Chapter 164: Where It Will End (Part 5)
The City of Townsville. Outskirts. Lombardi Family Estate.
25 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 2312.
General Blackwater had formed a veritable frontline in a dining hall of the mansion with himself, Professor Utonium, Detective Wednesday, Stanley Talker the talking dog and eight soldiers. Opposing him was Fedele Palladino, one of the most important underbosses of the Lombardi crime family, along with ten or so mob soldatos. Bullets flew indiscriminately. Several soldatos were quickly shot down but more were streaming in from the opposite doors. Outnumbered, two soldiers on the general's side were shot and killed as well.
Fortune did not favor General Blackwater at first as an RPG went off and blew up another fireteam. The general saw two more men die, blown to bits and consigned to oblivion without a parting word. Another two were wounded by the blast and shrapnel. The general, having seen wars across America's history, wasn't fazed. He pulled a pin off a grenade and lobbed it. The grenade bounced off an opposite wall and detonated, killing several more of the criminal elements.
Professor Utonium had never seen action like this before; for much of it, he was prone behind a table, low down to avoid the bullets shredding his cover. Bitter though he might have been at the facts, the general had been right to advise him to stay low and in cover, to just stay out of the way. He found himself shaking, and the only thing keeping him from turning tail was the thought of his adopted Girls alone in the same mansion: Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup.
Meanwhile, Detective Wednesday had found cover at a corner of the dining wall, behind a pillar, the talking dog still sticking beside him. He'd seen how his team was doing and it wasn't encouraging. He popped off a few shots, putting down one gangster, before getting a reply in the form of a shotgun blast chipping away at his pillar. Bullets flew in his direction as well, enough that he was actually afraid that the bullets would chew through his cover.
"Rhat do re do?" the talking dog asked and Wednesday looked down at him, contemplating on how best the dog could help out. One or two ideas surfaced quickly; detective work had bred just the right kind of person in him to solve problems.
"I don't think they've brought Duranium weapons along. It'd be a waste on us normal human beings," Jack Wednesday said. Even the young talking dog knew what he was getting to and the detective could see it in the dog's sapient eyes. "Yeah, that's right, you get to steal the show today. You ready for the limelight?"
"Sure," the talking dog barked, his tongue hanging out after that in anticipation of some action.
"On three… two… one…" Jack counted down, and when he reached one, he leaned out of cover and began firing shots, once again putting down another gangster. Stanley Talker darted out of his position behind the pillar and leapt and bounded towards the right of the enemy line. Bullets flew overhead, bullets continued to be traded and men on both sides dropped.
The talking dog lunged for the first soldato he could see, tackling him to the ground and tearing out his throat. Shocked fellow solatos weren't able to fire many shots, all of which had no effect, before the talking dog turned to bite one of them by the ankle, dragging him to the floor before delivering another fatal bite to the throat.
The City of Townsville. Outskirts. Lombardi Family Estate.
25 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 2312.
While General Blackwater and Professor Utonium's party fought below, the Powerpuff Girls fought the Amoeba Boys above. In a pitchfork move, Bubbles flew to the left and Buttercup to the right while Blossom went down the middle. Through smoke and dust and uncertainty, they flew, until it all cleared up and their targets became clear. Bullets were still flying, but they were scattered in random directions and by the time the Powerpuff Girls emerged out of the fog of war, there wasn't much resistance that could be levied against them.
Before the Amoeba Boys could do anything of substance except fire a few lead rounds at them, all of which were blocked like nothing with X-energy shields, the Girls slammed into them with the force of a tidal wave, through their tables like they were nothing. The tables were broken, and all six of them had slammed into the bookshelves behind, causing it to rain books and shelf ornaments, the grand furniture broken and backed into another set of shelves.
Blossom had pressed her face up so close to Bossman's that she could smell his acidic breath; she began working on his face, delivering punch after punch while Bossman was still stunned and trying in vain to throw her back.
Bubbles, in the meantime, delivered a sonic scream at Junior at point-blank range, further rocking the shelves behind them and sending more books and ornaments down from their places.
Buttercup, on the other hand, was delivering several punches and then a kick at Slim, but it seemed to have almost no effect, with Slim being able to counter-attack by slamming his M16 rifle at Buttercup, who blocked it with an arm.
It seemed that they were winning at first, until Bossman was able to throw Blossom off him. The Girl had nearly hit the ground, but she was able to air-brake herself just inches away and float back up higher - only to get hammered by a punch from Bossman and fall to the floor anyway. When Blossom was on the floor, Bossman did not let up. He immediately winded up a leg and punted her across the floor, sending her rolling.
