Chapter Ten: Death and Disease
She tore through the sky so quickly that she could feel her skin grow hot at the friction, so fast and burning that she sliced clean through the arm of one of the Fusion Monsters harassing the KND unit lead by Number Four. He waved her on as his team took on the injured attacker. She paused in mid air, untouched by Fusion Matter, with steam rising off of her skin. Not even the cold night air could cool her and with the mood she was in, she didn't want it to.
Blossom and Bubbles would, she knew, be shocked and a little appalled (but not surprised) to learn that Buttercup was having the time of her life as she took on the overwhelming odds of almost half a dozen Fusion Monsters. Action this intense was what she lived for, what she had been made for, and she welcomed the chance to blow off some steam.
Besides, it was all good practice for when she finally got the chance to pound Mojo Jojo into pulp.
That fact that their headquarters had been attacked by Planet Fusion's forces had infuriated all of the Powerpuff Girls. Since Townsville had fallen so easily to their enemy Buttercup had been itching for a dustup. Blossom might work through her emotions at the thought of being a refugee and Bubbles might cry out her grief the day through, but Buttercup had gotten mad, stayed mad, and now she was out for some revenge. She hated Fusion and the fact that they had not been able to save their home. To have their new home assaulted was the final insult.
She and Ben Tennyson had been the first to engage the Monsters and once he'd broken off the fight to go hunt the Fusion Dexter, she knew she'd also be the last. That was fine, so long as she got to trash these slimy creeps and reduce them to muck from which they came. They were weird-looking things, like long-limbed T-Rexes cobbled together from assorted animal parts and painted an ugly olive green, and they seemed the extreme limits of what Fusion was capable of holding together and animating. In their dash to be first one to the Monster, Buttercup and Tennyson had sliced clean through the closest of the creatures, wrecking it. Ben was good in a fight, and if he hadn't asked her to come along she would have volunteered, though she was sorely tempted to challenge that Jetray alien to a race once this was done. They bought time for The Princess to land safely and discharge the ground troops. Their nerve impressed her. She had her powers and strength and flight, but the Kids Next Door and the others only had moxie and weapons that never seemed quite formidable enough to take out the enemy easily as they took out Earth's forces.
So far she had taken apart two of the Monsters – the first one with the help of Jetray - and the ground troops had mostly taken out a third. Number Four seemed disinclined to let her finish it off for them, and she suspected it was his ego getting in the way. No matter. Samurai Jack parted the Monster from its head with a few swipes of his sword. Buttercup laughed at Number Four's expression a moment, when suddenly-
SWAT!
The blow from behind knocked her clean out of the sky. Buttercup had a brief glimpse of the Monster's clawed hand, barely heard the horrified shouts of the KND troops, before she was slapped straight through three floors of the nearest office building. She came to a stop amidst a tangle of old desks and file cabinets; all shoved to one end of the room by her momentum. For a moment she sat there, stunned and indignant that something five stories tall had snuck up on her, and then she got angry . . . er.
"'Everything nice' my foot," Buttercup muttered darkly, swiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she got back to her feet. She flew straight back out the hole she had made and without thinking twice let lose with a blast of heat vision that lit up the night sky and cast the battle in harsh light for the few seconds it lasted. She couldn't do that often because of the amount of energy required, but when she did, the effects were devastating.
The blast temporarily blinded her friends, proving against their fears that she was quite well and completely unharmed, and their squawks of pain reassured her of the same facts. The blast also served to reduce the Monster to something close to a cinder. It crashed over onto some crumbling garages, shaking the ground with the force of an earthquake.
"Who's next?" she demanded. She looked up as The Princess, which always put Buttercup in mind of a gigantic dragonfly, swooped by in a strafing run, spitting red-orange laser blasts at the Monster furthest out. The null-void cannons – supercharged versions of the guns the ground troops were using – knocked into the dinosaur-like beast with staggering force. The Monster roared a challenge and swiped at the pest. Knowing she'd only get in the way of the ship, Buttercup was about to get back into the fray when her comm unit activated.
"Buttercup, this is The Princess! Number Five is pinned down where they entered the mill. Number Four wants you to drop a team on the roof there."
"They ready to move?" she demanded, already flying toward the shop. She dodged a blast of Fusion Matter one of the Monsters spat at her, and the great blob of goo actually took out a few of the smaller Mechs trying to circle behind the KND commandos battling the nearest dinosaur-like creation.
