Chapter 153: Camp Nowhere
The City of Townsville. Downtown. En Route to The Mall.
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 2055.
Professor Utonium's heart was pounding, his face flustered despite the still-cold air. He didn't like the way the USDO military handled things. He never did. For the entirety of his career in the USDO, he had always been an opponent of theirs, though he was nearly always helpless against their methods.
Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were found at The Mall. Allegedly, the security officers there had reported that the Girls were raiding a cake shop for food, but what had gotten the professor worked up was the way General Blackwater had handled the incident: with force. For the second time this day, he had doubled down on using overwhelming force to solve the problem. It didn't. The professor had heard the orders the old war dog had given: chemical warfare protocols, Anti-X deployed, maximum firepower was issued. It was only mentioned in passing that non-violent method be used 'if possible'.
The professor had heard the reports after yet another failure to get the Girls back. Quite predictably, the USDO soldiers' ideas of a non-violent method of retrieval was to 'call for the Girls' surrender once', and that was about it! The professor had also heard over the radio that the Girls - his kids - had refused to back down, and had gone out with guns drawn. It was only due to the soldiers' flamethrowers that the soldiers' lives were saved, so the report went. He knew it was bullshit - if the Girls really wanted to, they could brave the fire and massacre the lot of them where they stood.
Long story short, they had lost them, but this time had been most frustrating for the professor as his humvee was mere minutes away from reaching The Mall. Had he been there, things would have been different!
And now, the Powerpuff Girls were, once again, untraceable, and with each passing minute the situation was getting worse. There used to be multiple GPS chips on the Girls, some in their boots, some in their uniforms, others in their armor and the rest in their weapons, all of which would be used to triangulate their exact position. Now, there was only one GPS chip per kid - the ones found in their weapons.
It would be nearly impossible by now to track them, but the professor knew that he gotta try, even if he had comb through the entire world on his own.
But it didn't have to be the whole world. From what General Blackwater had gathered, there was still a trickle of GPS data that could lead them towards the Girls, or at least in their general direction.
The City of Townsville. Outskirts, North. Abandoned Farmstead.
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 2114.
It was getting close to bedtime. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had never been out this late before, unless it was on missions to save Townsville. They were exhausted and sleepy, but none of them felt like yawning and sleeping where they were. The cold, fear and hunger were like monsters standing next to them. They couldn't even think about sleeping in this state, no matter how exhausted and disillusioned by the world they were. Instead, all they could think about was going back home - except there was no home left to go back to.
"Are you sure, Blossom?" Bubbles asked her leader sister. What Blossom had suggested was unthinkable, even if they knew no one else better who could help them. "He's really scary…"
"And did you forget that he's the enemy!?" Buttercup barraged Blossom with her anger. "He's going to tear us apart like your stupid paper dolls!"
Blossom was aware of everything her sisters had said, but she had been pushed into a corner. There was no other way. Of course, technically, there were other enemies she knew, and other options. They could give themselves up to the USDO, but they knew what would be waiting for them if they did. If they would electrocute Buttercup to within an inch of her life for running away, what would they do to them when they finally caught them? Blossom had some idea of what the USDO would do to them. They would kill them like how they killed Dad.
"We've helped him before. He'll help us too," Blossom justified herself, not that she actually believed that she could sway her sisters to her side with that argument. She couldn't even believe herself and what she was saying, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
"But he's mean! He's always mean!" Bubbles said.
"And I don't think I have enough bullets in this gun if he gets mad!" Buttercup added, waving her Stoner Light Machinegun at Blossom. In fact, the tomboy wasn't even sure if her machinegun could even work anymore after getting scorched by napalm. It was more likely to her that it would blow up in her face than anything.
"We were able to talk to each other even after fighting a few times. It'll be fine," Blossom said, once again unable to convince even herself. Before leaving the farmstead, the Girls scoured the abandoned building for food only to find nothing but grass, which she was actually tempted to eat but decided that it would be too disgusting and dirty. They would have to fly on an empty belly. Before take-off, Bubbles had bent double on the field, retching but not vomiting.
