Chapter 124: The Test (Part 1)

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

14 MAR (Tuesday) 1989. 0905.

Bubbles had been staring at her bed, paying her tea party plushies no attention as she was spending all of it on the carrot pillow occupying the middle of the bed. It had been Bunny's. In her mind, it still was.

In another corner of the room, Blossom was spending all her time playing Bunny's tabletop game, imagining that Bunny was with her; trying to think up her moves, however, was difficult. She would discover that Bunny's way of doing things, her strategies and tactics, was forever lost too, impossible to replicate.

Buttercup, on the other hand, continued to ignore the world around her. She had stationed herself by the window, staring longingly at the melting snow. There was only one thing on her mind: the powerful friend she supposedly had, who was somewhere out there. She had dreamed of him once more, though he had been very mysterious and secretive about it. In her dream, he'd stuck to the shadows, beckoning her, and when she approached him, he was already gone.

But somehow or rather, Buttercup knew one thing. He had his eye on her, and it was only a matter of time before they meet.

Blossom and Bubbles had dreams too, but they hadn't been very uplifting. Blossom had dreamed of Bunny, who was always far away from her no matter how much she ran towards her, no matter how she tried to reach out to her and grab her. Not only that, but there was also that look she gave her: that frowning, hateful look, blaming her for everything and rightfully so.

Bubbles, on the other hand, had visited the world of her drawings again, that world where everything was simple and optimistic. But that simplicity and optimism weren't enough, for the Blossom and Buttercup of her dreamland had lost their Bunny too, and in a remarkably similar way. They, too, had doubted their Bunny, cast her away in a fit of rejection, only for her to save them from the prisoners she released before exploding in a white ball of light, leaving behind nothing but a scrap of purple cloth. That was the story that cartoon Blossom and Buttercup recounted to her, and the only advice they could give was to learn from it the moral of the story, and though it would hurt for many months and even years to come, she would begin to learn how to smile again.

But it wouldn't be anytime soon. Bubbles sighed before hopping off her bed and going into the closet to find one busywork or another to distract herself. She knew exactly what to look for: their gear was a mess, and they hadn't been tidied since… that day. They were just taken off and dumped into the closet.

It was dark inside, so she kept the door open. Sitting down on the floor, she studied her vest, instantly reminded of Bunny's demise. It had been soaked in Bunny's blood when she tried to resuscitate Bunny. The blood was dry, likely had been for days.

There were holes everywhere. They had been shot at so many times. Their equipment would never last very long as a result. She began opening the pouches on the vest and emptying out the contents. Magazines with bullets. Some of them were damaged. Something else came out.

Her flip-phone. The plastic casing was cracked from a grazing shot. She opened it and found it to still be in working order. The screen lit up, promptly informing her that she had one missed call.

The missed call came from Elodie Morbucks.

Oh no. It all came back to Bubbles when she saw the digitized letters on the screen. It had hit her then that she had failed her friend. The last time they met, the Princess was incredibly ill. She was supposed to undergo an experimental treatment due to how severe her cancer was. Now, there was no telling what state of health she was in, or worse, how she must have felt, all alone, and the state of mind that accompanied it. Unless…

Bubbles went to her phonebook on the phone and scrolled down to the Princess' saved number. Hitting the 'call' button, she brought it up to her ear and waited as a ringtone beeped back at her.

Five seconds went by, then ten. Soon, half a minute went by and the phone just continued to taunt her with its beeping. Something was wrong. Bubbles was about to hang up when the line was finally connected, and she was greeted with a familiar voice.

"Hi, you've reached the one and only Elodie Morbucks' phone," it was the Princess' voice, but when Bubbles called out to her, it did not respond. It turned out to be a recording. "I'm not here right now, so please leave a message and I'll call you, 'kay? Bye!"

It sounded too happy, a product of what the Powerpuff Girls had done to improve the Princess' outlook in life. But now, Bubbles had a feeling that that was going to change because of how they had missed their appointment with her.

The phone beeped once more, to signal that it had begun recording.