At the same time, Bubbles had been duped when she got close to Junior, thinking he had been knocked out, only for Junior to quick-draw on her and fire a barrage of shots from his silver pistols. At point-blank range, the bullets had hit home and hard, and when Bubbles was still reeling from it, barely keeping herself afloat, the smallest of the Amoeba Boys winded up a suckerpunch, which sent her sailing across the library and into Blossom, knocking her over like a bowling pin just when the leader of the Girls had just been getting up.
Buttercup had suffered a similar fate; she had been doing well getting punches and kicks past Slim's defenses, only to find out at one point, in horror, that her punches never did amount to much anyway, when her last punch went through Slim, but not in a way she had hoped. The punch had gone through Slim's face, but there was no blood or gore or teeth, just a face that turned blue-green and translucent, a combination that turned even Buttercup's stomach. It served as a distraction practically, something which Buttercup realized too late when she felt two fists in her chest, which sent her, like her sister, sailing across the library and into her allies, knocking over both Blossom and Bubbles like bowling pins just when they had just been getting up.
"Any other bright ideas, Bloss?" Buttercup said, a little bitterly on the surface but very much so underneath.
"Give 'em everything we've got!" Blossom yelled before firing a pair of heat beams at Bossman.
"You'll wish you had given up, girlies!" Junior said and pulled out a radio at the same time. "Send them in!" he barked into it to a silent, unknown recipient. Shortly after that, the radio exploded in sparks and Junior yowled out in pain. There had been an ion beam from Bubbles, who glared at him with rare hate that the sweet Girl could only muster once in a blue moon. Junior glared back. At the same time, Buttercup was shooting laser beams at Slim, who jumped behind the cover of bookshelves after sustaining cuts to cloth and body.
Yet, there was no blood.
The Girls pushed themselves up to fly once more, just in time to dodge bullets coming from above. Looking up, Blossom could see a whole squad of trenchcoat-wearing gangsters up there. More distractions.
"Ignore the bad guys on top and fight the Amoeba Boys!" Blossom shouted as she fired another pair of heat beams at Bossman, who was running for cover after getting scorched while firing his tommy gun at Blossom at the same time.
'You're growing up so fast!' Bossman was half-mocking her, Blossom could hear. He had fled into an aisle of bookshelves to the side. To keep tracking him, Blossom flew up, high above the aisles, all the while ignoring bullets, confident that none of it was actually hurting her.
That had been her mistake. She had spotted Bossman between bookshelves. She would have nuked him with a well-charged pair of heat beams. She would have tried to end it there, but Bossman knew Blossom would have been too single-minded a child to rid the catwalks above of smaller threats.
One of the gangsters above had loaded a special Duranium bullet into his hunting rifle, a special cartridge with Blossom's name written on it, bought at prices marked up a thousand times off a cultic envoy. While Blossom was treading air high above the bookshelves and charging up a mean pair of heat beams, while his fellow gangsters were shifting their aim to Bubbles and Buttercup, the gangster took aim and fired.
A gunshot, louder than most, rang out. By the time Blossom heard it, it was too late. She felt something go through her lower back and out through her stomach. Her heat beam had ended up scorching books and files beside Bossman, slicing upwards as Blossom's eyes rolled in sheer agony as she screamed. And fell.
Bubbles and Buttercup had been able to hold off Junior and Slim with their ion and laser beams respectively, forcing them to retreat behind bookshelves on the other end of the library. It had been a feigned retreat after all and they hadn't even realized it, and it was engineered to steer them away from their leader sister.
They turned to find Blossom, having felt her pain with their Sister Sense, which nudged them in the hearts and the temples. They found Blossom bleeding on the floor and promptly zipped to her, ignoring hails of bullets tracking them. They pulled Blossom to a corner that was, for the most part, out of view from the catwalks above.
"I'm… I'm fine," Blossom uttered, forcing herself to a knee. She felt anything but fine. Looking down, she saw a circle of blood rapidly expanding on her stomach of her pink dress. She could feel something slick on her back as well. The bullet had gone right through.
"B-but- You're not!" Bubbles cried while holding Blossom closely, as if to keep her from standing up; she knew that Blossom was almost as stubborn as Buttercup, especially when she was enraged, and this time, she definitely was. She pressed a hand against Blossom's stomach to slow the bleeding. "Oh, Bunny, where are you?" She had hoped that a purple aura would surround Blossom and magically heal her, but a pregnant pause was all there was.
"Bunny?" Blossom said before laughing, memories of her ill-treatment of her late fourth sister surging back in. "Maybe I deserve this. She shouldn't have helped me just now..."
