Like a good communist, I own nothing.
"Gauntlet: Pain"
Part 5
"Nothing!"
Butch/Buttercup was bordering on losing her cool. They'd been searching for over ten intolerable minutes, and had yet to locate their target. Floating nearly thirty six thousand miles above the equator, she could feel her skin crawl from a mixture of exposure and impotent rage. Buttercup's anger was not simply amplified by Butch's, but complimented by it.
Her body was bubbling with pure power.
All she needed was a target.
Any target.
Fists clenching and unclenching, she looked towards her sister in arms, several thousand miles away, just a tiny speck against the infinite black. Brick/Blossom had obviously not had any luck herself, which only added to the frustration. To her own credit, Butch/Buttercup had searched across practically the entire infrared, visible, and ultraviolet spectrum, using her newly enhanced powers of perception and improved form of 'sight.' She could only assume that Brick/Blossom had also realized the expanded repertoire of abilities at their command and done the same.
Still, no sign of anything resembling a 'Living Core.'
Space debris, yes.
Living Core? No.
Nothing!
Yet it had to be in the general area. Unless the triangulation coordinates had been wrong, and their whole effort high above the earth was a waste of time and exercise in futility. Then, far away, Brick/Blossom started doing something odd. She was firing her eyebeams at low power and high dispersal, but only from one eye, sort of like a flashlight.
Could they do that?
'Anything they can do, we can!'
Both minds thought as one.
Both minds acted as one.
Keeping both eyes open, Butch/Buttercup fired from her right eye. At first, the beam was intense and difficult to control, but she quickly widened it and lowered the power output. It was very much like a flashlight, indeed, and as she scanned the heavens, Butch/Buttercup could see how the technique highlighted small things in orbit that would otherwise have been invisible.
Of course, if this hidden 'Living Core' had a way of cloaking itself from normal detection, then the flashlight effect wouldn't be as great as the actual intensity of the beam. Butch/Buttercup was well aware of her greatly increased power - it felt nearly endless...
Was it?
Increasing the power, but not narrowing the beam, Butch/Buttercup smiled in pleasant amazement. She didn't feel fatigued in the least, despite the oxygen deprivation. The only problem was concentration, but she found even that was coming easier than before. The merging had been the greatest thing they had ever experienced, the greatest gift any two people could give another.
In the distance, her sight passed over a communications satellite, and vaporized it instantly. Butch/Buttercup hardly gave it a second thought beyond realizing it likely wasn't the target she was looking for. There was also the somewhat present worry about those left behind, back in Townsville. Boomer and Bubbles, the Professor and even Mojo Jojo... they had been gone for some time. How much of an advance had the strange cloud of abnormal matter that this Living Core was projecting made?
She did not know.
Oddly, she found herself not really caring.
She wanted to find her target. She wanted to DESTROY it. She wanted to TEAR it apart, BIT by tiny BIT. She wanted to feel its last moments between her hands, before it was extinguished... she wanted to break, she wanted to crush, she wanted to feel... she wanted to feel... her power... She wanted to exercise it! She wanted to use it! Why have a power, why have so much wonderful beautiful power, and not use it?
Mojo leveled his laser rifle.
The unconscious and immobile form of Professor Utonium looked up at him, mutely condemning him for his crimes. Amid the blinking screens and incessant noise of thinking supercomputers, Mojo's finger tensed on the trigger. A part of him wanted to finish the job - it would be so easy. All he had to do was depress the trigger, and the Professor's head would, quite literally, disappear. There'd be barely enough to scrape together into a thimble.
That was the part of him that so bitterly hated the man.
The Professor's eyes were closed, but the screen had had been looking at was still operational. Mojo looked at it for a moment, and saw Powerpuff Bubbles and Rowdyruff Boomer, one his enemy, one his own son, both unconscious on a rooftop. The Death Cloud's advance had steadily increased in pace towards them, with an almost sentient sense of desperation. Soon, they'd both be gone.
At the thought, Mojo felt another sharp pang of guilt.
