Chapter 12: The Rotten Core of the City

The City of Townsville. Pokey Oaks North. Pokey Oaks Kindergarten.

6 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1107.

Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! The clown phone rang, the first time in ages, but this time, it didn't ring in the Girls' room. This time, it'd issued its call to arms in the Girls' classroom in Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. The rude and loud buzzing had interrupted the silence, just as the little kids in the class were about to slip into their sleeping bags for a nap. It was tiring for the little ones, having to learn words related to camping and the wild and apply mathematics to hypothetical camping situations.

"Girls, the phone!" Miss Keane called out to the Girls as she was helping a girl out of her jacket when the zip was stuck. Buttercup growled in displeasure at having to miss nap time, but then smiled when she realized it meant punching time. Bubbles gave a helpless sigh while she was halfway into her sleeping bag, before sliding out again. Blossom stared at the phone with determination. Despite her limited experience, she knew that things were changing. Had this been weeks ago, it would be another week or two before another call was issued from the phone.

She flew to the clown phone, then picked it up. "Hello?" she greeted whoever it was on the other end.

"Hey Blossom," the voice on the other end sounded familiar. It had been a long time since she last heard it. Weeks, since it was as if he had disappeared from the face of the Earth.

"Mister Blake!" Blossom yelled into the phone in surprise, quite loudly that the whole class could hear it. Bubbles and Buttercup flew up next to her.

"Woah there, cowgirl!" Agent Blake said with a pained voice from Blossom screaming into his ear, but he could only be glad that it wasn't Bubbles. "It's nice to speak to you again."

"How have you been, Mister Blake?" Blossom asked lovingly, all the while tolerating her sisters' noisy insistence in the background that they be given a chance to speak to their USDO agent friend.

"I've had worse," Agent Blake admitted. "Listen, we need you at an operation soon. Can you Girls make it down to 55 Rhody Street in the tenements in… 20 minutes?"

Blossom searched her mind for the address; she had memorized the entire map of Townsville down to the streets. Miss Keane and her Mom and Dad had helped narrow down what she should remember, making it easier for her. She closed her eyes, and in her mind, she saw herself flying across Townsville at the speed of light, searching for Rhody Street. Her sisters' pleas had all but disappeared as she traveled through the speeding highways of her neurons until…

"Yes, we can," Blossom said confidently, with a determined look on her face. "And we'll be there in half that time, too."

It was then that her sisters' ceaseless demands and jumping got to her. Caving into them, she held the phone out to them.

"Hi, Mister Blake! We missed you!" Bubbles and Buttercup yelled into the phone in unison, fighting for a dominant position over the handheld speaker and receiver.

"Yeah… Haha… I miss the both of you too," Mister Blake replied, and even Bubbles could hear it, but it was loud and clear to Buttercup because of her secret ability to hear incredibly well. Blossom repossessed the phone before her sisters could break it. "So, see you there. Listen, I really want to stay on the phone and chat, but I gotta run. See you Girls in 20, okay?"

"Bye!" Blossom bade farewell over the phone before turning to her sisters. "Let's go, Girls! We have a city to defend and Mister Blake to meet!"

After seeking permission from Miss Keane, the Girls flew out of the room as their fellow students watching them fly away with their trails of light in their wake. They had to enter another room to get changed for law enforcement.


The City of Townsville. Tenement Area. 55 Rhody Street.

6 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1121

It didn't matter that it was tiring. It didn't matter that they were draining the precious Chemical X in their blood - it wasn't as if they would need all of it in a fight anyway. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were finally going to see Mister Blake and friends, after weeks of being away. When they had finally arrived at the exact address they were given, Blossom had practically flown into the arms of the man, with Bubbles and Buttercup hugging his arms, and they had done it in full view of his men, other USDO personnel and the TPD officers and SWAT cops they were working with. And Agent Blake hugged her back, as he had missed the kids too.

"You can let go now, Blossom," Agent Blake finally said after enough time had passed. He could see that everyone on the scene was looking at him, some smiling while others were shaking their heads in disapproval. "It's nice, but you're heavy. Have you been gaining weight?"

"No, the number on the weighing machine hasn't changed," Blossom said as she let go. "It's just the stuff I'm wearing." As usual, the Girls were decked out in their tactical uniform and combat gear, but with the usual personal touch - stubborn as always, the only concession they had made were the MP5s that only Buttercup seemed to love. Huge guns had ceased to become a necessity with Blossom and Bubbles due to their unique X-abilities.

