Chapter 68: Rabbit Stew
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
27 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1706.
"B- -som?" a voice, unclear, muttered. "-lo -m?"
Blossom squinted at the shape above her. Everything was a hotchpotch. Blurry. She couldn't even tell who it was above her, only that it was bright above. Or was that an illusion as well? She wasn't even squinting - as in actively. She was just looking. Her entire body felt like a block of ice, numb and almost impossible to move. A second silhouette hovered over her, a smaller one.
"Blos-" it said. Blossom could just about make out the fact that it was higher-pitched. " -all -fault. I- sorry, -som! Plea- don't- d-!"
And before she knew it, everything went dark.
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
27 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1933.
"Blossom…" a voice sung out to her, menacing and ominous. She couldn't even tell if it was a male or female voice. "Blooossom…"
Blossom opened her eyes, and found herself in a green field, under a gigantic moon surrounded by the night sky. She was lying down on a picnic blanket. Sitting up, her eyes met that of the man of her dreams. He was tall and well-built as always, and she saw him pick up a glass of… black stuff gracefully, almost like a lady, and, pushing it up to his face, started sipping it. She remembered his goatee, how prominent it was.
"It's you…" she uttered. It had been some time since she last saw him. Had it been two weeks? Her mind was still a bowl of scrambled eggs after what had happened with the Yakuza.
"Oh, hello back to you…" the man greeted her. Memories were flooding back into Blossom's mind. She remembered how their last meeting went. How wrong he was to suggest that she should kill her sisters to prevent them from hurting anyone else. The man of her dreamed picked up a plate of… something, offering it up to her. "Chicken sandwich?"
Blossom looked down at it. It was certainly not a chicken sandwich. It was a dark mass, swarming with even darker… ants of some kind. Blossom grimaced in disgust at it.
"You know, you've been doing the right thing… Yes… Yes…" he said as he lowered the plate of black, slimy refuse.
"I have?" Blossom said, confused. She didn't even know what he was referring to.
"Yes - killing all those bad guys. Your Daddy would be proud," the man of her dreams went on.
"But… he wouldn't be," Blossom countered. "That's why I haven't told him."
"Well, he SHOULD BE!" the man exploded, causing Blossom to jump, before giving her a sly smile and continuing: "After all, you are ridding the world of bad people… That's commendable in my book."
Blossom fell silent, before starting up again. "What do you want?"
"Why, I want what's best for you… Most definitely…" the man of her dreams said. "If only you wouldn't ignore my warnings about your sisters… But what's done is done. We can work with that…"
Blossom's eyes fluttered open, and before she was aware, she took a deep breath. There was still a light above her, though it wasn't as glaring as before. Another difference was that there were no silhouettes looming above her, just when she could see clearly again.
Her body was still a block of ice, heavy as if she had no Chemical X in her blood. Still, she tried to sit up, and barely succeeded, only to feel light-headed. Her neck still stung as if it had just been slashed in the jugular. Reaching up to it, she felt thick bandages. Her neck would be stiff with or without them.
Her uniform and gear were gone. Replaced by a little patient's gown.
"Blossom! You're awake!" Blossom heard someone say. Without looking at her, she knew it was Bubbles from the voice. She didn't dare move her neck, but she didn't have to as Bubbles had zipped up to her side, holding her.
"W-what happened?" Blossom asked, still dazed.
What happened. Bubbles' mind went all the way back to that second when she thought she'd lost Blossom for sure. Blossom had turned around to look at her, seemingly shocked, when she saw the blood spurting from her neck, through the spaces between her fingers. The amount of blood was shocking, painting her pink uniform red in just moments.
That was when she fell, and Bubbles caught her and laid her down on the conference table. Blossom was convulsing as soon as she hit the table, but Bubbles didn't have time to be afraid. Buttercup had to hold her down while she bandaged the slash wound. The bandage was soaked in an instant. It was chaos; Blossom was hyperventilating, Buttercup was panicking, surprisingly, and together, they carried Blossom on their shoulders and ditched the Tri-Chrysanthemum Twin Towers for home, piercing the air at full speed.
