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Chapter 7
Hitting Rock Bottom
"I'll take care of these things, Bubbles. Stay behind and try to not draw any attention to you, okay?"
Bubbles nodded, her face still scrunched into a grimace of pain. While she began to float away, Blossom turned to focus back to the new foes.
The swarm was coming towards her. Once again, these creatures were a completely different type of mutant from the previous fiends they had fought against. The ability of flight was theirs thanks to two pairs of dragonfly-like wings, which they used at a surprisingly high speed. They had just a pair of tiny excuses for legs, so it was clear they didn't rely on them. Just as the porcupines, the new mutants had an almost unrecognizable face, but instead of having two big eyes, they had a group of numerous small ones over their front, and they owned a functioning jaw, though it was devoid of any teeth.
Blossom noticed another feature that put her on guard as soon as she saw it. The bellies and sides of the creatures had a skin barely thick enough to contain them, and the pink puff was able to see through. Something, inside their bodies, emitted a mild red-yellow light that passed through their skin and changed its brightness along with the creatures' breath rates.
Whatever those things were able to do, she wasn't going to let them hurt her or any of her sisters. With the porcupines, the Titan and the Chimaera, she had learned already that these mutants were an enemy not to be underestimated.
The swarm was fast, and after a few seconds the first Dragoon reached Blossom. It did not, however, try to attack the Powerpuff Girl head on. The mutant flew to the side of the pink-eyed girl, and just as Blossom began to float away to keep her distance, it opened its toothless jaw to expel… air?
As Blossom came to realize fast, it wasn't a simple breath of air. It was something much hotter… and dangerous.
Blossom felt like her entire body had been suddenly enveloped by flames. She cried in surprise, and pain, before zooming away from the cloud that the creature had let out. The cloud was yellow-orange in colour and inside it she could see that what could be described as tiny explosions, fire-crackers-like, that kept going on within it. The cloud slowly faded away, and at the same time what seemed to be drops of an unknown liquid fell from it towards the pavement.
Blossom made a fast check of her body. There were now some bruises added to the scratches she had previously obtained courtesy of the beast that had attacked them in Laurentium's old laboratory, as well as some burns which were located just where her dress had been reduced to ash. She took a lock of hair in her right palm and put out the small flames that were burning. Normally she would have freaked out about the mess her beautiful hair had been reduced to, but at the moment there were more important matters to think about.
So, these arthropod-like beings were able to release air hot enough to ignite fire and burn her superpowered skin… and hair. No, she knew her skin was able to sustain even more extreme temperatures, the only limit was the time, and she had escaped the attack basically immediately.
Wait, there was a smell in the air. A chemical odour… acid?
Imaginary gears clicked inside Blossom's brain. The cloud… the explosion were chemical reactions, the mutant's breath with the air… the heat was just needed to start them, what really did the damage was that liquid that fell out of the cloud afterwards. She didn't know the specifics, but she felt those weren't needed.
She just had to avoid being enveloped by the creatures' breaths again. And that was something that might not have been as easy as she hoped.
Three new dragoons darted towards her, the wings flapping at high speed and their bellies bright as they prepared to let out more of the deadly gas they held within their bodies. Blossom charged up her eyebeams and fired a blast towards the nearest one of them.
The creature strangely did not move away to evade the laser, so it was hit with a direct headshot. The blast pierced easily through its body and when it reached the zone where the creature's main weapon was stored, it immediately triggered an explosive chemical reaction. The dragoon was obliterated, parts of it flying everywhere.
The other two dragoons cawed in surprised but did not lower their speed, so Blossom had to fly upwards to avoid being overwhelmed by their breaths. The monsters followed her in hot pursuit, their jaws opened and ready to exhale more of the hot gas. Then, an idea hit Blossom.
If heat was the catalyst of the acid generation… maybe she could deny that particular part!
She stopped in mid-flight and inhaled a deep breath before making a sudden turn towards the creatures. The dragoons slowed their speed, possibly ready to evade what they probably expected to be another heat vision blast to avoid their companion's fate, but Blossom had other ideas. She let out a strong gust of her ice-breath, and the creatures were taken by surprise.
The cold wind engulfed the dragonfly-like beasts, and in three seconds they were entrapped in solid ice blocks. Blocks which, of course, instantly began to fall towards the floor, where they crushed in millions of shards. The same could be said for the dragoons, of course.