"Hmm. I guess that's nothing," Agent Blake muttered. Reaching for his aviator sunglasses, he removed them to take a better look at the Girls - it wasn't too sunny a day, what with the winter still stubbornly clinging onto the country, so his shades weren't necessary. As if sensing his intention, the Girls floated up before him. "Look at the three of you, all confident and happy. How's Townsville been treating you? Things have gotten better, right?"

Bubbles couldn't quite agree. Despite knowing the facts, that there was less crime, especially major crime, to fight, just by being out there was enough to put her on edge. To her, something was always about to happen, something evil, just as it always did.

"Yeah! Everyone likes us now!" Blossom said, knowing full well she was exaggerating, but she didn't care. Here was Mister Blake and she was going to impress him as much as she could. As if the police officers in the background had heard her, they turned to stare at her with some of the coldest and accusatory looks she had ever seen. There were always some she couldn't please, some who would never forgive nor forget. "It's really great!"

"Where have you been anyway all these weeks?" Buttercup asked roughly, her arms crossed.

"Yeah, we really missed you," Bubbles added, before floating up to Mister Blake and hugging his arm.

"I'm sorry I had to go away - patrol duties, doing my bit to suppress crime and help the cops," the agent explained. He thought that it was pretty coincidental how the Girls could miss him all this time while he and the Girls were both out, patrolling Townsville, but then again, there were no coincidences - command probably put them on different paths. He'd been watching the outer reaches of the city while the Girls were resuscitating the dying heart of the city and doing a good job at it. "But at least business has brought us together again."

"What are we doing today, Mister Blake?" Blossom asked as she landed and walked beside her security friend, taking his hand. They came up to an opened manhole in the middle of the street, which was blocked off by yellow police lines, barriers, and vehicles. Police officers and USDO soldiers swarmed the area.

"I believe I can answer that," a male voice said. Blossom turned to look. It was Detective Mullens, with his right hand and daughter, Detective Olivia. On his left hand was the talking dog, Stanley Talker, whose tongue was sticking out and lolling about as he walked. Blossom smiled. So did her sisters. "Hey Girls. Another day, another batch of bottom feeders in cages, am I right?"

"Detective Mullens," Agent Blake greeted.

"One of those men you caught at the factory talked, kids," the detective said. "There's a whole drug network all over town. Some of them are underground, down in the sewers. We're busting one of them. We'll get them to spill and add more years to the Amoeba Boys' prison sentence."

"The sewers?" Blossom said in disbelief. She went up to the manhole, intimidated not by the darkness underground as they had their eye-lanterns trick for that, but by the smell. Bubbles, too, took a sniff and immediately backed away, pinching her nose. With her, it seemed that the darkness wasn't her only concern.

"Ew!" she cried as she waved away the smell.

"Oh, yuck!" Buttercup shouted, affected as well.

"I'm sorry, Girls," Detective Mullens said. "But that's how low some criminals will stoop but we'll have to stop them all the same."

"Just raccept the srell as part of nature and you should re fine," Stanley Talker finally spoke. "Ry nose's sharrer - stronger - rut I rhave no trourle with re srell…"

"But… H-how are we going to do this?" Blossom asked, still staring into the gaping black hole leading down to the city's underbelly.

"We have a map of the sewers. I'll guide you through the radio," Agent Blake explained. "The drug runners are holed up in a central junction area. They operate only at night, so they are undermanned during the day. They won't be expecting us since all our units are a fair distance away from the central junction."

Blossom could barely even understand half of what he's talking about, but she knew enough - Agent Blake would guide her, the bad guys, few in numbers, would be taken by surprise.

"Are we doing it now? Can we, can we!?" Buttercup squealed with excitement at the prospect of another high-profile operation. In her mind, she couldn't wait to find another opportunity to dismember a human being for kicks.

"Mmmm…" Bubbles mewled in fear as she clasped her sweaty hands. She really didn't want to go down there, where it stunk to high heaven and was far too dark - anything or anyone could be lurking down there, and Bubbles' imagination was rife with all sorts of things to fill in the blanks. Sensing her intense fear, Stanley Talker returned to her and rubbed himself against her body. Bubbles ran her hand along his fur.

Blossom noticed, and she remembered what Psychiatrist Alice had said.

"We'll go together, Bubbles," Blossom said gently and held her hand. "Just stay close to me - you don't have to go alone this time, but I need you to fight when you need to."

