Chapter 17: A Tense Standoff

"BLOSSOM!" Buttercup yelled down the hall. "Blossom, where are you?!"

"I'm here, Buttercup!" Blossom quickly announced herself, waving an arm for Buttercup to come over.

The sisters quickly met up with each other at their rendezvous point.

"Buttercup! Did you take care of Bubbles?"

"Yeah!" Buttercup pointed down the hall to her sister's main room. "I hid her in a cupboard!"

Blossom nodded her head approvingly. "Good."

With that little job taken care of, they could now move on to more pressing matters. They both rounded a corner at the end of the hall and tried to scope their situation out.

"You think they're in yet?" Buttercup whispered.

"Hard to tell." Blossom responded. "So far, I can still only hear 'em talking."

"How many does it sound like?"

"Mojo, Fuzzy, and I think a few other convicts so far. Not too many if we have to handle 'em alone."

"So? How much time do we have?" Buttercup asked in a hushed tone. "Is it enough to form a distraction?"

That would be the best case scenario of avoiding a fight with all of their enemies inside a hospital setting. The Girls didn't feel as comfortable going all out when there were so many sick and injured people still inside the building. If they could just find a way to lead all the villains away from the children's hospital and away from their sister, they'd all be in pretty good shape.

"I don't know." Blossom answered honestly. "Things haven't gotten violent yet so I think there might be a chance."

'Please.' The girls heard the receptionist beg. 'There are children here and I don't want them to be frightened...'

They knew they didn't have much time to flounder about with their decision. Whether they were facing their entire villains gallery or just a few pushovers, they needed to be ready for this.

"If these freaks want a fight, you can bet your bottom dollar they're gonna get one!" Buttercup declared, ready to kick some serious supervillain hiney.

"Okay." Blossom said. "We'll lead them outside and hit 'em with everything we've got. Don't hold anything back."

Buttercup gave her sister a lopsided smile. "Bloss, when have I ever held anything back?"

"Good point." Blossom smiled right back, actually looking forward to Buttercup using her full strength for this one.

The two girls looked at each other before beginning their charge, giving each other a determined nod. They weren't just fighting to protect themselves or their sister—they were also fighting to protect all the other patients held inside. Who knows what these villains would be willing to do to get their hands on Bubbles or the rest of them? It was totally possible for them to try to kill or take other patients hostage in a bid to scope the girls out.

On a mental count of three, they made their dash as fast as they could, determined to come out swinging as soon as they met their enemies. Instead, they were intercepted by Doctor Langston who grabbed both the girls in mid-flight and nearly toppled over trying to keep them at bay. He stumbled back several feet before regaining his footing and holding the Girls out in front of him.

"Doctor Langston!" The Girls replied, surprised.

"Girls, you cannot be out here!" The man warned them. "You need to hide!"

"But we can't!" Blossom insisted. "We need to help fight!"

"If they get in, it's all over!" Buttercup said. "They might start hurting other patients!"

"Look girls, Samantha is negotiating with them outside right now. She's already pressed the panic button and the police are on their way. She's trying to talk them down or at least stall for time until law enforcement gets here but she can't do that if any of them happen to see you!"

"But what if she needs our help and those thugs overpower her?" Blossom argued.

"Then..."

Buttercup made an urgent request. "At least let us get close enough to help if she can't handle 'em on her own!"

The man clenched his eyes shut as he struggled with his decision, then he finally settled for the girls' compromise. "Okay! We'll get close, but only close enough to hide!"

That was good enough for the Girls and they quickly followed him to wherever he wanted them to go.

"Don't fly!" He warned them, knowing that would only act as a bigger beacon to their possible location.

"You are trying my patience, woman! Tell me where the Girls and Powerpuff Bubbles are right now or I will vaporize you into oblivion along with the Professor!"

The receptionist put on a nervous smile and pointed shakily to the chairs lined up against the wall. "Um, can I get you all to take a seat in the waiting room today while I get someone who can better address your concerns?" She knew that they probably wouldn't be in the mood for that but she was simply trying to buy as much time as she could.

"We are NOT sitting anywhere!" Mojo Jojo refused, banging his gloved fist on top of the office desk right in time for the sound of police sirens to be heard.

