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Chapter 3
The Yeti
Stupid wind, stupid storm, stupid snow! What's wrong with this weather? It's been… I don't even remember how long. Five hours? Six? It should be gone at this point! Why would-
Buttercup's thoughts were halted by the nth achooo from her blonde sister. The green eyed girl whirled around for a moment to check on her, and she saw Blossom handing over a handkerchief to their sister. She wouldn't have said it aloud, but Buttercup was beginning to feel concerned about her, and given the worried stare from Blossom, she guessed she wasn't the only one with some thoughts about Bubbles' ever worsening cold. To make things worse, this problem could become a big hinder in case they needed to sneak into Fuzzy's cabin.
Talking about the lumpkin, he wasn't paying attention to the three superheroes following him. He was fully focused on his instincts to return to his house and take it back as soon as possible, walking carefully through the snow-covered bushes.
The weather was in fact the main reason why Blossom had wanted him to join them. The same hurdles that had troubled the girls when they had gone to the Art Museum had prevented them from reaching Fuzzy's property right away, flying over the forest, and they needed some type of guide to lead them in the darkened undergrowth.
At the moment, they were walking among the trees, which provided some cover from the raging storm above. It was beginning to get dark: while it was still early in the afternoon, the branches weren't letting much light inside the forest, and the blizzard didn't help either.
Without advising the girls, Fuzzy abruptly stopped to move. He smelled the air, something that made the girls look at him quizzically. The lumpkin seemed to ignore them as he finally spoke: "We're getting into my territory. My territory…"
He resumed walking, slower than before. The girls followed him while hovering in order to make less noise. They proceeded this way for some minutes, until in front of them they began to see an area with more light. It was the barren zone that marked the position of Fuzzy's wooden house.
"There it is," said Blossom. "Bubbles, Buttercup, try to be as quiet as you can. If our thief is in there, we'll have to catch him by surprise."
Fuzzy spent some seconds to realize that the redhead had not mentioned his name. "Hey!" he protested, "Whadda-about me? You ain't leaving me here, are ya?"
"Actually, yes. We can manage it by ourselves, Fuzzy," Bubbles explained.
"…and, to be honest, what about your ability to actually stay silent? I think you'll end up alerting our man before we can even get him, Fuzzy. It's better for all of us if you stay here," Blossom finished.
"But… But…" Fuzzy couldn't protest anymore as Buttercup silenced him with a glare. "Don't you say another word! As far as we know know, this could be some kind of trap you set up! So just shut up and consider yourself lucky for having us do your dirty work!"
With that, the girls whirled their heads around and focused on their new target, leaving poor Fuzzy alone on the edge of the clearing. Even so, the hillbilly continued to talk. "B-But… but I don't think that's a good idea…"
His words were lost in the winds.
As the girls left the underbrush, they were hit full force by the power of the snowstorm. Buttercup couldn't help letting out a small curse, which her sisters didn't hear despite their super-hearing thanks to all the noise around them. They hovered down and landed on a fifteen-centimetres-thick layer of snow.
They were making their way through the snow when Bubbles couldn't hold it longer and she let out a small achooo.
Blossom and Buttercup immediately took a defensive position, but nothing jumped out of the partial darkness to attack them. When they were confident there was no enemy around, Bubbles was already at their side with apologetic eyes.
"I'm sorry, I tried to hold it…" she said quietly. Blossom hushed Buttercup with a gesture before she could comment angrily, then she turned towards the blonde. "All right, just make sure to not sneeze anymore until when find the thief," she whispered back.
Bubbles nodded, and they continued to walk towards the cabin. Twenty seconds later, they reached the wooden platform that separated the front of the house from the grass, at least when they weren't covered both by a large amount of snow.
Blossom took the lead and carefully hovered up, trying to keep a steady position in the air, and she slowly tried to open the front door. It was already open.
As Blossom pushed it open, the three of them leaned their heads in to scan the inside. Apparently, there was no one waiting for them. They quietly entered the living room, leaving the wooden door open behind them.