He was condemning his sons to death with this act of betrayal. Boomer would die, right where he lay, next to Bubbles, as the Cloud overtook him. Brick would be disposed of when he returned with his brother, if all went according to plan. And then, Butch's fate would be of his own volition. Mojo loved them all, in a way, however he could not play second fiddle to his own child, even if the child was a monster, like Brick.
No.
He reminded himself that Brick would likely dispose of his 'beloved father' when he was no longer useful. It was a matter of self-preservation that Mojo take this one chance at freedom; at reclaiming his normal life, such as it was. The other two boys... If they were to survive their brother Brick, they would demand revenge, they would have run amuck in grief, and worst of all, they may have aligned themselves with the Powerpuff Girls, without Brick's influence. That, above all, was something Mojo could not afford to let happen.
This was his chance.
He wouldn't be himself if he didn't take it.
Again, he found himself looking down at the sleeping Professor, at the man who had been his owner... and much more. Mojo had hoped to use Professor Utonium, had hoped to find in the man a new ally against Brick's schemes and manipulations, but things had gone awry when Powerpuff Bubbles became endangered. Like his own children, the Professor had become a potential enemy and threat, and had to be eliminated. Mojo could not allow him to go out and rescue the two children, and so he had taken the older man out, fast and painless, with a stun rod.
Now, all he had to do was finish the job.
And Kill Professor Utonium.
Mojo's trigger finger felt numb, and with a grunt, he put the weapon away, slung over his shoulder. There was no rush to do the dirty deed. The Professor wouldn't awake for well over an hour or two, and by then, hopefully, everything will have fallen in place. In fact, it might be better this way. With the Professor alive, he could be taken prisoner and interrogated. Yes. Yes! That was much better! Passing his hand over the screen, over the image of Boomer and Bubbles, Mojo closed his eyes and steeled his heart.
Sacrifices had to be made and Pain had to be endured. It was a shame, though. In many ways, those two were his favorites. With a harsh intake of breath, Mojo turned from the scene and went to prepare for the coming of his prodigal son.
"Wake up... Bubbles..."
Bubbles felt like she'd been thought a taffy pull.
Every muscle ached, and every movement sent spikes of pain up her spine and directly into her brain. Her young mind could barely understand it all, even as it slowly started to fade from sharp pain to dull numbness. She felt tired. She felt exhausted. She felt spent. It was... akin to what she imagined speeding around the world four or five times at full speed would be like. She was not so much low on energy, but her body felt...
Burned out.
She felt like a candle that had flared up and melted away before its time. Like a crayon used too vigorously, until it was little more than a stump. Closing her eyes, she tried to check the amount of strength she had left, and found that there was still a fair bit. However, trying to access that strength, trying to summon her powers, taxed her body to the point of pain.
It made sense.
When she first woke up, her natural impulse was to get up, to escape, to be aware of her situation, and so without thinking she had tried to use her full abilities, hence the pain. Completely disregarding them, now, she found herself able to roll to the side, to her knees, and then eventually to her feet. Her kneecaps threatened to buckle, but she held firm, and stood.
"Bubbles... Be careful..." A dulcet tone found her ear, and she turned, trying to find its source, but found nothing.
"Who... who's there?" Bubbles asked, but as she turned, she realized something else. A whole section of the city... wasn't really there. The buildings were stripped skeletons, and the air wavered dangerously. Her eyes widened in fear and recognition.
"Oh no... oh no!" She took a few involuntary steps back, and tripped on something. She hit the ground hard with her tailbone, but wasn't particularly hurt. Leaning up a little, she saw what she had fallen over.
"Boomer?" She blinked, and rubbed her eyes. Her legs were covering his lower torso, and he certainly seemed solid enough. Of course, he was also in his birthday suit, but she tried not to think about that. At least he was breathing: his chest slowly rising and falling.
He looked very peaceful.
"Bubbles..." The soft voice returned, from somewhere behind her. There was a hint of quickness, haste even, to it this time.
