Caught in the Crossfire
By Kevin Larry Ivy
I don't own the Powerpuff girls or any related characters. I do own Leviathan, Sezu, Kisu, Delu, Glyja, Beelzebub, and the six dark puffs.

Battle, Bomb, Blossom, Buttercup, and Bubbles all appear on a floating red rock platform. Below them, filling this endless realm of pain and torment they've entered is a massive lake of fire, stretching further than the eye can see. They aren't in a cavern or anything…above them and in the horizon is nothing but darkness. They wander around the small platform, unable to find anyway to continue on foot.

"So what should we do?" Asks Bubbles. Battle looks over the edge, then falls backward with a scream when one of the souls in the lake reaches up for her. Bomb helps Battle, who is blushing fiercely, up. Buttercup rolls her eyes and crossed her arms.

"Duh, we fly dummy." Bubbles sticks her tongue out at Buttercup, who does the same in return. Blossom is oblivious to her sisters' raspberry war while she looks around across the vast lake of fire. Even with her super sight she can't see anything to tell them which way to continue. She sighs and turns around, sweatdropping when she sees Bubbles and Buttercup. Bomb and Battle are giggling at the two.

"Um…guys…I uh…think we have more important things to do right now," Bubbles and Buttercup stop and turn to Blossom.

"Which way should we go Blossom, flying is the only way we can continue," says Bomb. Blossom scratches her head and looks around again.

"I don't think that would be a good idea. There aren't any landmarks or any way to get back to this platform safely. If we wander too far we could get lost forever in here…and I don't know about you, but the idea of running out of steam and falling into the boiling soup bowl beneath us isn't very appealing to me," Bubbles, Buttercup, Bomb, and Battle all exchange glances, then sigh in defeat.

"So what do we do?" Asks Battle. Before Blossom can answer, the entire place begins trembling and shaking. In seconds a bridge made of blood, flesh, and bone appears leading into the darkness. The girls all stare at it.

"I…I guess that's the w-way we go?" Asks Bubbles. Buttercup walks out onto the bridge, making a disgusted expression when the flesh and bone squishes and creaks beneath her. She jumps on it and stomps on it, but the bridge doesn't give out. She turns to the others and gives them a thumbs up. One by one they all venture out onto the bridge and across the burning lake of fire. Along the way, Battle tries to strike up a conversation with Blossom to break the eerie tension.

"U-Uh…B-Blossom?"

"Yeah Battle?"

"I…I'm sorry about fighting you and stuff a couple days ago…I'm really sorry about Belial…you know…t-tickling you girls and everything,"

"How did you know she tickled us?"

"Well that's what Belial does when we have to fight girls. If you were boys she'd have just killed you. But with girls she likes to use her powers to make them helpless while she tickles them. I-I think being tickled is fun…but I hate it when Belial tickles me 'cause she's too rough. She just makes it torture instead of a game…" Blossom shudders, remembering the night Belial visited her in the Danger Grid. The memory of that still haunted her nightmares…at least up until Glyja had reawakened their old memories as goddesses. After that the only dreams she'd had were of the past.

"Yeah…it was awful." Battle gulps and shakes while she gathers her courage to ask Blossom the most important question ever in her mind.

"B-Bl-Blossom w-w-would it b-b-be o-okay if…w-we…if we d-don't save Belial? Please? Can we please leave her here?" Blossom lowers her head. Her hands shake when Battle asks her that question. That very idea had been plaguing her mind since Him sent them here. Belial is a monster…she isn't a person you can just forgive and forget with…

"I…I don't know Battle…I don't want to make your dad upset…" Battle lowers her head, her eyes watering when she thinks about her dad. If they left Belial here he would be so disappointed. But still…after everything Belial had done to her; she had literally done everything imaginable to make Battle's life a living hell. And now Belial was getting what she deserved…

"Okay…" They suddenly come to the end of the platform where a strange symbol is engraved in the ground. When they step onto the platform that begins glowing black. Black liquid seeps up from the ground and covers the platform. They are suddenly sucked down into it, shrieking in surprise.