The chamber looked as usual as it had always been. Armchair, fireplace, rug, all the objects were in their proper place. The windows were all closed, which wasn't strange, thinking of the weather outside. In fact, it should have been almost pitch black inside, if it wasn't for the hole in the wall, just over the front door. That was strange.
And the other, sizable hole on the side wall was even stranger.
But not enough strange of Buttercup, apparently, who let out a sigh of frustration, definitively abandoning the stealth part of the plan. "There is no one here! Fuzzy has to have lied to us!" she complained.
"Buttercup, quiet!" Blossom whispered back. "Someone did some damage to the cabin… that is suspicious. Think about it, Fuzzy is too attached to his own property to even think of breaking something in it. You know it!"
Buttercup glared at her pink-eyed sister. "I don't care about what the dork does with his 'property'! C'mon, we have a thief to catch, and he isn't here!"
"Thief?" said an unknown voice.
Suddenly, the main door was abruptly slammed shut. Probably because of a gust of wind... or probably not.
Immediately, sensing the danger nearby, the girls took a triangle-like formation in the centre of the living room. After some seconds, the voice resumed to speak.
"Really? How can the famous Powerpuff Girls call me a mere thief? You have to not know about me, because if that wasn't the case, I would definitely take it as an insult... and I'll tell you, that wouldn't be pretty."
Unfortunately for the girls, the voice echoed through the entire cabin, and for their ears it was like it came from all directions. Suddenly, a taste of creepiness fell on every part of the shadowy room. There was something in that voice that the girls didn't like at all. Something scary.
Obviously, Buttercup wouldn't admit it, and she found the whole thing annoying as well. "Where are you? Face me if you have the courage!" she shouted.
"And where would be the fun in that? Things would end pretty fast in that case, and that would ruin everything… wouldn't it?" the voice replied.
Another strong gust of wind slammed some of the windows open, and for a moment the entire house creaked loudly.
Bubbles was beginning to feel uneasy with the situation, but she had to block her mouth with her hands as she saw something move behind one of the newly opened windows. Nothing more than a shadow, possibly something she had imagined… or maybe not.
"Blossom…" she whispered, "there is something out there. It's creeping me out."
Blossom could feel Bubbles' own worry, so she reassured her. "Keep it together, Bubbles. We've already dealt with monsters bigger than this guy. Didn't we?"
"Yes, we did," she answered, "but those did not hide themselves from us…"
With the lack of action, Buttercup annoyance soon turned into boredom. "I'm sick of your game! Face me, wherever you are!"
Before Blossom could scold her sister, the voice forestalled her. "Aren't you the most stubborn little thing I've ever know? Very well… as you wish."
In that moment, the leader girl realized that the newly made holes weren't the only unusual thing in the building. Shouldn't there have been some type of metal or wooden frame inside, holding the entire thing and the roof together? Blossom remembered from their last visit to Fuzzy that new metal parts had been added to the inside of the cabin.
Back then she had thought Fuzzy had upgraded the internal frame to make the maintenance of the wooden structure itself not as much needed. Now, there were some metal beams on the ceiling over them, alright, but there were none on the sidewalls. It only meant that-
Blossom thoughts were cut off by a soft 'toc' on the door. Then, the entire house collapsed over them, wood, metal, snow over the roof and all.
After some seconds, three heads appeared among the debris. A moment later, they were standing and ready to fight. The snowstorm proved to be source for more trouble, though: the fog hid whoever, or whatever, had just caused the destruction of the cabin.
The voice spoke again, more menacing than before, and still echoing in the wind. "Very, very well. It appears that the job is not going to be that easy. Good... Let the hunt begin."
"Hunt? What are you talking about?!" asked Blossom, puzzled. But the voice did not answer her. And that made her become a little more nervous.
Buttercup was the only one which wasn't affected by the atmosphere at this point. To be more precise, she found all the 'not-revealing-me' and 'trying-to-scare-you' stuff more annoying rather than frightening.
