Chapter 6: Fresh Scents

The City of Townsville. Industrial District. Steele's Stellar Steel.

3 Feb 1989 (Friday). 1821.

"It's only going to hurt for a second, okay?" Mullens warned Buttercup. He had carried her to the storage area where the criminals she had beaten into submission were being held. It was brighter there, and there was an administrative table for her to sit on. While one of his task force colleagues had gone to fetch the first-aid kit, he went on ahead to prepare Buttercup for treatment, removing the top of her uniform, then the singlet underneath. It didn't improve how the wound looked.

He could see the muscle underneath and the skin was torn like paper. Blood was clotted all around.

"Please don't…" Buttercup was straight up crying, a reminder that he'd been dealing with a kid all along. Sometimes, he'd forget this simple fact, and now it broke his heart to see the toughest of The Three this way, even though he knew that she wasn't quite right in the head.

"I'm going to have to do it, it's for your own good," Detective Mullens said as he held a bottle of disinfectant and a gauze soaked with it. "Just hold your breath and think happy thoughts." Gently, he tapped Buttercup's graze wound lightly with the gauze, himself wincing when Buttercup outright screamed like the baby girl she was supposed to be.

Blossom could feel Buttercup's hand tighten around hers, hard. But it was over quickly, as Mullens had promised.

"There you go," the detective said. "You took it like a champ, Buttercup. You should be proud of your sister, Blossom. Don't forget to tell your father about the wound. He'd know what to do with it." With that, he grabbed a roll of bandages from the first-aid kit. Unfurling it, he began wrapping it around Buttercup's side, stomach and back. He wouldn't be running out anytime soon - Buttercup, like her sisters, was so small, being physically five - another reminder of the odd Townsville fact that the city's rising heroines were kindergartners.

When he was done, he tied the bandage around Buttercup's back. "And what do you say, Buttercup?" he asked candidly.

"Thanks, Mister Mullens," Buttercup said, her tears drying up quickly. She was the toughest of The Three, after all. And now Mullens could only wonder how Bubbles was doing. He knew that Bubbles was the sensitive one, and so he knew that facing rejection from her own sister must had been very hard to take. Nevertheless, he had a solution for that too, and it wouldn't hurt as much as the solution he dabbed onto Buttercup's wound.


The City of Townsville. Industrial District. Steele's Stellar Steel.

3 Feb 1989 (Friday). 1822.

Bubbles was still crying long after facing an angry Buttercup. As there was still work to be done, Blossom had no choice but to dismiss her, and so Bubbles ran out of the factory and sat in an alley all alone, on the snowy floor. It was cold, but Bubbles didn't care. To her, the temperature was nothing next to what she had just suffered. 'Just let her go, Blossom! She's useless anyway,' Buttercup had said when she thought that she was out of earshot - and she'd heard it clearly.

But she didn't have to be alone for long. A German Shepherd was padding up to her, and when she looked up to see who was approaching her, she saw that it wasn't a normal dog. It was wearing a canine Kevlar vest with 'TPD' clearly printed on either side, and it even had a helmet with shades over its eyes. It was larger than most German Shepherds, not that Bubbles had any basis for comparison. Oddly enough, it had a radio attached to the 'chest' of its vest with an earpiece going up to its left ear, as well as a pistol and several magazines holstered on its back - even if the dog could use them, they'd be out of its reach.

The dog came up next to her, panting. Bubbles, so curious that she had (mostly) stopped crying, pushed her legs down and away from her chest. She put her hand out and the German Shepherd started licking her fingers. Bubbles was still sniffling and tears continued to fall - and it was as if the dog noticed it. Snuggling up closer to her, it began licking her in the cheeks and nose, and it felt good - it felt as if someone cared. Just when Bubbles thought she could never do so again, she giggled and laughed as the dog continued licking.

"See? Rit's rot so bad now, ris it?" the German Shepherd said, out of the blue, out of nowhere, totally unexpectedly. Bubbles' eyes widened and she practically jumped away from it and knocked over the oil barrels she was hiding behind. "Wrrroops! Sorry! Didn't rean to scare you!"

Bubbles was completely speechless. A talking dog? How? Why? Where did it come from?

"Y-you can talk?" Bubbles stammered as she continued staring at the dog, unable to believe what was standing before her.

(Linguistic Analysis: Subject known as 'the talking dog' substitutes sounds made by the lips almost always with a growling 'R' sound, as well as adds the 'R' sound to some words. Sometimes, the 'R' sound is added at random, perhaps due to habit.)

