Chapter Fourteen

Robin Snyder, who ran to her home as soon as she saw Blossom barge into it like a wrecking ball, gasped like an emphysema patient upon entry. The typically spotless and organized abode had been reduced to the ultimate pigsty. Chaotic jumbles of furniture, appliances, and Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets portrayed the cataclysmic results of a howling tornado- or, to be more accurate, the destructive wake of an apparently-bonkers Powerpuff.

"Oh no, no, no, no!" Robin said dramatically, as the color drained from her face. "Why this? Why now? Blossom wouldn't act like this without some good reason!"

Navigating her way through the mess towards her bedroom upstairs, Robin could only focus on one thing: the inevitable hour of doom that would undoubtedly occur thanks to the inconsideration of her super-powered friend. The pieces were already in place: Her merciful parents are away on vacation, pursuing their primal urges (and quite possibly producing another love child); In place of them is a ruthless grandmother-in-law possessing the reincarnated spirit of a 7th circle Hellspawn.  Standard punishment for littering was 10 spankings per debris, and the force of those spanks made it near-impossible to rest one's heiney. It did not require a mathematics degree to calculate the resulting pain for an indoor hurricane.

Fortunately, the evil hag did possess a weakness: Her hearing impairment is so severe she would have no trouble sleeping through a stampede of rabid elephants. As such, she is still resting like a baby, as far as Robin could tell. But the lady will wake up sooner or later, most likely eliciting a shrill scream upon seeing the impossible mess. Robin's only hope for salvation relied on obliterating the catastrophic eyesore in record time. This, of course, takes a miracle; lucky for her, three such miracle workers happened to be present. It was only a matter of asking.

However, as Robin approached the closed, wooden door leading to her quarters, her desperation gradually gave way to curiosity when her ears caught the sound of a conversation. Although the words were too soft to be understood, their general tone proved most interesting: solemn, moody, and above all else, angry.

As it is commonly known, children of kindergarten age are easily attracted by the lure of curiosity. A lack of knowledge for risk and manners makes this lure all the more tantalizing. As such, Robin couldn't help herself when she crept up to her bedroom door for the purpose of eavesdropping on the visitors' conversation:

"Hang on a minute, Bubbles: You're telling me that the Rowdyruff took out the professor, you fainted, then you woke up bounded in a forest, and you escaped, and the Rowdyruff didn't pursue you!?" Blossom's voice exclaimed.

Rowdyruff? What's a Rowdyruff? Robin pondered.

"Didn't I just say all that, dum-dum head?" responded the voice of Bubbles.

"But…that makes no sense!"

"Who cares if it makes sense?" said Buttercup's voice. "That good-for-nothing freak's gotta have a few screws loose, right? He's just a killing machine, and we know it!"

"Yeah!" Bubbles agreed.

"Listen, you two. Don't you remember all that blood that was spilled?" Blossom asked.

"Blood!? Ack, I can't stand the sight of it!"

Me neither.

"Bubbles, now's not the time to spaz out! Listen…Buttercup, when you left to look for Bubbles, I ran a test to see whose blood stained the house. The tests all pointed to you, Bubbles; but according to what you've told me, you weren't even in the lab last night! That, and you don't have a single scratch on you! Don't you two realize what all that shows?"

"Um…what?"

"That blood belongs to the ROWDYRUFF!"

A pffh spurted out of Buttercup's mouth. "Yeah, right. Blossom, there's no way that blood's from the Rowdyruff. The only way that would've happened was if the professor put the danger-room on some sky-high hardness. And we both know the professor doesn't do revenge!"

"Buttercup…I ran the test without margin for error…not any of us, not even the professor, could've matched up. It HAS to belong to the grey-eyed puff."

"Are you sure of that? Didn't you have trouble staying awake, leader girl? You could've done something wrong!"

"I didn't do it wrong!"

"You can't prove it!"

Robin could hear the thumping of her own tiny heart as a tense silence enveloped the room.

So, what Blossom said to me wasn't true…but why would she lie to me about all this? Robin wondered.

Finally, Blossom responded. "You're right, Buttercup. There's no way I can prove it. That's because I smashed the testing machine in a fit of rage."

"Ha! See, I was right!"
"But-"

"But nothing! We KNOW he tried to take out Bubbles before. We KNOW he took out the professor. And we KNOW that blood's gotta belong to the professor, since he was the only other guy in the lab! What else do we need to know this guy's evil? I say we make like a search party and hunt down that scumbag!"

"Yeah!" Bubbles agreed once more.

That's what I'd do…I guess.

"Wait! Aren't you two forgetting something?!" Blossom snapped, "If that albino Rowdyruff wanted to 'take out' Bubbles, then it already would've happened! And he certainly wouldn't have just let her go just like that."

"Well…um…maybe he got caught off guard or something!" Buttercup retorted.

"Baloney. That Rowdyruff wants SOMETHING from us, but it obviously isn't our lives. Question is, what could it be?"

"Maybe he's a vampire," the brunette speculated.

"A what?" Bubbles questioned.

"A vampire. You know, those guys who suck blood out of people's throats."