"Wait until I find you, and I'll show you the 'hunt'!" she threatened towards the fog around them.
Buttercup was only able to see something white move behind the fog for less than a second. She couldn't expect that, afterwards, a huge snowball, four times bigger than her, would appear out of nowhere. The impact was immediate, and Buttercup literally disappeared into the mass of snow.
"Buttercup!" called both Blossom and Bubbles at the same time. At once, they heard quick steps around them, like something big moving quickly. But they couldn't see him.
"Bubbles!" ordered Blossom, thinking quickly. "Use your heat vision and aim at the noise!" Together, the two remaining Powerpuff Girls began firing their eyebeams, trying to hit whoever was running in the fog. But after only two seconds, the steps stopped.
Blossom felt a single tear of sweat streaming down her forehead, despite the low temperature. Where did those steps stop? There's too much noise with this snowstorm, I can't pinpoint where the noises come from!
"Bubbles!" she shouted, turning to her sister, "Stay calm, we're going to help Buttercup out now and… Bubbles?"
Blossom blinked as she watched her sister face. Was that a... terrified gaze?
The blue puff spent two seconds to recover the use of her mouth. When that happened, she shouted at the top of her lungs: "Blossom! WATCH OUT!"
But it was too late. The shadow form that was towering over the redhead did not wait more: a big hand caught Blossom like a man would grab a little mouse. The hand was so big that Blossom's face was completely covered. The redhead tried to free herself, as the twirling legs were telling, but the hand did not let her go.
Bubbles was open-mouthed, petrified with fear at the sight in front of her. However, when the realization that her sister was in danger hit her, something snapped in her head, and all the fear disappeared.
"Leave her alone!" she shouted furiously. Closing her eyes, she darted towards the creature fist-first. But when she reopened them, there was no creature or Blossom. Both had disappeared.
Bubbles scanned her surroundings, trying to find any sign of the creature or her sister. "Blossom! Blossom, where are you?" she called, struggling to hover over the remains of the cabin. When she received no answer, she got angrier: "You... You... What did you do to my sister? Where is she? Where are you?!"
In that exact moment, Buttercup freed herself from the mass of snow. She tried to ignore the ache in her head and right away looked for her sisters. All she could see was fog, snowflakes falling down, and debris, but she could hear through the noise of the storm Bubbles' calls.
"Bubbles! I'm coming, hang on!" she shouted as she flew towards what she believed was her position.
The blue puff heard her other sister shout, but she had not the chance to answer. A fist hit her back at high speed, throwing her towards the ground face-first. She couldn't even scream as her mouth was filled with snow and splinters. She immediately emptied her mouth and dashed away, barely in time to avoid an enormous foot that crushed her previous position.
Bubbles turned to face the enemy, ignoring the cap she had just lost. She charged at the creature and tried to punch him on the side. Surprising enough, she managed to score a direct hit.
But the creature didn't seem to suffer minimally from the hit. Before the blue puff could prepare another attack, she was caught in his grasp like her sister. This time, Bubbles' head wasn't covered by the hand. She was raised until she found herself face-to-face with the yeti.
"You are fast, young girl," he said, calmly. It was like he was entertained. "Alas, not enough fast to escape me I'm afraid."
Bubbles tried to free herself, but the strength of the creature was superior compared to hers, like the strength of any one of the monsters that had been attacking Townsville since her birth. Except that the monsters were as tall as the skyscrapers most of the time, while this one was much smaller, even if still huge compared to the girls.
The yeti raised his other hand, probably with the purpose to cover her head like he did with Blossom. Bubbles would have screamed if it wasn't for the fact that the monster groaned in pain before she could shriek. She felt his grasp loosen itself, and she right away took the opportunity and escaped, away from the monster's range. Yet, the monster was too busy with receiving a flood of punches on the face from Buttercup to care.
"Leave my sister alone!" she shouted as she let a final kick fall on the creature's nose, and the yeti moved back with a grimace. Buttercup followed him with the purpose to stick to his face, which she believed was one of his weak points, but in this case it was the face which went to her. In an unexpected move, the creature head-butted the green puff, stunning her.
