Chapter 150: Capitulation

The City of Townsville. Townsville Industrial Park. Church of the New Trinity.

24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1828.

Bubbles was kneeling before the Catholic cross, her hands clasped in prayer as she bowed her head and concentrated. She had been at it for the past 20 minutes, under the tutelage of the cult leader George Luther. She had been praying out loud previously, accompanied by her 'followers', but now she had been left alone, so that she might somehow 'reconnect' with God, not that Bubbles really believed that there was one, nor could she wrap her head around the idea that this 'God' was her actual father, and the one she called Dad a caretaker. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

In the meantime, Blossom was still aloof, drowning in her own misery, while Buttercup had started playing with the toys in the nursery room, first sliding a toy snake around before moving on to build up a block castle before knocking it down. None of it seemed entertaining to her; her current situation as a runaway was sucking the fun out of everything. She knew very well what it meant: she would be hunted every step of the way, she would not be able to rest and stay in one place along, and food and water wouldn't be so readily available.

Food and water. Buttercup remembered how she had to fight for them; it'd made her regret rejecting food from the crazy pastor fellow. After casting another glance down the back of a Blossom who was still giving herself some corner time, Buttercup got up, abandoned the toys she had amassed, and left the room.

'Mister George has to be somewhere around here,' she thought to herself.

'Help me, oh Lord,' Bubbles had been stuck at this thought for what felt like hours. 'God, please help Blossom and Buttercup too...' There was simply nothing else she could wish for, and she was no longer naive enough to believe that some grandfather in the sky was going to bring her father back. After having closed her eyes for close to half an hour, she finally gave up and stepped away from the cross, only to bump into Buttercup.

"Bubbles! Where's Mister George?" Buttercup asked after pushing Bubbles off her.

"You mean Mister Luther," Bubbles corrected her. "He was here a minute ago, but he went away while I was praying…"

"Urgh, you were praying?" Buttercup sneered at her.

"I don't know what else to do…" Bubbles admitted. "I prayed for you too…" Buttercup tried her best not to laugh. She had to keep up appearances. She would have failed had George not burst through the door of his office.

"What's going on out there!" the cult leader shouted, not at them, but at the ushers manning the entrance.

"They're coming for us!" one of the women at the door exclaimed.

"Who?" George asked out loud, but it wouldn't be the usher answering his question. There was the sharp crack of a gunshot which reverberated throughout the church, sending people running or getting down to their knees. Bubbles and Buttercup had retreated back into the makeshift nursery, afraid since they had hardly had time to recuperate and were still lacking in strength. Without Blossom, they wouldn't know what to do. Even Buttercup could recognize this fact - running away on her own had made her understood, at least grudgingly, that she lacked Blossom's vision and ability to plan and strategize.

Bubbles and Buttercup continued watching the events unfold from the door of the nursery, which was open only slightly, creating a thin gap. They were joined by Blossom, who watched with them with dismay, just as helpless because of the lack of energy.

Men and women in red robes had begun streaming into the church, all of them carrying weapons of disparate kinds - some with ceremonial swords and daggers, others with bolt-action rifles, submachineguns and pistols. They hadn't attacked the members of the Church of the New Trinity. Yet. Instead, they formed a line against the Powerpuff worshippers, who retreated from them and huddled together like a herd of sheep. George Luther stood at the head of this flock, an old man who looked more helpless than his followers, but stood straight and firm nonetheless.

Blossom watched, but she couldn't stand just watching any longer. She opened the door wider, only to be held back by Buttercup; Blossom would have flown in to try to save the day if it wasn't for her tomboy sister.

"We can't help them. Look," Buttercup whispered to Blossom and pointed out some of the scarier-looking members of the red cultists. They had glowing red eyes. A particularly huge man had a pair of axes, both made of oddly-shining Duranium. Another was similar to one Blossom had fought before - a tall woman wearing nothing but a loose red cloak and armed with a pair of sabers. There were a few others, and they were all armed with Duranium weapons in addition to guns. Had Blossom fought a pitched battle with them and pull Bubbles and Buttercup along with her, they would have been outnumbered, outgunned and outmatched.

