Chapter 50: No Going Back (Part 5)

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

19 FEB (Sunday) 1989. 1416.

'That's good, sweetie,' Dad, dressed in white like an angel with his white lab coat, said as he was holding Blossom up by the arms and mounting her feet on his own. 'Now use your legs and keep yourself straight.'

He started walking, and as Blossom was standing on top of his feet, she started walking too. She squealed in delight at discovering walking. It was such a simple thing, walking, but she was simple back then too, and it brought her so much more joy than flying for the umpteenth time on patrol ever could.

'Now try it yourself,' he said before carrying her by the armpits and putting her on the carpeted floor. She was able to stand on her own as strength wasn't the issue. He crossed the room and put his arms out. 'Come to papa!'

Blossom tried to put one foot in front of the other, and for a few steps, she succeeded. But on the fourth or fifth, she tripped on her own foot and fell, knee first. She bawled like a baby, and Dad ran towards her, holding her tightly, cooing her.

'It's okay to fall, Blossom,' he said. 'It's how we learn to get up again.'

It's okay to fall

'Dada…' Blossom struggled to do what Dad called 'speaking'. Although she didn't even know the word then, she was thankful for her Dad's coddling.

It's okay to fall

But then a kind of mist started swirling around her. She tried swiping them away, but they wouldn't go away. When she looked around at her Dad again, he had turned into a skeleton. She couldn't even begin to scream when she saw that Daddy was no more.

It's how we learn to get up again.

Blossom came to the moment she heard the airlock door slam shut, though, with her mind numb and fuzzy, she couldn't decide what the noise was at first. Sitting up, she felt immediate, sharp pain in her shoulder, and when she looked down, she was met with a ghastly sight - Bubbles' scalpel was buried deep in her shoulder. The entire blade had disappeared inside. The pain would erupt with any slight movement. Blood had started running down the handle and dripping from its tip the moment she sat up.

Then everything hit her like a sledgehammer. Dad. Bubbles. She looked at Buttercup and Mom, hoping that they could protect him in her absence, but their lights were out, and judging by how much they were bleeding from their heads, they weren't in any condition to fight or even defend themselves, much less protect Dad.

She tried forcing herself to stand up, but she crashed back down when the pain in her shoulder became unbearable, instantly. The Duranium blade inside was sharp, and it was rubbing against the walls of her wound the moment she moved.

"Y-you… h-have… to take it out…" Mom, who had come to as well, said, though she was barely conscious, and she wasn't moving at all. "Please… H-hurry. Y-your Dad…"

"I can't! It hurts so bad!" Blossom cried the moment she realized her predicament was inescapable – at least not without feeling an obscene amount of pain. She felt like hurling just by thinking of pulling it out.

"You have to hurry… please…" her Mom said, before falling silent once again. Even though it'd hurt enough to make her nauseous, Blossom crept up to her to hold her hand, but all Selicia could manage was a weak squeeze before she passed out again.

"Mom? Mom!" Blossom cried – and though she would have preferred Dad's company, Mom still meant something to her. That she couldn't help feeling devastating on top of everything. "Don't leave me like this…"

But even as she was crying, she knew she had to get to Dad and stop Bubbles, somehow. Gripping the handle of the scalpel hesitantly, she started pulling it out, bit by bit, the sharp blade slicing and biting against her raw flesh, causing bleeding anew.

She screamed aloud, before and after she yanked it out.

Even Bubbles could hear her bloodcurdling scream from underground, as she descended the stairs towards Dad. She could have flown down the stairs, but she wanted to take her time this time, perhaps to think about what she was about to do, or perhaps to think of a way out of this. But she knew she wasn't Blossom, and the pain in her internals was doing the deciding for her. The only way was forward, towards Dad, and towards his end. In fact, she was beginning to regret leaving Blossom alive as the fairy godmother had promised an unlimited supply of her magic – and a new life for Buttercup and Mom too, if she did. It felt like the kind of good - the only good - she could do to redeem herself for killing Dad and one of her sisters.

But that decision would have to be decided later as she had arrived at the foot of the stairs, not far from Dad now, wherever he was.

When she emerged into the wide space underground that was the laboratory, she had expected to have to search every nook and cranny for her Dad. She had looked up to him, but she knew that he was only human and a regular human at that - weak, slow and afraid, and regular human beings tend to either die fighting in vain or run away and hide.

But no, Dad didn't do either of those. He was sitting behind his desk, looking at something. Bubbles couldn't see, and so she walked closer, still avoiding flight altogether until she could see what he was doing.

Dad was looking at a framed photo. Her sight was good enough - better than most people on the planet - that she could see from afar that he was looking at a picture of them, the entire family. On the desk was a large sniper rifle, the exact same model as Mom's - which he wasn't even holding.

