JMJ

Chapter Eighteen

The Center of the Storm

"Attention, citizens of Townsville!" the loudspeaker echoed far over the city and beyond its borders.

They had had to start the investigation somewhere. The Professor in his car looked up just as he parked along the curb where Princess had originally attacked.

The loudspeaker screeched, and everyone in the car held their ears before it was fixed a few seconds later.

"Excuse me," the voice then said smoothly and calmly again. "I am still getting used to my reach beyond my center, but that will be cleared up within an hour, I'm sure. Then there will be no mistakes."

"Who's that?" demanded Wes.

"It's not Mojo," said Blossom.

Why it should have mattered to her, Blossom was not sure, but the fact that this was an unknown enemy made it worse than it simply being Mojo Jojo. She shuddered despite herself; though she tried to make sure that the Professor did not see. After all, she had almost not been allowed to come. Only the idea of sticking together for safety had allowed it.

"I know many of you were expecting the local terrorist Mojo Jojo to be the one behind this scheme, but I tell you now that Townsville will no longer have to suffer his inane insanity. I have had taken possession of all that he previously possessed, and now I am the ruler of Townsville, and more if need be. You may call me 'Com'. I am the creation of Pr. Xylon Ex."

"Look at the screens!" said Wes.

The advertising screens all over the city were changing now to show actual footage of Ex's secret reign of terror. It was not a lot, but it was enough to convict him at any sane trial with a judge even half awake.

Blossom gasped.

Now instead of worrying about herself, Blossom's heart went out to the Professor. She knew how much the Professor had respected Ex. How many of his friends and colleagues of science had gone rogue?

The monsters too! She thought in alarm after watching the screen and hearing the droning voice a little more. Oh, poor Professor!

She leaned forward in her seat, but could not quite see the Professor's face as he leaned forward too to see the screens more clearly. He sighed harrowingly.

And the Gangreen Gang! Though Blossom. And Sedusa! What, the Amoeba Boys too?

Well, Com said nothing about the Amoeba Boys, but who knew at this point? Ex had been playing with the city the whole time like a crazy child in a sandbox. How much pain could have been avoided had he not!? Every bruise and every embarrassment and mental hurt that Ex had caused the Professor, the girls, and the citizens of Townsville—but she had to remember where this information was coming from!

True or not, this 'Com' was the danger at the moment. She felt even beneath the computer-like monotone, an evil sort of pleasure from exposing this man, and yet he was no better taking over Mojo's plan to take over the world!

"Come on," said the Professor staunchly. He threw open the door angrily.

"Professor? Are you alright?" asked Blossom.

"We have to find your sisters," the Professor answered stubbornly.

Wes and Blossom exchanged glances but followed.

"He cast me aside," Com was explaining meanwhile. "I then found refuge with Mojo Jojo, but Mojo Jojo, is a lost creature. I will now begin to take down resistance with my robot army. Once everyone is caught I will then proceed to give everyone the same opportunities as I have, to be a digital entity, and since I was the first, I will be the central force in the network."

A cold buzz went through Blossom then, and she spun around.

The buzzing that never one hundred percent left the city suddenly rose up louder and in far more formation as though for the strongest final chorus. The robots began to search. It was obvious. They were looking for any living thing that moved.

Even the driving instructor flashed through her mind as Blossom feared for not only her own family but all of Townsville. She saw what they intended to do as one snatched up the Talking Dog right there down the street.

"Hey!" cried the Dog, and he began to bark and to howl as the Rowdyruff bot took him into the direction of City Park.

Blossom's instincts overtook her as she leapt forward, but she stumbled miserably, unable to lift off the ground.

"Blossom!" the Professor cried and scooped her up.

"I'm fine!" sobbed Blossom. "But I can't do anything!" She shuddered with frustration. "I'm…I'm—"

"You'll have to trust me this time," said the Professor kindly, and with Blossom still in one arm, he opened up the trunk to display what looked like an impressive glider.

"You're not going to fly up there, are you Uncle Professor?" asked Wes.

"No," said the Professor setting Blossom down on the edge of the trunk.

And just as another bot took note in them, the Professor took out a remote.

In an instant, the glider came to life with a musical sound. It zipped into the air and out bloomed a force field. The bot rammed right into it and proceeded like a stubborn bee to bounce into it on and off. Then to give up.

"Why is it leaving?" asked Blossom.

"In addition to not being able to get through easily, it makes anything inside it unreadable, so our bio-signatures and the heat of the car and everything else are rendered completely invisible to a computer."