While they were talking, Bossman had come out of his aisle. On seeing Blossom kneeling on the ground and bleeding, he flashed a sadistic smile.
"I'm on him!" Buttercup yelled before firing green lasers at Bossman, forcing him back into hiding again. There was a shred of expensive cloth from his suit. Buttercup threw a look at Blossom and Bubbles; "Just get your act together while I go get Bossman!" With that, she flew off in pursuit of the Lombardi don.
"Blossom, don't say that. Daddy said not to blame yourself, remember? You didn't know that she was going to die…" Bubbles comforted her leader sister. Blossom simply grinned shallowly back at her, the pearls in her mouth red with blood.
"I fine, I really am…" Blossom said, and she hardly believed her own words. Gently guiding Bubbles' hand off her stomach, she probed the wound with her own and found that a massive scab had already formed and the bleeding stopped. Her healing factor was still accelerated despite their Chemical X exhaustion. "We have to keep fighting… for Dad. For our friends." With that, she forced herself to stand.
At the same time, Buttercup had been fighting with Bossman himself, throwing punch after punch, followed by a kick which was easily blocked, but a single wallop from Bossman had sent her slamming into a bookshelf, toppling it. The don had looked the part of a bruiser - large, muscular, and packing a punch more powerful than Buttercup's by several orders of magnitude, which she found out the hard way. He didn't even give Buttercup time to crumple down to the ground after getting walloped; instead, he picked her up and threw her at her sisters, who were barely just able to get out of the way - to the detriment of Buttercup, who ended up in the wall instead, a roundish crater punched into it such that the tomboy looked like she was sitting in an alcove built into it.
At the sight of Bossman, Blossom focused on her hands and made a plasma ball in each of her palms. She hurled one at Bossman just when he had raised his tommy gun, forcing him to flinch and recoil out of the way, and while he was doing so, she hurled the next one at him, which succeeded at burning him in the arm while he retreated, screaming, once more.
"We're winning, I can feel it…" Blossom said, a faint, tired smile on her face as she pursued Bossman doggedly with Bubbles behind her. Buttercup, not wanting to fall behind, lifted off from her crater to try to catch up with her sisters.
On pursuing Bossman, the Powerpuff Girls were taken out of the block of bookshelves. All three Amoeba Boys had assembled in the middle of the library, where they were out in the open and supported by their minions above.
"Bubbles, you take the top. Buttercup, with me!" Blossom gave her orders quickly before flying headlong towards the Amoeba Boys while charging up another pair of heat beams. Buttercup beside her did the same, charging up a pair of laser beams. At the same time, Bubbles had broken off from them to fly up, commanding the attention of all the gang members on the catwalks above. Whilst charging up her ion beams, Bubbles formed a baby blue shield all around her, soaking up bullets.
The exhaustion in her intensifying, Bubbles had to break her shield eventually and release the energy building up in and around her eyes. With steam rising from her eyes, she fired her ion beams, putting down a couple of gangsters right from the get-go, and when they were down, she began spinning, catching others who were then scrambling to get out of the way but couldn't do so on the catwalks. Ignoring bullets fired her way, she made a quick 360, downing all gangsters who resisted while some who didn't had to jump and foolishly choose broken legs over getting knocked out by ion beams.
It wasn't a fail-safe method of knocking out enemies, however. While Bubbles surveyed her handiwork, a gangster who wasn't totally out was able to stay awake and load his rifle with a Duranium round. Before Bubbles could spin around to check her six, he had already fired it, the bullet ripping at her and causing her to fall.
In the meantime, Blossom and Buttercup had unleashed their beams upon Junior and Slim, once against sending them scurrying with barely any resistance, burning and cutting them; the former seemed more effective as it had sent Junior screaming while running for cover. Within milliseconds, both Girls then bowled into Bossman, who had been firing shots at them with futility, with Buttercup sweeping him off his feet and Blossom diving before giving him a flying uppercut that sent the bulletproof man flying into the air with a groan.
The Girls acted fast. While Bossman was still up in the air, they intercepted him, throwing accelerated punches and kicks at him, spinning him in random directions in three dimensions, knocking him higher and higher.
Bubbles got up to her knees. She could feel something slick on her side. Looking down, she saw that her dress was torn, again, on the right side. Well, not just the dress. Her skin was torn too; the bullet had grazed her - thankfully, she was a small target, though not nearly small enough to dodge a bullet. Just then, Junior and Slim had sprinted past her. She knew what it meant.
"Look out!" Bubbles screamed. Despite the pain, she jumped on Junior, pulling him back, but Slim was out of her hands.