"What do we do? I don't want to lose another friend…" Bubbles mewled, on the verge of tears again. The fact that another friend might be lost didn't fly over Blossom's head. Tears prickled her eyes as she watched. In Luther's place, she saw Mister Mullens, Olivia, her Daddy. She saw all the friends she had made in the USDO who had been killed on the lawn of her very home. When will it ever stop?


The City of Townsville. Townsville Industrial Park. Church of the New Trinity.

24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1833.

One of the many red robes stepped forward. An Asian-looking woman, possibly Japanese, wearing nothing but a cloak with not even shoes to shield her soles from the cold floor. She was unarmed, and despite her lack of proper clothes, she didn't seem vulnerable.

"If it isn't George Luther himself," the woman greeted her counterpart mockingly, her accent confirming her abandoned heritage. "Excommunicated for betraying the Catholic Church whom he served for decades. How has that worked out for you?"

"Are you here to turn your back on your wicked ways and receive the blessings of the holy New Trinity?" the ex-cardinal returned one cultic insult with another, not budging at all despite the dangerous-looking woman coming closer. She was shorter, smaller, and yet she commanded a kind of aura. George's followers were giving her some distance, but not the founder himself.

"No more games. We saw the Powerpuff Girls enter this filthy warehouse. Where are they?" the woman in red jumped straight to the point. Luther was unsettled by this Japanese woman - not just by her lack of modesty, but also how she kept herself a dangerous mystery. Even the top half of her face was mostly hidden.

"You must be mistaken. We have nothing but normal children here," Luther said. His response was another cultist raising his pistol and pressing its muzzle to his head. Some of his followers cried in fear and distress when they saw their prophet threatened.

"I won't ask again," the woman in red said. "Where are they?"

"And so the followers of the New Trinity shall be tested," George Luther paraphrased from his own writing. "Against doubt, shall there be faith? Against fear, shall there be courage? Against the forces of darkness and injustice, shall there be light and justice?"

One by one, his followers stood up where they were once on the floor, or stood straight and firm where they were once hunched and afraid.

"You're going to have to go through us first!" one of them cried, and a few agreements were murmured.

"You can break our bodies but you can't break our faith!" another said. Stronger voices uttered in support.

The woman in red snorted in revulsion, but waved her gunman away.

"On second thought, no, we will not martyr you, or anyone of your flock," she said. "We're wise enough not to do so. You are allowed to continue in your ignorant ways." the woman in red pressed herself closer to George Luther, so close that her body was touching his as she stared up at him. "But know this. You know not what you worship-"

The woman in red's words were cut short when doors throughout the warehouse-church were flung open, and windows, both old and newly carved, were smashed open with men in tactical gear coming through.

The bold and capitalized letters 'FBI' were printed across their vest.

"FBI! Drop your weapons and you won't be harmed!" one of them shouted, followed by many, all of them promising thinly-veiled threats and the chance to surrender.

It didn't take long for a firefight to break out when the adherents of the Cult of His Arm began charging or raising their weapons.


The City of Townsville. Townsville Industrial Park. Church of the New Trinity.

24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1839.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup jumped when guns started going off all over the church. Bodies were hitting the floor at an alarming rate as FBI SWAT and HRT agents took cover behind pews and pillars while the cultists - the ones in red - split up into two groups, with one leaving the church and another fighting against the federal government. Cultists of the benign kind - those who worshiped the Powerpuff Girls, were running helter-skelter, throwing themselves into the aisles between pews, or simply just lying flat down on the ground. Some were caught in the crossfire, martyred anyway despite the woman in red's promise.

Blossom saw the cult founder George Luther backing away, amazingly unharmed. He would fall and crumple on a pew, watching in disbelief as his flock was dispersed, as some were shredded by bullets. It was as if he was searching for meaning in the chaos, and his eyes were eventually turned to Blossom, and it was as if they were telling her to go…

"Let's go…" Blossom told her sisters as she backed away from their door and picked up her rifle.

