JMJ
Chapter Nine
I Spy
"C'mon, girls!" Blossom said confidently holding up a bug-sized camera for each of the sisters to use. "All we have to do is catch her not wearing her casts and we got her…"
But Blossom's voice did not remain sharp. She was easing out quickly as her sisters agreed. The further back the view of them, the more digitally muddled they sounded until it was that the full perspective of their visages tilted suddenly and made them flat as paper. Screen-flat. And the image moved up and down in a hovering motion, because the screen was, in fact, hovering in midair from a drone outside the courthouse.
"My secret admirer is sure trying to impress me," sniffed Princess as he waited for the wheelchair loading platform to lower down enough for her to be wheeled into her limousine.
She held her head up aloof, but she liked this. She never had secret help before. She never had a secret admirer before. It was like having an elfin prince from another world on her side. Her mind was already wandering. She could not help but wonder if he truly was dark, handsome, and tall. Sure there would be the age gap, but if he was an elf, she would catch up!
She shook herself out of her fantasy.
There was still work to be done, after all, and as a wealthy child she had to be on the lookout for predators. Covered in casts, it was difficult to push the button that the screen read for her to continue to read some information, but she felt herself caution-up a little bit. She had to keep her wit with these sorts of agreements. It made her feel like she was just like her daddy.
"Dear Princess," the screen read, "I have a gift for you at the end of the alley at these coordinates. If you follow them you will have a device that will take the powers from the Powerpuff Girls. Then your revenge can be complete. Love, your secret admirer."
Oh, how she gushed! Even if part of her still resented it, Princess could not help it now! She was so overwhelmed she was bright pink with it, but it soon turned into the most vicious of red sneers.
She looked around.
Were they watching now?
#
"She knows about us having cameras…" breathed Bubbles from the perch on the roof as she darted behind a pipe.
Buttercup glared, daring a little closer look over the edge.
Whether Princess had drones in billions, she could not see with her own two eyes this far up along a skyscraper, and Buttercup liked any advantage she had over Princess right now. She had more than a pow and boom above Princess.
"She really has this planned out," Blossom said perturbed.
"But did you catch what it said on the screen?" demanded Buttercup impatiently.
"We're really not even supposed to be up here because of the trials," said Bubbles.
"Bubbles, c'mon," huffed Buttercup. "We technically haven't left the courthouse, so we haven't broken any rules."
"But if we leave the courthouse…" Bubbles started.
"I know," said Blossom. "If she knows we're onto her, we won't be able to see her easily mess up even when it looks like we're out of sight to her."
"Then we throw something at her and see if she leaps out of the way!" snapped Buttercup.
"Buttercup!" snapped Blossom back.
"Sorry, sorry!" huffed Buttercup the more. "It's just so frustrating."
"Remember what the Professor said," warned Blossom. "We have to keep our heads in this or we're never gunna beat her."
"But how big is her plan, anyway?" demanded Buttercup.
"Yeah, she seems to have thought of everything, Blossom!" whimpered Bubbles. "Maybe even the boys fighting in the alley and Mojo stealing the metal…"
"Well, maybe if we threw something harmless, but it still looked like something was swooping at her…" mused Blossom out loud.
"Yeah, Bubbles. Make your bird friends poop on her or something. That'll make her move."
"I don't use my powers like that!" sniffed Bubbles.
"Then what good are they?" demanded Buttercup.
"C'mon!" said Blossom. "We can't keep fighting like this. It seems like we've been fighting since we had our anniversary."
Buttercup laughed humorlessly. "What're we married?"
"I'm serious!" snapped Blossom.
"We've been fighting our whole lives, Blossom, what makes it any different now! That's all we know!"
Blossom bit her lip. Bubbles' eyes were puckered like she was going to scream.
Buttercup paused a few seconds for reflection.
Okay, maybe that wasn't exactly the best choice of words, she thought, but there was no time to take that back now.
Ever vigilant, Blossom had caught their enemy out of the corner of her eye. "She's leaving."
"Then we gotta stop her!" snapped Buttercup.
"But we're not allowed to go anywhere near her until the trials are over!" snapped Blossom back.
"I'm pretty sure a dangerous weapon from a secret admirer would be enough of an excuse, Blossom!"
"That's what the message said?" gasped Blossom.
"Then we have to!" wailed Bubbles with a shiver.
"It said something about a weapon! I didn't get the whole thing. That's why I asked you!" said Buttercup excitedly, thankful to forget the infighting as much as her sisters were.
It was far better to put negative energy against a person's enemies than against a person's allies. And Buttercup was pretty much all in 'enemy and ally mode' now.
"I didn't cuz I was distracted by you," Blossom flustered.
