AN: For whoever is coming from the update alert, this chapter is simply the result of me splitting up the previous chapter in two (the first part was renamed 'The Search'). New content of the latest update begins next chapter.
Chapter 8
Together
It had turned out that the soldiers guarding Huan's siblings were all highly trained elites. However, they were still unable to keep Donnie and Blossom at bay, as the puffs only had to take them by surprise to neutralize the only advantage they had: their 'W' enhanced weapons. It was just a fast flurry of punches, from one hallway and room into the other, and the entire area had been cleared in less than two minutes.
Donnie and Blossom moved deeper into the premises, leaving behind themselves a series of knocked out bodies. Huan cautiously followed them a few meters away, not yet reassured about the state of their enemies.
When the puffs opened a double door, they revealed a very different area compared to the rest of Headquarters, something more akin to a laboratory rather than a military facility. No scientist was on sight though, most probably already evacuated as soon as the fight with the puffs outside had begun (or they had fled by themselves after hearing the noises of the puffs' battle with the elites).
"We've got to be close. Keep your eyes open," Blossom warned as she hovered forward, leading the way for Huan and Donnie to follow. While traversing the first room, they passed through series of lab desks and various pieces of equipment-flasks, assortments of chemicals, Bunsen flames, and every instrument a good laboratory would need to function properly. It wasn't really something new for her, since she lived with a scientist.
However, it didn't take her much to notice some… peculiar things here and there: a few rare syringes, sporting the distinct, unmistakable glint of Duranium; protected scaffolding holding beakers with greenish powder, labelled with 'W' and various numbers and codes. Even an area with some weaponry and a wall full of various W-full tubes, the same attachments she had seen used by the soldiers.
'Gordon didn't lie at all…' Blossom thought to herself. Indeed, she had never excluded the possibility that Gordon had just been messing with her… it was something she was used to, with the various criminals and bad guys she had to deal with back at home on a daily basis. Yet, the General appeared to have been surprisingly honest… not that it made it any better what he did.
"Blossom!" Donnie called out. Blossom turned to look at him just in time to see him pointing in another direction. Following his suggestion, she saw what had caught his attention: a sliding double door, right in front of them.
What was behind it was pretty much clear from the labels beside it.
'Infra-Human Containment Unit. Please keep all necessary precautions when handling Infra-Humans. High Danger.'
"High danger…" Blossom whispered to herself as she read the words. She didn't really think much about the word 'infrahuman', believing it to be an invention of Doctor Porter, but after hearing it multiple times by the company's members and Gordon himself, it was starting to assume a meaning she didn't like.
Perhaps Donnie was right… and perhaps, 'puff' was better.
"T-they… they have to be here!" Huan uttered. She took the initiative, moving forward and beyond her two companions. "They have to!"
"Huan, wait!" Donnie tried to keep up with her. Blossom, on the other hand, stayed silent, distracted by her own thoughts, and only later did she realise that the other two had already left, the sliding door closed.
Her eyes widened and she tried to fly to the door to open it, but the thing didn't budge when she tried to push the panels outwards. Already was she considering using brute force, when the sliding mechanism activated by itself, letting her in.
There was a corridor before her, but Huan and Donnie were nowhere in sight. Hoping that they'd just moved fast due to Huan's eagerness to join back with her family, Blossom decided to hover down and walk the rest of the way. She needed some time to think… some time alone.
She was going to meet her siblings, after all. Another three kids like her and her sisters. She wanted to be prepared somehow! She couldn't just—
"PERSONNEL DETECTED."
She almost jumped out of the way, and only the complete lack of any laser turret appearing on the ceiling prevented her from starting to blast her eyebeams away.
"WEIGHT MEASUREMENT… ERROR. PLEASE HOLD YOUR POSITION."
Blossom looked down, and noted that she was hovering on a plate, separate from the rest of the floor in the corridor. 'If Donnie and Huan have flown through this corridor, they might have missed this part…'
The curiosity, and need to know about what was going on in Gordon's laboratory, eventually had the better of her, and she floated down again, standing on the plate.
"PROCESSING…" the artificially generated voice continued. "COMPLETE. STERILIZATION PROCESS STARTED…"
Blossom flinched when she heard the sliding noise of various holes opening around her. She flew up, already knowing what was going to happen, and as expected the holes sprayed out a chemical-smelling liquid. It hit nothing, as Blossom made sure to avoid getting herself soaked with something that, she guessed, wasn't supposed to touch skin. No harm in avoiding it when she could.
"ERROR. NO WEIGHT DETECTED… PLEASE HOLD YOUR POSITION," the voice recited again, but Blossom ignored it until the spraying stopped and the holes closed. She flew down again, deciding to at least try to keep the process going by collaborating from then on.
"STERILIZATION PROCESS RESUMED," the voice said just as Blossom started hearing the noise of ventilation systems starting up around her.
