Chapter 145: The Polaroid Truth
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1528.
"Dad?" Blossom said to the professor. She had never felt more in trouble in her entire life before. He was staring at the photographs clutched in his hands. She had caught a glimpse of them as she was flying closer to him in the kitchen. The last photograph he was looking at was a photograph of her sleeping in Bossman's bed, while wearing pyjamas that wasn't even hers. He had moved on to a photograph of her kissing Bossman's gang ring while she was coming closer to him.
It wasn't until Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were an arm's length away from the professor that he had lifted his eyes to glance at them. The look in his eyes weren't welcoming, something which Blossom had never seen before. He quickly returned to staring at the photos before sighing and slapping them down on the kitchen counter.
"Dad, I can explain," Blossom said. The professor, however, simply walked past her, leaving the kitchen. The Girls followed. "Dad! Please! It's not what you think!"
Professor Utonium made his way across the living room. The Girls followed like a pack of needy puppies. Opening the airlock doors, the professor got in. He didn't hold the door open, something which sent a dire signal to Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. The Girls followed him in nonetheless.
"Talk to me, Dad. Please!" Blossom tried to get a response from him to no avail. She'd pulled at his arm only for him to shrug it off.
The airlock cycled. The other end opened, and the professor walked out, again without saying a word to the Girls. He descended the stairs after that.
"Dad!" Blossom cried as she continued to float behind him like a ghost.
This continued for some time as the professor went down the stairs, then crossed the labs and entered the medical section of the underground. He'd stopped only at the surgical table. Leaning against the head of the surgical table, he breathed a sigh before hunching forward, as if suffering from some great burden.
"Dad?" Blossom said, wondering what was next. As usual, the professor did not reply her. A moment of silence took over, as if someone else had passed.
"There's blood on your pantyhose, there's blood…" the professor said, sounding confused and a little sad. Withdrawn, even. "It's not YOUR pantyhose."
That fact had somehow slipped past Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. They had fled the Lombardi mansion without their gear. They were still wearing the black dresses and garments the gang had provided. Even if Dad did not receive those damning photographs of her, it would have raised some hard questions.
"Can't we just talk?" Blossom asked again, but the professor did not reply, not quite. He patted the surgical table, prompting Blossom to lie down, which she did. With her and her sisters' secret exposed and a conversation impossible, it was the only way she could think of to make things better.
The professor worked without another word, removing ash from Bubbles' emergency haemostatic agent and dead skin, sterilizing both entrance and exit wounds and replacing the bandages Bubbles had wrapped around her thigh. He'd worked with singular concentration. Whenever the Girls looked him in the eyes, they would see a slight bit of tragic insanity in there, balanced only by shock, and there was no mystery as to what might have caused it.
"Dad… Please talk to me…" Blossom continued trying anyway, even when it was clear that the professor was uncommunicative. When he was done treating Blossom, he'd silently picked her up like a baby and made his way back to the surface, with Bubbles and Buttercup following behind him.
They took the lift up to the living room, before going up the stairs and into the Girls' room. The professor would then put Blossom into bed, that shocked, slightly insane look still on his face. Blossom did not dare to even sit up, as if doing so might undo all the effort she had made to get her Dad to talk. The Girls sat beside Blossom, with Bubbles holding her hand, consoling her that way. Buttercup tried her best to blend in with her sisters, holding Blossom's head to her, stroking her luscious red hair as she observed the scene unfolding before her dispassionately. Had there been any popcorn available, she would have started stuffing her face with it.
The professor sat down on the edge of the bed, looking away from them. He hunched forward, putting his face in his hands.
"What did the three of you do?" he mumbled, his voice as if a tired, tattered piece of paper.
"We were just trying to help-" Blossom said, keeping her voice down, just in case.
"DON'T LIE TO ME, BLOSSOM!" Professor Utonium suddenly screamed, sounding almost unhinged, at least as unhinged as the still untidy house was. "STOP LYING TO ME!" It'd shaken Blossom to the core, more than ever. At the very least, when her Dad had accused her of something in the past, he'd been right, and there were even times when he was wrong to believe her.
"But Blossom isn't lying…" Bubbles said, tightening her grip on Blossom's hand, which had become clammy with sweat.
"Yeah, we were fighting crime and doing all those cool stuff!" Buttercup added, and it wasn't a surprise anymore to everyone around her that she was doing the right thing. "We just-"
"Then what were those photos I saw?" the professor shouted to no one in particular. "Those weren't doctored!"
"We thought they were good!" Bubbles defended Blossom again.
"They were helping us to fight crime. They had policemen friends and they were all helping us to find the bad guys," Blossom explained, struggling through every word as she could barely keep herself contained, being on the verge of tears.
"We thought they were friends…" Bubbles supplemented Blossom.
"And they were treating us real nice, with meals and playtime and wine-" Buttercup went on, only to be cut off.
"You drank wine!?" the professor exclaimed all of a sudden, just when Blossom thought she couldn't jump at anything else anymore. "They gave you wine!?"
