Chapter 40: Disempowerment
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
17 FEB (Friday) 1989. 2018.
The door to The House opened. The sound of laughter was evident even before it did. Professor Utonium stepped through the door, and Buttercup was sitting on his shoulder, laughing alongside him. It had been a wonderful day, and Buttercup had had so much fun that she had forgotten, at the moment, the grudge she harbored against her own Dad and her sisters.
The Townsville Winter Fair was slow-going at first. The professor had taken Buttercup to the games there, but Buttercup found them to be lame. An airsoft rifle just didn't have the same satisfying kick as the real thing, and the enhanced little girl would rather hurl people across a room than hurl balls at fake bank robbers.
But then there were the bumper cars and the teacup rides. The roller coasters managed to coax a smile out of Buttercup. There was a giant swing, and Buttercup had broken into a burst of hearty laughter after that. The melody of her innocent-sounding laughter was music to the professor's ears. It'd reminded him that Buttercup, deep inside, had always been a little girl. Beneath her law enforcement duties, beneath her hard-core exterior and the psychiatric disease that robbed her of her empathy and deepest emotions, the professor knew that his little girl was somewhere in there - and he would dig her out no matter even if he had to wear the tips of his fingers to the bone.
After the winter fair, the professor had taken Buttercup to the Townsville Zoo, to show her all the huge, majestic beasts there, animals that would appeal to her tomboyish tastes. Polar bears, lions, tigers, giant snakes like the Anaconda. There was even a bird show at the indoors aviary, and Buttercup actually complimented it by taking off after the eagles, and the audience applauded her and the eagles that were trying to keep their distance from her.
It was then that the professor learned that despite Buttercup's psychopathic outbursts, the public did not know the truth about her. From what he'd heard, only a very small minority was right on the money, while there were others who thought of her as a heroine and some who thought of her as just a general menace, but not a psycho. Some would ask to take a photo with her, and since Buttercup was in a good mood, she'd allowed it to feed her ego, though when she tire of it, she would begrudgingly make her poses and shake her fans' hands or put her arm around them with an impossible-to-miss frown on her face. She was still a hit despite her attitude. People saw her as cool that way.
As the early winter night came, they spent it on a drive-in movie, watching The Fly II, which was already on its way out of the silver screen. It wasn't a great movie and the professor was far too distracted to enjoy it, not just by how scientifically inaccurate and improbable it was, but by Buttercup's situation.
An entire day of fun had distracted her enough that she'd gone from cold as mint ice cream to sitting on his lap and reclining on him, warming up to him as though she had given him no reason for what he had to do next when they're back home.
The professor had been taking lots of pictures throughout the day. Multiple rolls of film's worth of them. And most of them were with her using her powers somehow – mostly hovering and carrying something heavy, like a seat full of bystanders, but there was this once he allowed her to discharge a laser beam so he could take a photo of that too. It was difficult to find a safe place to do that, but it was worth it, because if everything went well, Buttercup would never, ever be able to pose for those shots again.
After coming back home, the professor took his time – he knew what he had to do, and Buttercup was none the wiser. The entire day was planned to make her forget her grudges and drop her guard and it'd work perfectly. Shepherding her upstairs, he bathed her and allowed her to break whatever rules with her enhanced abilities as she wanted. Running fast in The House, flying fast into the washroom, whatever it was because she wouldn't be able to do it again for long if everything went as planned.
Then the final path began. After getting all cleaned up, Buttercup looked ready for bedtime, but the professor offered her something else.
"How about I carry you, Buttercup?" he said. "You look tired."
"That would be great, Dad," Buttercup agreed, and the professor picked her up, and held her closely. Instead of going into the Girls' room, he'd turned the other way: towards the stairs. "The last few days were tiring."
"Where are we going, Dad?" Buttercup asked, confused. Daddy had promised to spend even more time with her in her room, reading her some of the cooler bedtime stories, telling her some of the stories the security officers in the USDO had cooked up.
"I need to perform a little medical examination on you, Butterfly," the professor lied, and had kept his adopted daughter's chin on his shoulder to hide his expression from her. It was impossible to hide his emotions this time. He had no idea what could happen next. There was a possibility that he might not even see her again. "Just a small one. Can a tough fighter like you handle it?"
"It's just a little medical examination, Dad," Buttercup boasted, then yawned. "I can handle lots of criminals all at once. A little medical examination is nothing."