"Oh thank god!" Samantha said, taking this chance while the monkey's head was turned to duck underneath her desk for cover while police officers surrounded the area and shouted out commands for the villains outside.

There was an impressive number of law enforcement just outside. There were officers in riot gear, ones coming of out regular squad cars and others coming out of fully armored vehicles. They had on helmets and bulletproof vests, held up shields and carried with them batons. They had weapons ranging from the lethal to the non-lethal depending on how the situation played out. They had pepper spray bombs and tear gas, electric tasers and water cannons, stun grenades and bean bag rounds. Guns with rubber bullets and shotgun pellets. There were snipers secretly stationed on top of the roof, police helicopters circling the air, and plenty of guns being pointed at the suspects in questions all around. It was damn near an entire military presence out there, the only thing missing being fully-armored tanks.

"POLICE! IF YOU ARE NOT IN NEED OF TREATMENT, STEP AWAY FROM THE ENTRANCE OF THE HOSPITAL WITH YOUR HANDS UP IMMEDIATELY!"

"DO NOT MAKE US HAVE TO EMPLOY TEAR GAS!"

The regular convicts put their hands up in obedience to the police, especially as they had fully-automatic rifles and handguns pointed at them. They didn't want any piece of that so they were much quicker in following orders.

"Fools!" Mojo roared, whirling around to face the fearsome SWAT team. "This is no criminal operation! This is a rescue!"

Fuzzy nearly lifted his own form of weapon in retaliation to this before he got a warning from the child protection officer himself, Chuck Bigby Jones.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, buddy." He said, already having the advantage of riot shotgun out in the open and ready to fire. "We've already got you beaten to the draw. You'll be full of holes before you even manage to get your first shot off."

Fuzzy sneered at him in reply, but he did lower his boomstick after he was educated on what a royally bad idea it would be to escalate this situation even further. "There ain't no need for all of this!" He said afterwards. "We ain't here t' hurt nobody but th' one who truly deserves it!" "

"You will not be hurting anyone and I would really hate to have to hurt you for your continued refusal to follow simple fucking orders! But that does not mean that I will hesitate if you give me a reason to!"

Hannah-Barbera's car skidded to a stop near the entrance of the hospital and she quickly stepped out of it, thankful she opted out of wearing high heels this time.

"Would any of you like to explain to me what in God's name is going on out here?!" Even though she was just a regular citizen, she approached the irate supervillains without fear, boldly marching across the path to confront them.

"Stand aside, puny human! I'm here to see Powerpuff Girl Bubbles!"

"NOBODY is seeing ANY of the Girls right now!" Jones said, always keeping his shotgun raised just above his shoulder with his potential target in sight. His trigger finger was already itching to go off and he just needed a single reason to lose his composure. "They're in a protective custody status with CPS and their location will NOT be disclosed to anyone!" Sneering at the monkey in question, he added, "Least of all rotten scumbags like you!"

"We do NOT need any help with our own PRIVATE investigation!" Hannah-Barbera added. She shouted a little louder to whatever cameramen or news crew happened to be around with her at the time. "Do you get that?! PRIVATE investigation! We all know exactly what we're doing and we've got everything under control!"

"I'd hate for things to have to get ugly here, boys." Jones said dangerously, ready to escalate things to the next level in a heartbeat if he felt he really had to. "I'd rather we all come out of this with our hands clean, don't you? So I'll ask you again: STEP AWAY FROM THE MAIN ENTRANCE OF THE DAMN HOSPITAL!"

Blossom, Buttercup, and Dr. Langston were all listening in on this tense standoff from the interior of a supply room closet. They were all doing their best to stay hidden and quiet, the girls only having permission to come out if they were truly given no other options to ensure to try to protect the weak and innocent.

"Look, can't you assholes go back to being the typical selfish pricks you usually are?" Officer Jones said, clearly having a low opinion of them. "You never gave a shit about anybody else but yourselves before so why should now be any different?"

Dr. Langston made an effort to cover the Girls' ears when the man began to swear like a sailor like that but as far as the Girls were concerned, it was a futile effort. They already knew all about the bad and naughty words that they weren't allowed to say and they weren't planning on repeating anything they had heard out of Officer Jones's mouth.

They had to agree with his sentiments though. Their villains were scum. Why, out of all times, did they suddenly choose now to act so heroic towards them?