When Slim was close enough, he jumped and tackled Buttercup right out of the air, smashing her against the floor. Bossman was finally allowed to fall to the ground. Blossom braked in mid-air, assessing the changing circumstances.
Bubbles could only hold on to Junior for so long, despite applying a choke hold on him while pinning his arm back. As if he was double-jointed, Junior was able to wiggle his arm free and throw Bubbles over himself, smashing her to the ground like her tomboy sister.
Just when they thought they were winning, they were losing once again.
Bubbles could only watch, herself in pain, as Bossman and Slim were stomping on Blossom and Buttercup respectively, as Junior took her by the arm and twisted it around her back, putting a knee on her back and pinning her to the ground. He pulled her head back by a pigtail, whispering to her ear: "You see that, Bubbles darling? This is what happens when you betray the dons of Lombardi!"
Next thing she knew, she felt what was like a slug sliding into her ear, all wet and slimy, and she cringed and trembled as she realized what it was. Except… it was slimier and thinner than usual.
"No!" Bubbles screamed.
"Yes!" Junior said. Bubbles could feel his breath against her face as the Amoeba Boy withdraw his tongue from her ear. "Watch as my brothers beat your sisters to death! I promise I'll do you last, and I'll make it slow."
"No!" Bubbles cried. "NOOO!" she screamed in horror. All the while, kicks were still raining down on her sisters. She could see blood and bruises forming.
"Stop! Hurting! My sisters!" Bubbles screeched…
And promptly, if unknowingly, dislocating her arm out of its shoulder socket while she turned and sonic-screamed at Junior, blasting him out of the way. While shaking and tearing up, she gave another sonic scream, this time aimed at Bossman and Slim.
The Amoeba Boys were blown out of the way, if only temporarily. When the coast was clear, she turned her attention to herself. She had dislocated her shoulder, and now that she knew, the pain was becoming unbearable. Shaken and in tears, she trembled as she forced herself to grip her dislocated arm and shove it back into its socket, screaming in pain when she did.
While the Powerpuff Girls and the Amoeba Boys were fighting, the library had been burning, the fire spreading from bookshelf to bookshelf.
Blossom sat up. Her ears were still ringing, her vision still swimming. Bossman had done a number on her. She could feel lumps forming on her face, and it wasn't long before her left eye had swollen shut.
Buttercup, on the other hand, was quick to get to her feet, but when she tried to speak, she couldn't. Pain had filled her mouth instead of words. Realization set in late that Slim had broken her jaw in addition to her pride. She could feel bruises all over her body, forcing a feeling of lethargy upon her. She sank to her knees, tearing up, her cries muffled as she couldn't move her mouth much. Bubbles ran to Buttercup, putting an arm around her to steady her as the her rough sister looked like she was ready to drop again. Bubbles could tell that Buttercup had been silenced by her jaw fracture; the side of her face was swelling up fast.
Where Bossman and Slim was last seen, there was a cloud of dust and paper, mixed in with an incoming wall of smoke.
'Do you really think that I can be defeated so easily?' A voice boomed from the smoke and dust. 'That you will have your happy ending just like that?'
Two shapes emerged out of the dust and smoke, a tall one and a not-as-tall one that was wide and muscular.
"Give up, Blossom," the voice said, coming closer. The Girls, all haggard and worn down, could see colors in those shapes now; a grey suit belonging to the wide man and a brown suit belonging to the slim man. Then there were eyes, glowing white faintly. "Give up, Bubbles. Give up, Buttercup."
The shapes were out of the fog of war too soon. Bossman and Slim. Blossom could hear footsteps behind her, so she looked over her shoulder… and found that Junior had recovered and come up behind her, surrounding the Girls. None of the Amoeba Boys looked injured – not even a scratch, not even a bruise, this despite all the punches and kicks and beams the Girls had thrown at them. It was beginning to appear hopeless, even Blossom could not escape that fact.
"You can still surrender, y'know," the voice, which was Bossman's, continued. "Yeah, we'll leave behind this place and start afresh, just the six of us. If you don't, only three of us will walk outta 'ere."
Blossom didn't need to reply with words. Charging herself up, her eyes began to glow brighter, ready to fire beams once more. In her palms were two fresh plasma balls. Both Bubbles and Buttercup were in agreement, putting up their fists to prepare for another tussle with the Amoeba Boys.
Bossman, Slim and Junior weren't deterred. Instead, they laughed, they laughed as if they were just having a party.
"Looks like the Girls still wanna dance," Junior said.
"Hehe, yeah, dance," Slim added, and for once, said something a little more original: "Won't be a very long dance though."
And with that, the Amoeba Boys rushed the Powerpuff Girls.