Blossom rotated her head only to see more of the dragoons getting around her… they now knew the extent of her powers, and they seemed smart enough to not try to attack her all at once and together.
"Bubbles! Are you all right?" Blossom called behind her, still keeping her focus on the fiends swarming around her.
"I'm okay, Blossom, but we can't keep this up! W-we have to do something with the boys! They're the ones releasing the mutants!"
Blossom nodded, knowing her sister was waiting for a reply. She hoped that the dragoons wouldn't suddenly change target and go for her, so she tried to be quick when she spoke back.
"That's good thinking, Bubbles. Just try to recover and stay back while we deal with these mutants; if Buttercup manages to defeat her side of the monsters before me, tell her the same and to go for them!"
"G-got it!" Bubbles responded with a hopeful tone, which was right away followed by a harsh reply from a boyish voice.
"You are not going to do anything until we say so, Blossy!"
Dang. She had forgotten that the boys could hear them well, despite being hiding away right now!
"BRICK! You've got to stop this! Can't you see these things are trying to KILL us!?" Blossom blurted out at the voice of her counterpart.
"Stop this! This is, like, the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life, Blossom. You're actually putting up an entertaining fight! No way I'm letting this end."
Blossom put a hand on her forehead, exasperated, but still keeping one eye free to observe the movements of the dragoons.
"Is what those things did to Bubbles entertaining to you?" she said in an attempt to make them realize just how serious the situation was.
"Don't try to pull my leg, Pinkie. That's just ordinary business for you three… or aren't you the 'Puawherpuff Gwarls' who save Townsville every other day?"
Blossom sighed. Okay, words were not going to work then. Hard way it is.
"Sheesh, as soon as they open their mouth, they get so boring. It looks like we have to let loose something more challenging to keep them on their toes! C'mon, Butch, what do we have here? Is there something which shoots missiles?" Brick asked eager to see more action.
"Na-ah. Methuselah apparently did not like to add anything like those cool gloves of him to the beasts here. Though there is something here that…" Butch explained as he went through the paper list of mutant types they found inside the control room.
"Hey. Oh boy! Oh boy! Free this one! This one!" Boomer interjected as he climbed over Butch and began to point at random names.
"Boomer! Get the heck off my back, or I will annihilate you from this planet!" Butch shouted in anger, but the two of them froze when Brick uttered something with a tone so serious that it caught their attention.
"Boys… I think the thing out there wants something from us."
And right, out of the control room, attached to the glass and metal bars, there was a solitary dragoon who was staring down the three Rowdyruffs. Even Blossom noticed it from afar, as she had heard the entire conversation through the intercoms.
The dragoon cawed quietly, before opening its jaw and pouring out its breath against the boys. The gas impacted with the glass and the metal bars, reacted with the air and produced acid that instantly melted both elements. The dragoon entered the control room but its life here was brief as Butch fired a blast of heat vision at it, making it explode.
"Huh. So that's what it looks like when they explode from up close," Brick commented, momentarily stunned.
"That's AWESOME!" Boomer cried in awe.
"I find more interesting the fact that out there are twenty or so of these things who are going after us, right now," Butch pointed out. Boomer and Brick looked outside to see an entire swarm of dragoons moving towards them.
"You know? I'm actually good with this. Watching others fight is great but I wanna move around a bit myself, you know!"
"Yeah, let's show them who the real fighter is!" Boomer exclaimed. "We got to even the kill count with the girls!"
"Fine for me!" Butch agreed. Eventually, the Rowdyruff Boys bolted out of the control room and charged at the swarm of dragoons, startling the monsters. Of course, that kill count Boomer mentioned began to rise in favour of the new arrivals.
Blossom scoffed to herself, unsure whether to roll her eyes or sigh in relief. Those boys… they were always the same.
In any case, that was one problem dealt with… now that no more mutants were going to be released, she and Buttercup just needed to eliminate the remaining ones.
She was surprised to see that there were only ten dragoons remaining. The rest of the swarm had moved away to join their siblings against the ruffs, apparently.