"Dad," Bubbles said to the man coldly, her eyes still an unwavering hellish red. He seemed to shrink upon hearing her voice, hunching as though the entire house had collapsed upon him. Then, with his forearms braced against the desk, he pushed himself up to stand, as if with difficulty. His hand had found its way to the XM9 anti-material rifle, but he wasn't shouldering it. He was carrying it as if it was a briefcase, not a weapon.

"Hello, Bubbles," he greeted his adopted daughter.

"Are you going to shoot me, Daddy?" Bubbles asked as she stood rooted to the ground. The professor looked down at the Duranium gun he was holding as if deciding.

"No," he said. "I won't. I can't. I love you, Bubbles." With that, he set down the gun on his swivel chair.

"What happened to you, sweetie?" the Dad asked, taking a step forward. There was no fear in his eyes, just concern, and sadness.

"Bad things…" Bubbles said, herself upset. Faced with this moment of truth, she couldn't help but weep at the inevitability of things. "Lots of bad things."

"You can tell me, Bubbles," he said and came even closer. "This can end here."

"No," Bubbles clamped up.

"I'm your father. I can help you," he went on, now almost within arm's reach. "You've come back from this before. Remember? When you and Buttercup were fighting here? You can do it again."

"YOU don't know what I'VE been GOING through!" Bubbles screamed all of a sudden, but her Dad wasn't deterred. He wasn't even shocked at the slightest. It was as if he knew she was going to explode. "You don't know!"

"I know, Bubbles," Dad said.

"You don't know," Bubbles ranted madly. "You don't know! You can't know! I haven't told you!"

"It's the drug, isn't it?" Dad said. Bubbles opened her mouth, before shutting it, saying nothing more, so he went on: "I examined Buttercup last night, Bubbles. I couldn't find any sign of the drug in her. It threw me for a loop for a while, until Blake called."

"It's a lie," Bubbles denied. "He's LYING!"

"Let me help you," Dad offered again. He was close enough, and he'd bent down to bring himself to her eye level, putting his hand on her shoulder. "I can help you."

Bubbles closed her eyes, tears spilling out. But then she opened them again, her eyes were still a shocking red, and now she was glaring at him.

"You were never there!" she snarled at him, before giving him a punch in the stomach, which sent him sprawling. He tried to get up again, but there a sharp pain in his gut prevented him from rising from his knees. "You were never there! You COULDN'T protect me! You were SUPPOSED to PROTECT me! Now LOOK at me, Dad! LOOK AT ME!"

"Bubbles… I…" the professor uttered as he was clutching his stomach while kneeling on the tiled floor. Before he could say anything more, Bubbles picked him up by the collar and tossed him into the wall, where he slid down in a heap, his legs sprawled out in a rough sitting position, as if he was a ragdoll thrown against the wall. He wasn't moving after that.

"STOP!" came the voice of another little girl. Bubbles turned around and saw Blossom hovering lazily towards her, down the stairs, unsteady. She was clutching her shoulder, where there was a lot of bleeding. Blood was still dripping onto the floor from her, forming red beads. In her other hand was Mom's anti-material rifle, and when Blossom touched down and started walking towards her, the barrel was dragging on the ground. The moment she saw Dad slumped on the wall, she tried to raise the rifle, but Bubbles was faster. Quick-drawing her pistol, Bubbles pointed it at the unconscious Dad.

"NO! Don't!" Blossom screamed. She lowered her rifle again, afraid that Bubbles might go through with it, ending the life of a father she loved beyond words. "Bubbles, PLEASE! Don't do it!"

"Why shouldn't I?" Bubbles said, her pistol still trained on Dad, her hand shivering slightly from her drug problem.

"He's your Dad! Our Dad!" Blossom screamed desperately. "Don't kill him! Please!"


The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

19 FEB (Sunday) 1989. 1419.

A red muscle car pulled up on the driveway of The House. The scene was one of utter devastation. In the distance, up in the sky, an Apache attack helicopter was on the retreat, likely rendered useless by the number of friendlies on the ground precluding mad minute tactics. Half the USDO PTF soldiers looked like they were victims of a lab accident involving lasers, though surprisingly, no one was killed. Whichever hospital was taking them in, however, would have its work cut out for it. The other half of the soldiers had to tend to their injured squadmates.

Detective Mullens got out of his car from the driver's seat. Olivia disembarked from the shotgun. A huge German Shepherd weaseled out from the back after opening the door by itself.

"Talker, stay behind me," Garrett ordered as he was pulling out his pistol. "Olivia, beside me."

They had been working in the background all along, informing Blake of their discoveries, planning Bubbles' capture and whatever contingency plans they needed - except it had all gone to shit. Bubbles was unpredictable, he knew, but the degree of it was unknown. Who would have thought that her own family would be a target?