"Do we really have to?" Bubbles and Buttercup asked in unison, though each of them had done it in completely different ways; Bubbles all soppy and forlorn, while Buttercup pumped up but disappointed.

"Yes! They're going to find us if we-" Blossom explained only to stop when she saw figures standing at a window. More FBI SWATs. "Have to go, now!"

Just as the windows were being smashed and the FBI SWATs started shouting their customary warnings, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup took flight after retrieving their gear, sailing right past the black-clad agents, who began firing their weapons in response, in a bid to knock them out before they could escape.

But the Girls were too fast despite their exhaustion.


The City of Townsville. Townsville Industrial Park. En-route to Church of the New Trinity.

24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1839.

"So you still don't trust me, do you?" General Blackwater, who was in the shotgun seat and outfitted for war, said to Professor Utonium, who sat in the back. The journey to one of Townsville's industrial district had been a mostly silent affair. It had been a long time since the professor had seen Blackwater in full swing as a leader. Even while he was on the move, he was completely occupied. As they were walking to their humvee, he was giving instructions to everyone who approached him. In the humvee, he gave orders over the radio, and that was in between listening to it for status updates and reports bringing him up to speed on the latest situation. An armchair general, Blackwater was not.

"Sorry, but no," the professor replied.

"Calling your Girls might put an end to this crisis, you know," the general said.

"And pull them into a trap?" Not exactly the ending I want," the professor continued to deny the general.

"I'm not the who bugged your phone," the general explained. "That's the job of the intelligence department, and it answers to Director Cliff."

"Just like how you answer to Director Cliff," the professor said.

"You know the line between me and Cliff," the general said. "I'm second to him, but second place isn't so bad. You know how much freedom I enjoy in the pursuit of the USDO's goals. There's an understanding between us. I don't need to know everything about his job and he doesn't need to know everything about mine. I can help you with the tracker in your phone, if you're willing to call the Girls and bring them to me."

The professor reached inside his lab coat, pulling out his phone. Reluctantly, he handed it over to the general, who took it, opened the lid and took the battery out. He replaced the battery with a new one from the glove compartment.

"The battery was a plant. It contained a mic. You were charging the bug whenever you charged the phone. It had been wirelessly sending your calls to the intelligence department. You should realize by now why your phone was losing power faster than usual. They were being sloppy, really, but I guess they weren't worried about being discovered by you. They expected you to just accept your loss of privacy as part of the job," the general explained. He then proceeded to make a call to a random number only he knew about, listening intently to the ringtone, then to the voice that came through before cutting it off entirely. "They're not tapping your phone. They could be diverting resources elsewhere. It's yours again."

The general handed it back to the professor, who couldn't help but be a little stunned at how deftly the general had handled his bugged phone as if it was part of a routine, like eating breakfast in the morning or putting on a fresh set of uniforms.

Going to his phonebook in the flip-phone, he searched for Blossom's number, found it easily before selecting it and auto-dialing the number with shaking hands. There was no question about it - he really wanted to talk to the Girls, just that he had been holding back for fear of endangering them.

The phone's dial tone began pinging. Seconds passed, one after the next.


The City of Townsville. Downtown. Sky. Destination Unknown.

24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1843.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had slowed down the moment they were out of sight. They flew low once again, to avoid detection by practically the entire district. Blossom had no idea where they could go next to seek shelter. The question had been floating in her head, lost at sea, just like how she was lost in the city. Even after crossing into the downtown area of Townsville, that question remained unanswered. It didn't help that they had to fly past numerous convoys of police and USDO vehicles, all assembled to capture them. The sirens were distracting, and it was still distracting Blossom.

That was the moment her phone started ringing. Before answering it, she descended down to the closest building she could find. The roof of the tallest apartment building grew bloated as Blossom, followed by Bubbles and Buttercup, raced down to it, landing like a parachutist, having to run to a stop. Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she flipped it open.

She couldn't believe it. How could it be?

The phone was ringing, and Dad's name was on it.

No, she could believe it! Despite Buttercup's constant suggestion, her constant… brainwashing, she could never quite believe that Daddy was dead.