While Buttercup, having lost her equilibrium, fell on the ground, Bubbles felt the hazard her sister was in, and she fired her eyebeams at the yeti from his back in an attempt to stop him. The creature dodged her attack, but he did not try to smash Buttercup in her defenceless state. He disappeared in the fog another time.
Bubbles made her way through the blizzard until she caught sight of Buttercup, which was sputtering something.
"Buttercup! Are you all right?" she asked with a worried look.
"Yeah, yeah..." the green-eyed girl answered as she spitted another time. "Bleah, stupid snow…"
She touched her head, trying to soothe the headache that had returned, bigger and badder than before.
The yeti spoke, once again using his deep tone to not reveal his position. "The hunt is quite more interesting than I expected." Buttercup and Bubbles stood back-to-back, glancing here and there in order to watch for any type of attack the beast could send them.
"You appear to be lucky or strong, Powerpuff Girls. Or both… in any case, I'm sure you'll be thrilled to know that you're going to experience the true range of my powers."
"I don't care!" replied Bubbles angrily. "Where's Blossom? What have you done to-"
"Blossom?" Buttercup realized that the red haired girl wasn't with them. "Bubbles, what happened?"
Buttercup's question was left unanswered as the ground below them began to tremble. The two of them spotted something coming towards them fast in the fog. Only some meters away they realized what it was.
A trail of ice shards as sharp as knives was sprouting from the ground, crushing and cutting everything it hit.
Bubbles and Buttercup flew away in opposite directions, avoiding the incoming attack by a hair.
Bubbles could hear Buttercup shouting in the blizzard, "What kind of a beast could even do that!?"
"I don't know Buttercup, but we have to stop him and find Blossom!" shouted back Bubbles. She waited for some seconds, but her sister did not speak back.
"Buttercup? Buttercup?" she called, already feeling fear rising inside her. She flew towards the direction she had last heard Buttercup's voice coming from, fighting the heavy wind and the flakes of snow that hit her eyes and wet her hair. But she didn't find anyone.
"Buttercup! Where are you? Say something!" she shouted again, a hint of fright in her voice. Again, no one replied, and the blue puff began processing the fact that she was left alone against the creature. The anger inside her slowly faded away.
After a long, suffering minute, finally someone talked to her. Although it was the yeti.
"Poor, little girl. You really look scared, very scared. A world famous superhero like you… scared? Your sister had a point after all, don't you think? You fought enemies bigger and more dangerous than me… At least, that's what I thought until now. I have already captured two of you, and now the last one is scared. What a pity."
The yeti's voice echoed around Bubbles, making her shudder up to every bone in her body. His voice was deep, but most of all, it wasn't evil... it was calm, like of someone only doing his job. And that made it even creepier.
"What… What did you do to my sisters? Where… Where is Blossom? Where's Buttercup?" she managed to say as she turned repeatedly her head. She wanted to help them, but with that weather the yeti was nearly invisible.
"Oh, you don't have to worry about them, young girl…" said the yeti. In that moment, another achooo came out of Bubbles' mouth, despite her attempts to hold it. The yeti waited for some seconds before continuing: "You're going to meet them soon enough."
And that last sentence was said right behind Bubbles'. The blue puff whirled to face the threat, but instead of reacting, she was paralyzed in mid-air.
The yeti was now correctly visible to her in all his might. He owned a weapon: a metal beam stole by what used to be the wooden house.
"Not reacting is a mistake, little girl," he said firmly. Then, he swung the beam, hitting her head with a metallic noise.
Bubbles felt the world becoming dark around herself, and eventually she passed out and fell on the ground.
The yeti stared at her a few seconds, then he threw the beam away and grabbed the Powerpuff Girl with one of his huge hands. He then looked at the sky for a moment. "Just in time," he commented. "This was a complete success."
He turned and walked away from the scene, disappearing in the fog with the little girl he was carrying.