Hey everybody! Time for chapter 14! Woohooo!

Apologies for the slight delay, my birthday was last week, so I was pretty preoccupied. In addition, after I rewrote a couple of scenes, this chapter ended up way longer than it was originally. Wow. I'm not sure if I got carried away, or if I just really, really, REALLY love this chapter. Hahaha. Either Way, I'm excited to finally get this one up!

Did I mention I loved writing this chapter? I loved it. This chapter contains the final real battle scene of the whole story, which made me want to make it a crazy one. It was so much fun writing the battle scenes for this story, and I'll miss them.

An unexpected blast from the past makes their surprise appearance during this chapter, and with them, they bring some unexpected developments. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, settings, or properties from The Powerpuff Girls.

Sorry for any errors!


Chapter Fourteen

-Unknown POV-

Pain.

Splitting through my head like lightning, spreading like wildfire. Making every sound unbearable and every shred of light nearly lethal. Making me forget parts of myself.

I did the only thing I'd been able to do when these new, strange, wretched migraines took me at random.

I closed my eyes, laid my head down on my desk, and slept.


-Blossom's POV-

Nearly two full weeks of the New Year had passed.

My sisters, the boys, and I sat in our café after school, enjoying some downtime after the stress of starting a brand new semester. New classes, new professors, and whole new schedules. It had been a relatively harmless week, but adjusting to our new routines had been interesting, that's for sure. Most of us had stopped feeling so draggy all the time—or maybe it was just that we had finally begun to get used to the feeling. In any case, school had been the only thing on our minds for the past weeks.

We were in the middle of a conversation about our new classes, however, when we each got the interruption that none of us had been expecting. One by one, our cell phones beeped, buzzed, and lit up with notifications at the same exact time. Exchanging wary gazes with each other over our coffee mugs and snacks, we each picked up our phones.

And lo and behold, there it was—the first crime notification on our Hotline app since November.

'Emergency Alert: Mysterious fog across downtown. Must be investigated ASAP.' It said.

Shock spread across the table in succession. Buttercup shot up from the booth we were sitting at, gripping her phone tightly in her hand. "Holy shit," she exclaimed loudly, no doubt voicing all of our thoughts at that moment. This caused most of the other quiet customers in the café to turn to look at us, startled and curious.

Butch was the next to stand, a look of wild anticipation on his face. "It's go time."

I had turned immediately to Brick. "Remember the plan?" Next to me, Bubbles had grabbed hold of my sleeve anxiously.

"Right," Brick said to me, standing up next. I stood after him as he turned to the rest of the table. "We need to get to Professor." He dropped his voice quieter so that no onlookers could hear him. "No way we can do this with no powers. We need to get out there as soon as possible."

All of us piled out of the booth, leaving our drinks and food behind. Re-shouldering backpacks and purses, we rushed out of the café.

Immediately, as we left the building, we saw what we were notified for. We looked up—then collectively froze.

A murky, thick pink fog had fallen over the town. If it weren't for the color of it, it would almost seem like a regular foggy day. It was thicker, admittedly, but similar to the fog that we would sometimes get in the spring and late some days late in the summer. Only it was winter. And we never got fog in the winter. And because of the color itself, I knew that it couldn't possibly be a product of nature.

Then, after standing there for a few moments, looking away from the opaque, rose, smoke-like surrounding wall that shielded the sky and hid the skyscrapers, it hit me. All of us exchanged looks as we realized it at the exact same time.

The streets were empty. The sidewalks were completely clear of pedestrians. There was nobody.

"What the hell?" said Boomer.

Butch echoed his sentiment with another question. "Where is everyone?" Next to him, Buttercup was staring out in disbelief, searching around with her eyes as if the crowds of pedestrians would reappear any second.

Instead of answering his brother's question, Brick asked another one. "Do you hear that?" My heart skipped a beat at his tone—chilled, disturbed. It was exactly how I felt. I nodded at his question, unable to answer.

Bubbles answered him. "There's nothing," she said. "There are no noises out here."

No chirping birds. No traffic noises. No talking people. Just complete and utter penetrating silence. The streets of downtown, aside from the all-encompassing pastel pink fog, had been completely abandoned. The scene felt eerily familiar.

We had only been in our café for 30 minutes. Everything had been completely normal when we'd gotten there earlier. What was happening?

Mind suddenly racing, I yanked out my cell phone from the pocket of my pea coat. I went straight to my contacts, selected the one I needed, and the held it to my ear. It rang once. Twice. Three times.

To my great relief, he answered on the third ring. "Sweetheart, is everything okay? Do you need me?" Professor.

"Yes," I breathed out. I locked eyes with Brick just as he realized who I was calling. "How fast can you come downtown? It's an emergency." I paused as he answered. "Good. Bring the emergency shots with you." After telling him where we were, I hung up, and everyone was staring at me now.

Surprised, Buttercup said, "I thought we were going to meet him at our house. You asked him to come here?"

I nodded, eyes scrutinizing our surroundings even though I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary besides the fog and the stillness. "There's no time to drive all the way there and then come all the way back down here. It wouldn't make any sense. It would waste time."

"But what if something happens before he gets here? How will we protect the people inside the buildings?" Bubbles asked me, her voice high pitched with worry.

My stomach twisted, a little uneasy myself. "Let's just hope Professor gets here fast," I said.

There was a pause, everyone feeling uncomfortable. Then Butch said lightly, shrugging and breaking the tense silence, "At least there's no traffic."

There was a mixture of nervous chuckles and groans from the rest of us.

We all remained standing in our coats and scarves and gloves, on guard and keeping our attention on our surroundings, even though nothing was happening except for the unsettling quiet that stretched on and on.

Finally, breaking through the wall of murky pink silence, Professor's white car drove cautiously down the road towards us, both sets of headlights on even though it was technically still afternoon. He came to a stop next to the curb we were standing at, and then he stopped the car, pulled a black suitcase out of the passenger seat, and got out of the car. He looked as nervous as the rest of us, possibly even more. "What's going on out here?" He asked as he approached. "Where did all of this fog come from?"

"That's what we need to find out," Boomer said grimly.

I began to take off my coat despite the biting cold, and Professor turned to me and asked me, "Where should we go? Maybe back inside the café?"

I shook my head. "There's people inside. Too risky. Besides, there's no time. Let's just do this now." The stillness was beginning to worry me. It felt like something might happen soon, and I didn't want to have no powers when it did. As I turned to hand Brick my coat, my bare arms frigid in the air, I looked back at the café we had emerged from minutes ago. Faces of the humans inside greeted me from the window, faces of numerous colors and shapes. They all looked out at us and at the surrounding fog, vulnerable, terrified and confused. We had to do this. For all of them. And for us, too. I turned away, saying to everyone, "I'll go first."

Professor gave me a quick, unsure look, looking around at the weird fog, then he unlocked the black suitcase. Opening it, he kneeled and set it on the sidewalk. He crooked a finger, gesturing for me to kneel down with him. Struggling slightly in my black tights, I kneeled down on the cold concrete.

