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Chapter 10

Duel

Doctor Porter narrowed his eyes as he saw the pink and green puffs fly above him and begin to bombard him with heat vision blasts. The blue puff also followed their example, though she hovered a fair distance from him, a lot farther than her peers.

Yet, not by much.

The infra-humans are trying to end this safely… they don't want to fight head on, they fear that tactic. Smart for them, indeed… then, it's time switch things up and force them to close combat.

While he easily evaded the red rays coming to him, Porter modified the robot appendage back to his Hand Cannon mode, switched ammo and fired back towards Blossom and Buttercup with his explosive shells. The shells sometimes exploded in mid-air, not too dissimilar to the Unidentified-Y powered puffs' energy grenades, and to stay away from the shockwaves Blossom and Buttercup found themselves with the need to fly down.

Just a little bit more… Porter calculated as he examined the positions of the puffs while moving and shooting at the same time. His mind controlled every aspect of the context, every piece of data available to him… and when everything clicked into its expected place, the program was run.

With no possibility to fail.

Blossom blinked, and the instant after Porter was flying towards her.

Flying? FLYING?!

Porter was not flying. He had jumped towards her. With his inhuman might and the help of his robotic enhanced legs, of course. Of this Blossom was not aware, and she was too much shocked to react, at least not with how fast the Doctor was coming.

She was forced back into reality by the metal punch which hit her on the head, for the second time that day. It was not enough hard to knock her out, but enough to stun her, and Porter was swift to follow up by seizing her with the mutated, free hand.

"Leave her ALONE!" Buttercup shouted before nosediving towards the Doctor, but the robotic appendage quickly changed function again, and she was shot back by another explosive shell, scoring a direct hit that knocked her out.

Bubbles was frozen, afar from her sisters. Too fearful to hit them by using her eyebeams, too weak to come to Buttercup's aid directly.

Porter elegantly landed on the ground, using both his legs and robotic hand to slow himself down. He then immediately stood up and put Blossom in front of himself. She was trying to free herself from the Doctor's grasp, with pathetic results.

"Blossom."

Blossom turned to face the one who called her, only to find eyes devoid of hatred. He was… annoyed. As much as annoyed as a normal person would be by a fly.

"Blossom Utonium, as others call you. Previously today, I told you to not mess with my plans anymore, and you let my advice be unheard. You dared to ignore it, not once, but twice. And while I can't understand why you did so, I suppose that you'll regret your decision soon, since you won't have a second chance at it."

Suddenly, Blossom felt fright. He had been plenty of times in her life as a superhero in dire situations. But the current situation got a lot worse than most of them in mere seconds.

She saw Porter's eyes slightly change in colour. She saw an even bigger part of the skin on his face get greener, as well as greenish scales beginning to appear on his neck. The robotic hand trembled, while something moved inside the mutant one, which got not bigger… but more muscular.

It was as if he had let more of the mutation take over his body, and the little girl could only gape at the pulsing veins now visible under the mutated skin of Porter's free arm. The one currently keeping her in its grasp by her waist.

When she realized what was going on, it happened. An extreme force began to try to squeeze the life out of her.

Porter remained completely indifferent to his capture as she screamed.

Donnie's vision was almost completely a blur, but the details he needed were still clearly visible to him. Namely, Decay's fists.

The two of them were in a melee again, and Donnie continued to play the defensive game. He was studying her, trying to find a weakness in her fighting style, but he was horrified to notice that she fought more like him than any of the girls or the Rowdyruff Boys. Except for the fact she seemed to do slightly better.

Donnie attempted a low kick to Decay's legs, but the girl was swift to move her feet up and evade the attack. She responded with a direct hook to the head, which Donnie right away parried with both arms. He realized too late that the lower part of his body was undefended and one of Decay's knees hit his stomach. The knock was so hard Donnie coughed out air and drops of blood fell off his mouth, but his foe didn't stop as she sent him back in the air with an uppercut.

Suddenly, Donnie felt the so called 'battle rage' fill his muscles and went for an immediate counterattack again, both his legs forward for a double kick, but Decay was prepared for it and almost danced away before grabbing his hands. Taken aback, Donnie found himself flung to the ground, where he landed hard for the nth time.

"C'mon, do something actually worth my attention! I know you can do better, honey!" Decay joked. Donnie ignored her taunt and focused on his next move.

I need to think of something… she's fast, she's strong and she seems to know every move I do. But she must have a weak point… She has to!

Then, his line of thought was stopped by a scream.