"Elodie! I… I'm sorry we didn't come to see you!" Bubbles rushed through her words at first, afraid that she didn't have long to say something, but when she realized that she now had too much time to say whatever she could, she slowed down. She felt like crying once more. How unfair could the world get? First, it took Bunny, her younger sister, away from her, and now she discovered that she missed seeing the Princess before her operation because of it! "Something really bad happened-"


The City of Townsville. Esperanza Acres. Morbucks Family Mansion.

14 MAR (Tuesday) 1989. 0923.

"-Bunny, my sister - You didn't get to meet her - she… died. Please call me back… I'll- I'll do anything to make it up to you! I- uh- I'm hoping we'll get to meet again soon…" Bubbles' voice in a phone recording echoed in a huge, spacious bedroom. It was being played from a phone with an attached messaging system. A tiny hand reached over to it to push the rewind button, and after waiting for a moment, pushed the play button again.

"Please call me back… I'll- I'll do anything to make it up to you!" Bubbles' voice recording repeated itself once more on the device, sounding needier and pleading with the repetition. The tiny child's hand pushed the rewind button again, this time waiting for a much shorter period of time before pushing the play button once more.

"I'll do anything to make it up to you!" Bubbles' disembodied voice was forced to repeat itself once more. The tape was rewound and played again after that by the owner of the tiny hand.

"I'll do anything to make it up to you!" Bubbles' voice was forced, once again, to repeat itself, to the twisted joy of whoever occupied the huge, cavernous child's bedroom in the Morbucks Family Mansion.


The City of Townsville. The Outskirts. Lombardi Family Estate.

14 MAR (Tuesday) 1989. 1235.

Bossman was whistling a tune as he stood at the balcony of his massive mansion, watching with a pair of binoculars a certain part of his massive backyard, which was about the size of a football field. There had been some rude incursions lately, perpetrated by a group of foxes that resulted in some broken windows and stolen food. However, he knew exactly where they were coming from every single time, and he'd set up some traps in case they do return.

Fedele Palladino, one of his trusted button man, had been hovering over him all the while, a presence he wasn't quite as used to as that of Slim and Junior.

"If you want to talk, talk," Bossman said, all the while keeping his eyes on the traps he'd set up.

"I don't get it, boss," Fedele said, after a moment's hesitation. "Why let the Foundation and Cults kill the Powerpuff Girls when we're, you know, showing them the good life?"

"Now there's a good story in there," Bossman growled as he kept up his vigil of the hole in the hedge the foxes would come out of. "Remember that day when I told you about my pa? Naw, I don't think you do. I was half-drunk and you were half an inch away from being KO'ed. 'We'll build ourselves a new home,' he said when we were on our way to America aboard a ship. He died a few weeks later from some American flu he had no money to treat. Now we, the Ricci brothers, live on. For years, we lived on, even though the streets wanted to swallow us whole. We were just kids then, nothing resourceful like my pa, but we survived, and we tamed the streets, and here we are."

"What does that got to do with the Powerpuffs?" Fedele asked.

"If you're going, you're going. If you're staying, you're staying. If they couldn't survive then, they're no use to us now. But we know how that story went, don't we?" the Bossman said as he pulled a cigar out and gripped it with his teeth. "They're here to stay, it looks like."

Soon after he said it, three foxes crawled through the hole in the backyard hedges. The creatures stalked through the backyard, only for two of them to step on bear traps. The shrieks could be heard very clearly and loudly even from where the mobsters stood. The third fox bolted, abandoning its kin, slipping through the hole in the hedges quickly.

"For now, anyway. They have yet to pass all their tests. The Family will thrive with or without them."


The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

14 MAR (Tuesday) 1989. 1923.

Professor Utonium stood before his blackboards, dumbfounded by what he had found out. After nearly three days of unceasing, hyper-concentrated toil, he had found the conclusion to his project to find a cure for Bunny.

There was no cure.

Bunny was fated to die.

It was inevitable.

From a biological standpoint, Bunny was born dependent on Chemical X2. Even before the symptoms of her Chemical X2 poisoning manifested, she would have died had he deprived her of her innate Chemical X2 by means of Anti-X2. The biological processes of her body was highly efficient and even hyperactive in some areas such as her brain and senses, healing factor, and even her balance system, which would constantly use micro-X-thrusts to maintain perfect balance. Remove the Chemical X2 and her body would draw that energy from conventional stores of energy: her blood sugar. She would instantly enter hypoglycemia. The shock to her system would be so extreme it would cause death.

