in association with
Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions
is proud to present
The Powerpuff Girls
in
Laughter in Townsville:
Tickled Pink, Green and Blue
Chapter 6B: Beauty and the Tickle-BeastBlossom's first thought had been to fly straight to the coordinates of Mojo Jojo's secret lair - then she realised that he'd easily see her before she could get close enough before he would spot her and do something terrible to her sisters. Instead, she decided that she should proceed on foot, and called to her friends - still splashing and tickling each other in the lake - that she would be gone for a while and to inform the leaders upon their return if she had not by then returned.
Blossom headed off deeper into the forest in the direction that Mayor Bellum had instructed her to, keeping a careful watch for any surveillance or weapons belong to the evil monkey. She walked for half an hour or so before coming to a giant tree that had fallen across the broad path she was walking along, and was about to simply float over it and continue when she heard noises up ahead. Her natural instincts took over and propelled her to dive down, hiding in a ditch that was partially covered by the dead tree trunk.
A few moments later, three beings flew almost directly over her head and continued up along the route she had followed to this point. Peeking out of her shelter, Blossom was able to get a good look at them from the back.
She gasped. "They look just like me!" she said in a whisper. The girl bringing up the rear of the group stopped in mid-air, listening for the slightest sound, and Blossom knew she had been heard by the look-alike. Crouching deeper in the smallish hole, she held her breath and waited for the girls to leave.
"What's the hold-up, Three?" asked the girl at the front, as she and her other companion stopped a little further up.
"I thought I heard something", said the girl known as Three.
"Probably just a small creature, One", suggested the middle girl, shrugging casually.
"You're probably right," said the front girl, called One. Then, in very low tones, she said to Three, "hide out of sight for a while. If someone is nearby, they'll reveal themselves sooner or later." Blossom hadn't heard this last part though. All three girls continued on out sight around a sharp corner in the path and, after waiting another couple of minutes, Blossom decided she should be safe enough to move on. Crawling out of the hole, she floated over the trunk.
At once, Three flew over from her hiding place and pushed her to the ground.
"Ouch!"
"Freeze!" said Three. Blossom did in fact remain motionless - now that she got a good look at the girl, they appeared identical; face, hair, eyes, even the clothing, matched perfectly. Blossom didn't understand why, but it appeared this girl was her exact clone, down to the minutest detail.
"What is your designation?" asked Three, and Blossom gave a mildly puzzled look to the girl.
"My name is Blos..." she started, but never finished the sentence as she was thrown bodily at a nearby tree. Stopping just short of impact, Blossom righted herself in the air and charged at her clone fists first.
"What was that for?" Blossom asked, as she struck Three in the chin, sending her to the ground some thirty feet away and forming a crater in the soft soil.
"You are not one of the master's servants; you are an original Powerpuff Girl, and so must be neutralised and apprehended, at any cost", she answered in a toneless, almost robotic, voice.
"Like hell!" Blossom grabbed Three up from her current position and threw her at another tree - an oak, which cracked into two. When the dust cloud settled, Three simply stood up and glared at Blossom.
"You can't stop us, Blossom." One and Two arrived back on the scene, drawn by the sounds of combat, and flanked Three. All three girls rushed at Blossom in a blatant attempt to overpower her. While they looked, sounded and dressed identically to Blossom, these clones lacked most of her personality and her fighting strategies. Blossom was able to dodge most of their attacks, and the rest were either blocked or deflected back at the clones, weakening them considerably.
Blossom kicked out at One, but was surprised when the girl reacted by grabbing Blossom's ankle with both hands and refusing to let go. She tried to push One away from her by kicking the girl in the chest, but One's grip was incredibly too firm for her to budge. Swinging a fist at the Two to keep her away, Blossom didn't see Three behind her, about to pin her arms.
Too late, Blossom realised she had been outflanked by her own clones, and tried to kick Three away with her still-free leg. Three dodged the first kick, blocked the second, dodged the third desperately flailing kick, and finally seize her lower leg on the fourth try.
Blossom was stuck; she wasn't able to escape their grip, but they couldn't fly with such a large and unwieldy payload, especially as she kept thrashing about in an effort to throw them off.
