9. Him's Hijacked Plan

They'd been searching for hours now, and the sun was beginning to rise. There had been no sigh of anything. At least there were no signs of any more attacks, Blossom thought. Still, she was tired now. And she looked it.

Bubbles drifted up alongside. "You should rest," she said gently. Blossom pulled her self up right.

"I'm not tired," she yawned, "and I'm not resting till we've found her." Bubbles rested a hand on her shoulder.

"I know you're worried, but even if we find her, you won't be any use if she is insane and you are this tired. And I think that Edward might need some support from his mother, he's probably worried sick about it all."

Blossom nodded. "It's nearly light, see if Buttercup's got her nerve back."

"Okay Blossom, try to get some sleep."

The kid MJ looked kind of cute, in a slightly insane way, Mojo thought. He watched from a safe distance as she chased the bouncy ball around the room. Eventually, she webbed it against the wall, so Mojo released another one into the room. She chased after it again, like a crazy half-spider creature, not like a human. So Mojo crossed another thing off his list.

There was a knock on the door.

"It's open," he called, "that is to say the door which you are currently knocking on is not secured or…"

"YOU THIEF!" shouted Him. Mojo wished he'd locked the door.

"What?" he whined.

"You've stolen my plan," the red demon hissed. "That kid in that room is MY creation, and MY plan to destroy those Puffs!"

"Finders keepers," Mojo said bluntly, he had no wish to waste his breath on his 'guest'. Him watched in furry as Mojo wondered straight passed him, into his kitchen, and started cooking.

"But this plan was going to work!" he moaned, "I'm not going to let your stupid playground rules ruin it!"

"Your plans never work, in the sense that they always fail. But mine, Mojo jojo's plans, they always succeed, and this plan I have will succeed in doing what I want it to do, and therefore is much better than yours because your plan will fail, and mines won't."

"Your plans do not 'always succeed.'"

"They always succeed!" Mojo repeated, "Just maybe in not all of the pre-stated objectives, but in at least one!"

"So what is your plan," said Him dismissively, "to invite them round for dinner and feed them one of your casseroles, because that nearly wiped out all the super villains at last years Christmas party."

"No, this food is not for them. But my plan is brilliant. Firstly, I will cure MJ of her ailment, that is to say, make her as human as she now can be, and totally safe for any man, women, child or any other class of being that happens to be near her at the time. Then, I will give her back to her parents completely unharmed, and totally safe for any man, women, child or any other class of being that happens to be near her at the time. Then…"

"YOU WHAT!"

"I will give her back to the puffs completely unharmed, and totally safe for any man, women, child or any other class of being that happens to be near her at the time," Mojo repeated in a much smaller voice.

"YOU'RE NOT EVEN GOING TO MAKE HER ATTACK THEM AFTER YOU HAVE GIVEN HER BACK TO THEM! THAT'S THE WORST PLAN EVER!"

"But I haven't got to…"

Him waved for silence, and got it. He composed himself, and spoke again. "Do you intend for the puffs to be hurt in anyway by MJ. Just a yes or no answer."

"No."

"Then, my dear Mojo, it is the WORST PLAN EVER!"

Mojo sighed and grabbed the food her had been preparing. As Him ranted about how he was going to be in charge of this plan form now on, he put the food neatly on a plate and added a knife and fork. Then he took it with him out the kitchen, the furious ranting villain still following.

"So what's your idea?" he said coolly, when Him finally had to pause for a breath.

"Ah. My idea is… to pack your bags. We are temporally going to somewhere where the puffs won't find you."

"Why me?"

"Because I need to be able to surprise them…"

"Okay then." Mojo sighed. With luck, he could still carry out his plan. He walked into the room that MJ was in, put the plate on the floor, and ran out. Sure enough, MJ scampered over, but confronted with cooked food and a knife and fork, she suddenly started eating it like a human.

"Eureka!" the evil monkey cried. Now to move on to stage two without Him noticing.

Blossom entered the house to find Edward was alone. He jumped of the sofa when she came in, but slumped when he saw she was alone.

"Hi Edward," Blossom said as naturally as she could. "Dad not in."

"No, he went back out to look an hour ago." Tears were in his eyes. "She will be okay, won't she mum?"

Blossom wished that someone would tell her that. But she put on a brave face. "I hope so." She bent down and gave her first born a long hug, as he began to weep. "I hope so," she repeated.

Latter, she was trying to sleep when the phone rang.

"Hello?" she murmured.

"Blossom it's me," said Boomer, "we've got something."

"It's defiantly Mojo's note," Blossom said, "it goes on for ten pages."

The five Puffs/Ruffs were standing around it. Blossom was too tried to show any emotion, but Bubbles was concerned, Boomer slightly nonplussed (he hadn't been a hero for as long as the rest), Buttercup was angry (back to normal then) and Butch was looking very betrayed.

