Hey everybody, Happy Holidays!
Thanks so so so much for your support and loveliness as usual. Stay safe and sound this holiday, okay? All of you!
Here's the 3rd chapter posted up this month, as promised. I fully realize that a chapter of this...nature might be a little bit of a downer to read on Christmas. My bad. But hey, at least there's snow! (Which I currently don't have the fortune of having this year during the holiday where I live. Sigh.)
Buckle up for this one, guys. Things are about to get pretty bumpy.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, settings, or properties from The Powerpuff Girls, Craig McCracken owns them.
Sorry for errors!
Chapter Ten
-Blossom's POV-
White frozen peace.
We had been back at school for a week, and that Friday, after I woke up in the morning, I tip toed towards the window first thing as always to let the morning light in, wrapping my arms around myself for warmth. And as I drew back our thick curtains, I saw it.
The first snow of the season. Coating every building on campus, covering the ground like a cottony blanket. It fell peacefully from the sky, quiet and soft. Staring out at the frozen world, it seemed like the entire city was still asleep, covered in a calm white slumber.
There were barely any cars driving on the streets below, no noise coming from the other dorm rooms. I imagined everyone else at their windows, staring out at the tranquil sight outside, too.
Tip toeing as quietly as I could across the hardwood floor, I went over to Buttercup's bed, shaking her shoulder gently. My sister's wake the dead snoring immediately stopped. She groaned, rolling over. "Buttercup," I whispered. "Wake up."
Still half asleep, eyes closed, Buttercup whispered back her complaint, "Why are you doing this to me?"
I softly shook her shoulder again. "Come on, I know you'll want to see this. Buttercup, it's snowing."
A pause, and then she rolled halfway back towards me, cracking one eye open. "You aren't just lying so I'll get up, right?"
I nodded toward our window, smiling. "See for yourself."
After a few more tugs on her arm, I eventually convinced her to get up and come across the room, and she followed me over as I dragged her by the hand, squinting against the morning light coming in. As soon as she was standing in front of the window, not squinting anymore and actually looking at the world outside, her usual grumpy morning expression softened and then left her face completely. Something that usually only a big mug of coffee could accomplish. "Oh," she said softly. A teeny grin of subdued delight tugged at the corners of her lips.
Loving the snow was always something I'd shared with my sisters. It always reminded us of the snow days we'd had when we were kids, building snow people and making snow angels and having snowball fights with Professor. Nowadays, to me at least, snow symbolized peace and happiness. Quiet nights indoors being curled up with a blanket, a hot cup of tea, and a good book. Warm sweaters and hats. Beautiful holiday seasons with friends and family.
I watched Buttercup watch the snow fall down, a quiet contentment on her face that I rarely ever saw on her. The snow always brought the best of miracles to me in the most unexpected ways.
I turned away, starting up our little coffeemaker. As I waited for it to brew, I walked over to the only chair we had in our dorm room and dragged it over to the window, lightly pushing down on Buttercup's shoulders so she would sit down in the chair. She complied without complaint, not tearing her eyes away from the white bliss outside.
I went back over to the coffeemaker and took out the mini pot with the fresh coffee, pouring some in her green mug and some in my pink mug, adding some sugar and gingerbread flavored creamer to mine. I grabbed the pink knit throw blanket off of my bed, and rejoined Buttercup at the window. Wordlessly, I handed the green mug of black coffee to her, squished into our arm chair next to her, and then draped the blanket around the both of our shoulders.
"Thanks," Buttercup said, taking her mug and wrapping her hands around it gratefully, letting the warmth seep into her skin. There was a small, satisfied grin on her face.
"You're welcome," I told her, then I held up my mug of coffee for a toast. "To the first snow."
"Cheers." She raised her mug to mine, and they clinked together.
For quite some time during that serene morning, we sat there at the window, cuddled up in the blanket we shared, sipping our coffee and watching the snow fall.
Looking back, it was a really nice way to start the day. It was rather beautiful, the way we were so oblivious to the how the rest of that day would turn out to be, and how abruptly our lives were all about to change forever.
