Chapter 114: Heart of the Labyrinth (Part 2)

The City of Townsville. Industrial District. Steele's Stellar Steel.

10 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1737.

Bunny jogged silently towards the next closest cultist, who was walking towards her, cultic sword in hand, unaware of her presence due to her cloaking field. Drawing her Duranium knife, Bunny sneaked up to him. The first thing she noticed about the cultist was his red, glowing eyes, framed by bulging nests of hair and prodigious beard.

She thought she should have seen it coming when it happened. The cultist had countered her ambush with a trap of his own in the end, swinging his sword at her as she approached under what turned out to be the false security of her cloaking field. Somehow, the cultist was able to see her!

The sword had scratched her armor, almost breaching it, unable to do so likely because the cultist wasn't strong enough.

"Shadowkin betrayer!" the bearded cultist shouted as loud as he could, too loud to Bunny - she knew then that she had been revealed to the rest of the factory. "Kill me if you can!"

The cultist began swinging his sword at her in rapid succession, and Bunny dropped her energy-consuming cloaking field while she was backing away. She drew her pistol and was able to get off a couple of shots before it was damaged and knocked off her hand with a stroke of the sword. Her shots had gone through the cultist's thighs, dropping him to a knee as he grunted in pain.

Bunny proceeded to run him through with her knife, drawing a deep crevice in his head before he fell dead.

But she was exposed. Soon, shots were fired from the catwalks above, and when she brought up her x-ray vision, she saw more cultists coming towards her on the ground floor. Feig and his cultist companion got up, likely alarmed by the gunshots. Time was short. Bunny could feel it in her fraying veins.

Running up to the storage area of the factory, she began setting up claymore tripwires in the dark even as she endured pistol shots, shotgun pellets, and esoteric insults raining down from the catwalks above. The factory was a sad, poorly-lit area, so she wasn't hit too often and her traps stayed hidden.

She retreated behind a smelting chamber and unslung her China Lake grenade launcher before loading it up with grenades and pumping it. Focusing on her sense of hearing, she could hear not two, but three sets of footsteps on grated catwalks up above. As claymores were being set off on the steelworks storage area, Bunny leaned out and fired off a round, blowing up one of the cultists on the catwalk. Body parts and blood and bits of burning, charred red cloth rained down from above. Pumping the grenade launcher, she fired off a second grenade, missing her second target by yards, but the grenade had blown up the catwalk and destabilized it, causing the cultist to drop feet-first down to the ground. Through her enhanced hearing, she heard numerous bones breaking from the fall and a drawn-out scream.

There was still a third cultist on the catwalk, and she could hear from the rapid footsteps that were slowly diminishing that he was retreating, something Bunny couldn't allow, so she fired her final grenade, which exploded at the feet of the cultist, mangling legs and obliterating anything below the waist. Bunny stared at the last cultist of the catwalks, zooming in. There was twisted bone and bloody strips of flesh and cloth still hanging on stubbornly, but what was most important was that the somewhat pristine upper-half wasn't moving.

The cultist guards were all dead, all dispatched by fire and explosive force. It was too easy, Bunny felt, way too easy.

And she was right. She could hear someone sprinting up behind her, and when she turned around, she saw that she was too late to react even by her enhanced human standards. It was Leopold Sutton, the cult leader of the Cult of His Promise - how he had gone from talking to Feig to appearing behind her was a potentially fatal mystery, as he brought a Duranium machete down on her.

Bunny flinched, and the machete was embedded in her shoulder. It had gone through the thick Kevlar to nick her bare skin underneath, but it wasn't serious. Knocking Sutton's arm away with her grenade launcher, she kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying back. Slotting a grenade into her launcher at blinding speed, she trained it on Sutton, pumped it, and fired while the cult leader was getting up, his eyes glowing red in the thick of battle.

She fired, but the cult leader dodged the grenade somehow, ducking with insane speed. He wasn't normal, but how could that be? Bunny fumbled with her launcher after that, trying to reload, but it was too late when Sutton sprinted up to her and tackled her, smashing her into the side of the smelting chamber she was hiding behind. While she was stunned, he ripped the China Lake grenade launcher from her hands and tossed it far into the darkness, beyond the dim light.

Surprisingly, he backed away after that.

"You go against the Master's wishes?" the cult leader said. "Even when he decided to visit you out of generosity?"