Removal of the Chemical X2 after her symptoms had manifested would have resulted in worse consequences. The body-wide tumors, perforations, bleeding and general tissue aberrations, and genetic scrambling were caused by Chemical X2 poisoning, but the same Chemical X2 was responsible for stimulating rapid recovery from both illnesses and injuries alike through the injection of both energy and materials 'peeled' off of the Chemical X2. Should the Chemical X2 be removed at this stage, the physical and oncological maladies would remain but Bunny's healing factor and resistance to disease and injuries would be removed, resulting in a swift and painful death.

Despite his mania and single-minded obsession, he was still methodical in his approach to a cure. Since eliminating the Chemical X2 from Bunny's blood wasn't an option, he decided that the next logical step was to convert the Chemical X2 in her blood into Chemical X. It would require a reversal of the process to turn Chemical X into Chemical X2 through the attachment of the three additional chemical chains. It rapidly became clear, however, that this wasn't an option either, as injecting the catalytic agents into Bunny's bloodstream would result in some nasty side effects that were just as deadly as the Chemical X2.

Another idea he'd had that came from his fever dreams was to transfuse Chemical X into Bunny's body. Just like how Chemical W and Chemical X could clash and eliminate each other, he theorized that Chemical X and Chemical X2 would behave similarly. The ending process would involve gradually injecting more Chemical X into Bunny that would directly replace the function of Chemical X2. Once again, the professor was thwarted in his insanity to cure a dead daughter. Chemical X2 was far more potent than Chemical X. It would have taken over ten times the amount of Chemical X to neutralize the Chemical X2 in her blood. That wouldn't have been the problem in and of itself. It would be a very long process as the Chemical X2 would regenerate itself. However, the hammer that shattered his theory into a million broken pieces was the fact that Chemical X could not replace the functions of Chemical X2 entirely. It was far too weak to do so. Bunny would die, and it wouldn't be a mercy that she would die a slower death from the effects of a dozen types of cancer and autoimmunity syndromes.

The walls would close in on Professor Utonium one after another. The fact that he couldn't get rid of Chemical X2 in Bunny had locked many doors for him. He had half a dozen other approaches taken away because of this fact. He couldn't neutralize the Chemical X2 and render it inert even if existent - it would produce the same outcome as destroying it with Anti-X2. He couldn't leave Bunny as she was while forbidding her to use and develop her enhancements any further as the damage to her body would continue to mount. A gradual depletion of the Chemical X2 by small doses of Anti-X2 wouldn't work either, nor would seizing the increase in Chemical X2 concentration in Bunny's blood. Either way, Bunny would have died as the level of damage to her physique and genetics wouldn't go away readily. The reduction of Chemical X2 brings reduced recovery, which would be fatal. Maintaining X2 concentration would continue to accumulate the damage anyway.

And that wasn't even the half of it. Even if the Chemical X2 in her blood could be rendered harmless or eliminated, there was still the damage done to her genetics and body, the damage he had never seen before even as a doctor in an organization who had worked with the most dangerous laboratory and battlefield conditions owing to its obsession with Chemical X and its predecessors.

And suppose that there was some cure - some serum or treatment he had theoretically devised - what then? It would have still taken weeks, if not months, to develop it into something practical - a timeframe that Bunny had little hope of surviving.

There was no hope.

Like a dream, Bunny was meant to come and go, fade away as quickly as she came into their lives as though she never existed.

The professor clutched his head as he realized the truth, pulling at his hair as he screamed at the top of his lungs, as memories flashed in his mind, both good and bad. The good was all the more painful because they remained as that: memories. He'd reached the bottom of the abyss of his sin and it didn't look pleasant. He had played god, created life just to safeguard three others, and by god, that life was short and filled with pain and suffering, ending in wretched disease and mutilating injuries.

