'It's a Terrible Life'

By I am a good fighter

Powerpuff Girls created by Craig McCracken. All related characters owned by Cartoon Network.



PROLOGUE

HIM watched the battle in disgust, from the comfort of his netherworld lair. On the screen of his all-seeing television, the Powerpuff Girls were putting an end to yet another monster. There was just no stopping those brats. Casting his spells on the beasts from Monster Isle and having them do his evil for him never worked. Trying to get the Powerpuffs to turn on one another was a dismal failure. Having all of Townsville hate them; they saw right through that, too. Even teaming up with those worthless mortals who called themselves super-villains turned out to be a flop.

Someday, though, he would find a crack in them. Something in their personalities, their way of doing things, to use against them. Blossom, the leader, didn't like being opposed. Buttercup, the headstrong one, didn't always take kindly to being led. Bubbles, the baby of the three, tended to be the most easily frightened. But as of yet, it hadn't caused them any serious trouble. Their squabbles had caused problems, but their basic goodness and their self-confidence had always seen them through. He'd just have to keep watching, and throwing little problems at them whenever he could, to stir the pot. It might take years, but what the heck…he had eternity to wait. The future was under his domain.

PART ONE



CHAPTER ONE

In all her fifteen years, Blossom had never smelled anything this bad. The stench of the monster's breath each time it roared was an assault as much as a punch or kick would be. It was keeping them from getting too close, which was probably a good thing, because they didn't want to run into those massive, gleaming blades on the ends of the creature's fingers and toes. They'd already had a few close scrapes, literally, as each girl had rips in her dress from them. All she and her sisters had been able to do so far in almost three hours of battle was to hold it at bay with their hand and eye beams. Blossom's ice breath and Bubbles' sonic yelling had no effect on it.

In fact, as they were tiring, the massive yellow-green, scale-covered creature let out a mighty plume of flame at Bubbles, as if to show that it was getting even stronger. It seemed to break her spirit, and she cried out, "What are we gonna do?"

"We're gonna quit pussyfooting around and clobber it!" Buttercup spat, eyeing Blossom with as much anger as she was giving the monster. Three hours of this game of chess was three hours too many, in her book. She broke toward it.

"No, Buttercup!" Blossom shouted. "It's tiring! We wait, and that's an order!" She could see the thing wasn't tiring at all, but maybe if she could show it that they were prepared to wait it out, too…she just didn't know what else to do.

Her sister stopped and hovered, looking even angrier. Anything they had thrown at it was knocked away. A direct attack was the only thing that would work But she had to control that attack, wait for the right time; Buttercup was going to mess it up…

It spun suddenly, slicing toes at Bubbles, who screamed and fled. "Get back here!" Blossom yelled. Bubbles came to a halt, turned to see her scowl, and fearfully returned.

The monster watched them closely, and Buttercup used the distraction to sneak up behind its right ear. "No, Buttercup!" Blossom shouted again. It swung a massive arm at the green-eyed girl and she barely stepped out of the way. Bubbles' fear either lifted or caused her to act blindly, because she tore at it. Blossom tried, too late, to hold her back, and her sister was struck with a savage slash of that arm on its backswing. Blossom's cry of, "Bubbles!" was joined with Buttercup's; then a horrifying second later, Blossom saw the other arm moving, heard a sickening thud and her sisters were plummeting toward the ground, a red ribbon seeming to rise up from Bubbles' midsection.

In a blind rage, she sped into the snarling face as it turned away from Buttercup, and she exploded a kick into one eye. To her surprise, (and the monster's-it would be its last earthly sensation), she sailed through it into the creature's cranium. Disgust and dawning realization of where she was struck her simultaneously. She spun herself rapidly, arms and legs outstretched, turning the beast's brain into pudding. She looked for daylight, saw it and burst out through the same eye socket to see the creature already falling toward the ground. She caught it and gently lowered it to the grass of the park. Very few people were cheering, and to her, that meant very bad news. She broke into a run, calling out her sisters' names.

"Over here!" came a man's voice, and she flew to the spot to see Buttercup laying white-faced in the street. Blossom knelt, gently lifted her unconscious sister's head and felt for a pulse. She got none. Her hand was wet from the back of Buttercup's head, and before she could pull it away, she heard sobbing behind her. She turned her head to see a crowd gathered over Bubbles, and all she saw was blue, stained red…a piercing scream met her ears, followed by the sound of breaking glass…and more screaming…

CHAPTER TWO

The piercing scream was her 10-month-old Julie, crying to be fed, laying in her diaper that needed changing, in her crib in the bedroom of Blossom's tiny, roach-infested trailer in a muddy little park on the outskirts of a large mid-western city. The other screaming was from her three-year-old Samantha being chased by four-year-old Bobby, somewhere else in the house. She yelled for them to stop. The breaking glass was from the broken bottle at her feet, vodka sitting there in a puddle. She was half-drunk and it wasn't even nine-o'clock. Even fully drunk, she never stopped having yet another of the dreams that had tormented her since that day thirteen years ago-the day she had failed in her duty as leader of the Powerpuff Girls and caused her sisters' deaths.

