JMJ

Chapter Twenty-Four

Level Head

Regardless of how tired everyone was, sleep did not last long. It was enough to take the edge off, but Blossom still felt pretty tired as she called the meeting at Jojo's table for breakfast. Everyone was up; there was no time to waste.

"Shelby Warden wants us to take XS," she began.

"Yeah, so?" asked Butch with a yawn so wide tears clouded the edges of his spaced eyes.

"So I think we should give her exactly what she wants," said Blossom.

"Sounds dangerous," Boomer admitted.

"Blossom, I'm all for taking risks," Buttercup said with a pout and a raised brow, "but you can't seriously be saying you want us to take XS and hope for a cure."

"'Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak,'" Blossom said.

Buttercup moaned.

"Sun Tzu," said Blossom.

"Yeah, I know. I did my fifth grade report on him," said Buttercup. "And we aren't strong right now, so surrendering would be stupid. If you ask me, then I say we prove to Townsville what a creep Shelby is instead. We could get Ace to help and get Shelby arrested and—"

"Getting Townsville involved will only put more lives risk," said Blossom. "We can't underestimate HIM."

"But we can't overestimate him either," said Buttercup. "He only has power if you let him, and if everyone knows to watch out for HIM then—"

"He'll still destroy the city even if not the minds and hearts of the people," said Blossom.

"Just let her say her plan," said Boomer.

Buttercup rolled her eyes. "Fine."

"Besides," said Blossom with care. "I think that getting Ace involved would be more dangerous to him than not. He still has Chemical X even if dormant, and I think that Shelby Warden, if she is what I think she is, will want him to have XS too if we bring him up. She supports him and his work not because she wants to help the city but because of her obsession, I'm sure of it."

"What if she gets Ace anyway?" asked Bubbles. "Of even the rest of the Gangreen Gang? Or Sedusa or…"

Her voice trailed off, and Blossom nodded. She had to admit to herself at least that she had not considered this scenario until it was brought up just now, but she shook her head.

"I think she wants us first," said Blossom. "Otherwise I think we'd know if suddenly Grubber had XS."

"But what do you mean what you think she is, Blossom?" asked Boomer. "Isn't she just a bad scientist?"

"Yes," said Blossom, "but I think she's more than that. If the facts we now know about her are true then Shelby Warden is still hurt by the Professor's rejection of her. She wants spiteful revenge against him even if she doesn't see it that way. So she's taking it against us."

"Does she really think that we're stupid enough to take XS after what we know about Brick, though?" asked Butch leaning over the table with a wide slouch. "I mean she's gotta be some kind of kook if she believes that."

"I'm thinking she believes that we'd be on her side for the Professor's sake if nothing else," said Blossom.

"But then doesn't she think we'd hate her forever even if we could never do anything bad to her?" cried Bubbles.

"I doubt that matters to her at this point in time," said Jojo sagely. "I used to engage in that sort of thought from time to time myself as Mojo Jojo, and it is not difficult to image that Shelby Warden would feel the same."

"She'll make us trade our freedom for the Professor's," nodded Blossom. "I'm sure of it."

She paused briefly to contemplate once more the words of Bling as she had taunted her. Bling had said that the Professor had made the family weak and that he was their "master". That either meant one of two things: that Shelby was the master of Bling and Bash and thus Bling believed in the ownership of people in a slave-like manner, or she believed that Shelby was the good mother and that the Professor was the slave-driver. Probably the latter.

She shook her head taking a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket—the one that Bling had dropped. "This is where we're supposed to meet."

Buttercup snatched up the paper and unfolded it.

"Where's this?" she demanded.

Jojo leaned over to look. "The secret laboratory of the late ex-Pr. Ex?"

"Why there?" asked Boomer.

"Warden resurrected the lab cuz it still is secret?" Butch suggested.

"And for the very fact that she probably used to work there herself!" Buttercup agreed.

"So we're all going to go there," Blossom said.

"But I don't think they'd be stupid enough to bring the Professor there, though," said Boomer.

"My guess is that Shelby's going to be at her house," said Blossom.

"How can you be sure?" asked Jojo suspiciously. "She could be anywhere."

"But if she's the mayor, she doesn't want to arouse suspicions of any kind, now does she?" smiled Blossom. "There's been nothing about her taking leave of any kind. She can't just disappear suddenly and not risk at least someone wondering where she is."

"But she could just have HIM or one of the sparkle babies just disguise themselves as her," shrugged Boomer.

"Why would she bother?" remarked Brick for the first time part of the conversation. "She's not the one with powers. They are. If anyone is at the house it would be her."

He wasn't sitting at the table or crouched over the counter but he was leaning against the doorframe to the main dome hall.

Butch threw his brother a funny sort of look.

"Blossom!" Bubbles suddenly said; she had been trying very hard to follow all this, and now tapping her chin she looked very thoughtful. "If Dad's at Shelby's house, why don't we go there instead?"