"Hurry up, Bubs!" Buttercup had to egg her on, and it took her all not to insult or berate her. Times were desperate, and her non-existent patience was wearing thin.
Eventually, they took off in the direction of the nearby forest: Pokey Oaks Woodland Reserve.
Pokey Oaks County. Pokey Oaks Woodland Reserve
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 2135.
They had been flying for a long time, and they had been doing it in near-total darkness. It was an unprecedented move for the three of them, flying out of the City of Townsville all on their own, and they were flying so far out that they had likely gone further than they ever did before.
It wasn't totally dark. There was the sky above, and there was the moon. Though not enough to light up the forest beneath the way street lamps could make entire cities visible, it ensured that they could at least make out the trees.
Blossom hadn't told her sisters, but she wasn't even sure if she could find it, the place where they would meet their enemy so that they could ask for his help. They flew for longer, still, then yet longer, past even more trees, indistinguishable from each other. It didn't help that they were flying below even cruising speed - by this point, all three of them were ready to faint that it was surprising neither Bubbles nor Buttercup had asked for a break.
That was when it appeared. A faint light in the distance. Blossom zoomed in her vision on it, but she could only zoom in so far - it felt as if hot needles were poking her eyes. All she could discern from a distance was that the light could be coming from a square source. From this distance, it was hard to make out what it was; for all she knew, it could just be a colony of fireflies.
The Girls flew towards the light. It got bigger and bigger in the process, this time their flight speed was faster; hope could do all sorts of wonder.
As they flew closer, it was as if the forests had parted to reveal more of their supposed destination. The square of light had been a window, and there were more. Soon, the Girls could see a cottage in a clearing.
It reminded the Girls of all those fairy tales Dad had read to them. Many of them had started with a cottage in the woods. Now, they couldn't help but wonder if they had reached their intended destination at all, or if there was someone – or something else occupying the ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere.
Somehow, the idea that someone or something else should appear instead of their monstrous enemy was more scary. But they had to persist. All three Girls could feel their very consciousness flagging; they were so hungry, they could tear apart an otherwise cute animal to shreds and eat it – the pieces of cake they consumed had somehow only made things worse.
But still, they hesitated. Who they were about to visit didn't exact strike them as someone who was hospitable.
"Let's go…" Blossom reluctantly egged her sisters on. "We can't float up here forever…"
Together, the Girls landed before the porch of the cottage. Together, the Girls entered the porch of the cottage, passing by an ancient-looking rocking chair. A simple wooden door stood before them. Blossom floated up to find a doorbell, and despite searching for one with her eye-lights shining, she couldn't find it.
Buttercup knocked on the door hard when she noticed with a 'humph' how much difficulty Blossom was having while doing such a simple thing.
Blossom and Bubbles wasn't ready. Blossom's slow search for the doorbell had lulled them both into a lethargic stupor.
Loud stomps could instantly be heard on the other side of the door. They could hear something being picked up – how it could be that loud was anybody's guess, but then again, their (hopefully helpful) enemy was anything but graceful. It was wooden and heavy. Likely a weapon. The thought of having to endure another battle (or a cowardly retreat) had sapped all fighting spirit from Blossom, whose face had gone pale from an entire day's worth of suffering. She had to lean on her sisters when she felt dizziness overtake her.
The door was flung open before they could ever be ready. A gigantic monster stood at the doorway, brandishing what appeared to be a crude pitchfork fashioned entirely out of wood.
Lumpkins. The very same Lumpkins who had crucified their friend, Boomer, on a tree, killed dozens of others, and severely wounded them on more than one occasion.
But he was also that very same Mister Lumpkins who they were able to reason with diplomatically, much to General Blackwater's chagrin. 'Reason' was a very hard word to associate with Mister Lumpkins, but they had to try.
"Wha' in tarnation are 'te three 'o you doin' 'ere!?" the beast roared in surprise. "Ave you come here to fight some more!? Out with it!"
"No!" Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup screamed in unison, desperate to make it work. "We need help!"
