Author Notes: Sorry I took so long for this one. Had a rare writer's block that lasted a couple of weeks on top of everything else.
Chapter 166: Where It Will End (Part 7)
The City of Townsville. Outskirts. Lombardi Family Estate.
25 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 2321.
There was a pause in the action when the Powerpuff Girls and the Amoeba Boys took another tumble, deeper once more into the bowels of the Lombardi Mansion.
There was more dust. There was always more dust. But this time, there was less light.
Blossom looked around, a little dazed from all the punches she had been sustaining. There wasn't as much light on this level as all the others. There were shelves everywhere. Racks of dark bottles lining the walls.
The cellar. It took Blossom some time to think of that word. By that time, Bossman had already gotten up and aimed a kick at her, which she blocked. The blow, however, had sent her rolling into a shelf stacked with tools like axes, hammers, machetes, and other implements for repair and wilderness survival – or mob work. For a brief moment, it was raining work tools. Grabbing a pair, she hurled them at Bossman, who was stomping towards her, doing little but embedding them harmlessly in Bossman, who simply pulled them out of himself with no blood loss at all, paying them no mind.
Bubbles and Buttercup had scattered on landing in the cellar, afraid that the other Amoeba Boys might catch them if they hadn't.
Gunshots reverberated throughout the cellar as Junior and Slim opened fire on them, blowing up pickle jars and pottery while their opponents circled around the cellar, sometimes knocking into things, once even causing a cascade of shelves.
Bubbles and Buttercup both retaliated, firing off ion beams and laser beams respectively, causing Junior and Slim, respectively, to change positions and dive for still-standing shelves.
Perhaps she was imagining it, or perhaps not, but both Bubbles and Buttercup individually thought that they were starting to wear on Junior and Slim respectively, judging by their yowls and cusses and physical reactions.
Blossom had been right. They had come a long way since last year when they were helpless against even one of them. They were at least able to hurt them. The only problem was that they couldn't hurt them enough.
Barrelling into Blossom, Bossman wasn't able to catch her. Defying his expectations of her, she still had the strength to fly away. Knocking over yet more shelves, he lay crooked on one of them before getting up quickly.
Blossom was charging up another heat beam in the meantime. This time, she'd put more energy into it. She, too, knew that the Amoeba Boys were susceptible to heat; she remembered when she saved Buttercup from Slim with her very first pair of heat beams in combat.
Just as Bossman was back on his feet, she released her beam. Bossman had acted fast, however, and he'd picked up something to block with. A piece of metal shelving he'd ripped out. With it, he ran towards Blossom once more. Blossom sustained her beam. Her heat beam began to melt through Bossman's metal shelf before penetrating entirely, hitting the man behind it. She could hear him yowl in pain as he continued rushing toward her.
He didn't stop, not even when she kept up with her heat beam. She could see him through that hole, how the blue-green skin of her foe was sizzling, just the sound of it nauseating to her, never mind the smell, which was a cross between vomit and dirt.
Bossman rushed up to her, ignoring the continuous heat beam, before smashing the ruined broken shelving into her, bending it against the contours of her body while dashing her against an unfinished brick wall at the same time. The masonry behind Blossom crumbled, revealing a somewhat fresh dead body behind the wall, which slumped forward and rested its head on Blossom's shoulder.
Meanwhile, Bubbles had been having difficulty hitting Junior, who darted from one shelf to another, popping off shots at her, which served well as distractions. She returned fire with her ion beams, wiping bottled contents off the shelves in the storm of electrical emissions. She could hear Junior grunting in pain, but she couldn't know for sure since he was so well hidden.
In another corner of the cellar, Slim had entrenched himself behind a sturdy well, firing his M16 on full auto as Buttercup hid behind a pillar and returned the favor with laser eye beams. Buttercup, who was silent due to her fractured jaw, couldn't get off a good shot at all. She was only able to slice off parts of the well, several heavy bricks of ancient rock at a time, but what little flesh her lasers connected with sealed itself in a flurry of blue-green transmogrification. Her inability to shout or even talk trash and her inability to hit anything frustrated her. Flying over the shelves, she flew over Slim and delivered yet more laser beams, this time point-blank, all the while ignoring the bullets coming from him.
