Chapter 151: All in the Blood
The City of Townsville. Uptown. Sonny Champions Photo Studios.
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1850.
"Hold it there… Hold it there…" a photographer instructed his models while he buried his face behind his massive camera. When his sense flared and he knew he'd found his shutterbug moment, he snapped his picture, flooding the room with white light. "…and we're done!"
"Phew!" Aislinn Callaghan could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Holding her 'flying' pose in the same position for even seconds at a time had proven challenging even with the invisible wires holding her up. She could feel muscle aches flaring in every part of her body as the photography assistants helped her down from the photo set - she knew it was going to stay with her for a few days because this wasn't the first time she had done it.
"Good job, 'Blossom'," the photographer praised Aislinn by her character name. "Same for the two of you too, "Bubbles' and 'Buttercup'."
Ester Olofsson couldn't say a word, and had curled up into a fetal position inasmuch as the invisible wires tied to her would allow after the photograph was taken. She was afraid of heights. The invisible wires didn't help. The safety cushions below her didn't help, and neither did the assistants helping her down helped with this fear at all.
"Ah, it was nothing," Kimiko Scarlett Ito brushed the photographer's praise off, acting tough as usual. The quarter-Japanese girl would have removed the wires holding her up by herself and leapt down on her own had her assistants not helped her.
It had been exceptionally hard work for the three otherwise unrelated girls in the studios. The USDO had been pumping out PSAs in the form of posters, banners and billboards and the real Powerpuff Girls simply wasn't available for any photo shoots for the past couple of months.
"Alright, we'll have a 15 minutes break before we shoot the next photo!" the photographer announced before leaving the set. Ester gasped at the prospect. They had been in the studio all day ever since school ended. They had never worked a full 4 hours before, at least until now.
"I wish I can be as brave and strong as you, Aislinn…" Ester said timidly to her fellow model. An assistant handed her back her thick spectacles, which she promptly put back on. "I'm tired and achy and I wanna go home…"
"I just think it's fun, and I want my mommy and daddy to see me on a big picture," Aislinn said as she placed her hands on her hip, akimbo. She was dolled out to look exactly like the one and only Blossom, right down to the finest details, just as Ester was dressed exactly like Bubbles and Kimiko was decked out just like Buttercup. She was just purely excited while she was talking about essentially play-acting as the real Blossom, but the dejected look of Ester pulled her away from it."Don't you think it's fun?"
"I guess…" Ester, or 'Bubbles', said, still second-guessing herself, her eyes staring at the floor, at the boots she was wearing, that, although superficially looking exactly like what the real Bubbles wore, was much lighter and thinner such that she could actually lift her feet. The boots the real Bubbles would have worn would have been actual combat boots layered in kevlar. "I'm just so tired…"
Ester felt Aislinn's arm around her and a squeeze while she was cloistered within herself.
"You'll be fine. We're friends, so we'll do it together," Aislinn tried to cheer Ester up even if she didn't know how. Ester never liked being touched, but after working with Aislinn for months, she had decided to let it be and tolerate it. Aislinn had been kind to her, unlike the kids from kindergarten. Even after months, she still couldn't be sure if she had really made a real friend in Aislinn. It was hard to believe, especially considering that Aislinn was the kind of girl who wouldn't have wanted to befriend her - she was outgoing, spontaneous, and smart. She was one of the cool kids.
"Okay…" Ester agreed sheepishly. It wasn't as if it was her choice to be here. Mom and dad had to talk dear little Ester into it. It wasn't just about the money, they said. It was about breaking her out of her shell, to get her some friends in a different environment.
"I think we're just going to take one more photo. It can't go on for much longer, right, Kimiko?" Aislinn asked the third member of their trio. The Buttercup look-alike turned around to face them. She had been playing with one of the props assigned to her - a replica Stoner Light Machinegun made of plastic, though it was still heavy for the 5-year-old.
"I don't care, as long as I get to play with these toys!" Kimiko said, before going back to playing with her plastic machinegun, which was almost as big as her, imitating the sound of gunshots as she pretended to fire the weapon all around the room. She spun around and aimed the fake gun at Aislinn and 'fired' it at her. Aislinn pretended to get shot, making funny noises before sinking to the ground. Kimiko did the same to Ester, but all 'Bubbles' did was to shrink away from her, crossing her arms with a fearful look in her face as if she had been violated.
"Bakayaro!" she insulted Ester as she lowered the 'weapon'. "You were supposed to die! You're no fun!"