A metaphorical light bulb went on over her head, and Blossom at once blew her ice breath at One, who counted with her own return blast. The two icy gales struck each other and neatly balanced near the middle, Blossom trying to blow hers around her clones. The path of the ice wind passed over her scantily clad foot, causing it at once to turn into a footcicle.
"Aaaaa!"
Blossom's ice breath stopped at the sudden shock, and One's iciness froze her over momentarily. Once Blossom had defrosted, she looked down to see One slipping her flip-flop off the right foot that she held. Blossom, scared witless at the idea of what these fiendish replicas may do to her, curled her toes around the toe-strap as tight as possible. When Three made the same motions over her left foot, Blossom again curled her toes around the strap.
"You're obviously a very sensitive girl, aren't you Blossom?" asked Two, as she stroked Blossom's upper arms. Goosebumps sprang up over the skin; Blossom whimpered faintly. "Don't worry - we were ordered to bring you in while causing minimum physical harm." She grinned evilly, which Blossom couldn't see.
Blossom had to think quickly - apologising in advance to her stomach, she bent sharply to place her head between her feet, knocking the three clones' heads together and stunning them momentarily. When all four got to their feet, the clones all looked around , confused. Each clone could tell that they were a clone, but couldn't pick out the other two as they all look indistinguishable from each other.
Aha! Blossom thought, exultantly, they can't tell which one is the real me! Perhaps I can use this to my advantage... Blossom joined her doubles in glancing around quizzically, beaming inside at her good fortune.
One of the clones lifted up right arm, and Blossom was unsure what she was doing at first. It soon became apparent precisely what her intention was, however, when she began lightly scrabbling her fingers around in her underarm.
Realisation of what was going on dawned on Blossom at the same moment as the sensation hit her - a soft tickle in her right underarm, and an urge to clamp that arm tight to her side that she had to fight to resist, as it would easily give her away. Obviously, they were capable of transmitting tickling sensations on their own bodies to her, either through some sort of engineered telepathic link, or an implant of some kind. Either way, it meant that when One tickled herself, Blossom felt it. Her eyes went wide at the implications.
She could feel the first giggles welling up in her stomach, and tightened her tummy muscles as much as she could to control it. She told herself to just relax - after all, no one can tickle themselves that much, can they?
That little pep talk lasted as long as it too for a second clone to begin pinching poking and prodding her ribcage, and the sensations were instantly transmitted back to the original, accept-no-substitutes Blossom. Blossom clamped her jaw securely shut, and willed herself to remain silent regardless. Focusing her breathing into a slower, calmer pattern, she lifted her t-shirt and began to lightly scratch her faintly twitching tummy, to hopefully show that she too wasn't the real Blossom.
Blossom knew - she just knew - that if she cracked before they gave up, and started laughing or squirming about or whatever, then the clones would be on her in a matter of seconds and would most likely begin tickling her into a hysterical heap right away. There was absolutely no way she was going to let herself be subjected to that. She simply had to tough it out, even though she could feel the laughter bubbling up inside of her and could hear her pulse pounding in her head as she nearly had to hold her breath to control her actions.
The third Blossom got this evil grin on her face - So that's what I'd look like with an evil grin thought Blossom, sweating slightly from the combination of the heat and the tickling that was so wearing down her defences. - and plopped herself down on the ground, legs bent around in front of her. Reaching out, the Blossom sitting on the ground prepared to begin her own self-tickling, and Blossom's toes involuntarily curled, for what good it would do; the tickling wasn't real, not on her body; the sensations were being transmitted to her remotely, so there was absolutely no way to block the tickling by covering the afflicted area.
If she goes for the feet, I'm really done for, Blossom thought worriedly. But where else would she...
Blossom never even finished that thought, as the sitting copy of her started spidering her fingers behind her knees. Suppressing a small giggly gasp and letting out a mental "Eeep!", Blossom had to steady herself, otherwise the tickling behind her left knee would have caused her to fall the ground - a sure-fire way to give away her identity to her would-be attackers. The tendons in her knee stood out taut against the skin, as she made every effort to remain standing, despite the extreme teasing behind her left knee. Shifting her weight surreptitiously across to her right leg help for a moment, but Blossom swayed slightly nonetheless.