All of this… just to get to Huan and her siblings? It wasn't like they were sick or something. It didn't really make sense in her eyes.
Or perhaps… Blossom was just looking at it from the wrong point of view. It was clear that these men and women, including General Gordon, didn't look at them the same way people back in Townsville looked at her and her sisters. A memory popped up in her mind—the description of Donnie's first days in Ultrapolis, after his return.
All of this… precaution, it was symptom of something she had already heard about, just in a different way. Even if the scientists here were supposed to study them, they still feared them deep down. Enough that they didn't even trust the air they were breathing around them.
Blossom sighed. It was something that all puffs were going to deal with, sooner or later, especially in the case of Huan and her siblings. They were, after all, a complete secret in their country.
"PROCESS COMPLETED. PLEASE STEP AWAY AND MOVE ON TO FREE SPACE FOR THE NEXT SUBJECTS," the voice ordered, and Blossom complied, flying up and moving to the end of the corridor. The door was similarly automated, as it opened just as the voice spoke its last words, and it closed itself once Blossom went through it.
She was now in a new chamber, which looked even whiter and cleaner than the previous one, if possible. The only instruments here were found in control panels and some generic desk surfaces, all placed under a series of blackened windows, covered by something that didn't let her see through on the other side. Whatever was beyond the windows was connected to this 'control chamber' by another automatic door.
It was now closed, and Blossom's companions were standing in front of it… in fact, Blossom found herself staring at Donnie hugging Huan.
She was crying.
"What's going on?" Blossom said in alarm, quickly walking up to them.
"She sort of… lashed out, and tried to break down the door. It's solid Duranium, Blossom," Donnie explained. She looked beyond him and took notice of the barely visible dent on it—whatever Huan had done had only resulted in that and some scratches.
"I, uh… tried to calm her down and, well… you can imagine the rest," he said. Huan sniffed and he made sure to pat her back in reassurance, though Blossom could tell he was feeling a bit awkward about it.
Blossom considered her options, then she tentatively said, "Huan?"
The lime puff finally deigned to let Donnie go. She let out another sniff as she passed an arm over her face. Blossom saw, unsurprisingly, that her eyes were again wet.
"Blossom, I-I'm sorry, I didn't—"
"It's okay, don't mention it. We're here, Huan, we just have to get through this last door. We'll just have to do something else instead of breaking it down."
Huan nodded. "Okay… what are we going to do?"
Blossom looked around, glancing at the work desk below the windows. If this was the place where they kept her siblings, then they had to have a way to access the room…
In fact, it was even simpler than what she expected. On the panel right beside the Duranium door, there was a small control panel that looked promising. She flew up to the thing quietly and attempted to press the first button.
The sound that came before was pretty nasty-sounding, and nothing happened.
"Well, that didn't work," Donnie stated.
Blossom turned around to glare at him, to which he apologetically shrugged.
"I think… I remember they sometimes u-used some small things to open doors and do stuff," Huan said.
Blossom looked at her. "You mean like keys?"
"They, they work like keys? But they aren't metal things, they are similar to little pieces of plastic paper."
"Cards, then. Magnetic cards," she concluded.
Blossom looked at the panel to inspect it better, and sure enough there was a piece on it that looked quite like a card reader. Only now the issue was… where to find a card that worked.
"I can't believe our luck."
Blossom and Huan looked at Donnie. The puff was right now holding on a white lab coat—there were actually a few of them scattered on the abandoned chairs. He pulled out the hand that was hidden in it, revealing a red-coloured card.
"Are… are they that stupid?" Blossom let out before she could hold the comment to herself. This was something she'd expect from Fuzzy Lumpkins, not from members of a professional private army.
"Maybe they never expected us to get here in the first place… or maybe it was just a guy forgetting something important for once. I won't question it," Donnie said. He flew up to Blossom and gave her the card.
Blossom passed the card on the card reader, after which they heard a hopeful 'beep' ringing from the panel. Now she only needed to try the button again… or the others, if the first one didn't work.
She glanced at her companions: Donnie was beside her, waiting expectantly. Huan, however, was right in front of the door in wait, and when she looked at her the lime puff's eyes focused on her for a moment.
It was clear that there was no holding her now, once the door was going to be open… and to be fair, Blossom didn't want to inconvenience her. She could only imagine how much she had waited to get to this moment, and after their encounter with Gordon…
She nodded at her, then pressed the button without further delay. This time, instead of the error noise another 'beep' came through the speakers. And seconds later, the Duranium door slid open, its two halves retreating upwards.
Blossom looked at the panel once again, and noticed a button with a Chinese logogram. Even if her Chinese was terrible, she had read enough to at least guess single words, and she was pretty sure than one meant 'window' or 'windows' or 'transparency' or something like that.