"Elp? 'Elp!? With what?" Lumpkins asked, lowering his crude weapon, much to the Girls' relief. Why he ever needed a weapon was beyond the three of them; the giant of a man-beast could easily take them on, barehanded.
"We urm… we…" Bubbles started, but couldn't even string a phrase together; a combination of timidity, fear and physical ailments.
"We were kicked out of Townsville," Buttercup said in place of Bubbles.
"Yeah, and we really need a place to stay…" Blossom said.
Lumpkins growled. Or grunted. Those things were the same with him. Blossom could tell from his facial expression and the way he carried himself that he wasn't going to welcome them into his property.
"An' why should I? After all the fightin' we done?" Lumpkins asked. A question! It was more than what Blossom expected, an outcome far better than a flat and blunt rejection. Or a battle she and her sisters couldn't win.
"Because we're really hungry, Mister Lumpkins…' Bubbles pleaded with the massive purple man. She was hunched with both hands holding her stomach as her hunger pangs had graduated into pangs of pain. "We haven't eaten anything all day!" It was no exaggeration; a few mouthfuls of cake didn't exactly qualify as a whole meal.
The purple-furred beast growled again, though his frowns were hard to see past the fur.
"So wha'? I was hungry in da past too, sometimes fer days!" Lumpkins boomed unsympathetically. "I'm sure you can handle one flippin' day!"
"We helped you before, Mister Lumpkins!" Blossom screamed at the beast, both desperate and hurt by this lack of reciprocation. "We helped you get your food when we could have POUNDED you!"
"Oh? Now is that right?" Lumpkins said, on his guard again. "Yer can try it, right now!"
"I don't want to fight!" Blossom shouted, frustrated at Lumpkins' stubbornness and lack of hospitality.
"Then ge' off ma property!" Lumpkins roared back at her. Blossom was shaken. Devastated. His cottage in the middle of nowhere was basically the end of the line for them - there was nowhere else they could go.
"Please, Mister Lumpkins," Blossom cried, tears beginning to well up. She pleaded, too, with her eyes, those glowing pink eyes, as she met Lumpkins' smokey, lifeless grey eyes, searching for something – anything – in those circles of mist. "We have nowhere else to go! My Dad's gone. I don't even know if he's alive anymore. We've lost friends and no one believes us that we were tricked, we even tried explaining everything to the mayor but… It's past bedtime and we haven't really eaten and… and…"
Blossom could feel her narrative falling apart right before her eyes, not because of the lack of sincerity but due to the lack of sympathy she faced. Lumpkins stood his ground and folded his arms defensively, looking away and breaking eye contact with Blossom.
"Now you know, do ya?" Lumpkins said. Was that smugness on his lips?
Blossom sniffled and wiped tears from her eyes. "Know what?" she croaked in between sniffles.
"How it's like? T'be cast out like I was some freak?" Lumpkins said.
"We knew, Mister Lumpkins, we knew how it was like a long time ago," Bubbles said.
"Good fer the three o' you, now git!" Lumpkins barked at them, pointing to the sky. "Stop disturbin' my evenin'!"
And here Blossom thought they had reached an understanding.
"B-b-but I thought-" Blossom blubbered in confusion, still wiping tears away.
"No amount o' sob stories and tears is goin' to budge me," Lumpkins said crudely. "Who d'you take me for?"
Pokey Oaks County. Pokey Oaks Woodland Reserve
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 2209.
After turning the leg of a deer for some time, spit roasting the huge chunk of meat, Lumpkins picked up a massive knife and began cutting slices off, depositing them in bowls of mushroom stew. Putting four bowls on a wooden makeshift tray, he carried them over to a dining table…
Where Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup sat on cut-out sections of a tree trunk improvised as stools, all three looking famished and impatient. The moment Lumpkins approached them, their eyes were turned to him, but most importantly, the bowls of stew he had made. The only thing stopping them from mugging him of his precious cargo was his imposing figure and proven prowess in battle.