"Okay…" Bubbles agreed, even if she didn't want to go. She didn't want to disappoint everyone, now that they were here: Blake, Mullens, her sisters. Daddy. Mommy, who she didn't want to make angry. Buttercup couldn't help but laugh at her sister's weakness, as it made her feel powerful.

"You're sticking close to me too, Buttercup," Blossom turned to her and ordered as they stood at the edge of the manhole.

"But I don't need to stay close to you!" Buttercup objected.

"You got hurt the last time you were alone," Blossom reasoned, even if it was likely something that would fall on deaf ears. She really didn't want Mom to come down on her once more - she could still remember, with crystal clarity, Mom's threat. She really didn't want to find out how much pain a stun baton could cause on maximum setting.

"Fine…" Buttercup reluctantly agreed, and only did so because it allowed the possibility that her sisters might take the bullet for her the next time.

"Are you Girls ready?" Agent Blake asked.

"No…" Bubbles mewled, still petrified by the great unknown just underneath the city's streets. How could anyone tolerate such a smell? What could even produce such a smell? Were there monsters in there that made the smell? She would have asked the adults what was going on with the smell had she the time and space for it.

"Of course!" Blossom and Buttercup chorused together, for once, as the both of them wanted to make a positive impression with Mister Blake when they'd finally had time with him.

"We'll be right behind you," Detective Mullens said. "I just need the three of you to clear the way, but if there's any real trouble, just give the word."

"Yeah, and re'll come running!" Stanley Talker declared.

"Thanks, Mister Mullens. Thanks, Mister Stanley," Bubbles said gratefully. The talking dog started licking her hand again, and Bubbles caressed the dog in the snout.

"No problem. We got your back. Right, Blake?" Mullens said.

"Right," Agent Blake agreed.


The City of Townsville. Tenement Area. Under 55 Rhody Street.

6 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1130

The Girls floated through the manhole and into the sewers after sucking in one final mouthful of clean, fresh air. The moment they did, they made a circle and their eyes began shining brightly like lanterns. The sewage tunnel had immediately split into a T-junction, giving the impression of a maze right from the beginning. They waited for Mullens, Olivia, Blake, and Talker to descend using the ladder after informing them by radio that it was safe to go down. They'd done so quickly, wary that spending too much time in the sewer could lead to their surprise raid being discovered. Even the talking dog was quick on the way down - due to his intelligence, he was able to learn how to use a ladder.

All around the area's sewer central junction, police officers and USDO soldiers were doing the same thing, encircling their drug dealer targets, closing in the trap.

"Ew… Ew… Ew…" Bubbles squeaked constantly as they flew at a slow and steady pace in the sewers, stopping at every split or junction.

"What's down here that could smell so bad?" Blossom questioned over the radio.

"Yeah, who would walk here if it's so smelly?" Buttercup added. At the very least, it had distracted her from her bloodlust, not that she wanted it, and neither did Blossom and Bubbles know just how deeply compromised Buttercup's mind was.

"Well…" Agent Blake's voice trailed off on the radio as he was unsure if he should tell them the truth. "I'm not sure if the three of you should know."

"My Daddy said that knowing things is always good," Blossom paraphrased her Dad innocently.

"Do you know where the water goes when you flush the toilet?" Detective Mullens said over the radio.

"No…" the Girls replied on the radio, too innocent to even guess what was coming next.

"Dad, I don't think we should-" Olivia cut in on the radio, only to be cut out.

"They should know it now rather than find out later when it isn't convenient, Olive," Detective Mullens. "Girls, whatever you flush down the toilet ends up here."

The Girls stopped where they were, more sensitive than ever about their positioning in mid-air, about the air they took in, their very being in the sewers.

"EWWWW!" The Girls exclaimed in disgust.

"And I was standing in the water, too!" Buttercup said, unimpressed by how late she was informed about the underground 'river'.

"Good thing your boots are waterproof then," Agent Blake remarked. "Take all the time you need, Girls. We'll continue with the operation as soon as you're ready to go on."

"I'd rather just keep going," Blossom said over the radio. The faster she got out of the sewer, the better.

"I agree with you for once," Buttercup admitted, though what she said had done just as much to remind Blossom that she could go rogue at any moment and end up snapping someone's neck.