The entire journey home was tense. Frantic. Unbearable, except they had to suffer it to get Blossom home. Both Bubbles and Buttercup, the latter perhaps influenced by the silver lining in her brain, were panicking all the way to Dad. By the time they got Blossom home, she was gasping for air, her breathing worryingly slow, her body ice cold.
But she was saved.
Bubbles would find out later from dear old Dad that Blossom had lost three-quarters of her blood, something that would have killed a normal human being ten times over. However, she also found out the good news: a normal person's bone marrow was already a wonder on its own, being able to refill lost volumes of blood within a day or two, and the cells within the space of weeks. The three of them, with their enhanced bone marrow, could replace whatever blood they had lost within hours, including the cells. Their Dad knew about this from last December, when Mojo Jojo (allegedly) had nearly succeeded in assassinating Bubbles with a Duranium sniper rifle, only for her to pull through. Meanwhile, the wound in her neck was already sealed, the tissue repairing rapidly.
In the meantime, however, it was dinner time, and Bubbles had to help Blossom into a kiddie wheelchair and into an elevator built over January to get her to the dining table.
Chewing and swallowing were painful to Blossom, but she had far more motivation to eat as losing most of her blood had made her ravenous. Dinner was mostly eaten in silence. Professor Utonium was feeding her, and Blossom was glad to have some of his attention, finally.
"Bubbles, how did you know what the bad guy was saying?" Blossom asked, trying to fill In the silence with a conversation, no matter how arbitrary the topic was. The day was bad enough; she wanted a semblance of normalcy in the house to make it better.
"I don't understand, Bloss. He was loud enough…" Bubbles said, confused by Blossom's question.
"But he was using words I've never heard of," Blossom struggled to speak. She thought she had stumbled on something interesting, to take her mind off her neck, her dream, the Yakuza, and the Amoeba Boys - she was still unsure of what to think about them.
Bubbles, after looking confused for a while, began giggling.
"What's so funny?" Buttercup asked, herself sucked into the conversation. She wasn't deaf to the conversation they had with the Yakuza clan head.
"Aw, you're so sweet, Blossy," Bubbles said, but she was a puzzle to Blossom, still, and the rest of her family.
"What… do you mean?" Blossom asked, wincing at the sharp pain that rose and fell in her neck.
"You're calling me smart, aren't you?" Bubbles said, practically blushing. "You know words better than me, Blossom, and now you're saying I know words you don't…"
"But… I don't think he was even speaking English," Blossom said. The professor seemed to light up at this, where previously, he appeared depressed, close to the point of being dysfunctional.
"Blossom, do you know what language this… bad guy was speaking?" the professor asked. Selicia was beside him as well, and even she knew that it was important - if it was enough to get her lover out of the rut, it was indeed something.
"I don't know," Blossom admitted.
"Well, what does it sound like?" the professor asked, his voice and question gentle. He had just put another spoonful of porridge into Blossom's mouth, so he waited patiently for her to chew weakly and swallow her food hesitantly.
"His name's Yamamoto…" Blossom said, thinking back to the battle at the Yakuza's sky office headquarters. She remembered killing a good number of them, burning them with such intensity that the heat had cut through them, or cooked them to a crisp. But she'd spared some of them too. Killing had always felt wrong, and Bubbles had made every attempt to pull her back. Now, it'd left a bad taste in her mouth. Her eyes were wet when she thought back to the battle, what she'd done. She took a deep breath. It'd always helped. But talking helped more: "He and his friends look different. Their skin's colored differently, maybe a little like Buttercup's, but darker. They all had black hair too, like Buttercup."
"Hey! I'm not like them!" Buttercup exclaimed, offended by Blossom's comparison. "I'm the good girl, and they're the bad guys! I'm better than them!"
"But you do look a little like them," Bubbles backed Blossom, squinting at Buttercup. It wasn't something she'd noticed before, in the heat of battle. She didn't have the words for it, but Buttercup did indeed look like the Yakuza in terms of physical appearance. Asian. Or to be precise, Japanese. But not completely. It took a direct comparison and some studying to recognize it.
None of the Girls knew this, but Buttercup's DNA had some Japanese ancestry in it. Only two persons in the room knew it - Professor Utonium and Sergeant Selicia Goodwin, and the former knew it most intimately. He'd nearly gagged on his piece of chicken steak when Bubbles actually came close to figuring out, indirectly, the fact that Buttercup's DNA wasn't derived from his and Selicia's, which would have meant finding out, eventually, that they weren't his biological daughters.