"Yes! You've got Jack and five others waiting!"
"On it!"
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Dexter!"
Big Chill plummeted toward the nearest flat surface, a catwalk spanning the mill floor, and even as he set his limp burden onto the grated surface he was powering down the Omnitrix. Ben Tennyson tumbled gracelessly beside his friend, panic-stricken.
No, no, no! Not after all this! He would not let him die!
He fumbled to press his fingers against Dexter's throat. A heartbeat. Faint. He wasn't breathing. His own chest heaving for air, Ben tilted Dexter's head back and forced his jaw open. Pressing his mouth over Dexter's he blew all the breath in his lungs down the younger boy's throat, into his lungs, to his blood and heart and brain . . . Again. Again. He rested his hand on Dexter's chest, feeling the motion of his rib cage expanding as he forced his friend to breathe, checked his pulse, feeling the slow beats registering beneath his cold fingers.
Breathe. Breathe! How could someone so smart forget to do something so basic?
He forced another breath into his mouth. His hands were slick with blood and his fingers almost slid off as he pinched Dexter's nose close. He could taste blood. Smell it. Smell Fusion Matter. Infection. Sweat. Another breath. His lips were still warm. He was alive. His heart was beating. His nose was bleeding. He just needed to breathe . . . Dexter's narrow chest rose, then he exhaled with an odd little sound. Close to faint, Ben breathed for him again, making him live. Refusing to let him succumb. Refusing to lose.
Not Dexter. Not here. Not now. Not at the hands at that slimly green puke that had smiled and tortured him to the point of death and then released this Infection. Planet Fusion would not win. Ben wouldn't allow it. They were stronger than this, stronger than Fusion.
"Breathe, Dexter!" he ordered desperately, anger replacing fear at the prospect of losing not just one of the most brilliant minds in the world, but his good friend. He had lost too much to this war already, sacrificed too much to give anything more. His voice rose almost to a scream. "Come on, breathe, you stupid jerk!" He shook the younger boy soundly and slapped Dexter hard across the face, his hand smearing the sticky blood, and for a moment he was horrified at himself.
But . . .
Ben let out a shuddering gasp as Dexter's lips moved slightly and he drew a long, rasping breath. The sound was awful and glorious at once, full of pain and effort and life as he coughed and gagged raggedly. As if suddenly remembering how, he drew one shallow breath after another. He fought for the first few, and then his body got back to the business of simply being alive.
Wiping his mouth and spitting blood that wasn't his, Ben had to force himself to breathe as well. He was so agitated he ran the risk of hyperventilating, and his hand trembled as he brushed stinging moisture from his eyes. He hadn't even thought about what he was doing. He had simply acted. Apparently his instincts were good and it had been the exact right thing to do. He spat again and gave his head a shake before he finally looked around.
"Holy . . ."
The floor below was covered by the glowing green Fusion virus. Ben stared, thunderstruck. He'd never known an Infection to move so fast. Could it be a new strain? Something that twisted green freak had developed?
It was climbing the walls, reducing the metal to dripping slag. He looked up. Long, thin fingers of shiny green were stretching to the ceiling.
The virus was trying to trap them.
It was working.
"Ben! Ben, where are you?"
He jumped at the sound of The Princess' comm officer coming over the unit on his wrist and instantly replied,
"I'm in the main plant. I need help. Send Buttercup!"
"She's sort of in the middle of something!"
"We're gonna be sort of in the middle of this Infection if she doesn't get here!"
"Hold on!"
He stared upwards, searching desperately for an opening large enough for Big Chill to slip through that wouldn't involve jarring his injured companion or coming into contact with the spreading virus. Either could be fatal. He glanced down at Dexter and felt a moment of terror that he wasn't breathing until he realized his friend was between one breath and the next. Dare he move him? Dare he not move him? Ben had no idea of what the Infection could or would do to any of the aliens in his Omnitrix, but it had the habit of absorbing and incorporating alien DNA into its repertoire. He had no desire to find out if it would give him the option of turning into another slimy, gooey, stinky mass or if the Infection would consume the existing DNA and thus incorporate it into Fusion. He shuddered at the notion of Fusion versions of the alien zoo he commanded.