"I hate to actually say it but now would actually be a good time for all of you not to give a shit! At least then you'd leave everybody in this the hell alone!"

"So do you truly believe we have no standards?! No limits?!" Mojo angrily demanded. "Just because we are evil does not mean we are evil."

That would almost be respectable if they weren't all so badly mistaken about what they thought the true problem was here.

"Well, since you're choosing now of all times to care, I can tell you right now that all of your concerns are completely unfounded." Barbara said. "Those Girls are being well-taken care of by the people in OUR main department and they're all doing just fine! They probably would've been doing even better without all of THIS to deal with on top of everything else they're currently going through!"

"Bubbles already doesn't have any contact with her father until this all gets sorted out and the same goes for the rest of the Girls! They are all perfectly safe!"

"Oh yeah?" Fuzzy challenged. "Well ah'll make sure she never has t' have contact wit' him!" The Girls could imagine him holding up his double barreled shotgun with this threat, emphasizing his words.

Buttercup and Blossom began to tremble with barely restrained agitation. Any threat to their dad had them both feeling murderous and they could barely restrain the rage that they felt.

Officer Jones's response seemed to match the Girls'.

"And I'll make sure you end up in a casket before you even get to step one foot to that man!" The man replied brutally. "Don't underestimate us just because we happen to be 'simple humans', Fuzzy. We are just as capable of rocking your shit as anybody else!"

"Look guys, I don't know what you heard on your TV sets at home, but the Professor is innocent until proven guilty! That's how it's always been in our American criminal justice system and that's how it will always will be!" Barbara said.

"Now, if any of those talking heads back there at their broadcast stations happened to tell you anything different, then I'm afraid to tell you that somebody lied!" Officer Jones said.

"Think about it! How would YOU feel if you were all accused of doing something awful prematurely even though you were perfectly innocent at the time? Think about what it would be like to be lambasted, slandered, attacked, and spat on prematurely for a crime you did not actually happen to commit!"

His words finally seemed to get through to them when a memory first came to Mojo, then Fuzzy, about the Girls just bursting in unexpected into their homes and beating them up for no reason, all because the so-called 'Mayor' (actually the Gangreen Gang making crank phone calls) happened to tell them that the bad guys were up to no good. The Girls never seemed to question this either. They just went straight to breaking and entering, harassment, and assault.

'Don't play dumb. We know you've got some evil plot underway!'

'What are you talking about?'

'Oh, like you don't have some giant robot ready to smash Townsville!'

'No.'

'No diabolical plans to destroy the world?'

'No.'

'Turn everyone into zombies and you scare people!'

'Oh for crying out loud, no! I had no intentions of committing any crimes... today.'

'Then what were you doing before we got here?"

'Sleeping!'

'Before that!'

'Reading the paper!'

'Oh. Well... you better behave yourself or we'll be back!'

'Oh, goodness. I better not snore!'

Fuzzy remembered being bushwhacked in his birthday suit and hit with his own banjo when he had only been trying to take bath in his wash basin.

'Okay, Fuzzy. Prepare to get stomped!' Blossom had said, all three of the girls zeroing in on him and launching their assault.

'This is for anything you broke!' Buttercup said, hitting him in the face.

'This is for anyone you hurt!' Blossom said, pulling on his antennae.

'And this is for takin' a bath!' Bubbles finished, hitting him over the head with the banjo he had just been strumming peacefully moments before. As he disappeared under the water and made bubbles rise to the surface with his building rage, the Girls finally seemed to realize their dire mistake.

'Uh oh... I think maybe he was just taking a bath.' Buttercup said, nervousness clear in her tone.

This actually made the villains stop and ruminate on the possible hypocrisy of their own actions, and while they did this, their dressing down continued.

"Let's get one thing straight with all of you. If any one of you even attempts to carry out some form of vigilante justice on anyone involved in this case, you will be dealt with and punished accordingly. So you better think long and hard about if a little power trip is worth spending several years of your life rotting away in a penitentiary."

"Now," Barbara demanded. "If any of you have any decency left in you at all, you will leave those Girls and their father alone and in peace! Otherwise I actually will call the Girls from wherever they happen to be and they'll make sure you actually have a reason to be near a hospital today!"