"Because we all have to go where Shelby wants us to go or we won't be able to get him back," said Blossom. "We have only one person with us that I don't think Shelby will notice."

"Wes?" asked Boomer.

"Yes," said Blossom.

"What's he gunna do?" snorted Brick.

Blossom smiled as she turned to Wes.

"If it's a good plan, I'm willing," said Wes.

"Thank you," said Blossom. "Now, this is the tricky part. We are going to pretend that we are strong enough to spring her trap, so that it looks like overconfidence, because our strength in this case is not physical. If we have any strength it's mental stability, which none of our enemies have at the moment. Their stability is hanging by a thread, I have no doubt. What we have to make look bad is our intelligence. We have to act stupid."

Brick laughed. "This should be good. Half of you are pretty stupid to begin with."

"Ah, c'mon, Brick," said Boomer. "Why don't you help us instead of putting us down?"

"He's already given up, Boomer, that's why," Butch muttered.

Brick rolled his eyes.

A comeback of her own pushed the back of Blossom's throat. It was so close to slipping out from between her teeth, but she bit her lip. She would not engage with him.

Just don't, just don't, she told herself.

"It's true to say that they may be going mad with revenge and power, but that does not mean that we should not take precaution in this," said Jojo. "They may not be fooled by our facade of being fooled, especially with HIM involved."

"I don't think HIM will tell Shelby even if he suspects," said Blossom.

"Why not?" asked Bubbles.

Blossom shrugged. "That was the part I was thinking long and hard about earlier. HIM is the same. I believe that. More bitter? Probably. A little crazier. Sure! But he's still HIM. I think that whatever his deeper motives in all this are, he's not going to interfere with us outwitting Shelby."

"That sounds like the riskiest part," muttered Boomer.

"No, I think Blossom's right about that," said Buttercup. "HIM's nuts."

"He's scary nuts," shivered Bubbles.

"But most importantly," Jojo said, "I know he does not like Shelby Warden. It was clear enough that he does not even find her all that amusing at this point if there was a point at which he ever did."

"He thinks she's boring?" asked Butch.

"Exceedingly boring," Jojo agreed.

"Then that's the one thing that we can count on," said Blossom. "So all we really have to worry about it Warden."

"She still might suspect something too," Boomer said.

"That's why it has to be quick," Blossom replied. "I'm still pretty confident that Shelby will be too excited that she'll seem to be succeeding to notice anything right away. If she expects us to show up at all to save the Professor, then she can't be too surprised when we all show up."

"What if HIM is spying on us, though?" asked Bubbles doubtfully.

"If he is, let him," said Blossom. "We can't be scared of HIM right now. He won't let this end with Shelby. He can't."

"But what's Wes gunna do?" asked Boomer.

"Save the Professor and get as much dirt on Warden as he can in the process," said Blossom.

"By himself?" Buttercup demanded.

"No," said Blossom. "With Jojo's cloaking technology he stole from the Professor."

"I did not steal it!" Jojo sputtered. "I— yes, we can use that. He might need some armor too, and some further spy tech."

"Are you okay with this idea, Wes?" asked Blossom.

"Yes," said Wes. "I mean… as well as I can be."

"But I thought you said it would do no good to get the rest of Townsville in on this," said Buttercup.

"I know," said Blossom, "but we're not giving the dirt to town hall. We're giving it to Princess Morbucks."

"Princess!" cried Buttercup.

Blossom smiled. "No one would suspect her involvement, but I know for a fact that she always wanted to play the hero. We're going to give that to her."

"But can we trust her?" Buttercup demanded.

"We can trust her to get the information out to the whole world, yes," said Blossom. "What do you think she wouldn't give to have the honor of saving the heroes of Townsville over the whole internet? Then we'll see what Shelby Warden can do once everyone who's even for justice a tiny bit is against her."

Her lips finally parted into a grin.

"Pfft, you're an evil genius more than Jojo," remarked Butch.

"So you'll have the most powerful independent in the city watching your back. How's that sound, Wes?" asked Bubbles.

"If you think she'll be… uh, emotionally stable enough to handle this," Wes said.

"Oh, she'll handle this," Blossom said. "Her past reputation haunts her, true, and no one said she was a saint even now, but she's not out for evil anymore. I know that. If anyone cared to notice, she has been more level-headed about who she does and does not support in this city. She's even been one of the supporters for Alex DiDio. A better one than Shelby Warden."

"But he said that Shelby Warden was his main supporter. Even the papers say so," said Buttercup.

"Ever read Great Expectations?" asked Blossom.

"Uh… no," said Buttercup.

"I don't think you read anything but graphic novels unless the school makes us," Bubbles pointed out.

Buttercup rolled her eyes.