Bubbles was silent. All she could do was concentrate very hard on trying not to freak out. The smell was one thing, but the darkness was bringing out the worst in her. She could feel her heart thumping faster than it would have while she was running after a sports car – and she could attest to that too, as they were called upon to chase a hit-and-run case a week ago. Memories were flashing before her eyes; actual pain and lethargy erupted throughout her body.

"Bubbles? Are you okay?" Blossom asked and Bubbles had only heard it the second time. She'd even missed her sister's hand on her back. Buttercup glared at her from the front, definitely not appreciating her slowing down the advance. Her angry, sociopathic eyes shone clearly in the dark, contrasted by Blossom's concerned eyes, pink with care.

"I… I'm fine," Bubbles replied, tried to be as brave as she could. Doctor Alice's advice came back at just the right time, but with the weekends so far behind them in time and space, the only thing it had made her do was to wish that Alice was beside her again.


The City of Townsville. Tenement Area. Under 23 Edgar Street.

6 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1137.

"Oh yeah… Yes… Finally…" a haggard-looking man in an even more haggard-looking army jacket mumbled to himself as he was sitting on a crate, tying a tourniquet around his arm. "If only I know His secret, I'd make my own Secret… Now, this is the good stuff…"

When he was done, he pulled something out of his jacket. A metal syringe with 'His Secret' written on the side, in white markers. Slapping his elbow to gain a vein, he pierced his skin with the thirsty tip of the syringe and it bit him like the proboscis of a giant mosquito. Pushing the plunger, he emptied the content of the syringe into his blood and gasped with stimulation and a rush of pleasure. Visions clouded his eyes, visions of ecstasy and paradise and success.

"Don't get too used to it, druggie," another man scolded condescendingly, his voice much clearer than the first. "You're not getting your next needle until you complete tonight's shipment."

The drug addict did not seem to have heard his apparent supervisor but continued to lie back on the crates he had been hauling and protecting, in a state of pure pleasure and relaxation, his mind filled with stolen but false victories and rewards.

"I know," the haggard-looking man finally said. He'd barely heard. The sensations he was feeling at the time was far more important than reality. Than even his next payment in drugs.

"Where's Hilda anyway? She's taking way too long to piss even for a woman," another drug dealer guarding the crates in the middle of sewers said. "I fucking swear, if it weren't for her sweet bod, I would've dumped her sorry ass."

"She took a hit like ten minutes ago," yet another drug dealer said - he was clearly the boss with his necklace and cigar and clean coat and AK-47. "Probably passed out somewhere out there next to her piss - and everyone else's. Should be fine - inspection's two hours away and the next shipment's fuckin' after dinner."

The drug dealers' comments had attracted raucous laughter from the rest of the criminals. There were about the ten of them in all, mainly drug dealers and their hired muscle. There were movers - most of whom were addicted to His Secret and were working for the dealers only for their next dose of His Secret.

The drug lord was more right than he would have wanted to be. Moments later, Blossom had flown up to the missing drug addict while she was squatting by a river of city sewage and knocked her unconscious with a simple chop to the back of the head. But what Blossom couldn't intercept was the drug addict's terrified scream.

Men and women with guns shot up from their makeshift seats, cocking their weapons. Most of the movers, too, started either picking up anything that could be used as clubs or pulling out their modest weapons: knives and blackjacks, shivs and batons.

They didn't have long to decide between fight or flight when three streaks of light were drawn in the dark tunnel and what appeared to be three little girls floating in mid-air appeared before them.

No words were exchanged between them. The drug lord and his immediate inferiors raised their weapons. The drug runners and hired muscles who were the furthest away didn't even think of fighting and scattered. Some of the menial laborers started taking off. Some of them started ripping open the crates and greedily taking handfuls of His Secret syringes before scattering as bullets started flying – they knew how it was going to end. There was only one way it could go.

Blossom zipped foot-first like a bullet into the drug lord who could only get a few shots in. One of the drug lord's right hand pointed a pistol at Buttercup, but she was able to push it aside faster than he could pull the trigger. She gave the gunman a right hook, knocking him out instantly. The drug runner next to her was able to fire off a burst of rounds from his machine-pistol, however, not that it did anything - Buttercup gave him a spinning kick, knocking the machine pistol away, before pounding him with a simple straight punch. Bubbles tackled another drug runner at high speed – discarding skill in favor of painless expediency.

There was no resistance after that, much to Buttercup's disappointment. The splashing of sewage water attracted their attention to the various tunnels around the junction.