Blossom shoved Bossman back before sweeping the corpse behind her off her shoulder. The head popped off, bouncing off the wall before landing on the ground. Charging up a quick heat beam, she fired it, but Bossman was packing his own punch - literally. Before she could do any meaningful damage, what felt like a train struck her in the face, which sent her rolling on the ground. Getting up to her knee, she brought up her arms instinctively; and felt immediately the hard sole of a leather shoe shoved right up into her forearms. The force sent her flying close to a door.
Getting up quickly, Blossom couldn't follow through with some attack or defensive action. Her arms were shaking, and she was tired, so tired, and in so much pain. Next thing she knew, Bossman was running up to her, and by the time she kicked herself off the ground and floated, he tackled her and sent her plowing through the door behind her.
The door did not stop her from flying any further. Instead, an oil drum did. Her back felt like the door she had just smashed through, though she could still get up and look around. Half the room was filled with oil drums. The room smelt deeply of pungent lemons if that was what it was.
"You're going disappear, just like the rest of 'em!" Bossman yelled as he marched towards Blossom, who was still recovering from the innumerable blows she had been dealt. By the time she could muster another heat beam from her singular working eye, Bossman had already grabbed her by the chin and pushed her sight out of reach of him. The heat beam ended up taking parts of the ceiling off.
Carrying her while ignoring Blossom's fist pounding harmlessly on him, Bossman dunked Blossom into one of the lemon-smelling oil drums – or at least would have been able to, had Blossom not reached out with her arms and legs to grab firmly onto the rim of the oil drum.
"No!" she cried as she held on stubbornly to the rim of the drum. The lemon-like smell had thickened to the point of nauseating suffocation.
Bossman kept pushing harder, trying to force her into the barrel. The rim of the oil drum bent and malformed under Blossom's tight grasp as she struggled to keep herself from touching the lemon-like substance. Blossom fought with all she had, but her position was unfavorable. Soon, she felt her dress, or what remained of it, touch the liquid. She was plunged into it not long after.
While she was inside the goop, she felt an itch at first. Uncontrollable itch burst throughout her body. But what was worse was what she saw what was inside the lemon-smelling liquid.
A body, all withered and mostly bones, still bubbling but definitely not moving. Blossom screamed, only to remember that she was under the liquid, and had only achieved nothing but swallow a mouthful of it. She floated herself to the surface, emerging out into the air, but she was only able to take half a breath before a massive hand shoved her back into the liquid.
The itch she felt on her skin was starting to get more intense. She fought against Bossman somewhat, at first able to surface again, but not for long enough to even take another breath. The mob boss pushed her back in, and for a brief moment, his hand was down there with her and the melting corpse.
"Argh damn! It stings!" Bossman gasped uncontrollably as he withdrew his hand. Despite this, Blossom stayed below the surface, trying her hardest to ignore the intense itch spreading all over her body. Something gave her pause, and she thought hard as she stared at the long-dead hapless victim in the barrel with her.
It stings. That gave Blossom an idea.
"Hey, boys! Drag those other two down here!" Blossom could hear Bossman yell out.
"Damn, they sure put up a tough fight this time," Blossom could hear Junior say, before cackling like an imp.
"Hehe, yeah, a 'tough' fight," Blossom could hear Slim repeat after Junior, though this time adding his own slant to the statement.
"Just get them over here! We need to dispose of them before the USDO gets here!" Bossman ordered.
"Hey boss, where's the pink one? Blossom, I mean," Junior asked.
Blossom quickly shut her eyes. With her x-ray vision, which was dimming from exhaustion, she could see Bossman peering down at her, his eyes shining slightly in the dimness of the basement as he tried to discern her liveliness. He stopped soon after, the smugness on his face unabated.
"Oh, she's a goner, finally! She's gonna disappear forever like the rest of 'em, just like I promised," Bossman said. Even through the lemon-smelling goop, Blossom could hear the smugness in his voice. "The acid will eat through her eventually, but we'll have to hide the barrels somewhere. Damn USDOs' gotta come in here at the wrong time."
"Hey, um, boss? Aren't we going to try to get them to join us again?" Slim asked.
