Super huge shout out to my intrepid beta, Mordor, who turned around his edits extra fast so I could update sooner than I was expecting! Don't get too excited though, we are officially in the two-part climax of this story. Check your hope at the door.
Chapter 17: Where the Straight Way is Lost
Getting the location of Dinah's secret lab from Julie's records did not take long once he expressed his willingness to use force if necessary. That bridge was burned now, but Princess was worth it. Now, to find her and end this god-awful day.
He touched down next to his car and startled Antony so badly, the guy banged his balding head on the window.
"Ah, a thousand apologies!" Antony said.
Brick glowered at him through the windshield. Before he could duck into the driver's seat, his phone buzzed. It was his turn to be utterly startled when Blossom's picture popped up on the caller ID, smiling back at him. A vice-like terror froze him where he stood as he contemplated whether she was calling to scream at him or demand something of him. There was no way she was calling to ask him to reconsider them, no matter how desperately he clung to that lunacy now that she'd reached out first.
His hand shook as he answered the call after an interminable six rings. "Blossom?" Maybe it wasn't even her, but an imposter sent to torment him.
"Brick," she said, "please don't hang up."
God, it felt like years since he'd heard her voice, and something inside him wrenched painfully. She sounded upset.
Of course she's fucking upset.
Brick opened his mouth to respond, but all he could manage was a pathetic croaking sound as he came way too close to crying again.
"Brick?"
He cleared his dry throat and steadied himself on the side of his car. "Yeah," he managed without completely losing his cool. "I'm here, I'm not hanging up."
"Okay, thank you. Look, I wouldn't be calling if it wasn't important. You need to know about what Dinah's done."
"Dinah Swathe?"
"Yes. Where are you?"
Brick bared his teeth. "On my way to her secret underground lab to get Princess back."
"Princess? Wait, what are you talking about?"
"She kidnapped Princess. Look, I don't have time to explain. I have to get to Oceanside and—"
"Is that where she is?" Blossom hissed. "Tell me where exactly."
"It's fine, I'll handle it—"
"She has Brisa," Blossom interrupted. "Brick, she's been using Chemical X to make monsters, and now she's taken Brisa."
Her words slurred together as his brain tried to process them, but all he could envision was Brisa's dimpled face withered in disappointment—at him, at his carelessness, how he'd let it all happen right under his nose. Dinah had played him for a fucking fool for the low price of a fat paycheck and the life of his niece.
Blossom's voice was the only thing that kept him from melting his phone in a humiliated rage: "—need to tell us where to meet you right now."
"Us? Who's with you?" he asked.
"Everyone."
Everyone meant Butch and Boomer, and Brick was not ready to face them yet. But Brisa…
Fuuuuuuck.
"Brick," Blossom said, calm but firm, "what I said before about asking for help, I meant it. If you try to go after her alone, you'll fail. You need my help, and I need yours. Tell me where Dinah's secret lab is. I'm not going to ask you again."
The unspoken threat was not lost on him, but Brick was too angry to dwell on it. He gave Blossom the address, promised to meet her there, and hung up the phone. Antony watched him like he'd seen a ghost when he started up the engine and peeled out of the Smith & Associates parking lot headed east.
"So," Antony said meekly, "I take it your meeting was successful?"
Brick ignored him as his mind raced with the implications of what Blossom had told him. If Dinah was behind the monsters, how had she created them before he'd given her Chemical X? Could she have an alternative source? But then, why come to him at all?
"May I presume to ask who that was on the phone?" Antony asked.
"You may not," Brick said. He took a hard left turn just as the light turned red and earned an angry honk from oncoming traffic.
Antony gripped the door handle. "It's just that you seem a bit tense—"
Brick slammed on the brakes just short of rear-ending the car stopped at a red light in front of him. "I'm perfectly calm!"
Antony clutched his chest as if his heart might burst out of his ribcage. Barely a whisper, he said, "No, you're not."
Brick glared bloody murder at his passenger, and Antony nervously averted his gaze.
"The light's turned," Antony said.
Brick returned his attention to the road and hit the gas. "I can see that."
The remainder of the trip passed in tense silence as Brick valiantly refrained from blowing up Antony and also his car.
Brick's Porsche was parked across the street when Blossom and their siblings touched down at the address in the Oceanside District Brick had given her. She'd wanted to drive and keep a low profile, but Butch was having none of it and took off before she could wrangle him. Now, Blossom came face to face with the man who had dared her to fly only to let her fall. His red eyes softened when they locked on hers, like he was relieved to see her, and she was trapped.
He unfolded his arms and headed straight for her, but he barely made it two steps before Buttercup punched him in the face out of nowhere. Brick dropped like an anchor, and the spell was broken.
"Buttercup," Blossom said before she could stop herself.
Buttercup loomed over Brick, who clutched his abused cheek and waited for the bones to knit back together. "Don't worry, I'm done," Buttercup said. "He's not worth anything more than that."
Surrounded on all sides by his brothers and Blossom's sisters, Brick remained on the ground and didn't say a word. Blossom approached and slipped her hand in Buttercup's, who squeezed her back in silent solidarity.
It was Antony who gave Brick a hand up.
"Thank you all for coming," Antony said softly. "I already feel closer to finding Miss Morbucks safe and sound."
The reminder of why they were all here was the final boost Blossom needed to set aside her personal baggage and focus. "Now that we're all here, we can start."