"Can anyone give me the gist of it?" Blossom asked, flicking though it distractedly.

"He says that he has MJ," said Bubbles, producing a hair from the letter, "and that he won't harm her. But he claims that she needed lots of medical treatment when he found her, plus accommodation and food, so he wants us to pay for it."

"How much?" asked Blossom.

"Five hundred thousand pounds…"

"Dollars"

"… dollars and a promise that we won't beat him up for it," said Buttercup, deadpan.

"So it's a ransom note." Blossom calmly. "Well what did we expect?"

"I expected something else," muttered Butch angrily.

"But we don't have five hundred thousand pou…"

"Dollars…"

"CURANCEY UNITS!" Blossom shouted. There was a pause.

"We may have five hundred thousand yen," suggested Boomer. Everyone ignored him. Blossom shock herself.

"Give me some coffee," she said, "I'm going to see Sonic."

Sonic looked over the pages and pages of notes. Blossom stood in front of the desk, (Sonic hadn't let her sit,) and waited. Eventually the hedgehog looked up.

"Five hundred thousand pounds of taxpayer's money?"

"Dol… yes." Sonic clicked a pen in his moth for a moment.

"Mojo is Butch's and Boomer's dad right?"

"Yes."

"So he's MJ's uncle once removed or something, right?"

"Y…es."

"And the note doesn't actually threaten MJ's safety, does it."

"No but…"

"And now she's safely impounded with relatives, she is no longer a danger to the public, is she."

Blossom couldn't believe this. "Yes, but…"

"Then this is a family dispute, matter for the police. Thank you." He swung his feet off the desk, and resumed playing with a desk toy. After about a minute, he looked up again. "Any reason you're still hear?"

Blossom was speechless. "B… but you helped Spiderman!"

"The girl's life was in imminent danger, MJ's not. This is a matter for the police, not me."

"I… I… I've given up my whole life to helping others; I deserve some pay back, to bend the rules just once." Blossom was almost begging now, but when Sonic looked up once more, there was not a scrap of mercy in his eyes.

"You got the rules bent enough fifteen years ago," his voice had an under tone of hatred, "Now get out, before I get the ex Justice League to remove you. They might be interested in a story while they're here. What do you think?"

The table was strewn with accounts and bank statements. Eddy scanned them and punched numbers into a calculator. Blossom just stared into space. The rest of them were trying to track down Mojo, but since he wasn't in his home, they weren't having much luck. Eddy eventually sat back.

"Okay, if we sell the business, all our shares and investments, the house and the cars and empty our savings to the overdraft limit we can make one hundred thousand, in cash. We can't get anymore, so I'm sure he'd be willing to…"

"I know how I can get more," Blossom said emotionlessly, "and so does Mojo." Eddy paused and looked up suddenly.

"Do you have to?" She nodded.

"I have no choice." She got up. Eddy jumped up and raced over to her. He took her in her arms and held her tight. Blossom sniffed.

"I'm sorry Eddy. If I'd just told them, this would never have happened. I'm sorry…" she started to sob. Eddy squeezed her again.

"It's okay," he whispered softly. "I forgive you, let's just deal with it." She looked up and kissed him tenderly. Then she left.

Butch had almost given up. He was boiling quicker then the kettle he was waiting for. Mojo had told him he was going to help, how he could betray them like this! That monkey was going to get it this time…

"Got it!" shouted Boomer. Butch raced over to the table he was sitting at.

"What?" he said. Boomer showed his a line in the ransom letter. Butch looked at it. "Tulip heads in side, water areas should, not open the,mild yellow,internal door earflap again? What does it mean?"

"Its code!" said Boomer, "I thought this note was wrong all along, because he doesn't gloat enough. Take the first letter of each word and put a space at each comma!" (Do it your self time, mg56)

Butch did. Then he smiled.

"I knew it," he said, "I'm going to make a phone call."

Someone was watching.

Blossom was standing on top of a rock, on top of a hill, looking over Townsville. The sun was just setting again, and the wind blew in her face, letting her hair blow like a cape behind her. She was wearing a tight fitting black outfit with gloves, that covered all the skin other than her head. With her hands on her hips, and the few tears in her eyes complimented by a determined expression, made her look very heroic, almost clichéd. So did her the words she spoke:

"I know you out their somewhere MJ, and I'm sorry for what I've done to you. But I do this for you."

She tucked her hair into her clothes, and was about to whip a balaclava over her head, (they'd probably guess, but she wasn't going to make it easy for them), when the observer realised something. Something that had been bothering them for a while.

"Blossom, wait!" they shouted, "We need to talk."

She stopped and turned round…

Okay, we'll leave it there for now. Next chapter coming soon, but please review, even if you haven't before, (I know there are at least five of you out there.) Oh yes, and the mystery person at the end isn't Brick, but he'll be back in it soon.