The detective and his companions ran straight through the door of The House with reckless abandon. There was no point in caution - if they were in, they were all in. No amount of cover and firearms could protect them from the kind of hurt Bubbles could put out. No, he wasn't counting on either of that to win the day, if it was at all possible.

He knew there was no guarantee of getting out of this one alive. All he knew was that he owed the Girls.

When they were in the living room, it was as if they were stepping into a war zone. There were cracks and craters everywhere, bullet holes riddled the walls and ceiling. Bubbles had drawn a trail of destruction with her newly-discovered ion beam.

Selicia Goodwin and Buttercup were bleeding on the floor. Detective Mullens went straight for the woman. His daughter tended to Buttercup.

"Still alive," the detective said after he felt for a pulse and found one, thankfully. Had Bubbles killed her own mother, he doubt that the little girl would be able to come back from this.

"Buttercup's breathing," Olivia announced.

"Poor kid…" Stanley Talker said as he began licking Buttercup in the face. "Ri ron't ragree with her way rof doing things, but no rone deserves this."

"Olivia, Stan, get them both fixed up," the senior detective said, just as he had caught sight of the ruined door of the airlock leading down. "I'm going in."

With that, he raced down the stairs to the lab, his pistol still out due only to force of habit. At this point, his firearm was more liability than an asset. There was no doubt that he was on the right track - as his track was marked by blood - whose, he could only guess. What he was sure of was that it was bad, no matter whose blood it was.

His fears were confirmed when he emerged into the huge, wide-open space of the lab, where Bubbles was keeping her own Dad, who was unconscious and slumped against the wall, at gunpoint, and Blossom was crying helplessly, pleading with her sister to stop.

"Bubbles!" Detective Mullens called out to her. She reacted by pointing her sidearm at him. He raised his arms in surrender, his pistol along with it. "Hey, easy, kid! I'm just here to talk!"Blossom looked at the detective, fearful of what might happen next.

Bubbles, without warning, shot him in the chest. Confirming Blossom's fears. She jumped when she did, fresh tears spilling anew. Mullens was knocked off his feet by the force of the gunshot, crashing to the ground, his pistol clattering on the ground, his hands going up to his chest. After coughing and wincing and curling up, he fell silent, all while Blossom had to look.

Bubbles returned the aim of her gun back to Dad.

"You- You just killed Mister Mullens!" Blossom screamed hysterically. "You killed him!" Bubbles was silent as she studied her sister.

"Why, Bubbles?" the leader sister wondered aloud as she started pacing. "Why now? I thought we worked this all out!"

"We tried to kill each other, Blossom, my dear sister," Bubbles replied unexpectedly, but her gun was still trained on Dad, something that Blossom was deathly afraid of. This way, Dad was just a hair-trigger away from being lost forever. "Things can't go back to how it used to be. I know it. Not when I have to do this."

"But why, Bubbles? Why kill Dad?" Blossom asked. She'd been working her way towards Bubbles, a fraction of an inch at a time, though it was not to say that her questions were distractions or false. "He loves us!"

"T-the fairy godmother…" Bubbles uttered, knowing full well by now how ridiculous it sounded. "She promised me more if I do it."

"What did she promise you?" Blossom asked, getting a little closer to Bubbles with each passing minute. She had no idea who this 'fairy godmother' was. In fact, it sounded as if Bubbles was just losing her mind.

"Her magic," Bubbles admitted tearfully. "She promised me more magic."

"Magic?" Blossom asked, confused. Magic was the stuff of fairy tales, not real life. Yes, Blossom decided. Bubbles was just losing her mind. The blood on her face, covering her nose and mouth, didn't help with that impression. Not only that, she refused to take responsibility for what she had done, what she was doing.

"This is all YOUR fault!" Bubbles exploded once more, her pistol arm shaking. Blossom thought she might never breathe again. She took another subtle step closer to Bubbles. "They gave me the power I need to fight crime - and you needed me to fight crime. I can't stop taking it now. This is YOUR fault! And now Dad's going to DIE because of YOU!"

"The fairy godmother promised, Blossom," Bubbles repeated herself. "I'm going to kill you too after I kill Dad. She'll take care of Mom and Buttercup that way, because Dad never did."

"You're a bad leader, Blossom," Bubbles went on. "You failed everyone. You failed me. The fairy godmother will be a better leader than you. That's what she said."

Blossom squeezed her eyes shut, contemplating, thinking of what she could do, what she had to do. Mullens was killed. Before that, she had severely injured Stanley Talker. Bubbles had attacked Mom and Buttercup - whether they were dead or alive, she didn't know. Almost everyone she knew and cared about was either hurt badly or killed, and Dad was going to join them. She opened her eyes again, her gaze concentrating deeply on Bubbles.