I looked back up at my teammates, offering a reassuring smile at their worried expressions. This would be the very first test of the emergency shots since Professor had finally finished them just days ago. It was the moment of truth. "Wish me luck," I said to all of them half-jokingly. No one laughed.

"How long will it last?" Brick asked my father.

Professor shook his head. "I don't know how long, exactly. It should depend on how quickly it'll take for you to burn through it." He took out the first syringe, extra thick than the other ones had been, and the Chemical X inside it seemed to have a negative, black light reverse-glow to it, and it hurt my eyes to look at it. Everyone else was squinting to look at it, too, and I knew I wasn't the only one. After quickly wiping an alcohol towelette across it, he took my arm in a gentle hand, then poised the needle pointing at my inner elbow. Softly, he said, "You might feel a strange sensation."

I nodded quickly, gritting my teeth together in anticipation. "Okay," I said.

The needle went into my arm. Professor pushed the syringe, and I immediately felt the liquid flowing into me—it felt like liquid warmth. Then it began tingling, pushing through my bloodstream.

The tingling grew stronger, stronger still, until it felt like all of my veins had bubbling inside of them. It began to burn. Then it scalded. I felt my limbs shaking involuntarily. The shaking turned to violent thrashing. Rushing began in my ears, blocking out my hearing. My vision split into two. I squeezed my eyes shut.

I heard distant shouting, and a firm grip on both of my shoulders, and on my arms, then my hands, multiple hands holding me in place.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed with the hands gripping me—minutes, or maybe it was only seconds. The burning in my veins soon turned to pure energy, and the rushing in my ears stopped. I opened my eyes.

I was now lying on the cold concrete. I was surrounded by the faces of my teammates and Professor, all of their eyes fearful and wary. The entire world around me had been thrown into 1000% concentration—every color was brighter, every sound was loud, and everything was a thousand times sharper. The sound of my own breathing was even loud in my ears. Sitting up slowly, my head swimming dizzily, I broke away from their hands, where they had all been holding onto me tightly.

"Blossom?" Brick's voice came from right next to me, booming, even though he was just speaking at what probably felt to him like a normal volume. I cringed. "Are you all right?"

My heart was racing, galloping, like I had just consumed a crazy amount of caffeine. The dizziness had begun to fade the slightest bit, and I made to stand up. Everyone backed away, giving me room. I stood, finding that my limbs sure and strong as I did. I looked down at my feet, then at my hands. I stretched my arms above my head, flexing the muscles. All the muscles in my body had a pleasant glowing warmth to them now.

"Blossom?" Brick repeated, sounding anxious.

I turned to him, feeling the faint beginnings of a smile on my face. "I think I'm more than all right," I told him. "Let me try something."

I walked forward, moving past Bubbles and out of the circle of my teammates. I faced the endless stretch of pink fog in the sky. Here goes nothing, I thought. Concentrating hard, I willed the heat to build in my head. It built and built, then it moved to the backs of my eyes, and then in a way it hadn't for a long time—too long—the heat exploded out of my eyes, throwing concentrated red lasers into the air.

A mighty shout of exhilaration came from me, and then it came from the entire group behind me. I whirled, facing them all, overjoyed. They returned my joy with theirs, seven beaming faces in all. Professor in particular looked relieved.

Buttercup ran to Professor, wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug. "You did it, Professor!" Immediately, she let go of him, peeling off her coat and throwing it on the ground. She shoved her sleeve up. "Me next!"

Professor, kneeling once again, gave Buttercup her shot next. Within seconds, I saw the same effects take over her the way they took over me—the uncontrollably shaking limbs, cringing away from a noise only she could hear, and something else: her eyes began blowing a bright neon green from within. That was what had happened with my vision. They'd been glowing pink. From this perspective, it really did look scary. No wonder they'd all freaked out. Butch held onto her tightly so she wouldn't fall onto the concrete like I had.

As if unable to help it with all the joy and excitement I was feeling, my feet began to lift off of the ground, and I did a little levitating air twirl, my hair spinning around me. My heart squeezed with happiness. I'd missed flying so much. I did floating flip, pulling my knees into my body, flipping my feet over my head, turning the world upside down, then finishing the turn and returning right side up again.

Brick was watching me next to Boomer with his arms folded, grinning. "Now she's just showing off."

"It's working," Bubbles commented, eyeing me with a good natured look on her face. "I'm already jealous." As my feet gently connected back with the ground, I felt a big, goofy smile on my face.

Between Professor and Butch, Buttercup began to come out of her rush, blinking blearily at everything and looking dazed. "Whoa," she said.

Remembering the important emergency at hand, I snapped out of my joyful stupor, getting back into leader mode once again. I walked back over and knelt down next to Professor, picking up the suitcase of carefully aligned syringes. "I'll help so we can get this done faster. Who's next?"

Even though I had technically never given someone a shot before, and I accidentally pricked Boomer with the needle twice more than was necessary, which earned me a withering look from Bubbles, I was familiar enough with the process to manage to help give the rest of the team their emergency shots. Four more twitching, burning shot sessions later, all of us were prepared and in full superhero readiness.

Brick and I sent Professor off, telling him to drive safely and to be careful. After he drove away, fog lights on, white car disappearing back into the smoke, we turned back to face our team.

The tense atmosphere quickly resumed as we got to the task at hand. We left coats, scarves, gloves and bags in one big pile on the sidewalk right next to the coffee house. Then, as one, all six of us cautiously lifted into the air and into the murky pink encasing the sky.

From the inside, it was just as thick, and at this height, the road we had been standing in was hardly visible anymore. My humanized eyes would've had trouble seeing through it at all at my teammates, if it weren't for the supercharged Chemical X shot flowing through my veins. I could still see their silhouettes. I was grateful that my super vision was back.

"Girls," I called out, just to make sure. "Boys. Everyone's up here?"

Everyone answered me in confirmation—except for Buttercup, who called out instead, "This fog is pissing me off."

"It's like trying to see through cotton candy," Bubbles bemoaned. "I can't even see the sky."

Brick, who was right next to me, said in a grim voice, "Come to think of it, it seems a little familiar," then he turned to me and finished, looking at me meaningfully and raising his eyebrows, "don't you think?"

I looked at him, reading into his meaning and said, under my breath but still loud enough for everyone else to hear, "You don't think it's…" I trailed off.

Proving that everyone else could hear us, Butch said, "Couldn't be." He was seven feet away, but it sounded as if he had been right next to me. I had to admit, regaining my better hearing for a little bit again was nice. "It's been so many years."

Boomer was nodding in agreement. "For all we know, he's gone."

As all of us stared out at the murky emptiness around us, silence stretched on. It felt like we were waiting for something, but what were we waiting for, exactly?

Moments later, we had our answer.

The atmosphere shifted.

All of us felt it—it was like a huge drop in temperature and the pressure in the surrounding air changing all at once. My ears popped like they would if I'd gone up miles higher into the air. All the hairs on my body stood on end. The breath from my body turned to wispy clouds when I exhaled. I shifted, on edge. Something was coming. Something unearthly.

