Chapter 3 Part 2: Specific Memories and General Conversation


About three years ago, the dreary day brought clouds that cast a slate tone over the city as Robin, Mike and Mitch were walking to Bubbles' house after school. The din of the rain beat down on their umbrellas and the sidewalk around them, drowning out everything around them with percussive white noise.

They were only about five minutes away from Robin's house. When they dropped their bags off, they would go check on Bubbles. They hoped she was in a good mood today.

Mitch glanced at Mike as they were walking. "How are you holding up, Mike?"

He was talking about that. "Not too bad. The medication helps a lot."

"That's good," Robin said with a nod. "I was really worried about you. I wasn't there, but I do remember what they said about your first day. We don't want an episode like that," she added.

"I know, I know. I said I was sorry about that. It's been years... I still feel bad. Really, I'm just glad that... thing didn't seriously hurt anyone."

Mitch waved dismissively. "Man, it's cool. It wasn't your fault. I mean, if you could control it you wouldn't need the meds."

"Yeah I just—" Mike stopped and looked off towards the city. "Do you guys hear that?"

They stopped and turned to him. "Hear what," Robin asked.

"It's like... well maybe not a sound, almost like someone in pain, I guess?"

Mitch paused, craning his head. "I thought your medication stopped that stuff."

"I—Well, yeah... but I guess you develop a tolerance or something... It's not always bad, you know."

"Fine. Just ignore it, okay? We're almost there."

Mike tried to shrug it off and followed his friends. They walked in silence for a few minutes as Mike tried to ignore the sensations he could feel in the air. As the others talked, they gave him the occasional glance in his direction, and Mike's face was getting a little paler as they kept walking. It looked like those feelings were intensifying.

After another minute or two, Robin stopped, and pointed. "Hey, look. It's Buttercup."

Buttercup's trail of light was in view now, and it was trailing in the direction of home.

Mike let out a gasp. "That's it! That's where this feeling is coming from!"

"What?" Robin gaped. "From Buttercup?" She looked back at the sky. "Buttercup is in pain?"

"Yeah. It... it almost hurts me. This is scaring me. I think... I'm going to listen this time," Mike grimaced, "I think I'm... 'hearing' her. She is definitely in pain."

Now that they were looking, the streak had been a bright green when they first saw it, but the color was fading; at one point it was little more than a sliver of light coming from her body, and then it disappeared completely even before they lost sight of her over the hill, and she wasn't even home yet. Something was very wrong.

"We should hurry," Robin told her friends, and started walking faster.

When they got closer to the Utonium house, They saw a blue streak explode through the living room wall with a spray of brick and mortar, rocketing towards Townsville. Pieces of the house had been ripped so forcefully that some of them landed across the street from the house. The light coming off of Bubbles as she flew was different. It was flashing so much brighter than normal; she was clearly straining her powers.

Mitch gaped. "That was Bubbles!"

"My God," Mike reeled, his voice cracking. "I 'heard' a lot of fear. And... panic?"

Robin pointed up ahead. "There's the Professor. Professor! What's going on?"

He was getting into his car in a hurry. "Buttercup was badly hurt," he told them in a rush. "Bubbles is taking her to the hospital. I've got to go. Sorry! Bye!" His tires screeched out of the driveway and he belted down the road in his station wagon.

The three looked at one another helplessly. After a moment, Robin motioned towards her house next door, and the boys followed.

Robin's mother was reading in the sitting room, and she absently greeted them, mentioning to Robin her father was in his office and to try to keep the volume down as they crossed the foyer and sat down in the living room to think.

"So what do we do," Mitch asked after a couple minutes.

"I don't know," Robin replied.

"Do your parents know?"

"I don't think so."

"Guys, should we tell them?"

"Right now, Mike? Right now?"

"I... I'm not sure," Robin said, wringing her hands.

Mike gulped hard. "Bubbles might be losing another sister."

Robin held up her hands, "Just... hold on, let's not assume anything. She's going to the hospital."
Mitch frowned. "So we're just going to hope for a best-case scenario? I'd rather find
something out."

While Mike sat still, looking at the ground, his eyes looking at nothing, Mitch turned on the TV, flipping to local news at the low volume requested by Robin's mother. He kept tapping the volume up and down from being outright muted to its lowest levels, as even though he needed to hear what the anchors were saying, keeping the sound levels in the television down could make the news less bad.

The breaking story was Buttercup in the intensive care unit. She'd lost a lot of blood and they'd taken blood from Bubbles for a transfusion. Since there was nothing else to say about the story, the reporter said they would provide more details as they developed, and moved on to the next story. Mitch turned off the TV after that, and they sat in silence for a few minutes.

Mike's eyes refocused, and he looked out the window. "Hey, do you hear that?"

"Hear what," Mitch asked.

"It... uh, 'sounds' like... crying."

They listened for a minute. Mitch and Robin exchanged a look. Mitch asked him, "Are you sure you're... 'hearing' crying?"

Mike strained, turning towards where he thought it was coming from. He scrunched his face in thought. "No, it's... it's more like... someone's just sad. Really sad."

Robin shrugged. "Well, we're all sad about Buttercup—"

"No, no," he insisted. "It... kinda sounds—maybe feels like... Bubbles? And it's 'loud.'"

Mitch and Robin glanced at each other.

"She's home," Mike realized out loud.

Mitch shook his head. "But that doesn't make any sense. Why would she come home when her only sister was at the hospital?"

"Yeah," Robin agreed, "if I were her, I'd want to stay with Buttercup."

Mike let out a restrained sigh. "I—I don't know." He ran to the door, and threw it open. "I'm... I'm just gonna go check."

Reluctantly, the other two stood and followed him, grabbing their umbrellas and heading outside. No more than a few feet outside the house, Robin turned her head and saw Bubbles sitting against her front door, head tucked into her knees, her arms folded under her legs.

"Bubbles?!"

"I told you!"

Mitch shook his head. "I am never doubting your, uh, 'hearing' again, Mike."

They ran to Bubbles, dropped their umbrellas, and helped her to her feet. Bubbles' clothes were still stained. Dark crimson splotches. Getting darker, fading in the rain, she was covered in blood.

"Bubbles!" Robin cried over the rain, "Are you okay?"

Bubbles looked up at her with empty eyes and then let her head droop.

"How's Buttercup?"

Bubbles' eyes barely flickered. After a moment, she blinked and opened her mouth. A single word that they could barely hear rose out of her throat. "...Alive."

Mitch let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God."

Robin rubbed her arm. "Buttercup's going to be okay, Bubbles. You know that, right?"

Bubbles was slow to react, but blinked and then nodded vacantly.

Robin looked at Mike, who cast his head down suddenly. He was beginning to tear up. "This is bad, guys. She's getting... lost. I can feel it."

"Well, let's get her inside," Mitch said finally, and pulled Bubbles' arm around his shoulders. Robin helped him with the other arm.

Mike opened the door to her house, stopped suddenly, and then closed it the way he came.

Mitch almost bumped into him. "Wh—Mike! Open the door!"

"We're going back to your house, Robin."

Robin craned her head. "Why?"

He motioned towards the living room. "They didn't, o-or, I think, couldn't... clean up..."

Her pupils contracted, but she nodded quickly. "Right. Gotcha. Let's go."

Robin shifted Bubbles' arm over to Mike, and ran next door. She called out, "Mom, Dad!"

"Robin?" Robin's mother had opened the door in a flash at Robin's panicked tone and stopped when she saw Bubbles supported between Mike and Mitch. "Oh my God," she exclaimed. "Jay, get down here! Let's get her inside!"

"What happened?" Jay hurried down the stairs as the kids came inside with Bubbles, whose head lay back, her eyes completely unfocused.

"Buttercup was hurt, and Bubbles took her to the hospital."

Her mother knelt down to check Bubbles over, but looked up when Mike mentioned Buttercup. "How bad?"

