"Where do you think everybody went, Blossom?"
"Beats me, Bubbles. You'd think we'd have seen people's bones or something, but it's like everybody just…vanished."
They floated down to stand just outside the school. Buttercup suddenly whipped her head around. She saw nothing, though, and turned to her sisters.
"Nobody anyplace, but I feel like I'm being watched."
"Me too!" Bubbles said.
"Well, let's get this over with." Blossom floated toward the hole in the school's wall.
"Then what, Blossom?"
"Then we go take a closer look at Mojo's. Did you see any of his robots 'n stuff anywhere?"
"No…" Buttercup admitted. "…you know, I always wondered where he kept those things."
"Underground." Bubbles said, as they entered the school.
"Yep." Blossom agreed. "And that's where we're looking."
Inside, they saw only the wreckage, and it brought tears to their eyes. Bubbles found one of her drawings on the floor, faded and barely recognizable. The place where they had spent so many happy hours, and a few not so happy, was a scene of utter despair, yet they had only been in it a few short hours ago.
All Blossom could get out was, "This is awful."
"And it's been like this for fifty years." Buttercup said, shaking her head in disbelief.
Bubbles seemed to be in a trancelike state. "Fifty years…fifty years…"
"Ah, that's my cue!"
HIM smiled. "Now, the real fun begins! And the beauty is that I didn't have to wait fifty years!"
He began to chuckle softly and made himself visible, as a red mist.
"Well, let's go." Blossom said as they floated outside. She looked up at the darkening sky. "We better move before we get caught in the storm."
"Hahahahahahahaha!"
The girls were startled, hearing the soft, high-pitched chuckling at the same time a reddish cloud seemed to begin swirling around their feet.
"Don't you know, the faster you go, time…slows…down. Your time stopped for fifty years while you were out racing around!"
"I know that voice…" Blossom whispered.
Behind them, the cloud thickened and the demon emerged from a burst of flame.
"Seconds, minutes, hours, days, and nights crawled by on hands and knees as you raced the speed of light."
They spun to see him drifting above them. "HIM!"
"Yes! Coming back now? Remember?"
They could hear Buttercup's echoing challenge from the schoolyard. "So. Which one of you slowpokes wants to race me home?"
He didn't get the reaction he expected. Buttercup pointed angrily at him.
"Don't try to pin this one on me, you dork!"
"Yeah, we know it was you!" Bubbles scowled.
"It's impossible to make time stand still just by flying faster," Blossom said, snarling the rest, "so you're the one responsible for this!"
With that, they pounced on him, kicking, punching and screaming out their anger as they blasted him with their eyebeams and knocked him through another wall of the ruined school. They went in after him, and he got to his knees, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
"All of my wonderful illusions and they saw right through them…but, how?"
"Well, Miss Smarty Pants," he snarled back at Blossom while climbing to his feet, "spare me your scientific explanations. Your dear Ms. Bellum certainly thinks it's your fault!"
"Oh yeah? She didn't tell us that!"
Bubbles frowned. "Yeah! We didn't even see her!"
"WHAT?!"
"Nope." Blossom said smugly. "And that you're here means that we were supposed to see Ms. Keane, too, right?"
He whipped his head to the side. The Keane illusion wasn't there, either. Something had gone wrong. He could only assume they hadn't seen the professor, either, though he hadn't bothered to check to see if the man was gone like all the others were. No one could have survived for fifty years after what he'd done to the place.
"Your stupid head games don't work on us." Buttercup spat. "But that's all you got. You can't take us on yourself."
Now, the lovely Townsville zombies he had ready to go would be useless. It made him furious.
"Well," he said in his effeminate voice, drawing his face into an evil sneer, "it seems I underestimated you once again. But, you girls underestimate me. That's what happens when you've been out of the loop for fifty years!"
At that moment, a tremendous bolt of lightning lit up the sky and the accompanying clap of thunder shook the ground. The skies opened up. His cackle turned into a menacing laugh and they watched, mesmerized, as his body transformed into something of sheer brute strength. His red claws grew into immense steel pincers and his black-booted legs thickened like tree trunks. He towered above them, his head crashing through the ceiling of the school and showering them with debris. His red face was now a black mass, showing sharp, white teeth. He grinned down at them balefully.