"Ah, he was speaking in Japanese, of course!" the professor exclaimed, caught up in his favorite activity for once in the past couple of days - distracted from his misery. Anything but the uncertainty of Bunny's suffering and The Three discovering that they weren't even related to him.
"What's Japanese?" Bubbles asked, confused. Mister Yamamoto hadn't been talking in Japanese. He was clearly talking in English!
"It's a language that came from Japan, just like how English, our language, came from England," the professor explained.
"Duh, who wouldn't know?" Buttercup scoffed at the exchange. Bubbles threw her a disapproving stare. The both of them knew what the former meant.
"But… if he's speaking in Japanese, why could I understand him?" Bubbles asked, confused. "And Blossom couldn't?"
"You know, Bubbles, I think I should bring you down to the labs later for a brief experiment," the professor said, completely caught up with this new discovery. However, this excitement and joy of discovery and family bonding wouldn't last.
It wouldn't last… for as long as Bunny was missing.
The City of Townsville. Downtown. USDO Headquarters.
28 FEB (Tuesday) 1989. 0451.
"Bunny, you've hardly touched your food," Putting down his fork, General Blackwater said to his newest student. The two of them were alone in the cafeteria, guarded by eight soldiers forming a perimeter around the hall. Bunny had been playing with her food. Although made as scrumptious as possible, it didn't entice her enough to gobble it up. "We don't have much time before training starts again."
"I miss Dad… and Mom," Bunny said, close to tears as she was prone to be. Her wounds had healed completely in her sleep, much to Doctor Simmons' astonishment as it had healed at a rate faster than even Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup's, but there was still pain elsewhere. In her heart. "I miss Blossom. And Bubbles. And Buttercup."
"Is this what you will do in the field? Curl up and cry for mommy and daddy while the enemy is moving against you?" the general had picked up his fork while Bunny spoke, only to slam it down onto the table again, making Bunny jump. "You need to learn how to bury your emotions. And the time, Bunny! I swear to God if you hesitate one more second-!"
That had pushed Bunny over the edge. Soon, she was watering her bacon and eggs and bread with her tears. The general sighed. Time was still on the move against them as if an invisible, omnipresent enemy.
"Would it help if I say that you'll see them again tomorrow?" the general growled a little more gently, though that wasn't saying much with him. Bunny did not acknowledge him but just continued crying anyway.
"You know…" the general went on. There was a better way of doing this, he knew. In fact, he thought he'd fouled up considering his lack of subtlety and nurturing. After all, there was something between him and Bunny. "When I was fighting the Germans back in the 40s, I was just like you. My brothers were still back home, yet to be deployed, and my pop and ma were still at the farm then. I was young, and I missed my family terribly. I… cried, while all my friends weren't looking. In the bunks or on watch."
It took Bunny some time to understand the general as she was still crying. Sniffling, she tried her best to stop. But it was like trying to dam a river at short notice, or building a dome over a park when it was already storming.
"Y-you did?" Bunny managed, wiping tears away with the back of her hand.
"Yeah. And I was away for months before I was allowed a furlough to see them," the general recalled.
"But- months?" Bunny said in disbelief. It was easier now to keep a lid on her emotions as her curiosity was piqued by the general's unlikely story. "How could you take months without daddy and mommy? Isn't that really lonely?"
"I wasn't really alone. I had friends, just like you," the general said, flashing a rather flat smile at her. Bunny smiled back. He was right, she knew. She'd met Doctor Simmons, and Mister Wiggums (with whom she decided she should apologize to later), and Mister Vanum, along with some soldiers and her instructors. They were all nice to her. "And I tell myself: 'Look alive, soldier. Fight well, fight hard, and you'll live long enough to see them again.' I tell that to myself every morning, before every battle. I kept doing that, until..."
"You get to see them again?" Bunny completed his sentence for him.
"Yes," the general concurred. Bunny seemed cured of her sadness at first, but then she became downcast again, threatening another outbreak of the tears.
"Am I going to go away for months?" she asked. The general stared at her for a while, wondering what he should say, and what he should do in the future. "Am I?" she asked again. Before answering, the general thought about it and thought hard.