"They're getting away!" Buttercup shouted, pointing at the main group of runaways. But there were a few who were smart enough to split from the main group and go down different tunnels. Blossom looked from the main group to the individual mavericks, for the moment paralyzed by indecision. Mom and Alice's words were burned into her mind, frozen in place like boulders blocking the way to the right decision, impossible to dislodge.

"Bubbles, with me!" she finally made a compromise as the voice of the running criminals and their footsteps grew ever fainter. "Buttercup, go after the rest of them, any of them!"

It was the only way. Bubbles would be less fearful in her company and Buttercup was less likely to be injured by the loners she must pursue. Blossom could only trust that Buttercup remained faithful to her, and avoid hurting her feelings by killing.

Blossom flew after the main retreating group deeper into the sewers, and the foul water there were noticeably higher. Bubbles took a deep gulp before speeding after her sister.

Flying into the tunnels, following the frightened panting and voices of the criminals, it didn't take long for Blossom to land her fists on one, causing him to fall face-first into the filthy muck. As he was getting up, gasping for air and horrified that he literally had piss and crap in his face, Blossom took him by the collar and smashed him against the subterranean masonry, hard enough to knock his lights out.

Bubbles wanted to do similar, except her target had turned around and fired shots at her. The bullets bounced off her arms as she covered her face before she threw a punch at her attacker, all the while with Alice and her desensitization exercises in mind. The woman was dashed against the wall, even as Bubbles felt her heart racing and her arm throbbing in harmless, but barely-bearable pain. But she was still moving. Picking her up by the hair, Bubbles slammed her head against the wall, mimicking her leader sister.

There were still four of them. Two of them were oddly stationary, prying open corroded metal bars in the dirty water. The other two had foolishly continued running straight down the tunnel.

"Bubbles, go for the men on the ground!" Blossom ordered quickly before shooting straight for the foolish runners, thinking that the stationary men were easy targets that Bubbles could handle.

But the stationary men were quick. After pulling off the iron bars blocking their escape route, the men slid down the tight chute leading deeper into the sewers, and by the time Bubbles had darted up to the opening, the second man was already gone. Shining her eye-light into the opening, she could see the men sliding down - sewage water was rushing down the opening, and soon there was a splash and the second runner was knee-deep in stomach-turning foul water.

Although Bubbles was smaller and thus had no problem fitting through the chute, she would still have to basically bathe in the sewage, and the smell was worse down there, and she didn't like the idea of being alone below in the dark either. The timid one froze, unable to act, unable to think.

Blossom, in the meantime, had made short work of one of her runners with a quick kick to the back and a tap on the base of the skull. The other was knocked unconscious by a point-blank non-lethal blast of her heat beam, which caused the man to collapse, vomit everything he had in his stomach and fall unconscious.

The leader of The Three smiled, thinking that the operation was clean and executed flawlessly, but when she turned around, it faded when she saw Bubbles leaning against the sewage tunnel wall - and there were no subdued criminal anywhere near her. Shock and alarm reverberated through her being when she realized that her sweet sister might have let some criminals go.

"Bubbles! What did you do!?" Blossom questioned as she flew up to her most vulnerable sister.

"I can't… I just can't…" Bubbles mewled sadly, knowing very well what she had done. But she just couldn't - goosebumps were already rising just by her stepping in the water, and Agent Blake was right; her boots were waterproof. "It's really dirty and smelly and dark down there and…"

"You can't just let the bad guys go!" Blossom scolded, more out of urgency than anger, before promptly sliding down the sewage chute Bubbles refused to take. However, by the time Blossom was down in the lower levels of the city sewers, the men were gone, and there were even more tunnels going in all directions. Focusing her eyes, she tried to look through the walls of the sewage tunnels, but she couldn't see very far with all the concrete, metal and tightly-packed soil in the way. The criminals were long gone; fear had given them wings, apparently.

When there was nothing left to be done, Blossom had to fly back up through the sewage chute, getting dirty. She emerged out of the hole quite suddenly, and Bubbles jumped when she did it with a splash of filthy water and questionable muck.

"That was very disappointing, Bubbles!" Blossom expressed immediately and had to consciously stop herself from growling and going all out on her sister. Bubbles could only stare at her boots, head lowered and back hunched in shame.

"But I was scared!" Bubbles exclaimed.