"A cloak and shield!" said Wes throwing his hand through his hair. "You really do think of everything, Uncle Professor."

"But what about the Dog?" asked Blossom. "We have to save him!"

Again the Professor looked a little stubborn. Blossom knew it was because they would be more useful looking for the others or trying to figure out how to infiltrate Mojo's confiscated lair. Obviously the bot did not intend to harm the Dog but to bring him to Com to wait for Com's final blow against Townsville.

"Please…" said Blossom despite it all.

The Professor sighed. "Alright."

He reared his remote, undid their shield briefly and sent the glider flying towards the bot with the dog. It was almost out of sight already, but he turned on the force field just before it ducked behind a building. The aim of the Professor was perfect with the scope on his remote. It emerged just between the bot and the dog to separate the two from each other. Just as Blossom feared that the dog would fall, she saw that the force field held the dog suspended in the air. The bot looked around confused as he tried to scan up the dog again. Then it gave up and floated away.

The Professor smiled, and he lowered the force field gently to the ground to let the dog run free and hide, shaken though the creature was.

Blossom beamed back. "Thanks, Professor! You're a real hero!"

"Aww," the Professor blushed.

Wes laughed.

#

Meanwhile, though they saw none of the footage, everyone at Princess' palace was frozen in time as the loudspeaker broadcasted the new tidings. Even Princess herself who had just been about to blast the girls out of the tree with her laser vision had to stop and listen. She turned in midflight to look towards the city.

"Huh?" She blinked groggily.

"Does that mean that guy has my brothers now?" asked Boomer.

"Shhhh!" hissed Buttercup and Bubbles, afraid that Boomer would draw Princess' attention back to them.

"What?" Boomer demanded.

But as they all turned to her again, Princess did not look like she was paying much attention to anyone anymore. She looked a little like she was going to throw up as she floated there in the sky as though hanging on a string.

"Princess?" asked Buttercup.

A swoon suddenly overcame her. She stopped glowing for a moment, and just like a fading lightning bug, she flickered. Then she fell.

"Princess!" cried Bubbles.

"What's with her?" Boomer demanded cocking his head curiously.

No one was listening to Com anymore as she hit the ground. The Chemical X caused her be mostly unhurt by the impact, though she was obviously hurt by many other things. She writhed miserably and moaned like she had a brain freeze from too much ice cream.

"Is she… okay?" asked Bubbles.

"Too much Chemical X," said Buttercup peering down a little further. "You remember when the Professor talked about that stuff."

"Yeah, but then what does that mean?" asked Boomer.

"That we should get to the Observatory," said Bubbles suddenly after a moment of thought. "Could you take us there, Boomer?"

Boomer rolled his eyes back uncomfortably. "Uh…"

"Really?" asked Buttercup.

"Yes," said Bubbles. "It's the only way to solve this, I think. I bet Blossom's already there!"

"Yeah, but the only one we have to rely on is—"

Both looked at Boomer already on the ground and poking Princess with a stick.

"Oh…. Daddy… he's bugging me…" Princess moaned and shook into herself blinking on and off like a faulty green light bulb.

"Boomer!" snapped Bubbles.

Guilty as a puppy drinking from a toilet, Boomer snapped his head up.

"Leave Princess alone!" Bubbles ordered. "Just because she's mean doesn't mean you should pick on her when she's not feeling well!"

Boomer pouted.

"Besides," Buttercup muttered leaning against the trunk of their tree, "I think we should get out of here before her parents or servants or whatever get here. I think I see them coming."

"Should we bring Princess with?" asked Bubbles.

"Nah, she won't go anywhere but into her house, I bet," said Buttercup. "I wouldn't be surprised if she actually for once."

"If she's not super hurting…" said Bubbles uneasily.

Despite it all, she could not help but feel sorry for her, but there was really nothing they could do for right now.

Oh, why did all these people have to hate them so much that they hurt themselves this way? First Princess, and by the sounds of it Mojo Jojo now too, but Bubbles shook off the melancholy as Boomer came back reluctantly with the basket.

"Your brothers should be there too," said Bubbles surprised at her own gentleness as she turned to Boomer.

Boomer was even more surprised. He was so surprised in fact that he looked guilty again; though not so much like a puppy this time. It was a little more serious than that, a little sadder than that, but it was brief.

"Well… I hope so," said Boomer with a shrug.

"And Boomer!" snapped Buttercup.

"What?" whined Boomer.

Buttercup must have somehow felt the same as Bubbles at the moment, because suddenly her features softened too.