Tentatively, she pressed that button as well. Another positive 'beep' greeted her, and moments later the cover on the windows that separated her and Donnie from the chamber beyond slid away.
Huan was already inside the chamber. The lights inside were already turned on, letting her watch the entire thing as it happened. The chamber was painted white not unlike the control room Blossom and Donnie were in, but unlike that one it was devoid of equipment. It was a literal cube of uniform walls, completely empty.
Except for one thing. Three, humanoid forms huddled together on the floor, on the opposite side of the entrance.
When Blossom saw them, her mind came to a halt. It was weird… weird because the very reason why she, her sisters and friend came this far, along with the company of two complete strangers, was right in front of her: the reason that Huan had talked about so many times, though details were scarce due to the sensible subject.
She probably should've reacted with either a sigh of relief, or a clap of accomplishment… instead, she remained silent, observing the events as they happened.
Huan didn't waste time when she saw her siblings herself. She hovered over to them and only halted when said siblings realised they had a visitor.
Their reaction was not something that the girl expected, apparently, as they backed up to the wall in fright. Huan halted her hover—from their position Blossom and Donnie couldn't see her face, but it didn't take a genius to understand she was astonished.
"…Ai?" Huan's voice came through the speakers of the room Blossom and Donnie were in. They didn't even question it and kept their attention to Huan. "Li, Hui?"
She said something else, but this time it was in Chinese, and try as she might Blossom couldn't understand a single word.
One of the other three puffs tentatively abandoned her two companions. It was a girl not unlike Huan—or the other puffs for that matter. Her hair was black as well, but her eye colour was different: purple.
Seeing her reminded Blossom of something… a memory from the past, a tragic event she seldom tried to reminisce about. She tried to shoo the thought away, shaking her head, as it wasn't exactly the best time, but the sight of the purple-eyed girl even from the distance—proper 'puff' body shape and all—still had an effect on her.
The girl made a few steps forward, facing Huan directly as she hovered down herself in order to meet her. She was only wearing a very light-looking gown coloured with a bright white colour, going from her neck up to her knees and with two short sleeves, and upon further inspection Blossom noticed that her hair was not only cut very short, much more than her sister, but also seemed dishevelled.
"H-H-Huan?!" the girl blabbered out. Her voice seemed to be on the verge of exploding.
Huan nodded, opening up with a few words in Chinese, but before she could finish the purple-eyed girl, unable to hold it any longer, burst into tears and tried running up to her. However, she stumbled on her own feet and plummeted down—only Huan's prompt reaction stopped her from colliding with the floor face first.
Huan was crying as well as she helped her sister up and then proceeded to hug her. The two were now up on her knees and basically bawling, not caring at all for the rest of the world.
It was something to be expected… but still, Blossom found herself shedding a sympathetic tear. She quickly brushed it off.
"I-I think we should go in as well. We d-don't have much time for the reunion..." she forced herself to say.
Beside her, Donnie simply nodded. When Blossom turned around and glanced at him, she saw that he was much less reserved about his reaction, or he was being better at hiding it.
Technically speaking, though… he was an only child. He had adoptive brothers, of course, but it was something different to what she and her own sisters shared.
Perhaps she was feeling this way because of what the entire situation reminded her of… of what Bubbles and Buttercup were up to now.
When Blossom and Donnie entered the room, the two boys inside were trying to stand up to go meet Huan as well. However, everyone soon realised that the two of them were unable to properly stay on their own legs, losing equilibrium as soon as they tried to lift themselves off the floor and grunting with exertion as they did so.
The two of them had less dark hair compared to their sisters, and their eye colour matched Huan's and her sister: one of them had lime eyes, the other had purple iris. Their demeanour was essentially different from their sister, as they growled under their breath while they tried and failed to stand to meet her. Blossom wasn't sure, but they seemed to be angry at their own failure at moving than anything.
The three siblings were weak, no doubt about it, but only after approaching them did Blossom's blood run cold with realisation. Their faces were much more pallid than Huan's, and were covered with a few, rare, but still visible brownish stains.
She knew the state they were in.
"W-what happened to them?" Donnie couldn't help uttering. "It looks like they're… drained?"
"This is what happens when someone, rather than just turning them off, tries to get your… power out of you, Donnie." Blossom explained. "This is different than what the Antidotes do to us. This is taking it out."
"Gordon… this is what he was talking about? About getting… 'W' out of them?"
She nodded, pursing her lips as the recollection of what happened in that cursed factory months before even Donnie was born came back to her.
When Huan noticed that her brothers were having a hard time, she gingerly pushed her sister away and said some words in Chinese. The girl let her go, albeit she had to be reassured with more words, and sat down, apparently unable to move anymore. Huan walked up to the boys and helped each of them to stand on their own—in the end, they managed to at least keep such a position by leaning on the wall.