This was it. The moment of truth. Would the girls have to fight or would the villains accept these stipulations? The girls held their breath as a long silence followed and so did Dr. Langston. You could hear a pin drop during this tense moment. Then, they all heard a unified sigh of pure relief.

"Alright. We've got those bastards out of here. Everybody can resume their usual duties as normal!"

"Okay," Dr. Langston said to the Girls that he was keeping in the closet with him. "I think they're gone. We can get up now."

"I'm sick of this!" Buttercup growled, frustrated with all of this.

Blossom was of a similar opinion. It was like they couldn't get even a moment's worth of peace! A moment of privacy when it came to personal matters like this. This wasn't supposed to be a thing that made nationwide news. They weren't supposed to be having their faces pasted all over a tabloid.

Now they had all of their enemies sticking their noses where they didn't belong, all because the media just couldn't help sensationalizing a story!

"Never mind that for now." Blossom said, stifling her feelings for now. "We've gotta find Bubbles and reassure her she's safe." God only knew how frightened she must've still felt right now, forced to hide in a confined space under complete and total darkness.

"Where did you last leave her?" Dr. Langston asked.

"In her room." Blossom answered. "Buttercup hid her in a patient room cabinet."

Buttercup thought about one of the last things Bubbles had told her as they were both running away in their pretend "game" of hide-and-seek. After she had grabbed the girl by the arm and tried to get her to fly along with her at a rapid, breakneck pace. Bubbles had complained that Buttercup was going too fast and that her stomach still hurt, a hand going down to her lower abdomen through her hospital gown.

An awful thought came to Buttercup. "If those jerks got Bubbles's stitches broken after she just had her surgery, I swear to freakin' God!"

In the process of hiding her, she could've unintentionally hurt her going as fast as she did. Buttercup didn't feel like it was her fault though; she hadn't been trying to hurt her sister. She had simply been trying to protect her. There wouldn't have even been a need to do so if those freakin' jerks had just minded their own business and left them all alone in the first place!

"Oh, they're gonna learn their lesson one way or another." Blossom promised, an uncharacteristic amount of ruthlessness entering her tone. She felt just as vengeful and angry as Buttercup and she knew this wasn't gonna end without someone seriously paying.

Bubbles had no idea how much time she spent in the dark, hiding in a patient room cabinet but it was starting to break her. How long would she have to wait for Buttercup to return for her?

She began to cry, knowing she was betraying Buttercup's orders by making noises, but she just couldn't help how miserable she was feeling in here. "It's too dark!" She whined, always carrying this fear every since her 'newborn' days.

She stopped crying immediately when she heard the click of a door. A door belonging to the very same room she was supposed to be hiding in.

Bubbles immediately made a gasp and then slapped both hands over her mouth, trying to silence her previous sobs. She was scared it was one of the villains, like Mojo Jojo, here to take her away. She hadn't felt safe ever since that bad monkey wrote that letter telling her that he would be claiming her as his own after eliminating her own father.

She thought about losing it before she heard another voice; this one not of a child but of a familiar adult. "Bubbles! Sweetie? Are you in here?"

The voice was familiar.

"N-Nurse Cathy...?" The tiny child squeaked. The nurse could hear her behind the cupboard and she reassured her further as she went to it. "Everything's going to be alright, sweetheart! The bad guys are gone now!"

She would've opened the patient room cabinet herself if it hadn't been welded shut, no doubt by one of the other Girls in an attempt to hide their sister.

Luckily for her, Bubbles could easily open it from the inside even so. She just had to give it a good kick and then the doors came flying right off.

"Oh, there you are!" Nurse Cathy visibly breathed a sigh of relief. She held her arms out as the child looked at her through tears.

"Come here, sweetheart."

"Did anybody get shot?" Bubbles asked, crying as she said it. The idea of someone who was innocent getting hurt because of her, especially in a healthcare setting where they were supposed to be getting better made her heart hurt.

"No sweetie, nobody got shot." The nurse reassured her, picking up the child in her arms and laying her head down against her shoulder. She held her like a baby and ran her hand over her back. "Nobody's hurt at all. The bad guys are gone..."

"I want my dad!" Bubbles wept, longing for him now more than ever.

"I know, sweetheart." The nurse said, holding the back of her head as she continued to comfort her. Hopefully her dad, if he was truly innocent, would indeed be here soon after the dust had settled.