And now, here she was. The drunk, used-up-at-twenty-eight-looking-at-least-forty-no-good-mother-of-three-battered-wife-of-another-no-good-bum. She screamed again for her other two to stop, then set about changing the baby. Who should have been changed and fed back at seven, except her mother had slept until well past, and gone straight for the bottle after climbing out of the filthy bedsheets.

Life hadn't started out this badly, after she had fled Townsville at sixteen, right after graduating early. It was less than a year after that terrible day. To the city, she had been a hero, and they had mourned her sisters along with her. But to herself, she was a failure. She knew she had caused the tragedy, by failing to let Bubbles leave. Escaping for a bit and having time to think of a strategy was the best thing they could have done. Then, to make matters worse, she had tipped the beast off to Buttercup's presence, causing the near-miss and Bubbles ill-fated attempt to intercede. While she stood, doing nothing but giving orders. Her father never blamed her for what had happened, at least not outwardly, but to her, it seemed as if the professor's eyes were constantly asking the question, "Why, Blossom, why? How could you let it happen?"

She had gone right back to saving the day when required, though for some reason, no more monsters ever came after that day. If sport had been the only reason for them to come to Townsville, it would never be the same for them, either. It just wasn't the same. She knew she was letting her sisters down even more by quitting. But her heart wasn't in it. So she'd decided to leave, to put Townsville and all of its memories behind her. She moved to a small town in the midwest, someplace where she could lose herself and become someone different. She changed her name and social security number, and now Blossom was no more. Except she hadn't been able to run from those dreams.

She found a day job as a paralegal for a law firm and at night, took classes in the big city twenty miles away, toward becoming a lawyer. She could still help people in some way, without putting anyone in physical danger by misusing her powerful abilities. Those, she had sworn to never use again. To help make ends meet, she worked weekends as a waitress in the small town she lived in. One night, a shy young man came into the restaurant. By that time, she had gotten to know many of the townspeople and she was popular and well-liked, as the person they all thought she was. She was able to get him talking, and though she sensed he had a dark side, there was something she liked about him. He worked for a local trucking firm and wrote poetry. They became friends, then lovers, then one day, he asked her to marry him. A year after the wedding, Robert Jr. was born.

Life was great finally, in this idyllic small town America, and Blossom rarely had those dreams anymore. Until the day Bobby came home, only a week after Samantha was born, with the news that he had gotten a job with another company, a much better one at three times the pay. It meant that he would be on the road for long stretches, but she would be able to quit her job and stay home with the family they planned to raise. She smelled liquor on him and knew he had been celebrating with his buddies before coming home. It didn't bother her, because she liked his friends and she would sometimes spend a fun evening with her husband, having a few drinks and shooting pool at their favorite hangout. Until that night. She wasn't sure if him being away that much was a good idea, that they were doing OK on both their incomes. That's when he told her he didn't want her working at all anymore. She argued that she didn't want to give up her dream of being a lawyer. Things escalated from there, to the point that he slapped her.

For a split second, Blossom the Powerpuff Girl was back. Enraged, she pulled her hand back…and it wasn't there. Her powers, after not being used for years, had simply gone away.

CHAPTER THREE

It's the story repeated over and over, the cycle of spousal abuse. The man, not really a man at all, is unable to control his frustrations in life and takes it out on his wife and kids. At first, he is tearful and apologetic, and the woman is swayed. She doesn't want to believe she made a mistake. She wants to believe she can change him. She thinks it was all her fault. In reality, the thing she should do is run, because this behavior is only a warning at what's to come. But she stays. Mostly, and sadly, because there are children in the equation, kids who will be hurt and have their worlds disrupted either way. So she stays and tries to make the best of it.

Blossom, having been betrayed by her lost powers, was trapped. She stayed, because she had two kids to think about, and she, like all the others in that situation, believed it was an isolated incident. But things only got worse, and soon, she was drinking, too. Not only because that is the pattern so often, to try to bury the pain with alcohol and drugs; but in her case, those dreams were coming back. As a way of telling her that her life as it was now was punishment for her past mistakes. The downward cycle continued. Bobby's drinking cost him his job and he was back in town, unemployed. After being evicted from the nice apartment they had, dreams of the house long vanished, they moved to the dismal little trailer park halfway between the city and their old town. It was no place to raise kids. In the midst of all of this, Blossom learned that she was pregnant yet again.