And before any of us could speak up about it, a voice that had not greeted us for quite some time echoed, pulsed and rolled around us.

"A few years of vacation and it's like my own boys don't believe I exist anymore." High pitched and airy, as if the speaker didn't have a worry in the world, with a reverberating echo encasing it—it sounded as if the voice spoke into and through multiple dimensions at the same time.

A voice that all of us would recognize anywhere and anytime. Even if it had been years since any of us had heard the slightest peep from Him.

A moment of heavy, shocked silence pushed through all of us, all of us staring at each other, wondering if we had imagined what had just happened. Then, all at once, we turned around and around, necks craning, eyes searching for the owner of the voice. The fog around us, aside from the quiet, dark skyscrapers, was empty. He was nowhere in sight.

Brick was the one to speak into the echoing ether first. "We're not your boys, Him," his voice was steely and authoritative. "And we're not boys anymore. We're grown up now. We're different."

A light, flitting laugh that swayed back and forth around us. "Stepsons, boys, men, whatever you want to call yourselves. It makes no difference to me." The tone of the voice changed slightly. It had an edge to it. "But let's not act like my bringing you back to life didn't happen. You belong to me just as much as you belong to Mojo. That is a fact."

When Butch responded with a sudden, explosion of a shout, his rage was untethered. "We belong to no one!" His green eyes searched the surrounding air, face wild and menacing.

A mocking sigh that whispered past all of us like ghostly fingers. "Honestly, boys, this is a bit of a letdown. I was expecting much more of a warm welcome. Haven't you missed me at all? And girls, I haven't even heard from you yet. Aren't you happy that I've returned?"

I'd been watching all of this unfold, frozen in shock. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Him had returned. Why now? Of all times, why now? "What are you doing, Him? Why have you returned? What do you want from us?"

He tutted. "Now, now. Why the suspicion? Can't I just drop in once in a while?" Him paused. "By the way, I see you've gotten your powers back. Through unusual methods, admittedly. Seems rather flimsy to me." A slow, smug chuckle, deeper than the laugh from before. It rumbled inside of me like a bass guitar turned all the way up.

He'd known that we'd had a total loss of our powers. But how? As far as the public had known, me and my sisters were struggling with them. Also as far as they knew, the boys still had their powers. How had Him known about this?

This time, Buttercup was the one to explode. "Just tell us what you want!" With a growl of frustration, she let loose a beam of scalding laser from her eyes. It sailed through, failing to connect with anything.

I held a hand out to stop her from doing it again, even though she was feet away. "Buttercup, don't get riled up yet. You know that's what he wants."

Uproarious laughter now, booming around us like thunder. "Oh, boo." Him mocked.

Boomer was the next one to shout out. "Why are you hiding? Just come out and face us, you coward!"

Another sigh. "Ah, I suppose being invisible has indeed lost its element of surprise. As you wish."

A sudden whirlwind started, winds whipping around us like tight cyclones, stirring the fog into giant, solid walls of pink nothing, casting all of my teammates into barely decipherable silhouettes. I shielded my eyes with one of my hands, squinting. I felt my ponytail whipping behind me, tossing all around my face and arms. Through the haze, I groped blindly for Brick's hand. His hand caught mine, and we held on tight.

Finally, the winds began to settle, and I dropped my hand, opening my eyes up again, my other hand still grasping Brick's. We glanced at each other, frowning, and then at our re-emerging fellow teammates, who looked just as bewildered as us. Silent, all of us turned circles in the air, searching the surrounding empty void.

Then, through the silence, we heard the echoing click of high heels.

The thickness of the fog made it impossible to sense the direction the sound came from, but soon a figure emerged directly behind us—walking through the fog, heels clicking on nothing, as if he was on solid ground instead of levitating mid-air like the rest of us. Tall—impossibly tall, slender arms with sharp lobster-like claws at the ends, thigh high stiletto boots and tight leather pants on shapely legs, and a sleek leather jacket to match, zipped up with seemingly nothing underneath it. Skin the color of shimmering rubies, pointed ears, smug, smirking lips painted black, a small sharp, angular black goatee on his chin, angular black eyebrows, and likewise, ink black hair slicked back smoothly against his scalp. And lastly, the irises in his eyes—ageless voids of black.

Him, for the first time in years, standing right before us.

He smiled—it was slow, predatory, revealing unnaturally white sharp teeth. "Boys. Girls. How do you do?" He politely held a claw out in front of him, as if to shake hands with us. When no one moved, he brought his claw back, shaking his head and raising his neat eyebrows with a look of mocking surprise on his face. "No handshakes, then?" The leer was still on his lips.

Shaking past my initial frozen shock at seeing Him again for the first time in so long, I levitated forward, arms folded. Him watched my approach, amused. When I spoke, my voice was steely. "Why are you here, Him? Really?"

Him sighed, a long, leisurely, bored sounding release of air. "Since you insist on knowing, fine." Nonchalant, he stretched out his arm to examine his claw, as if he was wondering if he should sharpen it later. "I have only come to warn you."

"Warn us?" Brick echoed, squinting at his former mentor. "Warn us about what?"

Him hummed, raising an eyebrow. "All of you are in quite a mess. At this point I could warn you about any number of things, really."

"Choose one," Butch challenged him, arms folded impassively.

The villain was still for a moment, pondering over something. "Very well." Then, as he spoke, Him spun in a neat, complete circle, his high heels staying perfectly aligned with the invisible ground, and as we watched, his head stayed straight forward, his eyes locked on us, as his body turned a complete circle. Something that should've been physically impossible. So quietly disturbing. So Him. "You will receive just this one warning from me, a warning in the form of a rhyme, and that is all. So listen to me very carefully. Frankly, even one warning is more than you deserve. But I'm feeling charitable today." His body now faced forward with his head, giving his body normal alignment once more.

"Out with it, already," Buttercup barked at him, glowering. Her jaw clenched. "We don't have all day. Either tell us or don't tell us. It's no skin off our noses."

The villain took one long sweeping look at all of us, taking a moment to look each of us in the eye carefully. Finally, he spoke his riddle slowly. "Your time has been boundless, the use of your time has been devout. But heed my warning, my young, foolish adversaries: Your time is running out."

The six of us stared at Him as he stared back, and then we stared at each other, suspicious and perplexed.

Finally, I was the one to respond. "What's that supposed to mean?" The question was guarded.

Him turned his gaze to me, smug. "You're smart, Blossom." He lifted higher into the air, reclining back into the air with his arms folded behind his head like he was in a reclining chair. The pink fog around him formed to his leather-clad body like a cloudy piece of furniture. "Figure it out."

Frowning, I turned to look at Brick. His gaze turned downward, he was straight faced with concentration. I could tell he was trying to decode his words, just as I was.

Just as before, it sounded as if he'd seen us using the emergency shots. But how were we to know if this was a genuine warning, or just another trick? And why would Him want to warn us about anything, anyway? Why would he ever try to help us?

I felt the others reach the same conclusion I did, and Bubbles was the one to voice it. "You're lying," she said, shaking her head at Him. "You don't want to help us. You're lying to us just to freak us out."