'Like how you handled those bums in the sewers?' the professor thought to himself but didn't let it out. The thought of Buttercup killing those beggars in the sewers was still grating at him, and that was next to her killing an unarmed woman and attempted infanticide. It was unacceptable, no matter what her reasons were.
He brought her down into the labs. There, he instructed her to get changed into her uniform and gear. He'd planned all of this. He'd brought a set of her uniform and gear down without any of the Girls realizing what he was going to do. They trusted him so utterly that he could be waving a Duranium gun in their faces and they'd still be smiling at him – even Buttercup. She might bear grudges against him, but she wouldn't expect him to really hurt her anytime soon.
When they were in the labs, Buttercup had gotten off the professor, so he led the hovering girl by hand into a corner of the lab she had rarely seen and never visited in recent memory. Last she saw, it was an old, boring place. It was all the better for what would come next.
It was different this time when she saw it. Where there was once an empty storage area, a metal table shaped like a cross, or an X, stood in the middle of it. There were machines surrounding it. An ECG, heart rate monitor. Tanks filled with some kind of gas with nozzles pointing towards the middle. A computer was hooked up to them, with wires leading in and out. There was also a tray full of medical instruments. It was intimidating even to Buttercup. She stood rooted to the ground, unwilling to go in.
The professor strolled in, his head held low, but when he turned around, he'd put on his biggest smile.
"Hop on, Buttercup," he said to her, patting the head cushion of the Duranium table. There were Duranium claws on either side of the head cushion. Cautiously, Buttercup lay herself down on the table, taking care not to bump her head against the Duranium claws. "Stretch out your arms and legs sideways, Buttercup. Like when you were playing with the snow."
Buttercup did as he asked, completely unaware of her Dad's intentions even when she had to put her wrists and ankles inside the open shackles on the arms and legs of the Duranium cross.
The professor proceeded, quickly, to secure her legs, before moving onto the arms. He then closed the claws surrounding Buttercup's head and neck and tightening them such that she could only stare straight up into the ceiling. The restraints clicked loudly and ominously. Buttercup tried moving, but her arms and legs were trapped. She was stuck in a spread-eagled position.
The professor stood before her, tears he had been holding back for a while spilling out.
"I'm sorry, Buttercup, but this is the only way," the professor cried.
"Dad? What are you doing?" Buttercup asked, panic rising in her as she struggled against her restraints. She had never been stuck in one place like this before, so she couldn't help but feel trapped. "What's happening!? Dad!"
"It's the only way, Buttercup. I'm so sorry," the professor cried again. "I'm going to have to try to remove your powers."
"Dad! No! Don't!" Buttercup screamed and cried. She tried to levitate her way out of the restraints, or even break the table away from the concrete floor, but it was secured to the foundations of The House such that she was anchored in place by the entire house. She sobbed and wailed when she realized that no amount of struggling could free her.
"It's going to be okay, Buttercup," the professor tried to comfort the little girl. He came up beside her, stroking her hair affectionately.
"Daddy… Please don't," Buttercup begged, tears flowing freely. Her Dad continued stroking her hair possessively, before pulling away. "I'm scared… Please let me go, please!"
"I can't. I'm sorry, honey," he apologized again. Unbeknownst to Buttercup, there were risks involved. Death was a possibility, one of many other unwanted possibilities. But it had to be done. It was either risk Buttercup's life for the Girls' freedom, or lose the Girls to corruption.
"Daddy's sorry," he apologized profusely, before pulling away with Buttercup still struggling against her restraints, grunting and grimacing against it. The professor stepped outside the chamber Buttercup was in, before closing the door and pressing a few buttons on a keypad outside.
"DAD! NO!" Buttercup screamed. The professor's index finger hovered over the 'execute' button. He couldn't help but hesitate. He knew the risks involved. He'd hesitated every step of the way. More than once, he'd considered just letting things be. But now, it was too late. He'd burned the bridge after crossing it by betraying Buttercup's trust in him.
The professor jabbed at the 'execute' button hard.
"NOOOO!" Buttercup yelled, her voice still clear even with the glass all around her. Anti-X was sprayed all over her form half the gas tanks in the room, through the nozzles above her, like a white rain from above.
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House
17 FEB (Friday) 1989. 2055.
The Duranium table room Buttercup was held in for her disempowerment was completely filled with fog when the professor discharged his Anti-X into the room. It took a while to clear, and all the while, the professor was scared. Afraid. Terrified. Buttercup had stopped screaming and crying. This was followed by a powerful discharge of a kind of green electricity shortly after. Energy had been released in the process. Through the haze and wave of sadness, the professor surmised that it could be a discharge of Chemical X energy, such that Buttercup would have little or none of it left.