"Then c'mon! You believe me don't you?" snapped Buttercup.
Blossom leapt off the roof.
Buttercup huffed in agreement. Finally they were getting somewhere. Bubbles followed at the rear. They bounced from roof to roof as secretly as they could. Princess trundled slowly in the electric wheelchair down a street or two.
"This feels so weird following a person in a wheelchair like this," Bubbles whispered.
"She's not a person in a wheelchair," Buttercup reminded her simply. "She's pretending."
"But she looks like one," Bubbles said.
"That's why we can't mess this up," Blossom warned. "We all have our cameras on, right?"
"Yes," said her sisters.
"Double check."
They double-checked including Blossom.
"Okay, let's go!" said Buttercup flying forward like a bullet into the alleyway.
She could hear Blossom sighing behind her, but she was following. That was all that mattered to Buttercup. Buttercup knew Blossom didn't want her to dive in without thinking. She knew that was why Blossom made a good leader, and most of the time she was perfectly fine with that, but after that whole day with Princess in that courtroom, Buttercup's teeth were dripping with the drool of vindication. And there was the perpetrator Princess now, no longer seated in her chair and the weapon—
TZZZ—AAAP!
"Ah….!" Buttercup screamed.
Little slithery tentacles like whips sprang out like a dozen evil jack-in-the-boxes whisking like nightmares snapping out snake heads with venomous vampire-suction bites. They seared from every side a draining power.
The weapon? She should have known! If Princess had been planning this too well and with help and knew the Powerpuff Girls had been spying—? But the pain was too much to think through. All she knew was that she should have listened to Blossom. Again.
Her powers!
Chemical X!
She fell to the ground. It was relief from the tentacles, but it hurt more than usual to hit the blacktop. The X was nearly all zapped out of her, but she was not zapped out enough to not feel the fire within her fan and blaze at the sound of Princess' laugh.
"Princess!" snapped Blossom, but hers and Bubbles' screams were soon to follow as the mechanism did not need a second press of a button to continue its mission.
Even Princess gasped in surprise.
Bubbles and Blossom fell like flies on either side of Buttercup.
First to lift her head, Buttercup growled though weakly. She couldn't get up, but her eyes were fixed with death daggers upon the quite physically healthy (even if not psychologically healthy) figure of Princess standing on her wheelchair as if it was a podium. If only she'd laugh so hard the wheels would turn and she'd loose her balance, but there was no chance for that at the moment.
Princess was in control now, and she paused before gloating to read something on the fancy X-sucking weapon.
"Hmm! what's this?" she asked. "'Inject X'? Huh! I guess my secret admirer knows me too well!"
#
Ex frowned and turned sharply to the "Secret Admirer" on his computer screen at his office.
"Don't look at me, Sir!" sniffed the artiste from some unknown location. "I am not a scientist. I didn't label it."
"Then why was she sent—" Ex started. Then sighed. "Oh, whatever! It'll just add to the chaos."
He sighed and slumped back into his seat unaware that a certain simian was laughing at him as he watched Ex wipe his brow.
"That's what we want."
"Well, we almost don't need to have the Gangreen Gang then," said Dr. Soppe in his simpering way as he lifted a finger above his slouched head; he was also onscreen from the secret laboratory.
"No, it's too late," said Pr. Ex. "Continue everything as planned. Princess' power is irrelevant. Besides, I've done enough experiments of this sort to know that even if it hasn't sucked out every drop from them— they aren't at risk of death— it may be a little too much for her little majesty to handle the power of three X-induced beings into her single small body."
#
"Then your weapons are clearly inferior," said Mojo Jojo smugly as he watched from his bathtub.
Com's security screens were now in his bathroom supported by lines and poles from the floor. He could watch with leisure all over his house now all the proceedings of his plans. Oh, how he was enjoying himself from the comfort of his bubbles and warm water.
"If the mechanism for taking is incapable of doling out what the subject can support," the mastermind went on, "then it is inadequate; you will find it to be completely less than substandard compared to the work of a true genius. Once again, you have proven Mojo Jojo the superior genius, and you are the one playing with things that are beyond your comprehension."
He threw his arms behind his head and leaned back, eyes closed, completely composed as though he was steeped comfortably in a bowl of matcha invigorating every cell in his body, but he was only using mineral water. He was going full out with comfort.
He had to get used to being future ruler, after all.
"Ah… all is right with the world…"
#
"GIRLS!" cried the Professor watching from his own lab at home all that could be seen through the girls' spyware.
They were now flickering out. Whatever had happened had certainly damaged the cameras, and as for his daughters?
He should have stayed at the courthouse with them. Why hadn't he figured out a way right there!? Even the best of scientists had limits, but—
"NO!" he cried leaping from his chair.