"Fucking finally." Butch led the group inside through the sliding doors. Boomer was right behind him. Neither spared Brick a second glance.
"Blossom," Brick said when she passed him by last.
"Let me be clear," she said, hanging back. "I'm leading this team. Fall in line, or stand aside."
Brick looked like he wanted to respond to that, but after a moment he closed his mouth and set his jaw. "After you."
Blossom gestured ahead of her. "I insist."
His red eyes flashed venomously at her blatant challenge, but by some hidden strength in him he managed to hold his tongue and submit. Antony followed, and Blossom brought up the rear.
"Trouble in paradise?" Antony whispered to Brick.
A searing heat wave burst from Brick and warped the tiles underfoot. Antony gasped and leaped away, surprisingly spritely. Brick's poisonous glare followed him. "If you live through this night, it will be by divine intervention."
Blossom ignored them and approached the front desk, where the receptionist was busy cowering from Butch's intimidation and Buttercup's badge. Leaving Antony in the lobby to wait for the police, the six Supers found themselves in the elevator headed for Level Seven, where the receptionist said Dinah was waiting for them.
"She was expecting us," Blossom said, troubled.
"All of us?" Brick asked softly, and she couldn't help but look up at him. The desire to pick his brain reflected back on her as they searched each other.
Boomer stiffened. His blue eyes were two chips of ice sinking through the back of Blossom's neck. She did her best to ignore him, but with the six of them crammed into the industrial elevator, there was little helping it.
"Who gives a shit?" Butch growled. "Not like she's going to live through the experience either way."
"You can't kill her, Butch," Blossom said.
The surge of Butch's power in the tiny elevator burned her throat. "Wanna bet?"
"Blossom's right," Brick said. "If you kill Dinah, Buttercup will have no choice but to throw your sorry ass in jail and Brisa won't have a father anymore."
"What do you even care?" Boomer hissed.
"I'm the one who found this place. Obviously, I care," Brick said.
"Oh yeah? And what if Blossom hadn't called you, huh? Would you have even bothered to tell us at all?"
Buttercup snorted. "Not fucking likely."
"All right, that's enough!" Bubbles said sternly. "We agreed to be a team to help Brisa and Princess and all the others Dinah's taken. They need us, and that's what matters the most right now."
Everyone shut up after that, and the elevator dinged upon arriving at Level Seven. Blossom was the first one to emerge into the long, gloomy, beige hallway. Light sconces cast a jaundiced glow on the drywall and the blue-painted support pillars lining the walls. A fat ventilation pipe ran the length of the hall along the ceiling in both directions. Blossom was not prone to claustrophobia, but the weight of the walls lent a baleful, deep-sea pressure to the space. She half expected teeth and tentacles lurking around the corner up ahead.
Brick brushed past her and headed down the hall around the corner on his own.
"Wait, where are you going?" Blossom said.
"The whole place is lead-lined," he said. "I can't see shit."
Blossom activated her X-ray vision and found that he was right: they were blind in here. Which would not have bothered her with any great particularity, but this was Dinah Swathe's lab, presumably where she made her monsters from the bones of innocents. What dark denizens dwelled behind these walls that she didn't want them to see?
"I say we go all the way down," Butch said back near the elevator. "Look at that: Level Nine is R&D. It's the last one. Brisa's gotta be there."
"But this is where Dinah's waiting for us. I think we should at least check it out," Bubbles said.
"It could be a trap," Boomer said.
Buttercup smacked her fist against her open palm. "What can she do? We've beaten all her monsters."
"And we'll beat her ass too if she tries shit," Butch said.
Brick had wandered off again while Blossom was distracted, and she darted after him. "Brick, wait. For god sakes!"
He whirled on her, eyes blazing. "Why? So I can get in your way some more? You seem to have your team under control just fine without me."
Blossom got in his face, unafraid. "Stop it. You don't get to be selfish right now."
True to frustrating form, he didn't back down. "This is me not being selfish. You want to lead? Fucking do it. I won't stand in your way."
He tried to leave again, but she grabbed his arm before he could. "I don't want to lead like this; I want a partner," she said, exasperated. "How can you not see that?"
He radiated warmth where she touched him through his sleeve, and Blossom was transported back to that very first night at the SF Gala. He'd come looking for her at the end of the night like a thrilling part of her hoped he would just to see that look in his eyes again, to sense him in her blood because when Brick felt something he projected it like radiation, inescapable.
And it was too much, more than one person could bear. She could not pretend he didn't hold her heart when its pieces flourished in the fire that burned between them even now, even after everything. If she didn't love him, she was sure she would hate him.
She released him and took a step back. "You don't see it, do you?"
He reached back for her, but she pulled away, resigned at last that she was, truly, on her own. "Blossom," he pleaded with her, contrite, but it wasn't enough. He was not enough.
"Just go," she said. "I can't focus with you here."
She turned from him and the heartbreak all over his face. Even that was selfish, craven. She didn't have energy to waste on him anymore.
Brick's footsteps receded behind her, and Blossom forced herself not to turn around. Her team needed her. Brisa and Princess needed her. Resolved, Blossom headed back to the elevator to rejoin them when Boomer appeared around the corner.
"There you are. Hey, we need a deciding vote on where to check out first." He trailed off the minute he saw her face and closed the distance between them. His hands were cool and dry in hers. "What did he say to you now?"
