Chapter 131: Blood for Blood (Part 2)
The City of Townsville. Downtown. Market Square.
20 MAR (Monday) 1989. 1257.
The market square had once been a bustling scene of commerce, but now, it had been reduced drastically. Flattened tables and wasted produce were everywhere. Pavilions were similarly destroyed in the ensuing chaos. Helicopters flew overhead, either affiliated with the police or the news.
Ace was busy fending off Blossom, who darted all around him trying to land blows, only to be deflected by Ace, who was skilled and fast enough to defend himself. Big Billy wound up a punch and sent his fist hurling at a Bubbles who had just bounced off of Grubber. The blow, miraculously well-aimed and well-timed, sent Bubbles hurling through the window of a fast-food restaurant. Buttercup, in the meantime, had just plowed Lil' Arturo off his feet with several wallops to the face, before jumping out of the way of Snake's kicks. Kicking herself up into a hovering position, Buttercup delivered several punches in rapid succession to Snake, who simply faded and dodged out of the way, only to receive a blinding kick to the face.
Ace screamed in frustration when Blossom strafed around him, firing off a heat beam that burned a swathe around his body. He jumped the Girl, tackling her from the air. Pinning her down, he began slugging her in the face over and over, with both arms.
"Blossom!" Bubbles shouted as she climbed out of the restaurant, sweeping shards of glass off her. But Big Billy wasn't done with her yet. He had plucked an old street lamp out of the ground at some point in time and had begun charging her with it, like some knight from a distant time, sans the steed. Bubbles was promptly returned deep into the scrambled bowels of the restaurant.
Buttercup, on the other hand, was frustrated. She had gained the upper hand in the beginning, beating back both Lil' Arturo and Snake on her own, but like cockroaches, they just kept coming back up.
Focusing her attacks on Snake, she delivered multiple punches at him, but it was as if Snake had grown more limber the more he was hit. Besides dodging the bulk of her firepower, the skirt-wearing snub-nosed foe was able to invest little energy in his movement whilst turning her blows into glancing hits, which did nothing. Arturo, the small one, had been pelting her with shots from his submachinegun, which annoyed her more than anything.
Then the straw that broke the camel's back came when Snake began retaliating against her, first delivering a punch to her face, which Buttercup barely blocked with her lime-green energy shield, then going for a low blow which caught her down below, which sent Buttercup flying in the other direction, not from the force of the punch, but from the pain she felt.
Blossom cast a pink energy shield in front of her with her forearm, blocking another punch from Ace and even causing him to bounce back. She thrust her right arm at him in a punch. A pink ball of energy shot out from her hand instead of a simple punch, which sent Ace flying backward. Blossom looked at her hand, a mix of shock and surprise and wonder in her as she observed trace Chemical X fading away into nothing from her hand. A new power? There was no time to think.
Floating upwards, she surveyed the scene, and saw, no, heard Bubbles giving off her sonic scream, sending Big Billy flying out of the window of a fast-food restaurant they had been fighting in. Like a massive boulder, the huge, overweight green beast was sent rolling, bowling chairs and tables in an opposing open-aired al fresco cafe out of the way.
Groaning, Big Billy got up with difficulty, his girth getting in the way. The first thing he saw was Buttercup hovering high up and firing laser beams at Snake and Arturo in retaliation for Snake's humiliating strike, actually drawing blood and sending them running helter-skelter as they had no firepower to match.
"Hey!" Big Billy bellowed, enraged by his fellow gang members' plight, enough to send him sprinting towards Buttercup and jumping high up despite his huge size. The gigantic green-skinned teenager managed to tackle Buttercup in mid-air, sending both of them crashing into the ground, the force of the charge enough to crack the floor below.
"Buttercup!" Blossom screamed, but before she could do anything, she saw Ace raising a rifle at her. She promptly raised her arms and blocked the shots with her pink energy shield.
"Get em', Grubber!" Ace shouted. Grubber, who was in the middle of recovering from a serious blow to the head from Bubbles, pulled a pistol off his belt and fired it, with an insulting raspberry to boot. Blossom had seen this coming, maintaining her energy shield, but what she didn't see coming was the bullet smashing through her shield and embedding itself in her chest. The pistol blew up; it wasn't designed to handle the power of a Duranium bullet.
But it did the job: Blossom crashed into the ground, cupping her chest. Paralyzed by fear, all she could do was watch as Buttercup was pummeled over and over by Big Billy. She was hammered deeper and deeper into the ground with each punch. Bruises were inflicted with every punch, and much worse were promised in time.