A quick series of pats could be heard, most likely Bubbles frantically checking her jugular.

"Get real, Buttercup." Blossom said, "But whatever it is, it has to be something only we possess."

Another moment of silence.

But then, Buttercup's light bulb snapped on with the luminescence of a powerful star. "Hey…I know! That guy must be after our Chemical X!"

"Hmm, you could be right," Blossom said, not entirely agreeing with that statement, "But if that's the case, it's certainly not because he's a weakling."

"No, no, no…don't you remember Dick Hardly?"

Bubbles cringed upon hearing the abominable name. "That liar…"

"You mean that 'friend' of the professor's who made freakish copies of us for making money?" Blossom asked, curious as to where Buttercup was going with this.

"Yeah, that's the one," Buttercup confirmed, "Well, try this on for size: What if that slimeball had worked on Rowdyruffs as well as Powerpuffs?"

Blossom's super-analytical mind suddenly shifted gears. "Yeah, you could be right! And that Rowdyruff who kidnapped Bubbles must've been one of his failures-"

"No! That's not it! Don't you see? That snow-white freak was made by Dick Hardly to get his revenge for us ruining his business!"

Blossom raised an eyebrow in doubt. "Buttercup, that's REALLY far-fetched. We all saw the factory burn down, WITH Dick Hardly in it. There's no way he's plotting anything against us now."

At this point, Bubbles quietly got on the soap box. "But Blossom…what if he was made BEFORE the factory burned down?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, Bubbles!" Buttercup jumped in, "This guy was made in case we'd get in the way but instead of destroying us the typical way he'd suck out the Chemical X from our bodies so Dick could save money in making his 'puffs but he couldn't be finished because Dick was too busy pumping chemical x in those moneymakers but when the factory started to burn down he put a tiny bit of it into this guy so he could take us out with him but there wasn't enough at first which is why he's as white as a snowball because when the stuff was sucked outta us we turned white so the freak just escaped and waited 'til he made enough chemical x in his body to carry out his master's plan!"

Thankfully, Buttercup chose that moment to breathe and averted her likely chance to faint.

Whoa…what the heck did she just say?

Blossom scoffed. "Oh please…that's the silliest thing I've ever heard! Do you really think that Rowdyruff's an abandoned pawn in Dick's get-rich-quick scheme? He's more likely to be an alien from outer space!"

Buttercup scowled. "Ok, then, YOU come up with something better, Miss smarty-pants! Not that you could, since you're too STUCK-UP to consider anything!"

"What!?" Blossom shouted, as steam blew out of her head.

"You heard me, you snobby know-it-all!"

"Take that back!"

"Make me!"

"Do it, or else I'll-"

Just when the petty quarrel between the girls was boiling to the breaking point, a blood-curdling scream resembling that of a raspy donkey echoed throughout the house. Every child in the house immediately dove for a hiding place, but none did as desperately as Robin when she crashed through the bedroom door and jumped into the nearest closet.

The donkey hollered some dismal words: "ROBIN SNYDER, BY THE TIME I'M THROUGH WITH YOU, YOU'LL REGRET THE VERY DAY YOU WERE BORN!"

Accompanying Robin in her hiding spot just so happened to be the trio she was spying on earlier. Under normal circumstances, the superheroes probably would've expressed suspicion due to the uncanny timing of the screech and Robin's sudden entrance. However, all four young kindergarteners wished to avoid the wrath of the devil spawn, and thus introductions and explanations were skipped in favor of hatching an escape plan.

"So…uh…this closet wouldn't by any chance have a back door, would it, Robin?" Buttercup asked, right after a pinch of nervous laughter escaped from her lips.

"Well…no." Robin stated succinctly.

"We're trapped!" The blue-eyed blonde proclaimed, obviously dismayed. "Why does everything bad happen to ME? It's not fair! Not fair!"

"Shh! Quiet!" The puff's leader snapped. "Do you want to give us away?"

Knock Knock Knock!

"Fudge!" Robin cursed, "My In-law's at the bedroom door! We're doomed!"

Clearly, the evil hag was on the war path, for the soft knocks quickly grew into deafening bangs until the door cried "uncle" and collapsed onto the pink carpeting.

"What's wrong with you people?" Buttercup remarked, "Can't we just make our own exit?"

"Yeah, but this is Robin's house! It was us that got her into trouble in the first place!" Blossom pointed out.

"Us? We didn't fly in like a tornado, YOU did!"

"Oh, right…But that's not important. We can't blast out of here, and that's that!"

"No, no, that's ok!" Robin cut in, "I won't mind at all!"

"Huh?"

"My In-law is the worst babysitter! EVER! I'll do anything to get away from her!"

"Are you sure you won't mind having a hole in the side of your house?"

"Yes! Now GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

Robin's panicked words certainly provided the momentum to get a move on, especially when the grandmother-in-law from hell made her sudden entrance with a wooden paddle in her grasp. However, upon seeing the hag reaching towards them with a decaying, bony hand, the four children lost their senses and let out a piercing, blood-curdling scream. This, surprisingly, turned out to be a wise course of action, for the old lady, shocked by the sudden, terrified chorus, stumbled back and fell over like a stone as her frail body underwent cardiac arrest.

