The Bang

Mike smiled strangely at the sight of the trio tangled on what was left of the family couch. The girls' guilty silence at his entrance.

Mike laughed, though. Nervously at first, but it became a deep belly laugh. Now all four of them were joined in mirth, though not for too long. Mike sat in an easy chair in the same room, and stopped laughing as he seemed to suddenly regard the coffee table with great interest.

The girls quieted again, but Blossom spoke up quickly. "Sorry about the couch. I hope you don't mind my being here..."

Mike smiled briefly and waved off Blossom's concern like it didn't matter. Bubbles knew better; the strained relations between Mike and Blossom had indeed bothered him, though by now he'd resigned himself to it.

Mike continued to gaze at the coffee table. "I heard some things on the radio just now. I figure you probably..." Mike drifted off, shook his head slowly, and got back up. He turned the T.V. on and started flipping through channels. He stopped at a local news break.

"--even if they are of legal age, it's all irrelevant. The law states that sexual intercourse between close blood relatives, irregardless of their respective genders, ages, or the consensuality of the act, is illegal!"

Mike didn't doubt this was related what he'd just heard some radio jockey whining about on the drive home. Of course, Mike wouldn't be so lucky as to stumble onto something covering the topic from the beginning, now would he? No, he thought. Things were rarely that convenient in real life.

Now Mike had to contend with the girls' divided attention as they listened to the television and to him. His staring at the floor probably didn't help him in capturing their attention, either. "Someone was still watching. A licensed surveillance group. They've come forward and say they're finished now, but they've got video. They caught you," he nodded in Blossom's direction, "kissing Bubbles. Worst, though, they have audio of you girls talking about Bubbles and Buttercup having made love."

Blossom winced, and that's when she noticed her eyes were tearing up. "Having made love" didn't sting so much as the brutal, inelegant "sex," but it was a blow all the same.

They'd discussed that morning the possibility that what had happened last night was nothing more than a ploy to make them talk. Bubbles's and Buttercup's respective experiences hadn't been at all harmful that they could tell. While Blossom's visitor had actually ended up stirring up trouble, that didn't seem to be the main point.

But Blossom felt sick, now. Her stomach muscles seemed intent on pulling her into a ball. She knew she had to be strong. She had to lead her sisters onward. Right now, though, she couldn't even look to see how they reacted.

"This is awful," Blossom groaned. And it was. Unless they could dispute the recordings, lie, or both, her sisters had been caught in an act that was indisputably wrong and would stir up not only their detractors put probably turn quite a few of their admirers and fans against them. And now even Blossom had been drawn into the mix. What had she said just a few minutes ago? Two's a scandal, three's...an abomination? That's what she should have said, anyway. That's what she was now thinking.

They were all part of it, now. Not even Blossom could remain as a thread to hold them up. That thread, too, would be severed. Perhaps just as tragically, this meant Professor would inevitably be drawn in as well. What kind of man was he, then, to raise three daughters who couldn't keep out of each other's skirts? How dismal a failure he must seem to everyone. No doubt the old schoolyard taunts of their yesteryears, questioning the intentions of a lonely middle-aged man making little girls in his basement, would return in force. Only this time those questions would be raised by professionals and debated by experts.

Blossom buried her face into her hands and broke down for the second time that day. Her sisters' hands on her back brought her no comfort.

"I'll call dad," Bubbles said almost inaudibly. The couch creaked when she stood, and some small piece of shattered wood feel just as softly to the floor.

All of a sudden Blossom stopped crying. She gritted her teeth and pulled her hands into fists, scratching one of her cheeks in the process. Cheeks that could be grazed by a bullet and come out unscathed, easily scratched by her mere fingernails.

She grunted in rage and punched the spot Bubbles had just risen from, her hand plunging through the leather and cushioning, breaking springs with a muffled, almost musical sound, and bringing her not one ounce of satisfaction.

Blossom stood and flew out, shattering the front door into a thousand splinters, the whoosh accompanying the sudden flight knocking over decorations and ripping pictures from the wall. Bubbles, already standing, took off after her sister as soon as the shock had passed, but by then she was nowhere to be seen.

Blossom landed hard, bursting through a roof and the ceiling of the room below the attic, cracking the tiled floor where she planted her feet.