The Infection was glowing with faint, glittery luminescence, casting the huge room into an eerie twilight. It was moving toward them, seeking the frail catwalk. Ben Tennyson knelt alongside his friend. He had no choice. He'd delayed a matter of minutes and any longer would be a true disaster. Big Chill was his only option. He was dialing through the Omnitrix, hoping a brilliant idea for escape would hit him, when movement on the plant floor caught his eye. He looked down, straining to see.
The unmistakable silhouette of the Ur-Dexter looked back at him with glowing red eyes.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
It was a matter of two quick jumps from ground to rooftop, each time carrying a person in each arm with one clinging to her back. She took Jack first and the moment the samurai's feet touched the roof he was jumping straight through the nearest skylight. Juniper Lee and the rest followed as soon as they secured their lines and Buttercup got straight back to the battle and almost straight into the iron grip of the nearest Monster.
She strained, screaming out her pain and fury as the Fusion beast tried to crush her. It brought its other claw up to add pressure and make her escape even more difficult as it grasped her with impossible strength. Buttercup battled to hold back fingers that were as long as she was tall.
"Buttercup! Ben's calling for help!"
"I'm a little busy, Princess!" she bellowed, not realizing the ship couldn't see her dilemma. "Tell Number Four to open fire on this thing!"
The aeroship streaked by in another strafing run and seemed to realize her situation.
"You might get hit!" cried the comm officer, his voice squeaky with alarm.
Through gritted teeth the Power Puff Girl snapped, "Ask me if I care!"
A moment later the Monster holding her stumbled. She glanced down to see Number Four and his dozen or so remaining commandos leveling a steady stream of fire on her captor's leg. Well, at least he was good for something. It was distracted, and with a burst of energy she twisted out of its hold, snapping off one of its fingers for good measure.
"Now . . . I'm . . . really . . . mad!"
She was as good as her word. In a frenzy of speed and strength she attacked the Monster, pounding, kicking, chopping at its limbs. Buttercup's scream echoed through the night as she vented all her pent-up fury on the thing before her. It was too much. The intense vibrations of the blows, coupled with her blinding speed, overwhelmed the structure of the Fusion Matter. She broke free, panting. For a moment it was still, wiggling like jelly, and then the thing burst apart at every seam, cascading down in a smelly, harmless rain of green gook across the entire battlefield.
"Arrgh!" screamed Number Four from far below her, splattered with the heavy slime. "Thanks a lot!"
"Buttercup, Ben says there's Infection spreading inside the mill!"
A low hiss escaped her at the call from the comm officer. That was bad. Worse than bad. She looked to the factory as The Princess' null-void cannons wrecked havoc on the last Fusion Monster standing. Sure enough she could make out a green glow within the huge structure, showing faintly through the skylights and sooty windows.
"Get rid of that thing, Princess, then get the land units out of here. I'll get Ben and Dexter and we'll catch up with you over Ohio. Patch me through to Ben right now. Move!"
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
For a moment they stared hard at each other, and then the red-coated Fusion clasped his hands behind his back and began to walk through the coating of Infection toward the center of the floor. His stance, his stride was all Dexter, a sick mockery of the unconscious boy at Ben's feet.
He had never known any Fusion – Mech, Monster, Hybrid or otherwise – to recover so quickly. That thing was unreal. He lost sight of the slight form amidst the huge pieces of equipment below, but his passing was marked by dark footsteps in the glowing slime.
"Ben!"
He seized upon his comm unit. "Buttercup! We're in the main smelting plant! The place is full of Infection! I don't think I can fly us out of here without getting infected."
"Where are you?"
"On a catwalk right in the middle. Dexter is down and his doppleganger is heading our way!"
"Almost there! Get Dexter!"
He knelt, adrenalin and need giving him the strength to lift Dexter into his arms. It wasn't easy because Dexter was as limp as a sack of meal and couldn't help by holding on. Ben grasped him close, just as he would have carried a child.
He was carrying a child.
He glanced down. Dexter's head rested on his shoulder, a mass of tangled red hair and a bloodied face, and he could feel the short, quick breaths blowing against his neck. So long as Dexter kept at staying alive, Ben was ready and willing to lug his weight to the ends of the earth if necessity required it of him.
"Do you actually think I will allow any of you to leave this place alive?"
He whirled. The Fusion Dexter stood at the end of the catwalk. Cool and contemptuous, he regarded Ben with those glowing eyes as if this whole rescue attempt was a study in futility. All around him Infection spread like some fast-growing, virulent mold, and it seemed to expand all the faster for his presence. A crash of collapsing equipment echoed through the room as below them metal gave way to the viral attack.