Their eyes could not get any bigger. "Whoa…"
"Still want to take me on?"
Buttercup didn't even notice that she was getting drenched. "Thought you'd never ask!"
The telescope was a powerful one. Jack watched the red demon come into view but didn't know what to expect. It was a strange-looking thing but not very big and didn't appear to be very powerful. Its power seemed to be one that could make it appear suddenly, as it had. He saw the three small objects attack it, and was amazed by the beams of light coming from their eyes. No wonder they had been viewed almost as goddesses by that sect in the jungle.
He was able to see in through the new hole made in the wall of the school. The girls' backs were turned before, but at this angle he could see them in profile, looking at the red creature and apparently having a conversation with it. They looked very odd indeed. So tiny and seemingly innocent, with those enormous wide eyes. But he couldn't tell which one was the merciful, the strong or the wise, as they were all obviously strong and none looked very charitable at the moment. He had thought, from seeing the statue of them, that the lack of a nose or ears, and fingers, was merely artistic license. But now it was plain they had no noses, and when the red-haired one tossed her head angrily, the hair moved aside and revealed no ears. And their hands resembled clubs. Their simple style of dress, though, added to the impression that they were just children. It was a very incongruous combination.
The red-haired one was standing furthest away, and now she shifted her body so that he could see her face fully. He could read her lips as well as those of the creature, whose countenance oozed evilness. From their brief exchange, he learned that the girls had not seen the possessed creatures that he had, and that the red figure seemed surprised. They must have been illusions, created to confuse or frighten the children, but Jack had seen them first. They were obviously designed to interact with a living person and once they had done so, they disappeared.
The girls seemed to understand this and were making it clear that they weren't fooled. In fact, they appeared ready to resume the fight. Then the lightning struck and he was blinded momentarily. When he could see them again, he was stunned by the transformation that he witnessed. There was only one thing that could change its shape like that.
"Aku!" he cried. "I must get to them!"
But what could he do from where he was? It would take too long; by the time he reached them the fight would be over. Children, no matter how powerful, would be no match for the shape-shifting demon.
"Heeeyahhhh!!!" Buttercup let out a war-cry as she launched herself at their new, improved enemy. Her sisters were right there with her, firing their lasers. She rubbed her hands together, preparing to send a green energy beam into that sneering face, but before she could get it off, his own eyes flashed white and she slammed into the ground.
Rubbing her head, she stood, growling. "Okay, not bad! So it takes us ten minutes instead of two!"
But when she took off again, she saw that Blossom was trapped in one of the steel claws and she was straining, firing her lasers ineffectually at the laughing brute. Bubbles attacked his face with her feet, pumping like pistons, but he merely swatted her aside with his other claw. Buttercup raced to grab her before she slammed into the ground.
"He's definitely tougher, Bubbles, we gotta think of an attack plan. Just pounding him isn't gonna work this time!"
"But, we hafta save Blossom!"
"Blossom'll be okay for now. He wants all three of us. Come on, let's make him come after us instead!"
"Split up?" Bubbles suggested.
"Yeah!"
Blossom watched her sisters' streaks disappear in opposite directions and smiled to herself. "Good, girls!"
She felt HIM's grip ease slightly and waited. If she moved now, he'd tighten his grip on her and not make the same mistake again. She was soaked to the skin by the driving rain and knew that would make her slippery in his steel claw. She would just wait for her opening and hope that her sisters would be able to spot theirs.
HIM whipped his massive head in both directions. "Now, where did those brats run off to?"
"They're scared."
"What?" He looked down at the wet Powerpuff and saw the fear in her face.
"Yeessss." he hissed. "So they should be!"
"Can you blame them? I'm scared too." Blossom waved her hand out toward her once-beautiful city. "It doesn't matter that it wasn't our fault we got here. Everyone's just as dead. We lost."
"Yeeeessss!" The effeminate lilt was suddenly back in his voice and she felt his grip ease even more. "Well, I'm glad you finally realize that."
She dropped her head and sobbed, "Yes. It's over. Nothing matters anymore. Do what you want with me."
The storm broke and the rain stopped as rapidly as it had begun. The clouds parted and the sun shone through, reflecting off of the teeth in the demon's suddenly brilliant smile.