Setting down the makeshift tray, Lumpkins began handing out shares of the stew. The moment they came within grasp, the Girls began drinking with their spoons hungrily, their manners forgotten. Surprisingly, Lumpkins didn't mind. Instead, he sat down and began eating his own bowl of venison stew. He was only a few sips into his meal when the Girls were more than half done. Starvation averted, the Girls slowed down.
"How's my secret recipe? Venison on Forest Stew, I call it," Lumpkins asked while taking another sip of what he considered to be his masterpiece. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup exchanged looks. None of them volunteered a word, at least not immediately. "I want yer honesty. That's manners, right?"
"Well… It's not that great…" Blossom critiqued. "But we're really hungry."
"Yeah, at least I can feel something in my tummy," Buttercup added after Blossom had paved the way. "And I'm glad it isn't pain any longer. It could've been worse."
"We'd love a second helping…" Bubbles tried to salvage what their honesty had brought, but the damage had already been done. Lumpkins had stopped eating, and was glaring at them with his smokey, grey eyes. Without another word, he slammed his spoon down on the table and began recollecting the bowls on the table. Going over to the roasting pit and cauldron, he began refilling the bowls, spitefully making sure they were filled to the brim.
While muttering something under his breath, Lumpkins returned. 'Darn city kids and their spoilt tastes,' Buttercup had heard clearly with her enhanced hearing. At this point, she thought that getting offended was a small price to pay for proper food, even if they were poorly prepared.
"You kids better finish every single drop of the good stuff," Lumpkins warned the Girls before settling down to slurp up his stew. Using a massive fork to spear a massive helping of venison, he chewed on the prodigious lump of meat before adding further: "Y'know, this woulda been impossible without you city kids. Some o' dis stuff came from the city - you helped me load 'em up."
After being fed a few more 'good' bowls of Venison on Forest Stew, Lumpkins led the Girls out of the cottage and towards the back, guiding them around with a crudely-fashioned oil-lamp. There was some kind of a shed at the back, too small for Lumpkins to go in without crouching, but just right for the Girls as if it was built for them.
The smell, however, wasn't exactly right. It was almost rotten. It was dank, and it didn't smell like it came from a human being.
"What is this place?" Blossom asked Lumpkins.
"It's a chick'n coop. Don't you kids know nothin'?" Lumpkins said. "This is where you'll be sleepin' f'da night. Here, I'll-" His voice disappeared for a while, but the Girls could hear him stomping to another room next door, opening the door clumsily.
The Girls could only wonder what Lumpkins had in mind. They didn't have to wonder for long.
"Ere," Lumpkins threw down a few bundles of haystacks down on the ground next to them. "Ya'll sleep on these f'da night. I'll git you three some blankies from my place."
He was about to leave them again when Bubbles spoke up, detaining him: "We… urm… is there a place where we can have a bath?"
"Yeah, we're all sticky and dirty," Blossom said. "A bath would be nice."
"I guess that would be… nice... Can't believe I'm agreeing to this…" Buttercup added.
Lumpkins gave an impatient growl-sigh. Sitting and leaning against the door of the chicken coop, he glared at them as if one of them had punched him in the face. Gripping the flimsy entrance of the coop, he pushed himself up. "No wonder you Girls smelled like roast turkey."
"Follow me," he said. The Girls filed out, and once again, Lumpkins led them to another part of the cottage's backyard. On their way there, the Girls walked past what appeared to be an improvised gravestone made from wood, from which hung a straw hat. Their brief pause earned them a rebuke from Lumpkins, so they couldn't ask about it.
"Git o'er here!" he hurried them along.
Before them stood a massive, circular bathtub. It was made of wood like almost everything else in the cottage. However, it was finely crafted for a change.
"Just so the three of yer would shuddup," Lumpkins said, but his foul words wasn't hurt – now that there was a way to get rid of the foul odor! "Soap's inside. Don't mind the fur at the bottom. Twas' shedding it somewhat."
Once again, his words had gone unheard in the face of hard-won luxuries. The Girls immediately went to work. Surprisingly, it didn't take long for them to figure out the water pump. However, while all three of them turned to him while the water was filling up.
