Here I am again... sorry again for the long absence. I've been busy with school as usual..
And for anyone who noticed/cares.. in the last chapter, the girls spent the weekend playing with the new pet, and the incident at the end of the last chapter happened on Sunday night.. just to clear up that minor thing for any potential confusion in this chapter..
And so.. on with the fic!
Chapter 8: Prey
Ten o'clock. Blossom now found herself sitting in her Pokey Oaks Kindergarten class on a usual Monday morning, only this time she stared distantly ahead at Miss Keane with minute interest.
Her mind was racing. All she could think about was the horrific encounter from the night before, and her brush with death.
Why did it not kill me? She asked herself in wonder. How did I get back in my bed?
She turned these questions and many others over and over in her mind, until she could barely think anymore.
It was only until she heard the familiar buzz of the hotline that she was shaken her out of her deep thoughts. Blossom jumped up and suddenly felt a sharp pain run up her leg, having forgotten about her injury from earlier. She made her way slowly towards the hotline, limping along helplessly as the class watched her with curious eyes. She picked up the phone with shaky hands.
"Yes Mayor?"
"B-blossom! You and your sisters n-need to come home, quick!"
Blossom was surprised to hear the panicked, shaking voice of the Professor on the other end. She hesitated for a moment before she assured him they would be home as soon as possible.
Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup slammed through the front door with a deafening crash, and quickly began to search for the Professor. They flew down to the lab without hesitation, and looked frantically around for the Professor. At first glance nothing seemed to be wrong, but that was until they noticed a door that read "X Lab: Toxic Materials - Keep Out" was half open.
The girls exchanged confused and worried glances. They knew that the X Lab was strictly forbidden, but they had no choice. They had to find the Professor. They slowly and cautiously hovered into the mysterious room and gasped when they saw its horrendous state of destruction.
Various chemicals and tools were scattered all over the place. Broken flasks leaked hazardous chemicals all over the floor, and sparks flew everywhere from the frayed wires of dismantled machines. The tiles of the floor were smashed like those at the bank, leaving inhumanly large footprints on the floor all over the room.
Then came the worst sight of all. Lying on the broken floor, was the mangled body of Professor Utonium. His lab coat was torn in several places, his face was bruised, and his right arm was twisted at an odd angle. The phone was lying next to him, the receiver having fallen from his hand and the dial tone beeping incessantly in the painful silence. The girls flew to his aid immediately as he lay there moaning and groaning miserably in intense pain.
"Professor? What happened?" Blossom cried.
"Girls.." He choked out. "It was him.. it was Quasi.. You need to stop him girls."
"No, Professor. We need to get you to a hospital," Blossom said sternly. She turned to her sisters. "Girls. Take the Professor to the hospital, and I'll stay hear and search for clues."
Bubbles and Buttercup hesitated at first, but then nodded. They carefully lifted the Professor up and floated into the air.
"Sure thing Leader girl, just promise to take care of yourself, okay?" Buttercup said as she looked at Blossom with serious eyes.
"I promise. Now you two hurry!" She commanded and Bubbles and Buttercup left in a flash for the hospital.
Buttercup shuffled her feet on the white floor of the hospital lobby. Every once and a while she glanced nervously at the clock while Bubbles stared half-interested at an old magazine. Buttercup looked around her at all the people waiting in the lobby. A young father with wide blue eyes and blonde hair sat nervously as his little girl played on the floor. An older woman with gray hair was sitting alone, waiting patiently for her husband to come out of surgery. Buttercup noticed a pale old man with a wrinkled face, thinning grey hair and plain brown pants sat on the far side of the room.
He must have sensed her looking at him, for he suddenly stared at her with cold, almost colorless eyes. The bravest of puffs shrunk under this glare, and quickly averted her glance.
"Bubbles!" She whispered as she nudged her sister roughly. "Look at that guy!" She pointed at where the man was sitting, but when she looked again he was gone.