Boomer watched her with the iron resolve of an ancient Redwood tree, mighty and mystical. Not for the first time, she marveled at his strength and wondered how in the world Brick could have been foolish enough to squander him and Butch the way he had. It only hardened her own resolve that she had made the right call.
"Nothing of consequence," Blossom said truthfully.
Boomer was about to respond to that when the elevator opened and four men completely covered in black paramilitary gear emerged, rifles raised. Buttercup and Butch were too busy arguing to notice the threat in time, but Bubbles did.
Paranoia possessed Blossom to move, these men were dangerous even if logic and Chemical X insisted they couldn't possibly be a threat with their toy guns. Bubbles readied her blue blasters just as a bullet hit her in the shoulder—not a bullet, a dart. Bubbles jerked and collapsed to her knees, and her blue blasters fizzled out in her fists.
"Bubbles!" Boomer shouted.
Butch and Buttercup had finally wised up to the threat, but the armed men moved frighteningly fast. Unnaturally fast. Paths of white light illuminated their wake as one deflected Buttercup's lightning-fast green blaster with a white blaster of his own. In the chaos, his silent teammates unloaded on Butch and Buttercup before they could properly defend. Butch took three darts in the chest before he was forced to take a knee, and Buttercup siphoned his half-made shield before it could dissipate and launched it like a guillotine at his assailant with a furious "Motherfucker!" for flair.
The razor-thin shield snapped back the enemy's skull with a sickening crack that sent him falling on the floor like a pile of trembling jello. The remaining three shot Buttercup full of darts in cold retribution, and in a matter of seconds, half of Blossom's team was down.
"No!" Boomer took off flying, and Blossom took off after him in a panic.
"Boomer!" She grabbed his waist and wrenched him around into the wall just as the guards rounded on them. Her intervention was just in time to take the shots meant for Boomer, and she seized as her body betrayed her.
Boomer shook her off, and it sent her crashing feebly onto the floor. "What the—Blossom!"
Blossom ignored the pain in her back as she rolled over. "It's AX! Don't let them shoot you!"
Boomer powered up an energy bat and swatted away the second spray of darts before they could hit him. Blossom heaved on the floor as Antidote X enervated her body and spirit. A stirring of winter in her lungs petered out with a pathetic puff, disastrously normal.
But there was no time to fear or wither, not while her team was in trouble. Blossom got to her feet, gritting her teeth to the ache in her side, and barely made it even one step before a warning alarm blared and a concealed shutter closed like teeth, partitioning the hall. Bubbles, Butch, and Buttercup disappeared behind hit, cut off from Boomer, Blossom, and their powered assailants.
"Bubbles!" Boomer swung his power bat, and blue energy ignited along the ceiling pipes, raining sparks. He hit one of the attackers and sent him crashing against the closed shutter, but it barely dented.
We're not getting through that, Blossom realized in horror.
One of the guards drew a small knife from his holster, and it crackled to life with white-hot power the length of a sword. The other two followed suit, and the smell of burning Chemical X hung redolent in the hall and stung Blossom's eyes. Boomer faced them, the only thing standing between Blossom and one hundred percent certain death now that she had lost her powers. Only Boomer's fate concerned her now, though.
"Boomer, they're as Super as you and me," Blossom said, clinically calm as she focused on the situation at hand and not on the crippling thought that they could both die here if Boomer made even one wrong move. "You can't fight them all off alone. We have to retreat."
Boomer snarled in a way that did not suit him at all. His bat warped and narrowed into the shape of a saber, and he conjured its twin in his other hand. Electric power crackled around him, star-crushing. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "I'm not going anywhere until I find Butch and your sisters."
Blossom shuddered at the look in his dark eyes, ruthless yet tranquil. He was unrecognizable like this, almost frightening as he sized up the enemy Supers like a reaper come to collect on their souls.
Bubbles had looked like that on rare occasions over the years. Sweet, mild Bubbles, pushed too far and stretched too taut until she snapped. But unlike Buttercup's blind rages, Bubbles' cholera was a silent killer, neither friend nor foe, and utterly without mercy.
There was no arguing with Boomer because the enemies came at him all at once, X sabers swinging, and Boomer flew to meet them in a dizzying blaze. Power popped in the air as the incandescent blades crossed, crackled, broke, and crossed again. Boomer fended off all three assailants as if he had been born for this, and in a way he had. But the enemy had numbers on their side, and it took everything Boomer had to keep them at bay. With a sneer, he channeled more power through his sabers and blasted all three back to join their fallen brethren.
Blazing blue eyes found Blossom on her feet behind him. "Get out of here! It's too dangerous!"
Every instinct in Blossom bade her protest, but there was no point and no time. The three Super guards were back on their feet and charging him again, and Boomer met them blow for blow in a shower of blue sparks that scarred the stone walls. One of the enemies shot lasers from his eyes and hit Boomer in the chest, forcing him to one knee, and he struggled to shield against the overhanded blows that followed.
"Go!" Boomer shouted. "I've got this!"
Blossom went, but not to flee. She would find Brick before more of Dinah's Super guards found him, and then she would find Dinah herself. There was no time left to waste.
The vent overhead groaned suddenly, engorged to bursting, as she sprinted down the hall as fast as her unpowered legs could take her.
