"Blossom." Miss. Bellum asked, gaining the red heads attention. She had been rewatching the same minute of footage for the last 5 minutes.
"I just don't understand Miss Bellum. Why would he kill him? If what these documents say are true and those men were Slugs sons why would they kill the father couldn't they somehow get in contact and hold him hostage." She paused watching again as the lanky man ripped Slug out of the car.
"Well maybe this was the punishment for not delivering." Bellum's calm voice answered.
"But why punish people who weren't there? What's the point?" Pausing, she turned around looking at the tall red head. "Not only that but just leaving him on the street. I mean he didn't even know where Slugs sons were."
"I don't know about that." Bellum said her voice was slightly reserved.
"What do you mean?"
"Well this morning our prisoner's had a little visitor." Her voice was tight but she moved to the monitor changing the footage to the cell room that held three men, two unconscious and one wide awake. Blossom recognized him as Green's target, her eyes narrowed watching as he tried to rouse his brothers.
"So this is where you ended up?" A voice came through the audio, she noted it was thickly accented. She watched as the man froze at the voice turning to its direction.
"We were blind sided!"
"Blindsided? By who?" The voice was obviously in the mood to believe the man's word seeing as they were in fact in a cell.
"These girls? Freaks of nature really, they had some kind of powers I got wrapped up in vines!" Her body stiffened as she realised that this one was never knocked out; he was completely awake through the whole process.
"Powers?"
"Yeah power I saw chains coming out of Teddys shadow and the Pink one she froze us and flew us here. We were in the air and now we're stuck in a cell. When we get out, were done the little boss will understand we don't play with freaks."
"What do they look like?" The voice asked again, sounding like he was rushing his words.
"I don't know those freaks wore masks. The only thing I got for you is the colors they used. They were brods to i know that." He groaned, waving the man off. The man seemed to be exhausted, walking between his brothers. He got to Blue's target and suddenly Blossom could see what was about to happen without even watching.
"And i don't know what they put in this tranq but Gregg hasn't woken up yet it doesn't matter what i do."
"Tranq?" The voice asked interested and Blossom's blood froze "Pink I shot him" Blue's words filtered through her ears. "I shot him but it didn't work. He got back up. I've never seen a human do that before."
"Yeah I don't know. The brod in blue came down with some kinda sniper, never seen one like it before but it was like some kind of elephant tranq look at it?" Taking the dart he showed it in the direction of the voice. "Listen I don't know what you pissed off but these things jumped off buildings so you must understand we're out." His tone stayed worn out like he didn't sleep through the night.
"You were already out." The voice said.
"So the little boss backed out, did you have the other van bugged or something? See what happened?"
"Yeah your fathers dead Ricky. Found on the pavement bleeding out by Townsville paramedics. Should've delivered our boss with his doctors." A paper was shoved through the bars; the picture of the man's father dead on the ground along with the heading seemed to have set him off.
"But since you did give us some information you can live thanks for the tranq Ricky."
"What did you do to the little boss? No you lil pipsqueak get back here how dare you. What if those freaks come back." Slouching down he lashed out kicking his brother's body before sliding down the wall picking the paper.
"Blossom." Bellum asked as the now shaking girl her body trembled violently. A rush of cold air surrounded her as the temperature in the room dropped
"Those tranquilizers are all the same from the design to the dosage and with the testimony of that thug we now have people who could be at this very moment tracking down evidence of our existence." She felt foolish because she didn't expect this. She thought that the buyer was more or less alone but it seemed he had allies. Allies were able to sneak into an underground bunker that was remote and off grid.
"How did they find it?" She asked not turning to look at the women she was asking.
"There was a tracker found in Ricky's body he.." She paused for a moment. "He ripped it out after finding it."
"I see." Her voice masked the blizzard raging in her body. Her calm façade began building like an iced shell hard and cold.
"Blossom, I'm sorry but we need to prepare. Those doctors aren't out of the water and now you and your sister will be a target as soon as those masks go on your face. We don't even know how many more there are of this group."
"I know." The girl breathed out. Bellum could see the pink girl's breath, a chill ran down her spine and she wasn't even facing the super powered teen. Despite absolutely seething the young girl found that it would be better not to show it in a true Blossom fashion.
It was difficult sometimes to remember that this was the same girl who started her superhero career playing tag with her sisters. With stubs for hands and big bug eyes her hair clipped back with a big bow that sat on top of her head. Her eyes bright and her grin broad. Standing in her place was a young woman, arms crossed and fingers hovering over her arm, her long hair in a high ponytail with a thin blow hanging limply. Her shoulders stiff head held high living in more secret than truth. Bellum felt these girls she grew to love had become fractured somewhat.
Even though her pink eyes were turned away Bellum knew they had changed in depth, in foundation, and she felt her heart mourn the loss of innocence and youth the leader once harbored in those cherry blossom eyes.
Finally she looked back, her eyes glow in pink fluorescence taking the older women aback slightly. "Slugs boys?" Her voice seemed to already know taking a guess.
"The tracker was infused with something and when Ricky took it out.." She trailed off walking over to the monitor fast forwarding the film to current time. The image was gruesome but Blossom inspected every bit of it.
"So he shot his brothers then himself?"
"It seems so."
"No, this makes sense. I'm going to guess that this was to keep them from giving away any further information if the men were to fail." Rewinding the footage she reviewed the entire event.
"Blossom." Miss Bellum started watching her head tilt slightly, something the older woman knew meant that she was listening.
"Are we going to keep this from the girls too?"
"You saw Bubbles last night didn't you? I don't think she would be able to handle the knowledge that one third of the criminals we've taken in thus far had this very thing happen to them."
"Its a pattern. We can't ignore that now." Miss Bellum reasoned.
"I know."
"So what do we do?" Bellum asked, staying completely calm.
"We have to figure out who's behind this. It seems that we're finally getting to the main vein of whoever's been behind the crimes for the past 10 years." Blossom assessed catching the older women off guard.
"You think all these crimes are connected?" Blossom had never brought this theory up with her not even once.
"All crimes are committed at night, usually some kind of heist for money. We of course would intercept them, erase the memories of both witness and criminal, put them in a cell and then some of them would end up going crazy and killing themselves off. This can't possibly be a coincidence." She was pulling up footage of the past four thieves they caught. Only one had gone down the same route as Ricky.
"If you look at this there is a large difference between what happened to them. I think whoever is sending these thieves are getting desperate, that's why they sent for someone like Slug. Who before last night of course had always delivered. That's why that man visited the sons. It showed their desperation."
"And now they finally know who is stopping their heist Blossom this is in no way good."
"No, we're both at a still mate. Now we both know the truth but in the vaguest way. Neither side knows the true face of the other and that's all I need." Her voice was icey, a queen on her chest board prepared to make the next move.
"How long did you have this theory?"
"If you're asking why I never shared it, it was due to the lack of evidence I didn't want to throw something out there due to a pattern. I'm almost embarrassed it took 10 years to figure it out." Blossom answered honestly and it made since the pink eyed girl was a perfectionist a single flaw in a plan would throw her off.
"Then the pieces have been placed?" Bellum asked, sitting on the couch returning to the paperwork.
"Not yet we need to keep an eye out. Desperate people tend to do sporadic things." Though she never elaborated why these people were desperate she seemed confident in her assessment.