Like a good communist, I own nothing.
"Gauntlet: Crucible"
Part 4
April 30
We lost. ...I lost.
Blossom.
It had been quiet the last few weeks. Normally monster attacks occurred fairly frequently, around every three or four days. Over the last year, Blossom had even come to speculate on a certain rhyme to them. She had seen that activity reached a peak at the extremes of a month, and generally diminished near the middle, though it was fairly rough, and several days off what she'd expected. As it was, the cycle seemed to be only twenty-seven days, less than a normal month. At those times, sometimes two or even three monsters would attack on the same day.
The last few weeks had seen none.
It made Blossom nervous, and she found herself spending more time than usual ready to pounce on the phone. Even more disconcerting than the failure of one of her theories to pan out had been a certain... unease creeping into the back of her mind. No one else seemed concerned. Mojo was relatively fresh out of jail, but he hadn't done anything over the last week - his longest bout of free inactivity in months (there was a small betting pool going around about when he'd finally snap and try something). Princess hadn't felt up to causing any trouble... and while HIM's machinations couldn't generally be predicted, he, too, had been absent for some time. Fuzzy had barged into Townsville the other day, and it had been almost a relief to see him cause trouble.
Looking up from her book, Conversational Cantonese, which was proving harder (and less interesting) than Conversational Mandarin, she watched Bubbles drawing away at a table. She was on her tenth piece of paper, and hunched over, several crayons in one hand, another in her right as it moved furiously. Buttercup was busy bragging to two other kids, both boys, about something. By the exaggerated gestures she was making, Blossom assumed it was some fight or another.
They had been in so many; it was impossible to guess which one.
Slowly, as if sensing her sister's gaze, Buttercup turned. Blossom realized she hadn't seen ...either of their faces... in what seemed like an eternity. As Buttercup turned, her features changed, melting and resettling like a candle. With a sudden flourish she shook her head, the tiny globs of wax flying away and revealing a different haircut of the same color. There was a crack of thunder, a flash of teeth.
"No..." She whispered, blinked, and the world was changed. It was that day. That moment.
Turning around, where Bubbles had been, she saw a boy with different hair, his features in a shallow scowl. The remains of crayons, red and black, slouched down his arms and hands. The tried to fight the transition, tried not to remember. Tried not to dream.
Behind her, through the heavy rain, she heard a whistle of displaced air. She took a step back, bumped into her two sisters, as they too looked at the source of the noise. The place had looked deserted from the air. Brick plowed into them, right through the glass of a convenience store. He didn't say anything, didn't warn them, he just shot out like a bullet, clotheslining Buttercup and Bubbles, even as both his knees crashed into Blossom like a tidal wave. He seemed about to come around for another pass, when he stopped, abruptly, in midair.
"Hey, what's wrong with you babies? You get a message that a maniac is tearing up an entire block of the city and take five whole minutes to respond?" Brick smirked. "How rude!"
Around them, cars were overturned; burning and sparking in the heavy rain, smoke billowing up into the air. Windows were broken, but all locally. It wasn't indiscriminate destruction, Blossom immediately realized, but a calculated effort. She didn't see any bodies, which was a good thing: it meant only property destruction.
"Where are your brothers?" The Powerpuff's leader demanded, recovering from his last blow.
"Butch? ...Boomer?" Brick smiled again. "They're right below you."
"What?" Bubbles gasped, as the ground beneath them exploded out, four lances of red energy cutting into the air around them. They'd focused on the red ruff, and hadn't even thought about looking down through the street with their X-ray vision. Blossom tried to yell a warning, but suddenly the ground beneath them fell away, and half the street lifted up behind and in front of them, as two long slabs of asphalt flipped up, squashing the three girls between them.
"Oh!" Brick shuddered. "I just love a good surprise attack to start a fight! That should piss 'em off a bit."
"Seemed kinda cheap to me," Butch complained.
"Meh." Boomer chuckled. "No real harm done."