Having coffee with Dinah Swathe was like sitting through all eight wretched seasons of Game of Thrones with someone who never read the books and vehemently believed they didn't need to.
"It's not even about the money, although there's more than enough of that too," Dinah said as she sipped her cappuccino like a simpleton, because only simpletons drank cappuccinos after 10 a.m. "It's about power and respect. But I know I'm preaching to the choir here."
Princess sipped her espresso for something to give her lips to pinch. "So what, sell people a Super serum and bam, instant status? I hate to break it to you, but there are plenty of Supers who are complete and total garbage by default. Believe me, I've had the displeasure of working alongside some."
A particularly unpleasant memory of Fuzzy Lumpkins toting around an enormous rock came to mind. God, no matter how many years of therapy she had under her belt, Princess was sure she would never get over the smell of that furry swamp hick.
Dinah smiled in that superior way she had, like she knew better. "There will always be a few bad apples in the bunch, I'll grant you that. But honestly, you can't sit there and pretend that this power doesn't open doors otherwise forever closed to people like us."
"Maybe it's you who's pretending. I was born lucky. I have wealth, a good name, good breeding, and the sense to strike out on my own so I'll never be beholden to anyone. There's no greater power on Earth than that kind of freedom. You're in the same boat. What else could have made all this possible?" Princess gestured to the enormous laboratory all around her.
Dinah dropped her smile. "You think money got me where I am today?"
That, and an untreated personality disorder, Princess thought.
She didn't have to say anything. Dinah set aside her cappuccino and smoothed the skirt of her dress. "I see. Well, that surprises me considering you and I have the same story."
"I'm dead ass certain we don't," Princess said.
Dinah wasn't deterred. "You spent years chasing after the Powerpuff Girls because you wanted to be like them. You wanted powers on par with theirs, and why?"
"Why?" her court-mandated psychiatrist had pressed her after an incident at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten when she had donned a garish, golden super suit and Blossom had smashed it to pieces in minutes. "Why do you want to be like them?"
Dinah leaned forward over the table like they were best friends sharing dirty little secrets. "Because that kind of power is everything."
"Because…"
Because she'd been five years old and she just wanted a real friend. Because she'd never had one of those before, and if everyone loved Blossom and her sisters unconditionally, then maybe they could learn to love Princess too. Because it took her years of therapy and a chance to flourish on her own terms outside of Daddy's safety net to finally admit that she'd been a jealous, lonely girl with everything at her fingertips and no one to share it with.
"You and I… We're not the ones who were born lucky," Dinah said.
Princess let out a sharp breath. "You are so fucking delusional. I'd feel sorry for you, but those people you're torturing in cages already used up all my sympathy."
Dinah frosted over. "I'm sorry you feel that way. What a shame. I truly had hoped you and I could work together. Perhaps even become friends."
"You're turning people into literal monsters, Dinah. You're doing it to children, to your own son."
"I'm doing no such thing," Dinah bellowed in a voice from the gallows. "It's you who's delusional. Everything I've done has been to help Richie."
"How the hell is giving him untested Super juice the best you could come up with? You're one of the wealthiest people in the country! You could have tried literally anything other than experimenting on an innocent little girl."
"My son is innocent too. Do you honestly think I haven't spent everything I have searching for a cure? That I didn't spend years of my life exhausting every possibility, no matter how remote? Tell me, how is it fair that Brisa was born blessed by her mortality while Richie is cursed by his?" Dinah rose from her seat and towered over Princess in a cold, chthonic rage. "Why should gods live mighty and free among us while the rest of us must be content to shrink at their altars? How is that fair?"
Princess rose and looked her dead in the eye, unmoved. "They're not gods any more than we are. They have power, but so do you. The only difference is you're abusing the shit out of yours like a fucking cliché."
Dinah laughed joylessly. "Abuse of power? I'm not the one with the ability to melt a man from the inside out with a single look on a mere whim. But I may be soon enough."
There was no reasoning with Dinah. Princess knew a lost cause when she saw one. Rather, she needed to focus her efforts on how the hell she was getting out of here in one piece before Dinah put her in a cage alongside Danny and the others.
"Ma'am, your guests have arrived," said Dane, his voice muffled behind his mask. "There are six Supers, not three."
Dinah gave him her full attention. "Really… Well, that is a surprise."
Princess' heart leaped into her throat. Six Supers meant Brick had brought Blossom and her sisters along for the ride. For the first time that night, Danny's hope felt real enough to grasp. There was no way Dinah's bottle-made guards could hold a candle to the Rowdyruff Boys and the Powerpuff Girls working together as a team.
"Should I send a garrison?" Dane asked.
"Have Reception send our guests to Level Seven." Dinah tapped her lip in thought. "I'd like to send a proper welcoming party. Prepare Subject X5."
"Yes, ma'am."
Dinah opened the purse she'd been toting around and took out a medication pouch packed with three hypodermic needles: two were the telltale black of Chemical X and one glowed white with Antidote X. Dinah unfolded it on the table and selected the black hypo labeled "XT". She tapped the glass and handed it to Dane. "This should do."
Princess moved without thinking. Hastily, she swapped the hypo she'd stolen for the remaining black hypo in Dinah's pouch labeled "Brisa". Heart pounding, she barely snapped her clutch closed over the new hypo before Dinah turned back and collected her things.