Getting back to her feet, Bubbles leaned over and helped Boomer off the ground. Without her power increasing her strength, it was only slightly more than that of a normal little girl, and carrying Boomer, coupled with her own sore body, was making actual movement almost impossible. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the buildings crumble into irregular black crumbs, like ash.
It was getting closer.
"Bubbles... follow me..."
Gritting her teeth, the blue Powerpuff reluctantly channeled a small fraction of power into her body. The pain was sharp, but not as intense as before, and it allowed her to walk while supporting her Rowdyruff counterpart. She followed the voice, not really knowing why, to the end of one side of the building. The street was, maybe, twenty stories down. She could survive the fall, if she boosted more power into her body, but the shock of it would likely make her pass out. Worse, Boomer probably wouldn't survive it, if he was in the same condition she was.
"What..." Bubbles grimaced a bit, as a hot pain shot up her arm. "What am I going to do? Please... somebody... help me..." An idea came to her, and she tapped the headphone she was still wearing. "Professor... Mr. Mojo? Anyone...?"
"Bubbles... please..." The voice was right in front of her, and a little below. She looked down at the street, but saw no one. Was she losing her mind?
"Who are you?"
"Trust... me... We... we don't have much time..." The soft voice seemed strained, and greatly weakened in strength at the end.
Breathing heavily, Bubbles looked behind again, and saw one edge of the building roof she was on start to break apart, flecks of paint and material breaking off right before her eyes. She looked back to the front, down the side of the building to the merciless concrete below. With a gasp of pain and fear and desperation, Boomer held close in her arms, Bubbles braced herself, closed her eyes...
"Jump!"
And jumped.
"There you are-re... you little bastard-rd..."
It had taken some time, but the wait had been worth it. Narrowing her eye beams, Brick/Blossom watched in satisfaction as the shimmering surface of the ...thing writhed. The flashlight technique had finally paid off when she'd seen a distinct lack of illumination, a sphere of darkness, in the middle of the light and energy she was putting out. Some sort of energy field was protecting whatever was inside that sphere of darkness, bending light around it perfectly.
It likely even bent radio waves around it.
Truly fascinating.
Pouring more energy into the attack, Brick/Blossom smirked as the energy field began to fluctuate and overload. Obviously, it could only deal with a limited amount of energy, and her output was beginning to exceed that limit. Raining even more power into her eye beams, coming now from both eyes, Brick/Blossom suddenly caught something coming in from the side.
Pivoting slightly, she saw a nearly invisible shifting mass, small, but growing in size. She realized what it was instantly. It was another projection, made in self-defense. Did this One know fear? Did it comprehend that it was not long for this universe? Attacking the mass of abnormal matter was a waste of time - it wasn't completely material and couldn't be dealt with through any sort of physical or energy attack.
Then, the mini-cloud began to coalesce.
With unexpected and amazing quickness, it became like a whip, and shot out at Brick/Blossom with a speed it had never demonstrated before. Reacting instinctively, she raised her hands and caught the head of the whip, sharp and narrow as a blade, just before it could bury itself into her left eye. It pressed forward, like a hungry snake, the rest of its body snapping back and forth, cutting into her shoulders. Each strike felt like a cold chill, and Brick/Blossom's hands were quickly starting to numb.
So: it was capable of adaptation.
It had concentrated itself, greatly improving the deadliness of its attack as the density of abnormal matter increased. Additionally, it was exposing as little of itself as possible, greatly diminishing the surface area it had to break through to get to her. It was concentrating its attack, and fighting with a savage fury, like a cornered animal. Snarling, Brick/Blossom's eyes lanced out beams of fire and death, cutting into and trying to disrupt the super-dense whip of abnormal matter.
While she fought for her life, Butch/Buttercup shot by in a streak of light.
She knew to go straight for the source.
But, as the green ruff/puff grew closer to her target, fists forward, a new mini-cloud began to form in front of her, blocking her path, forming a shield, and then a net. A crisscross of ultra thin killing wires, ready to slice the advancing enemy to pieces. With a savage yell, Butch/Buttercup crossed her arms, and began to glow a bright white-green. Her arms and body began to harden, the texture changing to a sort of dark brown, like bark.