A beat passed as the villain gazed at her, straight faced, and then the biggest leer spread across his face, white on black on red. "Am I?"

Exasperation and frustration passed through the group at the same time. He'd really had us going for a moment there. I pursed my lips, folding my arms and shaking my head. "Joke's on us," I muttered. Him laughed twice, loudly. It echoed like another boom of thunder in the strange pink clouds that surrounded us.

Next to me, my boyfriend was seething. "Do us all a favor, Him. Take your stupid fog and your riddles and get lost. You're just wasting our time."

Him kept laughing, his laughter growing louder and louder.

With a shout of fury, Buttercup burst forward, soaring toward him with her hands outstretched, making to grab him. Just as her hands were about to close in on him, he disappeared into thin air. Her arms closed around nothing, and she blinked at the empty space in front of her in surprise. His loud, screeching laughter kept echoing around us, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly, he reappeared behind Brick and I. We turned and both launched toward him, but as soon as we moved, he poofed into nothing again. We collided in the empty air instead.

Immediately, he appeared behind Boomer, cackling hysterically. As soon as Boomer spun around, he was gone. Then, as quick as he had disappeared, he reappeared once again—or more accurately, six of him appeared. Him and five Him Clones swirled around each of us, disappearing and then repoofing in different spots in succession, a chaotic blur of red, six different cackles growing and building together like a demented symphony.

My teammates and I found ourselves backing into each other in one tight spot, back to back as the six Hims closed in and surrounded us in a circle, laughing and cackling away. Then abruptly, ominously, all six of them stopped, sobering and staring down at us in unsettling silence with empty black eyes.

Before any of us could react, Him and the five Him clones disappeared from in front of us one last time. But immediately, Him's singular high-pitched, echoing voice erupted in the space surrounding us once again. "I say, this has gotten to be a bit predictable and dull for my tastes." He paused with a low, slow chuckle completely unlike the other laughter—his voice transformed, becoming sinister, larger than life, Earth-shaking deep in tone and making the air shudder with its' bass. "Let's make this a bit more fun."

The entire area began to shake—it was literally shaking, like the strongest earthquake I had ever witnessed—and suddenly, through the fog, the ground dropped away completely.

All six of us stared down below our feet in disbelief. The asphalt streets and sidewalks far down below had completely disappeared. All that was left was milky opaque pink smoke, curling through seemingly endless empty space, the bottoms of the surrounding skyscraper buildings seeming to stretch down onward to an infinite black void. It was disorientating, and impossible.

Just as I had looked away from the never ending void under our feet, the shaking quelled—and around us, the tall, empty, dark skyscrapers began to move. Swayed, at first. Then it intensified—they began to dip and swerve, careen and retreat around us. Instead of buildings, they had become giant pendulums, swinging through free space like they weren't connected to anything at all, least of all the once-present ground. We flew and scrambled out of the way as some of them began to close in on us.

It was as if the cityscape had become a giant, nightmarish obstacle course.

The swinging became more violent, then the giant pillars began to bend at will—as if they were made of wet clay. They began to thrash, coming at me and my teammates, crashing and bending toward each of us like towering rubber trees. I began to lose track of each of them in the fog, which was denser than ever now, and could only see shadowy shapes flying and voices shouting.

The moment I saw it coming barreling at me, parting the pink smoke in front of me like the sea, one of the massive pillars that used to be a building swung straight at me, the size of it making it impossible for me to leap out of the way. It connected and crashed into my body, throwing me backwards, spiraling through the thick pink clouds until a pair of arms caught me, stopping my free-falling.

A soft grunt sounded as our bodies crashed into one another. It was Bubbles. "Are you okay?" She asked me anxiously, hands gripping my arms and shoulders. "That thing hit you really hard!"

I breathed out, grateful for her catch. "Yeah, fine. It caught me off guard." I scowled at our surroundings. "I hate this fog."

My blonde sister nodded, glaring at the fog too. "It feels like he's cheating." A laugh echoed around us, alerting us to the fact that Him was indeed listening, wherever he was in this accursed fog.

"Head's up!" Came the cry of our third sister from behind us, along with the sound of rushing wind.

I grabbed Bubbles' arm, flying us both several feet to our right and hoping that it was enough. Seconds later, Buttercup blasted past us, a giant black pendulum swinging after her. In two blinks, Butch came seemingly out of nowhere, bursting right through the middle of the pillar, making it crack into pieces. The shattered pieces of it sailed down to the endless ether below, growing smaller and smaller until it was too far to see it.

Brick, I thought. Where did he go?

"Brick!" I called aloud, searching the surrounding fog for a shadow shape that might look like him.

"Hold on!" The response had come from several feet away, so far that he almost sounded blocks away. "Keep talking!"

"I'm right here," I called again. "Where are you?"

"Almost there!" He sounded closer. I still couldn't see any sign of him, though.

"Where?" I shouted.

"Here!" Brick said from behind me. I spun around, and my jaw dropped. Heaved up high above his head, in both hands, he held one of the pillars, so giant and heavy and long that it made him like an ant. I gaped. I knew that we'd gotten our super strength back, but still...how was it possible that he was lifting that entire thing above his head? "Stand back," was all the warning he gave, and then he let it slip from his grasp. Long and whole, it began to fall down into the void.

"Brick, what the hell are you doing?" I told him, nearly hysterical with disbelief. "That's a skyscraper. There could still be people inside! We have to catch it! We have to save them!"

"Hey, hey!" My boyfriend levitated in front of me, blocking me from flying down after them. He grabbed my wrists, looking me right in the face. "Blossom, calm down. They aren't real."

I stared at him, uncomprehending. "What?"

"The pillars aren't actually the buildings from before. They're an illusion. They're fake."

I turned my eyes back down to the pillar, which was still falling through the empty void. And slowly, I realized I couldn't hear the screams of any would-be victims inside. And when Butch had burst through the other pillar, nothing came out of it. He was right. There were no people inside them.

Seeing me catch on, raising his voice, Brick shouted, "You hear that, Him? We saw through your trick. Nice try."

The laugh again, echoing and surrounding us. The light, airy voice. "Very clever. You caught on fast." Him's voice took a sinister turn once again. "But let's see how you squirm your way out of this trick."

Before any of us could comment, or even retort, the noise rose up and boomed, overtaking any thoughts I had in my head. An ungodly screech so mighty and all-encompassing that it made my blood run cold. And from the endless void below, they came soaring up toward us all.

Tentacles.

Where the pillars had been before, they were gone. And replacing them were ink black, massive, endless tentacles rising up from seemingly nowhere, with no owner to be seen.

A tentacle shot out with impossible speed, coming straight at Bubbles, swallowing her up inside its' length before any of us could react. It wrapped around her and dragged her away as she screamed.

I turned to the direction she had disappeared to, not even hesitating to speed after her. I sailed through the fog that she had gone through, following the sound of her scream, and hearing Brick shout my name. I paused only for a moment, thinking that I should go back and see if he was in danger—and that was my mistake. In that split second that I stopped, a tentacle came straight for me.

