Chapter 22: The Descent (Part 2)

The City of Townsville. Tenement Area. Silver Age Cineplex.

10 FEB (Friday) 1989. 1954.

Agent Blake wasn't kidding when he said that he would stick closely to the Girls to make up for Bubbles' absence. As Blossom and Buttercup took cover on either side of the grand entrance into the old cineplex, Agent Blake's men had formed two groups and sprinted to catch up with the Girls and take up positions behind them.

The moment Blossom and Buttercup flew into the lobby area, past the box office, guns were already blazing and there was no going back. A couple of armed guards were taking potshots with shotguns the moment they streaked in and surveyed the room.

"Buttercup, left!" Blossom ordered as she flew over the man on her right, stoically enduring a shotgun blast to her chest as she did. He had been hiding behind a wooden desk. She was able to shoot him with her heat beam easily from her vantage point, knocking him out. Buttercup had a less elegant solution; crashing into her assigned target and dashing him against the wall before delivering a knock-out punch to his face when he was too stubborn to fall unconscious.

Agent Blake and his men needed only to come in and cuff those men. Blossom and Buttercup took up positions behind Cinema 3 as they waited.

"Hey Bloss, these men are not cultists!" Blake informed the Angel of Justice. Numerous possibilities assaulted his mind, putting pressure on him. "There could be more than twenty bad guys, watch out!"

And he was right. Doors leading into the lobby area burst open simultaneously, forcing him and his men to scramble into cover; some had to leap to safety when more gunshots resounded. A Powerpuff Task Force soldier was caught in the ambush, bullets ripping through him as he fell to the ground - dead or alive, no one knew.

"Go! Get the hostages! We'll hold them off!" Blake shouted over the gunshots and Blossom nodded. He spotted criminals, still of unknown affiliation, shooting from the doors of restrooms for both sexes, as well as multiple employee corridors. There were two or more to each door, which meant he was outnumbered.

Blossom and Buttercup crashed through the sturdy doors of Cinema 3, then through another set of double doors meant for soundproofing. Rows upon rows of seats greeted them immediately. The lights in the cinema were still bright, at least, revealing men and women hiding behind seats, with guns pointed at them - mostly shotguns, for some reason.

The hostages were lined up near the silver screen, forced to kneel with their hands bound behind their backs, and their ankles tied as well. There was a couple of security guards, and nine others - three of whom were men, the rest women. A couple of children who looked like siblings, about twice the Girls' physical age. They were guarded by a couple of women in red, flowing robes. They had street-grade machine-pistols in their hands. Cultists.

A man in a similar robe stood before the Girls, in the same aisle. He seemed to be the guy in charge. His full beard and mustache, and long flowing hair invoked the appearance of a kind of religious leader.

"Ah yes, His young little angels…" the head cultist said as if greeting them in some kind of a party. "We've been expecting you."

There was an explosion outside. A grenade had gone off. Whether it belonged to a criminal or Blake's men, neither Girls knew. It worried Blossom – she was worried about Blake and friends. There was no telling if they were fine or shot dead. She saw the hostages at the front of the cinema, and that worried her too.

"Let them go, mister," Blossom warned the head cultist. "If you give up-"

"Give up? There's no giving up," the head cultist interrupted. "All will fall under His power willingly or otherwise. No, only by giving in to him will we truly be free – Blossom and Buttercup, let me propose to you this instead: join us and you will have anything to your hearts' desire!" He looked at Blossom eye-to-eye. "Blossom, He can give your friends peace and you, everything there is to know." He looked at Buttercup. "And Buttercup, only He can sate your desire for battle and glory, if you would let him."

"Who are you talking about?" Blossom asked.

"Really?" Buttercup could not help but utter, wanting to know more.

"Yes. And unlike even your dearest 'mother' and the USDO, He will not stop you from doing what you want with petty morality and philosophy…" the head cultist ignored Blossom and preached to her sister instead. Buttercup did not understand half of it, but she liked whatever she could grasp. Sick of Blossom and Dad telling her what to do, it sounded like a good deal.