Bubbles had been watching all the while as she crawled out of the restaurant, bruises forming and blood painting rivulets on her face. Her sisters were worse off than she was, and it made her mad, really mad. So mad that she could see her eyes turning red upon some scattered shards of glass on the floor.
But it didn't last. Fear overtook her as the threat of backsliding into addiction and senseless destruction was closer than ever. Clutching her head, she knelt where she stood, whispering madly to herself in a bid to keep herself under control.
After taking the umpteenth punch to the face, Buttercup stared out of the crater in the ground that she had been hammered into, battered nad bruised and bloodied. Another one was coming. With what energy she had left, Buttercup put up her arms, forming a green energy shield to block it. She'd put everything she had into it, forming a shield strong enough to deflect the blow, causing Big Billy to roar in pain as it was like punching a sheet of Duranium.
Time was short. Flying out of her crater, Buttercup delivered a punch of her own to the face of the giant, knocking him off-balance, causing him to fall flat on his back. Flying to a corner of the market, she looked all around her for a solution. Turning back for a glimpse at her enemies again, she saw that they were mostly still standing, with only Lil' Arturo and Snake, who she had soundly thrashed, out for the count.
Ace and Grubber had just rushed up to Big Billy's side, helping the obese gangster up. Buttercup returned to her surroundings. A table - too light. A chair - too small. A parasol - too soft. Her eyes fell on the street, the vehicles there to be exact. There was a scooter, which was still too small and too light in her eyes. Then she saw the perfect weapon: a Volkswagen Beetle. It was a small car, about a ton in weight, neither too heavy nor too light.
Flying to it, Buttercup began searching for a good grip, going over the door at first, which was when she saw it: huddled together were a young mother in her late twenties and a boy of about five or six years of age. They had been hiding in the car to avoid the Gangreen Gang's attack. Only a fleeting hint of shriveled empathy went through Buttercup's mind; much of her thoughts went into how best to punish her enemies for hurting her. The reflection of Big Billy rushing her from behind was what prompted her.
Gripping the car by the side of its chassis, Buttercup flung it at Big Billy with a grunt and a scream of exertion. Blossom had seen it happen. She had seen that there were occupants hiding in the car too. Bubbles had only seen it when the boy and his mother had crashed through the windshield as the car flew into Billy and knocked him down, pinning the huge man below it. The young woman and the kid had dived into the bricked floor from overhead.
It'd happened so quickly that even the Girls couldn't stop it. By the end of it, both victims of Buttercup's rashness were dead on impact, their skulls caved in and bloody from the impact, still huddled together, bound by love in death just as they were in life.
Even Ace and his gang seemed shocked by this.
"Let's split!" he ordered before they ran off, with Big Billy being the last to leave as he had to get out from under the Volkswagen Beetle.
Blossom stared and stared at the innocents who had been dashed against the ground. Blood was pooling rapidly around their heads, like crimson halos around two angels. She then glared at Buttercup, who hovered where she was, a little horrified by what she had done if only because she knew that there would be some consequence for it.
Bubbles floated towards the scene, shocked too. She had seen it happen from where she was, while she was still trying to keep herself under control.
With a grunt, Blossom got up, her hand still pressing against her chest. The pain had subsided somewhat, though it would flare up every time she breathed.
"Buttercup, you didn't-" Bubbles gasped, unable to finish her sentence as she couldn't help but keep looking at the dead mother and child. Were they dead? She had to make sure. Flying over to them, she pressed her fingers against the neck of the mother. No pulse. The boy was the same way. They were both utterly dead, clinically so.
Blossom could only glare at Buttercup. No words could describe her rage, her anger towards her wayward sister, and how close to the edge she was, how close she was to losing control and just going all out on Buttercup. The only thing holding her back was her injury and the fear that she would do something she might regret.
Like killing her recalcitrant sister.
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
20 MAR (Monday) 1989. 1341.
"Blossom! Please! Don't tell!" Buttercup was begging her leader sister all the way home. "I- I didn't mean it! I swear! I was just trying to- I couldn't- that big fat butthead forced me to!"
Blossom and Bubbles ignored Buttercup at first. They had to fly while supporting each other because of their respective injuries: A chest puncture wound and a dizzying head injury. Neither of them wanted Buttercup to be anywhere close to them, not after what she did. And Buttercup had tried to help them, not for their sake, but for her own, as she was grasping at straws when it came to keeping her sisters' lips zipped.