It wrapped around one of my ankles like a whip, reared back, then flung me further into the endless fog. It whistled past me, along with the ungodly roar once more emanating from below, and in the distance, hysterical laughter.

My arms and legs pinwheeled, trying to find purchase on the air around me to stop, and finally I came to a halt, hearing another noise rushing toward me. All of the spinning had disoriented me once again, and I couldn't tell where the noise was coming from—but when Boomer came barreling through the space directly in front of me, holding hands with Bubbles as they flew from a massive group of tentacles that stretched after them, I flung myself backwards to avoid getting hit or grabbed.

I spun and flew in the opposite direction that the group of tentacles had gone after Boomer and Bubbles. Turning to where I thought I might have come from originally, I shouted, "Brick!" Deciding to take my chances, I took off flying in the direction I faced. "Brick?"

Right in my path, the fog parted to reveal Buttercup unleashing rays from her eyes, slicing the tentacle chasing her in half as the great invisible monster below shrieked in agony. As I passed her, I held my hand up for a high five. Smug, she met me halfway and slapped me five before I soared away, continuing my search for where Brick had gone so that we could fight together.

I had been searching and calling for him, dodging tentacles and searing them with lasers, when it snatched me from the air.

Another tentacle, and larger than so many of the other ones. It wrapped around both of my legs tightly, crushingly, making it impossible for me to wiggle out of its' grip. It flung me back and both, rattled me as I shouted in strain.

For a moment, it slowed down, and I stole my chance. Bending at the waist, I aimed searing rays from my eyes at the tentacle, singeing it directly in the middle. I watched the burning meat of the limb split apart before my eyes, and as it gave one last rattle, the tentacle ripped and detached, the section wrapped around me completely separating from the rest of it.

From the momentum of its' shaking, though, completely wrapped up inside the severed tentacle, I barreled down towards the empty void, falling out of the sky.

Struggling to get my legs free from the tentacle as I built more and more speed, tumbling further and further, I grit my teeth, thrashing. Trying as I might, the damned thing wouldn't let me free. During the struggle, my hair had come free from my ponytail, and long locks of red coiled and whipped around me, blocking my vision and falling after me through the mist like a cape.

The air soaring past me, before I could turn to right myself so that I'd at least be right side up, my back smashed into the black pavement below. Wait. What? The pavement?

It disoriented me, and confused me—I had seen the ground disappear with my own eyes, hadn't I? It hadn't even existed. But just immediately as I landed, it reappeared again, catching me in its' crushing, solid embrace. I felt it crack and crunch apart around me, fragile sediment collapsing against my newly strong again body.

Despite my body's ability to withstand it, I hadn't taken a blow like that in quite some time. It knocked the wind out of me something fierce, and once I could catch my breath, I cried out.

Above me, far above me, there was no sight of tentacles or the shadows of my fighting teammates—just a solid pink wall, and the distant roar of the invisible Kraken.

The impact had caused the severed tentacle around my legs to snap off of me like a rubber band, and my feet were finally free. Taking a moment to recover, breathing in and out, I then scrambled free of the rubble, letting out a cough. Brushing tiny crumbles of black pavement off my sweater, I turned over on the ground, starting to stand back up. As I stood, taking a glance just feet away at the window of the café we had been sitting in but 45 minutes earlier, I froze.

Where I had once seen the faces of all the frightened humans inside, there were only skeletons. Distorted, wrong-looking skulls. Empty eye holes staring through the glass at me, completely unmoving. I stared in disbelief.

I blinked hard, blinked again, then looked at the window once more. The skeletons remained.

I shook my head. No. That couldn't be right. That wasn't possible. They were alive. All of them were. They had been. What had happened to them? I began to back away, my eyes locked on the window.

Obviously the pillars had been an illusion. The ground disappearing had been an illusion, too. I was standing on it with my own two feet. And the tentacles had to be an illusion too, because if they weren't, the monster would've had to be down here somewhere. There was no monster to be seen. Just disembodied tentacles. Just another illusion.

These skeletons had to be an illusion, too—but I wasn't sure. If Him was in the clouds, how could he possibly make illusions down here, too? It was hard for me to truly know what was an illusion and what wasn't.

That was what I hated about the red devil so much. I never knew what about Him was real or not real. He always made me question my own mind.

I closed my eyes, breathing deeply. In, out. In, out. Now was not the time to fall victim to Him's tricks. I couldn't let him get to me. I had to go back.

One more deep breath in, and then I squatted and launched myself back into the air, bracing myself for the reentry into the dense pink miasma. I broke through it, and the sounds of battle surrounded me.

My teammates had all taken Buttercup's cue of using their lasers on the tentacles, and red beams were flying, connecting, searing. I watched as Butch tore through a tentacle with his bare hands—and then I turned to watch as simultaneously, Bubbles twirled past me in a dizzying flight formation, keeping the two tentacles that pursued her completely unable to grab hold of her. She and Butch both disappeared into the fog once again.

A high-pitched, maniacal laugh rang out. "Heat rays, fancy flying tricks. Go on ahead, you bumbling fools. Use all your useless tricks. You won't be able to for long!" A laugh again, so shrill and hysterical that it sounded closer to a scream.

All I saw of my teammates were blurring shapes and red beams. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I shouted as loud as possible, "All of you, listen to me. There is no monster! The tentacles don't belong to anything. It's another illusion!"

Brick flew up beside me, materializing out of the fog to my right. I didn't jump in surprise, since I'd expected him to show up first. "Really? How do you know?"

I pointed underneath our feet. "I fell. Down to the ground." At his look of surprise, I nodded slowly. "Another illusion. It's still there."

Appearing from nowhere, Buttercup was suddenly next to us, staring at me severely. "Wait. Are you forreal? There's no monster down there?"

Folding my arms, I nodded. "Yep. Just disembodied tentacles." I opened my mouth to say something else, but something in the air had shifted, and it silenced me.

All of a sudden, there was only stillness. Things had abruptly become quiet—too quiet. All three of us had immediately sensed it. We turned our gazes outward, looking around us, on guard.

The tentacles had disappeared.

"Where'd they go?" Brick was the one to voice the question. His voice was low and cautious.

There was movement through the fog—nonthreatening, calm. Our other three teammates found us at the same time, each emerging through the mist around us with confusion on their faces. They'd heard what Brick had said.

"No kidding. One second I was tangled up in one, the next it didn't exist," Butch said, looking irritated, his arms folded. "Where'd they go off to?" Boomer, who was next to him, nodded in agreement, brow furrowed.

"What's happening now?" Bubbles asked all of us in general, a wary expression on her face.

Him's voice came up again, joining in the conversation as if he had been standing right next to us. His voice surrounded where we were standing, but he himself was still maddeningly invisible to the eye. "The correct question isn't where they went," he paused, tone smug. "The better question would be what they've turned into."

Buttercup groaned, then responded, her voice escalating to a shout, "I'm getting real tired of this."

"Don't worry," the villain immediately replied with a mocking, echoing whisper. "It'll all be over soon."

One beat of deceitful silence.