"Y-you're mean!" Ester managed to say, which was an achievement for her. "Why would anyone p-p-play with you?"
Kimiko would have pummeled Ester there and then had Aislinn not intervened. She got between them, swooping in to put an arm around the both of them so she could drag them in front of a mirror.
"Don't you just love how the three of us look together?" Aislinn said as she admired herself and her friends in front of a standing mirror. They looked almost exactly like the Powerpuff Girls, except for a few minors details that anyone could miss. Even their eyes were of the right color. The girls were trained to put on contact lenses, at first with the help of assistants or their parents, then by themselves. The only thing missing was the iconic glow of the Powerpuff Girls' eyes, which would be added after photography. "We're like the Powerpuff Girls, so we should act like them. They wouldn't fight among themselves, so we shouldn't, either."
Both Ester and Kimiko were speechless. In their bickering, they had forgotten about how they looked, and in looking into the mirror, was reminded of whose shoes they were in. All three girls were fans of the real Powerpuff Girls.
The fact that Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup looked exactly like the three of them didn't escape their attention, but what did escape their attention was the fact that the Powerpuff Girls were clones of them. Their parents, however, had been approached by the USDO long ago. Being adults, they had put two and two together, but the USDO had 'advised' them to hush up. The USDO had gone so far as to issue monthly 'allowances' to all parents affected, under the pretense that their children, being genetic donors to Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, were owed that money for their service, however small their role was. But the reality of it was much more complicated. The caveat was that the USDO would have complete access to Aislinn Callaghan, Ester Olofsson and Kimiko Scarlett Ito for whatever purpose they deem fit, should they need them for anything at all.
At the beginning of the year, a unique need for them had arisen. As Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were becoming increasingly occupied, Aislinn, Ester, and Kimiko would fill in for them when it came to modeling for PR and PSA campaigns. The deception was complete. The girls were invited to a mock audition, and they were 'chosen' by a panel of actors posing as judges due to their unparalleled natural beauty but most of all, due to the fact that they 'happened' to share the likeness of the Powerpuff Girls 'uncannily'. None of the six parents objected, partly due to their agreement with the USDO, and partly because the girls would be paid handsomely for their work as well.
The City of Townsville. Uptown. Sonny Champions Photo Studios.
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1900.
Aislinn, Ester, and Kimiko had been practicing their poses for the next photo when it began. One of the USDO guards assigned to them had marched right up to the photography team and called for the session to end.
"What's the big idea? We have one more shot to take!" the photographer protested.
"If you want to live to take more photographs, you better run!" the guard said as he hurried to the Powerpuff progenitors before kneeling down and explaining everything to them: "the three of you are in danger, we'll have to get you out of here."
"But what kind of danger, Mister Hobbes?" Aislinn was the only one of the three little girls who was able to speak after this revelation.
"I think it's better for me not to say," the USDO guard said. "The three of you will be fine. We'll take care of you." Another guard come up next to the first one. They weren't well-armed by any means, and neither were they geared up like the USDO soldiers helping to patrol Townsville. They were the mainstay of the USDO of old, dressed in grey uniform and armed with just pistols. The kids' security priority was low - after all, they weren't the real thing, and why would anybody go after them?
As it turned out, somebody was after them after all, but for what purpose, nobody knew.
Chaos erupted when the photography crew was forced to pack in a hurry. The two USDO guards drew their pistols and readied them.
"Let's go," the first guard, 'Mister Hobbes', said.
"Stay behind us and don't stray," the other guard, 'Mister Moore', said.
The guards escorted the girls out of the room. Everything happened in a flash, faster than the kids could process. They were still clutching tightly to the gun props they were practicing with, trying to keep up with the guards who were already jogging slowly so the girls could catch up.
"I'm scared…" Ester mumbled as she hugged her fake MP5 like a teddy bear.
"Don't be, we're together," Aislinn tried to comfort her. She held her hand as they ran.
"This is fun! At least we're doing something different!" Kimiko exclaimed, and somehow it distracted Ester more as she wondered how Kimiko could be so exuberant during such a time.
"Your parents should be in the parking lot, we'll bring you to them!" Mister Hobbes said as they jogged along a corridor. It was a straight shot from there, easy peasy.
"Are they going to be alright?" Aislinn asked, struggling to breathe. She was still recovering from the shooting accident she had months ago. Although the wounds had healed, she was still constantly short on breath and suffering from spells of dizziness and weakness.
"They should be alright, our friends are taking care of them right now," Mister Moore reassured the kids.