After all, if we had known, it would have made enjoying that little moment impossible.
#
I started noticing that something was off during my break before my third class of the day.
There was a small ache in my head, in the middle of my forehead.
As it was very small, and seemed very insignificant, I brushed it off. 'Probably a caffeine withdrawal symptom,' I thought to myself. I'd had two mugs of coffee that day, and even though I never usually had withdrawals, it was still a possibility.
So, I bought a bottle of water along with a granola bar for a snack, thinking that would help. Then I tucked my soft pink scarf closer around my neck, put on my hot pink gloves, and headed out in the cold to my next class, thinking nothing of it.
In my class, College Algebra, we were doing a book assignment based off of that day's lecture, meant to be our homework for the night. This was the last major unit we had until the final, which was just a week and a half away. It was nothing I was particularly worried about. The lecture had been nothing, and the work should have been easy for me.
However, as I opened up my book and looked down at the assignment, the same spot in the middle of my forehead began to throb again. This time, it was a little worse. I hissed in through my teeth, pressing a few fingers there, willing the ache to go away.
It was peculiar. I never got headaches.
Headaches were something that my sisters and I and the Rowdyruff brothers never experienced, along with common colds, regular stomach aches, and allergies to things. But it seemed that I was having a bona fide headache for the very first time.
I took a few more gulps of water, frowning. 'Maybe it'll pass soon,' I thought, looking up at the clock on the wall. There was only five more minutes of class left. 'Just five more minutes, then maybe I'll head down to the medical quarters for some painkillers.'
I wasn't positive painkillers would work for me—in fact, I was almost certain they wouldn't, the Chemical X in my bloodstream would probably burn them up before they could even take effect—but it couldn't hurt to try. Since I'd never had one before, I wasn't sure what to do about it.
Gritting my teeth with determination, refusing to leave class without at least starting on my homework assignment, I looked down at my book again, reading the first equation. I waited for the solution to flow from my brain down to my pen like water, the way solving math equations always felt for me.
But…wait. There was something wrong. I stared at the problem hard. And stared. And stared even harder.
It made no sense.
I…didn't understand it.
It was like reading a foreign language, only I could instinctively speak every language on the planet fluently from my studies of foreign languages at an early age. And math had never been a challenge for me before, ever. Solving math equations was like breathing for me.
So what was happening right now?
I stared at it harder, at every little symbol and number. It felt like there was a concrete wall in my mind. I read the equation in front of me over and over, but I couldn't comprehend what it meant, or how to even begin to solve it. Sweat beads formed on my forehead.
Then, as I tried to concentrate harder, it hit me all at once—so swiftly and unmercifully that I could never have seen it coming. An explosion of pain, directly behind my forehead and spreading back to the top of my head and to the backs of my eyes.
Crippling, shooting, splitting pain that I had never felt before in my whole life.
The sudden shock was so great that I dropped my pen, and it fell down to the floor. My vision blacked for a full few seconds, and I covered my mouth, shutting my eyes, biting back the urge to scream.
I felt the girl sitting next to me looking at me. She leaned close to me. "Hey Blossom," she whispered. I could barely hear her, my ears were ringing. "Hey. Are you okay?" What was her name? Why couldn't I remember her name?
Blinking hard until my vision came back in spots, I finally saw her face staring into mine, pale and shaken. I must have looked as terrified as I felt. Managing to nod, I dropped my hand from my mouth, trying to gain back some semblance of normalcy. "Yeah," I spit out. My head exploded again at the noise of my own voice, and I cringed, my teeth grinding together. I tried to breathe calmly, but I was huffing, and I couldn't seem to control it.
"You don't look okay," she said, unsure. "Should I take you to a hospital?"
"Class dismissed," the professor said abruptly from his desk, and the class began packing up their things and leaving through the door.
Turning to my classmate, I rushed out to her, "No, I'm okay. Thanks for your concern. I'll be all right," with what I hoped was a smile, and as she returned my smile and turned to leave, I threw my things into my bag, grabbing my water before dashing out of the door. My head screamed and nausea hit me every time my feet made contact with the ground, which looked like it was swishing and swirling around like water.