"Don't listen to him, Buttercup! He's a bad guy!" Blossom said to her sister before turning back to the head cultist. "Let those poor people go, or you'll be sorry!"

"Very well," the head cultist said nonchalantly and made a gesture to his fellow cultists. The women in robes guarding the hostages unsheathed knives and placed them dangerously on the closest hostages' throats. "Then I'll make it simple for you. Give in to Him or watch those people die."

"Why do you have to be such a bully!?" Blossom shouted in disbelief. "What did those people ever do to you?"

"It's nothing personal. Their lives are immaterial but instrumental," the head cultist said, with a condescending smile aimed at Blossom. "So, what would it be? An inexhaustible supply of pleasure from knowing? Or pain and death?"

Blossom glared at the head cultist, glaring straight into his eyes, resisting the urge to blind them with her infrared beam. Her eyes kept switching between him and the hostages. But no, she couldn't trust him. She knew not to trust strangers, much less those who were vague about their acquaintances and affiliation.

"Buttercup, the left hostage, now!" Blossom ordered as she flew towards one of the hostage takers, enduring a hailstorm of bullets from the shooters even as she unleashed her very own with her heat vision and MP5, knocking out several cultist shooters or wounding them. But before she could punch her out, she had already slit the security guard's throat. The same thing had happened with Buttercup's attempt at saving a hostage.

Then it happened. The other criminals in the room had started gunning down the hostages. After punching out her hostage taker, Blossom tried to help by descending upon the shooters with Buttercup by her side, ripping through cinema seats, tackling bad guys, but there were too many of them. Half the hostages had hit the floor, dead. The other half, out of fear. But there was also shooting coming from the projector room. A sniper, who had taken the life of another hostage prone on the floor without second thoughts.

"Buttercup, go up!" Blossom ordered as she continued to wreak havoc at the seats, giving one cultist a stunning upper-cut before smacking aside the machete of another and giving him a power-punch to the chest.

The head cultist did not run, but he stood where he was, watching with interest, arms folded behind him.

Buttercup flew up and into the projector room, breaking through the wall and smashing apart the film projector and knocking the red-robed cult sniper there into the wall. His wooden-stocked hunting rifle clattered to the ground. It seemed that his conviction had given him more tolerance to pain, as all he did was to scramble to his knees, ignoring his wounds and pain.

"Wait!" the cultist pleaded, and somehow, it'd gotten Buttercup's attention.

"What!?" Buttercup asked brusquely with a shout. The cultist ripped off his pendant – which had a crab-like claw carved into it – and held it in his hand before putting out his arms as if expecting a hug from Buttercup.

"I sacrifice myself for your pleasure!" the cultist said. "Tear me to pieces, I ask of you!"

Buttercup hadn't thought about killing behind Blossom's back at first. Everything had happened so quickly that she didn't even have time to think. But now that the cultist had presented himself to her…

"Are you kidding? Why would you-?" Buttercup tried to interrogate the cultist, finding him and his request more strange than anything, but he'd interrupted her by tearing open his red robe and the buttoned T-shirt underneath, revealing flesh crisscrossed with scars.

"He requested this of me and I bow to his will!" the cultist explained, his face twitching and his lips shivering with some kind of an obscure and perverse pleasure he felt from this.

It'd enticed her entirely, the offer too good to pass up. It'd tempted her so much that she couldn't resist grinning. She'd already had an idea of what to do with him.

"If you insist – open your mouth," Buttercup ordered the cultist kneeling before her in submission. He did exactly as he was told, opening his mouth wide as if receiving the flesh of Christ during a Catholic mass.

Staring at the cultist with a hungry, intense look, Buttercup seized him by the lower jaw with her other hand on his face and gave it the hardest yank she could muster. Blood splattered all over her vest when the cultist's lower jaw came right off, the skin and muscle snapping like wet rubber.