"Being scared is one thing!" Blossom couldn't help but chide her, no matter how much she wanted to hold back. No matter what Alice said. "I don't like getting wet down here too! Urgh! Now, look at what you made me do! And for nothing, too!"


The City of Townsville. Tenement Area. Under 23 Edgar Street.

6 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1141.

Buttercup had caught up with her latest victim easily enough, catching her before she could throw herself down a slope in the tunnels. She pinned the hired muscle to the floor, and when she produced a pistol and let off a shot right in her face, snatched it away and crumpled the gun up like paper before tossing it away. Taking the mercenary's gun hand, Buttercup slammed it against the wall, breaking many of the bones in it, causing the woman to scream.

"Please- I surrender- Don't kill me!" the hired muscle pleaded with Buttercup, who straddled her chest and had a hand on her throat.

Buttercup threw a look over her shoulder to see if Blossom or Bubbles were approaching. They weren't. In fact, she could hear them now, and Blossom was busy lecturing Bubbles. Bubbles was doing what she did best - crying like the little wimp she was when she couldn't do even the most basic things in combat.

They wouldn't be stopping her anytime soon.

Looking back at the unscrupulous mercenary she had cornered, she began walloping her in the face - going with her left fist, then the right, then the left, rinse and repeat, making sure not to strike the woman too hard as it'd end the fun too quickly. At some point, one of the bad woman's eye had popped out with bloody tears going all around, and she'd broken her nose as well as sending teeth flying in the usual, predictable fashion. One thing that was quite new, however, was when Buttercup had struck the woman in the mouth the wrong way, and buried the poor woman's teeth inside her own jaw.

Buttercup giggled at her new discovery - and thought to herself that she should do it more often.

"Pleeeeeeease…" the woman continued to beg, somehow defying the odds and still living.

Buttercup did not listen. She was enjoying it too much. Instead, when she began to hate the way the mercenary was looking at her, with her one functioning eye and even with the eye that had popped partially out of its socket, she drove her thumbs into them and squeezed with her hands on the woman's head.

Blood pooled in the sockets before they flowed out like eruptions of water geysers. Then Buttercup had other ideas as the woman screamed weakly, nearly dead.

Pressing her hands against the woman's head, she exerted all her strength into it and before she knew it, the woman's head was crushed like a fruit. It sounded like it too. Blood like juice came out as the woman's skull was shattered. Brain matter spurted out from openings in the woman's scalp and various orifices old and new when the pressure became too much.

Buttercup looked behind her once more. Nothing. No little beads of glowing pink and blue. Her stupid sisters were still at it. She could hear them right then.

"-I'm sorry-" Bubbles was sobbing like the baby girl she was.

"-those criminals will continue to hurt others and it's going to be your fault and I promised Alice I'd keep you close to me and yet-" Blossom had continued her tirade regardless, obviously upset and disappointed.

Buttercup didn't care, but she'd had her fun. Removing her hands from what remained of her victim's head - which was now little more than pulp, she started collecting more teeth for her secret teeth jar before scraping up the mess she had made and throwing them into the sewage water.

It was time to put her toys away. Standing up, she braced herself against the dead body she had made and pulled an arm off before stuffing it into a small inlet. She did the same with the other limbs, shoving them into other similar hiding places. The torso was more of a challenge, however.

"-don't know how I am going to sleep tonight and honestly, how do you even sleep at night after everything you've done wrong? Do you even care? Because it seems that you don't, and it's not just this time-" Blossom went on in her lecture while Bubbles went on being her crybaby self, completely distracted from what Buttercup was doing out of sight, out of mind.

"I'm sorry…" Bubbles continued her pathetic whimpers.

With the torso, Buttercup had resorted to flying further into the tunnels in search of a larger secret place to hide her misdeed. As luck would have it, she'd found an opening leading into another tunnel large enough for the torso.

The footsteps and barking of K-9 unit dogs prompted her to act quickly, hurling the torso so far into the adjacent tunnel that it disappeared into the dark, and the foul water did the rest, taking the evidence of her murder to some far away place.

Flashlights shone on her just as she was done, and she shouted her identity at the cops so that they wouldn't be an inconvenience.


The City of Townsville. Tenement Area. Under 23 Edgar Street.

6 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1145.

By the time Detective Mullens, Olivia, Agent Blake, and Stanley Walker had gotten to the secret drug junction, the Girls had already cleaned up the place real good. The drug dealers and their muscles responsible for the area's drug distribution were scattered, which Detective Mullens thought would cripple the drug trade in the Tenement Area, as other drug dealers would no doubt hear about how their 'peers' had disappeared from work.