"What are you talking about?" Bunny groaned, clutching her side. Her illness was flaring up again. She could feel her chest burning. No, not now! Bunny thought desperately. It was as if her heart and lungs were getting punctured by pencils.

"Do you not know? The Master has use for you, and his rewards for your service would be great," Leopold Sutton offered. "Reunion with your family, for one. It's something you want very much, am I right?"

It was a tempting offer, something Bunny could easily take in a heartbeat. She was ready to give her life if only to gain even a minute of her sisters' affections, a minute of normalcy in blissful family life.

As she thought about it, she saw a familiar figure making a run for it. Paul Feig was slinking in the shadows towards the exit, forcing her to choose.

And Bunny chose to draw her Duranium combat knife. She thrust it at Sutton from her half-kneeling position, only for Sutton to knock it away with his machete and punch her in the side of her head, worsening the migraine headache she was already suffering from. She sunk to the ground, and for a moment, there was nothing but pain.

Once again, Sutton backed away, as if giving her a chance to strike back. Bunny's vision was blurred as she was lying on the ground, coughing up blood. But she could see Feig getting away when she focused on him, inching closer and closer towards the open door, thinking that he was undetected.

No, she couldn't let him get away again! Bunny drew Ace's sword aggressively, gritting her teeth as she forced herself up, her hands shaking from the pain in her joints and chest. But the sword gave her strength. As if cheering her on, as if drawing power from her, it glowed red with evil intent. Without knowing it, Bunny's eyes had grown bright red to match Sutton's.

"Yes! Yes, taste the Master's power! Let it tempt you!" the cult leader encouraged the enhanced girl. Then, he bolted forward, machete poised to strike her. "Take it or I will take you!"

Bunny blocked the machete blow aimed at her with the blunt edge of Ace's sword. She pushed the cult leader back with her shoulder, who swiped at her with his machete to discourage her from counter-attacking while he stumbled and tried to find his balance again.

"You're still holding back…" Sutton said, grinning. Looking behind him, Bunny saw Feig - he was halfway to the exit. "EMBRACE! HIS! GIFT!" The cult leader charged once more, opening himself up as he threw himself at Bunny without regard for his own life.

Bunny obliged, thrusting her sword into his throat with both her hands. The blade went through the cult leader's throat and out the back of his neck. It didn't take much force, and Leopold Sutton had done half the work. Blood spilled from his mouth when the death blow was struck. But there was no grimace on his face. Instead, he was grinning, showing his reddened teeth. Despite everything she had done, Bunny was shocked at the sight. It was all wrong. And as if that wasn't enough, the cult leader continued forward, pressing himself against Bunny's sword, allowing the blade to slide through his throat even further.

"Em…brace… Him…" the cult leader managed to force a few more words through before Bunny pulled her blade back, wide-eyed with shock. The man fell to his knees, a grin still plastered on his face.

Bunny shifted her attention to Feig, who was close to the door. Alarmed, she blasted off from where she was, breaking the sound barrier instantly, shattering glass all around the factory, and landing right in front of Feig before he could leave through the exit and disappear into the darkness.

She stood before him, this trenchcoat-wearing rat, the enhanced girl's eyes glowing blood red, glaring, brandishing the evil sword she had stolen from a green-skinned street samurai.

"You persistent little shit!" Feig cussed as he raised his revolver, only for Bunny to deliver a quick slice to his hand, and he was forced to drop the weapon. He screamed as he held his hand, which bled freely. Examining it, he saw that he was lucky, as there was 'only' a deep cut in the back of his hand, exposing his two of his metacarpal bones to the cold air. Bunny launched into a jump-kick, knocking the corrupt police chief to the ground.

"Wait!" the police chief begged as he tried to get away from Bunny, crawling on his back. "Just wait, please!" he pleaded once again, putting up a hand, which Bunny promptly sliced with her sword as well, this time cutting through the skin and flesh between his ring and middle finger, splitting that hand halfway down to the wrist. The police chief gave an almost effeminate bloodcurdling scream when he saw what Bunny had done to his left hand.

"You tricked my sisters! You hurt them!" Bunny snarled at the chief.

"I was just doing my job!" Feig claimed. "I was just working together with- with Blossom and your others sisters-"

"Liar!" Bunny screeched hatefully before plunging the tip of her sword into Feig's shoulder, who screamed. "Liar! Liar! LIAR!"