"No. No, you're not going to," he finally said. Bunny looked up at him with the biggest smile on her face, tears breaking out anyway, but this time, they were tears of joy. "Most of the missions you'll be sent to won't even last a day. There might be some that might last a few days - maybe - but-"
"Oh thank you thank you thank you!" Bunny interrupted the general to profess her gratitude. She'd gone around the table within an instant such that the general barked in shock, and before he knew it, she was hugging him tightly, such that he actually believed that she might break a few of his ribs.
But even if she did, it would have been worth it for the progress they had made.
Training Segment: Day 3 Revision
Time: 0500-0730
Description: This training segment is dedicated as a refresher on what B-50 has learned on Day 1, and a test of how much she has retained from Day 2's training.
Results: Day 1 training content intact. Test on Day 2 training content yields a nearly 100% proficiency rate.
Training Segment: Urban Warfare
Time: 0800-1100
Description: B-50 is to be put through a series of common urban warfare scenarios, including performing CQC in a street setting, room-by-room or in larger, more exposed building configurations. The training segment is conducted as a simulated mission. The subject is transported to a secure US Army training facility for the duration of the simulation for the purpose of secrecy.
Results: Building off on what she had learned, B-50 has exceeded expectations. She was able to utilize her motorcycle piloting skills to enter the fire zone quickly, before dispatching a group of mock terrorists via lethal shots to the brain or heart. Her approach to breaching rooms is unorthodox, and no doubt inspired by her stealth training. Her small size gives her options that wouldn't have occurred to a regular soldier. Even with her heavy armor, she was able to travel through ventilation shafts with ease and holes in the walls without difficulty, making her attack vector unpredictable. Less stealthy approaches were encouraged as well, and she has, again, exceeded expectations. She was able to punch through solid walls to get at her targets, and even tear off vault doors to take down targets hiding in bunkers and panic rooms. While it has resulted in an increased budget for us as we will need to pay the army for the damaged facilities, the result is worth it.
Training Segment: Winter Warfare
Time: 1130-1430
Description: While the lesson is titled as 'winter warfare', the lesson plan includes elements found normally in jungle and forest warfare training doctrine. The lesson will teach B-50 the importance of camouflage and how to maintain it, as well as finding cover in a natural setting. This will be taught through a simulated mission.
Results: B-50 has exceeded expectations, and her morale is high while doing so. She appears to enjoy the outdoors, perhaps because this is the first time doing it. After some failed attempts, she was able to build herself a viable ghillie suit to wear over her armor. She was able to assassinate a mock terrorist leader after avoiding detection by 30 mock terrorists. She was then able to proceed to eliminate the closest terrorist lieutenants, sowing confusion before dispatching the rest of the mock terrorists.
Pokey Oaks County. Deep in Pokey Oaks Woodlands.
28 FEB (Tuesday) 1989. 1441.
"And then I shot them! Pow pow pow!" Bunny recounted her experience with taking down a terrorist cell from the inside out as if it were an amusement park ride. "They didn't even know I was there!"
"Are you proud of yourself, Bunny?" General Blackwater asked as he sat at a camp with her, listening. They were at break time, though it served as debriefing as well.
"Yes!" Bunny replied with a triumphant grin, all pumped up. "I'm going to protect my sisters, and I know how to do it!"
"Good," the general said with his own grin, slight as it might be. "There's just one thing though."
"What is it, Dad?" Bunny asked. The general stared at her as if she had killed someone. It was only then that she realized her mistake.
"Sorry, General Blackwater. It was a mistake," Bunny apologized.
"I hope that's the last time you make that mistake," the general warned the enhanced girl before continuing: "Now, we've been running simulations so far - meaning that all the missions you've been on are not real."
"They feel really real," Bunny said.
"Real terrorists shoot real bullets, which would have hurt for real. And when you put them down with real bullets, they don't come back up to crack open a can of soda when it's all over," the general explained. "Will you be able to kill if it were real, Bunny?"
"Yes…" Bunny claimed, though her face said otherwise. The general could read concern and uncertainty from it. Something that he would be fixing real soon.
"Did you bring Rabbit the rabbit here? As I've instructed?" the general asked, even though he knew fully well that Bunny wouldn't disobey him in such a trivial task, and neither would she have forgotten due to her photographic memory.
