"Code Blue"
By I am a good fighter
Powerpuff Girls created by Craig McCracken and all characters associated with the show are owned by Cartoon Network
Mojo Jojo had circled high over Townsville from afar for ten minutes, thinking about what to do. He was high enough up to not be noticed as anything more than an aircraft circling in a holding pattern, waiting to be cleared to land by the airport flight controller. He took in all the information he could and his super-brain processed it. The crowd growing down below, which he'd observed close-up via the telescope his robot was equipped with. Perfect. What better way to tell Townsville that they would soon all be bowing down to him, than with a ready-made audience like that? The newscast of the hospital mouthpiece's speech. Even better. Now he knew for certain that Bubbles was about to become part of history and that Blossom, in surgery for hours to come, would be out of commission. That left only Buttercup. The best in battle against him, but no match for his brilliant strategizing; and without Blossom to direct her, he would finish her in no time. All he had to do was lure her out, and that would be easy. An indirect attack on the hospital, perhaps the parking lot, ought to do it. Then, with her out of the way, he could simply walk in and dispatch Blossom as she lay unaware on the operating table, and Bubbles, too, if she hadn't already done it on her own. He wanted to avoid damaging the hospital if he could, because soon it would be his, along with everything else in Townsville. No sense in ruining the place that would finally give him the medical attention a genius like himself deserved. No more veterinarian. Just thinking about how that guy was going to retire early just on services provided to Mojo Jojo angered him. He was ready to begin the first step in his future, and the last in the Powerpuffs'. He banked his Robo-Jojo at an angle and sped directly for the center of town.
On the ground, police had set up a shrine of sorts off to one side. Someone had brought a very large poster of Bubbles in a sturdy frame and it was leaning against a concrete barrier. People had been allowed to form a double line and walk up to it so they could place their bunches of flowers or stuffed animals, pictures, or whatever small mementos they had brought with them, at the base of it. The ground was soon covered. People branched off to either side and made their way back into the crowd.
They saw him before they heard him.
"Look, what's that?"
Thousands turned their heads. Millions around the world heard Charles Wagner interrupt the current discussion with an announcement of something major coming, and braced for the news they dreaded, that Bubbles was gone. Instead, their screens were filled with a shot of Mojo Jojo's robot hovering in the sky.
"Charles, it appears that the evil Mojo Jojo has seen fit to take this opportunity to rub salt in the wounds of an already devastated city." Stanley Whitfield said into his microphone. CNC had stayed with the KZIX feed rather than switching to their own crew, and it was a good thing, as they were about to find out.
"Oh, shut up, you accursed reporter!" Mojo said loudly, his voice being amplified over the sound system in his robot. His voice struck terror into the crowd, but not as much as the beams that shot out, blowing up every truck with an antennae or satellite dish on its roof. KZIX' and the one belonging to Santiago's KCMC crew were out back and the only ones still able to transmit. CNC, of course, stayed live.
"I am watching you, Stanley!" Mojo drawled, "and I know where YOUR truck is parked. You will all shut up and do nothing but take pictures! Only the voice of Mojo Jojo shall be heard and the whole world will know of my genius and quake at my power! Your pathetic protectors have headaches and will be unable to stop me! Oh, Bubbles has a really bad one, or so I am told by my favorite reporter in the whole universe, that what's his name running around inside the hospital! Maybe when I rule the world, I will give him YOUR job, Stanley! Muahahahaa!! As it is he who provided this opportunity, for had I not known I would still be at home, not knowing the information that he has provided to me!"
This was met by a huge chorus of boos from the crowd, many who had carried radios and were hearing the same things Ms. Keane had heard. They were rewarded with several laser blasts, which tore up the ground and sent bodies flying. Many broke and ran. There was nothing any of the police could do. They tried, drawing their service revolvers and uselessly firing them at the robot. They were met with more blasts and Mojo's maniacal laughter. Panic was setting in. All the two remaining live film crews could do was silently record the chaos, along with the terrified screaming. For some reason, not Wagner or anyone else at CNC said a word.
"That is very good, Charles." Mojo said. "I am watching you, too! Oh yes, and before I forget, NO ACCURSED COMMERCIALS!"
Buttercup jumped off the bed. "What was that?!"
Sara ran into the room. Seconds later, the security guard ran in holding his radio to his ear as it squawked loudly. "Mojo Jojo's attacking! He heard that reporter guy say something on TV!" He disappeared down the hall toward the front of the building.
Up and down the hall could be heard the screaming of the frightened children in the ward. Some kids jumped out of their beds. Those parents that were present reacted in much the same way. Nurses scurried to calm everyone as best they could.
This was being repeated all over the hospital. Normally, this wouldn't have happened. Monster attacks, and even Mojo's outbursts, were routine, and hospital dwellers took it all in stride, knowing the Powerpuffs would end it quickly. But most rooms had televisions, and word had spread throughout the hospital about the girls. Seeing the cause of the explosions they were hearing threw the place into a panic.
Neither Sara nor Buttercup had seen any TV at all, and were clueless until that second. Buttercup exploded. "Why, that dirty ape! This time, I'm really gonna take him apart! Then I'll take care of that lousy Stanley!"