"Should I add the cliché'd 'Yet' to that statement?" Brick never took his eyes off the two upright slabs of asphalt. After a few seconds, they cracked and fell away as the Powerpuff Girls broke free, dirty wet and angry. "Now, girls, what say we throw down, have at it, and all that good stuff?"
"What're you doing here? You guys are..." Blossom took a bold step forward. What was he planning? She knew, and yet she didn't, the dream, the memory, was so vivid and sharp.
"What: dead?" Brick asked. "You see, we're actually clones of the original Rowdyruff boys, created by the evil twin of the Professor, in a brilliant plan to replace all five and six year olds with genetic clones."
Boomer shook his head. "No, no, no! You might be a clone, but I'm an alternative version of Boomer, from a parallel dimension, just trying to get home and make a difference along the way."
Butch rolled his eyes. "I dunno about you guys, but I was recreated by Mojo as part of some off the wall scheme..."
Brick scratched his chin. "Wait, I thought you were resurrected by HIM..."
Butch turned to Boomer. "Hey, you said you were a time traveler from the future!"
"Dude," Brick cut in. "He told ME he was a time traveler from the PAST!"
Boomer pointed to Brick, laughing. "I thought you were an android!"
"That's crazy!" Butch gasped. "I always figured Boss-man here was some sort of doppelganger summoned from another realm..."
"Virtual Reality Construct..."
"Shape shifter..."
"Pod person..."
"Divine agent..."
"Transporter accident..."
The boys started to crack up, laughing, when they remembered where they were, suddenly, and snarled down at the three girls. Butch leaned forward, sullenly. "Well, that's about all I can come up with."
"No, that was good, man. Transporter accident..." Boomer smirked.
"You know what's really wrong here?" Brick crossed his arms contemptuously. "Try them, standing there like they've seen a couple o' ghosts..." His smile disappeared. "Maybe I should hit 'em again to prove we're real."
Boomer sighed. "What's wrong? Can't you three dimwits recognize a classic grudge match type deal when you see one? Hell-lo?"
"You call yourselves Superheroes?! Come on!" Brick floated forward, low to the ground, hands motioning for them to come at him.
"I've had enough of this talk! Let's get them!" Buttercup surged forward, before Blossom could even suggest to her sister a different course of action. Buttercup didn't care what they were going back from the dead. She didn't care that they were talking, not attacking, and obviously leading her into another trap. Buttercup's speed was beyond impressive, but Brick simply stepped aside as she charged, and tripped her. Wet and angry, she tried to stop against the ground, and instead slipped and skidded for twenty feet before coming to a stop.
Butch looked down at them dismissively. Boomer gasped in mock-surprise and fear. "Golly, Brick, they're serious! Maybe we should all just sit down and talk this over like good little children."
Brick squinted one eye in mock thought. "NAH! Let's not and say we did! Boomer - have a little talk with pinkie here. Butch - take care of the little blonde, and do it quick. I'll take care of the tomboy. Like we planned. Don't let up for a second."
"Right," both boys affirmed, as one, and charged without any other warning.
Shifting in what passed for her bed, recalling every moment, every blow, she admonished herself for not seeing Brick's plan beforehand. It should have immediately struck her that Brick hadn't turned things into a melee like he had before. Back then; he had counted on his brothers, as a group, simply outlasting the girls. Now, obviously, he had specific match ups in mind, and she should have seen why. She should have devised a counter, instead of letting surprise and shock get the better of her. She was leader - it was her fault! All her fault!
Boomer was a flurry of attacks, neither fast nor strong, and he kept at arm's length. To the left of her, she saw Buttercup, an enraged green blur, pushing a smiling Brick back under a wave of rapid punches as he blocked and fielded every one. To her right, Butch had Bubbles' face in one hand and was smashing the back of her head against a brick wall while she kicked at him, her glancing blows not bothering him in the least.
"What's the matter, Red? Distracted? You should pay closer attention to your surroundings." Boomer spun to the side, and out of nowhere he kicked out into her face. "My foot, for example!"
Annoyed, but not particularly hurt, she floated back and fired her eye beams.
