Chapter 7: Smoke and Mirrors

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

3 FEB 1989 (Friday). 1904.

Blossom found the image in the standing mirror unreal. It was simply amazing what a few bits of extra cloth, stones, and some powders and liquid could do to a girl. She was standing in a sparkling, dark pink sequin dress, complete with a black choker, sash and wrist ribbon to contrast the sparkly pink. She had rings on her fingers, inlaid with rose quartz and onyx. She was paler than normal, the result of the make-up Selicia had helped apply, and it'd helped bring out the red-themed lipsticks, eyeliners, and eyeshadow. All that was left was the hair, and even without a do-over of her hair, she didn't look like some 3-month-old lab-grown bioweapon of a killing machine routinely sent to tango with the dregs of the dregs. Instead, she looked like someone as rich as Princess, and she believed that that was her Mom's intention.

She had been waiting on Bubbles, who was absentmindedly brushing her hair, still no doubt fighting off her newly-acquired demons from the steel factory. Her pigtails seemed a little lob-sided, there were some strands of golden hair sticking out, and her tears were ruining her make-up. It hurt Blossom to see her like this when they were so close to Princess' masquerade ball, something they had been looking forward to all week. Well, she and Bubbles anyway.

Coming up to Bubbles, Blossom took a silk handkerchief and wiped her tears away. Taking the brush away from her, she put it down and began undoing her pigtails, just so that she could give her hair the attention of someone less emotionally affected, and highly skillful.

"It's over, Bubbles. Those men and women were taken away," Blossom tried to calm her sister down. "You don't have to be afraid anymore."

"You don't understand. It's never over," Bubbles tried to make her understand, but what she was truly saying was lost on her. How could it never be over when it obviously was? Blossom could never understand, not with three months of life experience. Sure, she'd had her episode when Bubbles was nearly killed, but she'd mostly gotten over that when they'd chased all the monsters away back in Morbucks Industries Research Labs.

They were silent for a while, as Blossom did one pigtail then the next, making sure that her hair was symmetrical, falling beautifully like fountains on either side of Bubbles' head. Bubbles was wearing a similar dress, except with dark blue sequins. Instead of a choker, she had a necklace full of sapphires instead, though her sash and wrist ribbon were the same. Her ruined make-up had been blue-themed instead. The blue lipstick was especially unique.

"I wish I'm a normal little girl," Bubbles lamented as she looked at herself at the mirror, just imagining how she'd look like as a regular little girl. How her eyes would look like when they did not glow.

"I don't know…" Blossom said. "Normal little girls don't get to fight crime and save innocent people."

"But I don't want to fight crime," Bubbles said, trying not to cry anew. "I'm not good at it anyway. Buttercup's right. I'm a loser." Recalling what Buttercup had said to her in the steel factory and how she treated her had made not crying challenging. It was a challenge she was losing. Blossom had to wipe away the tears a few times more to prevent Bubbles' makeup from being further eroded.

"Buttercup will cool off – you know how she's like – don't listen to her angry talk, Bubbles. You were good," Blossom tried to praise Bubbles, but she had to believe very hard in her own lie. On one hand, Bubbles did take down three of the drug smugglers in the factory and she had the sonic scream to boot, which was perfect for the opening they had devised. But then again, she had cowered in a corner when Buttercup needed help - even when all it took was a few punches to knock out the remaining armed thugs.

"I was really scared…" Bubbles confessed again. When she saw that her pigtails were done, she turned to Blossom. "How are you not scared?"

That was when the door opened, and Selicia Goodwin, their Mom, stood at the doorway. She was wearing a seductive black dress with a split skirt, necklaces with some green stones in them, and lots of other jewelry and accessories with a green-black theme. Like them, she had worn make-up to make herself seem paler to contrast her everything else. Her jade eyes, like that of Buttercup minus the glow, was emphasized that way. Ever since settling down as the Girls' 'mother' and Thomas' 'wife', she had been growing her hair, and with some careful nurturing, had managed to lengthen them by two inches. Now, they were touching her shoulders.