"Who is it?" Bubbles asked, peeking at Blossom's phone.

"It's… It's Dad!" Blossom struggled to speak. Buttercup had seen it too, and she didn't like what she saw.

"It can't be," Buttercup said. "They're trying to trick us. They want us to come home so they can kill us. Can't you tell, Blossom? You're supposed to be the smart one!"

Blossom didn't want to hear it, and yet Buttercup was making so much sense. As she weighed her options, the phone kept ringing, urging her to decide and decide quickly.

"Give it to me, Blossom," Buttercup said, and when Blossom was still hesitant, she put on the sweetest smile she could muster, and added words as slick as honey to it: "You know I love you, right? Sister…"

Buttercup reached for the phone. Blossom didn't resist. She found it hard to deny Buttercup, and yet she found it hard to resist the call. Paralyzed, she finally couldn't react to Buttercup taking the phone away and crushing it between her fingers, one-handed. The electronics within the polymer shell buzzed and cackled its last before it went silent on the Girls.

"But what if it's Dad?" Bubbles said as Buttercup was sweeping plastic and electronic shards off her hands and dress.

"It couldn't have been," Blossom mumbled, shaking and clutching her rifle tightly, hugging it.

Buttercup didn't respond. She simply pulled her phone out and dashed it against the concrete floor, stepping on it and crushing it for good measure.

Bubbles didn't do the same and that annoyed Buttercup.

"Your phone, Bubbles. You should destroy it or they will try again," Buttercup said, her face ticking with frustration at first, but she kept it under control. She was doing it. She could feel it. She was taking over control of the Powerpuff team. Their hearts were in the palm of her hand - all the better to crush them in revenge.

Bubbles, however, held on stubbornly. Like Blossom, she thought that there was, perhaps, a chance that Dad was alive. But Buttercup was persuasive. Bubbles had seen him take that grenade to the head, and she had seen people die because of less. She had heard from the TV, without the professor knowing, about how people would just fall over and die from things like 'heart attacks' and 'aneurysms', or even being out in the sun for too long.

"If you can't do it, give it to me," Buttercup offered. Bubbles, however, refused. Instead, she went over to the edge. As if saying goodbye, she took one final look at her flip-phone before stretching her hand out over the ledge and letting go. The phone fell, but Bubbles didn't look over the ledge to see it fall.


The City of Townsville. Townsville Industrial Park. Church of the New Trinity.

24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1848.

"No point trying the hundredth time if they're not picking up, prof," General Blackwater advised the professor. Professor Utonium had been trying to call the Girls since he first started. He'd tried Blossom's phone at least five times, before moving on to Bubbles and Buttercup. None of them worked. Blossom's phone did not ring after the first time. Bubbles hadn't answered in the three times he tried calling her. Buttercup's phone wouldn't even work.

They were close. He could feel it. The humvee had stopped outside the church Selicia would bring the family to. The professor knew exactly why the Girls would choose to come here. The attendants of the church had always been more than hospitable to the Girls. It was little wonder. The irrational cultists practically worshiped the Powerpuff Girls. They gave the impression that they would take care of the Girls no matter what, an impression the Girls picked up on.

It was why the professor had advised sending a vanguard to the church, something the general decided was a fair bet. He had sent the FBI to the church since they were closest, to be reinforced by his own men.

Stepping out of the vehicle, the professor surveyed the scene. There was a battle. Red-robed bodies were lying on the floor, medieval weaponry beside them. There were a few casualties on the 'good' side. FBI SWAT agents who were either evidence now or being carried away on stretchers. No USDO soldiers were killed or even hurt, as they formed a second wave of attack, and by then, the FBI responders in the area had already taken the brunt of the Cult of His Arm's firepower.

The general and professor entered the church. The outside had been bad, but the inside was worse. It was utter pandemonium here. FBI agents were skewered by swords, spears and knives, with some riveted into the wall. Some of the red-robed cultists were filled with holes. Apparently, they could go on even with dozens of bullets in them. The professor could easily tell, not just by their wounds, that they were likely drugged with His Secret 2.0. The eyes, bloodshot and still angry, were dead giveaways.