She knew nothing about LeBeau. Realizing what might happen, she went back to her sister and gave her what she was afraid would be her final hug, and a kiss. "Bubbles, I gotta go stop Mojo. Please promise me you'll still be here when I get back? Oh, I wish you were goin' out there with me!"
Sara's cell phone beeped and she grabbed it out of her purse. "Ms. Bellum, save me!" came the mayor's panicked voice.
"I have to go, too!" she said. "Please be careful out there!"
As she floated there, the little girl eyed Sara grimly. "I can't afford to be careful, Ms. Bellum." She looked back at Bubbles. "Octi, you take care of her 'til I get back!" Then she was gone, down the hall toward the rear stairwell. In her head she heard her sister's voice, just like Blossom had heard it earlier.
"I'll be there with you, Buttercup. I'll always be with you."
She had to wipe tears from her eyes to see where she was going as she blew the first floor exit door off its hinges and the alarm sounded.
Sara didn't have time to consider what Buttercup meant by her remark. She dialed the police chief. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the numbers on the monitor had all gotten smaller. She hated to leave now but she had to."Chief, Sara Bellum. I've got to get back. From the sound of things, I can't get out of here."
"Yeah, that LeBeau guy who's been runnin' loose down there blabbed on TV about all the girls bein' sick, and that no-good monkey saw it. He's outside blastin' away. You run into that guy while you're down there? I'd like to lock him up for bein' a jerk!"
"I don't know what you mean, chief, and I don't have time! Is there anything you can do to get me out of here?"
"Yeah, Sara, head for the roof. We'll send a chopper for ya'"
LeBeau heard the explosions and then saw the green streak coming at him. He ducked to get out of the way and watched the streak disappear into the stairwell at the end of the hall, then he heard the crash and the alarm. He knew it was Buttercup, but had no idea what was going on. He was tempted to call Stanley again, but thought better of it. No one knew he was here and besides, it would be obvious to anyone outside that Buttercup had left the building. He was going to be with Bubbles when she 'left the building', if he could, and break it to the world.
He saw the mayor's assistant come out of the room and hurry away from him. He also saw no guard outside the room. That was great. Whatever was going on outside was big. What a time for a monster to show up.
"Ms. Bellum!" She stopped and turned. "Dr. Peter Ferrara. I'm with Blossom's team."
"How is she?"
He had no clue. "They took her in a short time ago, and so far, so good. I was off today and they brought me in for backup, but everything's green so they asked me to come down here. What's going on, do you know?"
"Oh, I'm so glad! Now she won't be alone!"
"Why, what's happened? I just saw Buttercup…" he indicated off in the direction she'd gone.
"Mojo Jojo is outside right now, all because of some damned big-mouth reporter, and I must get back to my office!"
She turned and ran. He watched her go, confused. She wasn't talking about him, was she? Mojo was attacking the hospital because of him? Nah.
He went inside the room. It was eerily silent. He looked at the girl lying there, sleeping, it looked to him, very peacefully. He knew from experience that the disease she had was a very unpleasant way to go and suspected that she was heavily medicated. He could hear her faint breathing and the beeping of the monitor, which showed her blood pressure at 40/50, her heart rate at 22 and her respiration at 11. Those, he knew, were all terrible numbers. What he didn't know was that they had all dropped immediately after all the excitement began and Buttercup had left. A loud noise startled him and he jumped. He relaxed as he realized it was the automatic BP cuff attached to Bubbles' leg, taking another periodic reading. After it finished, the new reading appeared on the monitor. 34/42. It was dropping rapidly. She was going. He suddenly didn't want to be alone in there with her.
The first things that caught Buttercup's attention were the smells of ozone from the laser blasts singeing the air and the acrid smoke from the burning vehicles on the street. She could hear the mayhem out there but didn't see Mojo yet. She flew upward at a sharp angle in the opposite direction away from the hospital, intending to soar over downtown and circle back around, giving her a panoramic view and a way to visualize her attack plan. But before she got much higher than the rooftop of the rear wing, a blast nailed her. Mojo had been waiting to pick her off.
The beam stunned her but she was able to zig-zag away toward a line of trees that lined the rear of the hospital property. That got Mojo into her full view, and she turned to see no damage to the hospital itself, as far as she could tell, or any other buildings. He began to approach her, stopping a hundred yards from her, hovering directly over the hospital.
"Well, Powerpuff! You have kept Mojo waiting long enough! What were you doing in there, getting your prescription filled?"
"Well, if it's me he wants, it's me he's gonna get! But I wanna get him as far away from here as I can, 'cause that's what he's after, the girls."
The best place, obviously, would be in the countryside away from Townsville. She rapidly rubbed her hands together to create an energy beam while at the same time, powering up her eyes. She let rip.
"No, I got YOUR prescription filled! Take two o' these and don't call me, ever!"
She figured they wouldn't do too much damage, but it gave her the time she wanted.
