13. Unexpected Assistance

Back at Mojo's the others were waiting. Buttercup paced up and down furiously.

"Something's happen!" she snapped. "Why are they taking so long?"

"If Mojo's talking to them, they're making good time," Bubbles pointed out, looking at her watch.

"I still don't like it," said Buttercup.

"I agree," Boomer added, "Mojo seemed to be hinting pretty heavily that some one else was involved."

"Of course I was," said Mojo as he wondered in, "I… hey, what happened to my front door!"

There was a brief pause while everyone tried to work out if Mojo really had just been stupid enough to wonder straight into the middle of them, then everyone dived at him.

"Where's my family!" Eddy shouted at the now cowering monkey.

"Ditto," said Buttercup, brandishing her fists.

"And don't forget Sonic," said Boomer. "What?" he said as everyone briefly stared at him.

"Don't hit me! I haven't done anything to them! That is…"

"Cut the crap Mojo, where are they!"

Mojo pushed them off and walked into his kitchen. Buttercup was about to knock him out for that, when Bubbles reminded her that it was even more difficult to get an unconscious Mojo to cooperate.

"I am perfectly willing to help if you don't harass me, that is…" he caught a look at Buttercup's expression and sped up his talking, "they're with Him who has a plan to destroy all of you… accept possibly Eddy."

"YES! I don't get destroyed, I mean WHAT!"

"Err, no disrespect," said Butch to Eddy, "but leave the talking to us okay?" He turned to Mojo. "Are you going to tell us the plan, or are we going to beat it out of you?"

"I will not only inform you of the plan, I will also tell you how to stop it," Mojo said, still keeping an uneasy eye on Buttercup.

"Why?" the green puff asked menacingly.

"Because if Him destroys you, then I never will!"

"Can't argue with logic," Bubbles said. Buttercup stiffened, she was still unhappy with this.

"So what's the plan," she asked aggressively, "to get MJ to destroy us."

"Not quite. The plan is mainly that MJ will kill Blossom, and hopefully – from his point of view – a few more of you before you are forced to kill her. But as she dies, that is to say passes on due to the afore mentioned actions of one of you…"

"You're slipping again," Buttercup said, "speed it up!"

"… he will release MJ from her insanity and make her sane again, so you will feel that you killed her unnecessarily and destroy yourself through your guilt, and because there will be no Blossom to hold you together as she will be dead," Mojo finished quickly before gasping for breath.

"But now we know," said Bubbles attentively, "we can't fall for that. So we've won, thanks Mojo!"

"Err… I don't think we've won yet, MJ's still crazy, and Blossom's still going to die," Boomer added.

"Right!" said Butch, "lets go before Blossom gets it."

"WAIT!" Mojo shouted so he could stop them, "you need cooked food to make MJ sane again, that is nutritional supplement that has had the amount of heat energy it has in it risen to a point were it's texture and state has changed to a…."

"There's a quick takeaway just down the road," Eddy interrupted, and they shot off (Butch dragged Eddy with them) before Mojo had finished speaking.

Brick stood in the courtyard, moving his hand from side to side. "Good girl MJ, keep following the hand," he said. MJ did, her eyes moving from left to right. Completely distracted, she was leaving both her brother and her mother alone.

"YOU STOP THAT!" shouted Him, "your ruining this!" Brick looked up.

"Ah, so you can see me too," he said bitterly, "then read my lips." He then mouthed a word which would raise the rating of this story up a level. "And I'll have my powers back too, if you don't mind"

Blossom had no idea what Him was seething about, nor did she know what MJ was looking at. But she did know they were distracted. She tried to struggle free of the webbing that bound her, but it was sticky and elastic, so she couldn't break free. Sonic hadn't had much luck either in that field, so Blossom knew she wasn't alone in finding it difficult.

Then she had a thought. If she blew of the webbing, her ice breath would freeze it hard and brittle. Then it could be broken easily. Then only problem was, she couldn't rotate her head enough to breath on the bonds. There was only one thing for it.

"Edward, come here," she hissed, trying not to draw Him's attention as well. Edward crawled over and knelt beside her.

"Mum?"

"Listen Edward, I'm really sorry about today, I promise…"

"Never mind that now," Edward was scared, she could hear it in his voice, "how do I get you out of this?"

"Good boy," Blossom said, putting as much motherly reassurance into her tone of voice as possible, "just blow on the webbing okay?"

"What? But I…"

"Edward, please just do it."

He shrugged briefly, but did so. To his surprise and Blossom's relief the webbing was immediately frozen. Edward jumped back in shock as his mum broke free and flew straight for MJ. She grabbed the surprised Spider from behind and didn't stop until they were up against a wall. MJ hissed and tried to break free, but Blossom was smiling.

"Oh no you don't you little rascal," she said, and she started to tickle MJ. Within seconds, the spider-like hisses of irritation turned to child-like giggles of laughter, and the occasional screams of "stop it mum" in between laughing fits. It wasn't long until mentally at least, MJ was as human as any one else. Then Blossom spoke to her.