"At this point? Nah. We'll have to rebuild and see what the USDO comes up with next. Maybe the next trio of diaper-wearers might turn out more useful,' Bossman said. "What the hell are the two o' you waiting for? Drag those two over here!"
Blossom stayed in the acid longer. Holding her breath was no problem. In water, half an hour was the maximum she could last. In acid with all the itch? Perhaps five minutes, maybe ten. She knew she had to wait for an opportunity.
The next thing she could hear was some struggling. Bubbles screaming, sometimes with words, sometimes in a more primitive manner. Blossom mustered up more energy to see through her barrel. She could see Slim and Junior both holding up a Girl each, Buttercup and Bubbles respectively, pulling their hair back to make them face Bossman as he spoke.
"The three of you've been on my nerves long enough!" Bossman said. Blossom could then see him reaching for her hair. After a moment's panic, she went limp and played possum. She could feel herself getting lifted out of the acid, and she had to fight against her instinct to start floating when she felt the tension and some pain in her scalp.
"You see this carcass here?" Bossman said, with obvious glee in his voice. "This thing used to be your sister."
"NO! BLOSSOM!" Bubbles shrieked in horror. Once again, Blossom had to fight her instinct to act. The leader sister could even hear Buttercup whimpering through her broken jaw. "WHAT DID YOU DO!?"
Blossom could hear only laughter from the Amoeba Boys after that. She seethed with anger; how could they? How could they laugh when Bubbles was so terrified? And now she was crying over her supposed death.
"What I'll do to you in a jiffy, Bubbles," Bossman gloated. "But I'm feelin' generous. I'm going to save you for last. Slim, why don't you go ahead and toss Buttercup into her new room?"
Before anything happened, however, Blossom felt Bossman loosening his grip on her ample hair, and she fell back into the acid. Itches were breaking out all over her skin once again.
But it would not last this time. Stretching her arms and legs out, Blossom held her barrel of acid from the inside. Pushing up with her X-thrust, she aimed the barrel of acid at Bossman.
And she was able to hit him squarely in the chest. The acid was splashed all over his body. His scream was loud enough to deafen Blossom momentarily. Bossman fell, and so did Blossom in her barrel.
The don of dons, however, simply would not die. Didn't even fall unconscious for a second. Blossom thought she had Bossman pinned down, but she was immediately tossed across the room, barrel and all, as Bossman continued with his blood-curdling scream.
Shrugging off the thin skeleton that was with her in the barrel, Blossom crawled out of the barrel. In the confusion, her sisters had managed to fight off their respective captors, returning to her side with a flash of blue and green light.
Despite her hate towards Bossman, what Blossom saw next shocked her. Bossman had erupted in a cloud of steam as the acid burned him. His skin turned a sickly shade of blue-green as the acid ate away at him while his hidden powers fought off the acid by regenerating his body as fast as they could. The Bossman flailed around in pain. His brothers grabbed at him, and tried to help, but Bossman kept pushing them away in his frenzy of pain. Finally, Slim found a pail of dirty water that was probably used by a maid to clean the floor - he proceeded to pour the water onto Bossman. The bruiser finally calmed down as the acid on him was diluted, but he was still screaming; what remained was a translucent blue-green form in a badly-ruined suit.
"Get them!" Bossman ordered, his voice distorted and slurring. "And play around no more!"
Following this, Slim and Junior drew their weapons and reloaded them. The Girls could see why. They were packing Duranium bullets! They sure weren't playing around at all!
"Get them before it's too late!" Blossom ordered with rapid-fire words. All three of them launched themselves towards the Amoeba Boys, having anticipated the need to get into the melee. Bossman, still recovering from his acid burns, was too slow on the draw. Blossom was grasping at his Tommygun before he could point it at her.
Gunshots rang out. From the corner of her eyes, Blossom could see Bubbles and Buttercup doing the same thing as her, fighting for control over the Duranium firearms. Shots were fired into the ceiling and walls as everyone fought for the guns.