Huan's brothers were more talkative than their sister, and they also looked to be trying their best to hold their emotions in. Blossom couldn't understand anything beyond random words here and there—she really missed Bubbles helpful abilities now—and that was the reason why she was surprised to hear one of the boys suddenly raised their tone, the one with purple eyes.
The boy barked some words angrily at Huan, pointing a hand at her accusingly. Huan, already tested, didn't take it well, but despite her eyes once again getting watery she stood her ground, giving her own reply to him.
The other boy intervened, apparently horrified by the exchange. He said something first facing his brother, then Huan, and he even gave a glance to their sister, who looked helplessly at the scene.
They stayed silent for a few seconds, then the second boy eventually let out a sob. Huan approached him and when she offered him a hug, he took it. It was more subtle, but the affection was still there.
The first boy, the one who had lashed out, looked at them without a word. Then, gritting his teeth, he tried to limp his way to them, only to risk falling to the ground again. As he tried to correct his posture, Huan realised what he was doing and, without letting her other brother go, she said something to him.
The boy said something back, and his words were still hard and furious, though his anger didn't seem to be directed at her anymore. The other boy said something, and Huan proceeded to help him to get to the purple-eyed boy together.
Eventually, he conceded to the embrace they offered to him and hugged them back. He didn't cry like Huan and the other one did, but he was definitely affected as well.
So much to learn from this interaction… and without a single word to work from.
At one point, Blossom noticed that the girl was looking at her and Donnie now. Ai, the name she was told Huan's sister was, had taken an interest in them, and her gaze felt penetrating. Blossom had no idea what they would think of them—Huan had discovered about Donnie and the girls' existence only after she'd escaped from the clutches of Gordon, so they were essentially total strangers.
Huan's reunion with Li and Hui was shorter compared to her sister. They let her go and then immediately looked inquisitively at the other two kids in the room. The boy with green eyes asked a question, and Huan said some quick words before finally looking at Blossom and Donnie.
"G-guys… sorry for, uh… n-not being fast, but…"
"No worries, Huan," Donnie quickly said.
"O-okay…" Huan sniffed, then took both of her brothers by hand and helped them limp over by Ai. Once they were there, Huan took position beside them.
"So… Blossom and Donnie, this… this is my family. My sister, Ai. And my brothers: Hui…" she patted the green-eyed boy, "and Li."
"Uuh… hello?" Donnie said, clearly not sure how to greet the new strangers. For once, Blossom's knowledge of very basic Chinese proved useful enough to let her attempt saying 'hello' in the kids' own language.
The two boys kept neutral, distrustful gazes, while Ai smiled at her. It was a start…
Huan proceeded to present them to her siblings in Chinese. Each of them greeted Blossom and Donnie, though only the green-eyed boy tried to add in a few words, looking at Blossom expectantly.
"Ugh… please tell him I'm just starting and my Chinese is horrible…" Blossom admitted.
Huan proceeded to translate the reply and the subsequent answer. "He pays no mind to it."
She nodded… then, an awkward silence followed. There was really nothing she could say to make small talk, considering the language barrier and the circumstances.
In fact… they didn't have time for that.
"We better move, Huan," Blossom said, glancing at her back towards the door of the white cell. "The less time we spend inside this place, the better it'll be for all of us. We can join with Bubbles, Buttercup and Nuru and they'll help us while we take our leave with your siblings."
Huan smiled heartily at her, nodding energetically. It looked like she was happy, something that Blossom didn't remember was very common with the Chinese superpowered girl.
She probably would've smiled back, but she decided against it. 'Celebrations later…'
"So… I guess, uh, that your sister and brothers can't fly. We'll have to carry all of them," Donnie said. Huan nodded, then proceeded to translate his words for her siblings.
The girl nodded her head without replying, while the boys seemed to be unwilling to accept such an offer, expressing their distaste vocally. Once again, though, Li almost lost his equilibrium while agitating his hands to show his point.
Then, they heard another explosion in the distance, followed by more gunfire. That was close… much closer than before!
"Guys, there's no time to argue about it right now," Donnie said. He looked firmly at Li. "We need to get our butts out of this place, now!"
Li glared back at him defiantly, and the stand-off went on for a few seconds.
Hui said something in Chinese, and whatever it was, it struck something in Li as he suddenly turned towards him and shouted back.
Ai tried to intervene, but Li only needed a glare to silence her. Turning back to Hui, he opened his mouth only to have Huan blocking his view.
"No," she opened in English. Then, she started talking. She pointed at Blossom and Donnie both multiple times as she spoke, and Li, at first red in the face, relented as her speech progressed.
Blossom and Donnie couldn't understand much, but then they heard her faltering at some point. "Gordon…" she said, then added a few other words.
Ai let out a yelp, bringing her hands to her mouth. Hui and Li, however, stayed silent.