"I'm a police chief!" Feig cried as he gripped the blade that was somewhat buried in him. "I answer personally to the commissioner! You can't kill me! They'll get you for this. You're going to fucking burn for this! You'll-"

Bunny withdrew her blade, slicing the palm of Feig's already injured right hand, causing him to scream mid-sentence. Wordlessly, she raised her sword to deliver a death stroke-

But before she could do that, three familiar faces flew through the windows above and landed loudly around Feig, pink, baby blue, and lime green streaks following them. It caught Bunny off-guard, confusing her. How? How was it possible? Before she could even react to what was going on, Blossom came flying forward, delivering a kick to Bunny in the chest, flooring her, causing her to slide on the concrete floor a fair distance away.

Bunny got up quickly, her confusion and shock masking the pain she felt from Blossom's blow, all to face a very angry Blossom, her eyes shining bright pink in the dim light. Not too far away, she could see the glow of Bubbles' bright blue and Buttercup's intimidating green.

"B-Blossom? Why are you helping him!?" Bunny yelled, frustrated at how she had come so close to killing Feig, only to be torn away from the opportunity. Immediately, she regretted it all - taking the sword, falling victim to both its influence and her desire to see Feig suffer, and finally, this: the fact that she had to face the hostile Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, as opposed to after she had cleared her name.

"And WHY are you HURTING him!?" Blossom counter-questioned, hands akimbo.

"He's bad! He's been lying to you! He wants to kill you!" Bunny spilled it all out desperately in a pleading tone. "He's been doing things while you're not looking!"

"He's a policeman, stupid!" Blossom yelled at Bunny. "Police officers are good, and criminals are bad! Not the other way around! How hard is it for you to understand!?"

"But he's not good!" Bunny yelled back, driven nearly to tears by how she was misunderstood, again. "He's not!"

"I'm taking you back to Dad," Blossom said authoritatively. "I'm taking you back, and Dad's going to take away your powers. He said he would." Blossom's frown turned into a smile all of a sudden. "You know, he doesn't love you anymore."

What Blossom said at the end was like a dagger in Bunny's heart. It couldn't be true, could it? Blossom had to be lying, she must be lying!

Blossom simply gloated. She grinned at how Bunny looked like she had been punched in the guts - all because of what she said. She could barely stifle the urge to laugh. But duty and crime-fighting came first.

"Buttercup, take Mister Feig away to the nearest police station," Blossom ordered. She couldn't bring herself to trust Buttercup in what would come next.

"Aw man, do I have to?" Buttercup whined. "Can't Bubbles do that? She knows first-aid and all that and I wanna-"

"Just do what I tell you, Buttercup!" Blossom cut her off vehemently before turning to Bubbles. "Bubbles, help me fly Bunny back home." Blossom started forward, about to grab Bunny. Bubbles followed. Bunny looked to the sweetest of the quartet for sympathy, but she found nothing in her eyes, only resentment and anger and disappointment staring back at her.

Buttercup, in the meantime, approached Mister Feig.

"Oh, bless you, bless you all, thank God for you, thank God for the Powerpuff Girls!" the police chief was all praises.

"C'mon, fatso, just flip on your belly and I'll carry you to your stupid friends," Buttercup grumbled brusquely. Police Chief Feig did as he was told without complaint, glad to be out of here. Soon, Buttercup latched onto the injured police officer's back and lifted off, hovering with the huge human cargo in tow.

Everything was crumbling all around Bunny. She had failed once again to kill Feig. She had failed another mission. Her sisters hated her more, and even Dad hated her now. It was all for nothing, and her chest, her head, her joints, and her neck was hurting even more. Blossom was yelling in her face to drop her sword, but all she could focus on was Buttercup, and how she was about to fly off with her mark. Her target. Her objective, salvation, and hope for a better future.

"No,"

Bunny fired an infrared beam at Buttercup, burning her in the back, forcing her to drop Feig.

On realizing, with horror, that Bunny would not back down without a fight, Blossom tackled Bunny to the ground, pressing her cheek down on the concrete so that she couldn't aim her ocular beams at anyone. Bunny kneed Blossom in the bum, throwing her leader sister off her, before getting up and firing a laser beam at Feig - only for Bubbles to stand in her line of sight and block the laser beam with her baby blue energy shield.

"Get out of the way, Bubbles! Please!" Bunny begged her favorite sister. "He's a bad man!"

"No, you're bad! You're trying to kill him!" Bubbles retorted, keeping her energy shield up. Bunny tried to flank her, but Bubbles would shadow her movement and prevent her from going past her. "You shot Buttercup!"