"Please!" Buttercup yelled as they landed on the sidewalk before the lawn of The House. "I was forced to do it! It isn't my fault! It wasn't- How could I have-" she stumbled in her words, afraid of saying one wrong thing or another, or doing something wrong. "We- we're the same, Blossom! We're- we're both being forced to do things we don't like!"
Blossom stopped before turning around to face Buttercup with such a scowl on her face that even Buttercup was taken aback.
"We are not the same, Buttercup!" Blossom corrected her as she gave her a death stare.
"B-but we're sisters…" Buttercup continued trying regardless, but the look on Blossom's face informed her that she was treading on ice so thin she could see the water churning underneath, along with the corpses going with the flow. "Didn't we kill a lot of policemen in that parade?"
"They were evil!" Blossom retorted, further incensed by Buttercup's refusal to admit her wrongdoings. "They were going to kill us and they killed the good policemen all around us!"
"That poor lady and that poor boy…" Bubbles added. "You shouldn't have done that, Buttercup! Blossom would have stopped…"
"But I- I've been trying to be good!" Buttercup said, knowing full well that she hadn't really been 'trying' when all she did was just to drift through life. It was the lack of opportunity to do harm that had been getting Buttercup out of trouble. She pulled Blossom by the hand as she hovered upwards to reach for the doorbell. Dad had been inattentive again, which wasn't surprising considering that he was still grieving.
"I gave you so many chances, over and over again! Let go of me!" Blossom said before pushing Buttercup away. She landed on her butt as Blossom floated up to the doorbell to ring it.
Blossom and Bubbles waited, while Buttercup continued to beg and scream and cry for forgiveness. Her sisters continued ignoring her.
For some reason, their Dad was taking longer than usual, even by his depressed, dysfunctional standards. But eventually, there was the sound of footsteps, ringing slow and hollow, before the door was opened lethargically. Dad didn't even appear in front of the door. The door was simply unlocked and left ajar.
The Girls, all of them, found it odd and waited longer for Dad to open the door fully, but he simply walked away. For Buttercup, in addition to finding it strange, she found it slightly distressing. Had Dad found out? What's going to happen if he did? She had very little feelings for her Dad left, but with the consequences being unknown but potentially huge for her slaying of two innocents, she couldn't help but dread the next moment.
Blossom pushed the door open. Dad was well on his way back to the couch. The living room was dark. It was still early afternoon, but the cloudy sky had necessitated lights, lights that weren't switched on. The television, which was putting out the news, served as the living room's main source of illumination. The volume was lowered to mournful silence, however, and the television's speakers were almost drowned out by the radio.
The Girls hovered towards him cautiously, as if expecting him to transform into some monster. The professor had already reached the couch, but he did not sit down, nor did he even look at them.
It was Blossom and Bubbles' turn to be distressed by his behavior. Buttercup wasn't the only one to have a secret. Blossom had led the team down a path of corruption, and Bubbles had ingested more His Secret 2.0; her cravings and symptoms had returned in force.
"Blossom, Bubbles," the professor said. They stiffened up, expecting their secrets to be unearthed. "Why don't the two of you go up to your room?" He'd said this with a reserved, whispery tone.
"Are you grounding us?" Bubbles murmured.
"No," the professor clarified, hunching his back a little as he leaned against the back of the couch. "I'm asking the two of you to give me and Buttercup some room."
Buttercup could feel her blood going cold, her very lungs freezing. Goosebumps were rising. She looked at the television and saw what was coming in it. There was footage of the fight in the market square, shot from above, likely from a helicopter. She saw herself flinging the Volkswagen Beetle at Big Billy, unintentionally, if callously, ending the lives of the little car's occupants as they flew through the windshields and cracked their skulls against the ground.
Blossom and Bubbles filed upstairs, the both of them giving Buttercup cold stares as if telling her that she deserved whatever was coming next. Soon, it was just Buttercup and Dad in the living room.
"Dad?" Buttercup called out to him, but his back was still facing her, and if there were any signs that he was about to change that, he wasn't showing it.
"Do you know why you're here? Apart from your sisters and alone with me?" Dad said coldly, ignoring Buttercup, his voice dry, as before, crackling and whispery but cold despite the heat that was implied to have parched his throat.
"Urm… No?" Buttercup tried her luck again, despite knowing full well what the professor was upset about, with the evidence of her wrongdoing right before her.
"NO!?" the professor screamed before whirling around, his face contorted with rage, making Buttercup jump. "NO!?"
"Dad!" Buttercup shrank as he got closer as if shielding herself from an attack with her shoulder.
"Are you blind!? Do you even know what you've done!? The HORROR you've caused!?" he screamed in fury, stomping towards Buttercup, just stopping short of closing at arm's length.