"Woah!" He dodged the first blast, and twisted back to avoid the next. "Watch it with those, quickdraw! You could try out for the A-Team with marksmanship like that!"
"Shut up!" She growled, and lunged at him at full speed. He stood there, arms crossed, as if to block her, when suddenly he fell to the ground by gravity alone. Surprised, not having sensed any actual movement or change in orientation on his part, she slammed face first and through a plaster and dry wood wall. Hopping through the hole she'd just made, Boomer just pointed at her and laughed.
"Hey, Red! Anyone ever tell you that ya look like a big red wharf rat when ya get wet?" Boomer held his hands up, crudely imitating her bow. "Or maybe a rabbit! Isn't that right, bunny-ears?'"
Boiling with rage, kissing him the last thing on her mind, she just barely held back from charging at him again. He seemed annoyed by this, but his small smile, lips slightly parted, never faded as they slowly circled one another. They were inside someone's den, and flickering of the tiny television and sparking lighting, combined with the lightning and darkness outside, gave the impression of him moving around like a broken movie, skipping every other frame. It was very disorienting.
"Well Red, are we gonna dance or what?"
"I think you need a time out!" Blossom took a deep breath, felt the tingle at the base of her throat that was her special power, and exhaled. Blue crystals sparkled in the air, as the entire room froze over in a layer of ice. Blossom felt a shiver, and realized that she had a small layer of frozen ice around her.
"Woah! Instant ice rink!" A voice yelled from above, and Boomer smashed down through the ceiling. He watched, amused, while Blossom flexed her arms and legs, breaking through the rainwater that had been on her and subsequently frozen.
"How did...?"
"Well, the BIG, DEEP breath you took kinda helped tip me off," Boomer said, floating off the frozen floor of the ruined room. "Not as much as the look on your face that screamed..." He forced his voice really high and girlish. "I think I'll use my ice breath and freeze this no good Rowdyruff loudmouth, and I bet he won't see it coming either!"
Blossom gritted her teeth.
"What? No witty comebacks, Little Miss Obvious?" Boomer charged this time, but cautiously, throwing his punches almost half-heartedly. "No snappy one liners? Not even a scream of impotent rage?"
"Shut UP!" Blossom kicked, high, catching Boomer in the chin. He flew back, and she was on him, kicking and punching. She hadn't been this angry in what seemed like forever. Boomer took the blows, and countered with his own, much more seriously this time.
"What's the matter, Red?" He scored a sound blow to her jaw, sending her through a wall and into a blue tiled bathroom. She kicked up as he raced after her, sending him two floors up and into a closet full of dresses. She followed after him amid the tangle of clothes, and they blasted through the closed wooden door through a shocked Townsvillian's bedroom and into a kitchen, trading blows.
"Why so silent?" Boomer slammed a fist into her stomach. "Brick said you were the talkative one!" He planted an uppercut onto the base of her jaw. "Can't you fight and recite the party line at the same time?" He tried a quick, shallow haymaker that she barely avoided. "You know, how the Powerpuff Girls never lose?" He leaned back, avoiding a retaliatory blow. "How you guys fight for love, justice, and short skirts?" As he fell backwards, he snap kicked out, catching her painfully on the arm. "The American way!" He rolled back, and lunged, arms crossed, pushing her back. "A kitten in every living room..." He slammed her into and through a wall, her back breaking several pieces of wooden supports. "A cheap import in every garage?!"
"I... said..." Blossom's eyes erupted in red death. "SHUT UP!!"
"WOAH!" Boomer jumped to the side, and Blossom followed him with her eyes as he ran around her, eye beams still firing. Suddenly, like a distant memory, she remembered that they were fighting in an apartment complex, and that her beams had just leveled the entire floor and started a massive fire.
"Nice shots there, Red." He said from her side. "I couldn't have started a nicer high rise fire if I tried!"