She prepared to go for the nearest one when Buttercup, out of nowhere, came into the picture, roaring. She fired an eyebeam that blew up a single fiend, and then she began to zap from one beast to the other kicking and punching. Too fast for them, their weak bodies where mincemeat for Buttercup's powerful attacks, and some of them even saw their own bellies explode only because their skin was too damaged to bear the internal pressure.
The last dragoon cawed in fear and flew away. Buttercup was going to follow it when Blossom called out to her. "Buttercup, that's enough. Let's get back to Bubbles."
The green puff sighed but nonetheless stopped herself from chasing after the last flying mutant, heaving fast breaths as she turned around to join back with Blossom. It was clear that she had fought quite a lot of creatures while Blossom was busy with the dragoons and the boys. Various cuts dotted her body, sign that she had sustained some close calls in the battle with the porcupines, and sweat was all over her face. Even so, she did appear to have sustained any serious injuries, and Blossom was thankful for that.
"The hedgehog things are gone for good. Uff… I don't think t-there are more of them around here…" Buttercup said between the breaths.
"Good. The last of the flying mutants are busy with the Rowdyruffs, so I think we're free… for now."
"What about Bubbles?"
"I'm here…"
The two of them turned to greet their blonde sister. To their dismay, her injury was still bleeding.
"I don't think I'm feeling so good…" she said, almost whispered.
"Darn it! There got to be some first aid kit somewhere in here…" Buttercup said, sounding more and more worried with each word she said. "Doctor Porter must have some of them, with all those things around ready to attack anyone in sight!"
Blossom's feelings were not that much dissimilar from her sister ones. However, she had one idea. It wasn't going to fix Bubbles up, but it would at least stop the injury from making her lose blood for a while.
She motioned her to come near herself, and when Bubbles was near her, she carefully took her wounded arm and put it right in front of her, the wound facing her own face.
"I got an idea to buy us some time. It might hurt, Bubbles, so just try to think to something else and bite the bullet, okay?" Blossom warned. Her sister nodded, Buttercup was already at Bubbles' side keeping her free hand in hers, so Blossom focused on her task.
She inhaled deeply, then she let out a tiny, controlled gust of ice-breath. The air went over Bubbles' wound and began to freeze it slowly. Bubbles clenched her eyes shut and her lips quivered, but she didn't cry out.
Eventually, Blossom released Bubbles' arm. The area around the wound was frozen, but it was not covered by ice. The bleeding had been stopped… for now.
"That should do it for a while. Bubbles, you need to leave this place and look for help. We will stay to save Donnie," Blossom said. It was not a question.
"W-wha? But B-Blossom, I don't want to leave!" Bubbles protested, "I-I can't leave you two here…! Leave D-Donnie here!"
"Bubbles, there's no way you can help us in your state. You'll get hurt again, or worse!" Buttercup reasoned. "It's for the best, you have to let us finish this. We can deal with Porter!"
Bubbles sniffed. They had good reasons, alright. But even if she doubted she could defend herself in this state, she wasn't convinced. She couldn't let them go away like that.
This was Containment Farm VII, what about all the ones before number seven? And the others after it? What about Porter? If he was as strong as Blossom said, they would have had to face him all together! What about the Rowdyruff Boys, then? Once they were finished fighting the mutants, would they go after them?
What about Donnie? Was he even… alive now?
…
A cry was heard.
The Rowdyruff Boys and the dragoons stopped fighting, both sides surprised by the sudden scream… the pained, heart-wrenching scream of a boy.
"…Donnie?" Bubbles whispered, saying what was already in her sisters' minds.
The reaction was instant. There was no time to argue, no need to talk. Their super-hearing had proved effective enough that they knew exactly from what direction the cry came from and even the rough distance.
It wasn't far.
Blossom and Buttercup bolted together at high speed. They were so fast the auto-door they moved for had just the time to open itself for the space just enough to let them go through them. When the door finished its movement, Bubbles passed through it, hovering steadily and following the streaks of colour left by her sisters, determined to follow them despite her current state.
She wasn't letting her sisters and her friend face Porter alone, period!
The Rowdyruffs eventually shrugged the scene off and resumed to slay the mutants, leaving the girls on their own.
Blossom and Buttercup needed twenty seconds of high-speed flight to reach their target. Another automatic door, but they didn't even stop themselves to check what the label recited. They slammed themselves towards the door, which they found out was not enforced with Duranium. The expense of energy was so high they not only burst into the room launching the door away in two halves, but they also caused a pink and green explosion which ended up obliterating everything near the entrance they crashed.