"You'll have to excuse me. With so many visitors, I need to play hostess." Dina's colorless lips curled in a smirk. "Don't touch anything if you want to keep all your fingers."
"Noted," Princess sneered.
Dinah slinked off, but Princess was more concerned about what that mindless meathead Dane was up to, so she followed him to a cage on the opposite side of the room. A couple researchers were gathered, and one was filming everything on a tripod. Dane entered the cage, and the prisoner inside, a beanstalk of a man with an uneven beard and a strange, green tint to his skin, cowered from him. He looked like he'd died ten years ago.
"Arm," Dane commanded.
The prisoner shrank back and whimpered pathetically. Dane drew his sword, and it crackled to life with raw power.
"Arm," Dane repeated in his calm monotone.
The prisoner, shaking terribly, crawled on all fours to Dane's feet, and Dane put away his sword to hoist the man up by his emaciated arm. In the hypo went, and down the prisoner fell, seizing violently. The crunch of bones and cartilage pounded out a rhythm in time with one of the researchers typing out observations on her laptop.
"Holy shit," Princess hissed, at once repulsed and mesmerized by the grotesquerie transforming before her eyes. The prisoner was already tall and lanky, but he stretched out even longer and greener like a deranged Gumby no longer beholden to bones. His beard turned white and overtook his neck and head in a feral mane. The researchers got it all on film.
Dane exited the cage chill as a fucking corpse and entered in a code on the lock pad. A panel over the cage Princess had assumed was an air vent opened up, and the prisoner-turned-creature shot into the air and scrambled through it on short, lizard arms. It slowly hauled its body—all thirty feet of it and counting—up and up until it was gone from sight. The scraping sounds of its ascent slowly faded to a dull groan as the vent walls expanded to accommodate its girth.
Dane caught Princess staring in horror, and smiled with his creepy eyes. "Welcome party."
Princess turned tail and ran. She didn't know to where, and there was nowhere to go except away from that Super psycho and the beast he had unleashed. His laughter followed her, and so did his heavy footsteps.
Bubbles' arms were limp at her sides. It was an effort even to stand properly as the AX spread through her veins in a sluggish assault on her body. It had been years since she'd felt the dead weight of mortality bending her bones and sapping her strength with every labored breath.
"Son of a bitch!" Butch snarled. He hauled himself to his feet, pulled the darts out of his chest, and banged his fists on the heavy, metal shutter now separating them from Blossom and Boomer. "Open this fucking door!"
Bubbles forced herself to her feet, fighting a wave of nausea, and grabbed his arm. "Butch, stop!"
Blood leaked from his knuckles where he punched the shutter, and it was all Bubbles could do to hang on to him. Unpowered, he was all muscle and far stronger than her.
"Cut it out!" Buttercup latched onto his other arm, and together she and Bubbles wrenched him away from the shutter. "You want to break your stupid hands, or do you want to find Brisa?"
Butch heaved through gritted teeth, acid in his eyes and blood on his hands. He pulled at what little hair he had left and let out a strangled groan. "Fuck!"
Bubbles, numb but steadier on her feet now that the AX had settled, put a gentle hand on Butch's arm. She said nothing as he wound down from his episode, willing him to calm down because she and Buttercup were going to need him now more than ever.
"I don't see any way to open this," Buttercup said as she examined the shutter. "Can't hear shit, either."
Bubbles shuddered, realizing Buttercup was right. No more energy blasts, no more Super hearing, no more invincibility. They were just three ordinary humans now, fragile sacks of blood and tissue.
"Dinah was never going to face us fairly," Buttercup said. She had unholstered her gun and checked that it was loaded.
"Those guards, they were Super," Bubbles said. "Do you think…"
"That she's making them the same way she's been making monsters? I'd bet my left tit."
Butch gently removed Bubbles' hand from his arm and straightened up. "I bet your other tit there's more where they came from."
Bubbles hugged herself. "What are we going to do? We can't fight them like this."
Buttercup slid the barrel of her gun. The click echoed too loud in the hall, and Bubbles winced. It was as quiet as a crypt in here. "We came here to find Brisa, so that's what we're going to do."
"What about Blossom?" Bubbles asked.
What about Boomer?
The last she'd seen of him as the shutter closed was Blossom taking an AX dart meant for him, but whether he'd been spared or not remained a mystery. Bubbles prayed he was okay. There had been three Super guards left after the one Buttercup had taken out.
"Blossom would want us to stay on mission," Buttercup said.
"I need a gun," Butch said coldly.
"I only have the one."
"I'm a better shot."
"What good is that going to do against those Super freaks?"
Butch grimaced. "We're sitting ducks here!"
"I know that!"
"Guys!" Bubbles said, getting in between them. "Please, we can't fight. We can't stay here, either. I'm as scared as you are."
Butch averted his gaze and Buttercup set her jaw.
"Please," Bubbles said again. "We have to trust that the others are okay. They have each other, and so do we."
"You're right, Bubbles. No more fighting," Buttercup said.
She watched Butch like a hawk, but he nodded at length. "Yeah, fine. But we're going to Level Nine and that's final."
"I think that's a good plan," Bubbles said before Buttercup could argue. "Maybe there are stairs somewhere we can take?"
Outvoted, Buttercup relented. "Fine. But stay behind me, both of you. I've got the gun."
"Oh, you mean the one that's completely fucking useless?" Butch said.