"You Girls done yet?" she asked as she leaned against the door frame. Bubbles turned to her, and Selicia frowned when she saw what she had done to her makeup by crying. "Bubbles! I worked hard on that, you-!" She sighed, exasperated by how weak Bubbles was - after all, she had faced worse and gotten severely wounded without shedding so much as a teardrop - without so much as an ounce of Chemical X in her.

Bubbles' eyes returned to the floor in shame. It was the first time in weeks since Mommy had scolded her like that. Selicia, perhaps wanting to keep the peace as well, stopped herself before she blew up, no matter how hard it was. Years upon years of pent-up rage, discontentment and injustice were hard to put a lid on, but she knew she had to try… at least for Thomas.

"Argh! Go to mommy's dressing table and I'll do it again, alright, honey?" Selicia ordered Bubbles, her voice still shaking a little from repressed anger. It wasn't just the past, nor Bubbles, that she was angry and upset with. "Now, Bubbles. Just wait for me there, okay? I need to have a little girl-to-girl chat with Blossom."

The City of Townsville. Downtown South. Hagues Apartment. Mullens Residence.

3 FEB 1989 (Friday). 1908.

It had been a long day, but to Garrett Mullens, it was about to get longer. To him, there was no start or end to a day. His life had just been one long day, ever since the night that marked the start of Townsville's descent into Crimesville when criminals would blatantly step in front of a police car and unload a submachinegun on it. His partner and best friend twenty years ago had died in that shooting. He'd been limping on ever since - even though his leg wound had healed completely.

He'd been hard at work behind his desk, pulling red strings from one pin to another, drawing a web of fate like a spider's, a web that was meant to trap the Amoeba Boys. He would have felt like celebrating had he been 21 years younger. He'd finally added a new polaroid to his evidence board after more than two weeks of cold trails, smoke screens, and mirrors. It was truly surprising how a huge criminal network like the Lombardi's could just disappear when they need to - it was proof that they were still rats under all that glitter of success, under all those fine suits, cigars and champagne.

The shootout at Steele's Stellar Steel had been a lucky break. Although he hadn't had the time to grill all of the suspects at the crime scene in detail yet, the cargo they were trying to ship and their names were all that was needed for him to pin it on the Lombardi and their trio of bulletproof dons. That, coupled with the pendant the USDO infiltrator had gotten, had ensured that his case, too, was bulletproof.

They had been shipping more of the strange street drug, His Secret. He still thought that the name was an odd choice. Normally, street names for street drugs were chosen for simplicity and ease of communication, to be whispered softly between dealer and user. More than a month ago, back when he was still one of those who thought that Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were more hindrance than help, more a joke than the jagged edge of the USDO, he had sent His Secret to the lab for testing. For two weeks, they'd tried to identify every component, and for two weeks, they'd failed. It'd been making the rounds from expert to expert since, but none of them could make heads or tails of the main bulk of the stuff beyond the solvent.

Shouldn't chemistry be straightforward to those guys?

Some of the suspects had links to the Lombardi. Enough to pin it on them. One of them had cracked under the promise of a dose of His Secret, that the Lombardi was working with the various weird cults of Townsville. The Cult of His Promise had a big part to play in this. The Cult of His Arm formed the muscle under the Lombardi skin this time.

That one confession had widened the playing field, brought in more players. And opportunities. And he had the cards to go all in on it. Ever since helping to detect the terrorist attack that would begin in the Morbucks labs and sending the Girls their way, the big shots (beyond his negligent police chief) had taken notice of him and what he was doing. He had been promoted after years of being in a career dead-end, and he was given the task force he needed to bring down the mob - or at least the biggest one of them all. The sideshows could wait.

Soon, he didn't know when he'd be raiding a cult compound. It wouldn't be easy, but as long as he wasn't up against a supercomputer monkey with a psychotic grudge against men in uniforms… He could almost taste the day when he could finally walk up to the Amoeba Boys, slap some cuffs on them and bring them in.