They did not stop moving. They had the element of surprise, and neither Powerpuff wanted to let the chance slip from their hands. The first points of interest appearing in their vision were the forms of Mojo Jojo and Doctor Porter, both startled by their appearance.
They didn't question why Mojo was here and rather went directly for the attack. Blossom charged at Mojo, starting with a punch on the face, then letting loose a flurry of kicks, in the end finishing with a powerful hook. The ape didn't even have the time to register the events as he was sent flying into a set of shelves, crushing them and their contents in the process.
Buttercup went for Doctor Porter instead. For the first actual time he had been taken aback and Buttercup was not going to let the chance go unused. She attacked him right away with her eyebeams even before actually reaching him, which landed a perfect headshot. Stunned, Porter was left at the mercy of the green puff.
She tried to do as much damage as possible, landing powerful hits all over his body. She had no clue about a weak point, so she tried to at least do something to the robot hands: maybe if she succeeded in breaking them Porter would at least lose some of his power.
At the same time, Mojo Jojo sprouted up from the debris left by his last voyage, laser rifle at hand and surprisingly not knocked out. He's getting harder, Blossom noted mentally as Mojo Jojo screeched in anger and began to fire red hot beams towards her. She responded with eyebeams of her own, but the rifle was a new model the chimp had devised and its high rate of fire was effectively preventing her from taking a good aim at the monkey.
It was at this moment that Bubbles managed to reach the room. She gasped when she saw that Blossom and Buttercup were in combat, but she relaxed when she realized they had the situation under control… for now.
The blue puff hovered up in the air and looked around the laboratory, looking for the source of the sound that had brought the three of them here in the first place.
It wasn't hard to spot him.
She flew towards the yellow stain on the floor that was Donnie, trying to be as fast as her body could let her. The closer she got, the more it became clear that something was off.
"Donnie!" she started as she flew down and kneeled right at his side. "What happened? Are you all right?"
The little boy spent five seconds before finally making the decision to rotate his head to look at her. His face looked sorrowful and his eyes were red with tears, a spectacle that Bubbles wasn't ready for.
"Donnie… what happened?" she repeated more quietly as the noises of the battle continue to be heard around them.
Donnie opened his mouth, and the words he uttered confirmed that the boy was crushed. "B-Bubbles… I am… I'm a failure…"
"W-what?"
"A failure! He's right," he said with a hard tone, sounding almost angry. "He's freaking right! I'm just a failure and I've always been from the day I was born!"
"What in the world are you babbling about?!" Bubbles said with surprise, but Donnie ignored her as he continued to mutter to himself. "Porter's right… I cannot beat him, I-I cannot stop him. I-I won't be able to stop her…"
"Wait, wait, wait, hold on!" Bubbles ordered as she grabbed his shoulders and shook him off. "Donnie, stop thinking these things! You're scaring me! I don't know what Doctor Porter has told you, but I really don't care what he said. You are not a failure to me!"
She put a hand under Donnie's chin and forced him to look at her. They were close to each other as Bubbles, her eyes fixed into his ones, said solemnly, "You. Are. Not. A. Failure!"
…
"W-why?"
"Why?!" Bubbles had to stop herself from shouting at him. "Donnie, whatever bad things you've done in the past, you weren't even yourself! And why do you think you failed to defeat Doctor Porter? The bad guy took us all by surprise and knocked you out before any of us could react. And that's not all!
"He's extremely strong, Donnie! He managed to put even the three of us out of commission when he ambushed us during the fight with the Rowdyruff Boys, like it was nothing! And now that we find you still alive, you say that it was a failure? When we heard you cry out a minute ago, we were all so worried! We rushed here as fast as we could, Donnie, because you were in trouble, because we cared, and because nothing of this was your fault. Do you realize that?"
Donnie stared at her for some seconds… before nodding.
"Good. Because I've known you for long enough to think that you're good beyond any doubt. And what you managed to do after you returned to Ultrapolis is something you should be proud of, and nothing that ugly doctor said should make you question it. Everyone is proud of you! Your aunt was worried for you when we had to leave her to go deal with the ruffs! The Mayor of Ultrapolis was worried as well when we came to him looking for information about the Doctor! That is, because they all believed in you."