Then, in one dizzying, eruption of movement, giant shadowy shapes came, clamping around each of us, ripping us from the sky and dragging us down through the ether as if they'd come to drag us down into hell.

They had come so soundlessly that by the time they had snatched us in their giant, iron grip, it was too late to escape. As I looked down at myself, however, and I saw the big shape of a thumb wrapped around me along with four more fingers, I realized what the shapes that had grabbed us were—hands. Giant hands, attached to long, endless arms, pitch black and dragging us down and down as all six of us shouted in astonishment, struggling to get free as we fell.

Then, one by one, each of us was chucked against the black concrete of the street below by the shadow hands. Slamming down and crushing into the cement, we left six individual craters.

Unlike the first time I'd fallen, this time I smacked down front first. My face scraped painfully against the concrete, the sharp edges of it making small little tears and cuts in the soft skin. The impact killed, and just like the first one, the brief shock of pain knocked me breathless.

My jaw dropping involuntarily in a silent scream, I took a breath and cried out sharply, pushing myself up and wiping my face with the back of my hand to get out the tiny pieces of grit that had embedded in my skin. I looked down at my hand afterwards to survey the damage, and not only saw the grit that had come out—but also saw tiny stripes of black. I froze, frowning.

Before I had a chance to even think about why that had looked wrong, there was a pair of normal-sized hands grabbing my arms and pulling me up. Without even thinking, I let them pull me off the smashed crumbs of concrete and into the air as we took off.

Seconds after we lifted into the air, one of the giant, solid black hands—balled into the shape of a fist—crushed into the ground exactly where I had been.

I looked at who had pulled me up. Buttercup. I sighed in relief. "Thanks," I said to her.

She smiled at me tersely through her warrior's mask, then as something caught her attention, her eyes widened and she grabbed my hand, shouting, "Come on!"

I only had a chance to briefly glance behind me as we sped away, and I saw approaching us two of the giant hands, palms open and fingers stretched and reaching to grab the both of us from the air again.

As we careened away, hands held, I took a double take at our surroundings. We weren't in the sightless haze anymore. Instead, the fog loomed just above us, and the abandoned cityscape was all we had to avoid the arms-and-hands monster that chased us.

I kept stealing glances back at the monster. Now that we were out of the fog, I had a better look at it—it was made of entirely arms. No head. No feet. Just six shadow hands connected to impossibly long arms that swung after us to grab and then flatten us like pancakes. All six of the arms were connected to each other in the middle, like an asterisk. So disturbing looking, yet weirdly entrancing. I could barely tear my gaze away from it.

Our teammates flew around us, dodging and weaving away from the hands as the giant appendages snatched through the air and smashed a path of destruction after them, crushing sides of abandoned buildings and knocking over traffic lights. Without normal city noises to dull it, the noises of destruction were deafening.

Buttercup and I weaved between buildings and dove under street lights, hoping to slow our pursuers down and lose them. We ducked behind a particularly solid concrete building for a break, touching down in a narrow, dark alleyway next to it, breathing hard.

I turned to face her, my hands on my knees. I knew that normally neither one of us should've been breathing this hard with our powers properly intact, but I did my best to shove my worries away—until I really looked at her. Seeing the strain on her face, and the sweat beading on her forehead, I asked, "Hey, are you okay?" I reached toward her.

She waved me away with a hand. She said between deep breaths, "I'm fine, don't worry." She wasn't just sweaty, she looked clammy.

My worry spiked. I stared at her. "You're sweating."

Her face pinching with annoyance now, she glared at me. "I'm fine."

A scream rang out. It was Bubbles. Impending argument immediately forgotten, our eyes wide, the both of us exploded into the air, speeding toward the direction her scream had come from.

Quickly, we found her on the block with the café we had been at earlier, being unrelentingly clutched in the fist of one of the giant hands, crying out in pain.

Careening towards the arm top speed, I kicked the limb with my outstretched leg. The next second, Buttercup came at it from the other direction, aiming another flying kick at it. There was a snapping sound. With a jerk, the hand opened, releasing Bubbles. I caught her in my hands as she limply fell from its' grasp.

"Bubbles!" I said, urgency in my tone. She was droopy in my arms.

She was wincing, trying lightly to push out of my grasp. "I'm okay." Despite what she'd said, she hissed in through her teeth as she straightened. She was hurt.

"Buttercup, she's hurt," I said over my shoulder without looking at our other sister. When I didn't hear a reply, I repeated, "Buttercup?"

Instead of her reply, there was the sound of a crash against the ground beneath us, along with the distinct noise of concrete breaking apart once again.

I wasn't sure if it was my instincts, or just the adrenaline from the battle, but immediately, I knew something was wrong. I swiveled around, looking to where Buttercup had been levitating just moments before. She wasn't there.

Bubbles grasped my arm tightly, her voice full of panic. "Blossom!" I looked at her, she was looking beneath us. I turned my eyes to the ground.

Buttercup was there, in a giant crater in the sidewalk below.

The two of us flew down to Buttercup's aid. She had crashed down into the sidewalk—she hadn't been thrown, either. She'd fallen. There were no other giant hands around, aside from the one we had kicked, which was now eerily still, suspended in the air. We landed on either side of her. She was sitting up—thankfully not passed out—looking down at the sidewalk she was sitting on in bewilderment, confusion and fear. Sweat drenched her forehead. My hands fluttered over her, shaking, unsure in this frenzied moment what I could even do.

The shot couldn't have been wearing off. Not already. Not so soon. Not when we still had a battle to fight.

"Butch!" I called out, panic making my voice shoot up a few octaves. "Boomer! Brick!"

Butch had flown over to us faster than I could blink, landing with both feet so hard on the street that a gust of air blew past us. He fell on his knees on the ground in front of her, staring at her with fierce uneasiness. "What happened?" He demanded, his face drained. I shook my head, unable to answer him. A lump had risen in my throat. Buttercup didn't say anything either, just stared at him miserably.

The shots were indeed wearing off, and quicker than we'd hoped. She couldn't fly once again. Which probably meant that within minutes, Bubbles and I wouldn't be able to either, and then the boys soon following.

Game over.

His brothers landed nearby seconds later. They walked over, both looking down at Buttercup with identical looks of wariness, already having figured it out.

I looked above us. The long, unnatural arm had disappeared. All of them had. They had gone as quietly as they had come.

Finally, in the silence, he returned. Him appeared just feet over us in the air, unfolding into existence right above us as if he had been there the whole time. The pink fog still formed to his body, cradling it and surrounding it.

He was levitating as he had been before, except in a sitting position this time—his legs were crossed at the knee as if he were relaxing in a comfortable chair, the stiletto heels of his boots pointed down toward us like knives. His claws were folded underneath his arms. Him took a long, even look at Buttercup on the ground, painted black lips pursed, not saying anything. We stared back at him, tense. Bubbles cradled Buttercup against her protectively as I kneeled between them and Him, arms spread.

Then he spoke, echoing voice calm and subdued. "It's like I said, children. You couldn't have expected to be limitless for long." Behind the laughter in his expression, there was a certain cruelty and contempt in his eyes as he stared down at us, and it felt more familiar than anything else. "Time is not on your side. And it looks like your time is up."