He fell to his knees, still screaming. For how long he had done this, he did not know. The next thing he knew, he found himself lying on the floor, passed out from thirst or hunger or exhaustion. Despite how much he was suffering from depriving himself, he still found himself questioning whether he should get up at all.

'What's the point?' he thought. Getting up and nourishing himself wouldn't bring Bunny back. It wouldn't undo the past and his mistake. It seemed as if his heart was set on just withering away on the lab floor, but then he remembered Bunny's sacrifice, what it stood for, and why she did it.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. She died so that they might live. She had done it out of her own volition. Whether there was a cure or not, it mattered little. She would have foregone the cure to save them.

Getting up with difficulty, the professor made his way to the elevator, which brought him up to the airlock. For the first time in nearly three days, he went through the airlock.

Uncertainty struck him. It'd taken him the whole trip up, but he had only just realized that he had been neglecting his beloved Girls for the past three days, during a time they needed him most. He vaguely remembered it, but he recalled brushing Blossom off for talking about Bunny; it was another mistake he regretted.

He was about to go up the stairs to the Girls' room when he took a turn into the kitchen and raided the fridge for a beer. Sitting down on the kitchen floor, he began chugging one can after another, motivated as much by thirst and hunger as he was by a need to scrub his mind clean of all the horrible thoughts and memories in it.

He was back to passing out on the floor before he was done drinking. When Selicia discovered him in the kitchen, she moved him into her room before the Girls could discover him in such a mess: half his shirt was stained with beer as he was likely pouring the stuff into his mouth. Beer cans were all over the floor. Not only that, but he had also vomited some of his beer back out at some point, and now he was lying in a pool of his own vomit. It was difficult, but she tried to bathe him. He was heavy and it didn't help that he was being difficult, so she had to make do with a quick one before depositing him in bed. All the while, he'd been mumbling another name. Eileen.

Selicia had heard that name before, one too many times. It was his late wife. Hearing that name again both broke and enraged Selicia, told her that even after all this time, she couldn't compete with someone long dead. Stomping out, she slammed the door shut before leaning against it, trying hard to hold back tears.

She gritted her teeth. Blossom's to blame for this! She ruined everything!

Now, Selicia couldn't help but plan on breaking up the family. Blossom and Bubbles were, and still are, threats to the family. They had to be gotten rid of, and if that was to be a reality, there were people to talk to, red tape to get around.

But for now, she had to keep it all together - both herself and the family. Going out of the house, she searched the mailbox for any new letters from the USDO…


The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

14 MAR (Tuesday) 1989. 2330.

Unknown to the Powerpuff Girls, who were fast asleep, a figure in black tactical gear stood in the garage, armed to the teeth with a huge sniper rifle, an SMG, and a holstered pistol. Holding up an opened letter, the person struck a match and spread the flame to a corner of the letter before leaving it on a tray at the workshop. The person pressed a button on a remote control close by, which closed the shutter in the garage. The heavy wind outside was cut off, but that wouldn't be the only thing to be cut off.

Leaving the garage, the person, some kind of operative from the USDO, went down to the laboratory. There wasn't even a need for stealth; the house was completely dark, and the operative's activities unexpected.

It took some time, but the operative had reached a power panel hardwired to the security systems of The House that was recently installed. Opening it, the operative was met with numerous buttons and LED lights, labeled according to what they do. Each button represented a powered security system.

The operative began flipping all the switches. Up above, shutters were lowered to block all the doors and windows. They weren't loud, and they weren't conspicuous. They were working as intended.

Before heading back up, the operative picked up a little something that could only be found in Professor Utonium's lab. The operative had to navigate in a remote corner of the lab, where the Duranium table was found. From there, the operative pulled out a device used for dispersing Anti-X. Operated remotely and electronically, it could nonetheless be activated manually by hand.

Back up, the operative began installing metal blockers on most doors, using material Selicia had procured to fulfill General Blackwater's order to fortify The House.

After locking down the master bedroom to cut off help from the Girls, the operative proceeded to the Girls' room. Slipping the nozzle of the Anti-X dispersal device from under the door, the operative turned it on to mist the room with Anti-X before barring the door to the Girls' room too.

The operative shouldered a Duranium anti-material rifle, and waited…