Part Three – The Joy And The Laughter
Blossom looked around the town as Buttercup carried her through it. Buttercup seemed to be taking the most direct route to wherever she was taking her. She went through alleyways and through the streets looking in all directions, as if paranoid of her surroundings.
The entire town was a mess. No one was here, and most of the buildings were destroyed, with not even the clean-up crews there to take away the rubble. The town had really gone to Hell since she had been gone.
She heard whispering, and looked at Buttercup and couldn't tell if she had said anything or not, but she was looking around like she was expecting to be attacked by any one of their many enemies at any time.
It was getting louder.
She managed to whisper, "Do you hear that?"
She couldn't relax. Ever since she had started walking with Blossom in her arms, Buttercup had begun to hear some kind of whispering and thought that maybe Blossom was talking to herself, but she kept hearing all these different, unhappy voices as she walked through town. Maybe some of the buildings around her contained survivors. She would have to come back later.
She knew there would still be people in the hospital, people who'd be more-than-willing to help a less-than-powerful Powerpuff Girl in distress. Buttercup's own injuries were already healing, and she knew that anything the doctors could do for her would just be dwarfed by her body's own super-powered restoration. They might have a painkiller she could take, though.
The whispering was really starting to annoy her. She was about to tell Blossom to stop talking to herself, even if it would seem heartless.
"Do you hear that?" Her sister rasped.
Buttercup stopped abruptly and stared at her in surprise.
But then she noticed Blossom looking down the alley, and saw her eyes widen in surprise. She looked and saw nothing there except the faintest trace of somebody's outline. Someone...tall.
Blossom stared down the alley, her eyes wide, and watched as the Professor's image slowly came towards them. His lips moved, but she could only hear traces of words coming from them.
"...tried...didn't know...not prepared...for this..." he said, his voice echoing, going in and out. His image dissolved abruptly.
"That was the Professor, wasn't it?" Buttercup asked her, with noticeable shock.
She stared up at her sister, but didn't have time to say anything, because the very next moment, they both heard an earsplitting shriek, like someone sobbing all around them, and recognized Bubbles' painful weeping, echoing, as if it were bouncing off of every object around them, even the ground.
"WHO NEEDS YA?" a voice boomed.
Buttercup felt the tears welling up in her eyes. That was her own voice just now.
Something terrible was happening. Frantic, she ran with Blossom in her arms, confused, afraid, terrified.
She didn't realize that Blossom was in no condition for this until he heard her gasp out.
"S-slow down..."
She slowed to a walk, and then stopped altogether, still very much in a daze.
Now she could see the images. Images of those they knew, those who had been close friends before they had gone away. Allies they had fought alongside for years. Enemies that they had beat down dozens of times in the eternal name of justice.
And she saw Bubbles. Her image faded in and out in the same spot, as if the light itself were bending around her; a tangible object, being absorbed into reality. By now, the voices had reached a fervor.
"Bubbles?" she muttered to herself. The image seemed to flicker before her.
"NO! BUBBLES! DON'T GO!" She started in that direction, then realized she was still holding Blossom. She seemed torn in two, wanting to run towards the sister that she had really been searching for all this time, and wanting to hold on to the one she had, lest she be taken from her again.
She realized that she was trembling and turned her gaze to Blossom.
"What should I do?" she demanded, even as her voice cracked painfully.
Blossom looked up at her, confusion mixed with painful grief in her eyes.
She managed to rasp out, "Why are you asking me?" She had been out of their lives for... longer than she even knew. Wasn't Buttercup used to making her own decisions by now?
Buttercup stared at Blossom desperately. "YOU'RE THE LEADER!" she shouted. She could barely hear her own voice over the frenzy of voices around her. "I WAS LOOKING FOR BUBBLES, NOT YOU!"
"Calm down, stop shouting," Blossom's throat cracked, trying to work some feeling into her voice.
"BLOSSOM! I CAN BARELY HEAR YOU OVER THIS—" the only word for it that she found was "—SCREAMING!"
She could do nothing but look around frantically at all the images around her, scenes from someone's mind being thrown out into the air like so much debris in a hurricane.
Blossom did hear the screaming, but to her, it was as if many people were screaming at a whisper. She saw faces and images, all of which she recognized immediately. And she saw Bubbles, but it didn't look like her.