Halfway there. They were almost in the clear, but just when they thought that it was just going to be another uneventful day, the door to the parking lot opened by itself. Men in makeshift combat gear began streaming in. The USDO guards did not hesitate to shoot.
It was a one-sided exchange. Luck and circumstances had been on the guards' side.
They were Foundation terrorists, better armed than they were. The guards and the girls had been lucky they had to storm the building first. It meant that the USDO guards could react quicker.
"Shit! They're here?" Mister Moore exclaimed. Intel had suggested that they had five to ten minutes to evacuate. The intel hadn't been reliable.
"I told them we're shorthanded down here, but nooo, of course they won't listen…" Mister Hobbes muttered under his breath before coming up with a solution. There was still a fair distance from the door, and the corridor they had to travel through had even more doors on either side. "Moore, stay with the girls and watch my back. I'll clear the rooms ahead and check the exit."
It was anything but the perfect solution, but with just two guards and three fake Powerpuff Girls, it was the best solution he could come up with.
As Mister Hobbes began checking doors, Mister Moore shepherded the girls behind cover - Aislinn and Ester behind a metal storage cabinet and Kimiko behind a water cooler. It would have to serve for now, but it helped that they were tiny.
But what didn't help was what happened next. Mister Hobbes had busted down a door with terrorists behind it. He'd fired off multiple shots, but several terrorists had stormed the corridor from unchecked doors, shooting Hobbes in the back and sides.
"RUN!" Mister Moore screamed as he took off, firing shots from his pistol. He was able to floor the terrorists who had killed his partner, but as the girls ran back the way they came, they heard an explosion. Aislinn had looked back at Moore and she saw what had happened: there was a blast from a door beside him, an explosion that sent him flying into a wall. There was so much blood painting his grey uniform maroon that even a 5-year-old could tell he had no hope of surviving the blast.
"What do we do!?" Ester screamed shrilly in terror. Kimiko, in contrast, was quiet and brooding.
"In here!" Aislinn exclaimed. She had opened a random door in panic and thought it best they hide in there. The girls piled into the room. It wasn't until they were inside that they realized that it was a fairly well-lit office area, where the studio's admin employees worked. There was no one there to help them; most of the workers in the building had already called it a day - lucky for them, not so lucky for the girls.
But they weren't out of the woods yet. The office was safer, but not entirely safe.
"Where are those dang kids!?" the girls heard a hostile voice shouting outside.
"Find the Powerpuff Girls and eliminate them!" another voice, clearly one that didn't have their best interests in mind, ordered. "We need to kill them before the USDO secures them!"
"Hide!" Aislinn implored her Powerpuff-lookalike friends to scramble for cover as she herself ducked under a desk, her fake Serbu Super-Shorty shotgun still clutched close to her thin faux-kevlar vest. Ester froze as she looked around, paralyzed by both fear and choice of hiding spots.
"Get under a table, stupid!" Kimiko whispered harshly to her.
"In here! The door's open!" another unfriendly voice shouted. Aislinn reached out and took Ester by the hand, pulling her into her hiding spot just when an adult wielding a large hunting rifle came in with his gun up.
The girls could see the shadows. Two more followed the first terrorist in. Aislinn could see from a narrow gap in her desk that they were all carrying guns. The other two were holding smaller ones, what she thought was an SMG and a machine-pistol respectively - she had been diligently studying the material given to her by her photographer.
They were looming closer. Ester looked like she was about to hyperventilate and give them away, so Aislinn had to put a hand over her mouth to stop her from making too much noise. Kimiko stared at them from across the aisle made by office desks - she was particularly critical of Ester, and equally afraid that she was going to scream.
"Nah, I don't think they're here," one of the men said.
"Yeah, they woulda popped up by now," another man said.
They were CLOSE. All three girls could just barely see their feet.
"I'm not so sure about that," a third man said. "That big-brained monkey told us to be 'absolutely, positively, entirely sure' we swept the area clean. His words."
"I still can't believe we're following the orders of a God-damn monkey," the first man said.
"It's in Naga's will. If she's dead, he takes over as leader of our cell," the third man said. "Lets get back to clearing this room, a'right?"
"Look, you can stay here and check every little crack and cranny if you want," the second man said. "I'm checking the other rooms. I got one of them Duranium revolvers the weird cultists gave us anyhow."
"Yeah, I'm coming too," the first man said.
"Bunch of pussies," the man with the Duranium rifle cussed under his breath. Doubling back to the door, he began looking under desks.