And he was still smiling, or at least what amounted to smiling when one no longer had a lower jaw. His upper lips were still curling upwards even as blood was being vomited out of the torn flesh and blood vessels below.

Next, Buttercup thrust her fist through the cultist's liver, cutting through flesh and hitting bone. She yanked whatever it was out, and it turned out to be the man's spine. It was the first time she had pulled a man's spine out through the liver - she didn't know she could do that. Unable to control his lower body any further, he fell on his back, upper lip still curled as he grasped Buttercup's arm lovingly, even caressing that very arm that was ravaging him.

"Urrgh…" Buttercup was disgusted by the man, how he was worshiping her arm. Taking one of it by the forearm, and putting a foot on his shoulder, she pulled it out by the shoulder socket before giving it a twist by the elbow as if it was a chicken wing, dislocating the elbow, and throwing the mutilated arm out of the way. The man had stopped moving by then, his upper lip uncurled. She gave him a kick in the side. No reaction. He was dead.

"There goes the fun…" she said, almost regretting how she had proceeded straight to tear the willing cultist apart - she thought she should have ripped off one finger at a time from his hands, or one tooth at a time. And it was all Blossom's fault! With her constant surveillance, she had made it a habit to rush through her kills. Her torture of Marcello was a fond memory, one that she wanted to replicate but hadn't been able to for the past month or so because of Blossom's tyranny.

The head cultist's offer had piqued her curiosity and interest. Would there have been more cultists for her to hurt and kill had she accepted his offer? The more she thought about his call to 'give in', the more she wanted to join up with him to find out… And she was so deep in thought that she was taken completely by surprise-

When Naga came bursting through the door to the projector room, tackling her out of it through the hole she made. It'd caught Buttercup so off-guard that she had forgotten to fly, and so the wayward little girl landed among the cinema chairs, groaning. After making a bigger hole for herself in the wall of the projector room by smashing the corners, Naga jumped out of it and landed close to her.

Blossom, who had to take down one gun-toting cultist or criminal at a time on her lonesome, was just punching out her last bad guy when Naga decided to join the fight.

Naga was armed differently this time, with a pair of shotguns, each wielded by two of her four arms. Her armor was the same, however, consisting of scale armor that reminded the Girls of a snake, and a hexagonal-patterned under-armor. Boots. Gloves. Hair tied into a bun. And her amber compound-iris eyes.

And she wasn't alone. The scraggly-bearded head cultist came forward, a serene smile on his face that was out of place in the chaotic battlefield. He unsheathed a machete, the blade of which seemed to reflect different colors of light at different times. However, it was his eyes that looked more dangerous - they had started glowing red somehow, and a normal person's eyes would not do that.

"Long time no see, Blossom," Naga said to the leader of The Three. "Ready for a rematch?"

"This is the last time you'll hurt my sister, Naga!" Blossom replied, balling up her fists, getting ready to strike.

"Are you sure, Little Miss Bossy?" Naga taunted as she pumped both her shotguns, working all four of her arms at once.

"Well, I'm sure!" Buttercup burst out of the heap of chairs she had landed in, a streak of green light following her up to the middle of the air. Without saying another word, she launched herself at Naga, who responded by firing both her shotguns at her.

Blossom, in the meantime, was engaged by the head cultist, who rushed her with his machete, taking swipes at her as he shouted like a madman while she dodged the surprisingly fast and furious blade strikes.

Buttercup had missed Naga on her initial attack, having been distracted by the twin shotgun blasts as she had to put up her arms to shield her face. She wasn't prepared when Naga lunged forward at her. Buttercup ended up crashing through a pillar holding up the projector room, causing it to crash down upon her.

The head cultist wound up his sword arm for a sweeping strike with his machete, only for Blossom to dart out of the way deftly as she was floating. Sensing an opportunity, she jabbed at him in the throat with a kick, knocking him back as he clutched his neck, momentarily unable to breathe. Sensing a chance to quickly neutralize the cultist as a threat, she went in for a tackle, knocking him down an aisle, herself rolling with him, before delivering a knock-out blow to his jaw.