The boys looked back at Blossom and Donnie. Then, Li grumbled something under his breath, looking away.
"Uhh… Huan?" Blossom decided to ask, once she believed that the waters had calmed down.
"We're… okay, Blossom," Huan explained. Li kept looking away, while Hui and Ai moved their gazes back and forth between their sister and the strangers that had come to rescue them. "Li is… sorry for not controlling himself, but he's just... not ready to fully trust you."
"You told them about everything?" Donnie wondered.
"Yes, just a short summary of it. He… he's still not convinced… I'm sorry Blossom, but he doesn't like your accent."
Blossom took a second to understand what she meant. Almost every man and woman working for Gordon was American… like her.
"I… understand. I hope he can at least tolerate us for the time needed to get out of here."
"He will, I promise," she said, giving a glance to her brother, then Hui and Ai. "They're all… confused. They didn't expect more people like them to show up."
'They aren't alone with that thought…'
"…okay. We'll think later about this. For now, let's think about how we'll move from now. I guess we'll carry one person each. Huan, do you think you can do that? Are your powers back?"
"I… think so. I don't feel as weak as before…" she replied without conviction.
"Okay. You… you tell your siblings if they have, uh… preferences?"
Huan nodded and did as she was told. The siblings briefly discussed about the plan before Huan spoke again in English.
"Donnie will carry Hui," she said. "I'll take care of Li, while Blossom carries Ai. Is that okay?"
Blossom and Donnie nodded, then walked over to the kids they had been assigned to along with her. Li was very clearly not looking forward to be moved around, but he nonetheless let her sister pick him up. Hui stumbled over to Donnie, who had to run up to him and grab him before he fell.
As for Ai… she stayed where she was, looking at Blossom expectantly.
She had stayed where she was, sitting on the ground, the entire time. Hui and Li could at least somewhat stand by themselves, but as Blossom moved over to her, she wondered if Ai had suffered the most from whatever Gordon's lackeys had done to them.
'Okay, Blossom… nothing to worry about. You carried the Professor or random people dozens of times, this is no different.'
…it really was, at least as far as feeling were concerned. Yet, she wasn't going to tell herself that. She sighed, then decided to take the initiative.
Blossom offered her hand to her, but Ai shook her head. She had to think over what she wanted for a bit before concluding that yes, she was tired and weak enough that she wasn't even able to move with her help.
Carefully, Blossom passed her arm behind Ai's back and legs, letting her grab behind her own head for support, and then she tried to lift her up.
Since she had super-strength, it wasn't very difficult, but even so she was still able to tell how light she was compared to Huan.
"Uuh… you're okay?" Blossom said, unable to come up with a Chinese equivalent. Ai didn't react, but she nodded when Huan's voice came to help with the translation.
The others in fact were ready. Huan donned a neutral face while Li scowled, ever so grumpy, with his arms crossed. In fact, not holding on her sister with them proved a mistake as at one point he almost fell and had to swallow his pride and ask for support. Meanwhile, Hui and Donnie had apparently had less problems in adjusting, though both of them seemed to not exactly appreciate each other. In other words, everyone wasn't exactly feeling the best they could.
It probably would've looked funny… if there wasn't an entire military division on the hunt for their heads, that is. She only hoped that the news about Gordon's fate had already started to take effect like they did on the soldier they had encountered earlier.
Blossom closed her eyes for a moment, running over whatever she could remember of their travel inside Headquarters. Then, she looked at the others.
"I'll lead. Let's get out of here."
Bubbles had lost count of time since they had encountered the first guard patrol inside Headquarters. She had also lost count of the number of squads that had kept appearing ever since she, her sister and Nuru had made it in into the facility.
Previously, during the battle in the square outside, the company had sent its forces at them in waves, trying out something different each time in order to overcome them. Now, instead, it was like that strategy had been left aside for a constant flood of troops.
It wasn't even about the "juggernaut" soldiers (she'd overheard that word in the commotion) that were proving to be a problem. The soldiers were not giving her and Buttercup and Nuru a moment to rest: there was a new armoured helmet with a shotgun behind every stair ramp, a dozen rifles aiming for them behind every corner. It was like they were doubling down on defeating them, despite the disaster in the other wing of Headquarters.
Or perhaps… they didn't want to defeat them, since they were doing the same thing over and over again… perhaps they were just trying to slow them down.
It was working.
"Danger!" Nuru uttered with one simple word, halting in flight and backing behind a corner. As expected, a series of rounds flew by, missing him by a meter—not close, but still too close for comfort. Buttercup, still carrying Bubbles (despite her protests) promptly hovered back.
"How many of them, Nuru?" Buttercup asked. Nuru looked at them, and while he didn't talk his wide eyes were big enough to be sufficiently eloquent.