Somewhere in the part of my mind where the agony wasn't overwhelming, something screamed at me not to panic. But I knew something was terribly wrong inside of me, and I didn't know what, and that made it impossible not to panic.
Finding a bench to sit down on, I sat, throwing my things beside me, and ripped my phone out from my back jeans pocket. Scrolling down to Brick in my phone, I hit CALL. Thankfully, it only rang twice. "Baby? What's up?" I rarely called him during the school day, and I could hear in my boyfriend's voice that he already knew something was wrong.
"Brick, please come and get me," I whimpered to him in the softest voice I could manage. With every syllable, a strike of lightning hit my brain, and pain danced behind my eyelids. "There's something wrong with me."
-Bubbles' POV-
That morning had been the most beautiful, memorable morning I'd had in a long time.
After waking up early with a video call from Boomer—with his bed hair and morning voice and all—calling my sisters on the phone before their first classes to talk about the snow, and then eating my breakfast, I bundled up as quickly as I could, donning my puffy powder blue coat and white scarf.
Then, before heading into my late-morning class, I sat outside on Phi Tappa Kegga's front porch, enjoying the peace and letting the snowflakes build up in my hair, which stuck out from around my white earmuffs. I held out my hands and caught the flakes in my sparkly white mittens, counting their numerous different patterns and designs and watching them melt into the yarn fibers. Then I walked to class, going slowly just so I could feel the snow crunch satisfyingly beneath my boots.
The day had started off so good that not even the rude professor in my psychology class could ruin my perfect, wonderful mood.
Between my classes, I skipped through the grumpy cold crowd of people on campus, humming and twirling through the snowflake filled air. Even slipping and falling down once or twice and getting laughed at wasn't enough to destroy my mood.
The whole day had been perfect. Until after my fourth class.
After leaving the building, I walked to the campus square to find a bench to sit on. I'd been sitting on one of the cold metal benches for some time, enjoying the frigid air, when someone began to walk past me, walking a puppy on a leash. I gasped, standing up from the bench, gazing at the animal in adoration. The furry little brown dog leaped through the piles of snow with glee, trouncing around and wagging its tail.
"Excuse me," I said, making my way over to them cautiously. "Could I please pet your puppy?"
The owner turned to me and then smiled, adjusting his glasses and looking at me. "Sure. His name's Kai. Don't worry, he won't bite. He's very friendly."
Overjoyed, I stooped down to Kai's level, smiling widely. "Oh, I'm sure he is. Is this his first time in the snow?"
"It is. He's only 8 months old."
"Aww," I scratched behind Kai's ears, grinning down at him. "Do you like the snow, Kai? Huh? Do you, baby boy?"
Kai barked, wagged his tail, then barked again. It took a few seconds for the overwhelming sense of there being something wrong to hit me, but when it did, it had the force of a 16-wheeler. The smile immediately dropped off of my face, a stricken expression taking its' place. I stopped petting Kai abruptly.
I felt the dog owner looking down at me. "Is there something wrong?"
I paused, staring down at Kai. He stared back up at me, puppy eyes wide and trusting and completely unaware of my sudden all-consuming horror. "Oh. No," I said, patting the puppy's head again. I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. "It's just…"
"It's just what?" He asked.
Hoping that the owner wouldn't hear me, I leaned down closer to Kai. "Try talking to me again," I whispered to the puppy. Kai yipped again, licking the tip of my nose. His bark echoed in my ears. I leaned back far away, the undeniable feeling of wrongness slamming into me again and my heart dropping down into my stomach.
The owner was staring at me, I knew he was. "Are…you okay?" He probably thought I was crazy.
"I have to go now. Excuse me." I quickly got up from the snowy ground, avoiding the guy's gaze and turning on my heel. I brushed the snow off of my mittens, patting them together. I heard Kai whimper as I hurried away, turning a corner, leaving the square as fast as I could with my heart pounding.