There were others. Innocents had been caught in the crossfire. People in civilian clothes. Members of the Church of the New Trinity were shot and killed, likely while they were trying to get to safety. There were children among them, though thankfully not many; their small size and stature had ensured that bullets were flying over them, not into them.

The general and professor were approached by two soldiers while they were crossing the church through the center, taking it all in. They saluted him. The general saluted them in return.

"Sir, we have witnesses on site," one of the soldiers reported. "They've confirmed that the Powerpuff Girls were here."

"Take me to them, please," the professor said. The two soldiers looked to the general.

"Do it," the general said in brief.

The soldiers led the general and the professor towards one of the rooms, this one repurposed into the nurse's office. Outside the door was huddled part of the congregation, most of whom were unscathed from the battle. Passing through the door, the professor saw some of the injured lying in bed with USDO medics attending to them. The church's nurse was unhurt and assisting the medics.

"Why aren't these people sent to hospital?" the professor asked the nearest medic, who took a glance at him and recognized him - the professor had once been the head of research and had worked shifts in the medical wing, and he still had some authority about him.

"There were too many casualties on all three sides and not enough ambulances. The worst off were the first to go. We're waiting for more ambulances," the medic said.

The general and professor moved on soon enough. The professor knew that it wasn't his place to assert himself, and he couldn't help the wounded, not with his Girls somewhere out there. The soldiers brought them to one of cult members, an old man with a beard who was smartly dressed. He seemed to be mumbling to himself in verses until the professor approached him.

Professor Utonium was familiar with him. George Luther was as opposing a viewpoint as a man could be to him, being of a Catholic religious background and a cultic occupation. But as different as they were from each other as birds could be from the fishes of the deep, the professor couldn't bring himself to disrespect the man in any way, and now, he had nothing but respect for George since he had sheltered and provided for his Girls. At least, that was the assumption.

"George, right?" the professor greeted the man awkwardly. The church founder looked up at him, his face still pale and blank. The professor couldn't see any visible wounds on him.

"Yes- yes, I am. I apologize, I must still be in shock," the preacher said.

"You took in Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup when they sought your help. What condition were they in?" the professor asked.

"They were hungry, so very hungry. I tried to feed them but they wouldn't eat. They fasted like Jesus in the desert without even knowing it. They are divine without a doubt," the preacher said. Professor Utonium didn't like how he had 'canonized' the Girls or deified them. In fact, it felt all wrong, sending his science sense spinning out of control from the wrongness, but he didn't, couldn't, allow his personal values to get in the way.

"Were they injured in any way?" the professor asked another question.

"We couldn't work any miracles, but we bandaged them up as well as we could. The green one, Buttercup, was shot by heretics. The red one, Blossom, was already bandaged, so the nurse changed her dressing. She was bruised, so we gave her medicine for them. Bubbles wasn't hurt, so she helped instead," George replied.

"Did you see where they've gone?" the general butted in before the professor could ask any further questions.

"I… I don't know. They were in the nursery, and then they left," George said. "It was hell when the heretics raided us. We stood in their way, in their quest for the devil. People were dying. My flock - my congregation. They didn't deserve this, to die for their beliefs-"

"Are you sure they didn't tell you anything? Did you overhear anything about their plans?" the general continued interrogating the church founder, ignoring his laments.

"Is it so wrong to believe in three little Girls sent by God to make the world a better place?" George continued lamenting, crying.

"You will tell me what I need to know, you bible-thumping idiot, or I'll-" General Blackwater barked at the shaking preacher, but Professor Utonium pulled him back.

"He would have told you if he knew, general!" the professor said. "He cherishes the Girls - to the extreme! Give that man a break!"

The general did nothing but growl before marching away. With nothing left to be done, the professor followed him, but not before leaving George Luther with a few more words: "We don't see eye-to-eye, reverend, but I appreciate what you've done for the Girls - even at the cost of your own. Thank you."

With that, the professor left the trembling and crying preacher to his own tears.