Except he wasn't knocked out. He'd taken it like a champ, somehow stronger than a regular human being - than a human being trained for combat, even. The next thing she knew, she felt her skin split in her thigh, pain erupting as if acid was poured on her leg, before going deep down to her bone. She darted backward, looking down at her leg… To realize that she had been slashed in the thigh, and blood was pooling there. Seeing it made the pain worst. Clutching her wound, Blossom stifled a scream and held back tears as the head cultist rose, a bloody machete in hand. The weapon had turned out to be Duranium - Blossom thought that she recognized the inconsistent shine of the world's hardest metal.

Bursting out of the concrete rubble that had fallen over her, Buttercup shot towards Naga, knocking over more cinema chairs. The four-armed woman sidestepped the charge and whirled around just in time to block Buttercup when she had stopped quickly to throw some punches on her back.

Letting go of her shotguns, which hung on her neck, Naga continued to block Buttercup's unskilled but brutal strikes, before launching a knee at her, which Buttercup blocked with her own.

The tide was turning – Naga began throwing out punches of her own, in seemingly random combinations, at speeds only an enhanced being could ever hope to match. Upper left, lower right – then both upper arms – followed by both left arms then both right arms. When Naga punched with all her fists, Buttercup was thrown for a loop and was only able to block her upper arms while neglecting the lowers, which struck her in the stomach, sending her flying into the silver screen, breaking the fourth wall.

Seeing that Buttercup was in trouble, Blossom opted to end her confrontation early by firing a quick and dirty pair of weak heat beams weighed to knock out the head cultist, only for him to throw up his hands over his face, blocking it but receiving burns on his forearms.

Blossom stared at the cultist wide-eyed, mouth dropping. Just who was he? For her entire life, no ordinary man could withstand her attacks.

She simply couldn't believe it. Heating her eyes up, she charged them for a big one. The head cultist took the opportunity to draw a pistol from within his robes. They both fired at the same time, both of them blocking each other's shots simultaneously. The man was burnt; Blossom felt a sharp pain deep in her forearm.

But the head cultist had finally gone down, his blocking arm burned severely, his robe on fire. But so had Blossom, who lost control of her flight and collapsed from the severe pain. It was a Duranium bullet, fired from a Duranium pistol.

Meanwhile, Buttercup flew through the hole in the silver screen – she wasn't done with Naga yet – and straight at the four-armed woman with a flying kick only to be grabbed by the ankle and slammed into the floor, creating a crater in the carpeted wood, with Buttercup fallen through.

Sensing an opportunity, Buttercup sprang up and through the floor right underneath Naga, hitting her in her unmentionables with her right fist, causing her to fall back, clutching her groin with her lower two arms in a near-fetal position as her face contorted with pain. Floating upwards, Buttercup took advantage of Naga's fall by propelling herself at her head foot-first - what was meant to be a killing blow - but Naga had forced herself to roll out of the way. Buttercup's foot was buried in the floor instead of flesh and bone.

Blossom was clutching her arm as she dragged herself behind a cinema seat, bearing with an excruciating sensation that was spreading fast. Examining her arm, she immediately regretted it when she realized that the Duranium bullet had gone right through her forearm and embedded itself between her chest and belly. She could feel it in her, not as a tiny bullet, but as a bubble of pain, pulsing and expanding; the only good thing was that it had taken residence in her flesh and not a vital organ, not too deep from the surface.

Meanwhile, the head cultist was getting up. One of his arms was burned severely and in too much pain to be of any use. He tossed his robe away, letting it burn on the floor. Returning his pistol to its holster, he picked up his machete and started coming towards Blossom, intending to do his master's bidding and complete the task.

"Enough of this!" Naga screamed in frustration as she struggled to her feet and drew four swords from her back. "It's time for this to end!"