"All right, I'll help you on this one. Sorry, Bubs," Buttercup said as she hovered down and let Bubbles go. The blue puff though didn't let her literally place her down, stubbornly refusing to do so until Buttercup helped her stand on her own legs.
"I can help, Buttercup!"
"Not again, Bubs," Buttercup shrugged her protests off. "Stay put. Nuru, with me!"
She zapped away, Nuru right behind her, leaving Bubbles alone. There was the noise of eyebeams being fired, followed by the screams of Porter's men and the pumping of shotguns.
Bubbles had had it with being carried around by her sister. She wanted to help them, both her sister and their friend had been accumulating cuts and scratches all over their bodies! They couldn't keep this up for long, not when there was always at least a guard or two in the patrols wielding those enhanced guns!
She made a step forward, and a sharp pain shot through her as soon as she made the first step. She let out a yelp, unable to contain it, and collapsed on the ground clutching on her leg.
Forced by the events, Bubbles could do nothing but check on her own injuries. Scratches and cuts, all right, those weren't new. What was new, and was not good, was something in her leg that she hadn't noticed before. When she managed to let her hands go, she saw that there was something inserted into her skin, a hole through her white tights letting her see the metal.
A bullet.
The sight basically hypnotized her. For a long while, Bubbles had learned to consider bullets as mere nuisances. Even when there was something that could hurt her, such as a monster or a mutant, it was never about bullets. The Professor had warned them about Duranium and the possibility of projectiles made of it, but at least in Townsville no criminal had tried to make use of the special ammo—as difficult they were to make, if not impossible, and also expensive.
These were normal bullets. Powered by the mysterious attachments, they gained something the girl couldn't describe well, but regardless it was able to punch through her skin. What she thought she was almost fully impervious too, now had managed to hurt her.
It was almost like… the more she looked at it, the more it hurt. And yet, she kept looking, almost mesmerised by the red liquid flowing out of the wound.
It took a yell from the corridor in which the fight was taking place to shake her awake from her trance. That, and the footsteps closing in on her position.
Bubbles hovered up in order to keep her leg out of harm and tried to move away, but the footsteps were much faster than her. Soon, a trio of soldiers appeared beyond the corner. One of them was an armoured juggernaut and had a machine gun aimed in the opposite direction, basically walking backwards.
"We must get the hell out of here, those hellspawn just won't go down!" one of the non-armoured soldiers shouted.
"Keep them under fire!" the other said to the heavy infrantyman before retorting to the other man. "Gordon's orders are clear. Push the infra-humans away! And we're going to do just that!"
"No, I'm done! I'm tired of those flying bugs, I tell you!"
"Then just kill them like we're supposed to do!"
"How do you think—"
A green streak came right into the armoured soldier, startling the other two. Buttercup kept moving, managing to push the Juggernaut away, before giving a hook right into the man's head. The helmet cracked and the man stumbled back, yet, he managed to hold it on its machine gun and kept firing, forcing Buttercup to move back momentarily. The other two men, however, decided to turn on their heels and retreat.
And, by doing so, they saw Bubbles, pitifully trying to hover away from them.
While one of the men was too startled to do anything, the other one simply raised his rifle and started firing immediately. The bullets were not enhanced, thankfully, but unfortunately Bubbles wasn't in the condition to bear them. When one of the projectiles collided with her injured leg, Bubbles screamed and fell like a bag of flour.
"BUBBLES!" Buttercup completely forgot about the juggernaut and flew to the firing guard. She rammed into him fist first and slammed him into the wall, then punched him in the face twice. Only by sheer will was she able to relent before keeping it up, as the man was already bleeding. After that, he fell down by himself, out cold.
Behind her, the juggernaut was trying to change magazine, but his activity was left unfinished when an energy bolt suddenly appeared and hit him right on the head. The armoured soldier was basically knocked out as soon as he was hit, his helmet already damaged beyond repair, and fell on its back while letting go of the weapon and the magazine he was trying to insert into it.
When Nuru managed to reach his companions, he was welcomed with a sight he didn't like. The last remaining soldier held Bubbles by her neck, a pistol aimed at her injured leg. Buttercup hovered nearby, her eyes twitching: it was clear she had intentions close to murder, but she did not dare move any closer.
When Nuru appeared, the soldiers turned hastily towards him. "Stay back!"
Nuru moved closer.
"I said STAY BACK, YOU F-FREAK!" the soldier shouted. "STAY BACK OR I'LL SHOOT!"
"Nuru!" Buttercup shouted. "Stop, now!"
She agitated her arms, which at least managed to get his attention. She tried to mime to him to stay put.
While she didn't know if Nuru had caught on, he nevertheless stayed where he was.
"Okay, okay, that's g-good…" the soldier said. Bubbles whimpered.
"Let. My. Sister… go…" Buttercup hissed.