"Ri sure can, sister," the German Shepherd said, then sat on its hind and used its right forepaw to push its shades up, revealing intelligent eyes that glowed brown faintly. "Rell, rat reast you're rot crying row."

Bubbles considered its - his words for a moment. He had intended to comfort her. She smiled at the gesture, and at how magical the moment was.

"There ryou go! Rook rat you," the dog continued as he wagged his tail. Bubbles smiled even wider. "You're reautiful when you do that, at least ras far ras huran females go. Re glad you're not rocked berind a face as rigid as rine."

"Thanks," Bubbles said, but struggled to decide how to address the dog. The fact that it could talk so intelligently had made things less clear. "Urm… Should I call you doggy?"

"Ronly ry friends call me that, not that you're rot a friend, rof course," the enhanced German Shepherd rambled on. Bubbles thought that it sure could talk in volumes, not that she minded it. "Ahem." The dog straightened his back and peaked his ears. "Ratrol-dog Stanley Talker at ryour service. That ris, Ri actually just graduated from the police racademy, ry the way. Rafter a crash course, rof course. They couldn't rait to rut re rout here."

Bubbles hugged the talking dog, and as he stopped talking, gave him a squeeze and taking her time to enjoy the moment.

"Thanks, Mister Stanley," Bubbles said after letting go of the dog.

"Ron't rention rit," the dog said. "Now how rabout re get rack rinside? Rit's cold rout here. Say, ranna ride me rin? Ri'll roffer rit free this time. Rhat do you say?"

Bubbles beamed at him for the offer. The talking dog was even big enough to act as a mount for Bubbles as she was only five years old, physically. It felt like a dream come true, riding a magical dog back to her sisters, except it was beyond what she had dreamed up thus far for her drawings.

"Can I really!?" Bubbles squealed excitedly.

"Roff course you can. Rop on!" Talker said, coming up beside her so she could mount up. Bubbles floated over him before letting herself drop on top of him, and when she did, he didn't seem to feel the weight. As it turned out, the talking dog had been enhanced in physical strength as well. "Row! Ri rish ri could fly like you. Ranyway, here goes."

With that, Patrol-dog Stanley Talker took off towards the cargo bay door of the factory, proud that he had done a good job at doing what Detective Mullens had ordered him over the radio to do.

"Did anyone ever told you that you talk funny?" Bubbles giggled as the enhanced German Shepherd bounded towards the cargo bays of the factory.

"Rall the time! Huran sreech ris hard!" the talking dog explained.

"Doesn't fit ry routh!" he panted as he transported the girl, as if proving his point that his mouth had difficulty in forming the words.


The City of Townsville. Industrial District. Steele's Stellar Steel.

3 Feb 1989 (Friday). 1823.

The man Blossom rescued was in bad shape. His jacket was soaked through with blood, his skin breached by bone at multiple places. The paramedic attending to him had pronounced his chance of survival to be uncertain. While having over a dozen broken bones did not threaten his life, the massive internal bleeding and major organ damage did. While he was being brought out on a stretcher, Blossom stayed with him, feeling sorry for the man even though she didn't know him.

But Captain Caylon 'Butch' Butcher, the USDO representative who had just arrived on the scene, knew the man. As the paramedics were carrying the man out, he and his SWAT soldiers had stopped them so he could question him.

Blossom had found out then that the injured man was a USDO infiltrator working under Jackard of USDO Intelligence. The rest she figured out on her own: he was found out by the bad guys in the factory, who proceeded to beat him to a pulp, and they would have executed him too, had she been too late.

Despite the paramedics' protest, Captain Butcher had his soldiers put the man on a table to make questioning him easier. Blossom was there, and so was Detective Mullens.

"What did you find out?" Captain Butcher had asked the intelligence agent, dispassionate, distant, his voice surprisingly wispy and whispery. Unknown to Blossom, the captain was a USDO operative who had lived up to his surname - whose leadership style and combat technique was brutal even by USDO standards. He had no compunction whenever he did whatever it took to carry out his duties, even if he had to shred apart a hundred civilians to get to a single mutant freak in Afghanistan, he'd do it without hesitation. He would tear a woman tied to a chair apart one strip of skin after another, one shred of muscle after the next, if it meant finding out about the most remote and briefest of intel about a target he was hunting down. And he'd do it until she had no legs left, too. Even General Blackwater was wary of the man, and not just when it came to deploying him.

