A/N: I really must apologize for the slow uploads. Life's been changing rapidly lately and I had to split this chapter up in two. Enjoy!
Chapter 142: Aces in the Hole (Part 1)
The City of Townsville. Industrial District. Steele's Stellar Steel.
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 0035.
Gunshots and explosions rang out the moment the doors to the steel mill were blown open. Mullens and his remaining task force retreated behind gigantic molten steel vats along with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. All their guns were out, but they had all caught glimpses of what they were dealing with. They were completely outnumbered at least three to one. Probably more.
"What are we going to do?" Bubbles muttered meekly. She would be biting her nails had her hands not been occupied by her shotgun.
"We have to protect our friends!" Blossom said. She took a peek past the steel vat to spot a group of thugs coming towards them. A hail of bullets ricocheted her way, forcing her to get back into cover.
"And fight our way through?" Buttercup added, hopeful that there would be an intense and enjoyable fight to be had.
"And fight our way through!" Blossom agreed, clenching her jaw and putting her game face on. She had been pushed around over and over, but now that her friends were put in danger, it was just one step too far. "Bubbles, you go left, Buttercup, right!"
"On it!" Buttercup said gladly, her voice rougher than usual.
The Powerpuff Girls darted out of cover, all three of them rising up to the height of the second floor to survey the battlefield better before jumping into the thick of it.
There were three groups of them, each five or six people strong, all spread out conventionally to avoid getting gunned down as a team. There were others lined up outside, taking shelter by the doors that were blasted open.
Blossom could feel bullets on her immediately; she brought up her pink X-energy shield in response, causing bullets to ricochet off her protective bubble. She'd spotted the dancing colors of Duranium on one of the gangsters arrayed against her, but it was too late by then.
"They're using Duranium!" Blossom squeaked aloud as she flinched when she saw that the man with the Duranium rifle had raised it against her. She strained herself to reinforce her X-energy shield, but the Duranium bullet had penetrated it nonetheless. The Duranium rifle was a cumbersome, improvised bolt-action thing, but it'd done its job. The Duranium bullet had shattered Blossom's X-energy shield before grazing her in the shoulder, ripping at the shoulder strap of her vest.
All three Girls had plunged into the thick of it when they realized how high the stakes had risen. Blossom, for one, had jumped the thug with the Duranium rifle before he could load another Duranium round, tackling him to the ground before incapacitating him with a punch. All guns were turned to her when she did, putting dozens of lead into her within a split second.
She saw Fedele Palladino backing away towards the door when she flew at her second target, kicking him in the chest, sending him flying into a crate full of steel bars.
But bullets continued flying - towards her - making her think twice about being the merciful angel she wanted to be. Her belief in jeopardy, she fought on as she did regardless, pulling up another pink X-energy shield to block more incoming lead rounds before firing back with her ocular infrared beams, stunning the third man.
A woman in a trenchcoat had dropped her SMG to pull a Duranium pistol out of her coat. Running up to point-blank range, she pointed it at the back of Blossom's head, but Blossom had seized the woman's arm when she fired the lethal weapon, causing it to miss - for the most part. The Duranium bullet had ripped through Blossom's left earlobe. Alarmed, Blossom gave the woman's arm a twist, causing a bony snap as the woman screamed and let go of her Duranium pistol. One right hook was all it took to send the woman sprawling on the ground.
Victory felt close - until a puff of white smoke engulfed Blossom. Something had struck her in her temple, something glassy that broke and released the smoke.
Blossom immediately felt weak, so weak that she had to let herself fall to the ground. She couldn't help coughing and wheezing as she stumbled her way through the smoke. Bullets, albeit in reduced volumes, greeted her once again when she was in the clear. She fired more infrared beams the moment she laid eyes on another gangster; she was able to stun the crook, but something was wrong. Her eyes stung, and it took much more effort than before. Pink electrical arcs had emanated from her, sending sparks of pain throughout her body. Something was wrong, very wrong.
Near the door, she could see Fedele Palladino hiding behind a crate, holding what appeared to be a bright-orange flaregun. He was just firing another round at Bubbles. Blossom had seen the round, her keen eyes caught the look of it. Palladino had fired a glass vial from the flare gun, which detonated in a cloud of white smoke when it struck Bubbles in the chest.