Mike shook his head. "We don't really know anything besides what was on the news. Buttercup is in the hospital with cuts all over. We found," and he nodded at Bubbles, "her sitting outside in the rain... like this. I..." he drifted off, shy of divulging his ability to Robin's parents, "I think she might be in shock, or"

Robin's mother interrupted him. "Is she hurt anywhere?"

Mitch shook his head. "No, this is all Buttercup's blood."

Robin hissed, "Mitch!" She whapped him across the shoulder.

"Ow!" He rubbed the spot where she struck him. "What?! It's the truth!"

"Stop fighting," her father chided impatiently. "We need to help Bubbles right now. Robin, you and Mike go next door and get Bubbles a change of clothes. Maggie," he turned to Robin's mother, "you go get Bubbles cleaned up. I'll call Professor Utonium and see if I can't find out what happened."

Mitch pulled out his phone. "I'll see if I can't get in touch with Miss Bellum. I might be a kid, but I've got a superhero in trouble, which might get her attention."

Maggie scooped Bubbles up and carried her upstairs, occasionally calling Jay for supplies. In only a few minutes, Mike and Robin returned, faces visibly paler, but with a backpack full of Bubbles' clothes, and Mike even thought to retrieve Octi from Bubbles' bed; Maggie got Bubbles cleaned up and changed; Jay had reached the Professor on the phone.

"John, this is Jay Schneider. Yes, I understand that you aren't exactly free, but the kids brought Bubbles here and we wanted to make sure that Buttercup was okay." There was a pause. "Well, she's... a little shaken, but she's okay. We're getting her cleaned up and into some warm clothes. How's Buttercup?" Another pause. He sighed with relief. "That's good... that's good," he said, and everyone in earshot sighed in tune with him. "So you're overseeing her treatment personally, then?" He nodded as Professor Utonium responded. "Excellent. That's good to know. Please let us know when you can talk, I'm sure we'd all like to be kept informed of Buttercup's condition as it improves. Uh-huh. Yeah, no problem. Anytime. Yeah, I will. Thanks. Bye." And he hung up.

Mitch's luck, on the other hand, was not as good as he'd hoped. The first few numbers he dialed referred him to other offices. Finally, he'd gotten in touch with an aide on a cell phone.

"Miss Bellum, please," Mitch requested. A pause. "Yes, I need to speak with Miss Bellum," he said patiently. Another pause. "It's Mitch Mitchelson. I'm calling on behalf of Bubbles. You know, the Powerpuff Girl whose sister is in the hospital?" A little bit more silence. Mitch growled, "No, this isn't a prank call, I need to get in touch with the Mayor!" Once more, Mitch waited, but finally he'd had enough. "Listen. I have Bubbles Utonium here and she's in pretty bad shape. I've got me and Bubbles' friends and neighbors trying to take care of her, but it's a lot harder to do that when some overpaid intern with a superiority complex is blocking us from reaching the one person who might be able to tell us what to do. So are you going to give the phone over to Mayor Bellum, or am I going to have to get my grandmother and have us both personally attend your next performance review?!"

"I understand, sir," the aide said sharply, and Mitch heard Miss Bellum's voice in the background.

"Mister... Mitch Mitchelson?" Sara greeted him somewhat blankly. "I understand you wished to speak with me about Bubbles Utonium?"

"Finally. Mayor, I'm a friend of Bubbles from school."

"I see. Then you're with her now?"

"Me; a few of her other friends; we're all at Robin Schneider's house, next door to the Utonium household. We're getting her cleaned up and trying to make sure that she's taken care of while Buttercup is in the hospital. You can call Jay Schneider if you need to confirm this, but if you've got a moment, we were hoping you could give us some more details on what happened."

There was a trace of surprise in her voice; she sounded almost impressed. "Very well in hand for someone your age, Mr. Mitchelson. From what I've been told..."

Apparently, Buttercup had been patrolling the city when a monster attacked. She won, and left the scene bleeding. When she got home, she had a huge gash going down the front of her body and wrapping around her leg. By the time she got home, she had lost too much blood and passed out in Bubbles' arms. Bubbles flew her to the hospital, and the doctors used a special needle to transfuse Bubbles' blood into Buttercup. They couldn't actually stitch her up because their sutures were steel instead of duranium, so all they could do was clamp the two sides of the wound together and cauterize. That was when the Professor showed up with his tools and took over. He got Bubbles to donate some of her blood for Buttercup and sent her home to rest. After that, Professor helped the doctors keeping Buttercup stable and only stopped when he was satisfied that she was going to be okay.

That was all Mayor Bellum could provide as information; they were finally left to wait the situation out.

Buttercup survived, but Bubbles didn't see her for about a week and a half after that incident. Her friends took care of her and tried to assure her that everything would be okay. Bubbles cried every day until Buttercup came back, but Buttercup just acted like she'd never even been in the fight, been to a hospital or bled all over her sister. And whenever Bubbles brought it up she would get angry, so she stopped trying.


Buttercup winced through the last part of the story. "Geez. I'm sorry, Bubbles. I… uh..."

"It's okay, Buttercup," Bubbles assured her. "It was a long time ago."

"I had wondered about that scar," Blossom said. "I figured you had gotten it in some kind of fight but I didn't want to ask about it in case it was still sore."

Mitch pointed at Blossom. "Ah, I see what you did there."

"Wh—oh. Heh. Not intentional."

"No, it's fine," Buttercup said finally. "Bubbles... remember when we were on patrol that time and that centipede monster hurt you?"

"Yeah, I remember," she replied, putting a hand to her neck. "I was bleeding, but not too badly."

"Right, well, even though it wasn't too bad... I took it a lot worse. So even after you got fixed up by the Professor, I was... what's the word for it...?"

"Furious?" Blossom suggested.

"No... take furious and multiply it by like a thousand."

"Jesus," Mitch muttered.

"Yeah. It was like, Bubbles was the only sister I had left, and I wasn't about to lose her. And it was a monster that hurt her... Mitch."

He looked at her and raised an eyebrow, "Yeah?"

"You said how Miss Bellum phrased the official word on the matter. That while I was on patrol, I encountered one monster, and that was got me cut up so badly that I had to go to the emergency room.

His eyebrow rose higher. "...Yeah?"

"It's a bit of an insult. One monster? Please."

"So... then what did happen?"

Buttercup frowned. "To be honest, the truth is humiliating in a different way. A monster hurt Bubbles, so I took it out on monsters. All the monsters. At once. Like, literally, all of them at once."

"Whoa, hold on a minute," Blossom interrupted. "Are you saying that you went to Monster Island... and fought every single monster there?"

"Well, okay, not literally every monster, plenty of them ran for the caves under the volcano, and I didn't hunt any of them down, or anything. I'm not a monster." As Buttercup continued on, trying to keep her voice casual, she pointedly ignored the growing incredulity on the rest of her sisters' and friends' faces. She tugged back the corner of her neckline to expose the top of the scar. "One of them gave me this."


"There we go," the Professor interjected as he finished dabbing a pad of gauze covered with a styptic agent against a small cut on the side of Bubbles' neck as she winced from the mild sting. "It doesn't look that serious," he said out loud, trying to keep the worry out of his voice.

But Buttercup heard it. Faint, but it was there. It wasn't serious... but it could have been. The monster had caught her off-guard. It nicked the side of her neck and actually drew blood. What if it had been stronger? They could be having a funeral—another funeralinstead of just treating a scratch. The thought of it made her seethe.

"That's a pretty bad cut, Bubbles," her father said, that faintly hidden worry in his voice getting more obvious. He'd seen worse, of course, but they knew he hated it when they came back injured. He continued, "Doesn't look too deep, though." He paused for a bit. Finally he pointed curiously at the cut and suggested, "You girls have healed up pretty quickly in the past. Have you ever tried to focus that healing ability?"

Bubbles blinked and turned to Buttercup, who shook her head, confused. Bubbles turned back and shook her head in a similar manner.