But Blossom was catching up quickly, as there was a certain aura around the man - the way he spoke, the way he carried himself, how eerie the silence was around him had told Blossom the truth about Captain Butcher.

The Infiltrator could barely even move. When he did, he'd put his hand into his pocket and took something out - even this gesture alone seemed like too much from the way the man's hand had quivered from the effort.

He was grasping a pendant of sorts, and as if the weight of it was too much, he dropped it on the table. Captain Butcher took it by the cord and brought it up to get a better view of it under the light.

The pendant was teardrop-shaped, with the symbol of what appeared to be a crab claw in it. The captain turned to Blossom, who jumped when he did.

"This familiar to you, lab rat?" he asked brusquely. When Blossom wouldn't answer out of fear, he widened his eyes and contorted his face as if offended. He continued in an insultingly patronizing tone: "Does the little girl need a doggy treat before she answers?"

"N-no," Blossom answered meekly, her eyes going to the table and the severely injured operative as she couldn't bear to meet Captain Butcher's steely eyes. "It's not."

"Let me see it," Detective Mullens put his hand out for the captain to hand the pendant over, at the same time giving the captain an angry stare. The USDO officer did it reluctantly as if the detective himself was an enemy to be watched carefully. When it was in his hands, the detective did the same thing as the captain, holding it under the glow of the fluorescent lamp overhead. "The Cult of His Arm. Junior branch of The Cult of His Promise."

An unintelligible whisper interrupted the detective. Both men and Blossom turned to him. When the injured infiltrator couldn't speak loud enough, he used his finger instead, and, with his blood, wrote with a shivering hand a word on the metal table that was almost as unintelligible as his whisper.

'DRUG', the detective was finally able to make out what it said after a hard stare. Of course. He had a brainwave after that. The cults were working with the Lombardi. Why wouldn't they? While it may seem that they were just a bunch of nut jobs worshiping some invented deity in a new age religion, they were a fringe group full of outcasts. The Lombardi was a fringe group full of outcasts. It would make sense for them to be in it together. The detective had seen his fair share of dangerous cults in Townsville. Some were suicide cults that went extinct one way or another - he'd helped saved some but lost some. Couldn't prevent people from believing that they should off themselves because the apocalypse was upon them. But then there were the more dangerous kinds that only Townsville was capable of producing, and they would make Charles Manson look like a Christian boy scout.

Yet The Cult of His Arm, and the biggest nuthouse of them all, The Cult of His Promise, seemed to exist on a totally different plane of existence altogether. He'd heard the stories, done enough cases to know that they weren't the kind of people to trifle with. There was a reason why they had continued to exist for a couple of decades, despite the rumors and cases against them, and it wasn't because they had been taking in the poor - well, unless it was because they had been taking in the poor for special reasons. Cult reasons.

The connection was immediately obvious. His Secret was likely manufactured in part or whole by the cult. At that moment, Detective Mullens believed that he had finally made progress in his case against the Lombardi.

"Hmm. I can speak for the USDO. We know about the loonies, alright," Captain Butcher said. "Looks like we have more targets in our sights."

In that instant when the USDO officer had verbally abused Blossom, the detective knew that he would hate the man with a passion, but for now, he could agree with him.

"Not yet. We'll have to do some sniffing and scout around before we pick a spot to raid," the detective said.

"I'll make sure the USDO council knows about this," Captain Butcher said, his voice still a deadly whisper. "And then it'll be extermination time soon enough."

"Speaking of sniffing…" the detective said, and as if he knew, he turned to the cargo bay doors near the storage area. Sure enough, what appeared to be a German Shepherd with the TPD's K-9 unit had come in from under a half-closed bay door, curiously without a handler but with Bubbles on its back. It came running towards them like a mini pony with a princess on top of it. Blossom stared in disbelief at Bubbles; a little girl in SWAT gear riding a dog in what amounted to canine SWAT gear wasn't a common sight. Buttercup had flown over to the men and her sister to look.

"Thanks, Mister Stanley," Bubbles thanked the dog, who was panting enthusiastically after he had done his job.

"Talking to animals again, Bubbles?" Buttercup taunted with her arms crossed, still sore about Bubbles' cowardice. The German Shepherd snapped his head towards Buttercup and growled as a normal dog would.