It all made sense now.
"Bubbles, Buttercup! Watch out! They're shooting Anti-X at us!" Blossom shouted to warn her sisters, but it was too late; Bubbles had already been hit. When Blossom turned to find Buttercup, she saw her kneeling on the ground, exhausted and surrounded by a dissipating white cloud as well as… dead bodies.
A hail of bullets was still whipping through the air towards them, coming from the doors. They had either knocked out or killed most of the criminals in the mill, leaving the rest to retreat, but there were more of them shooting from the outside.
Mister Palladino was on his way out. Blossom saw him breaking open his flaregun and slotting in another glass vial. She darted towards Buttercup, pink electrical arcs shooting out of her legs. She couldn't run as fast as she used to. She didn't even dare to fly and risk more X-energy feedback. Scooping up Buttercup, she sprinted the other way, leaping forward when she saw Palladino shooting another vial of Anti-X at her.
There was another explosion of white smoke, engulfing her again briefly before she flew out of the cloud and into cover behind a shelf stocked full of metal beams. Laying Buttercup down, Blossom coughed uncontrollably, with saliva dribbling down the sides of her mouth. She was joined by Bubbles, who was coughing similarly, baby blue electrical arcs surging briefly out randomly from her.
Buttercup had been briefly unconscious at first, but she came to quickly. Sitting up quickly, she coughed as well, and sneezed, wiping snot out of her nose.
"Now what do we do?" Buttercup asked Blossom, who gave her the stinkeye.
"I told you not to kill anyone!" Blossom berated her in between coughs.
"They were going to kill my friends, Blossom!" Buttercup shot back; roleplaying had become so easy that she had gotten into the act almost automatically. "I had to kill them before they kill my friends!"
Blossom fell silent. Buttercup had never been more right than ever. Those gangsters were shooting to kill, and they were intent on getting past them to do the same to Mister Mullens and the rest, no mercy, no chances given.
"I feel sick…" Bubbles moaned as she leaned against the shelf, barely able to stand. Bullets were still shot in their general direction, ripping open cardboard packaging and putting dents in the steel or ricocheting off it.
"It's the Anti-X," Buttercup said. "It could have been worse-" Before she finished her sentence, she got up, took a peek between boxes of steel beams before firing off a quick pair of ocular laser beams, slicing a gangster across the chest, forcing him into hiding. She was immediately punished for it by lime-green electrical arcs crawling across her eyes and face. "Ow! At least we can still use our superpowers!"
"I don't feel like it…" Bubbles groaned. "What are we going to do?"
Blossom peeked through the shelf, putting her all into her x-ray and zoom vision, enduring nasty electrical feedback surging deep into her eye sockets.
"I think they're afraid to come out," Blossom told her sisters of her observations.
"I'm afraid to come out too…" Bubbles said.
"We'll wait here for a minute, I think we need a break…" Blossom said, before slumping into the shelf.
"I think an hour is more like it," Buttercup corrected Blossom. Lethargy was setting in, and soon, she was sitting next to Blossom.
"Or a day…" Bubbles said weakly, feeling faint. The thing was, Bubbles wasn't far from the truth, and all three Girls knew it. It had taken days for them to recover from Anti-X poisoning the last time.
The City of Townsville. Industrial District. Steele's Stellar Steel.
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 0039.
What happened to the Powerpuff Girls was of great concern to Detective Mullens. Usually, whatever fight they were involved in would tend to end quickly, with the outcome decided within minutes. The outcome this time was unclear: it was an uneasy stalemate that'd left them exposed. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were all taking cover behind a shelf, all collapsed in a heap, looking like lifeless dolls from a distance. Bullets were still flying; the only good news was they had become sporadic.
"Oh my God," Olivia muttered as she stared at the fallen Girls from between steel vats.
"Rhat happened to them?" Stanley Talker woofed, almost whining, as he was lying on the ground and looking at the Girls from under the bottom of another molten steel vat.
"Chemical warfare from the looks of it," Detective Mullens surmised. He was leaning against a steel vat, next to his daughter, his magnum revolver out.
"Where did they even get something that could knock out the Powerpuff Girls?" Olivia wondered.