Donnie whirled his body and what he saw nearly made his skin go pale. Even Decay couldn't help but get distracted by the scene, while the Rowdyruff Boys were still busy fighting the last pack of mutants and at first didn't notice what was happening.

Blossom was screaming. Her shriek continued as Porter, unperturbed, persisted in his torture. Buttercup was nowhere to be found, knocked down by the previous direct hit, and Bubbles, terrorized to harm her sister more, remained petrified.

That continued until the sound of something snapping was heard.

Suddenly, Blossom stopped screaming. Porter rotated his hand to give an inquisitive look on the immobile girl, before letting her fall to the ground. Still.

Decay was unmoved and couldn't help but scoff at the scene. The Rowdyruff Boys had a different reaction altogether, since all of them suddenly stopped fighting at the 'snap' noise and after witnessing Porter's work they wore gaping, flabbergasted faces, not believing what they had just seen. Only after the mutants resumed their attacks they returned to their battle, even though they were less concentrated than before.

Donnie couldn't believe it. He hoped with all of his might that what he had just witnessed was just an error of his sight. A nightmare. Everything, but what had just happened.

Bubble's eyes, already watery, were fixed on Blossom's body. Her face didn't give away any sign of emotion.

Registering the overall reaction of the infra-humans, Porter raised an interrogative eyebrow. Realizing they didn't know what he did, he proceeded to do a neutral explanation, almost mechanically, as if he was stating the obvious. "She's not dead. Her skeleton is harder than titanium and not easily broken. I only managed to cause a minor fracture, one which would of course kill an ordinary human, but not an infra-human."

His robotic hand modified itself again while he spoke, though at this point it was more of a monologue. "Yet, my work is not finished. I might be able to penetrate her skin with a sharp enough blade now that she's subdued. One slick passage on her throat should do the-"

He was so focused in his plan he had failed to take notice of the absence of one 'infra-human' in the count. One who came violently to stop his disturbing speech.

"YOU FREAK!" Buttercup cried, anger filling her with rarely seen power. Her punches felt harder, her speed was higher, and overall Porter instantly knew he had to take this one seriously.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

As Buttercup let her fury loose on the Doctor, Bubbles floated quickly to Blossom's side, her face still neutral. She noticed the fact that her breathing was still there… she was alive. But she was still far from being okay.

And meanwhile, Mojo Jojo grinned as he took aim, putting Bubbles' head under the scope of his rifle. One precise headshot might result in a knock-out, and then he would be able to finish two Powerpuff Girls off easily. It was perfect!

Already tasting the sweet flavour of victory, Mojo was surprised to see Bubbles stare back at him through the scope. When he moved away from his aiming posture, Bubbles was already over him, and before he could yelp in surprise, he was flying in the laboratory with several teeth shattered.

Bubbles slowly turned back, then she launched an ear-piercing shriek. An instant later, the blue puff was moving at the speed of light and soon joined her sister in the battle with the responsible of their leader's condition, completely ignoring the injury on her right arm.

In the meantime, the Rowdyruffs had already managed to deal with the very last group of mutants, and Butch had finally got his revenge by decapitating the head of the monstrous Chimaera, which finally no more posed a threat. Their celebration of the victory was brief as they turned back to the others and watched the two Powerpuff Girls fight with Porter, bewildered by the fury that had possessed them. To the boys, it was almost mesmerizing to see the girls so furious, almost insane with their anger.

On the other hand, Decay lost interest quickly and went back to regard her opponent. Who, interestingly enough, was already looking back.

"Your friends look weak to me, honey. Being reduced like that by an old geezer, ha! No wonder you-"

Her speech was interrupted by a knock on her teeth. Stumbling back in the air, Decay hovered randomly for some seconds before realizing she had been hit. Massaging her cheek, she glared at the obvious cause.

"Shut. Your hole. UP!" Donnie commanded, his voice almost spilling out rage. Yet, Decay was unfazed, in fact she was getting angrier herself.

"You don't get to stop me while I'm gloating, you little pest! You'll regret what you just did!" she growled. And moments after, they resumed their duel.

Porter cursed under his breath after receiving a kick on his mutated, free arm by the green puff, almost feeling the bones inside dislocate. Had that limb been normal, it would have left his body and went for a travel by itself like it was nothing.

The Powerpuffs were angry, alright, and they were trying to hurt him. Badly.

But Doctor Porter was not known for feeling fear, or preoccupation. Even in this situation, he had a plan. Bubbles and Buttercup were enraged and as such, their attacks had improved in power… but at the same time, their focus had lowered. They made more errors in their fury, their fight no more followed a precise scheme. They just attacked blindly.