For a moment, the children just stared. Stared and stared and stared and stared. But soon enough, poor Robin exploded in an even more overbearing panic.

"Ahh! You killed her!" she exclaimed.

"We killed her!?" Buttercup said, "Look at her! She's like a zombie, for crying out loud!"

"Would you two shut UP!" Blossom shouted. "We've got to take the old lady to the hospital. She's dying!"

"Uh-uh. No way I'm touching a corpse!" Buttercup retorted.

"But she's still moving a tiny bit-" Bubbles began to say, but was quickly silenced by Buttercup's glare.

"Buttercup, Bubbles…this is not a time to be pig-headed! We've barged in here and got her into a load of trouble, so the least we can do is clean up the mess we made! Now you two take Robin's grandmother to the hospital, OR ELSE!"

"How come you're not coming?" Buttercup said angrily.

"Someone's got to clean up Robin's house. Now go! We'll regroup here later to solve our crisis."

"Cry-sis?"

"You know what I'm talking about! Go already! And don't make a hole in Robin's roof!"

Blossom's sisters, grumbling, hastily made their exit with the leathery mass of flesh in tow. Once they were gone, the redhead focused her attention on the other long-haired kindergartener, who understandably appeared uneasy.

"What you heard in this house must never be spoken to anyone else. Understand?"

Robin could only nod.

"Good."

And with that, the two set out to undo the severe mess of the household.

********

Back in the remote woodland forests, the squirrel and the extra-terrestrial's creation of the disguise proved to be more difficult than expected. The MPSD's virtual body-masking program, utilizing its particle tech to simulate the peculiars of anatomy, skin, et cetera, had apparently drunken a few shots of whiskey before being integrated into the disc. The setup was simple enough: ten fingers, ten toes, two flat nipples, blonde hair, and –of course- a nose and ears. The end result, however, was at the same time horrifying, humiliating, and downright hilarious.

On the first time, Pathie Zimbogous' "costume" produced the following traits: a cotton-candy epidermis, ten fingers and toes for EACH appendage, a yellow goatee, a nose as long as Pinocchio's, a funkadelic afro, and a jumbly pair of garbanzas as large as Mount Everest. Bullet responded to this freak show by rolling back and forth on the ground, her furry sides splitting with laughter. Pathie, however, screamed like a ninny.

"Aaagh! This wasn't what I wanted, computer! Undo, undo, undo!" Pathie sputtered.

Fortunately, that command hadn't been corrupted, and the soldier immediately regained his form when the particles peeled off his frame like a potato skin, returning to their reserved storage in the disc.

Pathie looked over to the guffawing squirrel. "Well, I'm glad YOU find it amusing," he said sarcastically, "But that could've been permanent!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Pathie, it's just…Bwa-ha-ha-ha! You should've seen the look on your face! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!"

The scout grumbled. "Well, in any case, it's going to take forever to get a full costume right, with all the programming scrambled like that. We have no choice but to choose something more basic."

"Why not just cover everything with clothes?" Bullet suggested, still recovering from her laughing, "That's what the humans would do."

"No. I'd look too suspicious during the day. That would only work when the population is preparing for slumber, and I don't have the time to wait for the cover of the night…unless…"

"Unless what?"

"…Unless they have a network not normally used by the populace."

Bullet's mind drew a blank. "Er…what's a network?"

Pathie sighed. "A network. It is a system of transferring something from one place to another amongst multiple users."

"Huh?"

The scout slapped his forehead. "Just answer me this, Bullet: do the humans have underground tunnels they normally don't use for traveling from location to location?"

"Yeah. There's human-sized tunnels under the city they use to move their pee and poop."

"You're kidding," Pathie commented, not sounding the least bit surprised.

It didn't take long for Bullet to realize what the scout had in mind. At once she began to gag. "Oh, no, you don't mean- Oh, this is going to STINK!"

"You put it so well!" Pathie said, now having his turn to laugh.

********

Here I am. Thriving. Able to see the sun once more.

Yet, for once I wish I had never awoken.

That is because I have awoken to a time of tragedy and chaos.

Somewhere out there, a terrible evil thrives. An evil more powerful than ever encountered by man. An evil that has already conquered the defenders.

My defenders.

…

He is capable of destruction greater than man's most terrible weaponry. He has no remorse. No pity. He is as cold as the winter night and as ruthless as the lion.

And the world doesn't even know he exists.

But they will soon know, for he will eventually strike. He will flatten whole cities and will slaughter all those who stand against him. For he is unstoppable. He will cover this world like a lethal disease and bring ruin for every man, woman and child who survives his wrath.

But I happen to know his weakness. I know what fuels his power. And only I have the capability to destroy it.

But I will have to wait for the right moment. When he is over-confident and relaxed, I shall strike from the shadows. I will eliminate this evil and bring peace back to this world once more.

All I need to do is to go back home and prepare.

…

Wait…what is that in the distance?

They look like…colors…pastel colors…blue…green…

Oh my god…

They're ALIVE!