The flash of four Duranium-edged blades had intimidated Buttercup. The battle had dragged on for too long, and she was becoming weary, especially after getting thrown through too many walls and the floor. She'd even had trouble getting her foot out of the ground. As she tried desperately to pull it out, Naga began charging her, swords held with their tips facing her, hungry for her blood.

The moment Buttercup could see her reflection on the lethal blades, she forced herself to take flight, expending now-precious X-energy. She had only narrowly averted being cut to ribbons as she could feel sharp edges on her right arm. Stopping the thrust in mid-air, she let herself drop in an arc further down the movie theater. Naga continued her pursuit. Knowing that she couldn't run anymore, Buttercup dug in her heels and prepared to counter-charge the snake woman. Staring intensely at Naga, she plotted her next moves, her decision changing with each twirl of Naga's quad blades.

It felt impossible - it would be like brushing clay against a cheese grate and expecting it to come out fine. Fear broke through the steel fence in her heart as she realized just how much trouble she was in. Her vision grew green for some reason - which was when it happened. Naga's charge was broken somehow, and Buttercup saw her armor split, blood spurting out and skin tearing out of the blue - or out of the green. The four-armed woman dived for cover, which was when lines were cut into the cinema seats she was hiding behind.

But before she knew it, her green vision was gone, and when it was over, Buttercup felt exhaustion more severe than before - and it hit her belatedly that she had discovered her own version of the heat beam, except things did not burst into flames with her. Things were cut up right before her eyes instead.

Buttercup's joy at discovering a power that would put her on the same league as Blossom, however, was cut short when Naga hurled a cinema seat at her. Although the seat was well-cushioned, the force was great, sending her rolling down-range, back closer to the silver screen. Heaving the chair off, she discovered too late that Naga was swinging and thrusting her swords at her. She could only dodge so far before her back was to the wall, and by then, she felt, immediately, Naga's vengeance cutting through her face and chest before she was able to roll out of the way, turn tail completely and run. Drawing her pistol out of desperation, Buttercup fired multiple shots behind her on her retreat, which did little to hinder her enemy.

Blossom, in the meantime, was just as exhausted as her toughest sister, and she could only crawl away from the head cultist as he came closer and closer to her, machete held high above his head, and he couldn't wait to bring it down. Then there was the added complication of the head cultist's rear guard bursting into Cinema 3 - swallowing her pride, Blossom drew her pistol and fired on them, taking one down with no idea if she'd killed him and forcing the other to take cover behind a corner speaker.

They had served well as distractions, however, as the head cultist was able to gain on her with a sudden sprint, hacking at her with his machete, putting deep cuts in her shoulder and her arms when she threw her hands up. She could only cry helplessly not like a little girl, but as a little girl, as she began feeling faint from the pain, her vision blurring…

Buttercup wasn't far away from her, in terms of physical location and state. As she continued to retreat, Naga hurled two of her swords at Buttercup - one she narrowly dodged by ducking, but the other going right through her left thigh, causing her to fall forward, next to Blossom.

"It is done," the head cultist said cryptically as he stood over Blossom. Naga came up beside him, adding two more blades to the execution squad. Blossom shielded her face with an injured arm, afraid of what might happen next, while Buttercup had flipped herself to a supine position, a hand on the Duranium blade in her left thigh, afraid to pull it out and yet afraid to leave it in.

"My, my, you kids are growing up so fast. You girls are becoming a handful," Naga taunted as she twirled her blades in anticipation for the kill. "Too bad Bubbles isn't here to save the day - again - I would sure love to kill her too."

Blossom couldn't help but think back to her folly of succumbing to the rage in her and ending up mistreating her sister. Anger is temporary insanity, and outside of it, she could only regret it. Had Bubbles been beside them, things might have gone differently; there would have been some chance that she would have redeemed herself and done something to save them or turn the tide.

"I'm sorry," Blossom mumbled deliriously in between sobs as she cringed from the impending doom standing over her.