One, quick move and he would have both of them subdued in no time. He just had to wait for his chance…

After rebounding the blue puff away, Porter prepared to defend himself from one of Buttercup's attacks. The green puff basically roared before storming him with a flurry of punches, half of which were dodged while the other half was parried. Her anger driving her, Buttercup followed with a double kick in an attempt to make a head hit, but Porter was too fast and after missing her target the force of the attack made her lose control of her flight.

And here was his chance.

Buttercup found her head grasped by Porter's hand, and the doctor was quick to smash her to the ground, multiple times.

His action was suddenly stopped by a sonic scream emitted by Bubbles herself, which even he couldn't ignore. While staggering back from Buttercup, he managed to have his robotic left arm switch function again. When Bubbles stopped her attack and charged forward, the Doctor only had the time to shot one round towards the blue puff.

The blonde ignored the incoming projectile, as she wasn't going to let that stop her. However, the Doctor had not fired a simple explosive round, and for this reason Bubbles was taken aback when she found herself entrapped in a metallic net. The metal didn't seem that hard and she would have needed only a few seconds to free herself, but the mad scientist didn't let her have the time.

A moment before she could zap the mesh with her eyebeams, Porter had already taken hold of her with a swift jump. Landing on the ground, the Doctor proceeded to slam the little girl into the floor, then he raised his right fist and with one, precise hit, he struck the wound on her right arm dead-on.

The pain that shot through Bubbles body was immense and too much to bear even with her anger. Her shriek was just a confirmation of success to Porter, who turned again to deal with the green puff, already standing with a bloody nose.

Roaring once again, Buttercup flew forward for a direct attack, but this time Porter went for the offensive as well and responded with a metal fist. The impact emitted a loud 'CLANG' that echoed in the chamber, and Buttercup found herself with her hands bleeding and hurting. Even so, she bit the bullet and continued her attacks, decision that proved to be wrong on the long term.

Without being able to use her hands effectively, Buttercup was more vulnerable, and she managed to continue her assault only for one minute before having one of her hands fail her while trying to block one attack. A moment later, she was already under Porter's steel-like hold.

She however refused to surrender herself to a loss. While Porter's mutated hand kept her arms and legs firm, her eyes were free, and they lightened up as she prepared to shoot her eyebeams directly on Porter's face. Before the blast could leave her pupils, however, Porter had snatched something from a hidden pocket in his robotic appendix, and literally shoved a small tank in her mouth.

The move was so unexpected Buttercup at first didn't know what to do, and before she could decide whatever was contained inside the tank broke up by itself, flooding her mouth withs something that went down her throat. Nausea pervaded her body, followed by a sudden loss of energy, and seconds later her eyes rolled back.

Porter let the girl fall to the ground and he fell himself on his knees, recovering his breath. He gave a glance to his remaining robotic arm before dislocating it and throwing the battered thing away, thus freeing his other mutated limb, and he closed his eyes in concentration. By now his entire face was coloured in green and his general appearance was more and more similar to the mutants he had created.

Focus. Do not lose control of yourself.

He stood up and contemplated the green puff lying in front of him. Buttercup's eyes were showing only her sclera, and a disgusting substance was coming out of her mouth, but she was still breathing. Porter was sincerely surprised by the endurance these infra-humans had, but he soon shooed the thought away. His job was not finished, and all the Powerpuff Girls had to be disposed of for good.

He was going to get near Buttercup when he heard heavy fighting sounds, and he remembered about the test. His mind for once trailed off and, completely forgetting about the puffs, he went to personally assist to the moment he had waited years for.

The fight between the two European superpowered kids had long ceased to be a game from either side. The two were actively trying to hurt each other, and they both were being quite good at it.

As they fought in the air, Donnie threw a punch forward, which Decay dodged by tilting to her side, keeping her overall stance and therefore being able to respond with a fist of her own. The hit struck Donnie's shoulder but the boy didn't flinch and answered by seizing her arm, trying immediately to pull her down.

Before he could follow with his idea, though, Decay reacted by doing something unexpected. Her head lunged at his arm and she bit it, hard. The boy yelped and retracted his arm, now showing the painful marks of the girls' teeth, leaving Decay free to kick him on the chest and elbow him down, sending him in a quick course towards the ground. Then she generated a force field in front of herself and dashed towards him, with the clear intent to ram into him.

Donnie regained the use of his body halfway from the ground and after realizing the incoming attack, he made a force field of his own. When he finally landed on the ground and Decay reached him, a deafening 'BOOM' was heard along with its wave but not a single particle was emitted. The two of them stayed immobile for some seconds, staring down at each other. Then the fields dissipated, and they were fighting again.