"Why don't you try it on this cut?"

Bubbles paused, considering it. Then she nodded, and gently closed her eyes. She sat there for a moment, breathing deep. She didn't look like she was having a whole lot of success, since nothing happened for a solid minute.

The Professor frowned. "Hm... perhaps"

"Wait." Bubbles said softly. She clenched her closed eyelids tightly, concentrating. Soon, the area around the wound shimmered blue; it closed up and shrunk to little more than a pale sliver, almost gone already. She exhaled, and opened her eyes to marvel at the suddenly missing cut.

"Amazing," Professor muttered with obvious wonder. "Honestly, this is the first time I've really seen it up close, in action."

Buttercup raised her eyebrows, likewise impressed. She had never thought about how easy it was sometimes to just get back up, even after being smashed or thrown through a building... or cut.

The Professor turned from Bubbles to Buttercup, his tone shifting back to how it had been before. "You both did a good job out there today. Rest up for a bit, and I'll start on dinner. We'll be having spaghetti and meatballs!"

Bubbles seemed really happy with the prospect of tonight's dinner. Buttercup, however, couldn't keep her mind from thinking about Bubbles' injury and the monster that gave it to her. If she had been more seriously injured... what would she have done? The only sister she had left, and a monster could get lucky and take her out?

Bubbles put a hand on her shoulder, craning her head to look her in the eyes. "Buttercup? Are you okay?"

The concern was deep in her voice and it made Buttercup ashamed at her own weakness. She looked away angrily. "I'm fine," she growled trying to keep the unease out of her voice, and shrugged Bubbles' arm off her shoulder. "I'm going out," she said, heading for the door.

"Where are you going?" Bubbles asked, alarmed.

Buttercup knew that if she told her sister where she was going, she'd probably tell the Professor, and he wouldn't allow her to go. So she didn't say anything.

Buttercup placed her hand on the doorknob, hesitating. If she didn't say anything, it would be suspicious, she realized. "Taking a walk, might do a patrol of the city," she said finally. "I'll be back before dinner." Then she opened the door, walked outside and closed it slowly behind her.

Moments later, she was in the air heading towards the far side of Townsville. She passed Townsville, passed the shoreline, and over the ocean. After a few minutes of flying, she could see it in the distance.

Her objective was Monster Island.

At this point, it wasn't enough just to defeat the monsters that attacked Townsville. All of these monsters were a threat to her and her sister. The only sister she had left. Even if it was only a minor injury this time, there was always another monster... there was always that next time.

She would not allow them to take Bubbles from her.

Even before she got too close to the island, she was ambushed by one of its residentsshe almost noticed it too late. A flying... creaturenot quite bird, but not quite bat eitherswooped down from above and swung at her with both talons. But it was slow, and had already gotten too close. Buttercup veered towards it, passed easily between its talons and dove through the leathery bird's chest and out its back. Its screech was cut off abruptly and it plummeted into the sea below. She glanced in its direction as it fell but kept heading towards the island.

She could see it below. There were large swaths of jungle, and massive mountains, and volcanoes. There were lines of strange, cyclopean stone homes with large, wooden slatted roofs, each one the size of a skyscraper. There were monsters, too. In all shapes and sizes, some beginning to cluster towards her, but many running for the strange stone homes, the jungle overgrowth, and the caves.

The monsters who were running were the smart ones, she thought grimly.

By the time she got to the island, the monsters were already swarming out in force to fight her. How they knew she was coming, she wasn't sure. Maybe the screech of the bird-bat she'd gone through had alerted them. Even so, hundreds of monsters were running from all over the island to get their turn to fight her. Short, tall, muscular, blob-like, armored, fleshy... all kinds of monsters ready to try for a piece of her. Some of them looked a little too eager.

Buttercup doubled down on her convictions. "None of you will ever hurt Bubbles again," she muttered aloud, though she was sure that none of them actually could have heard her through the cacophony of screams, yawps, and roars.

She didn't really care either way.

For some reason, she saw the first one she fought as pitiable. It was clearly some kind of fish-bear. It had the body and shape of a fully grown kodiak, but had hairy scales from head to toe and gills behind its jaw. The look on its face was keen and craving, but ultimately useless. She beat it easily, with only a few scratches before moving on. Next was a bug-eyed bipedal octopus that tried to wrap around her and immobilize her arms in its powerful grip.

Buttercup was not impressed. The strength of her arms alone was enough to rip the octopus' tentacles off and she followed up by grabbing what little remained of those tentacles and throwing the creature into the air. She followed up after it and delivered a hammerblow, knocking it into the monster's town squarethen she landed on top of it, ripping a huge crater around them both.

Her anger grew as the wave of monsters stopped advancing towards the coast and started heading towards her new location, she looked around to get an idea of who to fight first. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of fast approaching footfalls coming from behind her. She turned and saw a large, mutated silverback gorilla charging her. Its arms were raised overhead to smash her. She dodged at the last second and spun, kicking the beast with enough force that it plowed through a legion of monsters crowding behind it.

One of her punches was parried by a monster nearly twice her sizestill on the small side for a monster—that looked like a crossbreed between a mantis and an armadillo, with its greenish flat rigid carapace creeping down its body, covering its back and some of its appendages. It had one set of arms with a set of blades on the underside, and a second set of arms under the first set with bony phalanges for grabbing things. Despite its armor and size, it was very fast. It spun with the force of her strike, using that momentum to add to its own attack, slashing downward across her body, leaving a deep gash from just below her right shoulder, across her body, and down to her left leg. The cut curved back around her knee as Buttercup's body reeled with the force of the blow and then back towards her shin as she ignored the pain and blood, and lurched upwards along the edge of the serrated mantis-like arm, and threw a punch, which the mantis again misdirected with one of its secondary arms and swung upwards with the back of its blade, catching her around the back and sending her into the air. She quickly righted herself, and inspected the stinging full-body wound. It hurt bad, and she was beginning to regret coming here.

She thought of Bubbles. How she wanted to save her sister from these creatures... but the cut was dripping blood down to the sand below; and her clothes were torn and stuck to her skin with the amount of blood she was losing. She was in real danger now.

Wait. Bubbles. The healing. Maybe she could...

Buttercup stared at the full-body gash again and focused. How did Bubbles do it? Maybe if she just focused some of her energy to the site of the wound, she could heal herself enough to keep going. She concentrated a few seconds more, trying to visualize herself healing up the wound.

She hovered there a little longer, nothing happening. She thought that maybe she didn't have that same power Bubbles had. Was she going to bleed out? The thought made her shudder.

Suddenly she was reminded of something her Master, the Buddhist monk who taught her to control her emotions, had mentioned. Something about chakras and how the body has these gates that control the flow of energies to different parts of the body. Maybe it was possible to will open one of those gates and force her superpowered energies to flow to her wound.

As she closed her eyes, visualizing her body, she was able to see—feel without touching—all the wounds on her body. She concentrated on her full-body gash, and she felt the wound glow faintly and start to close; first from the bottom of her hip, then almost like a zipper, the glow crept up until the gash was only a very large scar now. It was healed... but just enough to stop the bleeding. Just enough so she could keep fighting.

She sighed in relief... then glared at the mantis creature as it sharpened its serrated arms against the backs of its opposite arms, and then made a taunting gesture with its second set of arms. She again felt the rage well inside her... but she knew that just punching at it wildly wouldn't work this time. She had just healed by manipulating her natural energies. Maybe...

She again focused while hovering in the air, and she felt her body's energy. It wanted to keep healing her.

No. Not yet.

She still had work to do.

The energy was there, waiting to repair the internal injuries, wanting to do more than seal the wounds.

But she didn't need more than that. She needed something else.

She needed her body to work harder. To hit better. To do it faster.

She needed to be stronger.