With an inaudible crash, she tore through the razor net. Colliding with the exposed and vulnerable Living Core, she wrapped her hands around it. Turning in mid-flight, her arms glowing with power, a cruel grin on her face, she held it out... and squeezed.
Thousands of miles below, the Death Cloud dissipated. In Brick/Blossom's hands, the whip cloud faded away. Behind Butch/Buttercup, the broken razor-net cloud fell apart and drifted into nothingness.
It was over.
"We win." Butch/Buttercup thought, an echo of pride and joy spreading throughout her heart and soul. In her hands, the black ichor that was all that remained of the Living Core flaked off, and joined its body in oblivion.
Bubbles fell.
And hit padded carpet.
Sprawled out, she quickly forced herself to recover, and tried to identify her surroundings. It was dark, though the walls themselves seemed to have a reddish glow to them. From what she could see, the place was a mess. It looked like a hurricane had passed through and lingered for a few days, taking great pleasure in scattering and smashing everything that wasn't bolted down and a few things that were.
Even in the dim light, the room was vaguely familiar.
"You came..."
Bubbles stood, and faced the voice. She knew who it was, now. She'd been fooled by it too often; it wouldn't work again. Especially since its owner didn't even seem to be putting as much effort into the deception as before.
"What do you want?" Bubbles asked, voice firm. She stepped in front of Boomer, who was still unconscious.
"You know me... too well..." The voice seemed somewhat strained. Under the torn covers of a bed, something formless shuddered visibly. "I do..." The dulcet tone became a hoarse, but male, tone. "WANT... NEED..." It returned to normal. "Something from you..."
Bubbles knew she was almost powerless. Almost helpless. From under the covers, the face of HIM became visible, but quickly retreated back under the frilly blanket. Only a single claw, looking a bit withered, was visible as it reached for her. She stepped back and out of reach, and the claw flailed impotently just short of grabbing her.
"What do you want from me?" Bubbles asked again, as her eyes searched for the door out of HIM's lair.
There was a short, muffled, ragged cry from under the sheets.
"Help... me..." His feminine voice wavered, getting deeper in tone, then even higher pitched than normal. "Help me... please...only you can carry this cup... I can't... I can't anymore..."
"What are you talking about?" Bubbles hated the dark, and now, not just because it concealed the unknown. Not just because it covered all things in a colorless dark coat, like death. Now she wanted to get away. She needed to get away. Her instincts were blaring a warning like an alarm claxon.
"My mind... it hurts... ithurtshurtshurts..." HIM's face eased out of the covers again, and Bubbles got a clearer look at him.
His eyes were gone.
"T... thank you... for saving me and Boomer... but I've got to go..." Bubbles stuttered, a chill running up her spine. She fought the urge to panic. Boomer needed her. She had to get him away.
"Don't leave!" HIM's male voice roared, and then shrunk instantly into a tiny whisper. "I need... you... take it from me... he tricked... trickedtreattrickedtreat! There's too much light... too much... I... I... saved you..."
HIM had saved her.
Why?
Why?
She saw the door, very faint against the hellish red glow of the walls. Carefully reaching for Boomer, she started to back away towards the exit. HIM looked around furiously, before looking straight at her, with those empty bloodless sockets.
He smiled.
"You're leaving me...? Good child... it'll be done with me soon... You'll be next..." He buried his face in the covers again. "Turn off the lights! Turn them off! Turn them off!!"
Opening the door, she saw only more darkness, and more of that hellish light, in what looked like HIM's living room. But her eyes were more accustomed to it, now, and she could make out the main door leading out. The rest of the living room was as much a mess as anything, and HIM's enchanted television lay cracked on its side, hissing static on the screen.
As she made her escape, Bubbles heard HIM's last words.
"I loved you the most..." There was a mixture of hoarse and grating laughter. "How appropriate... my angel..."