They were slowly stopping to parry and avoid attacks, like they cared no more about their own well-being, but only about landing a hit on their adversary. Donnie, while not exactly in the best of the states, was managing to get some hits through and soon Decay had her fair number of bruises as well.

Their faces were both frowning mirrors of anger. Decay was furious for the fact the battle was taking more than she expected and the fact this surrogate of a boy was keeping her at bay, and her fury gained in strength as they fought.

Donnie's anger came from the situation itself, for he knew he couldn't fail in this fight, but also because of what he had seen, of what the doctor, Decay's creator, had done to Blossom. He didn't even know what had happened to Buttercup and Bubbles since he was focused on his foe, but he was nonetheless determined in defeating the teal-eyed girl here and now.

Determination, however, wasn't enough to beat someone as strong as Decay. After sustaining battles for almost the full day, Donnie's energy was draining fast and, after a few minutes of intense combat, he began to slow down his attacks. They were still fast, and the slowness was barely noticeable, but Decay did see it anyway. A discovery that made her accursed smile return.

She had been just created, and she had started to fight seriously only a few minutes earlier. She was, effectively, at her maximum strength.

Her smile turned into a grin.

Eventually, Donnie's stamina betrayed him, and he failed to evade a direct hit to his face. Decay's punch hit full force and hard, sending him stumbling back.

Decay literally leaped over Donnie and knocked him down the ground, then she went over him and blocked his hands with her legs, basically leaving him defenceless. The girl disturbingly licked her lips before beginning to let her fury loose. She punched Donnie on the face, repeatedly, and she didn't stop. Not after ten seconds, not after twenty.

Only after a full minute, Decay decided she had had enough, and moved over. She crossed her arms and waited for him to stand up. Donnie, his face now with more bruises than ever, gritted his teeth and emitted an annoyed wheeze before attempting to sit up. Getting on his feet proved to be difficult and, in the end, he was staggering just to remain immobile.

He was no more in a condition to fight. One of his eyes was half-closed since the hit he sustained had hurt it, and he was spending a huge amount of energy just to remain still. In this state, Decay was nothing less than towering over him.

"I'm-*cough*… I'm not d-done with! I-I… no, w-we're not finished!" Donnie's words left his mouth without conviction.

Decay scoffed before replying. "Such a shame… to see that beautiful face of yours reduced to a punching bag. Which I still like, mind you."

Her grin turned back into a frown as she continued. "You deserved that, though. We could have been a perfect couple, you and I, you know? We could have been strong enough to do whatever we wanted, no matter what the four-eyes thought. But no, you had to actually fight me, you had to go play the hero! Ha! You're such a pity, Donnie… Too bad. I'm going to show you how trying to stop me was your last mistake!"

An energy sphere began to grow on her right hand.

"You know, there are a whole lot of ways I can choose to kill you. But only one thrills me and reaches my heart. And that is the heat of my own energy, as it annihilates everything I want to see being disintegrated before my eyes…"

A second sphere appeared on her left hand. Slowly, she brought both hands on her head and the spheres fused, not differently from what she did before while creating the Energy Turret. However, this time, the resulting oval shape remained in its place over her.

"And by now, I want you to suffer as much as your body lets you feel pain before you die! I want to hear your screams while you burn alive, I want to see you scream and shriek as you beg for death to come to you…! Ohh, oh! That's going to be delightful!"

The sphere grew in volume and kept doing so at a constant rate. Its colour changed from teal to a mixture of yellow, red and orange, and Donnie slowly began to feel hot from the heat it was emitting. Finally, fear had replaced his anger, and before he could realize it, despair had taken hold of his heart.

As he stayed on the floor kneeling, he stared into Decay's eyes. Her grin had returned, but it was no more her annoying, amused expression. No, this one was far different. It was craziness what was transpiring from that smile. Madness. Trepidation. Insanity.

She was not stopping, not before him, not before anything. She would have kept true to her name and brought decay to everything she encountered, to everyone who dared to cross her path. Decay… and death.

In that moment, Donnie understood what was different about her, what was the difference in terms of the bonus ingredient. He knew that the Rowdyruffs, originally, were not created out of Chemical X, but something similar in strength, yet far more unstable.

This time though, in place of the Unidentified Y that gave him his powers, Decay had received living blood. The blood of her creator, Doctor Porter, who wanted nothing less but Donnie's demise and would have done anything to pursue his goal. No matter how hard, no matter how stupid. He didn't create her out love, he created her out of one single desire, and that desire was killing Donnie.