For a moment, quietness throbbed from all of us, for once none of us having a sharp retort or argument, because with Buttercup on the ground, flying powers faded once again, he'd hit a nerve.

I still couldn't shake the strangest, distinct feeling that something else about his words rang true. He must have seen us using the emergency shots, that was obvious at this point. So that was what he was talking about. He'd somehow known that our powers weren't working, and that the emergency shots were temporary. That was why what he was saying sounded true. That was the only reason why.

Wasn't it?

The pink fog curled around Him, folding him inside of it, and with one last smirk at all of us, unblinking black eyes locked on us until the very last second, the vapor swallowed him up, curled in on itself like water going down a drain, and then vanished completely.

As soon as he was gone, like a light switch being flipped, everything instantly changed.

I blinked. All of the fog was gone. The sun was shining in the cold winter sky. The damaged parts of buildings and streets and sidewalks were back to normal, all repaired. The bustling city returned, along with the city noises and city traffic on the streets. Skeletons in the window of the café turned back to very human faces of excitement, fear, amazement, along with even smartphones recording us.

Everything was back to normal. And with it, the tense and uneasy atmosphere had completely gone away.

As me and my teammates looked around us in bewilderment at the sudden, disorienting normalcy, there was a loaded pause as everybody came to the same realization at the same time.

Butch was the one to vocalize it. "He was fucking with us. The whole time, he was just playing with us." His voice shook with barely contained fury.

Brick continued his thought, clenching his eyes shut tightly in anger. "He didn't want an actual fight. It was just a game. And we fell for it so easily."

Frustrated, exhausted, and fed up, we all let these words sink in. Townsville hadn't been in any actual danger. All that effort, all that expended energy for nothing. Solely for Him's entertainment.

It was an experience me and my sisters had not had for years now, but nevertheless, it was all too familiar.

I sighed heavily, looked at my sisters, saw the familiar looks of resigned frustration on their faces, then turned back to the boys. "Well, boys. It looks like you have officially joined the ranks of Him's professional chess pieces."

They responded with rolling eyes, groans and dry laughs. They knew I was right. Bubbles shook her head at me, grinning, and even Buttercup cracked a smirk.

Even as mad as I was, I couldn't help but grin dryly as I finished, "Welcome."


-Brick's POV-

Before the past few months, I had so rarely gone down to Professor's laboratory. It had been completely off-limits to guests like me—well. Save for that one time that the girls had kidnapped Boomer, and Butch and I thought Bubbles was Boomer, but that experience had been so confusing and weird that I kind of blocked most of it from my memory.

But nowadays, it felt like just another place in the Utonium house that I had gotten used to. White, spotless linoleum floors, white walls, white ceiling, white everything, just like the living room upstairs. It also had a clean, calm silence to it, no doubt thanks to sound proofing.

That evening, I watched as Blossom finished telling Professor about what had happened at the end of the battle, with great detail as usual. I had come down here with her to help her explain to Professor what had happened, but she was doing most of the explaining anyhow. Professor took it all in, nodding solemnly with a look in his eyes that didn't look exactly encouraging.

"Thank you for coming here to tell me all of this." Professor said once she finished, rubbing his chin with his hand. "I had known that the shot would only last for a little while, but the manner that it faded is concerning. How are you feeling?"

Blossom shrugged. "I feel fine."

"No headache?" Professor asked her. She shook her head. He turned his gaze to me. "Brick?"

"I'm good too. Totally fine." I said.

He nodded, frowning, serious look still on his face. Then he sighed. "Well, keep me posted. If anything else happens, come to me immediately, and I mean immediately."

We both nodded, mirroring his seriousness.

After we left back up the laboratory steps and shut the door behind us, Blossom turned to me. "He seemed to be really worried about what I told him," she said, eyebrows furrowed, making a wrinkle form between them. "Don't you think?"

I sighed, admitting, "He did. But he's always worried these days, right?" I wrapped an arm around her and gave her a grin, hoping to lighten her mood. "Hey, lighten up. We just survived a giant cat and mouse game with Him, and we got to have our powers back for a while. That's reason to celebrate, right?"

She relented, lighting up a little and smiling. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Getting to fight felt pretty great."

I leaned down, catching her lips with mine briefly, then I leaned my lips against her ear, smiling. "Don't worry so much."

She chuckled, leaning against me and sighing. "That's like telling you to not wear so much red." I laughed, and she pulled away, looking up and smiling at me, stress melting off her features, the pink of her irises bright. "Wanna fix some late dinner here before we need to head back to our campuses?"

Liking the thought of getting to spend a little more time with her, I agreed.

Ten minutes later, we had started to make a meal in a big skillet on the stove top—well, okay, she was making most of it and telling me what to bring to her from the cabinets or refrigerator. It was our usual way whenever we cooked together. She enjoyed bossing me around, and I enjoyed watching her very carefully and skillfully chop and season and everything with a look of intense concentration on her face. It was kinda hot.

We were talking about something that had happened at her school earlier that week, joking and laughing, and everything was going fine. It was just the kind of thing I loved to do with her, and it had put my mind at ease, made me forget about the tumultuous events from earlier that day.

Things took a turn so quickly that I'd had no time to prepare myself.

She had just told me to go into the fridge to grab some vegetables from the bottom fresh drawer, and I was bent down, grabbing them and gathering them in one arm like a caveman. And as I was picking up a long carrot, there was a sudden, shattering crash against the kitchen linoleum like something had been dropped, and then a big thump.

I jumped slightly, making some tomatoes and bell peppers drop from my arm and back into the drawer. "Whoa there," I said, still bent over in the fridge, reaching down to pick the vegetables back up that I had dropped. "Everything okay?"

No answer.

"Bloss?" Frowning, I dropped all of the vegetables back into the drawer, standing back up and peeking around the fridge door.

And my heart seized and dropped down to my knees with a terror I'd never known at the sight of Blossom on the floor, unmoving.

"Jesus," I exclaimed, shoving past the open fridge door and rushing over to her. I fell down to my knees, reaching to her with my hands, gently shaking her. "Blossom?" She was unconscious. My voice rose. "Blossom!" I pushed her hair out of her face, which had been over her face like a blanket, and immediately froze. Her nose was bleeding—but instead of bleeding red, it was bleeding black.

The horrible sight stunned me silent for a moment. Then, heart beating violently and ferociously in my chest, I picked her limp form up into my arms and stood. I walked carefully over to the laboratory door once again and opened it, careful not to jostle her, and then I rushed down the steps, calling for Professor.


-Butch's POV-

"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked my girlfriend for about the hundredth time. I was sitting on her bed in her dorm room, reclining back against her pillows and watching her restlessly pace the room.

"Fine," she replied, her tone clipped.

I shook my head, brows raising. "You don't seem fine," I remarked.

She sighed at me again. "I'm fine. Just pissed off." She chomped down on her lip, then stopped her pacing abruptly, stomping her foot in rage. She was so cute. "Why'd I have to be the first one whose powers started fading again? I was kicking so much ass!"