Seconds later, the same feelings became perceptible on the right knee too, and now Blossom was in serious trouble; she kept shifting her weight from foot to foot, swaying slightly as though tipsy (and more than a little giggly, on the inside), and tried to think of something to keep her mind occupied. Her legs began to shake ever so slightly, and she chewed on her lower lip to keep the tittering in.
Why the knees? she thought to herself through the torture. Anywhere but the knees - they're my worst tickle spot of all.
Indeed they were, and the strain of ignoring so much tickling on so many parts of her body was getting to Blossom. Beads of sweat became visible as her concentration began to waver between the three pairs of hands she could feel prodding and poking, stroking and scampering all over her vulnerable flesh (not to mention the tickling she was pretending to administer to herself). Her vision blurred as holding her breath was starting to make her feel slightly faint.
The other two facsimiles looked over at the third tickling herself behind her knees, and both seemed to agree that this was an excellent course of action to proceed along. The first clone switched from tickling her armpit to reach behind herself and tickle her knees instead, and Blossom's alarm grew through the haze that all the tickling was impressing on her mind. She tottered about even more, and for just a moment her legs gave way beneath her.
As the second duplicate also moved from tickling her ribs to behind her legs, Blossom's own legs buckled under her entirely, unable to support her against the tide of tickling that she could feel from six separate hands, feeling three hands tickling each leg. Before she even reached the ground, the laughter burst out of her mouth and she knew that all hope was gone as the others quickly approached and began to thoroughly tickle her all over.
One clone now tickled her heaving stomach, swirling around with her manicured fingernails and then occasionally dipping into her belly button to scratch at pretend pieces of lint caught there, which would elicit fresh bouts of squeals every time for the poor defenceless girl. Another clone let her hands wander slowly up and down Blossom's ribs, from just beneath the last rib all the way up both sides of her chest to her armpits where they would tickle her for some thirty seconds or so at a time, and then make the return journey at an equally slow speed.
The third clone had gone straight for her feet, and Blossom again hopelessly tried to protect her extremities by clamping her toes around the bands of the sandals. With one quick stroke along each arch, the clone managed to force Blossom to uncurl and spread her toes wide and instantly the sandals were yanked off and dropped to one side, and the fingers were everywhere on her light pink and completely callus free - for Blossom regularly gave herself pedicures - feet, all over her soles and snaking between her toes whenever they unclenched, which was often.
Blossom's laughter was seemingly unending, as her copies drove her to new heights of laughter. Every time she tried to cover herself it was futile, as being three on one, they simply stretched her back out and continued where they had left off. She couldn't resist their strength now, not even if there was only one of them tickling her, for the tickling had driven all of her own strength out of her, making her as weak and helpless as a newborn babe.
Finally, after some time of being tickled like this, they stopped and Blossom's panting turned to whimpers and finally died away completely as, exhausted, she fell asleep.
When Blossom awoke, she was in a cell made out of cold, hard metal. She sat up on the similarly cold and hard metal bed, and saw that where there would normally be a door in a wall stood a grid of bars, such as in a stereotypical jail cell. She could hear cackling laughter in the distance, that and lots of repetitive speech...
Mojo Jojo!
It all came back to her - her mission to find her sisters, and being caught by her clones. So their "master" was the nefarious chimp himself, but why did he want her if he could already clone her for his own evil ends?
Her train of thought was broken as the vile monkey appeared on the other side of the bars, and began prattling away.
"Ah, Powerpuff Blossom, it is so good to see that you are awake and able to move around freely within the confines of your cell, as if you were not awake you could not move around, freely or otherwise, regardless of whether you were confined or..."
"Get to the point, Mojo." The girls had long ago given up listening to his inane diatribes.
"Very well then, I will." Mojo Jojo took a deep breath, and forced himself to speak more slowly than usual, so that he could prune his rather verbose vocabulary to a minimum.
"The girls who accosted you outside in the forest did not work for me - Him created them, as he wanted them to attack and perform questionable acts on my person. Needless to say, it didn't work, so he had them guard me instead so that I cannot leave. I saved you from them."
"Why?" Blossom said. Clearly, Mojo Jojo would have some ulterior motive in all of this - he'd never save a Powerpuff Girl unless there was no other course of action left open to him.
"To see what makes you girls tick, and find a way to defeat both you and His clones of you."