It wasn't as if Blossom and her sisters didn't know that they shouldn't drink alcohol. They had seen Dad and Mom doing it plenty of times, and they had both swiftly shut them down when they asked to try it - and they'd all asked to try them out of curiosity.
Well, they just weren't sure if wine qualified as an alcoholic drink… until now.
"How much did they give you?" the professor questioned Blossom, barely able to keep himself under control and rational.
"They gave it to us every meal…" Blossom was only able to manage a squeak. The moment the professor heard it, he was back to cupping his face in his hands again and groaning as if in physical pain, but after taking a deep breath, he went on.
"Did they… spike the drinks?" he asked.
"What's spike?" Bubbles asked, completely clueless.
"The wine didn't feel sharp…" Buttercup added.
"Did they add anything to the drinks? Did the wine do something to you?" the professor clarified himself, and Bubbles was quickly reminded of her addiction to His Secret and the long road to recovery from it that had been made rockier by Bossman's deception.
"It made me fall asleep. Does that count?" Blossom revealed her secret first.
"Yes. Yes it does," the professor said with clenched teeth. Terrible things were happening to his little baby Girls, things that would have broken up an ordinary family, and there was nothing he could do to prevent them.
"It was inside, Dad. They put it in…" Bubbles mumbled vaguely. She could feel herself shaking just from the thought of the drug, having been reminded of it after trying so hard to forget her addiction. She had stopped holding Blossom's hand, and was instead wrapping her arms around herself, as if she was out in the cold.
The professor didn't need to clarify what she meant. But at this point, it was the least of his worries.
"They'll come for the three of you," the professor said, shaking and holding back tears. "This house is broken enough, but they'll come for the three of you and separate us."
"I know, the Amoeba Boys tried to kill us but we ran," Blossom said, trying what little she could to calm her Dad down.
"I'm not talking about the Amoeba Boys!" the professor shouted. "It's the USDO! If I've received those photos, they must have too!"
It'd reminded the Girls of Bossman's threat. He'd mentioned that he would show those incriminating photos to 'everyone', and 'everyone', Blossom inferred, would surely include her friends in the USDO.
"They're coming any moment now!" the professor shouted with renew urgency, getting up; he looked agitated, half-insane. It'd shattered Blossom, how her mistakes had destroyed her Dad. "They'll come and take you away!"
Had there been time, she would have tried to put him back together, even if her hands had so far been proven to be extremely clumsy. But there wasn't time. No sooner had he warned the Girls did a grenade smash through the middle port window. Smoke belched out from it as it bounced off the bed frame and rolled back towards the window.
"Blossom, Bubbles… Buttercup. I love you… but the three of you need to go - live your lives on your own terms," the professor said with a look of silent resignation and shock on his face as equally silent tears fell from his eyes. "I don't regret having the three of you. Just don't- don't forget me."
Another grenade smashed through a port window, bouncing off the carpeted floor and hitting the professor in the skull, sending him sprawling across the ground. Blood poured from his head, quickly forming a red stream.
"DAD!" Blossom and Bubbles screamed. Buttercup didn't have to act afraid and shocked this time, as what happened to the professor was genuinely frightening.
"This is the USDO! We have you surrounded!" a voice, boosted by a bullhorn, blared from the outside. "Bravo-47, Bravo-48 and Bravo-49, you will leave the building unarmed and prepare for relocation! You have one minute! I repeat, you are surrounded!"
All Blossom could think about was to fly over to the professor's side, followed by Bubbles. Buttercup, who wasn't as concerned about Professor Utonium, took cover under one of the port windows.
"DAD!" Blossom cried as she tried to shake him awake. There was white smoke everywhere - for a moment, the sole clear-headed Powerpuff Girl, Buttercup, was afraid it might be Anti-X, but as it didn't have the same weakening effect, decided that it wasn't.
"DAD! WAKE UP!" Blossom cried as she shook the professor more, with Bubbles standing beside her, hands in her mouth, completely paralyzed by shock and fear. Was the professor killed by the bouncing smoke grenade? All three Girls knew that normal human beings were easy to kill, and the fact didn't help with their panic. Between the chaos and the Girls' state of mind, they couldn't even find out when more grenades were launched into The House. Blossom hugged the professor when she realized it, and felt another smoke grenade bouncing off her back with a heavy, dull 'Thump!'. She would have been floored or outright killed had she been a normal little girl.
"Thirty seconds! Bravo-47, Bravo-48, Bravo-49, you will leave the building unarmed and prepare for relocation!" the commanding voice outside repeated itself. "Comply or we will use force!"
Buttercup knew what it meant. They would have exactly thirty seconds to leg it, something which her sisters hadn't realized because of how traumatized they were. Looking back at them from her hiding spot under the window, she saw Bubbles standing there, almost a statue had it not been for her trembling and tears, while Blossom was still crying over the professor.
"Blossom, Bubbles! We got to go now!" Buttercup shouted at her sisters. As much as she hated them and desired nothing but revenge against them, she needed them for now. The last time she tried to make a go at it alone had ended in complete disaster.