Hell's Throne Room

Leviathan grins to himself as he watched the "heroes" pass into the next level of Hell. He waves his claw, causing something unexpected to happen. He chuckles and waves his claw a second time. Everything is going according to plan. The heroes are in the second level of Hell, which puts them just one level from the Black Palace.

A Dark Plains

Blossom falls to the ground, managing to land on her feet. She looks around in curiosity. It appears she is in a large plains-like place. She walks out a few feet, just checking out the scenery as she looks around. Still no sky, just infinite black; the ground is solid gray. The only plants in the plains are dead, black shrubs and bushes. A massive green demon, it's arms and chest bulging, its legs covered with brown fur and cloven hooves, and its ugly face framed by two curved horns spots Blossom and runs at her. It swings at Blossom with a massive club, which she catches easily with one hand. It's eyes bulge and a small nervous smile appears on its face. Blossom smiles overly sweetly and crushes the club with no effort. The demon sweatdrops and backs away a couple steps. Blossom opens her hand and lets the splinters from the club fall to the ground. The demon gulps and looks at the club shards, then back up at Blossom.

"Boo," The demon shrieks and takes off running away from Blossom. Blossom smirks and lowers her hand. She walks through the plains, slightly bored from the lack of activity. After a few minutes she hears a mass of roars and yells. She looks over her shoulder and sees a huge group of demons like the one she'd seen before. She sweatdrops and laughs nervously.

"This should be…interesting," The demons run at her, which makes Blossom smiles softly to herself. The demons begin pounding on her with their clubs and claws…though Blossom doesn't flinch at their attempts. She looks down at her wrist, like she's wearing a watch, then scratches her head. "Wow…either I'm really strong or you guys are just really weak…" She lifts her hand and a giant pillar of pink energy explodes around her and consumes the group of demons. She puts her arm down and the light fades away. She grins and walks out of the crater she'd just created and heads off in a random direction.

"Okay…so I wonder where I should go…huh?" She spots something far off in the distance. It looks like a small temple or something. She heads out to it and spots something in the temple. She walks up to it and looks at it. It looks like a book of some sort. She picks it up and looks through it. All of the pages are blank. She raises an eyebrow and tosses it over her shoulder. She hears someone…well something chuckle behind her.

"Naughty little girl, you shouldn't throw around other peoples' valuables," Blossom turns around and stares at a new demon. Floating across from Blossom is a female demon with long blonde hair. She has ruby red eyes and pale white skin. From her back protrude two bat wings, while two smaller bat wings protrude from the sides of her head. She is practically naked, aside from the silky, see-through gypsy-ish out fit that she wears. Her fingernails and toenails are painted a shade of red that greatly resembles blood. Her bare feet drift just above the ground; her arms are crossed over her…impressive chest. Blossom, despite her sexual preference toward boys, feels her face flame slightly at the sight of this demon. The demon smiles sensually and flies up to Blossom. Blossom looks up at the demon, who is a foot or two taller than she is. The demon bends down so she is eye level with Blossom.

"You must be Blossom, I saw you destroy those Pit Lords, it was very impressive," Blossom blushes a little more due to the closeness to the demon. The demon gently strokes Blossom cheek, making her sigh softly against her will. Blossom continues staring into those captivating red eyes, feeling her knees buckling. The demon lightly tickles Blossom's neck and chin, making her giggle breathlessly. The demon's sensual smile becomes predatory. "What's the matter dear? Is the pretty little naughty girl ticklish?" She begins tickling Blossom's neck with her other hand as well. Blossom giggles and squirms away from the demon. The demon stands up straight and smirks evilly.