"Shut up, Butch."
Buttercup took point without further fuss, with Bubbles behind her and Butch bringing up the rear. The hall was long and interminable, with only a few metal doors branching off to different wings: Containment, Sanitation, Storage. They poked their heads in a few of the rooms, only to find them empty and dark with disuse. The vent shaft in the ceiling creaked far away like an old heater kicking to life on a cold, winter day.
At last, they came across an emergency exit map hammered to the stone wall.
"Okay, looks like there's a stairwell past Presentation," Buttercup said. "Just up ahead."
They cut through Presentation, a cavernous room with a stage, empty seats, and a blank projector screen hanging from the ceiling. The groaning vent followed them as they made their way through, and Bubbles cast a wary glance at the ceiling behind them.
"How old is this place?" she wondered aloud.
Butch's hand clamped down over her mouth all of a sudden, and she shrieked. He weighed a ton pressing her down on the floor under a row of seats, and running footsteps alerted her as to why.
"I saw them come in here," said a woman who sounded out of breath. "Fan out."
Butch made the quiet sign and Bubbles nodded. Only then did he remove his hand and gesture for her to move. Buttercup was nowhere to be seen, but Bubbles took it as a good sign that she was also hiding. Through the gap between the floor and the movie theater-style chairs, Bubbles made out boots jogging along the aisles, heavy and black, military-grade. But unlike the Super guards, these didn't obscure their faces with masks. They also carried really big assault rifles. Bubbles covered her mouth to stifle a whimper as her extremely unwelcome mortality finally caught up with her.
Butch wasn't paying her any mind as his eyes scanned over the tops of the chairs. He turned to Bubbles and held up five fingers. Then he made the quiet sign again, and she understood what he meant to do.
Bubbles shook her head, willing her eyes to convey what a fantastically terrible idea it was to try to sneak-attack a bunch of heavily armed guards while unpowered. He only grinned wickedly and showed her his palm, a silent order to stay put.
She did for a few seconds as Butch crept past her, silent as a shadow, and approached one of the guards with her back turned as she peered behind a row of chairs.
Well, forget that. Bubbles was a Powerpuff Girl, and she wasn't about to sit around while her teammates did all the work. Scared shitless but determined as hell, Bubbles crept to the next row of chairs to look for a good opening. That was when she saw Buttercup rise from the opposite corner and fire her gun. The bullet landed true in one of the guards' thighs, sending him to the floor, and Butch pounced. His chosen target went down hard as Butch squeezed her neck with one arm and bashed the hand holding the rifle with the other.
Chaos ensued as the other three guards converged on Buttercup and opened fire. She was quick and darted behind the chairs again as bullets gored the dull, red fabric, and cotton stuffing burst like pus from a popped pimple. Bubbles' breaths came in short gasps as adrenaline took over where Chemical X had abandoned her, and she launched herself at the nearest guard while her back was turned, tackling her to the floor and rolling with her behind another row of chairs.
"Goddamnit!" shouted another of the guards.
Bubbles struggled with the woman she had assaulted and managed to get in a good punch to the face. Pain exploded in her fist and she yelped, but the guard was stunned long enough for Bubbles to pin her and throw her rifle far out of reach under the chairs.
"Bubbles!"
Bubbles had just managed to grab the metal beater stick strapped to her guard's thigh when she heard Buttercup's warning and whirled on the gun pointed at her face and fortuitously forgot she wasn't a Super anymore. She grabbed the barrel and wrenched it out of her face just as the guard fired and hit his colleague on the floor. The shot guard wailed, the shooter hesitated, and Bubbles shoved him back as hard as she could.
Butch was waiting on the other side and bludgeoned the guard's head with the butt of the assault rifle he'd stolen off another guard, and the guy was out cold. Bubbles looked him over for a split second, taking in the calm set to his shoulders with such a big gun cradled in his arms as though he had evolved into his final and perfect form, when the ceiling groaned louder than ever directly above them.
"Down!" Buttercup commanded from across the room, just as the fifth guard unloaded on Butch and Bubbles.
He only got two bullets out before the central air vent burst open and a massive snake creature dropped down directly on top of him.
"Fuck me," Butch said as he turned his rifle on the monster that had swallowed the fifth security guard whole.
Green-scaled with stunted front legs and a bushy, white mane, it had the face of a lion and a forked tongue too long for its mouth. The back half of its serpentine body remained in the vent pipe, and Bubbles wondered just how big this pitiable hell-creature—this former human being—was.
"Bubbles! Butch! Get out of there!" Buttercup fired at the Snake Monster and drew its attention. It roared so loudly that Bubbles had to cover her ears.
"Come on!" Butch grabbed Bubbles' hand and dragged her after him through a row of seats, giving the beast a wide berth.
For something so large, it shot after Buttercup whip-fast as she launched herself over a row of chairs at full tilt. She bought Butch and Bubbles the time they needed to make it to the stairs entrance.
"Go!" Butch said, and then he fired at the Snake Monster.
It roared in pain as the bullets sank into its fleshy snout, but it was undeterred and switched its focus to Butch while Buttercup sprinted along the far aisle, up onto the stage, and finally made it to the stairs. She had an assault rifle strapped to her back and her nine millimeter in her hand, which she turned on the Snake Monster.
"Let's go, Butch! Leave it!"