Finally getting to a quiet place where I knew no one else would find me, I stopped against a brick building, slumping against the wall and trying to straighten all of my thoughts out.
It didn't make sense.
The dog. He had talked to me. And I couldn't understand him.
He had barked, and that was the only thing that I heard. My mind hadn't automatically translated the sound into English, like it had always done before.
That couldn't be right. That was impossible. It couldn't be.
Maybe I hadn't listened closely enough. Or maybe the puppy had been too young for me to communicate with. Maybe it was just a mistake I had somehow made.
With a jolt, I heard a flock of crows land on the ground a few feet away. I whipped my head around to stare at them. I watched closely, watched their every movement. They fluffed their feathers, pecked along the snowy ground, and then one cawed.
The birds' noise was all I heard. It clanged against my eardrums, foreign and strange. Just bird sounds. No translation in my head, no words that I could understand.
It hadn't been a mistake.
Something was terribly, horribly wrong. What was the matter with me? Why couldn't I understand them?
Once again, I slumped back against the wall of the building I was next to, feeling the ground tilt. Panic rose in my chest, heavy and suffocating, threatening to swallow me up. I had to get back to my room. I had to go back to my dorm, get inside, sit down somewhere and call Boomer.
Getting a grip on myself, I righted, standing up straight. I took a few deep breaths, trying to get myself to focus as the cold air stung my lungs.
I went all the way back to my dorm at a full run, the snowy, icy sidewalks barely slowing me down.
-Buttercup's POV-
The white ground suddenly rushed up towards me, and I could only cover up my face with my arms before the impact. I collided with the open field. Snow covered my black coat, flew up into my face, into my nose, fell down into my scarf. My backpack had come up and slammed into the back of my head.
I pushed myself up with my green gloved hands, staring down at the snow in confusion. What the hell?
I had just gotten out of my last class before lunchtime. Leaving the building, and looking out at all that awesome snow, I'd impulsively decided to take a celebratory fly through the snowflakes. It was one of my favorite activities when it snowed; just flying through the frigid air, feeling the flakes hit my cheeks and sting my skin. Flying through the snow felt like nothing else, the rush was invigorating. I hadn't done it since February, and I could barely wait to do it again after so long.
So I'd come straight outside, got in a secluded enough area that barely anyone would see me take off, and I lifted into the air. And now, somehow, I was on the ground. How had that happened?
Sighing, I stood up. 'Must have not been paying enough attention,' I thought for a second, and then frowned. My hands, which had been brushing off my clothes, paused mid-movement. That thought hadn't made any sense. Flying didn't require any thought. It was like running, or placing one foot in front of the other to walk. It wasn't something you thought about. You just did it.
Shrugging it off, I straightened my straps on my backpack, then readied myself to take off again. Slamming my foot into the ground to get more momentum, I took off, feeling the frigid air hugging me from all sides. I smiled in satisfaction.
Then before I barely had time to comprehend it, the horizon tilted sideways.
I was falling.
Letting out a surprised shriek, I turned my eyes toward the white ground, rushing up at me again, and then squeezed my eyes shut. BAM. Cold powder directly in my face, the snowy ground directly underneath my body. The wind knocked out of me, I lay there momentarily.
What was going on? Why was I on the ground again? Opening my eyes, I turned my head, looking up at the sky. Was there something wrong with the air, maybe? Was it too cold to fly? Could the air molecules not hold on to me?
I pushed up from the snow again, glowering. I picked up my green beanie, which was flung off of my head during the impact, and pulled it back on impatiently. Those thoughts hadn't made sense either. We never needed a specific kind of sky or weather condition to fly in, ever. I shook it off. Whatever this was, it was getting on my nerves fast. I was going to fly in the snow today, whether the sky wanted me to or not.
I rolled my sleeves up to my elbows, exposing my bare skin to the cold air and making my focus laser sharp. Then I got a running start. I ran, foot after foot, and then when I felt like I was getting enough speed, I took off into the air, flew for five feet—then dropped back down to the ground like a rock.