Closing the door behind her, Bubbles looked up at the bright sun, high above, and let it play across her face and seep into her skin. It felt good, and she felt surprisingly revitalized. Wiping leftover tears from her eyes, she lifted Boomer much more easily and headed home at a slow pace.
"Objectives met-et. Mission completed-ted." Brick/Blossom was the first to land, flying in at a slow pace through the door into Mojo's Observatory. She'd made a quick pass looking for Boomer and Bubbles, and found that the rooftop they had been on was partly eaten away. However, there weren't any bodies, which meant they weren't there when it happened. Brick/Blossom didn't let it show, but she was deeply concerned. She'd miscalculated how long it would take them to find the Living Core in high orbit, and neutralize it. She'd also assumed that the speed and size of the mass of abnormal matter was constant and steady, when it had not been.
Such miscalculations could have proven deadly.
She now saw that she had been overconfident in her abilities and deductions.
"Where are variables Boomer and Bubbles-es?" She looked around, and saw only Mojo, standing in the middle of the room.
"Professor Utonium is nursing them back to health," Mojo explained, lying through his teeth. "He returned with them a short while ago, and a decision was made to confine them to a different Laboratory to study what happened to them and perhaps, through that study, discover..."
"Enough-gh!" Brick/Blossom looked over her shoulder at Butch/Buttercup, who was floating nearby. "It is time to return to our variables-es. You will watch carefully, and mimic our actions-ons."
The red/pink ruff/puff landed, and took a deep breath. Suddenly, she gasped, sharply, and like two halves of the same coin being cut away from each other, separated in a crackle of red and white sparks. Brick stumbled forward, and Blossom fell back, dizzy and weak. Unlike Boomer, however, he was fully clothed and conscious.
"Woah..." He turned around a bit. "Bloss? You all right?"
She took a moment to keep her balance.
"Ow. Ow ow..." She shook her head, and tried to clear the cobwebs. "I've got a splitting headache... and I feel like I just ran a marathon around the solar system..."
Brick let a small grin show. "You'll be fine." He then faced Butch/Buttercup. "Ok, you two. Concentrate on separating, and do what we just did, ok?"
Butch/Buttercup just hovered there. She said nothing.
"What are you waiting for?" Brick frowned. "Separate!"
Slowly, Butch/Buttercup smirked.
"NO," She said, simply, in a steady tenor voice.
"No?!" Brick demanded. "You have to!"
"We will do no such thing..." Butch/Buttercup's smirk grew. "We will be one... forever... We will not give up this... this power, this unity... NEVER. Brother. Never... And you cannot make us!"
"You..." Brick tensed. He checked Blossom's condition - she was weak, and certainly in no condition to do anything about this situation. He felt a little spent himself, for both the same and different reasons, but his physical body hadn't needed to bear the burden of channeling more power than it was normally capable of.
"You will separate, in time, whether you want to or not." Mojo suddenly cut into the conversation. At that, Brick instantly re-evaluated the situation. Things started to make sense: Mojo's recommendation that they pair off with their counterparts, the 'missing' Professor, along with Boomer and Bubbles, and Butch/Buttercup's behavior. It was all so obvious in retrospect, but he had been too distracted and preoccupied to guess it!
They were power mad.
"We will NEVER separate!" Butch/Buttercup roared at Mojo, fists clenched.
"You will." Mojo insisted. "But I can help you..."
"How? Tell us!"
Brick understood as well as any the allure of power. Yet, he had never been what one would call truly power mad. To the red Rowdyruff, power was just a tool, just a means to an end. Butch, however, defined himself by his strength, and Buttercup thought similarly. Then there was the silent bond the two shared, the empathy that Brick had never really understood or identified the roots of.
This was not good.
"You will separate..." Mojo repeated. "But ...BUT ...I can make your merging last longer, I can prolong its effects for the whole day... every day..."
"You... would do this for us?" Butch/Buttercup slowly floated towards Mojo, apparently forgetting about Brick, who stood nearby, his mind working.
There was another angle to this.