Blossom continued wrestling with Bossman for control over his tommygun while Bossman tried really hard, while wheezing in pain, to shake Blossom off. Locked in the grapple, there was a stalemate for a moment until Blossom head-butt Bossman in the face. Bossman's grip on his tommygun loosened momentarily. Blossom pulled, and for a second, she thought she had it, only for Bossman to regain his grip and strike her in the face with the muzzle of the tommygun. Smelling blood and seeing blood spurting out of Blossom's nose, he struck her in the face with the muzzle once again, and again, repeatedly - until Blossom was forced to give up the struggle.
Shaken off, Blossom pirouetted in the air, having lost control of her X-thrust before stabilizing herself deftly - only for her opposing leader to kick her in the stomach, sending her flying backward. Still, she was able to brake herself in mid-air and make one final, desperate attempt to charge at Bossman.
BAM! Her final, desperate attempt ended in a blast. Bossman had managed to get a shot off, and would have unloaded more from his tommygun had there not been a click issuing from it. Blossom looked down at herself, only to be met with a horrid sight. Her stomach. The bullet had gone right through. Blood was already spreading across her burnt and torn dress.
Her knees felt weak from the sight of it. Her flight began to fail as a result, and she hit the ground, lying on her side.
"Blossom!" Bubbles screamed in shock when she saw what happened. She would have helped, but Junior was trying to do the same thing to her what Bossman had done to Blossom, and she was flying through the air like an acrobat, barely dodging the Duranium bullets flying at her. She, too, had lost the struggle for the guns.
Buttercup, on the other hand, was silent as she weaved through the air, avoiding Duranium shots from Slim until she sliced off Slim's right hand with a pair of laser beams to slow him down.
Bossman stared for a second before returning his attention to his tommygun. It was jammed. He peered into the ejection port. Two bullets were fed into the gun at the same time.
"Dang gun! Can't trust regular ol' people and their machines…" the don slurred as he tried to clear the jam. Opening the ejection port again, he pulled the bullets out with his fingers. Blossom, who was still struggling with the excruciating pain in her stomach, could only watch as she made a desperate attempt to get up - she succeeded in only getting to her knees and vomiting what looked like a mixture of puke and blood.
This looked like it. With both her hands on her stomach, trying and failing to stem the bleeding in her stomach, Blossom trembled; she had never felt her mortal coil as acutely before. She tried charging up another heat beam with her one good eye, but she had never been more drained; nothing of substance came of it. Her vision blurred; she could barely track any movements made by the executioner before her. She could barely make out the bullets removed by Bossman from his jammed gun. The fast movements of him reloading his gun completely eluded her.
After that, it was all darkness, until light surrounded her again, and standing before her was…
Bunny.
Like an immortal symbol of justice, she was still clad in the same high-tech armor and gear that made Blossom jealous. She looked the same way she did when she was laid in state at the Townsville museum.
Even the peaceful, apathetic look was preserved. The only difference was that she seemed alive; her eyes were open and staring down at Blossom, who still couldn't rise from her knelt position. The pain in her guts was too strong.
"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry for what I did." Blossom apologized to her tearfully, her lips trembling. Wouldn't be the first time; no matter how many times she did, she could never get over her guilt of having indirectly played a part in her death. Bunny did not answer. Instead, Bunny took a few steps closer, still scrutinizing Blossom, as if Bunny was still blaming her for what had befallen her.
"Am I dead?" Blossom asked the still-silent Bunny, who continued to look down at her as a queen would a subject.
"No," Bunny finally said. "Do you want to live forever?"
"I… I don't understand-" Blossom said, still trembling. Bunny bent down, bringing herself to her level, her face close to Blossom's. "What do I do?"
"Keep fighting," Bunny simply said, before putting her hand on Blossom's shoulder. Purple energy surged through Bunny before being passed on to Blossom, covering her like a visible aura. "Go!"
When Blossom opened her eyes again, she found herself staring up into the barrel of a gun. Her instincts kicked in immediately, and she swept aside the barrel of the gun before it was fired.
She reacted almost too late. A shot was fired, and a Duranium bullet grazed her in the cheek. Next thing she could make out was Bossman's surprised look as if he was saying 'you still got some fight in you?'
But there was no time to wait, no time to think. Even while her ears were ringing and mostly deaf, she formed a quick plasma ball in her hand and threw it at Bossman point-blank. The leader of the Amoeba Boy recoiled in pain, screaming as he twisted and turned while the fire burned his ruined suit and his still-blue-green skin.