Aislinn, Ester, and Kimiko could hear chairs being pushed aside and tables overturned in rage. It started with the first row, then the second. That man was mad, really mad! Aislinn couldn't even begin to imagine what would happen to her and her friends if they were found.
The man was on his third row, just next to the girls when Aislinn hit upon an idea. In her terror and hopelessness, she had thought back to happier times. Just before the terrorist raid, she was standing in front of a mirror with Ester and Kimiko. They looked exactly like the Powerpuff Girls, minus the glow in their glows and some tiny details that wouldn't be noticed unless someone was within an arm's length of them.
Aislinn and her friends had been acting as the Powerpuff Girls on and off for the past few months. They were taught how to pose like them, and even how to carry themselves and talk like them - there were even plans for them to voice-act on radio broadcasts and TV PSAs.
Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, Aislinn prepared herself, running through her impression of Blossom quickly, just like she would before a photography session, or a mock rehearsal.
Then her eyes snapped open, and the look in them was that of a an entirely different person. Aislinn was no more. Blossom had taken over.
Shouldering her fake shotgun properly, Aislinn jumped out of hiding and pointed it at the terrorist, who was busy looking under another desk.
"Drop that gun, you meanie!" Aislinn ordered. The terrorist froze. The girl posing as Blossom didn't know what to think. Had she failed to act as Blossom?
But then the terrorist's gun clattered on the floor, the rifle falling flat on its side.
"Don't shoot!" he cried as he turned around slowly, his hands up in the air. "Jesus, w-where the hell did you come from?"
"Language, mister bad guy," Aislinn warned the terrorist, remembering and recycling her lines as if it was all a stage play. "Get down on your knees."
"You're not going to shoot, right? You're like a cop, right? You can't just kill me!" the man said as he did what Aislinn told him, completely unaware that he was just following the instructions of a helpless little girl wielding an inert plastic toy.
"Take that gun on your leg off," Aislinn ordered the terrorist, her confidence fraying as she was running out of lines and had to improvise, but she didn't let it show - she knew that that would be the end of her if she did.
The terrorist carefully removed his pistol from his holster and tossed it to the ground beside him before quickly and cautiously putting his hands back up.
"I'm a superhero, of course I won't kill you," Aislinn said, panicky inside, not because she had successfully held a terrorist up, but because she didn't know what to do next. She had run out of lines - all of which she had learned for hypothetical PSAs - and she was barely able to improvise. She had gotten a bad guy to stand down, but what next?
Unknown to Aislinn, Kimiko had gotten out of cover and made a circle around her desk. Coming up behind the terrorist, she picked up the real, working pistol the terrorist had dropped.
"Scarlett- I mean- Buttercup, what are you doing?" Aislinn asked her friend, and immediately cringed from her mistake. Kimiko had completely taken her off guard.
The moment Kimiko felt the cold grip of the pistol in her hand, she could feel a rush of adrenaline, the rush one would feel when playing a game, digital or physical. She pulled the slide back and chambered a pistol, just like how she was taught while she was training for a future TV PSA. The safety was already off. The pistol was larger than the model she used, but it was possible to operate it with both hands.
"Hey, wait a second!" the terrorist cried when he heard Aislinn's blunder. It didn't occur to him immediately, but he felt that something was off when she damaged her ruse ever so slightly. "You're not a real Powerpuff Girl!"
The terrorist would have stood up, would have practically torn the girls apart with his bare fists for the humiliation he suffered - had Kimiko Scarlett Ito not fired the pistol at him. The bullet ripped through the man back-to-chest, putting a hole in his lung. That same bullet had, thankfully, missed Aislinn. It wasn't as if Kimiko had listened during the gun safety lessons.
The terrorist fell forward, landing chest-first on the ground, coughing up blood as the same crimson fluid was spreading below him. At the same time, Kimiko fell backwards on her bum as she hadn't positioned herself correctly, and didn't anticipate the recoil. But it didn't even faze her. She did it - she had fired a real gun and even hurt someone with it! It was fun, and her dad would never have allowed her to do it.
"Scarlett! What did you do!?" Aislinn screamed.
The terrorist was still sputtering blood from his mouth and whimpering in pain. Possessed by the rush, Kimiko pointed the pistol down at the terrorist, both hands holding the gun steadily - it was very heavy for her, but it was fun.
"Scarlett, no!" Aislinn pleaded in horror, but it was all for nothing. Kimiko fired another bullet, this time aimed at the head of the terrorist. He was killed instantly. The gunshot made all three girls jump. It was loud. Very loud, especially when it was fired indoors. But it was one among many. There were gunshots in other parts of the building.