"You kids alright over there!?" Detective Wednesday called out to the Girls. The only reply he received was a thumbs-up from Blossom, a lethargic one; her body language and the fact that she was still slumped against her cover did not inspire much confidence in him. Jack Wednesday pulled out his pistol and pulled the slide, getting ready.
As if on cue, there were more explosions coming from the opposite side of the steel mill. More gangsters were on the way to do them in. The detectives and talking dog shifted their positions to take cover from this greater threat.
Garrett Mullens had caught a glimpse of what they were dealing with: more criminals, but they were from crime families and gangs other than the Lombardi. He'd seen some Yakuzas and Triad members, easily identifiable from whatever exposed tattoos they had, as well as elements of the Russian mob and rival Italian crime families.
"Great, just great!" Detective Wednesday said.
"Rhat do re do?" the talking dog asked Mullens, deferring to him as the pack leader. Detective Mullens didn't speak initially - they were in a bit of a tactical conundrum, that much he knew. Caught between a hammer and an anvil with the only people who could save them seemingly out of commission, they were trapped with no way out.
"How about squeezing through the front?" Olivia Mullens suggested. She had to briefly stop speaking when bullets had begun peppering their position anew before she continued again: "The Powerpuffs handled most of them; we can take the rest of them out and run!"
Olivia had nearly charged out of cover when her father pulled her back, hard, refusing to let her go.
"No. They're pretty well dug in and we're not!" Mullens said. "If we get pinned down in the middle of it, we'd have no good cover to take a jab from behind."
"Then rhat do re do?" the talking dog asked again.
"We stick to our guns, wear down the second group, and maybe, just maybe, our friends in the PD or USDO will arrive in time," Detective Mullens said.
"Slim chance of our 'friends' in the PD coming," Detective Wednesday critiqued. "But I can buy the USDO coming over to look at things."
"Right. Wednesday, you're with me. We'll take on the second group as they come. Olivia, you watch our back, don't let Palladino and his remaining cronies slip by - if they can-" Mullens ordered.
"Why me? The Powerpuff Girls-" Olivia protested, only to be cut off.
"They're not reliable anymore!" Mullens said. "Just look at 'em. They look like they're falling asleep! Now's not the time to be a heroine, Olive." He then turned to the talking dog, who was low on the ground and growling as shots were fired and the Yakuza, Triads, Russians, and Italians were approaching them. "Talker, get ready. You're our only ace in the hole now."
Wedged between two rows of molten steel vats, the police officers scrambled into position. Their outlook was hardly ideal; Garrett and Wednesday had their backs exposed to Palladino and his remaining men, while Olivia's back was exposed to the reinforcing criminals. Only Stanley Talker need not worry about getting shot, but there was the odd chance of Duranium rounds and Anti-X canisters affecting him as well.
The Yakuzas, Triad, Russians, and Italian gang members lay upon them with the force of a sledgehammer. The moment they were confident, they began firing full-auto, drumming the vats madly. Mullens and Wednesday fired back with revolver and pistol, but with only tiny slits between vats and the exposed sides of the vats to work with, they couldn't get a good shot off. Only a single Italian soldato was killed on the way to cover. The rest of them found good nests to lay siege upon them.
"Talker, loop around and bite them in the ass!" Mullens ordered, pointing the way for the talking dog as he fired off more magnum rounds, covering for the intelligent dog along with Wednesday.
The talking dog obliged, darting off, past the vats. His low profile had made him completely hidden behind shelves, boxes, steel beams, and debris. Halfway around and towards the criminals, Stanley was made with a flanking force of three Italian mafiosos who'd thought of the same idea as Mullens.
Stanley Talker promptly pounced at the leading gangster faster than they could react, slamming him to the ground. He lunged in for a bite to the neck, tearing out a huge chunk of flesh and splattering blood everywhere. It'd sent the others into a panic; the talking dog had already begun to accrue a reputation as the ultimate K-9. As the other two ran, firing random shots back at him and doing only damage to his canine vest, Stanley pounced on a second gangster, causing him to fall flat on his chest, trilby hat fluttering by. The enhanced dog bit into his nape this time, tearing out a portion of the spine along with flesh and skin.