But then again, whether that would matter or not would hinge on whether Buttercup survived the process. And the professor was afraid that she didn't.
When the white mist inside Buttercup's chamber had cleared itself out with the help of the ventilation system and air scrubbers, the form on the Duranium cross-table wasn't moving. He could see from the other side of the bulletproof glass that Buttercup's eyes were closed too.
"Oh God no! No no, no!" the professor cried as he went on a full-on panic mode, unlocking the door and rushing into the Duranium table room. Hurrying to Buttercup's side, he scrambled to pick up a stethoscope, accidentally knocking over some emergency surgical instruments, before roughly putting the earpieces on and searching for a heartbeat with the other end.
"Please be alive, Buttercup," the professor pleaded with his surrogate daughter – whether dead or simply unconscious, he didn't know. "Please don't leave me so soon."
With Buttercup's life on the line due to his doing no less, the professor was too panicked to even do even the basic grunt work all doctors should know by heart. He searched for a heartbeat, and couldn't find any. Sucking in his breath and hushing up, he scanned the appropriate area again, until…
Yes. There it was.
It was there, but faint. The professor measured her heart rate with a watch. It was slow too. Looking around for better instruments, he realized that, in his panic, he had forgotten that he had arranged a full suite of medical electronic equipment in the room. The ECG would have made for a better method to measure heart rate since it was divorced from the vagaries of human emotions.
Except he needed to check Buttercup's other vital signs. Skipping the ECG, he put a finger under her nostrils and confirmed that she was still breathing, if not as strongly. Taking a penlight out of his breast pocket, he opened one of her eyelids – but what he saw there didn't need a penlight to reveal. The green bioluminescence in her eye was gone. He checked her other eye. Same thing.
Both her eyes were dark brown underneath that glow, but they weren't entirely so, unlike Buttercup's genetic source, Kimiko Scarlett Ito. There were speckles of bright green scattered throughout her pupils, likely due to exposure to Chemical X.
Reaching out for the tray without taking his eyes off of his dear daughter, the professor searched for the thermometer there. He couldn't find it. Looking around at the tray, he realized that it wasn't there. Thinking back, he thought it might have fallen off the tray. Bending down, he searched for it on the floor, and he found it quickly. Scattered on the tiled floor was his emergency surgical instruments and in that mess was his thermometer.
"D-dad?" he heard Buttercup whimper just as he was about to get back up. It'd hit him like a truck, hearing his Butterfly speak again. It wasn't just a wave of relief overcoming him, but fear – what would Buttercup think of him now? No matter how justified he was to disempower her, there was no telling how much a kid would understand, much less a kid like Buttercup, who was suffering from certain mental imbalances.
"P-please let me go…" Buttercup begged. The professor got back up and saw what she had become. The way she was looking at him with her non-glowing, tearful eyes had told him everything. The way her mouth hung open… He couldn't imagine what it felt like to lose over 95% of one's body strength.
"Shh… Hey… It's okay…" the professor held the little girl and comforted her. Reaching out for her shackles, he began unlocking them, first freeing her hands before letting her go and freeing her legs. "Can you sit up?"
Buttercup didn't try it immediately. Then, anemically, she tried pushing herself up into a sitting position but failed at first. She succeeded – barely – on her second try, with shivering arms that were likely taxed a hundred percent.
"I… I feel heavy…" Buttercup said. No doubt, the professor thought, it had something to do with the gear he'd gotten her to put on. With her enhanced strength gone, even the lightest of weights had become a huge burden now. The Girls had never complained about weight unless they were lifting objects by the tonnes. The Girls could walk for many hours on end without feeling the same kind of fatigue that would have reduced a normal girl to tears. Buttercup would be the first of The Three to have to contend with her natural weakness as a little child.
"I'm going to carry you and put you down, okay?" the professor said, before cradling her in his arms and lifting her off the Duranium table with a grunt. "Try standing for a minute, then walking."
Taking her out of the room, the professor set her down in the middle of an open space in the labs. He'd kept his hands under her armpits to assist her. It was like teaching a baby how to walk.
"You ready?" the professor asked. Buttercup nodded to him half-heartedly, her mind still too much of a blur to continue hating him for what he had done. Professor Utonium let go after that.