Princess was nowhere to be found in her usual spot. Startled workers, struggling to remove the television with the half-melted screen, stared at her in shock and amazement. Blossom ignored them and peered through the walls, floors, and ceilings, searching for some sign of her... Her what? Prey? Target? Victim?

Whatever it was going to be, it wouldn't be pretty, but Blossom didn't care right now. This was Princess's doing, she was certain. She'd gone too far. Even the doppelgangers of last night must surely be connected somehow.

Princess was not in sight, but Blossom noted the metal structures beneath the mansion, their contents shielded from her view as always. Last time she'd been here she'd had no excuse to look further. Even now she had no real justification, but she was going in anyway.

Down, then, through more floors, out more ceilings, and ignoring the elevator shaft to plunge through the earth and come tearing through several solid inches steel. Once inside, super-visibility was no better, as even the interior walls were shielded. Instead she focused her hearing hard and, when nothing was immediately apparent, began to streak through the corridors at lightning speed.

Princess's voice finally caught her ear as someone reported Blossom's break over the phone, and Blossom sped straight through the steel walls between them. The thick, strong metal shredded as easily as paper.

Princess, always one to break the rules, had begun to win by turning those rules to her advantage. Blossom wanted it to be perfectly clear that she, too, was capable of ignoring those rules. She wanted to make it perfectly clear that the only reason Princess was still around to do these things was because Blossom and her sisters had played by those rules until now. She wanted to let Princess know that if rules and civility were cast aside by both parties, there could be only one outcome.

But really, deep inside, she just wanted someone to suffer for her own pain.

Blossom pulled to a stop after bursting through the sliding door of the chamber Princess was in. The steel slab, flying death, crashed into the wall opposite as steel embedded itself in steel.

Princess dropped the phone and stumbled backwards, tripping over her own feet and falling onto her behind. Blossom noted gauze wrapped around Princess's neck and briefly wondered if she'd someone expected even this visit. Planned on pretending to receive a vicious beating even if whichever of the girls who showed didn't deliver.

Blossom's knuckles cracked as she tightened her fist enough to crush diamonds. Or, if comic books were to be believed, make them.

Blossom walked slowly across the dim, nearly empty room, stopping ten feet away from the still-prone Princess. Always large empty spaces with this girl. A room large enough to serve as a warehouse used to house a single small desk against one wall, upon which a telephone and her laptop rested.

Princess smiled, but weakly. When she spoke, her voice was strained, as if afflicted by laryngitis. "The man doesn't disappoint, does he?"

Blossom's upper lip curled until her teeth showed. It took considerable effort to lower it again.

"Never would have thought..." Princess had to pause to gain strength to finish the thought. "All three of you."

Blossom closed the distance. No slow, menacing stride this time. Just speed and fury, restrained only by years of habit brought on by living in what seemed a cardboard world filled by people made out of over-wet clay. All the same, when Princess was slammed into the wall, now near the embedded steel door, and her head hit with such force the world grew briefly dim. She did not pass out, however.

At least this time, Princess mused, she wasn't being held by the neck. Blossom just grabbed a bunch of her blouse in a fist and held her there. Compared to yesterday this was almost comfortable.

Blossom wanted to say a thousand things at once, but they collided in her throat and none of them manged to squeeze out.

"What are you going to do, Blossom? Break my neck? Ha!" Her brief attempt at laughter was strained and cracked, and led her to cough. "And I thought he was a joke."

Blossom's eyes narrowed dangerously. "What 'he?' The guy you've sent to watch us?"

Princess smiled but decided the effort of a chuckle was too much a strain. "No, you idiot. I'm talking about Him."

"Him who?" Blossom asked, not yet catching on.

"Him," Princess repeated. "You-know-who."

Blossom's eyes widened in surprise and Princess slid from her grasp. Only when one knee dropped a little too hard on the unyielding floor did Princess realize she'd been several feet off the ground.

Blossom stared at the small smear of blood on the wall where Princess had been.

"Him," she whispered to the smear.

Blossom remained for a moment longer before disappearing in a flash of pink light.

Princess, nursing the knee she'd bruised in her fall, decided to let this go for a change. She was growing tired of abuse by superhuman beings, and now it was clear their buttons could stand for no more pushing.