"Dad? Dad!" he hadn't heard Olivia's voice until the third time. He turned around, shocked. It was his daughter, standing behind him, looking pretty confident in her plain clothes. Finally a detective. He couldn't be prouder. The old lady would have been very proud, had she still been around. "I swear, you'll be working yourself to death if you keep this up, and then we'll have to arrest the Amoeba Boys without you. Anyway, here's a little something from the mail."

His daughter had been more right than she knew. The detective could already feel like he had a foot in the grave, a consequence of being so close to finishing something huge, or so his old man would have him believe - that was what his father had felt like when he was about to fight one of the final battles of World War I.

Olivia handed something to him, and it landed on his desk. A manila envelope, with crudely written address, likely done so with adult supervision, judging by the poor and inconsistent handwriting. The letter was likely from a kid. Something even a green detective would have easily figured out.

"What's this?" Detective Mullens asked, genuinely surprised. "Last time I checked, I haven't had a fan mail since over a decade ago. The kids absolutely hated me whenever I hit their classrooms." He meant it in more ways than one, whether it was visiting a school to give a police lecture, or to arrest some juveniles for drug or alcohol possession. Or murder. In Townsville, even the kids were suspects.

"Open it," Olivia gently demanded, putting both hands on his shoulders. Detective Mullens did as she had requested, tore the envelope and pulled out something thick in it. It was a drawing block folded in half. He opened it, and was immediately greeted by some colorful words declaring 'Happy Birthday!' Below those gigantic letters was him, drawn as a crude cartoon character, complete with an oversized trench coat, with Blossom on his right, Bubbles on his left and Buttercup next to Blossom. There was a building resembling the milk bar they had gone to a few weeks ago, which looked a little like a trailer, now that he thought about it.

Each of the Girls had likely contributed to the drawing block card, as the styles were radically different between the different elements of the pictures. There was a police-tank-thing at a corner done in thick and heavy-handed strokes of crayon, likely Buttercup's handiwork. Some scrawling on the bottom left could only belong to Blossom, who was faster than the others in learning how to write. Despite the age of the writer, the words were pretty little curves, if hard to read. 'Thank you, Mister Mullens! Maybe we should celebrate your birthday next year!' she wrote, except there were numerous spelling mistakes. Bubbles had likely done the rest of the card as the drawings were fair and balanced - he had always known her to be artistically-inclined. Those artistic types were always the sensitive ones.

"You told the Girls?" the detective said, incredulous. He was never the kind to celebrate birthdays. It reminded him that his glory days were long gone along with Townsville's golden age, that all the best attendees of his birthday parties were long dead.

"The mail took its time, but happy belated birthday, Dad," Olivia said lovingly before giving her father a peck on the cheek.

"Sweet of them," he said, before putting down the 'birthday card', his hands shaking a little. He picked up something else. A random photograph he happened to have his hand on. "But I've got to get back to work." Olivia knew what it meant. Although she had lived apart from him for a number of years before they reconciled and came together to do police work, she knew her Dad very well. She had idolized him before their falling out, and now she'd rekindled her admiration of him. Walking away, she left him alone, smiling.

Detective Mullens' hands had been shaking, but there were no tears. The well had dried out far too long ago when there were too many people to shed tears for. Had it been twenty years ago, however, he would have broken out the handkerchief.

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

3 FEB 1989 (Friday). 1910.

When Bubbles had obeyed and left the Girls' room, walking past her Mom, Selicia closed the door and audibly turned the lock. Selicia's mild chiding of Bubbles had brought back memories, things that Blossom would rather forget, but couldn't, owing to her superior memory and youthful sensitivity. She tried to stay calm and smiled at Mommy, but she couldn't manage the same kind of innocent smile she would put up in better circumstances.

"Good evening, Mom," she greeted Selicia properly, just like how she had taught her. She thought that it would placate her, perhaps make her happy. "What do you want to talk about?"

Selicia padded up to her wordlessly, flashing her own smile, though Blossom had difficulty reading it - the past month had been better between them. Blossom could even say that she had been at ease with her, once even falling asleep on her lap in a public library, which was as close as any child could get to a parent.