After the baby came things got better. For about two weeks. The drinking and the fights resumed, until the night Blossom had had enough. This time, she got a restraining order against Bobby. That was it for him. He wasn't allowed to see the kids unsupervised and said to hell with that. He stopped seeing them at all, and soon he was running with someone else. Blossom, saddled with three children and no job, tried to get by on welfare but her depression and drinking made her just as lousy a parent. She was nearing her breaking point.

Now, as she threw the soiled diaper into a pail full of them that should have been emptied days ago, the noise from the other room filled her aching head. She put the baby down on the dirty sheet of her crib and tore out of the bedroom, slicing her foot open on the broken glass. Yelping in pain and anger, she saw her son, hair the color of flame like hers, laughing just as a bowl of soggy cereal left his hand. It caught his younger sister, who was already bawling, in the side of the face. A nearly-empty plastic milk jug lay on its side; the contents leaking all over the table and onto the floor. Blossom had just bought it the night before with the last three dollars she had for the week.

With three quick strides, she reached Bobby Jr., yanked him out of the chair by his arm, spun him to face her, and raised her left hand. She saw the fright in his eyes and on his little face as he cried out; at the same time she saw her own reflections, dozens of them, in the mirrored glass of the cheap china cabinet. Who was that…that…animal in the filthy nightgown? She had never struck one of them before, and she'd come this close. She dropped her hand and pulled the scared child to her, beginning to shake and sob at what she had almost done. Samantha, milk and cereal dripping from her uncombed long blonde hair, had stopped crying long enough to stare open-mouthed from her chair, then began to wail again. Julie, still not fed, added her screaming to the cacophony in the cramped trailer.

Blossom gently sat her son back into his chair and righted the empty jug.

"Bobby, will do something for Mommy?"

Still afraid, he nodded yes.

"Go to your room and wait for me, 'kay?" she said, smiling at him through her tears. Again, he nodded, then got up and did so.

She went to the tiny kitchen. Dirty dishes covered the counter and table, and pans with food still in them sat on the range. She rummaged in a drawer, found a clean towel and then got the last bottle of formula she had from inside the near-empty refrigerator. She took the bottle to Julie, then came back to wipe Samantha's face, oblivious to the blood still dripping from her cut foot. She led her daughter to the small room she shared with her brother, found clean clothes for them and quietly got them both washed up and dressed. Then she asked them to please wait there for her while she got Julie ready. She got the baby into another clean diaper and the nicest little outfit she had for her. Then she carried Julie into the kids' room and laid her on Samantha's small bed, asked them to watch her for just a second, and went to the phone in the kitchen. She dialed a number and waited…

"Hello, Child Protective Services?" she said quietly so the kids wouldn't hear her. "I want to report an unfit mother. You need to get those kids out of there…yes, right now, as soon as you can get someone over there…the address is 8410 Creekside Manor…

CHAPTER FOUR

She sat with her babies for the last time, trying not to cry while reading to them a story. She kept one eye on the driveway for the car from the county; she knew what it would look like because they had been out there before. When the car pulled in just over an hour after the call, she stood suddenly, hugged her two older ones, picked Julie up, kissed her and laid her back down, then told them to be good for the nice people. Still in her nightgown, she ran out the back door for the brush, hearing her son cry mournfully, "Where you goin', Mommy?", and Samantha starting to shriek, knowing something wasn't right. She never looked back.

She ran, throwing aside the brush, small trees and bushes, and tearing the flimsy nightgown on thorns and nettles. She paid no attention to the small cuts and scrapes she was getting, the pain in her heart was too severe; yet she kept running until she had gone a mile and a half from her home. There, across the same creek that passed the trailer park, was an old foot bridge that looked down 150 feet to the gorge below. She and Bobby had picnicked there in happier days, but she had never brought the kids there because the bridge had no sides. This time of year, heavy rains had the creek gushing mightily and she knew that if the fall to the rocks below didn't do the job, it would at least knock her out so that the waters would finish it.

The wood planks of the bridge extended two feet beyond the thin handrails that ran along both sides. It would be just enough for her to stand on, to jump from. She ducked below the rail and gripped it with her right hand when she came up. The gorge yawned below and she felt woozy. Her knees sagged and she grasped at the rail as she began to fall. Her heart pounded madly in her chest as the thought came to her.