Mojo was going to use Butch/Buttercup as a weapon; this much was totally obvious now. He would use them as a pawn, with the promise of keeping their 'unity.' However, Mojo would not risk having such a powerful pawn any longer than was absolutely necessary. He made that mistake with the Rowdyruff Boys, and would not do so again. There had to be some sort of failsafe... Brick looked at Blossom, who was still struggling to stand, and everything came together.
He was aiming to kill them all.
Mojo was telling the truth - Butch and Buttercup would eventually separate, but not for the reasons they were being led to believe. They would separate when Buttercup's body finally gave out from the energy and strain that it was being put under by the merging. They were like a weapon that would eventually destroy itself. No wonder Mojo was seizing this opportunity!
Brick felt a moment of pure hatred and grudging admiration for his 'father.'
"I would! I would do this for you!" Mojo smiled. "But I don't think your brother here wants that! If you want to stay together... you have to stop him..."
"Stop him...?" Butch/Buttercup's head swiveled, and her eyes fell on the Rowdyruff Leader.
"You have to. If you don't, you'll fall apart! You'll be alone! You'll separate..." Mojo drove the nail in the coffin. "...Forever!"
"No... NO!!" Butch/Buttercup surged towards Brick. He had prepared himself, and with every ounce of strength and skill, came in low, slid under the attack, and threw Butch/Buttercup over his shoulder. It was a perfectly executed move, one that used his opponent's momentum and strength against them.
But it was futile.
Butch/Buttercup seemed to vanish, upside down, a heartbeat before a hard blow registered across Brick's jaw. He flew, like a rocket, and struggled to gain control of his flight, and slow his eventual impact into the wall. When the actual impact came, it knocked the wind out of him. He fell to his knees, and it felt like he'd broken a rib or two.
"You... fools!" He stood, painfully. "It's a trick! You'll die if you don't separate!"
Butch/Buttercup's face became a cruel grimace.
"You LIE!" She roared. "The union is PERFECT!"
Brick tried to block the blow that came, but it was too fast, and far too strong. It blew through his defenses like they weren't even there.
"The union is PARADISE!" He heard coupled with another blow to the sternum that had him coughing blood. He tried a counterattack, tried to make an opening to escape, but his strongest blows had no effect on Butch/Buttercup.
"You will not deny us our dreams... our lovely beautiful power..."
Brick felt hands on his neck, and weightlessness as he was lifted into the air.
"Finish him!" Mojo yelled. "Quickly! Then you'll be together forever!"
"Brick!" Another voice yelled, a mixture of pain and anger. "Buttercup! Butch! Stop! For God's sake, stop! You're killing him!"
"You too, would deny us?" Butch/Buttercup looked down, calmly, as Blossom crashed into her side, punching and kicking and scratching like a wild animal. She was in terrible pain, tapping into her power, but her inner fire kept her going.
With an almost casual ease, Butch/Buttercup reached out and took her sister by the neck with her free hand. Blossom's mouth moved, as she fought for air, and her hands tried, in vain, to pry loose the ever-increasing pressure on her neck that threatened to pop her head off like a clipped flower.
"Let... go of her..." Brick's eyes snapped open, and narrowed on Butch/Buttercup's other wrist. An intense beam, focused like a laser, cut into the ruff/puff's arm. Surprised by the actual pain that the attack had caused, if not damage, Butch/Buttercup's grip slackened, and Blossom fell back to the ground.
"You would fight us?" Butch/Buttercup's grip on Brick's neck doubled. "We will not be separated! Not by you! NOT BY ANYONE!!"
"It's... a trick..." Brick's voice was gone after that.
"LIAR! You always lie...! Always! ALWAYS! But never again! NEVER, do you hear us!?"
"Buttercup!" "Butch!" Two different voices yelled, exhausted but firm, and above all, afraid and concerned. The last of the Rowdyruff/Powerpuff amalgams turned and saw the bearers of the voices: Bubbles and Boomer, the latter wearing what looked like toga made from someone's bed sheets and tied together in a hurry.
"You two?" Butch/Buttercup snarled.