Bubbles clutched her pilfered beater stick to her chest as she ran down the stairs after Buttercup, and Butch fired off a few more shots at the beast before pulling the door closed behind him.
They raced down and around the central cement column to Level Eight, and Buttercup abruptly came to a halt. Bubbles crashed into her and only barely had time to shove her out of the way of Butch, who landed against the rock wall with a smack.
"I hate this fucking day!" Butch snarled.
"I don't get it, how can this be the end of the line?" Bubbles said, panting. "This is only Level Eight!"
"They really don't want to make it easy to reach the bottom," Buttercup said, drawing her assault rifle. She had a bad cut on her cheek that bled down her chin, but she didn't seem to notice or care.
Above, the walls creaked with the weight of something massive pressing against them, and Bubbles blanched.
"Son of a bitch." Butch's eyes darted around the stairwell and he aimed his rifle to shoot anything that burst out of the walls to attack them.
Bubbles gasped. "The elevator! We should be able to reach it from this level and ride it down to Level Nine."
Buttercup wiped the blood from her cheek on the back of her hand and grinned. "Good call, Bubbles."
"I'll take point," Butch said.
Buttercup didn't argue, and soon they emerged onto the eighth floor of the labyrinthine fright factory.
"Oh my god," Bubbles said, her voice cracking.
Level Eight was a grid-work of tiled walkways laid out in a spacious, open floor plan. In between the walkways, the floor gave way to deep ditches illuminated by caged construction lights and carved directly into the earth. Bubbles peered over the edge of the railing into the closest ditch and recoiled. Spotted mushrooms as big as cars sprouted from the walls, pale yellow and reeking of rot.
"How the actual fuck…" Butch trailed off. Bubbles joined him on the other side of the walkway where he peered down at a massive cluster of thorny vines each as thick around as he was. They pulsed faintly like veins pumping blood, but they didn't stir.
"More Chemical X experiments," Buttercup spat.
"How in the world could she have enough Chemical X from the sample Brick gave her to do all of this?" Bubbles said.
"Don't know, don't care. We need to keep moving—"
"Hey, you! Hands where we can see them!" shouted a security guard armed with an assault rifle.
Unfortunately, he was accompanied by a Super guard who began to glow pearly white with power. Just when it couldn't get any worse, the walls shook and groaned again much closer than before, and Bubbles whirled just as the door to the stairs and a chunk of the drywall exploded to accommodate the Snake Monster's immense girth. It had slithered down the stairwell in pursuit of them and hissed when it spotted them.
"Shit, run!" Buttercup said, and she took off sprinting.
Bubbles shot after her, but Butch was in much better shape and quickly passed her to catch up to Buttercup. The human security guard had the right idea and disappeared through the side door he'd come from, but the Super guard pounded along the walkway like a bull seeing red. At his enhanced pace, he would make it to the central walkway before Buttercup could pass the intersection. Buttercup realized this too, skidded to a stop, and opened fire on him.
It didn't stop him, and the bullets bounced off his X-enhanced skin, but it did take him by surprise long enough for Bubbles to catch up while Butch did a one-eighty and sprinted back toward the monster.
"Butch!" Bubbles screamed in horror.
"Over here, you ugly bastard!" Butch opened fire on the beast, drawing its full attention before he veered off on a branching walkway.
The Super guard made it to Buttercup and came at her with a bone-crushing punch, which she evaded and grabbed his wrist. Using his own momentum against him, she managed to get behind him and steer him into the railing, which burst under his enhanced strength. He held on to the broken railing and didn't fall into the ditch, but the yellow flowers dormant near the bottom shivered and bloomed at his proximity. Their spiny vines slithered up the steep, rock wall in search of the prey that had wandered too close to their domain.
The Super guard managed to vault back onto the walkway before the sulfurous vines could snatch him.
"Bubbles, the elevator!" Buttercup said.
Bubbles swallowed her abject horror and sprinted to the elevator to call it down. The evil ditches all around her frothed as mutated fungus and flowers awakened from their dormancy expecting a free meal. She jabbed the elevator's call button and then returned her attention to the fight at hand just in time to see the Super guard backhand Buttercup and send her flying.
"Buttercup!" Bubbles wailed. Tears filled her eyes at the sight of her newly mortal sister struggling on the floor, dangerously close to the edge of a ditch filled with feral ivy snapping at her ankles. Buttercup fired her stolen rifle at the plants, chewing them apart in an attempt to evade their clutches.
Butch had managed to lead the monster on a goose chase, but the sound of Buttercup firing her gun drew its singular and fiendish attention, and it let out a primordial roar. Turning from Butch, it slithered more than scrambled on its useless front legs around the corner back to the central walkway and charged straight for Buttercup and the Super guard.
"Buttercup!" Butch screamed, unable to hide his desperation as he took off running toward Buttercup faster than he ever had. He shouted and fired his gun, anything to divert the behemoth's attention, but it ignored him entirely.
Bubbles sprinted back to her sister just as the Super guard caught up to her and grabbed her by the neck, dangling her over the edge of the ditch where the ravenous yellow flowers waited like starved jackals. They opened and let out a garbled, drowned sound, like screaming underwater. Buttercup pawed at the Super's enormous hand, but her face was turning red as he squeezed her throat harder.
"Perish," the Super growled in a voice as black as the pit he dropped Buttercup into.