Another pool of blood was beginning to form beneath the man, this time below his head. Aislinn's hand went up to her mouth. The smell was terrible - she thought she might throw up because of it.
"What did you do?" Aislinn said. She couldn't believe it. Scarlett had been a friend, and she thought she was cool, but never once in her life had she thought that she was such a monster.
But that wasn't the end of it. Kimiko looked up at Aislinn, giving her that odd look with a sicko's smile still stuck on her face. She raised the pistol and pointed it at Aislinn.
"Kimiko... What- what are you…" Aislinn uttered, so afraid and queasy that she might faint. The look on Kimiko's face - it wasn't the friend she knew anymore. It was as if she had gone completely insane.
"Kimiko, don't," Ester said to her. She had gone out of hiding too, only to find one of their trio going insane from bloodlust. "We're friends…"
"You saved me," Aislinn said to Kimiko. "Please don't kill me."
Kimiko Scarlett Ito lowered the pistol, but her smile hadn't abated. It was still that same twisted look she was giving them. She'd finally decided that it was better not to shoot Aislinn. She wasn't sure if she could get away with it. Neither was she sure if shooting Aislinn for fun was preferable to having her around as a playmate and fellow child model.
"I'm sorry," Kimiko finally said, though she didn't mean it when she apologized. Still, she was able to make it as sweet as honey. "I was just- I don't know what I was doing." It wasn't exactly a lie.
"We need to go," Aislinn said. The gunshots from Kimiko was loud, and she was sure that the other bad people would hear.
Aislinn and Kimiko began making for the door, but Ester was still standing by the freshly-made corpse, retching and bent over, about to vomit. Aislinn returned to her and pulled her along. "Come on, we have to go or they'll find us."
Ester was able to stomach it in the end. She had to. Whatever urge she had to vomit was swallowed back down, but it made her feel sick to the core. Together, the three kids made a run for it; they had abandoned their fake plastic weapons by now, except 'Buttercup' was still holding on to the pistol she fired, cradling it in her arms as if it was a baby.
They ran as hard as they could, in the direction the guards had pointed out. The corpses of Mister Moore and Mister Hobbes had upset them (well, at least two of them), but they had to keep running. There were still gunshots throughout the building. Who were the terrorists shooting at?
"Hey! Stop right there!" someone shouted behind them. "It's the Powerpuff Girls!"
Gunshots prompted the girls to run faster. They were small, thankfully, and it made them hard targets for a man far away and panicky enough. Bullets riddled the walls and floor, taking tiles off and splintering wood. Just when the girls thought they were going to get away scot-free, a bullet ripped through Kimiko's thigh, sending her diving to the ground, sprawled and screaming.
"Scarlett!" Ester cried. She and Aislinn stopped, turning around to be met with a ghastly sight: their Buttercup-like friend was bleeding on the floor, clutching her thigh, her own pistol clattering far away.
Just when they thought everyone was dead, the exit opened and a squad of… people opened fire from the door, killing the terrorist.
It was too bright. The girls couldn't see who was outside, but whoever it was ordered them to run for the exit. Aislinn and Ester picked up a screaming Kimiko, putting her arms around their necks just like how they were taught during the photoshoots, and began legging it once more.
The corridor seemed to continue on forever, but they made it in the end. It was raining outside; not quite pouring, but closer to a drizzle. Police vehicles and humvees were outside, flashing red and blue and shining spotlights on the building, with one particularly bright spotlight focused on the exit, blinding the kids.
It was so bright, Aislinn couldn't see. For a moment, she thought that she had been tricked, that she had been ambushed by more bad guys. For a moment, she thought she was in huge trouble, to put it lightly. She was old enough to understand what dying meant. Living in Townsville, the crime capital of the world, had hammered that lesson home quickly; her own brush with mortality and subsequent hospitalization made sure of it.
She thought she would understand what dying would be like soon, that was, until she heard a familiar voice.
"Aislinn!? Aislinn!" someone shouted.
"DAD!" Aislinn screamed, before running forward. As her eyes acclimatized to the light, she saw that it was really him: Dad. And mom was with him too. "MOM!" She was practically jumping into their arms the moment she was close enough.
Four more people stepped forward. Ester was able to find her own parents, and so did Kimiko, who had to be put on a stretcher and stabilized by a paramedic.
And so once again, the day is saved, and not because of the Powerpuff Girls.