The Girls had missed a spot though. A haggard-looking man with hippy hair and facial hair, wearing a more haggard-looking army jacket sat up, still halfway through the pleasurable parts of his stupor. On noticing who he was looking at, he clumsily pulled a revolver out of his jeans pocket.

"Ri got this!" the talking dog launched forward at a blinding speed before jumping the haggard drug addict, biting his gun hand and forcing him to release his weapon before dragging the drug addict to the ground, who screamed as if he was living his last seconds.

When the slow-thinking mover was subdued, Stanley Talker withdrew himself and kicked away the revolver the addict had dropped on the ground with his front paw. The talking dog growled at the druggie to warn him.

"Prrrf! Rrrr… You taste disgusting!" Talker insulted the man, who stared at the talking dog wide-eyed, wondering if he was still hallucinating. The dog spat some saliva out, some of which fell on the man. "Rorrff!"


The City of Townsville. Tenement Area. Under 23 Edgar Street.

6 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1155.

When Detective Mullens and his task force had gotten to Blossom and Bubbles, Blossom had long switched gears and moved on to console her meek sister, feeling a little guilty about lecturing her continuously and making her cry.

"I'm sorry, Bubbles, for the things I've said. I just wanted to protect our new friends, that's all," Blossom would say as she hugged her sister closely

"I wanted you to be happy like before, Bubbles, when you've made some new friends by saving them," Blossom would add.

"You can't keep going like this and I just want you to change for the better," she would then say, but none of her half-hearted apologies and rationalizations had made Bubbles felt better. If anything, it'd made things worse. It'd made Bubbles wish she was never one of the so-called Three, The Angels of Justice. It'd made her wish there was an easy way out.

"Did any of them get out?" Detective Mullens would ask when everyone was gathered around the drugs they had seized. Bubbles had paid no attention to the meeting when it commenced as she didn't want to be reminded her of her failure again. Blossom nudged at her with her elbow, thinking that Bubbles should do her due diligence and report her shortcomings honestly.

"There were two of them…" Bubbles mumbled softly.

"What? Could you speak up, Bubbles? My old ears just got worse recently," Detective Mullens said.

"She said there rere two rof rhem," Stanley Talker repeated Bubbles' statement - he'd heard her loud and clear, owing to his superior sense of hearing compared to the average human being. The dog was concerned about Bubbles again, about how upset she was. Padding up to her, he began licking her hand once more, even though it was filthy.

"Will you be able to track them, Talker?" Agent Blake asked. Stanley, for some reason, turned to the agent aggressively and growled.

"Yes, but Ri'm rot doing rit for you," Stanley said aggressively, suddenly hostile. Blake knew the reason why the talking dog had gotten all bitey and teethy. He hated anyone to do with the USDO, owing to his experience.

"We're not all like that, you know," Agent Blake tried to reassure the dog.

"Ronly rafter Ri eat you!" the talking dog growled at Agent Blake. Bubbles took him by the neck.

"Mister Stanley, don't," Bubbles said, more upset that her friends were now fighting among themselves. The dog backed off on her word and whimpered when he realized he had contributed to his new friend's misery. He returned to licking Bubbles and rubbing his snout on her after that, taking in her scent.

"I'll follow Talker and bring a couple of guys with me," Olivia volunteered. Her father reluctantly agreed. "I'll be fine with our good ol' canine friend here."

"Ri'm rot that rold - ronly two years rold," Stanley corrected.

"Haha, alright," Olivia laughed as she stood up to pat the talking dog.

"Any other missing drugsters?" Detective Mullens opened the floor to the rest of them.

"Nope," Buttercup answered confidently, lying as always, though this time, it wasn't a straight lie. After mutilating her victim and getting identified by the cops, she had taken great pains to speed through the sewers to nap a few more criminals to cover her tracks. She couldn't take all of them down though.

"Just a few more," Blossom added, and couldn't help but look at Buttercup suspiciously. "They were running everywhere."

"My boys should be rounding them up even as we speak," Detective Mullens said. "Good job, Girls."

"I'll inform General Blackwater the three of you are taking the rest of the day off. It wouldn't do for the three of you to patrol the skies looking and smelling like this," Agent Blake said. "It's not healthy, not that I've ever heard of the three of you getting sick, and it's not something you'd want."