"Help me, it's coming for me!" the third gangster screamed in sheer terror as he tried to escape. Stanley didn't let him, this time choosing to lunge at the man's calf instead, dragging him away as he clawed at the ground and tried to struggle free. The talking dog, however, was strong as a bulldozer. Once in cover, the dog tore out his calf muscles before scrambling on top of him and biting down on his skull, his teeth easily penetrating it and crushing the brain underneath.
But his cry for help had been heard.
"Get that mutt!" one of the Russian gangsters ordered. Six of them converged on Stanley Talker, guns flashing and screaming. The talking dog leaped into cover, but it was a flimsy wooden box. Bullets ripped through it, the heavy ordnance of the Russians pushing it. It'd turned out to be a (largely) empty box.
Jumping out, the talking dog lunged for the closest gangster, tackling him, but with guns still pointed at him, he jumped the next one for lack of time, this time aiming for the neck and fastening his jaws on it, tearing the gangster's throat out.
The enhanced dog turned and growled at his next target, copious amounts of blood dripping from his lips and teeth. A potentially fatal mistake. A couple of the Russian mobsters ran, but not one peculiar one, who simply raised his pistol and fired.
Somehow, the bullet had ripped through the talking dog. Had Stanley Talker not flinched, it would have gone through his face, but the next worst thing happened, and the bullet tore through his shoulder instead.
Duranium, the bane of enhanced individuals.
Stanley Talker yelped in pain but did not back down. The daring mobster's pistol was blown, which was ideal for the talking dog to take his revenge, tackling the man and bringing him down before tearing his face off with renewed strength in his canine jaws.
But the pain was tripling with every passing second. Bullets were still coming his way. Stanley Talker had killed more than his fair share, but there were far more to take the fallens' place.
He bolted on three limbs, going back the way he came. His failure as the 'ace in the hole' had somehow stung worse than his shoulder wound.
Detective Mullens and Wednesday had seen everything, and the moment they did, they knew that it would not bode well for them. The problem was, the Yakuzas, Triads and remaining Russians and Italians saw it too.
Someone on the Yakuza side gave a shout, waving his katana. It was an order, Mullens knew, even though he didn't understand Japanese. The failure of his strategy was all he needed to translate. With the order, all the criminals began sprinting towards them out of cover, all manners of blades and guns were drawn. There were still about twenty of them.
Bullets peppered Mullens' position, now more to suppress him and his group than anything. Mullens and Wednesday, on the other hand, couldn't even leave the safety of their cover to shoot. By the time Stanley Talker had returned, their multitude of assassins was almost on top of them.
The first wave to pop up around the side of their rows of steel vats were the swords-waving Yakuza enforcers, who rushed them seemingly without regard for their own lives. Stanley Talker was rushed by a few more Italians and Russians who peeled off from the main group. The talking dog pounced on them all, but with his injured shoulder, he would be occupied for some time.
Mullens and Wednesday tried their best, shooting them down as they come, but it was as if the fearsome Yakuza's suicidal zeal had given them armor. The first Yakuza enforcer leading the charge had taken something like six bullets before finally falling over, and the ones behind him took similar volumes of ordnance. Even with Olivia turning around to help, the Yakuzas were surging in like a tsunami, and the Triad members were behind them.
Clack! The ominous sound of unloaded pistol and revolver; it was something Mullens thought worse than the Yakuzas screaming for his blood. There were too many of them, and as much as he hated to admit it, the foot soldiers of the criminal underground had things going for them - they wouldn't have plied their trade for this long if they hadn't.
Triad members emerged in between Yakuza enforcers, raising their pistols while Mullens and Wednesday tried frantically to reload.
"No!" Olivia screamed, putting shots in the Triad shooters and coming in between them and her dad. But they were too many. When two went down, four more took over, and they were able to put bullets into her, going for the center of mass; chest shots and gut shots - nothing quite as fancy as headshots, but it did the job.
"Olivia!" Detective Mullens screamed in shock when he realized what happened. Some bullets had ripped through Olivia, though none of it had hit him. He saw the streaks of blood following the bullets, and he'd seen a Yakuza follow it up with a sword slash to Olivia's abdomen followed by a lightning-fast follow-up that sliced her in the throat.
Clutching her throat, Olivia fell on her back, blood quickly pooling up.
And all Detective Garrett Mullens could do was stare in horror, but not for long… as his daughter's slayers weren't giving him time to grieve.