By that moment, Donnie had stopped to sniff and shed tears.
"Donnie, there no reason at all you should consider yourself a failure. You have achieved so much you've even become the opposite of it! What's a failure anyway? No living being should consider himself as such. It doesn't make sense to me in the first place."
She extended out her left hand, making sure to keep the wounded limb hidden behind her back, and stood up as she said, "Promise me you'll neverhave that thought cross your mind ever again."
At first, Donnie kept sitting on the floor, unmoving, as he stared at the blue puff now standing before him.
Was she right? He had been so sure about it, that everything had been his fault. It all made sense, and Porter's words were made from logic, even if they were evil in nature.
But Bubbles was right as well! It didn't matter that his existence had caused Porter to resume his activities in Ultrapolis… in fact, for all he knew Porter would have begun to use the city's inhabitants as test subjects, or worse. There was no way to tell what Porter's plans beyond the current scheme were.
And as for his attempts to test him, he was able to 'pass' them and avoid them to cause major harm to the city. Giant lizard monster included. As far as he knew, most of the people in Ultrapolis were of that idea, including the Mayor himself, one known to be hard to get on the good side of. Not to mention the people he had started to call family after he lost his own creator.
Bubbles was right… Professor Laurentium was right. He, his creator, had said it himself, wrote it into the last words of his journal. He could be good, he was good. Porter may have been more powerful, but he was not invincible... they had not lost yet. They had not failed yet. He was not… a failure.
He moved his hand and grabbed Bubbles' one. "Y-you're right. I… I'm sorry, I've been stupid… It's just that… I don't know."
"We'll talk about it later, Donnie," she said as she helped him stand up, "now we, uh, you have to go help Blossom and Buttercup!"
That brought his attention back to the current events. Blossom was still trying to get nearer to Mojo, who had changed weapon to two akimbo plasma pistols, while Doctor Porter had been able to counter Buttercup for the first time and was beginning to get the upper hand in the one-on-one fight.
First, though, he had to warn them about the danger that the actual goal of the doctor posed. "Bubbles, we have to stop Porter first. He's… he's going to do something terrible if we don't!"
He inhaled before continuing, the thought of it made was enough to make him anxious. "…he's going to create a girl, Bubbles! A girl, super-powered just like me, made with the sole purpose of fighting me!"
Bubbles was completely taken aback by that statement. She stumbled back, her arms trying to keep her equilibrium. "A… girl? You mean like us, you, but evil?! Like, a Rowdyruff Girl?"
"I don't know, but it may be far worse than that… we cannot let that happen!"
Bubbles nodded without adding further questions, there would have been time for those after they had incapacitated the new villain. "Okay… look, I can't fight Mojo and Porter as of now…"
"Huh? What do you mean you cannot fight-woah!" only now Donnie had noticed what had happened to Bubbles' arm, she had tried to hide it but there was no point to that by then.
"Bubbles, what happened? Your arm…? This must be Blossom's work, but… darn. You need help to fix that up!"
"I know, but my sisters need more help than me now! I'll live, now go help them out!" Bubbles uttered with a determined face.
It was Donnie's turn to be worried now, but Bubbles' face was determined enough to make him understand there was no easy way to convince her to reconsider. She was the one good at discussions between the two of them, after all.
"Uhh, okay, I'll go, but try to stay away from the fight and do not try to help us if we have trouble!" he said before finally turning to go help Buttercup, which had just received a kick that sent her in a fast course towards one of the chamber's walls, colliding with it.
Doctor Porter gasped for air. He was in a bad shape: the robotic left arm was slightly damaged as there were some cables hanging from it, and there were a few bruises on his face. No trace of red blood, though… to be precise, there was a liquid over the injuries, but it was yellow, not red.
Predictably so, he was furious.
"YOU!" he bellowed, stopping Blossom and Mojo from fighting each other with the incredible harsh, loud tone he had used. No one of the people in the room had ever seen him in such a state of fury. "You've have made the mistake to annoy me, infra-humans! You'll soon regret your foolish decision!"