He was doomed.

Donnie gave a glance around him. Mojo Jojo was still nowhere to be found, while Doctor Porter was nearby, visibly trying not to let himself lose control as he watched with expectation. He ignored him and tried to look for her friends. Maybe he could give a final look to them before meeting his end.

The girls were nearby, all right, but he didn't like what he saw.

The Rowdyruff Boys were still in the chamber, and by now they were looking with astonished faces at a scene they couldn't even believe was possible. They were looking at the bodies of the Powerpuff Girls. Donnie from the distance couldn't see the details, but his eyes were still able to tell that the three of them were all lying on the ground, immobile. He had no way to know whether they were even alive.

Donnie's heart slowed down, and he did a full breath cycle. After which, he opened his eyes and faced the monster that was going to kill him.

That is, if he didn't do anything.

There was one last possibility. The solution could still end with his death as a side effect, but Donnie would have preferred it compared to giving Porter what he wanted, to giving him and Decay the satisfaction they sought. No… if he had to leave the world today, he would bring her with him.

He just needed her to get completely captivated in the act. And when Decay began to laugh with an evil chortle, he knew that the chance was his to take.

He thought of a cone. A simple geometric, three-dimensional shape everyone knew about. Yet, what he thought about was a Euclidean cone, one that was perfect as long as it remained in the safe heaven of theory and paper. In reality it couldn't exist since even an atom had a surface, and in any case even something as Duranium couldn't be as sharp as a single atom.

Yet, there was something Donnie owned as a power that let him control what wasn't composed by atoms, as in the physical particles that made up general matter. And it was his last chance.

The sweat coming down his forehead and cheeks was now caused by his struggle, not by the heat coming from the death sphere, as his secret ace began to form in his right hand.

And when Decay began to let the spherical inferno descend upon him, Donnie darted forward, raising his secret weapon and bellowing a war cry, using the last bit of energy left on him. His speed was enough to partly evade the sphere and he avoided pulverization, but he was so exhausted he didn't even register the fact that he had received a bad burn on his head's side in the process.

He mustered everything that was left in him and threw it all into the muscles of his right arm, as while Decay and Donnie fell to the ground together, the boy pushed the minuscule, yet almost perfect cone-shaped force field down into Decay's chest. When Donnie felt the movement come to a stop and the cone itself disappear, since he didn't have any energy to keep it active, he blacked out before he could hear anything.

When the dark blonde boy reopened his eyes, he found himself lying on the ground, which was expected by itself. He didn't expect to be alive, though.

He was tired, and every muscle in his body was protesting by providing him with more pain that he would have wanted. Despite all of this, Donnie forced himself to at least sit up. He needed to make sure. To understand what had happened.

The first living being he saw was the form of Doctor Porter, who he supposed would have been extremely happy by that moment. What he saw instead was a bewildered man, so much that the mutation over his face seemed to have regretted back to its normal state. His eyes were fixed on something behind Donnie and his mouth was twisted into a shocked, unbelieving expression.

Only one reason would have been possible for that display by the usually cold doctor. And when Donnie turned around to watch what was he so interested in, he momentarily lost his breath.

Decay was there, and she was crying. Crying exactly like the little girl she looked like… miles away from the demented look she showed moments before trying to kill him. Her cries echoed in the laboratory as she tried with her hands to stop the bleeding over her chest. Yet, red liquid continued to come out of the hole that was planted there.

Donnie, not believing at first what he was seeing, struggled to stand up until he managed to pull himself up. Staggering for a bit, he finally made a step towards Decay, who was watching him by then, trying to get a closer look.

The black-haired girl screamed in fright when she realized he was awake and close, and she crawled back, her face betraying the pure fear she felt. The jerking movements ended up worsening the condition of her injury, and she was forced to stop and put her hands back on the wound to stop the bleeding. Paralyzed by her fear and unable to actually put the strength into moving away, she shut her eyes and kept crying in fright and pain.

And that was it.

The test was over, and he had survived through it.

He had won.

AN: All right. First of all, sorry for the huge delay. During the last months I found myself with very few free time to dedicate to my hobbies, including fanfiction, and at the same time my will to write was reduced to a minimum. It's almost been a year and a half since I first published this story and I have every intention to finish it as soon as possible by now.

This two-part chapter was the hardest one to write. A lot of fights which I tried to make as less repetitive as possible, and some suggestions to what will happen next. Next chapter will deal with the aftermath of the Duel, and after that will come the Epilogue chapter. Both of which are probably going to be short compared to the mean of this story, but we shall see.