"Forgive me, I never introduced myself did I? My name is Succubus, and I think we're going to have a ton of fun little Blossom," Succubus flies at Blossom, who shakes off the trance-like state she'd been in and flies out of the way. Succubus spins around and lunges at Blossom with incredible speed. Blossom doesn't have time to react and falls to the ground with Succubus on top of her. Succubus immediately begins tickling Blossoms sides. Blossom squirms and clenches her eyes shut, feeling her control slowly slipping away. Succubus blows a little kiss to Blossom, green dust swirling around in the air and then into the ground. Giant plant roots shoot up from the ground and grab Blossom's wrists and ankles. She is lifted and stretched out a couple of inches above the ground.

Blossom struggles against the power of the roots, but finds them far too strong. Succubus giggles and floats above Blossom. She giggles and lifts Blossom's shirt up to her chest line. Blossom trembles from the ever so light touch of Succubus's fingers against her soft skin. Succubus begins lightly tickling Blossom's stomach, making Blossom jerk around and tremble. Succubus continues with the silent tickling of Blossom's belly. She tickles her bellybutton, which makes Blossom jerk and clench her teeth hard to keep from laughing. Succubus wiggles her finger around in Blossom's belly button while she moves to tickle her ribs with her other hand. Blossom shakes and jerks around, her face now turning red from the tickling.

Smooth vines covered in rough, bristly fur rise from the ground. Some slip up Blossom's shirt, a couple wrap around her thighs, more around her calves. A few begin working with her shoes. After the incident with Belial in the Danger Grid Blossom had begun wearing tennis shoes and socks all the time, instead of bare foot with just flip flops or backless shoes like she used to. Her shoes are untied and flung to the ground. Her socks are slipped off, her bare feet wiggling from the exposure to the dank air in these plains. Succubus grins and whistles lightly. Instantly the vines at Blossom's armpits begin lightly stroking the sensitive skin. The ones in her shirt begin stroking her ribs; some more begin stroking her sides. The ones on her thighs begin lightly stroking them and the ones on her calves begin stroking the backs of her knees. Most of the vines; however, have gathered at her feet. Along the base of her toes, between her toes, and all over her soles are covered with the little vines. Instantly they all begin lightly stroking her most ticklish of spots with their rough bristles and pointy ends. Blossom jerks straight up and cracks. She begins laughing hysterically and crying as the vines and Succubus tickle her relentlessly.

A Dark Ruined City

Bomb falls from the sky and lands on her feet. She stumbles forward and swings her arms widely to keep from falling on her face. She falls backward on her butt and sighs. Standing up, she looks around. Buildings and black stones fill the area, all of it ruined. The ground is dark black and broken. She wanders around, looking for her sister or the Powerpuff Girls. Unfortunately she can't find them, so she sighs and continues wandering around the ruined city. She hears some noises coming from nearby and peeks around the rubble. There is a group of large, black beast-like creatures tearing into a soul. The soul is screaming bloody murder and trying to get away from them. Unfortunately for the soul, these demons are incapable of destroying an immortal soul. Bomb frowns and walks around the corner. She grabs one of the demons and in seconds it explodes from her touch. The other demons look up and roar at her.

They lunge at Bomb, who simply stands there without worry. One of the demons tries to sink its teeth into her skin, but it isn't even strong enough to pierce her skin. Bomb grabs it by its throat and in seconds it too explodes. She creates two explosion orbs and slams them together. She flings them outward, destroying the remaining demons. She walks up to the soul, who is lying on the ground trembling in fear.

"Uh hey…you're safe now, I blasted those demons," She reaches out toward the soul, who slaps her hand away and lunges at her. Bomb throws it away, but the soul just gets up and snarls at her. "Hey! What's the big idea?" The soul lunges at her, snarling like a wild animal. Bomb holds up her hands and the air in front of her explodes, sending the soul flying into a nearby bubbling pit of lava. "Dude…that was creepy…" She hears something in the air and looks up. It looks like a giant bird flying through the skies. Bomb shrugs and walks on through the ruined city.