"Figures", Blossom said, wryly. "Well, I won't help you."
Mojo grinned maniacally at this, showing his pointy yellow teeth. "You won't have a choice in the matter, my dear. I shall be back for you in ten minutes, once I have my equipment set up." And with an attempt at a majestic sweep of his cape, he turned and left.
Blossom looked around her cell again, and deduced that the walls would be made of super-strength resistant metals - Mojo Jojo had a large supply of such minerals. She also saw an air vent, and floated towards it...he hadn't disabled her powers! Mojo was clearly getting lax in his diabolical schemes.
Blossom floated up to the air vent and pulled the cover from it before flying inside and reattaching the cover so as not to arouse undue suspicion. Her sandals - he had managed to retrieve them too, how pointless she thought - squeaked as they slid along the polished inner surfaces of the duct.
Blossom had no idea which way she needed to go in order to escape the duct system, and so just crawled in one single direction, turning only when she could not continue straight on. At last, she came to another exit directly in front of her, which looked out on a large room; clearly, the hub of Mojo Jojo's operations, this chamber was packed with all sorts of scientific equipment. Perhaps she should leave the tunnels and find an exit from this room? As she began to slither forwards, an extraction fan turned on behind her by pure chance, masking any sounds she may make. It quickly picked up in speed, and Blossom dug her fingers hard into the tunnel floor to keep from being pulled back and into the fan's blades. She could feel her grip slipping, and one of her sandals was pulled from her feet, as was the ribbon in her hair, and both were sucked away and sliced into pieces, part of the sandal jamming the fan blades and bringing it to a halt.
Blossom sighed in relief and hurriedly vacated the air duct, floating up by the ceiling to avoid detection by Mojo Jojo, who had just entered the room through a door on the far side of the fairly large room. As she watched him pottering about down below, checking instruments, setting up cameras, etc; she didn't notice a small butterfly, which had managed to slip into the base through the ventilation system, that had decided her bare foot was a perfect place to stop and rest.
"Ack!" Blossom twisted sharply to try and shoo the butterfly away, but it didn't seem to want to leave its resting place, and flapped its wings, making Blossom wriggle in ticklish agony. "Eeeeee!" The tickling got to her, and she rapidly lost height as her flying ability deserted her. It didn't really matter, as Mojo Jojo had heard her by this point and was waiting for her to land, escape being impossible.
Landing as gracefully as she possibly could (and at last ridding herself of the pesky insect on her foot), Blossom stood with her arms folded and facing her arch-nemesis once more. Before she could react, he fired a ray guy at her - how typical, she thought - and found upon trying to retaliate with her eyebeams that her powers were gone; he brandished his weapon, revealing "Anti-X energy cannon" scrawled on its side in red crayon.
"Hahahahah!"
"Damn!" Blossom muttered, and took a step towards the manic chimp, intent on simply throttling him with her bare hands. The first step was all right, as her flip-flops were non-slip slipslop flip-flops™ and were able to grip properly on the smooth steel floor plates.
The second step wasn't, as her bare foot was unable to gain a proper purchase on the flooring, and she slid.
"Haa haa!" Mojo Jojo taunted her. Blossom snarled in reply.
Her arms pin-wheeled in the air as she tried to regain her balance, only to lose it again moments later each time. In the process, her remaining sandal flew off her foot, and she ended up slipping all over the place simply trying to stay upright. At long last, Blossom found an equilibrium, of sorts - there was no way she could move without falling over; her feet were precariously braced against the glossy floor, her long hair flowing totally loose, which was naturally ankle length after so many years of refusing to have it cut for any reason, was wrapped around her legs, and then the worst thing possible happened.
A single strand of her own hair tickled the back of her knee.
She shook, she trembled, she quivered; she tried desperately to retain her position against all odds, but that one little tickle overwhelmed all her mental defences even more efficiently than the three clones had managed. Sliding to the floor, Blossom giggled and squealed as she ended up doing an impromptu "splits" on the cold metal surface.
Mojo Jojo, nonplussed by this whole scene playing before him, grabbed Blossom up and placed her in an energy bubble that would not let her out, but would let other things (including himself) in so that he could examine her in detail. The experiment had now begun...
"MwhahahahahahahahahahaaHAHAHAHAHAHA...!"
To be continued...