She moved, and her power flowed, and she felt her muscles tighten and expand. She could already feel the difference. The energy that she'd almost lost fixing utterly superficial damage, she could put into avoiding that damage in the first place. She flexed her muscles experimentally. Damage? What damage? She felt adrenaline, not pain. She turned back to the mantis below, now looking up at her, craning its head in bewilderment. She started falling, and after a moment threw everything she had into shooting downward into the enemy before her. She connected and the force of her punches shattered its blade arms, and as she punched, she felt herself pouring the energy that her body was wasting on recovery into every blow; she pulverized its armor and destroyed its internal organs, even as the carapace shuddered and cracked trying to hold the rest of its now mushy body together.

And now she was without pause. Buttercup pushed forward to fight the next creature.

Everything around Buttercup became white noise as her vision sharpened, her reflexes heightened, her energies spiked. She turned to the wave of monsters before her. She charged, swinging, and her entire body tore through the first wave of monsters like a cannon ball of pure - and now focused - power. Power through rage.

With her energy focused, the fervor of her anger refused to subside and she turned to the monsters. Some were backing away and others were advancing. Some had long since started running or barricading themselves inside their homes—which was a pretty useless act; if Buttercup so chose to go after them, there would be nothing that could stop her at this point.

As for the advancing monsters, Buttercup felt like time was moving at a snail's pace for everyone but her. She was only vaguely aware of a rainbow of splattered blood and viscera as monster after monster died at her hand, ripped apart by the sheer force of her punches. She could only think about how one sister was dead and these beasts would kill Bubbles if they had the chance. They would have rejoiced if the monster from the other day had killed her other sister just for a tiny taste of praise and triumph and glory. And that would mean that Buttercup would be alone. The thoughts; the fear; they fueled her rage. It took her from one monster to the next. She barely felt those monsters that were able to hit her because even when they did, it would only slow her a little before she counterattacked. When she felt her blood flow, she staunched it, but otherwise, she kept her energies into the hammer blows of her fists.

Buttercup jumped a little as a resounding thud tore her attention away from the advancing horde. An orange, stout, horned dragon towered over her, and as she stared up at it, something poked at the back of her mind: it was familiar to her. It roared, and then she recognized it. It was the creature that Buttercup and Blossom hadn't been able to beat when they were younger. The one Bubbles convinced to leave Townsville just by asking nicely. They'd thrown everything they had at it and nothing had worked. A sudden, tiny voice at the back of her mind shouted at her.

It cried: What was she supposed to do against this?

But her adrenaline still pumping, and her vision still sharp and clear with power and rage, she stared up at it, and it raised one of its giant feet foot to crush her.

Her eyes went wide and for a moment, she faltered, unable to move from under the creature's impending step. What was she supposed to do?!

It began to drop its foot; put all its weight into its leg and stomp down.

And then she scowled.

She scowled at herself in the moment of time as it extended before her. Her power was still there, and she was in complete control of it now. Why bother being afraid?

She scowled at the monster. How had she ever thought it a threat?

The tiny voice in the back of her mind told her that even she had limits.

She silenced the voice simply: she threw her entire body into the force of an uppercut, aimed straight for the dragon's claws.

Its leg exploded upwards to its knee, its entire lower leg now completely gone.

It roared in agony and toppled sideways, past Buttercup, who was now standing there, fist raised in the air, awash in the dragon's raining blood and bone fragments.

She wiped her eyes clear with a free arm, doing little more than smearing the blood back and forth, but it was enough so she could see. She almost didn't know what happened. Almost. She had just thrown a punch, but she had put as much force as she could into it, and the monster's leg was just... gone. She'd obliterated it.

This was the thing they couldn't beat? This was the monster that eight years ago, had only left out of appreciation for Bubbles' kindness? This monster had been so tough that they hadn't even made a scratch in its hide when it showed up before. Was she really that much stronger after using the... chakras?

Buttercup looked around. The place was a ghost town now. There were no monsters around her except the ones she had killed and the orange dragon that lay bleeding from its stump leg, beginning to lose consciousness. As long as it didn't get up, it wasn't any threat to her. She thought about putting it out of its misery, but then it coughed, shuddered, and died on its own. One of the greatest threats she and her sisters had ever faced, lying dead like a mountain before her. She felt a strange absence of accomplishment. She looked around her. There were still many stone homes standing, untouched, and she could hear a few noises, telltale signs of remaining monsters.

They didn't want to fight her, and they likely wouldn't ever again. Her job was done. Buttercup blinked, and saw, beneath the orange dragon, an overturned piece of something bronze.

Her mind sharp and clear still, full of power and focus, she went to it, wary that it might be some kind of metallic monster waiting for ambush. When she got close, however, she gasped, quickly tearing it, with some additional viscera from the dragon, out from under its corpse.

It was a statue of Blossom. She was smiling.

That slight smile, so reminiscent of her sister. Buttercup was too surprised to look away. Why did they have a statue of Blossom here?

She sat the statue upright, next to the dragon corpse. Underneath the bronze figure of Blossom was an inscription.

She read it.

Buttercup suddenly felt the power and rage drain from her, replaced with a sudden and incredible realization of guilt. Too late, she remembered that the monsters had revered the girls. To them, the girls were valiant warriors; heroes to them as well as the people of Townsville, just with different attitudes on violence. They hadn't been fighting the girls just to kill them, they were fighting to prove their worth to themselves and to the girls. They wanted to impress the girls with their strength. And... in some ways, it was admirable, Buttercup had to admit. But... to what end, exactly? What was after that? What could they possibly want to accomplish after their victory?

She would never know. The realization had come too late. Every monster that had come for glorious combat with her had all lost. Every challenger to her might had fallen. Her rage and power was not just draining from her, it slid from her body like soapy water as the need to be strong went away. She felt it - the drain of energy - pass up her body in a wave and looked down at herself. The large wound down the front of her body was starting to reopen. She was starting to bleed again. She blinked, and focused. The energy wasn't there. She couldn't stop the bleeding.

She needed to get home.


"...and after I finished beating up all the monsters, I saw I was still bleeding... and I headed home," she finished. Buttercup finished telling her story about what she did at monster island, but she had left out the part about the statue. Bubbles felt it: she didn't want them to know about that. "Around then was when Bubbles took me to the hospital."

Mitch gaped at her. "Damn, Buttercup. I can't even imagine how you have that much power in you."

"But... that's so reckless," Robin added. "I mean, I can't really blame you I guess, but..."

Bubbles frowned. As Buttercup had told her story, the images in her mind were vivid enough for Bubbles to pick up, as if she were seeing them herself. She saw the inscription, and Buttercup's guilt.

"You really gave them a good fight, didn't you," she said.

Buttercup looked at her cautiously. "What do you mean?"

"Well... the monsters fought us because they wanted to prove that they were tough, right?"

Buttercup's thoughts were still downcast, but Bubbles could see her sister follow the logic.

"I gave them glorious deaths, huh?"

Bubbles narrowed her eyes, considering. Buttercup was looking at her with a barely concealed need for approval, and her thoughts matched it. It was wrong. What she'd done was wrong, but... to the monsters, it wasn't.

"They... they think differently than we do, Buttercup. So maybe you shouldn't have gone there," and she felt Buttercup's self-worth beginning to deflate, "but! But..."

"The monsters got what they wanted," Blossom smoothly stepped in, and Bubbles boggled at her for a moment.

I get it, I... think, Bubbles. Blossom smiled at her, then Buttercup, who still felt a whirl of guilt, but... it was smaller now.

"Yeah... Yeah. You're right, guys. It wasn't a good idea. Not for me. But... they went out doing what they love."

Blossom nodded sagely, "When you consider how many human casualties there have been in just Townsville, ignoring every other monster attack in history, you probably evened the score up faster in one day than in a few hundred years."

Buttercup grinned, both inside and out, and Bubbles smiled with her, even if the thought of so much death being glorified made her personally sick.

Blossom shrugged, then. "Speaking of monster attacks in general, were the monster attacks really that bad over the years?"