Where did she get the energy from? Blossom didn't stop to think, but deep down, she knew it was Bunny. It had to be. Was her plasma ball purple? Her vision was still a blur. While she was charging up a heat beam, however, she saw that she wasn't wrong. She could see an aura of purple surrounding her; surrounding her bloody hands when she looked at them. Her vision had turned a shade of violet; somehow, Bunny was transmitting energy to her from beyond the grave. Somehow, she was saving her from beyond.
Blossom continued charging her heat beam, putting everything into it, except this time, she felt she had an infinite amount of energy. She took all the time she had. While Bossman was patting out the fire that threatened to engulf him at one point, she prepared for his send-off.
She could still barely hear anything, just muffled voices, and distant crashes. She could barely even see; her vision amounted to a somewhat-clear pinhole surrounded by frost, but she thought she could see her sisters struggling against the other two Amoeba Boys, striking and parrying strikes, shooting beams that did little to nothing, unable to get to her while Slim and Junior harried them with Duranium pistol and rifle shots.
That was then Bossman stopped burning and started smoking, and he'd stopped spinning round and round as if he was dancing. Seeing what Blossom was doing, he pointed his Tommygun at Blossom and squeezed the trigger, which was when she unleashed her heat beam onto him, and it was of a glorious spectrum of violet. It'd hit Bossman like a massive ram, almost knocking him over. He'd dropped his gun, clutching at his chest as Blossom continued to unleash her ultimate stream of purple heat. It was as if the beam had stunned him, for it was as if he was rooted to the ground, paralyzed, convulsing while the beam burned him. Then there were the screams, those screams of utter pain that didn't sound like it came from a man. Soon enough, it was burning right through him, then cracks of purple began rippling through him; purple light even shone through the orifices on his face, and pretty soon, he was lit up like a purple lamp until…
An explosion. Bossman himself was soon all over the place, pieces of him dashed against the wall, the shelves, the ceiling, the floor, and everyone in the room.
And then there was silence. No more muffled shouts, no more distant crashes and bangs. Everyone, both the Girls and the Boys, stared at where Bossman used to be.
But it wasn't over yet, and Bunny seemed to know it even from beyond the grave. Blossom could still feel immense energy coursing through her veins. She stood up, took some steps forward. Her stomach was still hurting, but she didn't care.
She could just about see Slim and Junior's faces, that look of shock and disbelief. Of fear. Twitches of fear. She turned to Slim first, the Amoeba Boy who came close to killing Buttercup last year. He dropped his M16, putting out his hands as if he was about to get hit by a car.
But everyone in the room knew that something worse was about to happen. While he pleaded for clemency, Blossom fired another violet heat beam at him, and this time, it didn't take long before he exploded just like Bossman. Then Junior tried to run, only to get melted in the back and explode too.
It was only then did Blossom felt drained once again, and the aura of purple disappeared all around her. It was at this point that she felt something dribbling down her neck, and she reached out to touch it. Withdrawing her hand, she saw red, more red. Fresh red. As it turned out, Bossman did manage to shoot her one final time, and it'd caught her squarely in the neck.
No longer able to feel her legs, she sunk to the ground and fell on her back. Bubbles and Buttercup flew to her, looking down at her with tears in their eyes that were falling down like rain, but Blossom could barely even see anymore as even the overhead light above was dim to her even when it was bright. She didn't need to anymore as she had seen everything she needed to see. Despite the odds, despite everything pointing the other way, she had done it - bringing the Amoeba Boys to justice, avenging Dad, avenging Bunny.
She could barely make out the shapes above her, but she knew they were her sisters. Was this how it felt like to be Bunny? Was this what she experienced in her final moments? Blossom thought it was fitting, deserving. It was the only way to get to know Bunny better after she had passed.
The last thing she saw was someone else, someone bigger than her sisters kneeling down beside her, looking and shouting at her, but she couldn't make out who he was, nor could she make out his voice well. Before she could even think another string of thoughts, there was darkness.
But for the second she could still feel something, she smiled, perhaps for one last time.