"No, no!" the soldier shouted. "You're just gonna tear me to pieces as soon as I let her! I know you will!"
Buttercup remained silent. She didn't want to kill him… though, inflicting pain was sort of in her plan anyway. Technically the guy wasn't too far from the truth by mentioning 'tearing to pieces'.
Yet, he was scared, that was clear. One wrong worry, and he'd shoot Bubbles at gunpoint. Her sister had already suffered enough injuries as it was… and that wound was getting worse by the second.
"Look. I get what you mean, but… I don't want her to get hurt more than she is. That is all. You know you can't stop us."
"No, no, I can! I can just… hold you here, that's what they said!" the soldier replied vehemently, as if he was trying to convince himself. "I won't let her go until I get reinforcements!"
Buttercup growled under her breath, her teeth grinding. "I… I'll say it again. Let. My. Sister. Go. It's that simple."
The soldier simply tightened his grasp on Bubbles as an answer, making sure to let the barrel of the pistol touch Bubbles' wounded skin. She whimpered once again as soon as she felt it.
"Stay back!" the soldier repeated. "Stay where you are and she won't get hurt, but I won't let her free!"
"Please…"
The soldier muted himself. It was his captive who had spoken.
"Please… Mr, uh, soldier. P-please let me go… I won't hurt you. We won't. I-I just don't want… to keep this up…"
The soldier eyes grew unfocused. In that moment, Buttercup thought that she and Nuru could try to make a move, yet, she stayed where she was, not willing to risk her sister's leg on her bet. Nuru didn't act, either.
The soldier shook his head, then, he looked at the ground in thought. His eyes were wide, and his front was gripping with sweat.
Then, he suddenly let go, almost pushing Bubbles away. It was so sudden that Bubbles almost fell down, only at the last possible moment realising what had just happened and going in hover the best she could.
The man hastily walked back, holding on his pistol with both hands as he aimed at the puffs—even if both parties knew that the weapon wasn't that helpful against the puffs. Buttercup and Nuru flew up to Bubbles, Buttercup still staring daggers at him and Nuru glaring not that differently.
None of them made a move to punish him.
Bubbles looked at him. He was the one soldier who had spoken before about leaving the fight. Even if he was still aiming for her, even if she still felt pain, Bubbles tried her best to smile at him.
"T-thank you…"
The man's lips quivered. Eventually, he let go of the pistol, which fell down with a dull noise, then he whirled around and ran away.
"Bubbles… how are you feeling?" Buttercup asked.
"I… I can stay afloat, I think…" she said. "M-my leg…"
Buttercup looked at the limb and flinched. "Urgh. W-we can't leave this wound as it is. We need to… we need to take that thing out, Bubbles."
She nodded. It was no use refusing the obvious. No one of them knew what Nuru was thinking right now, but the orange puff kept his silence, watching the two sisters without intervening.
Bubbles hovered down as Buttercup prepared herself mentally to do the deed. Then, she felt something.
She knew Nuru and Bubbles felt it too. A quake, feeble as it is, but not enough to go unnoticed by their superpowered senses.
Then they heard a loud, echoing roar-shout.
Nuru was befuddled, but when he looked at the Powerpuff Girls, he knew something was wrong, very wrong.
Buttercup and Bubbles looked at each other, and when they saw their respective faces, they knew they had the same thought.
They had already heard that roar in the past.
The journey to get Huan's siblings out of HQ was proving to be much more difficult than expected. More and more guards were showing up, and they were on the hunt for them.
With each of them carrying a weakened puff, Blossom couldn't think of nothing else but retreating each time they encountered a new patrol, hoping that without Gordon they would encounter less and less of the guardsmen. Yet, it was the exact opposite: the guards were getting more insistent, even pursuing them and pushing them away from the path she had memorised.
Why weren't Gordon's men retreating, or surrendering, or just going letting them be? Their general was gone!
And yet, Blossom, leading the group as usual, saw another patrol of guards suddenly coming into the corridor, blocking their way. They immediately opened fire, not even giving her the time to at least shoot first with her eyebeams.
Blossom turned away, shielding the puff she was carrying from the incoming bullets while praying none of them were of the enhanced type. It had been like this the entire time, actually…
Nonetheless, the bullets coming beside her still had the effect of frightening Ai, who screamed. Blossom let her vent as she flew back, Donnie and Huan already doing the same while still carrying Hui and Li.
"Those soldiers aren't just leaving us alone, are they!?" Donnie shouted as they flew behind cover, changing corridor once again.
"We need to do something, w-we can't let them get us!" Huan said with worry.
Li added something in Chinese, shouting angrily, but Blossom didn't understand, nor did she care that much right now.
It was true, the more time they spent flying around, the more likely it was for those men to get a good hit on any of the three vulnerable Chinese puffs. They either needed to find a safe place to hide them in before engaging with the remainder of Gordon's company, or keep moving and hoping to make it to the surface through another path.