Ignoring him, she plowed into the inferno, blowing all around her, ice breath smothering patched of flame isolated in decimated rooms. As she looked around, floating in the last room, she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hey, Red!" Boomer floated by her, slowly, and pointed to a far section of the building, visible through exposed wooden and metal supports... creaking and mending and breaking metal and wooden supports. "You think it's supposed to do that?"
"Oh no!" Blossom shot out to the edge of the collapsing floor, found a solid spot where a large metal beam had been, and held it up. The creaking and groaning stopped, and she started looking around desperately for a way to hold the above four or five floors up. As she did, Boomer casually walked up in front of her.
"Yo," he said, finally, after looking at her for a few seconds. "Holding up the ceiling, eh?"
She didn't reply.
"Yep. That's what I thought. Sure wish I had a feather or somethin,' that'd be hilarious!"
She growled, deep in her throat.
"Almost as hilarious as you doing all this damage in the first place."
Her left eye twitched.
"See, I'd feel kinda guilty about it, if I were you."
"I seem to recall you boys demolishing a building or two in our last fight." She smirked at him.
"I didn't," He calmly replied. "Now... what to do with you? Butch would probably just pound your guts out your mouth... like he's probably doing to your sister... Brick would blast ya' a few times, just for giggles..."
"Why don't... why don't you help me?" Blossom saw him blink in confusion. "You're right. You didn't do anything... too terrible last time. And it's not too late to do the right thing now."
"Gee. I dunno." He intoned, sarcastically. "Do I get to be the purple Powerpuff if I join up?"
Blossom's eyes narrowed.
"Then again, maybe I'd look better in plain ol' white, what do you think?" Boomer continued, still smiling. "Do you Girls have a health plan? Signing bonus?"
She started to take a deep breath, and he quickly shot forward, clamping his hand on her mouth, forcing it closed. He shook his other hand at her. "Now that was just silly, Red! You can't... YEOWCH!"
Biting down with all her might, as soon as he pulled his hand back, she blew. Boomer's eyes widened at her, his smile gone and replaced by a look of anger and a grimace of pain. Blossom directed her ice breath perfectly, first freezing the Rowdyruff, then the floor, layering it over and over, from both the ceiling and the ground, until they reached. Slowly backing off, she added more, freezing the entire corner of the building and holding it in place.
Blossom, back in the rain, allowed herself a quick laugh. "Cold enough for ya?"
"Whould'ya look at that?"
Blossom whirled on the voice. Butch and Brick were both hovering silently in the air. The black haired Rowdyruff was holding Bubbles by her hair, while Brick had Buttercup, unconscious, over his shoulder.
"No..." Brick held up his hand. "Not that." He slowly raised his hand to his face. "This!"
Blossom was bathed in red light, overwhelming in intensity, unending in barrage, from both of the brothers' ruff. Before she blacked out, the last thing she heard was the two Rowdyruff Boys: laughing.
Blossom opened her eyes, blinked them a few times, and realized where she was. It was obvious enough - she was in her cell. Like she had been for days. It was dark, so dark she could barely see her hands in front of her face, and she had no idea what the time was. No idea what day it was. There was no concept of day and night, except when the Brick came and fed her, calling it 'dinner.' It was the only meal of the day, and she had no idea whether it was actually dinner, or breakfast, or... it was all the same, and yet different.
The darkness and confinement was maddening, and it left nothing to do except think and plan and sleep and brood. She knew her sisters were alive, or suspected it. Brick had said so before, and she couldn't think of why he'd lie about it. The first few days, he'd told her that he was just keeping them alive for a day or two so Mojo could finish his book on 'Traditional Vietnamese Interrogation Techniques' and build his 'Bigger, Better Powerpuff Torture Device Millennium Edition.'
Idly, Blossom slammed her fist against the cold walls that held her prisoner. They were unbreakable; unmeltable... she'd even tried freezing them, to make the metal brittle, and then breaking them. For hours, she'd froze the wall, then blasted it, then froze it, then blasted it, trying to weaken it until her throat hurt. It was a no go. Brick had even laughed at her when he saw all the dirty water on the floor, and deduced what she had been doing. He then assured her that he'd have done the same thing and that he would've killed her if he knew it would work.