"Heck yeah," Mitch stated matter-of-factly, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "At least before Buttercup's... trip there, monsters started getting stronger and bolder after you... got kidnapped, I guess. They're way rarer now and well, now I know why, but a while back there were a couple of attacks that really—"

Robin interrupted suddenly, "And Buttercup kept insisting on going on her own all the time, so—"

Buttercup sat upright and interrupted right back. "What? Hey, that's not true. I kept asking Bubbles to come on patrols with me, but she never seemed to want to go."

Robin snapped, "No, you kept yelling at her, calling her useless and storming off. We were the ones staying by her side and making sure she still felt wanted. You kept abandoning her!"

Buttercup looked aghast. Bubbles saw it: she wanted to argue, but she didn't. Her expression turned anguished as the thought hit home, and she stared down at her ankles. "I... I guess I did. I'm really sorry, Bubbles. I…" She shook her head. "...I was out of control, and I lost myself to… to fighting all the time. It was what kept me... more or less sane, I guess." She closed her eyes tightly. "I…"

Bubbles didn't hesitate then: she grabbed her sister's hand and squeezed it tightly.

Buttercup started, and turned to her sadly. Bubbles couldn't help it: tears started falling. "I know. I knew you felt like you had lost everything. I felt it every time you spoke to me, and I don't blame you." She drooped and looked at her knees. "I felt the same way."

There was silence. Then a thunk; Blossom set two glasses of water in front of them. There were tears coming from her left eye. "You felt like you lost everything because you lost me. It was my own weakness that made it possible for Mojo to outsmart and capture me. If it wasn't for that, none of this would have happened."

Mitch shook his head. "Blossom, you couldn't have known. You can't blame yourself for this."

"No, not myself. Not entirely. I blame Mojo." Her eyes narrowed. "And when we find him, he'll have four years of suffering to answer for," she growled. Then her eyes softened. "But now, we're back together, and we have a chance to make things right."

Buttercup nodded. "Yeah." She glanced at Bubbles, then looked down. "I'm sorry, Bubbles. For everything. I'm so sorry."

Because it was true, because she could see it was true, Bubbles almost started crying again, but bit her lip, and smiled. "It's all right, Buttercup. I forgive you."

Buttercup smiled back at her and pulled her into a hug with one arm so quickly that Bubbles felt a strange sensation: she was so surprised that she wasn't surprised... that she was surprised. She was surprised that Buttercup's thoughtless movement—and it was completely unsurprising for Buttercup to act before thinking—had been a thoughtless act of kindness. Just for her. She kept her eyes from welling again, giggled that she was either in or on the verge of tears so often these days. Buttercup noticed, and giggled with her. That sent her over the edge again, for just a few drops.

After the hug, after the weight had been lifted off the room, Blossom turned to Mitch, "So, how about you, Mitch? You're... different. What happened?"

"Different..." He looked up, screwing up his eyes towards the ceiling. "Uhh... I dunno. Guess I... grew up? A little bit?" He paused. "Well—you know how I didn't really have any real parenting back then, right? Just my grandma, and she barely did anything... I grew up just doing whatever I wanted... and then one day I kinda... snapped out of it, I guess."

Robin stared at him. "Really? What happened?"

He glanced at her pensively. Bubbles felt Blossom's thought that this might be the first they'd even discussed this, and gave her a tiny nod. Blossom's thoughts sped up beyond Bubbles' ability to read them, but then gave her a small smile. Bubbles was confused, but followed Blossom's eyes with her own back to Mitch, who was in the middle of an exaggerated gesture, scratching the back of his head with apparent thoughtfulness.

It was true: he was thinking quite hard. "I... don't really know... Oh! I remember now. So... one day I was walking through town and I saw someone being mugged. I watched for a few seconds, then I just... kept going. Without even a second glance. I guess I was used to it, like everyone else in this city. When I got home though, I was watching TV and I flipped through the channels and saw the guy who'd been mugged on the news... and he was dead."

"That's horrible," Bubbles said immediately, her hand half-covering her mouth as she saw the report on the television in Mitch's mind.

He clenched his hands together. "It made me think... maybe if I had done something... anything—call for police, start shouting and drawing attention to it... anything—that guy would still be alive. And then after that, I thought to myself, 'What do I care? I've never worried about it before.'"

Robin was aghast. "You really—"

Mitch held up his hand quickly. "But then... I thought, 'Is this who I am? Really?' And after that, I started realizing that I was this... horrible person. I'd become... a monster without realizing it, and I just... I needed to change. And this is me now."

"Whoa," Buttercup boggled. Bubbles nodded at this: his thoughts and words were matching. It was a little inspiring, and a little hot—and Bubbles blinked. That last thought had been Buttercup's.

"Yeah. So I started reading the news more, getting in the stories, trying to figure out the what really caused crime. I figured, if there was something that could be done... maybe if I looked at the problem differently than the lawmakers or bureaucrats, I could do something about it and we could make a difference in this city."

Buttercup pointed at him critically. "You're not Batmanning this, are you?"

He stared at her with real incredulity. "What? No. I'm not some cartoon, Buttercup. Geez. All I'm saying is, if we figure out why these problems exist, we can be better equipped to fix them."

"Makes sense," Blossom said. "And you didn't know about that, Robin?"

"No, I didn't know anything about that."

"So what was it that what led to you and Mitch dating?"

Robin sighed. "You aren't going to let go, are you?"

"Well I'm sure Mitch has changed a lot in the last few years. No more bullying or torturing small animals, right?" she teased.

Mitch groaned. "Come on, Bloss, I haven't done that since, like, second or third grade... and I haven't bullied anyone since like fifth grade."

"You and Mike became friends around that time, didn't you?" Buttercup asked.

Mitch thought about it. "Yeah, around the start of sixth grade, I think."


Junior high. Lunchtime. Fifth period. White and gray tile floor, white walls, and skylights letting in bright sunshine. A nice day. People were eating both outside and in. Everyone stepped in line, paid for their food, and hung out with their friends.

Robin joined Bubbles. Mike was coming to sit next to Bubbles, and passed in front of Shawn Michaels, an eighth grader. Shawn put his arm under Mike's tray and threw his hand into the air. Food flew off the tray and into Mike's face and over his clothes. He recoiled and stumbled back, letting the tray clatter to the floor. Shawn grinned smugly, and in mock-surprise, goes "Ohhh, sooorry!" He clearly wasn't.

"What was that for," Mike demanded.

"Oh, getting an attitude, huh? What you going to do, pipsqueak," Shawn asked and shoved him by the shoulder. "You gonna cry? Gonna tattle? Huh?" He shoved him again. Mike had tears in the corner of his eyes and Shawn started mocking him with fake-crying.

A voice called out, "Hey!"

Shawn turned and got an eyeful of a fist connecting with his face. He was thrown sideways by the blow and fell to the ground. He jumped back up immediately and glared furiously at Mitch.

Mike's stared at Mitch nonplussed. Why was he helping?

Mitch shouted, "You think that's funny?! Picking on someone who won't fight back?!"

"Oh man... you're SO dead, Mitch!" Shawn stood up, fists bared.

Even though Shawn seemed to tower over Mitch, Mitch fearlessly put up his own fists. "You think I'm afraid of you?! Come on!"

Robin jumped up and pulled Mitch back by his arm. "Mitch, no, no, it's not worth it. Let's just call a teacher."

Mitch tried to shrug her off, but she held firm. "Robin, let go!"

Shawn advanced, raising his fist to strike.

Mitch hesitated, half-glancing at Robin before bracing himself for the blow.

It never came.

He opened his eyes and saw Bubbles standing between them, arms crossed. Shawn had stopped mid-swing. She was glaring at him fiercely. His eyes were wide, locked on hers. He hadn't expected her to get involved.

Bubbles calmly but sternly asked him, "Maybe you'd like to fight me instead?"