After a while she begins to notice that the bird is following her. She grinds her teeth, beginning to get annoyed with the bird. After nearly half an hour of this, she finally turns around and growls up at the sky. When she looks up there she gawks to see the skies empty. She hears something land behind her and spins around. Standing behind her is a female demon with tanned skin. Her hair is short, spiky, and blue. Her feet are massive talons, and her hands are also talons. She has giant wings with big, bright red feathers. Bomb puts her hand on her hip and smirks at the demon.

"Well aren't you pretty," The demon grins.

"I happen to believe I'm very attractive. But you're in luck, I've been assigned to come share my presence with you," Bomb smirks and lifts her hand, an explosion orb gathering around it.

"You're just in time to die then," Bomb throws the explosion orb at her, but the demon moves out of the way with incredible speed. In an instant the demon flies behind Bomb and grabs her wrists. She grabs Bomb's ankles with her foot talons and flies a few feet into the air. Bomb begins struggling, but before she can do anything, the demon begins rubbing her giant red feathers against Bomb's bare arms and calves, which her shorts don't protect. Bomb, who has never resisted the urge to burst into giggles when someone tickles her, instantly squeals and begins giggling. The demon grins and rubs the feathers against Bomb's sides faster. The motion eventually lifts Bomb's shirt up, allowing the feathers to attack her bare stomach and sides. The second her sides are tickled Bomb goes ballistic and begins laughing hysterically. Her calves, behind her knees, her stomach, her underarms, and her most ticklish spot; her sides, are tickled relentlessly.

The two float through the air, the demon giggling while Bomb shrieks and screams with hysterical laughter. The demon uses her tail to lift Bomb's shirt up further, now adding her ribs to the fiendish tickle torture. Bomb cries and thrashes around, but all her thrashing does is make the feathers tickle her even more.

A Dark Cavern

Bubbles falls from the sky and lands in a dark cavern. She lands on her butt and squeals with a loud OOF. She stands up and brushes off her bottom. She looks around the cave, shivering and gulping. Walking through the dark cavern, Bubbles begins to notice all of the black puddles of water filling the cavern. The dark cavern echoes with every step she takes. She shrieks when she steps in a puddle, cursing herself for wearing backless shoes instead of her tennis shoes like she knew she should have. She shakes her foot off and grumbles as she continues to wander through the cavern. Behind her a dark shadow shlunks through the black water. The shadow rises from the water and grins, before melting back into the water and following Bubbles.

Bubbles wanders through the cavern bored out of her mind. She can feel all of the new power pumping in her veins and she doesn't even get the chance to test it out. She yawns and stretches as she enters a wide-open area. Something wiggles around in her armpit, making her clamp her arms down on her sides giggling. Bubbles looks behind her, but doesn't see anything. Something shoots up her shirt and wiggles against her belly, making her squeal again. She looks around, now beginning to get nervous, memories of her fights with Blaze and much more so Belial coming back to her. She shakes her head and takes a step forward; something shoots out and wiggles around on the back of her knee, making her knees buckle and causes her to fall forward giggling. She catches herself, but at the same time tentacles shoot from the shadows and grab her. They lift her into the air, where a demonic octopus is lurking.

Bubbles shrieks. The demon is like a blue skinned woman from the waist up, with green eyes and tall spiky blue hair. From the waist down she is an octopus like creature with far, far more than eight tentacles. Her arms are also tentacles. She grabs Bubbles' wrists and yanks them above her. She also grabs her ankles and stretches her legs out. Bubbles struggles against the demon, but before she makes any effort the demon begins tickling her bare armpits mercilessly. Bubbles screams and begins giggling and squirming. The demon chuckles evilly and begins tickling Bubbles' armpits with two more tentacles, making her giggle more. Four…maybe six of the demon's tentacles slip up Bubbles' shirt and begin tickling her stomach, sides, and ribs. Bubbles screams and begins laughing and thrashing violently. The demon grins, tickling around in Bubbles' bellybutton, all over her belly, counting her ribs, stroking up and down her terribly sensitive sides.