"Yes…" Bunny said, her face completely transparent, her confusion showing through.
"Show me," the general ordered. Together, they left the camp for her humvee. From the back of the vehicle, Bunny pulled out a gilded cage, which contained Rabbit the rabbit.
"Have you been feeding and watering it? Did you bathe it and brush its fur like I showed you?" the general asked.
"Yes, General Blackwater," Bunny replied in the affirmative proudly, holding up the cage for him to see.
"Do you love it? Do you see yourself taking care of it for years? Do you even want to?" the general asked even further. Bunny thought that it was a test - that if she answered it correctly, the general would be proud of her and she would be happy because of it, and because it would mean that she was somehow abler.
"Yes, General Blackwater. She's my friend and you gave it to me…" Bunny said, wondering if she had said the right things, though her sentiments were genuine. She imagined playing with Rabbit the rabbit with her sisters, petting it with Dad and even bringing it out for one of those 'picnics' she heard so much about. Oh, all the fun things they would do together! Already, it seemed as if they were destined to be owner and pet. Rabbit had never tried to hop away, and she seemed connected to her somehow, comforting her with her stares and nuzzling. Bunny, on the other hand, had been caring for her religiously, and not just because the general ordered her to.
"Is that so?" the general said while he opened the cage and took Rabbit the rabbit out. Cradling it in his hands, he stroked its fur a few times before continuing. "I'd like you to kill it."
Bunny's eyes went wide upon hearing the order.
"But- but- why?" Bunny cried, confused, but above all else, utterly upset. "You said I could keep it and I should take care of it and-"
"Are you afraid of really killing something now, Bunny?" the general interrupted.
"Not Rabbit, please!" Bunny begged. Soldiers were watching from a distance. Listening too. The look on their faces wasn't reassuring, but Bunny didn't need that hint to realize that General Blackwater never joked around.
"Please! You said that I could keep it for years and you asked if I'll take care of it for years and I said yes and-" Bunny went on, but the general overrode her:
"And what if I tell you that Rabbit is an enemy all along?" the general added.
"But…" Bunny looked at Rabbit, which returned her gaze as if it knew that its time was up.
"Kill it, Bunny," the general insisted, no, ordered. He handed Rabbit back to Bunny. The enhanced girl cradled the bundle of joy as if it was her baby. "Show me that you've learned something."
Bunny's eyes were filling up fast, wet from what she must do.
"Is this what you will do if you've been betrayed by a friend? Or even one of your sisters? Buttercup, for example?" the general snarled at her. "You're going to just stand there and take it? If this were out there, you would be dead by now! Kill it, Bunny!"
"No!" Bunny hugged Rabbit the rabbit tightly.
"She's the enemy, Bunny! Rabbit will kill you if you don't kill her!" the general barked aggressively. Bunny's hands had found their way to Rabbit's neck at the same time. "Kill it! Destroy it! Show me your loyalty! That you're ready to defend your family! Do it! Do it now!"
Bunny's hands tightened around Rabbit's neck, and the animal did not even resist, as if having accepted its fate a long time ago.
"Or are you the enemy, Bunny? Will you betray me and your family over a rabbit?" the general insinuated. Bunny, shocked by the general's words and possible rejection, afraid that her world would come crashing down around her if she did not kill, finally squeezed her fists.
Something gave, and the bundle of joy in Bunny's arms stopped wriggling about. What passed for resistance was a brief jerk from Rabbit, before that, too, stopped. Bunny wept; first, Mom had left, and now Rabbit too.
"Repeat after me, Bunny," the general growled at her, grabbing her by the solid collar of her armor. Bunny gazed up at him, whatever resistance she'd put up after her Interrogation Resistance training gone, replaced by submission. "Obedience brings victory. Say it!"
"Obedience-" Bunny whimpered and sniffled. "Obedience brings victory."
"Good," the general praised, though it felt empty to Bunny. To her, disaster had been averted, but at what cost? The general took the carcass of Rabbit off Bunny's arms. She was reluctant to give it away at first, but she knew she had to obey. "It brings a good meal too, apparently. Follow me and I'll show you how to prepare a good bowl of rabbit stew. Just in time for survival training."