Ben's green eyes narrowed sharply and he countered with, "Do you actually think we came here to die?"
Slowly, a smile twisted the Fusion's thin lips as he advanced.
"Yes, I do."
Anger simmered deep in Tennyson's chest. He took a step back, instinctively turning to protect his friend. "You guessed wrong, jerk."
"With Dexter dead and the Omnitrix in my possession not even Fuse will be able to stand against me."
"It hasn't happened yet!" he snapped. "He isn't gonna die."
A little snort - so like the original - escaped the Ur-Dexter. "You cannot escape."
Where was Buttercup? Ben twisted away from the railing as a hair-thin tendril of Infection reached for him. The grating of the catwalk beneath the Fusion's feet was starting to glow. How soon before it was consumed and collapsed beneath their weight? He shot a glance upwards at the skylights, and then returned this cheap copy's contempt with a smile of his own as he saw a streak of light like a shooting star pass overhead.
"Wanna bet?"
In that instant the building shook from foundation to smokestacks as Buttercup, probably the heaviest hitter Earth had to offer in this war, arrived in a tsunami of speed and fury. The ultimate cavalry unit, she smashed a gaping hole through the reinforced wall of the plant, scattering cinder block and steel framework before her. Never stopping, the Powerpuff Girl streaked into the room, her green energy lost amidst the glow of Infection. Faster than Ben's eyes could follow, Buttercup attacked Dexter's twin before the Fusion could grasp what was happening. With all her momentum and strength behind her, she leveled a roundhouse kick at the imitation, catching him in the mid-section.
Ben stared. One moment the doppleganger had been a few steps away, and in the next he was gone, slammed so hard through the far wall that he was little more than a splatter mark in the room beyond.
"That felt good," said Buttercup, well pleased with herself.
"Buttercup!"
She twisted in mid air at the desperate cry. The Infection was almost at Ben's feet and the catwalk was starting to turn to metallic slime. It pitched and Ben struggled to stay upright.
"Oops!"
She dove for Tennyson, catching him and easily supporting his weight and Dexter's. She wrapped her arms securely around him with the boy genius sandwiched between them. Dexter hadn't moved this whole time, but he was alive and breathing.
"Hold on to him," she ordered. "Close your eyes. I'm going to blast my way out."
It was a good plan, considering the whole roof was now consumed in the iridescent virus. Ben closed his eyes tightly, ducking his head close to Dexter's. Despite the precaution a blinding flash of light brought a hiss of pain from his throat as Buttercup let loose with a shot of heat vision. She swooped out of the way as a large part of the ceiling collapsed and then tore into the clear, moonlit sky.
For a moment she hovered over the steel mill, assessing the destruction. Ben, a little disconcerted to be held so easily by anyone so petite and slim, blinked at the afterimage her heat vision caused and then looked down as well.
He gasped.
The remains of the half-dozen Fusion Monsters and innumerable Mechs littered the ground below. Some of them were still twitching and trying to recover; others had been too badly damaged. The mill was partially demolished, crushed in the battle, crushed by the downed Monsters and smaller Mechs.
But it wasn't the Monsters that shocked him. It was the Infection.
The steel mill glowed in the darkness as if lit from within. He could see the hole Buttercup had made for them to escape – at that close range she had demolished half the roof of the main plant – and even as he watched the virus spread. It was consuming the building like fire. Soon it would envelope the whole complex, Mechs and Monsters and all, maybe even the whole valley, giving Fuse's side that much more material in this war. An out building gave way, and before their eyes a towering smokestack slowly sank down without a sound or hint of resistance, reduced to raw Fusion Matter. The stench was almost overpowering.
"Never saw Infection like that," muttered Buttercup.
"I think it's a new strain," Ben replied.
Turning, she flew off into the night, heading west. "I sent the ground team on ahead as soon as they got out," she explained. "It doesn't look like they had any sort of air units here. I didn't want anyone to catch that yuck."
"Good thinking."
The Power Puff Girl gave a little "Huh," of satisfaction, and then quietly asked, "How is he?"
His voice was bitter. "He's alive. That's about it."
She frowned, remembering the lingering little crush she and both of her sisters still harbored for their father's good friend and fellow scientist. "What did they do to him?"
"I don't even know."
She flew faster.