"Brick... he's telling the truth..." Bubbles said, and pointed at Blossom. "Look at Blossom! Look at me! I could barely get here on my own..."
"Butch! Look what you're doing!" Boomer yelled. "Look at yourself, man!"
"There is no Butch! There is no Buttercup!" She hissed. "There is only WE! There is only the perfect power that is us! You would trick..."
"This isn't a trick!" Bubbles cried. "Buttercup... I've never lied to you... Please, just think about what you're doing..."
"We... we will not be..." Butch/Buttercup turned from their blond siblings, to the still Rowdyruff Leader in their grip. With a startled gasp, she let go of him, and stepped back. Brick's body hit the ground with a dull, lifeless thump.
"We... we..." She looked down at her hands, saw the splotches of blood: Brick's blood. Her voice wavered. "What have we... what have I done...?"
With horrible venom, she turned to Mojo, who had been watching the followings with growing trepidation. Almost without thinking, he reached for the laser rifle slung at his side.
"You... this is all your fault...!"
"Wait! No!" Mojo, beyond desperate, leveled the gun. "Come no closer...!"
With a feral howl of anger, and in the blink of an eye, Butch/Buttercup's fist was buried into his chest. He hung there, impaled on her arm, silent. Slowly, Butch/Buttercup pulled back, and he slid off and to the ground, in a pool of thick red blood. His mouth parted, just enough to show teeth, but he said nothing. Mojo Jojo blinked, twice, and then his eyes never opened again.
Blood on her hands, Butch/Buttercup fell to her knees and cried. A second later, with a crack of thunder, she fell apart, into Butch and Buttercup. The two children were still sobbing, but Buttercup's breathing was irregular and punctuated by choked and muffled sounds. Only a few yards away, and yet at the same time, in an altogether different world, Blossom slowly got back to her feet.
As if on baby legs, Blossom walked unsteadily towards her fallen counterpart.
He looked... so still.
"Brick..." She felt her legs give out again, and collapsed onto him. Gently, she took hold of his shirt, and shook him. Tears were streaking down her face, splashing onto his. "Brick... Wake up... wake up..."
His eyes moved, just slightly, and focused on her.
She noticed.
"Brick... say something... say something to me... Please! Say something! Please!!"
His lips moved, very gently, and she leaned in closer.
"Blossom... Non dolet," He whispered, and closed his eyes, "Non omnia moriar..."
Latin?
"Brick... you'll be ok... its over..." She searched his face for any sign of understanding, and sort of response, but there was nothing. Hand trembling, heart pounding, she felt for a pulse, and drew back, afraid, when she found none.
"B... Brick...?" Boomer leaned over. Blossom hadn't even noticed that he was there. Gulping, unsure, Boomer looked at her.
"Red... Red... is...?"
"Ca... Call an ambulance..." She answered, voice hoarse. When he didn't move, she turned on him, angry. "Call a Goddamn ambulance! NOW!"
Boomer nodded, wiped his face, and ran.
Looking down at him, splashed with blood and tears, Blossom screwed her eyes shut. She willed him to wake up. She willed him to live. The tears of the people of Townsville had revived her... why weren't her own enough to do the same to him? Opening her eyes, she saw that his red cap had fallen off, leaving his somewhat pale, neglected orange hair to spill out over the side of his face.
He looked so vulnerable, now: like a child. But he wasn't a child, was he? He had seemed immortal. Untouchable. A force of nature... Always there with a plan, always there with a remark, always there to correct and argue with her, always there to lead the way. For the last month, in many ways, he had gone from bitter enemy to guiding light. He had seen them through the most difficult times and battles of their short lives.
But in the end, he was mortal. He was just a child. And he had used his last ounce of power to save her, of all people - he had saved the very person who once killed him. No! Her mind refused to believe it: NO! She denied it: He couldn't be dead! Sobbing uncontrollably, hands clenched in the fabric of his red and black shirt, Blossom couldn't help but wonder and fear.
What were they to do now?
( To be continued... in 'Gauntlet: Diaspora' )