This gave Blossom time to get up behind Bunny and seize her by the sword arm. Blossom tried to restrain her, only for Bunny to give Blossom a horse kick and break away, but Blossom was unrelenting - she tackled Bunny once more, pinning Bunny's arms to the ground.

"Bubbles! Hide Mister Feig and come back later!" Blossom ordered, before taking two legs to the chest. Evidently, Blossom had lost confidence in her ability to subdue her alone.

Just then, Buttercup had woken up from being stunned by Bunny's heat beam and was soon back in the fray.

"Give up, Bunny!" Blossom said to the youngest of the quartet. "You can't beat the three of us."

Bunny squeezed her eyes shut briefly, taking it all in, before opening them again. A hard decision had to be made.

"I'll kill you two to save Bubbles if I have to," Bunny said, much to the shock of Blossom and even Buttercup. Having to fight her sisters had weathered her away both physically and mentally. Her sword had told her what to say, and she couldn't help but to agree with it - in battle, losses were acceptable, and compromises had to be made.

"Fire!" Blossom ordered Buttercup; both of them unleashed their respective ocular beams upon her, but Bunny blocked them both with her own bright purple energy shield.

Bunny surged forward, swinging her sword at Blossom, who blocked it with her pink energy shield, but the blows wore Blossom out - they were powerful, and Ace's sword was Duranium. Buttercup flanked Bunny brandishing fists, but she was slashed in the forearm for her aggression before she backed away.

Bunny continued to pummel at Blossom with her sword until Blossom's shield gave way, and she was able to split the kevlar on Blossom's forearm with the remaining force - though the blade did not bite flesh. Pulling out her combat knife to dual-wield, Bunny began spinning, as if dancing, and delivering crushing, unpredictable blows at Blossom, who could only back away and sustain another slice to her armor - this time to the chest, which was another close call. Another half an inch further and she would have injured her.

Buttercup started forward once more, launching into a flurry of punches, which Bunny was able to block and hold off with her sword, arm, and energy shield. Bunny gave Buttercup a side kick, but Buttercup had ducked and swept her off her feet, ruining her stance and position.

Blossom took advantage of this by firing an opportunistic infrared beam, burning Bunny in the chest while she was distracted. Blossom's opportunity did not last long, however, when Bunny rolled on the ground and got up, before retreating deeper into the factory. She had brought up her cloaking field, making her invisible as she ran away.

Bubbles had returned too late to join the fight.

"Where did you hide Mister Feig, Bubbles?" Blossom asked her sweetest sister in a hushed whisper without taking her eyes off the general area, still trying to spot Bunny.

"In a small room full of tables and inside a locker," Bubbles said. "I didn't know he could fit in such a small space…"

"Keep it down, Bubbles!" Buttercup chided in angry whispers as she, too, was looking for Bunny. "She might hear you!"

Together, they hovered towards the center of the factory, looking for any signs of Bunny's presence. Blossom was actively zooming in her vision. She had seen Bunny turn invisible before. She knew, sort of, how it looked like. Slight distortions and moving objects - that was the key.

But there was something else. Blossom could just about hear the sound of shifting air even without Buttercup's enhanced sense of hearing. Sure enough, a box of iron ingots fell off a shelf, and Blossom fired an infrared beam in that direction, hitting Bunny - she knew because Bunny's cloaking field was disrupted. Bubbles and Buttercup began firing their shotgun and machinegun at Bunny, who was forced to retreat and turn invisible once more.

"Come out, Bunny!" Blossom yelled into the darkness. "You can't win! Bad guys and bad girls don't win!"

"I tried everything to be good, but it's not enough," Bunny's voice rang out from the darkness, and the Powerpuff Girls couldn't quite pin down where the voice came from. Buttercup charged up a quick laser beam and fired in the general direction of the voice, but she wasn't as successful as Blossom, hitting only concrete.

"It's NEVER good enough!" Bunny raged again in the dark. There was the sound of tools falling from shelves. Blossom unloaded her XM4 Carbine at the next place the voice sounded out from, but she had hit nothing, as far as she knew. There was one thing she knew, however. Bunny was getting closer and closer, circling in the dark.