"There's nobody there, silly." Bubbles laughed and continued reading while Buttercup stared wide-eyed at the spot where the old man had been.
Maybe they weren't crazy... maybe that was him.. She thought to herself.
Buttercup was startled when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to find Dr. Hartnell staring down at her with a smile.
"How is the Professor, Dr. Hartnell? Will he be okay?" Bubbles asked quickly.
"He'll be ready to go home in a day or two," He said. "Professor Utonium has a serious fracture on his right arm, and some pretty bad bruises, but otherwise he's okay."
Bubbles and Buttercup both sighed in relief at once, happy to hear that the Professor was going to be okay. Dr. Hartnell smiled and then looked at his watch.
"It's getting late girls, you'd better get home. Do you girls need me to send someone over there to keep you company, or will you be okay on your own?" He asked.
"I think we'll be fine, Doc. Blossom is pretty much like a mother anyways." Buttercup said as she rolled her eyes and Bubbles gave a little giggle.
"Thanks Doc, we'll be here first thing in the morning to see the Professor! Bye!" Buttercup and Bubbles waved to Dr. Hartnell as they flew out of the hospital.
Back in the X lab, Blossom was carefully searching for clues. After painstakingly inspecting every inch of the small room, she didn't seem to notice anything unusual. That was until she noticed a pile of broken flasks on the ground. Puzzled, she looked closer and found no trace of any sort of chemicals that spilled, so she cleaned up the mess and continued searching.
She had a sickening feeling thatQuasi had attacked the Professorbecause she didn't stop himthe night before. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have lethim get away and let him hurt the Professor?
She began to inspect the broken tiles of the floor, finding them oddly familiar. They looked as though a great force had broken them, and yet they were in the shape of a human footprint, which it would be clearly impossible for any human to have such power.
"How much power can this guy have?" She whispered to herself. She began to shiver slightly at the thought of Quasi on the loose, perhaps even hiding in the house, but, despite her fear, she continued searching the area, determined to find some sort of clue about what happened.
She studied the footprints closely, finding a majority of them to look the same. Each looked like an enlarged human footprint, only they were obviously inhumanly powerful. As she looked closer she discovered some to be of gradually changing sizes, some becoming smaller and then growing larger again. Others slowly becoming huge like that of a giant, and then shrinking back to normal.
Although thoroughly confused, Blossom got up and began to search the cabinets of hazardous chemicals carefully. She saw that none of them were missing.
Good. She thought to herself. Some of these chemicals could be very dangerous in the wrong hands...
She was about to search the Professor's collection of Top Secret files and formulas, when a thought suddenly struck her.
Without hesitation, she flew over to the garbage and pulled out the pieces of broken flasks that she had found earlier. She began to carefully inspect each one with her microscopic vision, searching for any trace of chemical.
Just as she was afraid of, she found small traces of Chemical X on each of the pieces. After studying the shards of glass a bit longer, she concluded that something had somehow absorbed the chemical. She gasped and suddenly grew very nervous.
W-what are we dealing with here? She thought in a panic. Something powerful enough to absorb that much chemical X...?
She quickly calculated that she had found six broken flasks of chemical X, so about a gallon or so had been absorbed.
SIX FLASKS! But that's impossible! Chemical X is highly toxic, no creature could contain that much chemical X and still survive!
For a moment her heart stopped. Her eyes grew wide at the revelation, and she slowly stood up, her legs shaking as she walked toward the Professor's vault, which had been wrenched open. She slowly walked inside and flipped on the lights. A dim lightbulb illuminated the small, dark room, but that was enough to see the horrible truth.
Three-hundred gallons. All gone.
Mwahaha!
Oh, andtoexplain HG's comment about glass not being able to cut a puff : In my fic, the puffs are more vulnerable to certainthings thanhow it appearson the show.. which will be explained better later on... so just an FYI ..
Oh, and thankies for reading!