I got up again, snatched my backpack straps, yanked them off my shoulders and chucked the bag onto the ground with a growl. Once more, I jumped, lifted into the air, and then started to tilt again—my fingers clawed through the air as if I could grab onto it and pull myself up to keep my body airborne. I toppled onto the ground once more, face first.
I couldn't place exactly when my annoyance had flipped a switch, turning directly into fear—maybe it had been somewhere between falling and then hitting the ground—but when it came, it was instant.
A sudden, suffocating terror gripped my chest. My hands shook, grabbing at the ground as if I didn't recognize it.
I lifted my face, and tiny clusters of ice fell off of my cheeks and chin. Very slowly, I stood up again. With tight, deliberate focus, I stood still, and instead of breaking into a full, reckless fly right off of the bat as usual, I tried to gently levitate myself off the ground. As my feet began to take off the way that they usually did, suddenly I felt a pin pricking, numbing sensation in my heels and toes.
And then my shoes came back in contact with the snow, barely having lifted up six inches.
It wasn't my focus. It wasn't the coldness of the air.
I couldn't fly.
My heart was ricocheting in my chest cavity, punching into my ribs, sending acute fear pulsing throughout my body. Trying to think straight, I took out my phone, feeling like I was going to puke but trying to hold myself together. With shaking and cold hands, I dialed the one person I knew would answer no matter how busy he was.
"Hello," said Butch on the other end of the line, and then he paused, hearing my silence. "…Buttercup? Are you there?"
"Come take me home. Hurry." I tried to keep the bleakness and panic out of my voice, but it wasn't working. I tried to breathe calmly, but instead I breathed in and out noisily, my breath coming out in hot puffs of steam into the cold air.
Hearing my tone, his tone immediately changed. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"
No. Something was really wrong, and I wasn't okay. The hand that held my phone shook even more. "I need to see Professor. Right now. Take me home."
-Blossom's POV-
On the ride to my childhood home in Brick's car, I was already having a hard time trying to keep calm.
My head was still exploding with pain, and I had my head between my knees, trying to move as little as possible to keep the throbbing from getting worse. Brick was driving as fast as he could manage without getting a speeding ticket, and he kept saying to me, "You'll be okay. You're gonna be fine, baby. Everything's okay," even though he sounded like he was trying not to freak out. I didn't answer him, I couldn't. I just kept my head down and my teeth clenched together, trying not to scream in pain.
Unfortunately for us, rushing to get anywhere in the car in this type of weather was just not possible.
Eventually, after the seventh time the car's wheels swerved uncontrollably underneath us and my nausea got even worse, I bit out to him through the ache as succinctly as possible, "I would much rather get to my house in one piece than crash, cause an accident and take even longer to get there." After that, cautiously, Brick slowed his speed down, and we stopped slipping on the ice.
Finally we arrived, and after parking in front of the house, Brick quickly got out, came over to my side of the car, threw open the door and undid my seatbelt for me. "That's weird," he murmured.
Bracing myself for the resulting throbbing, I spat out, "What is?" Pain burst, and I squeezed my eyes shut, biting down on my lip hard.
"My brothers' cars are here."
I opened my eyes, slowly lifting my head and looking out the windshield. Sure enough, Boomer's blue Audi and Butch's green Lamborghini were parked in the driveway. Against the throbbing, I whispered, "Why are they here?"
"I don't know. Let's get you inside. Come here, I got you," Brick said gently, then he turned so his back was facing me. "Get on my back." Sluggishly getting out of my bent over position, I let myself fall forward on his back, folding my arms around his neck. He hoisted my legs around him, pulled me out, shut the car door, walked over the snow covered walkway and carried me to the door. His breath puffed out through the surrounding cold. After I silently handed him my house key, he unlocked the door and pushed it open, and we were immediately greeted by some unexpected guests.
"Blossom!" It was Bubbles. She had stood up from the couch, and she covered her mouth with both of her hands at the sight of me on Brick's back.
Boomer followed, looking ahead at his brother in shock. "What happened to her?" He walked past us to close the front door.