"It doesn't have to be this way, Bubbles," Blossom inched closer, slightly towards her Dad. Bubbles' eyes flitted down to the Duranium sniper rifle in Blossom's hands, before coming back up to meet Blossom's eyes. "We can still work this out - that's what sisters are for. Things could still go back to how they used to be."

"No, Blossom! It can't!" Bubbles exclaimed madly, her finger still a fraction of an inch away from setting off her gun. Then, she burst into tears on the bare mention of things that once were. "I've shot Mister Mullens, and I've hurt Dad… Mom… and Buttercup. I've hurt you. The magic! The magic in ME! IT'S BURNING ME!"

"They'll all forgive you, Bubbles. Dad's going to help you with your… problem," Blossom insisted, still inching her way closer to Bubbles, getting between her and Dad. She was just a few arm's lengths away from her. "What about spring? We talked about it all the time."

"Spring?" Bubbles uttered, as though the word she said was sacred.

"Remember what Dad said about spring? The world will be full of colors and the flowers will bloom. The butterflies will flutter and the bees will buzz around," Blossom described. Bubbles' pistol arm wavered as it shook, but it stayed on Dad. Bubbles couldn't stop crying. Blossom was getting closer and closer to her, and she was none the wiser. "We're going to put down our guns, and we can go back, Bubbles. We can go back to Dad, together."

"Dad…" Bubbles cried.

"Dad and Mom, you, me and Buttercup - we could all go have a picnic in the park. Mom's going to show us her secret sandwich recipe. We'll see the beautiful trees and flowers, Bubbles. You've always wanted to pick some Dandelions and give them to us," Blossom continued to describe hopefully as she came within arm's length of Bubbles. Bubbles' mouth was wide open; she herself could see spring, as it was pictured in the books and given in detail by Dad. She was staring into Blossom's eyes with her hellish red eyes, but she wasn't really 'all there'. "We'll take turns riding a pony at a real stable. We'll meet the cowboys. We'll laugh and play together… Put all this behind us… We can be like sisters again, Bubbles, like before."

For the first time in a long time, Bubbles smiled, her eyes full of longing, her mouth wide, as if she could taste it. Blossom motioned for her to take her sniper rifle, as a sign of trust, and while Bubbles took it by the middle as her eyes flitted down, Blossom pulled something out of her back pouch and lunged at her.

Bubbles felt something sharp going through her throat. She knew what it was even without seeing it. There was a sharp pain there, and she couldn't help but squeeze her pistol hand in shock and pain, setting off her pistol - but Blossom had planned all this. She'd grabbed Bubbles' wrist before that, pulled it aside. The shot that went off had gone elsewhere, and not into her Dad's forehead.

A shocking amount of blood splattered onto both Blossom and Bubbles when the former had stabbed the latter's throat, who then proceeded to pull the scalpel sideways, slicing windpipe and arteries all the way through. Bubbles collapsed, and Blossom caught her, lowering her down gently to the floor, at the same time withdrawing the scalpel she had used to mortally wound her own sister.

"YOU MADE ME, BUBBLES!" Blossom hollered and screamed and cried into Bubbles' face as she was coughing and retching up blood, her red eyes staring in shock and betrayal into Blossom's pink eyes. "YOU FORCED ME TO DO THIS! THIS IS YOUR FAULT! YOU DID THIS! NOT ME! NOT ME!"

Anger wasn't the only thing in Bubbles' voice, or mind, or eyes. Tears fell as she did this, as she saw the results of what she was forced to do.

"S-s-spr…" Bubbles tried to say, but with her windpipe sliced, she couldn't do it without coughing up a lot of blood and sputtering. Blossom cradled Bubbles' head, holding her close to her as she lay there, bleeding, wailing in utter misery at what she had to do.

In the meantime, Mister Mullens had dragged himself up to a sitting position, unbuttoning his trenchcoat. His chest felt like an industrial accident. Although the Kevlar there had caught the pistol bullet, the force was still strong enough to knock him flat. Although it was far from the first time he had been shot, it was something he could never get used to. His ribs felt sore. He wouldn't be surprised if his x-ray turned out to be a mess. But the scene before him was worse.

"Jesus…" he uttered when he realized what happened. Meanwhile, his colleagues were racing down the stairs. They stopped descending and stared when they realized that the situation was resolved, albeit in a less-than-ideal fashion.

There was blood all over the place, and a Duranium scalpel was lying in a pool of it. Blossom had done what he'd been trying to avoid all this while, what he'd dedicated his life to prevent.

And now Bubbles was lying in a pool of her own blood. In Blossom's arm.

It was over.