Shawn backed up, his arm drooping as he lost his confidence. The room had gone silent but for the occasional murmur and Shawn looked around nervously. Mike had gathered up his tray and moved behind Mitch, Robin and Bubbles. All eyes were on Shawn. He took another step back, brushed off his shirt and walked brusquely out of the lunch room, his cheeks red. After Shawn left, the lunchroom returned to its normal noise level, most of the chatter focusing on what had just happened.

"You okay, Mike?" Mitch asked after the tension died down a little.

"Yeah... thanks."

"No problem. And, uh.." he paused, searching for the words. "I know I haven't talked to you guys in a while, but... I'm sorry for all the stuff I did before. Really. I was a jerk."

"It's... it's okay." Mike said. "It's not a big deal."

Mitch shook his head. "It is a big deal. And I'm sorry. Really sorry. Do you... think we could be friends?"

"Yeah, I'd like that," Mike said with a smile, nodding. He looked up at Bubbles. "Are you okay?"

Bubbles turned to him, still fuming. Then her expression fell, and her usual dour look returned. She just nodded and stood there with her hands folded.

Robin motioned towards the doors at the other end of the lunch room. "Guys, I'm going to go with Mitch to the office."

Mitch blinked. "What for?"

"Shawn will probably go there himself. He just got a black eye from you. He'll probably say you started it. And I'll have to go with you to confirm your story."

Mitch hummed thoughtfully. "You're probably right. He would do that. All right, let's go."

Robin started walking with him, then turned over her shoulder. "Mike, don't forget to take your medicine."

Mike nodded, and went to get more food, and Robin took Mitch to the office to let them know what had happened. Mike sat with Bubbles for a few minutes.

Suddenly, Buttercup showed up. She just appeared in the air.

"We've got a report of a monster, downtown Townsville. Some kind of big centipede. Looks pretty gross. Big spiky legs and weird teeth claw things. Let's get to it, Bubbles."

Bubbles smiled sadly at Mike. "I guess I've got to go."

"Yeah... Do to that centipede what you could do to Shawn."

Bubbles giggled, "That's a little harsh."

Buttercup sighed loudly. "Let's go! Monster! Some time today!"

Bubbles frowned, but followed her sister into the air, and out of sight.

Mike ate his lunch in silence for the rest of the period.

Eventually, the school decided that even though Shawn had started the fight, Mitch was still in trouble for hitting him. Mitch didn't seem to care—he knew he had done the right thing, and just accepted his punishment.

And that was when Robin had started to like him.


Buttercup was clearly impressed. "Wow, Mitch. Way to go! Props!"

"Well, yeah," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It was just that Shawn really bugged me. He kinda reminded me of myself just then and I couldn't just leave it alone."

Blossom put up a hand. "So, wait. You said something about Mike needing medication?"

Buttercup spoke up. "Oh, right. He was having those... psychotic episodes? I guess you could call them."

Robin glared at her. "No, they are not psychotic episodes! That kind of rumor is what led people like Shawn to make fun of him!"

Buttercup held up her hands defensively. "All right, all right, sorry! Geez."

Robin still fumed, but took a breath and calmed herself.

Buttercup relaxed her arms. "So, what was he taking meds for, then, if not... episodes?"

Robin scowled at Buttercup for a moment, but rolled her eyes. "You should know. He was finally being treated the rare mental disease that caused him to have... abilities. Things like vivid spikes of imagination? Dreaming during the day? Ring any bells? You three superheroes—of all people—know how he is with imagination. I hadn't moved here yet, so I wasn't there, but you were. You tell me how bad it was."

The event. In kindergarten, he accidentally created a malicious imaginary friend who ended up trashing the classroom. Buttercup scratched the back of her head awkwardly; Bubbles looked off to the side; Robin crossed her arms; Mitch screwed up his face and tilted his head.

Blossom nodded in understanding. "It's a form of transubstantiation where his prefrontal cortex evokes a tangible manifestation of his will on the physical realm. What was really interesting about that incident was how easily he could compartmentalize his mind. By refocusing the imagery into the idea of a 'friend', he instinctively evoked the manifestation as a separate, gestalt consciousness. He was unconsciously able to trick his own brain into shunting off the workload of manifesting that consciousness as something that at once was and was not his own neurokinesis at work. Astonishing, frankly."

The others stared at her nonplussed for a moment before Buttercup crossed her eyes and said, "Deee, I'm Blossom! I'm super smart! Lawl!"

The others chuckled, and Blossom blushed. Begrudgingly, she joined in their mirth after a moment. "I guess Mojo rubbed off on me more than I'd like to admit. I just mean he's able to solidify his imagination. His 'imaginary fiend' was a result of that. It's similar to Bubbles' seemingly neurally-voided metal limbic segments being ambulated from her neuro-flux—I mean," she backpedaled quickly as she saw eyes beginning to glaze over again, "...her limbs only move with her brain. Just like her own original arms and legs."

Bubbles demonstrated with the two upper limbs, giving a little wave with one, and offering another to Robin, who took hold, and shook it politely. Mitch smiled at the display, and Buttercup raspberried.

"So did Mike usually hang out with you guys, then?" Blossom asked, trying to return to the discussion.

"Sure," Mitch said. "We'd hang out at his place, your place, Robin's place... not really my place that much, 'cause I, well, really didn't have a lot to do there..."

"...And since Bubbles was so depressed," Robin interjected, "with you and the Professor gone, we were mostly trying to spend time with her to cheer her up. You know, be good friends and all that."

"Yeah," Bubbles said with a bittersweet smile, "I really was grateful for you guys' help when I needed it. I was trying to forget about Blossom—no offense—"

"None taken," Blossom said understandingly.

"—and you guys were doing a pretty good job distracting me."

"Heh, yeah," Mitch sighed with a smile. "Hey, remember that time at the arcade..."


Professor glanced into the living room, watching the others chat. With the roast in the oven, he had a little bit of time, so he dried off his hands and made his way toward the lab. Bubbles glanced at him as he walked past. He patted her on the head lovingly and she turned back to the group. He glanced at her as he closed the door behind him, and made his way down the steps, looking around the lab. He was intentionally focusing specifically on nothing, even as his eyes identified each item in the room. He still had to be careful.

His job had introduced him to the concepts of psychics when he had first been read-in to the Cosmic TS/SCI program. Lots and lots of classified information, some of which even the President of the United States wouldn't have been allowed access to. He hadn't really believed that psychics were real until they introduced him to one and she read his thoughts like he were actively shouting them. The nature of his job required him to be guarded, so he had learned to mask his thoughts so that they could really only read your mind if they got past the surface blocks you'd developed.

Dealing with psychics was difficult, since they can typically read your mind even if you try to hide your thoughts or not think about certain things. The best way to deal with them is to think faster than they do, which discourages from trying to read your mind because it wreaks havoc on their own minds. Unfortunately, not everyone is capable of generating an inner monologue in gigabits per second. To get around that limitation, layered mental defensive tactics were developed to hide thoughts in ways that were difficult for even psychics to get around. It took lots of training, but he had developed his mind's defenses.

Although... he hadn't realized initially that Bubbles was psychic. He'd been entirely focused on how his daughters were faring without him... but when he saw Blossom alive, he may have entirely dropped his guard, and his thoughts were bared. But they were entirely focused on his family. He didn't think he had left anything potentially classified unguarded, but his thoughts were certainly unguarded for several hours, his defenses utterly shattered by that renewed sense of love for his children.

When he went out later in the week to pick up some things he'd forgotten in his first trip to the supermarket, Bubbles had waved goodbye to him with one metal arm. Another held up a paintbrush, as she was was going upstairs to paint. He just barely noticed the paintbrush wobble as if attached to a magnet. It was strange, this tiny wobble, and it stayed on his mind all the way to the store. The arms were capable of manipulation despite having no apparent moving parts, electromagnetism, nor outright haptic gripping like the girls' own unique anatomy in their superhuman arm muscles.