"Thanks for helping us, okay?" she said.

Boomer laughed. "Except this is more for my brothers than you," he said simply.

Off they went. Buttercup grinned at Bubbles, and Bubbles looked wryly back.

#

Mojo was on his back on the kitchen floor now as he listened to the horrible speech.

Was the room slightly spinning, or was that his brain that was shifting the room like a sluggish merry-go-round?

His mouth was slightly ajar, his eyelid ticked, his fingers twitched, but his stare was completely empty and solidly locked up at the tiles on the ceiling. Every beat of his heart was the drumming of an execution. Whose? Only his own sanity was headed for the noose. His breaths were haggard and listless. He did not want to bother breathing, but he did not want to bother fighting it.

His stomach churned like someone was stirring it, his mind whirled as though inside the wave of a surfer's dream but it instead took Mojo swirling into benthic depths. Then his foot did a little unexpected jolt that somehow brought him to the surface again.

Could not one die from humiliation?

His whole criminal career had been waiting for this moment only to end up duped by the one thing he had been using for a wild card. Well, it had been a wild card alright, and one he had miscalculated. One that doomed him. It made everything he had ever worked for, everything he had ever dreamed, everything… nullified. He was a failure. A failure. A failure. A failure. He was spiraling into a psychological abyss of no return. The symbols were clanging, the eternal march of their parade continued on and on into an endless black hole.

He licked his dry lips suddenly, and blinked and shivered.

He even began mumbling out loud unable any longer to contain it all within his melting mind, "I have wasted my whole life. I have not got anywhere but to the point at which I began. I have been outsmarted just as I had in the beginning. The monkey army. The army of Com. There is no difference. There was never a difference with any of my plans. All of them have failed. A whole year of failure. There is nothing left. I circled round my circular reasoning only to end up at the same place where I started. Only the same place where I set out. Only now it is a bigger failure because it has been repeated. The best of all my plans were still the worst. Again, and again, and again, and again, and…"

"Mojo."

"Hmm?" Mojo asked mildly without looking towards the source.

There was no need. He only blinked and continued staring at the ceiling tiles.

"I know you could monologue like this all day and all, but would you mind before you die in your own drool, letting us know if there's a way out of this place now that Com's not around?"

Mojo closed his eyes. He was not even irritated really. In fact, he knew they were right. Despair was not the answer. All the great thinkers knew that the world was always a dark disparaging place, but that did not mean that that was where all thought ended. There was still a chance he could stop this, and it was the only form of vengeance he had left at this point.

It was just very difficult to motivate himself. Would it not be better to just let the world sink into its own decay under the mechanical rule of Com?

He sighed. Then opening his eyes slowly, he saw not only Ace's head hovering over him with lank hair like a mane all around his head, but the rest of the Gangreen Gang hovered there too like a picture of a horror operation about to take place by a gang of zombies.

"Oh…" Mojo moaned clutching his chest as though to protect it from that possibility but with so much lackluster it was still an action of a creature who had come to accept his fate; he moved his arms after a moment into more of a crossing of them. "Why don't you just break a window? You can't be that stupid. Besides, it's probably safer in here than it will soon be out there. Isn't that why you wanted to be here in the first place? You wanted safety for yourselves? Or weren't you thinking at all? I've come to the conclusion that adolescents must entirely lose this faculty during this life stage."

The gang lifted themselves up, though not quite upright as they always slouched besides Ace.

"Okay, you heard the genius, the window," said Ace. "You comin', Mojo?"

"Oh...!" Mojo sighed heavily. "Maybe in a minute."

However, as the Gang threw the kitchen table at the nearest glass barrier against their freedom, it was just when Com was finishing his speech. The roar of the bots met them, and they were everywhere on alert.

"Uh, ohsss!" hissed Snake shrinking back a little. "We're trapped."

"Yeah, you think?" Ace muttered.

Mojo pried himself up, motioned the gang away from the window so as not to be taken seriously by the whipping bots. Mojo had heard Com well enough and his intentions.

"Come," he grumbled, and as he had anticipated, the bots did not care once they were out of sight since they were in the observatory and thus did not count as a citizen. "There's a fire escape route from here to the bottom of the volcano and under the moat to emerge out beneath a deep row of park hedges where we won't be noticed right away."

Now that he was walking about, his mind was working again a little more orderly even if a little shaken. The gears did not require emotional acceptance to work entirely. He knew what he had to do. He was not fully ashamed of it, even if he resented it. He needed the Powerpuff Girls, but more than that he needed the Professor.