"But- but- I didn't have a choice!" Buttercup lied, "The- they were- I could've- I mean I couldn't have-"
"I am SICK and TIRED of HEARING your excuses, Buttercup!" the professor yelled, pointing and gesticulating madly at Buttercup, before wiping a tear from between his nose and cheek. "That boy- that young woman- do you have any idea what you've done? Who you've killed? I should've sent YOU into an INSANE ASYLUM with ALICE when I had the chance!"
It was beyond too much. The scene he witnessed on TV, of Buttercup manslaughtering the woman and child had reminded him of everything he'd lost.
"But- I didn't see them in the car, I swear!" Buttercup lied, but Dad's last outburst had hurt her in ways she thought was impossible, even considering her psychopathy.
"Stop it, Buttercup," the professor cried. "Just stop!"
"I- I didn't mean to do it!" she lied once more, putting more daggers into her Dad's heart.
"Buttercup, stop!" he shouted in agony, once more reminded of Buttercup's mental condition.
"But Dad, you weren't there! I didn't have a choice!" Buttercup lied again as she desperately hovered closer to Dad as if that would convince him.
"Shut up! Buttercup, just-" the professor cried, all illusions of an innocent Buttercup shattered.
"Dad, please! I swear I didn't see them! It was their fault they didn't get out of the car!" Buttercup cried desperately.
"Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!" the professor screamed madly, and before even he knew it, he'd delivered a slap across her face, which was hard enough to send her falling into the coffee table, throwing magazines and cups and remote controls flying off the tabletop.
Buttercup scrambled to sit up, a hand on the cheek the professor had just slapped, unable to believe what had just happened.
Dad had never hit her before, touched her that way. The worst he'd done was to drag her off her ward bed, and even that, she thought, was unintentional. Though she felt little for her Dad, that single slap alone had shattered any remaining illusions of their father-daughter relationship. She had found out herself that he had been lying about being her father, but now, even the false pretense was up for debate.
The professor froze, unable to believe what he'd just done. He had never considered hitting his children - biological or otherwise - as acceptable parenting, unlike his father, and he'd just broke his own rule.
The sight of a shaking Buttercup, with all her tomboyish demeanor, replaced girlish tears, broke him.
"Buttercup-" the professor said, unsure of what to do with himself momentarily. "I- I didn't mean that-"
What an example I'm setting, the professor thought pessimistically. He approached Buttercup, intending to pick her up and give her a hug but she pushed him away, nearly knocking him off his feet.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Buttercup screamed as she hovered over the coffee table. "Don't touch me!"
"Buttercup!" the professor cried, shocked by Buttercup's actions.
"You- You were never my father!" Buttercup screamed, her eyes shooting daggers at him, threatening actual, physical danger as it glowed lime-green brighter than ever, a sign that a pair of laser beam could emanate from them.
"Buttercup! Stop!" the professor cried, putting up his arms, actually afraid of violence from his adopted daughter. The realization that Buttercup might have known the harsh truth of their family came a little later, which struck the professor harder than any laser beams would.
"You will NEVER be my Dad!" Buttercup lashed out at her Dad.
"Buttercup- What do you mean? What are you talking about?" the professor said, still trying to hide the truth, still trying to do damage control.
"You're a fake! You're a big, fat, ugly, stupid, lousy LIAR!" she screamed, voice reaching an uncharacteristically higher pitch as tears spilled from her eyes, "You KILLED my MOM!"
"I- I know you're upset-" the professor said. "I'm sorry-"
He tried approaching her again, only to get clocked in the face, the most painful punch he'd ever felt even after tasting General Blackwater's right hook. Blinded, he felt Buttercup tackle him after that. The force had sent flying into the wall - something cracked, and he could only hope that it was the wall.
By the time his vision recovered, but with stars still dancing everywhere, he saw Buttercup hovering over him, menacing, looking more like a dangerous lab specimen again than the daughter he knew.
"You're weak and useless! You were never there for me! You like Blossom and Bubbles and even Bunny more than me!" Buttercup yelled coldly.
"That's not true-"
"I'm better than you. I can kill you right now, 'Daddy-o'." Her eyes shone dangerously brighter. Energy was building up in her eyes.
"Buttercup… I… I love you…" the professor was coughing up blood, shielding his face with an arm, his consciousness fading away. He tried to sit up, but ripples of pain throughout his chest dissuaded him from trying any further. "You'll… you'll always be my-"
And before he knew it, Buttercup had fired her twin ocular laser beams.