That said, he rotated his body and sprinted towards Donnie and Bubbles. The blue puff squeaked in fear and began to fly backwards, while Donnie braced himself for his arrival. He was weak though… the arm was still aching from before and he had not fully recovered from his last encounter with him. He needed some help! Buttercup was momentarily out of the game, so that left…
"Porter! Look out for the pink Powerpuff!" Mojo Jojo tried to warn him, but it was too late as Blossom launched a pink beam of energy from her hands towards Porter's back. The Doctor jumped off the side and the beam missed him by a few centimetres.
The attack only resulted in making him even madder.
While taking care of Porter was a high priority, there was something else that the puffs needed to take care of. Donnie quickly scanned the room while the doctor was distracted until he located the pot, which Mojo Jojo had quickly positioned himself in front of. They could try to eliminate either the mixture or the last ingredient needed to complete it, which was to be found somewhere in the large laboratory as Porter had said. Mojo was definitely protecting the concoction, while the second option looked more viable.
"Blossom!" Donnie shouted to the pink puff, "Leave him alone, you have to look for and destroy all the Unidentified Y stored in this room! NOW!"
Blossom was at first surprised by this request, but the urge in Donnie's voice was clear and she decided to not question it for now. She flew upwards scanning the room with her supervision until she located that, far and fixed on one of the side walls, were dozens of flasks of Unidentified Y. She prepared to go for it… until something exploded over her, sending her towards the ground.
"Oh, no, you don't!" Porter proclaimed as he retracted his Hand Cannon set to explosive shells and made it back into his robotic arm, the one still functioning, and ran after her. Before Blossom could stand up, the Doctor seized her by her neck.
"I warned you once, Blossom Utonium, and you decided to foolishly ignore my warning. You had your chance, infra-human… I won't waste more of my precious time with you," he hissed as his grip tensed up, but before he could effectively hurt her somebody attacked him from behind with a war cry.
"Leave my sister ALONE!" Buttercup shouted as he stormed him, again, with a series of melee attacks.
Now free, Blossom returned to her previous task and flew upwards again. She noticed Donnie and Bubbles doing the same… that was it! If they fired with their ranged attacks all at once, there would have been no way for their enemies to stop all of those at the same time! "Bubbles, Donnie! Look up ahead, the Unidentified is there! Let's attack it together!" she shouted.
Unfortunately, there was someone who wasn't of the same idea, as Mojo Jojo changed back to the laser rifle and put an optic sight over it to aim from the long distance. He began to fire more of the deadly beams towards the three of them, distracting the two puffs and the boy from their target.
"You aren't going to save yourselves today, Powerpuff Girls… not if I, Mojo Jojo, have something to say about it!" he said to himself as he took another shot, missing Bubbles by three centimetres. He just needed to slow their progress down until Porter managed to free himself from Buttercup, who was however putting all of herself into the fight.
Before that could happen though, something entered from the door destroyed by the previous grand entrance of Blossom and Buttercup.
"MOJO!" The Rowdyruff Boys shouted as they literally shoved themselves into the room. "Let's get the heck out of here! Methuselah's darn beasts are trying to devour us!"
Close enough, an army of dragoons and porcupines followed the boys into the room, their beastly screeches filling the already noisy situation. And of top of it all, leading them was no other that the Chimaera itself, the same one who had managed to give the girls a piece of their mind in Laurentium's lab. No wonder the boys had found some difficult in beating the mutant army.
With the laboratory quite crowded, the events went on fast. Mojo Jojo stopped shooting to look at the boys in surprise. Blossom, Bubbles and Donnie took the chance and fired two eyebeam rays and an energy grenade towards the Unidentified Y's shelves while the villain was distracted by the entrance of the ruffs and the mutants pursuing them. Porter landed a series of hits on Buttercup and with a rotating kick sent her away from himself, before shooting a round from his Hand Cannon at Donnie's grenade and shouting towards the Rowdyruffs.
"Stop the heat vison rays! Do it! NOW!"
But the Rowdyruff Boys were no more so sure about Porter's intentions towards them, if he was an enemy or not… and did not do as he asked. Thus, Porter managed to stop only Donnie's attack and even he, the one who believed to always have the situation under control, was only able to watch as the puffs' eyebeams reached the storage and made the entire thing explode in one blow.
"NO!" Porter shouted, his face screaming 'insanity' from every point of view. He ran to the still burning storage, far from the puffs, ruffs and Mojo, and began to rummage through the remains, looking for an intact flask. But there weren't any.