"Grrr… Who're you calling ran ranimal?" the talking dog growled and revealed its true nature. Buttercup's eyes widened with surprise. Blossom, who was previously just looking away, did a double take on the dog. Captain Butcher didn't seem surprised to hear the dog speak. Neither did Detective Mullens. Olivia was coming up to them too, and she didn't seem disturbed at all. Blossom and Buttercup looked at each other, then from one person to the next, and could only wonder what was going on.

The detective broke into a pleasant smile - it was rare seeing him like this, even after he had tidied up and sworn off the alcohol and cigarettes.

"Girls, meet the one and only talking dog," the detective introduced the German Shepherd to Blossom and Buttercup.

"Rame's Stanley Talker," the dog managed his own chosen name confidently - there were consonants that were mostly inaccessible to the dog because of the structure of his mouth, and this time, they weren't there. He wagged his tail in anticipation - even before he'd met Bubbles, he'd known about The Three from within the TPD. He saw them as his kin - born from chemicals. Him from W, they from X. They were all from the USDO, and he assumed that the four of them had a love-hate relationship going with the USDO. "Rit's rice to reet you."

"You get to ride him, Bubs?" Buttercup said in disbelief. "Why don't I get to do that? I deserve it more!"

"Rot fror where Ri stand," Talker criticized, his eyes pinned on Buttercup as if she was prey. He knew that something was up between Bubbles and Buttercup. It became quite obvious when he saw Bubbles' human expression turning into one that meant sadness, an analogue to a dog's limp ears and tail.

"Caught any new scents outside, Talker?" Detective Mullens asked.

"Hrrr… r-no. Revery-rone's rin here," the talking dog reported as it sniffed at the air again. He then turned to the suspects being held at the storage area, who were being guarded by police officers both uniformed and plains-clothed. "Strange, some-rone's rissing. Ringering smell, rut no rore fresh scent."

The detective turned to the Girls. "Did anyone escape?" he asked.

"Not that I know of," Blossom said, then turned to Buttercup, who was panicking a little inside because of her dirty little secret, though she managed to keep it locked behind her face and teeth. "Buttercup?"

"They were all here. I fought them all," Buttercup lied.

"Then what were you doing at the corridor?" Blossom pressed her wayward sister.

"I… just needed a place to sit down," Buttercup tried to build on her lie, and she had just the thing. She turned to glare at Bubbles. "It wasn't exactly safe to sit where I was. Right, Bubbles?"

"Bubbles? Seen anyone bailing out?" the detective asked the last of The Three, but she seemed down once more, but at least she wasn't crying.

"No…" Bubbles mewled, shaking her head without looking up. The talking dog looked on, concerned.

"I didn't see anyone in a hurry outside either. No tracks in the snow. No blood, no personal effects discarded. Not so much as even a spit of saliva," Olivia, who had just joined them, reported.

"Hrrr… Could re rossible some-rone left refore the Girls came rin," the talking dog suggested. "Strange rhough, recause Ri didn't catch fresh scents rof him routside reither."

"I guess it's time I start 'interviewing' my customers," the detective said, with a dash of severity and callousness in his voice. "I guess you Girls are done here. You may go."

The talking dog, still concerned for Bubbles, had put a paw in her hand, and she held it tightly. Stanley Talker thought that it was a shame he didn't have more time to spend with Bubbles - she seemed like a nice kid, and especially in need. But their paths had inevitably separated them - he had long switched owners from the USDO to the TPD, while the Angels of Justice he heard so much about, as far as he knew, were still owned by the USDO.

"Can't I help?" Buttercup asked the detective as she subtly peeked at the suspects with bloodlust in her eyes. "Like last time? With Marcello?"

"Nah, I'm good. Besides, you're hurt and… Don't you have some party to attend?" the detective scrounged for an excuse.

The party. The masquerade ball. Buttercup could vomit from thinking about it. The truth was, she would rather tear a man from limb to limb here - she'd done it to one of the bad guys and it felt good. The look on the man's face, his fear, the way the meat felt as she separated them - the act of discovering what was inside a man. The satisfaction and feeling of power when it came from it, the cathartic rush of adrenaline, felt so good. Once she'd tasted it, she simply wanted more.

"Alright. Goodbye, Mister Mullens, Olivia. It's nice to meet you, Mister Stanley Talker. Let's go, Girls," Blossom ordered and took flight with Bubbles waving goodbye to Stanley Talker. Buttercup followed reluctantly. She would have to find another opportunity to hurt someone and collect more trophies the next time.