It was this tiny thought that made him suspect that Bubbles' arms, with what seemed to be displaying some variation of telekinetic properties, might have other capabilities as well. She could very well be a fully-functioning telepath.

There in the grocery check-out, he had the clerk staring at him for a long moment as he considered the implications, staring at nothing. He realized his mind had been fully open, which meant he could leak anything, and if he did, it could be disastrous. For all of them. Immediately, he made a concerted effort to raise up his mental shielding again. He drove around the parking lot of the supermarket several times, doing slow laps as he went over the mental exercises again, with mild disgust at himself despite the necessity of it. He knew that if Bubbles was a full telepath, she would probably only be able to read his recent shopping list, maybe some recent memories of the office, but nothing actually classified.

The irony that his very awareness of his mind being open required him to close it did not escape him. When he went home, his suspicions were confirmed: As she painted quietly, he inquired about her limbs, and merely thought to himself, They help you focus on others? See their thoughts? with his barriers prepared and ready. She answered him immediately, and he had frowned. She saw his frown, and grew upset, and he acted swiftly: with a surge of mental focus, he forced himself to feel determined. Resolved. Fatherly. It had worked, and he knew his barriers and exercises were still working, even if, deep beneath the surface, he hated having to lie to his daughter on such an intimate, personal level.

The Professor sighed, and steeled himself. He was about to talk over crypto; more recent information was easier to read if you didn't know how to layer it. He still had to be careful. So it was time to break out some old technology he'd whipped up upon the first time he'd joined a project involving hostile psychics.

Before sitting down, he took a very dusty object off a shelf and wiped his hand over it. It was a smooth object shaped like a vase without a neck, slightly off-white but with a blue platform at the top. But despite the technological marvel that it was... it still required an AC outlet. So he plugged it in, switched it on, and felt the slight vibration wash over him. At that point, he was ready.

Sitting at the desk, he pulled over the special phone. Ensuring the phone was programmed with the proper encryption key, he then dialed the number. After two rings, a voice on the other end answered, "General Utonium."

"'Gene, it's me. I got your page."

"John," Eugene greeted. "Good, good. Are we secure?"

"Of course. I verified the encryption key before I dialed."

"No, not that, I have every confidence you'd manage to set up a damned SecDial," Eugene chuckled once, and then said pleasantly, but firmly, "I mean: are you using the device?"

"It's the initial prototype, but your... colleagues never found much to change in the design."

"And it's active; working?"

"Well, Bubbles hasn't rushed downstairs in the last minute in a panic. So I would guess that I'm successfully surrounded by a dreamless sleep of myself. Neutral presence of mind."

Tangible relief in his brother's voice. "You really do think of everything before I do, John. That's what scares me about you."

John laughed. "Not everything, obviously."

Gene grunted cordially. "I'm serious, despite what you might think. But we're starting off all wrong. How are you holding up, John?"

'Starting off' with... small talk? Well, that's fine, he mused to himself with a shrug. "I'm fine, and you?"

"I'm all right. Actually I feel a lot better than I have in a while. How are the girls?

"They're... good, actually. They're almost back to how they were four years ago, before the incident with Mojo's volcano."

"That is wonderfully good news," he said sincerely. "I was very worried. What are they doing now?"

"Relaxing, mostly. They're upstairs, chatting with their friends Mitch and Robin. Dinner is cooking; I should have enough time for whatever it is you wanted to discuss."

"Well it is rather important, otherwise I wouldn't have had you call me while I thought you'd be spending time with your daughters."

"Yes... you've seen the news?"

"Hah. Yes. Not your usual afternoon, am I right?"

Professor scoffed sardonically at the understatement. "Yes, it was a bit much, I think."

Eugene chuckled. "I have to tell you, I was extremely worried about Buttercup's condition. When I heard that she was in a coma, I was... devastated. I honestly thought that we'd lost her."

Professor nodded somberly to himself. "So did I. I wanted to come home after I heard about it, but then Bubbles was kidnapped, and I was afraid of returning to... a truly empty house. I had no idea what I would even do. If I'd be able to function."

"Of course, I understand. I've..." Eugene sighed wistfully. "I've felt that before."

Professor decided to veer the conversation. "So, everything all right on your end?"

"Oh, absolutely," Eugene said, his voice shifting easily from the melancholy tone just a moment before. "I've started growing kiwi in my greenhouse. They're a few weeks off from being ripe, but they'll be nice and plump and juicy soon."

"Nice. I do hope you'll invite me to try some soon."

"I'd fly you out here on my own dime if I had to."

They chortled, but soon Professor once again shifted the tone. "So I assume you didn't want to call me just to talk about your recent agricultural avocations."

"No, unfortunately. You're right, I should get on with it. The reason I want to talk to you is to make sure you're aware of the recent goings-on with the higher-ups."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, they're all talking about them. The girls, I mean."

"Oh, I see. Those kinds of 'goings-on.'"

"Yes. I'm keeping these rotten career politicians at bay as they probe me for answers on the girls. They want to know when one of the girls so much as sneezes, let alone blows up a truck near a huge crowd of people."

"I can imagine," he said joylessly.

"But don't worry, there's no real talk yet of anything serious, they're just concerned that the situation could spiral out of control again. I'm certain I can convince them there's nothing to worry about."

'Again.' It was a concern in the back of his mind. But no. It wasn't going to happen again. He was sure of that. "Please do," he assented. "The girls are back to normal, far as I can see. Pretty soon they'll be back to fighting crime and if any more monsters ever show back up, they'll get right back to beating them up like always."

"Good, good. So you'd say they're completely mentally stable, then?"

"Yes, I think having Blossom back has sort of balanced things out."

"Blossom... yes, I was, to make an understatement, pleasantly surprised to hear that she was alive. Jack told me about it privately after his visit a couple weeks before."

"Jack? Jack Wednesday told you? He sent me an Email but he didn't tell me."

"I told him not to mention that he had seen her. I thought you might have wanted to learn about it firsthand."

He thought about it. Then he smiled. "I see," he said finally. "I suppose that was best. If he told me she was alive I would probably either freak out or simply not believe it... maybe both."

"That's what I thought too. As much as I trust Jack, I thought he had misspoken at first, and then I thought he was pulling my leg."

Professor blinked. "Is Jack even capable of making a joke?"

"Oh, yes," he said with a chuckle. "When you get to know him, he's actually quite the comic."

Professor paused. "That I can't imagine."

Eugene chuckled. "Maybe after you return to work, we can pick a weekend and go have a beer. You can see him cut loose."

He scratched the back of his head. "Well... about that."

"Hmm?"

"I'm thinking of tendering my resignation."

"Tendering your—You can't be serious."

He was about to respond, then something ticked in his mind and he checked his watch. "Oh, darn. Hold on just a minute, Gene."

He set the phone down and hurried to the top of the stairs, opened the door to the lab and poked his head out, prompting all the kids to turn to him. "Girls, I'm on the phone with my brother."

Bubbles perked up. "Uncle Eugene? We haven't heard from him in years! Can we talk to him?"

Professor hummed aloud, glancing back into the lab, pretending to consider it. "He said he didn't have a lot of time, he just wanted to see how everyone was doing. He's glad you're back, Blossom, and that he loves you. He loves all of you."

"Tell him I said 'hi' and 'we love you too'," she rallied back with a nod. Buttercup smirked, Bubbles caught on and they both giggled.
"What?" Blossom turned to them with a raised eyebrow.

"The commander and the leader speaking for us."

"So you don't want me to tell our uncle we love him?"

Her sisters, simultaneously, saluted and barked. "Yes ma'am, sir, ma'am!"

The Professor let Bubbles see the slight melting of his heart, burying any deeper insights on how she was in such synchronicity with Buttercup down beneath that open affection. She beamed at him, and he smiled broadly back. "I'll tell him, girls. But while I'm down in the lab, can you all make sure dinner is taken care of?"