Bubbles is in hysterics, and it isn't getting any easier for her. The demon begins tickling her legs and the backs of her knees with more tentacles, making her laugh harder and wiggle the best she can. All Bubbles manages to do; however, is fling her shoes off. This of course brings her to curse herself again for wearing backless shoes. One of the demon's tentacles begins lightly stroking up and down the sole of Bubbles' right foot. She screams and laughs harder. The demon grins and focuses all of its remaining tentacles on Bubbles' feet. Using smaller ones it pulls her toes apart and attacks the deathly ticklish spaces between them and along the base of them. All over her soles, the tentacles wiggle, quickly bringing Bubbles to tears.

A Creepy Tomb

Buttercup falls out of the air and lands on her feet. She straightens up and looks around her; a musty old tomb, like something from a mummy movie or something. She snorts and wanders down the musty halls. All around her corpses of demons, humans, and other creatures fill nearly every corner. As she's walking along she hears something scraping behind her. Looking over her shoulder she doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary…well as far as ordinary goes with this place. She turns and walks down the hall again. As she walks she continues to hear the scraping noise behind her. She quickly ducks around a corner and waits for whatever was following her to walk by.

A boney hand with flesh clinging to it shoots from the ground and grabs her ankle. Buttercup shrieks in surprise and swings her leg. She tears the rotting corpse from the ground and sends it flying into a wall. All of the corpses around her suddenly begin coming to life. Hundreds upon thousands upon millions of rotting bodies and skeletons rise and begin living once more. When they spot her, they all immediately rush for her. Buttercup grins, this was going to be hella fun for sure! She dodges a charge from a skeleton and kicks it hard in the back, sending it shattering across the tomb. A group of zombies lunge for her. Buttercup kicks them away and lands. She grins and fires her eyebeams. The massive rays of heat fill the entire hall and blast down the corridor vaporizing thousands of the undead legions. Some zombies and skeletons jump on Buttercup. She snaps her fingers and a giant pillar of green energy explodes around her, vaporizing them. With a simple wave of her hand the pillar fades away.

Buttercup looks around her, seeing more and more of the horrors coming at her, probably five for every one she destroyed. She grins and a green flame surrounds her. Buttercup shoots down one of the halls, turning any of the zombies and skeletons she touches to dust. She stops at the end of the hallway, the monsters coming from her on three sides now. She lifts her hands and fires massive beams of green energy down the corridors on her left and right, vaporizing all of the monsters that fill them. She spins around and fires another beam down the hall she'd just flown through, vaporizing even more of the undead. She lowers her arms and the green fire around her fizzles out. She looks around and sees that instead of fewer monsters coming at her, nearly ten times as many are coming at her.

"Geez, there's a ton of these pepperdyne fairies!" She stops and blinks at what she'd just said. She slaps herself in the forehead and laughs, "I've so got to stop hanging out with Lance and Dusty, I'm picking up way too many of their sayings," She slams her fists together, sending a massive shockwave of green energy out from where they collided. The shockwave tears through the monsters, "killing" all of them it hits. She grins and looks around. To her surprise and amazement there are even more monsters coming at her. She clenches her fists and growls. Despite being practically invincible, she'll never find her way out of this tomb if she can't get rid of these things. The green fire appears around her again. This time she simple yells in fury. The ground in each of the three corridors around her split open in the center and massive walls of green light shoot from the cracks consuming the monsters.

Buttercup crosses her arms and grins as the green fire fizzles out around her. The ground rejoins and the light fades. Her grin becomes a gawk of amazement. These things…there were way too many! Hell, now it looks like there are a billion times more than when she started. Her eyes shrink when she finally releases what's happening. To test her theory, she blasts one close to her. It becomes a pile of dust on the ground that is quickly trampled by the monsters behind it. Suddenly each particle of dust begins glowing, and soon for every speck of dust there is a new zombie. She clenches her eyes and fists, the green fire once more bursting up around her. Unless she can destroy every last piece of matter in these monsters, they'll keep coming back, their numbers increasing massively! She yells and the entire tomb begins shaking. The green light around her begins expanding, slowly filling the corridors around her. Massive rays of green light, just barely able to fit in the corridors shoot from Buttercup. The light spreads out, filling every open inch of the tomb.