"What is it now?" Lumpkins asked, almost roared, his arms crossed now that he had to present some degree of manners to the house guests and not maul them to death. The twitching in his cheek was thankfully unnoticeable thanks to his fur, which remained purple despite the frustration building in him. Normally, his fur would turn red if he was mad enough.
"Where's the shampoo? And the towels?" Blossom asked.
"There's. No. Shampoo!" Lumpkins resisted yelling, barely. "You three'll hafta share that one towel ova there!" He pointed at the towel flying like a flag not far from the wooden tub; it had been hung out to dry. Blossom promptly flew to it to get it. Well, it was mostly dry.
"What about brushes? I can't get these sticky stuff off without brushes!" Buttercup whined. Just what he needed.
Lumpkins searched the shelves behind him. The brushes were in a cardboard box from the gas station he raided. He threw it in their direction. Hard. The Girls caught them without any difficulty.
"You're not supposed to look!" Bubbles said.
"As if there's anythin' to look at!" Lumpkins finally yelled, angered by the unintended accusation. "Fine, just don't break any o' my stuff, some of them are real precious t'me."
The Girls promised in a chorus that they wouldn't destroy his belongings, but Lumpkins did not trust them.
"Come find me in ma room when the three o' you are done," Lumpkins finally said before turning and walking away.
Back in his cottage, Lumpkins set down his oil lamp and began working on what he had been busy with before the Powerpuff Girls intruded: His banjo, which had been broken by none other than THE POWERPUFF GIRLS more than a month ago.
It wasn't just any banjo. The banjo had a name. Joe. And THEY broke it!
But he was close to finishing. He had to finish it. He had to.
Lumpkins had been trying to fix Joe on and off for a month, making sure that he had gotten it exactly right – every splinter must be in exactly the right place, every chord tuned to exactly the same note as it was.
Lumpkins worked feverishly, tirelessly, while trying at the same time to ignore the Girls' giggles. Those maddening giggles!
The Girls distracted him, but something else was stirring in him, and it wasn't murderous, psychopathic rage. Well, not just that. It was as if they had awoken something in him, a sensation he hadn't felt in a very long time.
What was it? Nostalgia? Déjà vu? A memory, even?
Despite the distractions, Lumpkins was able to glue the final piece in place, and then it was done. It was finally done!
It wasn't the first time he tried to fix it. It was precisely the fourth time he'd tried. The first attempt was done with only glue, and it obviously fell apart after the slightest touch. He'd tried reinforcing the cracks and splinters with strips of wood after that, but then that didn't work either. He made a wooden skeletal frame for it the third time, which fell apart, and now, he'd improvised a 'mark two' of the design.
Picking Joe up with the same reverence one would with a holy artifact, Lumpkins began tuning it, then testing it. It was working well, at least so far. When the tuning was done, he began playing it, and for a while, he was in heaven, going back to better days-
Then Joe crumpled again, the chords loosing and hitting him in the face. He threw the banjo down, holding his face. Not again!
Lumpkins roared, enraged by another failure. He slammed his fists down on his workbench, bringing it down by accident, scattering the pieces of the banjo that was beyond repair.
"Mister Lumpkins?" he heard a voice behind him. He spun around, still roaring like some were-beast, and for a moment, he thought he saw a boy. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again.
No. It wasn't a boy. It was Blossom. Her sisters weren't far behind her, and they walked in shortly afterwards, all three Girls looking squicky clean. How long had it been since he first started working on the banjo?
Something had changed. His hallucination had made him wonder, and he was still figuring out what his feelings meant. But there was one thing he knew: he couldn't get angry at the Powerpuff Girls anymore - for whatever reason it was, they had changed whatever it was that changed.
"Come on out with me, there's something I wanna show t' three o' you," he said while glaring at them with his murderous eyes before scooping up the remnants of Joe and cradling the wooden pieces in his arms as if they were a bundle containing a baby. Every second he was holding his broken banjo was a reminder of who broke it.
Lumpkins had been acting strangely. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup could only wonder what it was. They could only hope it wouldn't be a 'surprise' that would get them horribly mangled or even killed…