That same day, she'd attacked him and tried to make a run for it.
Unfortunately, she was still hungry and weak and wasn't near 100, and he was in peak condition. After only a brief struggle, he'd subdued her, admonished her like a child (which was ironic, in afterthought), and then left, taking her 'dinner' - a bagel and a piece of bread - with him. He left the paper cup with water, however, which made the increasing dryness in her throat go away for a few hours, at least.
Closing her eyes, she groaned.
She wanted to smell fresh air. She wanted to see open blue skies and rich green grass. She wanted to taste the Professor's cooking, instead of Mojo's table scraps. She wanted to feel something that wasn't hard, cold, uncaring metal. She wanted to hear her sister's voice. She wanted to hear anyone's voice, see anyone's face, even Brick's. Even his brothers.
She actually found herself looking forward to when Brick came with the food.
Not only did it alleviate the hunger and thirst she constantly felt, but also he was, at least, small company. He talked to her, and while his tone was bitter and almost always coldly mocking, and while he more often pointed out her failings and questioned her beliefs, at lest he wasn't trying to kill her. At least she wasn't alone, in the dark. Blossom thought, then, of her sisters. Bubbles would be miserable, and Buttercup... beaten and locked up, she would need comfort most of all.
This was, she knew, killing them.
Not quickly, not even slowly and painfully, but it was a sort of decay. She could feel herself, everything she thought about herself, and everything she had ever been, falling apart at the seams. Her only permanent company was her own voice, her own inner demons. Every disappointment - every setback, every failure - revisited mentally a thousand times a day and transcribed before her.
Worse than the moral lapses she had had over the months... those were disappointments because she failed herself, failed to be the standard she set others to, so much worse than those had been when she let down the team. In her mind she recounted them, she saw again all the times Mojo had came SOO close to destroying them, when only outside intervention and the grace of Providence saved them. Every one of those was a failure and a black mark against her, personally, as a leader. Then there were the monsters that they couldn't defeat - everything from Elmer's Paste-Monster body to that Big Orange Monster and the Slime Creature that wanted its Cat. True, things had turned out well enough in the end (Elmer had been cured, the Orange Monster had left without a fuss, and the Slime creature had found its cat), but they had still ultimately been failures in that she had committed herself and the team to their defeat, and failed to achieve that aim. Every strategy, every enemy, had a weakness, and she hadn't seen it in time to bring home the win.
Blossom sat in the darkness, trying desperately to get comfortable on the hardened cot. She wanted to sleep. She needed to sleep. She didn't question herself in her sleep, only remembered the failures. Better just to go through them again than to be analyzed for them, and rebuffed for it over and over. Better to try and just slip into an unconscious, mindless stupor. Better to die, maybe. A nice dreamless sleep was her goal.
Her unreachable goal.
Maybe she could ask Brick to knock her unconscious; she doubted he'd mind.
She heard the Professor's voice, damning her.
"You should have known what he was thinking! It was so obvious!"
She heard Buttercup, laughing at her.
"Some leader! Outwitted by a boy only a few days old! Even I could do better than that!"
She head Bubbles, not angry, just disappointed.
"He hurt me so bad, Blossom... why didn't you help me... why didn't you think of something..."
Boomer.
"News flash! She's an idiot, that's why!"
The Mayor
"Yeah. An idiot! Maybe you'll be Mayor someday!"
Ms. Bellum.
"You can't win all the time... but a hero doesn't lose when everything is on the line."
Brick.
"Don't feel bad, Bloss. Maybe it's for the best. The new always replaces the old."
Herself.
"At least we've lost for the last time..."
Without warning, there was light. After a second, she heard the bars to her cell open. Rolling on her side, eyes still blinking from the light, she saw Brick. He looked like he'd just gone through a meat grinder, and somehow survived.
"Get up." His eyes were chips of red rubies, emotionless and cold, but there was a desperation... even fear, to his voice. "Townsville needs you."
It was May 4th.