Her eyes were dark. Her hair was still in its pigtails, but it was dirty, greasy, and unkempt. She was wearing an old nightgown that was ripped, faded and stained with...blood? There was another black stain, coming around the side to the front. And she...
Oh, god. Who could've...
Bubbles moved forward.
There were metal arms coming out of her back.
Four jointed, tube-like arms rose out like a set of tentacles. They ended in blunt, rounded edges that traced along the dirt as they moved.
Bubbles had one hand pointing at them, her eyes stricken with gloom.
The images around her flashed and cascaded against one another, struggling for a focus, and yet spilling out, like water through a ruptured embankment.
Her robotic arms were hovering around her menacingly, as if waiting to get close enough to strike. And if they did, Blossom knew neither of them would stand a chance right now.
Buttercup was by now shaking so hard that she could no longer hold on to Blossom, and she slipped from her arms as if she had been made of slick ice.
Blossom managed to ease herself to the ground without much pain, but she couldn't move more than was necessary to keep herself from falling down completely. Her muscles had atrophied so badly that they were barely more than sinew, and her body was so thin that any solid attack might kill her.
If Buttercup could not stop it, they were as good as dead.
Blossom saw bright drops welling in Bubbles' eyes.
She turned to Buttercup, but she was still whipping her head around at every image that she saw and sound that she heard around her, her face a panic of emotions. She was completely overwhelmed.
The situation was dire. She mustered up her strength and touched
Buttercup's leg.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Buttercup gasped and jumped a few inches away from Blossom's touch, and simply stared at her, the images and sounds briefly forgotten.
Bubbles stared down at her sisters. Buttercup was watching all the images around her in a frenzy, a look of intense fear on her face. Blossom was focusing on Bubbles, concern mixed with fear mixed with understanding.
It's okay, the voice said in mock sympathy. It will all be over quickly. They have to die.
She didn't understand why but she knew that it was true. They had to die.
She got closer, slowly, and started to lift one of her arms, pointing it in the direction of the closer target: Buttercup.
Blossom, the voice commanded. Kill her first.
She obeyed, shifting her attention to Blossom, and pointed directly at her.
Buttercup's attention was suddenly drawn to Bubbles. She had her arm extended and it was pointing at Blossom, along with—
What were those things coming from her back? Giant metal tentacles?
What's the deal with all these giant metal tentacles?
She saw Bubbles crying silently.
There was a painful, determined look on her face.
Bubbles moved forward, walking on the robotic limbs, her own legs hanging, limp, aimlessly.
Buttercup blanched.
It was a horrible sight.
"Bubbles... what are you doing?"
Bubbles' features went from blank to aware in an instant, and everything stopped. The screaming and flashes of memories faded. Everything was silent. The robotic arms froze in midair. Bubbles' gaze went from Buttercup to Blossom, then to the ground.
All at once, Bubbles' robotic arms went limp, her body drifting to the pavement as she brought her hands up to her face. Her eyes were damp and she began to cry, bawling like a newborn.
"I'm sorry!" she cried. "I'm so sorry!" She sobbed agonizingly into her hands and fell to her knees. The robot appendages behind her were twitching, writhing against the ground, contorting almost randomly.
The other two could only watch her crying as she apologized over and over again.
"Bubbles," Blossom called to her in the loudest voice she could manage, which was still barely above a whisper, "You haven't done anything wrong. What are you sorry fo—"
"NOOOO!" Bubbles shrieked with such ferocity that Blossom was silenced. Her emotion began to fade away, from such intense sadness into almost nothing. Her face, a moment ago so distraught was empty. Her arms went limp and fell to her sides.
And then the images exploded around them once more.
It flashed dangerously. KILL THEM!
"NOOOO!" She screamed.
YES! NOW! KILL THEM NOW!
Her hands pressed harder against her temples; her body began to tense. The computer felt a force not unlike the one it used on her being fed back to it. It was dangerous to push further, and it made one thing very clear: She would no longer kill them.
A minor setback.
It was time to change tactics.
Calculations were run, scenarios were compiled, and it charted a new path through her brain. She was taken over by this new effect very suddenly, and her arms limp as this new program ordered her to do something she could no longer resist.