It was a bet in either case. Blossom had yet to hear anything from the other group, she thought she heard shooting in the distance as well but it was hard when there was also shooting nearby. Aimed at her.
She could only hope that her sisters and Nuru were all right and trying to get to them.
"Let's keep moving, we can't stop, not here!" she shouted adamantly before speeding up her flight. They moved in the opposite direction, as they always did every time they encountered a patrol, and flew forward hoping to find a stairs ramp that would bring them forward.
Then, the corridor split into two other tunnels, with a door placed right in front of them. Taking her chances, Blossom's eyes lighted up as she charged an eyebeam blast.
"Head down, Ai!" she said before releasing the blast. Ai executed the order, as even without understanding the words she had associated them with what was going to happen afterwards, and the door was violently pushed open by the blast. The Puffs flew in.
The room they found themselves in was a storage chamber of sorts, possibly a garage. There were boxes and crates piled on one side, with various other ones found around the room. There were also multiple vehicles parked there, including at least ten trucks, some smaller vehicles, and an impressive tank.
The sight, albeit neutral, gave Blossom hope. If there were vehicles here, then that meant there was a way out for them to leave this level of HQ!
She hovered up, rising in height, and looked around hastily, then she saw it. On their right, a large, open garage door led the way into a concrete tunnel that went upwards.
Then, it started closing. She felt Ai whimpering on the sight, but Blossom wasn't impressed. She was confident that the door's shutters weren't made out of Duranium—it'd be easy to punch their way through. After that, it would've been only a matter of time.
"Come on, let's go! That's our way out!" she said before flying towards the shutters, right now already closed. She was already considering doing it herself, placing Ai down for a moment.
And then, a man walked up to the shutters, blocking their path.
"Not… so… fast. Infra-humans."
The puffs halted in mid-flight. The sight of the individual left the mouth of everyone open in shock. Donnie's eyes widened, incredulous, while Huan simply shook her head, trying to convince herself she was seeing things.
Blossom didn't falter, but a chill had nonetheless run down her spine.
Because Damian Gordon was blocking their path.
"You… you!" Huan coughed up her words, unable to fully speak. "You… you are dead!"
"That'd be a fair, but critical mistake," General Gordon replied. Blossom felt Ai's grip on her back tighten, she hadn't even realised that the girl had nuzzled her face into her neck, and she was whimpering with fright.
As if to try and seek protection from the General.
"You three… for the trash you are, you did take me and my men aback, I'll give y-you—ugh!" the General coughed, then spitted something on the pavement. Something green.
Blossom was seeing something familiar in the General. The few hair he had… it'd changed colour… and even the skin. Was it greener? Yellow?
"I'll give you that…" the General had been hiding his left hand behind his back the whole time. But eventually, he brought it up, showing to them a vial with a 'W' label on it.
The vial was empty.
But even worse… Gordon wasn't holding it with a hand. In place of it, was a monstrous, grimy tentacle.
"But I had thought about even this… possibility. My demise. And, and…" the General gurgled, letting the vial fall on the ground, where it shattered into tens of pieces.
Blossom couldn't believe her own eyes. But as the events unfolded, the flashback ramming into her mind became more insistent, more adamant.
"I've had it playing this game with you, all of you. I infra-humans can stilll be easily recreated, I'll commission more and restart from scratch if this is what it takes, and I'll take precautions this time. But first…"
He looked at them, his eyes bright green.
"I will have to eliminate you six."
The tentacle exploded into a grim cloud of mutated organic matter, and Damian Gordon suddenly enlarged in height, fast, too fast to even keep count.
The memory that had been bother Blossom… was not happening right in front of her.
"FALL BACK!" she shouted, dashing away as soon as it happened. "NOW!"
Donnie and Huan didn't question it and followed her, getting away from the mutant General as it morphed into something new. New tentacles appeared on his chest as well as his back, his muscles got bigger beyond anything that should be considered possible, his hands gained claws.
Blossom couldn't no more refuse to believe the truth. She saw herself back at Hardly's Industries, her and her sisters facing the mutant, arrogant form of Dick Hardly.
This time, though, it was different. Donnie and Huan might not know what they were facing, but she did. And she was not going to let Damian Gordon get them like Dick Hardly did with the Powerpuff Girls, a long time ago.
She closed her eyes, thinking for a moment, ignoring Gordon's further affirmations concerning his current intentions. It was no use listening to the ramblings of the enemy.
They could… do this. He was not invincible. She needed to lead now, though, more than ever.
She was going to lead Donnie and Huan against the mutant monster that used to be Damian Gordon.
She was going to do everything possible, and even more, to protect Ai, Hui and Li.
Blossom opened her eyes, and glared defiantly at the monster Gordon.
…they were going to beat him.