"Now, why'd I do that? What did I hang on for?"

She knew why. She didn't really want to die, but there was no other way out. Her kids would have a better life without her in it. She stood up straight and looked down once more, taking her hand from the rail.

"For once in your life, Blossom, do something right!"

She bent her knees slightly and pushed off. Panic took over again as the split-second's realization struck her that there was no going back now. The scene below rose up to meet her, and she cried out in terror. Then, unbelievably, she felt herself being thrown back, almost as if she was being pulled. She cried out again and whipped her head to the sides, but saw nothing. She found herself sitting on the deck of the bridge, gasping for breath.

Out of nothingness, a form materialized before her. It was an old man, stooped with his age and dressed all in white. He carried a crooked white cane and his long white hair and beard reached to his knees. She gaped in disbelief at the vision.

"Hello, my child." The voice was soft and aged, too.

"Who-who are you?"

"Who do you think I am?"

She looked down and saw she was still sitting. The planks pressed hard into her bare flesh underneath the ripped gown, and she felt self-conscious all of a sudden about her appearance. She pulled the ends of her tangled red locks to cover her breasts as she stood. No, she definitely wasn't dead; the throbbing in her heel told her infection was probably setting in from the germs on the floor getting into the cut. She stood up, taller than the vision, who now looked very real.

"No, it can't be who I think it is, can it? God doesn't just show up like this for losers. No, it can't be God. But…they say those really do exist."

"What are you, my guardian angel or something?"

"Yes, my child, that's exactly who I am."

"Then where are your wings?"

"I'm afraid I haven't earned them, my child."

Blossom was suddenly furious. "I should say not!! Well, why are you showing up now? Why the hell didn't you do something for me back before I screwed up my whole life?"

She paused for a second. "Oh, I get it. This is just like that movie, isn't it? You talk me out of killing myself by showing me the terrible things that will happen without my presence. Well, I ask you, just how much worse can things get?! And if they can, I don't want to see them!"

She went for the side again. The old man didn't move to stop her, just sad sadly, "No, my child, that's not what this is about." The words stopped her and she turned to face him again.

"You are absolutely right, my dear. I failed you. I was asleep at the wheel, so to speak, in the times when you needed my guidance. I'm a failure."

"That makes two of us. But I still say my kids and the rest of the world are better off without me, so what's the point of showing up now?"

The old man gave her a small smile. "Ah. You see, Blossom, we are both in luck. We both have been given a second chance."

"A second chance, how? I'm not interested in picking up the pieces from today."

"No, you misunderstand. My second chance is that I have been granted the power to give you the opportunity to change one event in your life. Any event, not just this one."

She stared dumbly at him. "You mean, I can change anything in my past?"

"Yes, my dear, but you must choose wisely, because I cannot control whatever comes from that choice, and I cannot help you any further from that point on. And you must do so quickly, as my time here is very short."

She could see that he was already beginning to shimmer faintly. Her thoughts raced immediately to her babies. How to fix their damaged lives and give them a decent future? With the knowledge she possessed, it made thinking difficult. If she never took up with their father in the first place, they would never exist. The thought made her sick. If, that first night he raised his hand to her, she had just walked out and remained firm, perhaps Bobby and Samantha might have improved lives, but her own would still be difficult. A single mother raising two kids…well, she could always swallow her shame and go back to Townsville. She would have a lot of making up to do to a lot of people for leaving like she had. Especially to her father. She had never done anything except send him cards at Christmas and his birthday. But with her using a new identity, he'd never tracked her down. He never knew where she was, that he had grandchildren, anything. That might be a good way to start over…but…Julie hadn't yet been conceived at that point. How would she live, raise her other two with the knowledge that they'd had a baby sister she could never tell them about? Or subject them to their existing hell until she was pregnant again with the baby, then go back home and try to start over?

It might be better for them if they never lived at all, never mind her pain. It was her pain and self-centeredness that had blinded her to their needs in the first place. So what thing should she change? The one thing that, in the back of her mind, she had always wanted to have back? But she had always been afraid that, if given the chance, she would get it wrong again. And now, here that opportunity was. To give her sisters the chance to live again, to experience the joy of someday having their own babies. Even if hers were lost to her forever…

"Okay, Mister Guardian Angel. I've decided."

"And a wise choice it is, my child." he told her with a smile.

Momentarily taken aback by his knowing her thoughts, she smiled back and took the extended right hand in her left. They turned toward the side, and as he asked her to trust him, and her own judgement, stepped right through the rail, and disappeared.

She would get it right, this time. She had to.