"All I ever wanted was a family, and all I did was to try to protect it!" Bunny lamented again in the dark. Something cardboard fell in the distance. Bubbles charged up an ion beam… but on second thought, shut her eyes and refused to shoot. What Bunny had said gave her food for thought, it'd reminded her of Bunny's motivations, of how she wasn't totally in the wrong. She couldn't be. Blossom and Buttercup were less discerning, and they each tried to bring down Bunny with ocular beams, but they were piercing nothing but darkness, damaging nothing but the factory and their ego.

"So why don't you come out? We can try and be a family!" Buttercup offered, but she wasn't even hiding the fact that it was a ploy to trick her. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

"Yeah! If you wanna be a Powerpuff Girl, stop hiding and fight properly!" Blossom added. "I'll let you try to be a Powerpuff Girl!"

"You were never nice to me, Buttercup…" Bunny's voice seemed softer now, despite seeming to come from somewhere closer. It was making the Girls anxious. "And neither were you, Blossom…"

The threat in Bunny's tone had rattled the Girls. Blossom was frantically looking left and right in search of Bunny, but any sign of her presence had largely disappeared. She could be waiting somewhere, or she could be striking them at any moment now.

"Bubbles, go left, Buttercup go right," Blossom whispered to her sisters her standard orders - she didn't know any better. Blossom went straight into the dark after that, before Bubbles and Buttercup went with her orders blindly, in a forking maneuver learned by rote and practiced out of habit.

BOOM! An explosion that rocked the building was the immediate result. Blossom put out her arms above her as massive shelves fell on top of her. She tossed them backward with a grunt. Looking to her left, she saw that Bubbles was blown backward by the explosion, landing among fallen shelves, having activated a claymore tripwire. She wasn't moving after that.

At the same time, something flew through the air and Buttercup screamed. Blossom looked to her right to see that Buttercup was stabbed in the chest - the weapon, likely Duranium, was still stuck in her chest, deep in it. Buttercup fell back and leaned on a shelf, incapacitated.

"BUNNY!" Blossom screamed in rage and frustration - she was still nowhere to be found. "WHERE ARE YOU!?" She hovered upwards; she no longer cared as much about being exposed. That was when she felt it. Another slight gust of air coming from above.

Blossom had looked up too late and by the time she did, Bunny was descending down on her, her sword slicing into her shoulder, drawing blood. Blossom crashed to the ground, and Bunny was following her, sword still embedded in her shoulder. Shrinking downwards and away, Blossom was able to extricate herself from that. Backing away, she clutched her shoulder and stared at the being that used to be her younger sister, red eyes now staring back at her.

"You were MEAN to me! JEALOUS of me!" Bunny cried as she took steps towards Blossom, who backed away, afraid. "When I would HURT myself every night fighting to save you!" She rushed forward, swinging her sword in hazardously at Blossom, anger and betrayal incarnate. Blossom could only back away further and duck from higher blows as she clutched her shoulder, still in too much pain to fight properly. The leader sister flew backward to retreat further, knocking down shelves like dominoes, inadvertently trapping Buttercup just when she was about to try and contribute to the fight despite the knife in her chest.

Bunny fired an infrared beam at Blossom, forcing her to bring up her energy shield - it was a continuous beam, so Blossom was stuck on the defensive. The collision between purple and pink energy blinded Blossom, and by the time Bunny's infrared beam stopped, she had already leaped at Blossom, aiming another overhead strike at her. Blossom threw up her arms and formed another shield - a fetus of a shield - but it wasn't enough. The Duranium blade broke through both energy and Kevlar, putting cuts in both of Blossom's arms as she tumbled to the ground, writhing in pain.

But Blossom knew that there was no time for self-pity. Bearing the pain with gritted teeth, she got up as fast as she could, to be met with a sight of a Bunny on a warpath, already marching up to her. Tired and in pain, Blossom pulled out her pistol and fired 9mm rounds at Bunny, who blocked the desperate shots by forming purple shields one-handed.

She had fired in 3-round bursts, but each burst was blocked seemingly effortlessly, either stopping the bullets totally or deflecting them. Bunny came up next to Blossom, who proceeded to seize her by the neck, lifting her up before slamming her down on some fallen shelves, bending metal shelving.

Although nothing was broken, it felt like something did. Blossom lay where she was, groaning, bleeding, her red bow bent and dirty and burnt slightly from Bunny's infrared beam.

Bunny stood over her, watching her with uncaring eyes. The last thing Blossom saw was Bunny's eyes glowing brighter before unleashing a pair of purple infrared beams…