Bubbles was too overwhelmed even to scream, her tears falling freely and her heart fit to bursting, and all she could picture was the Professor as he was the last time she'd seen him: sad and disappointed in her choices and her carelessness. She'd never gotten the chance to tell him how much she loved him, how much his disapproval hurt her deeply. A pain like demons clawed through her as Buttercup disappeared over the edge and the Snake Monster finally caught up.
The Super guard turned to fend it off with his blasters, blind in its need to violate any beating heart in its path, and Bubbles snapped. Humanity, mortality, frailty, she fed it all to the pain inside and let it rip her apart with a powerful swing of her beater stick. The Super guard's legs buckled where she hit him hard enough to sweep him off his feet and lose her weapon entirely. Bubbles hit the opposite railing hard, the Super guard hit the floor, and the Snake Monster hit him.
Its greasy lion's mane brushed her legs as it bit down on the felled Super guard and smashed the tiled walkway. Bubbles scrambled along the railing just as a blast of white energy pierced through the beast's cheek and it flailed, missing her by mere inches as it tumbled into a ditch filled with neon lichen spouting putrid spores all over it.
"Oh my god!" Bubbles cried and dashed to her battered sister leaning on an equally battered Butch.
He'd caught her in time, pulled her out scuffed up but still alive, and earned a bloody arm for his trouble where the thorns scraped through his jacket to the vulnerable tissue underneath. "Fuck you," Butch said in a desperate, raspy voice as he gathered her away from the edge of the ditch and the broken railing. "Trying to die on me like a goddamn pussy-ass little bitch—"
Bubbles could have kissed him, but Buttercup beat her to it and yanked him down for a big wet one on the mouth. Butch cried and shook as he kissed Buttercup back just for a moment, just long enough to feel her return to life in his arms. Bubbles sobbed and fell into her sister's waiting arms when she pulled away from Butch.
"I'm okay," she said, her voice shaky with fear.
"Come on," Butch said in a strained voice as he helped Buttercup to her feet. "We gotta move."
Behind them, the Snake Monster writhed as it struggled with the desperate Super guard still half stuck in its mouth and the malignant lichen attempting to pull its entire girth into the ditch. Hungry vines wriggled around the broken walkway in search of the meal Butch had denied them, and Bubbles didn't need to be told twice.
"Elevator's here," she said, and led the way to the open elevator doors.
They tumbled inside as the Snake Monster let out another guttural roar, its huge body thrashing and destroying more of the walkways, opening paths for more X plants to creep out of their ditches. Bubbles mashed the button to close the doors and sank to the floor with Buttercup on one side and Butch on the other.
In the stillness, Butch sniffled and wiped his damp eyes with his good arm, but Bubbles only had eyes for her sister, miraculously still alive and kicking. Bubbles had never known such a singular joy born of her greatest fear. She ached to be nearer to Buttercup, to be known, to be seen in all her colors before the light was gone for good.
When Buttercup finally looked up at her, her bright eyes glassy with pain and so much stubborn love that had always been so obvious to Bubbles, Bubbles let go of the last bit of pain and let her cracks open her fully.
"I lost our baby," Bubbles said in a voice from deep within her fissures. "The Professor died, and two days later, I…" She choked—still some pain left, after all. "I couldn't bear to look at Boomer after. It was all my fault and I couldn't… I couldn't—"
It had been a long time since she had let herself get lost in her sister's invincible arms, and now, mortal and wounded and should-have-been dead, they had never made Bubbles feel safer and sorrier. "Bubbles," Buttercup said, her voice hitching.
Bubbles clung to her like Buttercup had clung to that ledge. "You almost died!"
Buttercup's hand in her hair was a comfort so lovely it almost burned. "Why didn't you tell us? Why?" She was crying now too as she clutched Bubbles like she might disappear. "Did you think we wouldn't listen? That we'd be angry? Bubbles, my god…"
"I couldn't—I didn't think—" Bubbles choked on her sob, and Buttercup kissed her hair.
"You're always giving your love away," Buttercup said, tired and tender. "But you've never been very good at taking a little for yourself."
Buttercup pulled back and looked her in the eye. Tears made her green eyes glisten, beautiful and expressive and so warm.
"Buttercup," Bubbles murmured.
"Take mine. It's always been here for you."
Bubbles' eyes were swollen and puffy, and the adrenaline had left her heavy and sluggish. But she smiled and hugged Buttercup like it was the first time. "I love you so much."
"I am pretty awesome," Buttercup said, a smile in her voice.
Bubbles laughed through her sniffles. "You are." Lighter than she'd felt in a very long time, she finally released Buttercup and found Butch sitting there dutifully quiet as he let them have their moment. Bubbles' gaze softened and she reached for his good hand. "Right, Butch?"
He snorted. "You got your moments."
Bubbles squeezed his hand, and he met her gaze. To her delight, he was blushing. "Thank you," she said, never meaning it more.
Taking a deep breath, Bubbles got to her feet and wiped her ruined mascara on her sleeve. The button for Level Nine glowed on the control panel.
"Ready?" Buttercup said, wincing as she got to her feet and popped her neck.
"Ready," Bubbles said, and pushed the button.
"Let's go get my girl back," Butch said, aiming his rifle at the doors.
The elevator pitched deeper toward the final destination of their katabasis, but Bubbles was light on her feet, ready to fly.
Next time: Brick and Blossom confront Dinah.