Buttercup stops yelling and the green light slowly fades away. This time, it is clear that she's finally won. She grins smugly and floats down to the ground, continuing her trek through the tomb. Upon coming to a massive closed door with a skull and cross bone symbol on it, Buttercup grins again. Obviously Hell just didn't know when to accept it was beaten. She pushes the door open and walks through, not startled when it slams shut behind her. She walks around the small circular room, surprised to see it completely empty. She looks up at the ceiling, but her super sight can't see through the seemingly endless darkness. She also looks around for an exit, but there isn't one to be found.

Something suddenly falls from the shadows and slams into Buttercup. She pushes herself up into a kneeling position, and suddenly feels something grab her wrists and pull them above her. Something else is also holding her ankles, keeping her in this rather awkward position. Sitting on Buttercup's legs, holding her down with its taloned feet is a massive purple demon. It has long blonde hair and eight arms. Two of its arms are grasping Buttercup's wrists tightly and holding her arms above her. Before Buttercup can simply toss the demon off of her, which is difficult due to her position, the demon begins using its other six arms. Two hands attack her vulnerable armpits, two begin tickling and squeezing her sides and two more tickle her thighs. Buttercup gasps with a loud squeal and begins trying to fight off the tickling. The demon doesn't just slowly work into it though; it just begins tickling her full force. Buttercup lasts an impressive amount of time, her face bright red and her eyes watering. But the constantly harsh tickling cracks her. Buttercup screams and begins laughing hard and loud. Tears pour down her hot cheeks, her chest heaving with gasps and bursts of mighty laughter.

Somewhere Filled With Mist

Battle falls from the sky and lands on her face. She pushes herself up, sniffling a little as she pushes her glasses back into place. She sits on her legs and looks around. She can't tell where she is…it's filled with a dull purple mist that makes it impossible to see anything. She stands up, squinting to see through her glasses that are fogging up. She takes them off and wipes them on her shirt. She puts them back on, and smiles happily to be able to see clearly. She wanders through the mist, hoping to find any of the other girls, preferably Bomb. She feels a sinking feeling in her chest, like something horrible is lurking just around the corner. She is terrified by the thought of running into Blaze, Blood, Blitz…even Belial.

Something moves behind her, her ears just barely picking up the rustle in the mist. She spins around and is tackled by something. She looks up and sees a demon about her height sitting on her. The demon has a feminine figure, solid blue skin, pointy ears, and its face empty except for its mouth. Atop its head is long red hair. It grins at her, as Battle begins shaking with fear. More demons just like this one, only with different hair color, appear from the mist. They grab her wrists and ankles. Battle is now screaming shrilly. More and more demons sit down around her. They yank her into a sitting position, holding her legs above the ground. Her flip-flops are tossed off without a care and instantly the torture begins. They pull her shirt up and begin tickling her instantly. Her stomach, her sides, her ribs, her armpits, knees, thighs, calves, toes, feet, no part of her body escapes the merciless tickling. Battle, like Bomb, had never held back her giggles or laughs when someone tickled her so she instantly begins screaming with hysterical laughter and crying. Tongues, fingers, hair, feathers, anything the demons can get their hands on are used to torture Battle in their merciless game.

Blaze's Room

Blaze sits on her bed and stares at the marble her father had used to awaken their power. It doesn't reflect what little light there is in the room, it seems to absorb instead. She lies back and stares at the ceiling. The burning desire to be with Belial is becoming stronger with every minute that passes. Something big is going to happen soon…she needs to tell Belial how she feels. But here she is…still hiding from the world, and still not ready to go see Belial.