"MJ please forgive me, I never mean to hurt you, I just wanted to keep you safe from these things, fights in dingy courtyards, the endless responsibility, the pressure of being a superhero. I wanted you to be free to develop your own dreams for what you wanted to do with your life, not to be destined from birth to spend your life fighting crime. I didn't know you were suffering, you should have told us, you can tell me and your father anything, I promise."

MJ looked at her mum. "I'm sorry," she said. Blossom sighed; maybe she hadn't made it clear that she was apologies. When your children are young they never understand you are apologizing, she reflected, and by the time they're old enough, you never apologies to them!

She was about to try to get the concept across to MJ again, when she was interrupted.

"WELL," said Him furiously, "you may have two superheroes in the making Blossom, but let me cut that down for you!"

Blossom looked up. He'd grabbed Edward round the throat and was holding a knife menacingly.

Too on side, Brick watched, now completely useless. He knew this was coming, but there was nothing he could do about it.

"Leave him alone!" Blossom shouted desperately, but before she could do anything, Him had planted the knife in Edwards's stomach. The kid screamed in pain, and the hourglass vibrated horribly in Brick's cloak, so much so that he had to take it out and grasp it with both hands to avoid dropping it. There wasn't much sand left. Him looked across at him.

"Ah," he said smugly, "I wondered why you where here. Good to know I succeeded in something!"

Brick ignored him, and desperately studied the glass. It seemed to big for someone to die at ten. Death had said it was an intelligence test, and Brick now really hoped he made the passing grade.

Something distracted him, he looked over to Blossom. She was desperately talking to MJ.

"No MJ, no! Please don't, try to control yourself!"

"I… I can't! The smell… its hypnotizing…AHGGAH"

Brick stared at the pool of blood growing around the wailing Edward, and back at MJ. "Oh shit!" he said. This can't happen!

Blossom desperately struggled to keep herself between Edward and MJ, who was now snapping crazily like she was having a spasm, desperate to get to that maddening smell of blood and to feed. Predictably, Him lapped this up.

"Oh my dear Blossom. You can't hold MJ off and save your son. Why don't you just give up and let your daughter have dinner, as a last kind act before you die! Why, it's what Brick wants!"

"WHAT!" Brick and Blossom managed to say in unison, despite the fact that only one could here the other.

"Yes! He screams it each day down in hell as I torture him! That was how I extracted his powers. Now let me see… what does he say… Ah yes, something like, "BLOSSOM! YOU SHOULD DIE FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME!" well, maybe doesn't say it that nicely, and it takes him a while with all the screaming in agony he has to do between each word…"

"THAT'S NOT TRUE!" Brick shouted, but there was little point. Blossom couldn't here him, and distracted MJ hit her. The red puff tumbled down and as MJ leapt for Edward, Brick turned a way. He couldn't watch.

Blossom rolled over and swung back. She couldn't let Him get to her, and she couldn't worry about Brick. She had to act now, and the only way to stop MJ was to blast her. So with a lump in her throat, she fired at her daughter.

Moments latter there was a blue flash in the courtyard and the next thing Blossom knew was that her blast had missed MJ, because Bubbles had dived in the way of it.

As she did this, Boomer dived at MJ with a bag of chips.

"Come on MJ," he said, "eat this!" The smell went racing up her nose and overrode the smell of blood from her brother. Moments latter, MJ was stuffing chips in her mouth, as her sanity returned, just as Mojo had said.

"What the…?" Him shouted, but that was as far as he got before two green puffs/ruffs sandwiched him.

"Time for you to pay for this!" Buttercup said, and she and Butch laid into Him. He took the blows for a few moments before disappearing, in his usual way.

Him returned to his domain absolutely furious. "How could I have failed! How did they know MJ's weakness, or even to come?" he paused for thought. "THAT STUPID MONKEY MUST HAVE TOLD THEM!"

"Hey, you're talking about my dad," said a voice. Him swung round. Brick was standing there.

"HOW DID YOU GET HERE?"

"I followed you," Brick said calmly, and then with the swiftest of movement, he swung his scythe up to Him's throat, "and I'm going to take my powers back. But don't worry, the process will be quiet painful!"

Back in the courtyard, Blossom staged over to Bubbles.

"I've never been so glad to blast you Bubbles!" she said. Bubbles picked herself up gingerly.

"That hurt Blossom!" she said, "you should be use less powerful blasts in future."

Blossom suddenly clicked. "Shit, Edward." She turned round. Eddy had already applied a make shift bandage to the wound, but Edward was still in agony. MJ was now extremely distressed by it too.

"Oh my god, Oh my god, did I do that? Please don't let him die Dad!" she wailed. Eddy looked very concerned.

"It's not good; he needs to be at a hospital very quickly!"

"Bubbles," Buttercup commanded, "instantranslocation time!"

"I can't," she wailed, "I used up too much energy transporting us five here!"

"Well now what…" Butch began, but he was cut off by a blue flash and a whooshing sound. Edward was gone, but both the blue puffs were still there…

Okay, thanks for reading, please review. Thanks.