And found out that Buttercup couldn't even keep herself straight for long. After shivering from the effort for just a few seconds, she began sagging. She'd nearly fallen down had her Dad not catch her.
"It… It's too heavy, Dad," Buttercup mewled, and started crying again. The professor knew what was wrong, and it'd confirmed the results. She had become too weak to carry even her own gear, although to be fair, the USDO had outfitted her with non-standard gear that wouldn't be fit for a normal kid. There were multiple Kevlar plates on each side of her vest where even trained adults tend to carry just two in total. Her shoulders and upper arms were protected by more Kevlar plates too, as were her legs. Her entire suit was almost twice as heavy as her… and certainly far heavier than what normal children could and should carry.
"Here, let me take it off," the professor said.
The rest of the tests he'd devised had become a mere formality. He'd arranged for her to attempt to shoot her guns (without her armor). She'd remarked that her pistol was heavy and when she fired it, she'd missed by a mile as her hands were trembling as if they were diseased and the gun flew out of her hands from the recoil. She could barely even hold up her MP5 submachinegun, and when she fired it, the kickback was so strong that it'd knocked her on her butt with a yelp. The shot she fired wouldn't have hit the broad side of a barn. Attempting to use her laser vision resulted in some kind of a green electrical discharge from her eyes, some kind of feedback which Buttercup described to be as painful as getting soap in her eyes.
The professor moved to help her when it'd happened. But when he took her by the arm, Buttercup yanked it away, crying as she glared at him.
"Why did you have to take away my powers!?" she screamed at him. The professor reached for her again, only for her to dodge the effort.
"What do you think!?" the professor snapped at Buttercup. He couldn't help but be frustrated at how oblivious she was, no matter how well he knew about her psychopathy. "I've warned you many times not to kill, not to hurt people without a good reason! I've warned you and you just went and killed again in the sewers!"
Shit. He wasn't supposed to say that. The professor couldn't help but wear a shocked look on his face when he realized he had a slip of the tongue.
"Blossom told you?" Buttercup said in disbelief.
"Does it matter who told me? It's done," the professor said as he seized her by the arm and pulled her to her feet, and for the first time, Buttercup was helpless to resist - and she'd actually struggled hard but couldn't break her Dad's grip. She could only get herself free when her Dad let go. Bending down and with a hand clasping her shoulder, the professor continued: "I've taken away your powers because I want you to live a normal life. No more law enforcement, no more adult responsibilities and killing except learning and growing up. As it should be."
Assuming the Anti-X had cured Buttercup of the anti-aging effects of Chemical X.
"But I...I can't be like this!" Buttercup asserted, still fighting against the professor's grip, but she was unable to break it. "I want to fight crime!"
"No, you don't!" the professor corrected her. "Buttercup, you need to give this a try, okay?"
After running a few more tests, the professor had to escort Buttercup up to her room - without the same physical strength, she had to get used to walking all over again, and without her power of flight, which all the Girls had taken for granted since discovering them, she had to climb stairs that had become daunting. Buttercup was actually tired out by the time she got to the airlock leading up to the surface. She had to be carried to her room for the rest of the way.
Not to mention, she had fallen asleep from exhaustion halfway to her room, and when she did, it had given the professor some time to think, as he watched his little angel snoring away in bed. The other tests he'd performed had yielded surprising results. For one thing, there was still Chemical X in Buttercup's blood, just a tiny amount - about 150 ppm, which was a fraction of what it used to be. This had explained the other results. Buttercup was still resistant to damage. Steel couldn't cut her, though crude Duranium drew blood easily when it used to require multiple strokes to do the same. In theory, it also meant that Buttercup would still be locked in growth stasis as the very same Chemical X that was protecting her also had the effect of holding her present form together in its original shape, in addition to rebalancing the hormones in her blood to prevent any chance at growth. The best the professor could hope for was that instead of taking eons to grow to adulthood, Buttercup could take millenniums instead.
Selicia wouldn't approve. She hadn't approved of this right from the start. Her mouth had uttered the right words to get on his good side, but deep down, she loved Buttercup the way she was. When the professor insisted on doing this early in the day, she'd refused to come back home, and instead stayed out after delivering the Girls to the Morbucks family estate.
And now, with the kind of results he had achieved, she was sort of vindicated - Buttercup would be neither here nor there after the application of Anti-X. She would never be able to fight crime again, but neither would she truly be a normal little child, considering that she could never grow up.
And the worst part was… What he'd done to Buttercup might well be permanent.