I smiled wryly at her. "Professor said it would depend on how quickly we burned through the shots. You were going pretty hard out there, weren't you?"

Buttercup paused. Then, slowly, she shrugged. "I guess. Maybe," she muttered.

Laughing at the scowl she threw me, I shrugged too. "That's probably why then," I said. Then, sobering, I turned my head to the side as I looked at her. "Don't be upset. You kicked ass today." I paused, rolling my eyes. "Even if it was all just for a game."

She groaned, flopping down on Blossom's fluffy pink bed. "Don't even get me started on that."

I didn't want to go any further in that direction either, so I changed the subject. "Where's Blossom? She and Brick still at your house?"

She rolled over on her side, looking at me sideways. "Probably," she said.

A thought occurred to me. A slow smile spread on my face. "You don't think they're…" I trailed off, raising an eyebrow, letting her catch my drift with the mischievous tone of my voice.

Buttercup snorted. "Blossom? The perfect, model student pageant queen? No way in hell." She laughed outright. "Besides, even if they did, she would never try that at home, of all places."

"Bubbles and Boomer did."

This really caught her attention. She quickly sat up from her lying down position, eyes wide in disbelief. I had effectively distracted her from her bad mood. "What? When?"

I was smirking. "Christmas break." Boomer probably wouldn't have told me, since he had never been the type to kiss and tell. Too bad the dude talks in his sleep. Very articulately, too. Heard every sordid detail.

"Bubbles didn't tell me!" She was gaping in both amazement and shock. Then she stopped as she mulled it over for a few seconds, mouth shutting, then she nodded in approval. "Nice."

Interrupting, my cell went off. Leaning to the side to grab it out of my pocket, I looked at who it was. Brick. Smiling over at Buttercup, I stood up. "Let me go take this. Be right back." As I walked past her, I reached up with one hand, lightly squeezing her face between my fingers with affection, squishing her cheeks.

With a snort, batting my hand away with her knuckles, she nodded at me, her feet swinging against the floor. "Okay," she said. She still had an impressed look on her face from the information I'd given her.

Stepping out of the dorm room and shutting the door behind me, I answered my phone. "Yeah?" I said by way of greeting.

Brick's urgent voice came immediately. "Please tell me you're with Buttercup right now."

Taken aback at how he sounded, it took me a beat to respond. "Yeah, I am," I said, wary. "What's up, bro? Why do you ask?"

"You need to drive her to the Utonium house. Right now."

My throat tightened, the slight grin on my face fading away. Was something wrong? "Why?" I asked again. "Is something the matter?"

"Is Buttercup doing okay?" He sounded confused. "Wait, are you currently in the room with her?"

He was really starting to freak me out now. Frowning, I said, "No, I stepped out to talk to you. Is there something I should be worried ab—"

Brick interrupted me with a shout. "Go back in! Go back in the room!"

Now that I was shaken enough not to ask him yet another question, I immediately turned, reaching for the doorknob, turning it, and reentering the room. Buttercup wasn't on the bed anymore. I frowned. "Buttercup?" I walked into the room, rounded the end of Blossom's bed, and froze. My phone slipped from my hand and clattered against the wood floor.

Buttercup was on the ground. Unconscious. Her nose bleeding.

Bleeding Chemical X.


-Boomer's POV-

My heart squeezed with acute fear and pain all at once. As I walked toward the red front door, I looked down at Bubbles in my shaking arms. Passed out and unresponsive. Chemical X dripping from her nose like a nosebleed.

One second we'd been talking as I dropped her off at her sorority house, the next, she'd collapsed on the front lawn.

I'd rushed out of my car, scooping her up and bringing her back to the passenger seat before any passerby or her sorority sisters could see her crumpled on the ground. Almost immediately, my phone went off—I answered, asking Brick on the other end in a panicked voice what was going on. All he said, urgent, was to bring Bubbles to see Professor as soon as possible.

Hanging up the phone and gently securing my unconscious girlfriend with a seatbelt across her lap, I had shifted into drive and sped to the Utonium house.

Before I could even knock on the front door or ring the doorbell, the door swung open, Butch on the other side of it. He was pale, and clammy looking. He looked at me wordlessly, then glanced down at the unconscious Bubbles. His dark green eyes were wide and grim. He looked terrified.

I brushed past him, and he shut the front door behind me. The house was desolate with silence. Before I could say anything to him, ask him what was happening, Butch instructed in a hollow voice, "Go straight down to the laboratory."

Looking ahead, I saw the laboratory door propped open. I didn't pause to argue. I went. Butch stayed in the dark living room, sitting on the couch and then staring emptily at his feet.

I ventured down the laboratory steps. It was quiet as well down here, so quiet that I was afraid to speak. I reached the bottom of the stairs, and what I could hear now was a low, constant beeping that reminded me of hospitals. I wandered through the laboratory, past chalkboards and screens and equipment. There was no one to be seen. "Hello?" I finally said in a soft voice as I began walking down a dim hallway. It echoed against the sound proofed walls, along with the bottoms of my sneakers connecting with the hard, shiny tile floors.

Ahead of me, at the very end of the hallway, a door opened. Brick peeked his head out of it. He gestured me to walk over to him, and said in a low voice, "This way."

I obliged, walking toward him. The closer I got to him, the better I could see the dull fear and sadness in his eyes. Reaching him finally, he moved aside as I entered the doorway sideways, careful not to bump Bubbles. I had somehow forgotten that Professor had a miniature hospital ward in his lab—and as the realization hit me that that was where I was entering, I was beginning to get the feeling that I was about to leap off of a cliff, never to come back from what I was about to discover.

I turned, facing the room. And my stomach dropped.

Blossom and Buttercup both lay, on opposite sides of the room, on hospital beds. Both were passed out, and hooked up to heart monitors, as well as a few other machines checking their vital signs.

Professor sat between them, his head bent over a clipboard he was writing on. Then, sensing my presence, he looked up and turned to me grimly. He gestured behind me with his pen to the last hospital bed, positioned on the other end of the room. With a carefully composed tone, he told me, "Set Bubbles down there. I'll get her hooked up in a moment."

Obediently, I turned to make my way over to the bed. Before I walked away, though, Brick caught my gaze. For a wordless moment, we just looked at each other. My stomach churned.

Somehow, without anyone even telling me what exactly was going on, from the heavy dread in the atmosphere, I already knew. I knew that vitamins and shots wouldn't help us now.


Just a warning: from here on in the story, things start to get really dark and bleak. If you thought it was dark before...hoo, boy. Just wait. Another function of this chapter was to have a little more fun before the real trouble begins. Hope you enjoyed!

For those of you that might be interested, I wrote a post on my livejournal about what I think of the PPG reboot! Check it out!

Also, I've updated the playlist post with the songs that go with this chapter: Map of the Problematique by Muse, Now by Paramore, and Seven Devils by Florence + the Machine. For the songs that go with previous chapters, check out my LJ!

Don't forget to leave me any comments and reviews! Thanks guys. I appreciate every single one.

-MsButterFingers