Mojo Jojo opened his mouth but did not say anything, flabbergasted. He fired an angry glare towards the Rowdyruffs who, unaware of the plans he and the doctor had, ignored him, before making some fast calculations about how to leave Porter's hideout without getting captured.
The creatures remained motionless, all of their gazes fixed on Porter's location. It was like they were somewhat scared by him, as right after his furious cry some of the lower monsters had even crawled back into the hallways with whimpering screeches. That and the will of the Rowdyruffs to not help Porter let the Powerpuff Girls and Donnie free to hover quietly towards the doctor.
"Porter!" Blossom announced as they got close enough. "It's over. You are alone against us now. You've been defeated. Surrender!"
Porter suddenly froze, stopping his useless attempts to find something usable. Then, he let out a single, evil laugh.
"You'd like it, huh? I can feel it. You are just waiting for me to submit, to smile in self-satisfaction as I let myself be brought to justice. That is the case, isn't it?"
He glanced back towards them. "Pathetic, naïve little infra-human. You have no idea who you're messing with."
He stood up and began to walk calmly towards the table where the pot was still waiting. The girls and the boy did not try to stop him. Donnie was aware of the fact that without the substance Porter had no way to complete the experiment, while the girls continued to study him and keep him under their gazes, unsure of how to react. They followed him from above, ready for everything in case he tried to attack them again.
Half-away through, Porter started to speak again. His voice had gone back to his neutral, standard tone, as if he had lost any trace of anger. "Thank you for the help, Mojo Jojo. It's time that you see the result of the valuable time you spent here, and I stay true to my wrods."
Mojo didn't understand what the doctor meant. "What are you talking about, Porter? Without the Unidentified Y or a similar catalyst, we cannot create the new superbeing!"
That got Blossom and Buttercup's attention, who had yet to be filled in.
"Correct. We have no Unidentified Y left in this chamber… I have, truth be told, more of it stored elsewhere, but those are far from our current position, too much for this… complex situation we find ourselves in," Porter explained with a hint of sarcasm.
He looked at the four heroes and smiled as he said darkly, "I still have an efficient catalyst, though. At least one attempt is due."
Thus, Doctor Porter went over his damaged metal hand with the working one and did something that neither the Powerpuff Girls nor Donnie were able to catch. Whatever he did, it had the effect to release some type of pressurized gas from some areas of the artificial hand…
…then, it fell from its body, the metal clinging as it hit the floor.
The girls reacted immediately with frightened gasps, and Donnie also widened his eyes, shocked by the view.
As Donnie had talked with the doctor, he was aware of what he had gone through during the UGL disaster, and he could guess that what he was seeing was the result of that event. However, the girls felt worse than him simply because of the fact that this was not the first timethey had seen something like this.
Blossom was incredulous as he looked at Porter's now uncovered limb. He's… mutated. He's mutated, just like the monsters he created himself… Just like… Dick Hardly!
Porter smiled as he flexed the fingers of the newly revealed mutated hand back and forth, checking its muscles. Reptilian-like scales covered it in place of normal human skin and the nails were better described as sharp claws.
"Surprising, isn't it?" he said. "I'm aware I've not been the first one to endure this type of… modification, but unlike him, I have learned to master it. The metallic arms I've built were needed to channel my newly found power and help me keep it under control, while adding some additional, fun twists while I was at it. However, I'm digressing… this is not important right now."
He narrowed his eyes, while the skin around them lost some of its pink colour in favour of a more greenish one, before modifying his remaining robot hand into yet another new instrument.
A blade appeared in place of the hand-glove, its extreme sharpness clear even from a distance.
"Made out of my porcupines' spikes… not as hard and sharp as a Duranium blade, maybe, but enough to do this," he stated matter-of-factly before making a fast, single cut on the mutated limb.
No one in the room was able to realize what Porter was doing until it was too late. Blood poured out of the cut in single drops… one of a strong yellow colour. A colour that belonged to the same group of colours as red… and orange.
Donnie was the first one to put two and two together. He only had the time to shout out a shocked "No! NO!" as Porter put his injured free hand over the pot and let some drops of his own blood fall into the contents inside.
Porter made some steps back, waiting for something to happen. After eight, silent seconds, the contents of the mixture reacted with each other and everything became white in the lab as a deafening booming detonation occurred.