Before Brick could answer, Buttercup, along with Butch, appeared next to us. She looked jittery and panicked—completely unlike her usual self, even while under pressure. "Tell me what's wrong. Something's wrong with her, right? Something happened?"
"Please put me down," I whispered to Brick, and he walked me over to the couch, bending down and softly letting me settle on it. He reached up with his hands and wrapped them around the back of my head, setting it down on the soft cushions so that it wouldn't jostle further. I slumped back into them and looked over at my sisters, grimacing. "Try not to talk too loud. My head is killing me."
"Can I get you anything?" Brick asked anxiously, smoothing a hand over the top of my head gently. "Water? Anything that might help?"
Buttercup talked over Brick, not heeding my request and repeating loudly in disbelief, "You have a headache?" She looked over at Bubbles. "I told you! I told you. It's not just you and me. Something is going on."
Bubbles sat down on the couch next to me, asking me softly, "What brought this headache on? What were you doing when you got it?"
Wishing I didn't have to keep talking, I sighed, took a slow, deep breath, and forced the words out through the pain because I had no other choice. "When it first started, I didn't think it was anything. It was barely an ache. It didn't get worse until I started my work during my math class. I suddenly couldn't understand any of my homework, the pain was so bad that I could barely think at all. It felt like my skull was splitting open."
Everyone in the room stared at me in horror.
"You…couldn't understand your math homework?" Buttercup asked, breaking the silence. Solemn, I nodded gingerly.
"Oh my God," Bubbles said.
Before I could ask them what they were doing at home, too, Buttercup cried out, stomping over to the basement door. "Why isn't he coming up here? I know he can hear us!" She stopped in front of the door, pounding on it unrelentingly and screaming, "Professor, get up here! This is a freaking emergency, this is not the time to be Mr. Hermit Science Guy!"
I was grasping my throbbing head hard between my hands, hunched over and squirming, and Bubbles had her hand on my back. "Buttercup! You're hurting Blossom's head, stop!"
She stopped yelling and pounding, and instead, I heard her jiggling the doorknob hard, enough to break it off. "I'm going to get this door open one way or another," she fumed.
Finally, there were rushed footsteps up the stairs, and I heard the basement door open up. The ache had waned slightly, so I opened my eyes and lifted my head to see Professor finally come into the room, glaring down at Buttercup with a look of surprise on his face. "Girls? What are you doing here, don't you have school?"
"Yeah, we did." Buttercup said, stopping in front of him and folding her arms. Her voice rose in volume as she continued, "But then Blossom got a headache and couldn't remember how to solve math equations, Bubbles all of a sudden can't talk to animals anymore, and when I tried to fly this morning, it was like I didn't know how anymore." She narrowed her eyes at our dad, but there was fear written all over her face.
My stomach had dropped at what she'd said, feeling the same fear inside of me. Bubbles couldn't understand animals? Buttercup couldn't fly? I hadn't tried to fly today, but what if I couldn't fly, either? And Bubbles, too? My heart began to race. I looked over at Professor, and while he looked reasonably shaken at what Buttercup had said, he didn't look surprised. Not the least bit.
What was going on?
At Professor's silence, Buttercup said, in a voice so low that after her screaming before, it almost seemed like it hadn't even come from the same person, "We need to know what's wrong with us, and we need to know now."
The quiet room pulsated with tension.
Finally, Professor walked further into the living room, looking at each of us before he said in a subdued voice, "At least you're all here now, so I can tell you all at once. I…was hoping I'd have some more time before I had to. I thought maybe that way I'd figure out the best way to say this. But it seems I've run out of time."
His words were so ominous that it nearly made me forget about the pain in my head. All I felt was overwhelming dread.
Standing in front of us all, his hands folded, Professor began. "To start with, I'm sure all of you have been wondering what my results are from all of my hard work these past few weeks. I've been working and researching nonstop to make sure that all of my findings were accurate. I didn't want to misread any of it, or make any mistakes." He paused heavily.