"Sure," Blossom replied, standing up and offering a hand to Bubbles.

Robin gestured to herself and Mitch. "Can we help?"

"Of course," Professor said with a smile. "The more the merrier!"

"Great! There's a side dish I've been practicing," she said, standing and rolling up her sleeves. "You guys will love it."

"Oh, that sounds good," Professor said with heavy interest. "I'm looking forward to it."

"Come on, Mitch!"

As everyone got up and went to the kitchen, Professor ducked back into his lab and went to the phone, his head filling with the guilt he'd buried from Bubbles, and sighing heavily. "Sorry about that, I didn't want the roast to burn. The girls say hello, and that they love you.'"

"That is truly wonderful and heartwarming, John, believe me when I say that... but what is this about you tendering your resignation?"

"Well, I've been thinking about retiring... I have easily have enough money saved up where I could take care of the girls well into their college years, and I can still do college lectures or speak at scientific conventions to supplement my savings, pump out an invention here and there—"

"John... you can't just resign."

"What are you talking about? Of course I can resign. I'm not on a time-based contract."

"Yes, of course you can, but..." He paused and then sighed in restraint. "Look, even if you did resign, it's not as simple as you just blissfully living out the rest of your years in luxury. Agents are everywhere, and if you're not in the organization, someone else would have to keep us updated as to the girls' conditions."

"Conditions?"

"Maybe it's not a concern for now, but in the minds of the higher-ups, the girls have gone rogue and broken the law on a number of occasions in the past. None of them are completely innocent. Remember when Blossom stole those golf clubs for you as a father's day gift?"

"Well yes... but, Gene, that was years ago. Almost a decade, now—"

"And that one time you were sleepwalking and they took advantage of you to steal toys for them?"

"Still almost a decade ago, and might I remind you how you handled it? You and the then-presiding Mayor of Townsville got my call, and decided the solution was to traumatize them by having me shot with fake bullets so that they thought, for a few moments, that I was dead. Compare that to Blossom's kidnapping, Gene. Compare that to when her sisters thought she was dead for years—"

"I am - and have - and, John, when I recall that toy store incident, when it is me recalling that incident, I seem to remember you agreeing quickly to the brief and quickly resolved trauma, understanding that rogue superheroes can quickly become supervillains."

"Yes, but—"

"And on that point, let's not forget the death of one 'Fuzzy Lumpkins'; and the three-ring circus of the resulting trial—"

"YES! Okay! I get it! They've made some mistakes! Big ones, absolutely huge ones." He breathed sharply. "Some more serious than others to be sure... But they were a lot younger than they are now. Less mature... and some of these problems came about after Blossom was kidnapped. Essentially because she was kidnapped. But... they're safe now. There's no risk of that kind of thing now."

"Well, do I hope that's true. The brass have been pressuring me to take them in for the last two years."

A flash of panic set over Professor's chest. "'Take them in?'"

"To the organization. They want them to be seen as a component of U.S. Policy."

"You can't be serious. They can't be serious."

"Do I really have to explain what those bureaucrats think of superheroes, John? You know as well as I do that the government sees them as just another thing to benefit them; something that they can grab a hold of and squeeze like a sponge filled with dollars and votes. You really think your girls would to be any different?"

"Yes! They will! Because I won't allow that!"

"It is, after all that's happened, a bit moot, John. This is why you can't resign. Someone needs to watch them, write up reports and send them in so the political wastes will be happy."

"You want me to spy on my girls and feed information back to you?"

"John, the government has been sending spies to Townsville for the past few years just to keep tabs on the girls, and they were this close to sending our boys to secure them. Buttercup's... prior outbursts—anyhow, I'm doing my best to keep them from exerting too much influence in my direction, but if the girls make one wrong move... I fear my hands will be tied."

Professors breath stuck hard in his throat and he tried to breathe to keep himself calm. "Eugene, that sounds like a threat."

"No! No, of course not!" He sounded earnest. "I'm not threatening! I'm just telling you, that..." He paused, and John could hear him searching for the words. "I-I have... a job to do, and that job is pretty much the only thing keeping the government off your back. But if the girls break the law so... egregiously again, I might be ordered to do something that neither of us would like."

"How egregiously are we talking? Under the Superbeing Juvenile Act, the girls are basically vigilantees empowered to engage in aggressive actions that can constitute citizens' arrest, security and evacuation procedures, and even have legal immunity from property damage claims—"

"You don't need to read me the whole bill, John. I helped you and Sara draft the thing. Your memory isn't being selective, now, is it?"

"No, but—"

"Then don't worry. I'm obviously not going to bring the girls in for jaywalking. I'm not going to stop them from performing the duties that were conferred to them, but remember that some of their privileges were revoked, and though Sara has already submitted the paperwork—in triplicate, I might add, that woman is amazing—for reinstatement of their full protection under the law as, simply put, 'superheroes,' ...though all of that is happening, these things will take time. Time that you could effectively call the last leg of a long... probation. You must also concede that such a probation was not entirely undeserved, John. Buttercup broke several tables at the trial."

"...I remember, yes."

"And that is why you can't resign. I can pressure them to have you assigned to Townsville, but you'd still have to send me reports on their mental and emotional states. Otherwise, someone else would do it anyway."

Professor fumed. "Fine. Have me reassigned. But I'm not having my girls live the rest of their lives as... conscripts."

"You're absolutely right, John. I don't want that either. I'm not trying to threaten you, I'm trying to warn you. These politicians don't care, they'll push until they get their way. But I am on your side. We can work together here."

Professor pursed his lips. "Can I really trust that you'd keep my family off their radar?"

"John. The girls are family. Family always comes first, remember?"

He paused, and then let out a sigh. "Of course."

"Good. Now, will you let me reassign you instead of just letting you resign?"

Professor grunted in frustration. "All right, fine. I can deal with that. Just..." He breathed, and tried to calm down. "Mail me a dossier on my responsibilities and I'll let you know if I agree to the terms."

"I understand. I'll do that. Go, be with your kids, okay?"

"I couldn't run away if I wanted to, now could I?"

Gene paused. "I suppose not." He sighed painfully. "We'll talk more about this later, okay?"

"Fine. I'll talk to you later, Gene. Good night."

"Good night, John."

John put the phone back on the hook and breathed deep. "Goddamnit, Gene."


Many miles away, at a familiar island off the coast of Townsville, there were no more monsters to be seen anywhere.

It was quiet. There were no roars, screeches, yawps, or screams.

A solitary cottage with a single light shining through its window sat on the beach, next to a single dock, with a single, small yacht anchored to it.

The cottage was recent, only a few years old. Built because those who built it knew that it was perfectly safe, now.

It was night, and sometimes, in these hours of darkness, the echoes of cries of monsters would ring out from the caves beneath the mountains and volcanoes.

But there were no monsters who would tread outside these caves.

No monsters that, safely tucked away beneath the earth, would be found on the sand, or in the jungle, or the open air. None remained of all those who trained for the day they could face the Powerpuff Girls in combat.

Now, in the inland plains before the mountains, encroached upon by jungle, there was nothing but the ruins of broken monster dwellings and sun-bleached bones, long since picked clean by carrion birds and scavengers.

Near one of the largest skeletons, a reptilian colossus in life, stood a bronze statue of Blossom Utonium. Attached to the statue was a time-weathered inscription, though the words were still easy to read; perfect and etched cleanly in the shining metal. Dated the day of the incident at the volcano, the inscription, in its entirety, read as follows:

Blossom Utonium
Died in the Line of Duty
Remembered Fondly as a Leader, a Sister, a
Daughter, and a Friend to All Monsters
The World Mourns Your Passing as a Hero of Townsville
We Love You, Blossom

There had been, at one time, one last line: "Rest in Peace." But it had been scratched out, and was now barely legible, carved away with something like a jagged claw. Beneath it, there were now two new words that had been crudely scratched into the stone:

Welcome Back