They didn't seem to hear her. Buttercup could now hear boots on the first floor. There were more than a few sets of footsteps. They had sent an entire squad of soldiers into The House. They really needed to go now!
"Blossom, Bubbles, stop being stupid!" Buttercup screamed at them, exasperated. She knew what was distressing them - the fact that Professor Utonium might have been killed by a bouncing grenade - but there's no point crying over spilt milk now, is there?
Running over to Bubbles, Buttercup slapped her across the cheek, gaining her attention instantly. Bubbles looked at her, stunned, and she had stopped crying abruptly. Buttercup didn't wait, and instead went up to Blossom and pulled her up forcibly by the shoulders.
"Blossom, snap out of it!" Buttercup screamed into her face while shaking her as if trying to wake her from unconsciousness. "You're supposed to be the leader, not me!"
"Bu-bu-but D-Dad!" Blossom cried, eyes completely flooded with tears, which overflowed like broken dams.
"Dad' told us to go!" Buttercup snapped back at her, her fingers digging into Blossom's arms. Oh, how she wished she could break her neck right now! But Him was right - this was far from the best time to take revenge on her. "Are you going to stop listening to him now that he's dead!?"
"He's not DEAD!" Blossom screamed whilst trying to worm her way out of Buttercup's grip, but couldn't.
"We have no time to argue, we have to scat, now!" Buttercup ordered - for the first time in a long time. With that, Buttercup let go of Blossom, who sank to her knees, and flew straight for the walk-in closet to arm up.
Blossom couldn't bring herself to move, to even turn her eyes away from Dad, who lay crumpled on the carpet. For all she knew, this could be the last time she was seeing him.
Bubbles, reluctantly, followed Buttercup into the walk-in closet, throwing on anything they could find - a task made difficult by how they hadn't tidied the walk-in closet. With Mom dead or missing, and Dad grieving and not himself, there was no one to enforce the house rules.
Emerging out of the closet, Bubbles and Buttercup were barely combat ready, with the both of them still in their dresses but with (most) of their armor on. They had taken most of their usual picks from the armory. Bubbles had taken out much of Blossom's equipment when she saw that she hadn't joined them in the closet.
"Blossom, come on…" Bubbles came up to Blossom, putting her armor set and XM4 Carbine beside her. "Dad told us to go…"
Blossom was still crying, and Dad was still on the floor, unmoving. The blood from his head had formed a small splotch on the carpet, but the bleeding had stopped. When she wouldn't put on her gear, Bubbles began helping her, starting with the load-bearing vest. It was only with this catalyst that Blossom began, reluctantly, to put her gear on.
That, and something else. More projectiles were fired into their room. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had caught sight of them: glass canisters. Familiar-looking glass canisters. The projectiles were fired in a straighter trajectory, shattering against the ceiling of their room. The substance within was aerosolized immediately, drifting down on them like white magic dust.
It wasn't until the Girls felt tingling in their bodies that they realized what it was.
It was Anti-X. The Anti-X they had come to hate.
"Hurry up, Blossom!" Buttercup rushed her sister as she got down low, avoiding most of the Anti-X mist that was nonetheless coming down lower. There were more stuff they could have taken, but the little time they had was cut even shorter by whichever USDO commander was making their lives miserable.
"We'll take one window each! Follow me up into the sky!" Blossom ordered, finally herself again. With her vest barely on and weapon hanging on her neck, she ran towards the windows. Her sisters followed. All three of them were coughing and sneezing, small electrical arcs in their respective colors began streaking, discharging their precious Chemical X energy.
Bubbles and Buttercup had flown out first. Before taking off, Blossom took one last tearful look at the professor, who was still silent and unmoving - and then he was gone when she darted out of the window and through the air, into fresh air once again.
The USDO did not give them a moment's reprieve the moment they were out - and heading in the wrong direction, which was up. The Girls couldn't ascend fast enough, however, as the Anti-X they had dispersed in their room was taking effect. Airburst munitions were fired their way, launched by retrofitted humvees, exploding in mid-air. The cumbersome weapons missed most of the time - until it didn't.
A shell exploded among Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, blowing up in Blossom's face, scattering the Girls in three directions. The shock and pain of what was supposed to be an anti-plane weapon was too much, knocking out Blossom. Unconscious, she began plummeting to the ground.
Bubbles had seen what happened even as she was being flung skyward, spinning like an out-of-control top. Desperately, she brought herself under control, more improvising than intentionally, before accelerating down head-first towards the falling Blossom. Airburst shells were still flying in their direction, however - something which Buttercup was more than happy to take care of. As Bubbles turned in midair to face the sky, wrapping her arms around Blossom's chest, Buttercup fired laser beams at the anti-air humvees that had been their main source of misery, slicing men and cannons both and ending their reign of terror.
Yet that wasn't the end of it. Bullets began flying their way in place of shells. Bubbles and Buttercup, with the unconscious Blossom in tow, flew away as quickly as their reduced Chemical X would allow…