"Come to think of it, though," Blossom said tapping her chin thoughtfully. "I don't know why, Princess didn't support Shelby Warden, but she even took the political loss without whining as much as some of the sore winners sick of Mayor Mayor. Maybe she knows something about Shelby already. Her father knows a lot about this city that other people don't…"

"I guess I didn't notice anything new about her," Bubbles admitted.

"Mitch did," Buttercup muttered looking thoughtful herself now.

"What?" chuckled Butch.

"Nothing!" snapped Buttercup. "Just Blossom's right. No one will suspect Princess helping us."

"Least of all Mayor Warden," said Blossom. "So, Wes! Your first order of business is to get out of here and call Princess."

"Why me?" demanded Wes.

"The rest of us might be noticed on a phone," said Blossom. "I'm not taking that risk no matter how slight it is."

"But what if she doesn't believe me?" Wes demanded.

"Are you kidding? She's probably been watching this whole thing since Brick and my fight," said Blossom with a laugh. "Before that! Even though she doesn't know you and even if she doesn't believe you right away, she'll at least hear you out."

"I'm glad to see your confidence is back to what I remembered," Jojo remarked.

"Are you sure Jojo shouldn't go with Wes?" asked Bubbles suddenly.

"He can't," said Blossom. "He has to come with us. They want Jojo as much as the rest of us."

"You mean they want Mojo," said Butch with a shrug.

Blossom sighed, and then closing her eyes with a dark overcast said, "She wants whatever she can get from us."

"To our success!" said Butch suddenly pouring drinks at the counter.

"Butch, is that wine?" demanded Blossom.

"No," said Butch spinning round with a grin.

"Let's just have our breakfast and go," said Boomer not wanting an argument to ensue.

Brick's grin was unnerving as it was.

Bubbles noticed him too, evidently. She looked at him with a knitted brow. "Are you… coming too, Brick?"

"You're going to need me. I'm the only one with XS," he remarked; his grin vanished. "I know that's part of what you're thinking Blossom. That if we get into serious sludge that I'll have to teleport us out."

Boomer exchanged glances with Bubbles; Blossom looked Brick straight in the face.

"Don't use it unless you have to," she insisted. "And I never said I wanted you to do that."

"Just worry about your 'Bat Kids'. I'll worry about me," Brick retorted.

"If we're the Bat Kids, though, wouldn't that make you Huntress?" Butch suddenly asked.

Brick glowered.

Blossom cleared her throat. "Okay, who needs to finish up breakfast?"

#

"No one's here," Boomer whispered to Butch as they stood near the open doorway just as smashed through as when Big Billy had destroyed it ten years ago.

"Looks like an empty map of Team Fortress," Butch whispered back.

Boomer raised a brow.

"Well, leader? We going in or what?" asked Brick crossing his arms.

Blossom marched in through the doorway without looking back. Calmly and confidently she crossed the grimy floor. Glass crunched under her flats, but she noticed that no scurrying rats, and no cobwebs.

Someone had done some cleaning.

Besides Brick would have probably said something if he had used his senses enough to say there was no one there at all. As she passed empty tubes and beakers along seamless counters, she felt she heard a machine running below them. A light very faintly led the way towards a vacant elevator shaft.

"We're here, Warden!" snapped Blossom. "Where the Professor!?"

No one answered.

"This silence is disturbingly ominous and all around suspicious," Jojo said.

Peeking out from behind Blossom, he looked up at her with a basset pout. When she didn't look back at him he scanned around at the wreckage. He stopped suddenly at a glint to his right. Bubbles copied him and gasped.

"It's just a piece of glass," said Buttercup.

"But I do not like it, nonetheless, that they are waiting for us to do something," said Jojo. "There is no greeting of any kind. It's highly irregular unless a trap has not yet been sprung."

"Yeah, well, not everyone is as friendly with their enemies as you," scoffed Brick absently as he stepped out in front of Blossom.

With a cock of her head Buttercup glared; then she ran out in front of them all to the center of the great underground dome. She leapt onto a platform with a sprightly anti-gravitational bounce and landed hard just to do so. The platform shook pseudo-seismically.

"Come and out and fight you cowards! HIM, Bling, and Bash! Come on!" Buttercup snarled holding up a fist.

"O-o-oh…!" shivered Bubbles as her sister's voice echoed.

But the wait now was not long in coming.

A burst of glitter erupted from the center of the platform. Gold and silver confetti synchronized through a swirling display like some magical computerized logo from Disney, and out the expected appeared.

Without the slightest warning Buttercup clenched her teeth and punched as hard as she could.

"Buttercup!" cried Blossom.

The collision with the silvery form of Bash flashed excruciating and electrifying. Screams filled the chamber that shook quite literally seismically this time, and when the light cleared Buttercup fell as limp as a doll onto the floor. The laughter from Bling and Bash was like the laughing of imps.