"So, what did you find?" I prodded him in a quiet voice, since no one else was speaking up.
He took in a long breath. "As I examined the sample of flesh that you saved for me, Blossom, I found something strange. What I had originally conjectured was that they were made from Chemical X, but what I found wasn't quite that." He straightened his glasses. "What they were made from was a chemical designed to mimic Chemical X. A clone, if you will. But in order to make this clone chemical, whoever made it would have to have possession of real Chemical X to model it after, atom by atom."
"Impossible," Brick said, frowning.
"That's what I thought too, Brick," Professor admitted. "I wondered how it would even be possible that someone besides me could even have possession of Chemical X. But despite my initial doubts, I then decided to determine what the age of the original Chemical X had to have been from the condition of the copycat chemical. After some long and arduous experimentation and analyzation, and a lot of frustration, I finally found it. I determined the age of the original Chemical X to be about 20 years old. I thought that was strange, because that was about the exact same age of the Chemical X which I keep in the armed safe downstairs—and therefore, the exact same age of the very small sample of Chemical X that I donated to the Townsville Science Museum fourteen years ago.
"At this point I was even further confused. On a whim, I decided to call one of my old friends at the museum to check on my donation, just to make sure all was well with it, and as it turns out, the sample…" He trailed off, pausing for a few moments, as if he couldn't believe what he himself was saying. "…the sample was purchased one year ago. The purchase was kept under wraps because it was an extremely wealthy person that bought it, one of Townsville's top 1%, whose reputation would be ruined if the public found out they had bought an illegal substance. Apparently they paid 2 million dollars for it. One million for the chemical, and one million for the museum's silence."
"No," said Buttercup, horrified, just as the rest of us were. "That's so messed up."
I stared at Professor, feeling my stomach drop as I realized something. "But Professor, wouldn't that mean that the composition of the copycat chemical would be exactly—"
"Exactly like the Chemical X I used to make you girls. Down to each and every atom. Yes." Professor finished for me, avoiding my gaze. "And now that I had a clearer idea of what kind of creatures you all were dealing with, I could determine what had caused their mystery deaths. There were no obvious answers at first—they weren't sick or diseased, and from what all of you said, none of them were injured. It wasn't clear at first, but after some time of closely examining the sample, I noticed something.
"The cloned chemical was…well, its composition was falling apart. What had originally given the chemical its potency now seemed to be expiring from the inside out. I continued watching the sample over several days, measuring its radioactive properties and keeping track of them in a chart, and it turned out that I was right. The radioactiveness in the chemical had not just gone dormant, but it had expired altogether.
"After discovering this, another conjecture that I had was that the clone chemical itself was cheaply made, probably by some sort of computer or machine that didn't do it correctly. This could have explained why the monsters had died so suddenly, a direct consequence of the knockoff, flimsy chemical running through their veins. I could have just left it alone then and there, but something was still nagging at me. Something still felt off. So, just to be absolutely positive, I decided…" He suddenly stopped, bringing his hands up and wringing them together uneasily. His eyes were glued to the floor. He seemed like he was unable to continue.
Bubbles' soft voice penetrated the heavy, silent terror in the room, the rest of us too afraid to speak up. "What, Professor? What did you decide?"
Professor looked her in the face. For the first time that I could ever remember, the most rational, most logically sound, most intelligent man that I had ever known looked scared, too. It looked like it physically pained him to continue, but somehow, he did. "I took a sample of DNA from all three of you girls while you were asleep. Right before Thanksgiving. I just…I just wanted to be sure that…I didn't think…"
I was trembling. He hadn't said it yet, but somehow, I knew what was coming. I didn't want to believe it. "Professor?"
Finally, vulnerably, he met my gaze. Terror met terror. "I'm sorry, girls. I'm so sorry." He took a shaky breath, then uttered the sentence that changed everything. "The Chemical X you girls are composed of is starting to fade, too. All of your powers weren't working today because they're going away. Possibly forever."
Dun dun dunnnn.
Some more burning questions will be answered in the next chapter. See y'all in the new year!
-MsButterFingers