"Come and get me, monkey-boy!" She dashed to her right, cutting behind the trees. A few beams shot out from behind her, taking the tops off, but when she had gotten a half-mile away, she noticed that he wasn't following. Instead, he had gone back to the front and was firing upon the crowd.
"Rats! He's not buying it! He's gonna make me fight him right there!"
Angrily, she streaked down and picked up the hulk of a ruined TV truck. It was still burning, thick black smoke billowing into the sky, but she ignored it. With a war-cry, she charged Mojo. He expected her to fling it at him and fired three bursts, but she neatly dodged them and plowed, truck and all, into the side of the robot. On the ground, people scattered to avoid the burning debris coming at them. Her momentum carried them a thousand feet sideways, three hundred feet above the ground. The smoke blinded him and he couldn't tell where or at what they were headed, so he punched a few buttons on his console. The computer instantly determined their velocity, accelerated away from her, then reversed course suddenly. The smoke blinded her, too, and she never saw what was coming.
The entire sequence had taken merely thirty seconds, from the time Mojo fired his first blast into her, until the stunned onlookers below saw the missile dropping straight down from the smoky mass above. The missile was Buttercup, temporarily unconscious, and she hit the street, throwing up a gigantic cloud of dust, dirt and macadam chunks. She came to rest thirty feet below the surface, on a large water pipe that broke with the force of her fall. The crowd saw a geyser shoot skyward through the dust cloud, and ran to get away from the sudden mudshower. Mojo lowered his robot down toward the crater.
"Muahahahahaaa!! You better not try that again, Powerpuff! I see what you are trying to do, lure me away to protect your helpless siblings. But it will not work because it is a useless strategy and doomed to fail, for every time you attempt to take me away from here, I will simply not follow you and instead attack the hospital! Then I will finish you. Engage me and I will spare the hospital after I have destroyed you and what is left of your sisters! What do you have to say to that?"
There was no need for commentary from Whitfield, Santiago or any of the talking heads back at CNC. The cameras said everything that needed to be said. The whole world watched in silence the drama before them.
The falling filthy water brought her around and she tried to think of some way to fight back. She rolled off of the damaged pipe and cut a five-foot long section from one end of the eighteen-inch diameter water main. She now had herself a weapon. Obscured from his view by the geyser, she floated out, holding the club behind her back. Though it was twice as long as she stood tall, he wouldn't see it in time.
"I repeat, Powerpuff, what do you say?"
"I say this is a hospital zone, bigmouth! PIPE DOWN!"
She brought it down with all her might across the top of the robot's thick, domed plastishield. The craft was undamaged but the force knocked him nearly to the street. People ran to avoid being crushed. Mojo temporarily lost attitude control and the robot spun crazily in a circle before it righted itself. She flew up to it and gave one of the legs a good whack with the pipe. The duranium-covered steel had no give and the shock reverberated back through her hands, up her arms and to her shoulders. She shrieked with pain and dropped the pipe. It fell toward a group of firefighters who were dousing one of the many burning vehicles. They heard the yelling to 'Look out!' and ran out of the way just before it smashed through the roof of their pumper.
Fully recovered, Mojo saw the fire truck plus the cascading water from the broken main and got an idea. He decided to give his tuned-up laser a test and give her a full-strength shot, unlike the wake-up call he had given her earlier. It blew her right out of the sky, back into a thirty-story office tower two blocks away. Again, she fell into the street, but not before bouncing off of a shorter building on the way down. It broke her fall enough to keep her from making another crater. As Mojo moved toward her, eyeing his next targets and getting a computer-generated firing sequence set, she tried to get up.
"Unnnh, oh man, he's been working on that thing! I won't be able to take too many of those!"
As she got to one knee, she saw the laser's turret bearing down on her and she made a diving roll away from it. The first blast turned a manhole into a gaping hole in the street, four times its size, and the debris fell into the yawning sewer below. The second caught her in the ribs and she screamed and blacked out. After what seemed like an eternity to her, she woke to a thunderous rumbling. During the half-minute she lay helpless, Mojo's second step went into motion. A rapid, programmed sequence of beams sliced off the street-side valves of over twenty fire hydrants, creating an instant flood. The open hole was the natural outlet for all that water and it would create a whirlpool with incredible suction. What Buttercup heard was a giant wave of water crashing toward her, and she shook off the cobwebs and tried to fly. The wave caught her and carried her past the hole, slamming her into the side of a brick building. She was thrown back toward the street. The first wave was over and the water level in the street equalized, causing the drainage to begin. Aware that she was being caught in the whirlpool but too weakened to escape it, she determined to grab the sides of the hole if she could and hang on long enough to get her strength back. With the weight of tons of water swirling around her, she clung to the jagged edges where the cover was blown away. She heard the robot above her and looked up to see Mojo's wide grin as it lowered down to just thirty feet from her. He was wise enough to stay out of her immediate striking distance.
"Well, Buttercup, this is what I call irony! Your sisters are circling the drain at the same time you are about to go down it! Mohohohoahahahahaa!!!"
A beam shot out and cracked the section of street she was holding. Down she went, and hundreds of thousands of gallons of water crashed upon her, sweeping her away.