Picking up the hairbrush on her dressing table, Selicia knelt down and began brushing Blossom's hair. It all felt too familiar. Far too familiar. The enhanced little girl, for some reason, recalled Christmas Eve.

"Your hair's beautiful. You ought to take better care of it. Besides, that's how you win the hearts and minds of men," Selicia simply said, brushing aside Blossom's question while she was brushing her hair, separating the odd clump of hair finely. She had a hand on the red-haired girl's shoulder, and she could feel her shaking with barely-held-back violent impulses. "You look a little tense, Blossy dear. There's a time for that and now's not the time. Calm down."

Blossom tried her best to obey. She did the exact opposite, tensing up her muscles, but at least she'd stopped the trembling.

"Here, maybe this will help," Selicia whispered into Blossom's ear before giving her a peck on the cheek. It didn't help. Not one bit.

"W-what do you want to talk about, Mom?" Blossom asked again but got no reply. It was making her nervous as she anticipated a reprisal. While they were bathing, Buttercup had to be separated from the other Girls because of her wound, and Selicia had personally tended to her by giving her a careful sponge bath. Knowing Buttercup, she had likely talked about how she was hurt, and what had happened to allow it - and she was likely to put her own spin on it too. Blossom would be lucky if she wasn't accused of something.

Selicia continued working on Blossom's hair, adding ribbons to it, an expensive looking pink-and-shiny hairclip, and the usual red hair bow, but with a glossy texture. Blossom turned to Selicia, looking eye-to-eye with her, trying to read her, expecting an answer, but Selicia took her by the chin and turned her to face the mirror.

"Aren't you beautiful?" Selicia whispered into Blossom's ear again, pressing her face up next to her as she looked at the mirror with her. Blossom kept mum. "I'm asking you a question."

"Y-yes…" Blossom replied hesitantly, wondering about many things at once - if it was just her making things out to be worse than they were, or if Mom was playing one of her games again. Selicia pressed her lips closer to Blossom's ear.

"I know what you did, Blossom," Selicia whispered into her ear, surprisingly non-violent, but she could hear every little vibration. Mommy was holding back, and the quiver in her voice that came with repressed rage was too obvious.

"Wh-what do you mean, Mom?" Blossom replied, but it was as if Selicia didn't listen.

"You remember that time when we were playing with my stun rod? How much it hurt even at the lowest setting?" Selicia recalled a training session just a month ago when she was showing them how it feels like to get hit by a stun rod. As it was only a demonstration, she'd only used the lightest charge to shock the Girls. "Imagine it ten times worse."

"You let Buttercup get injured on your watch again, and I will hurt you badly. Do you understand, darling?" Just to drive home the point, Selicia had put her hand on Blossom's hair, and she had tightened her grip on it, enough to let the little girl feel it, and worry that she might pull hard on it. "I can't hear you, Blossom. I'm asking you a fucking question. It's only polite to answer."

"Yes, Mom, I understand," Blossom gasped as Selicia tightened her grip further… Before letting go, and gently and lovingly ran her fingers through her ample hair.

"You'll ruin this family if you keep going like this," Selicia accused, before sliding the back of her hand on Blossom's cheek. "I'm only looking out for you, Blossom darling. I'm your Mom after all, and you know what? I think we're both the same."

"We are?" Blossom said, puzzled. Despite knowing that they were mother and daughter, she thought that they were quite different, had always thought so. Selicia stroked her in the scalp as she continued looking at the both of them in the mirror.

"Of course. Why would you think otherwise?" Selicia said. "We're both beautiful, smart and independent. I've seen how you were when you were angry, Blossom. Remember what you did to your dear old Dad?"

It was another bad memory Blossom couldn't forget. It was the day she discovered her heat vision. She had gotten really mad over seeing a photo of Mojo Jojo, whom General Blackwater told her was responsible for nearly killing Bubbles. Her infrared beam came right out after that, the first time ever so she couldn't control it, and when she turned around to look at Daddy…

"I'm sorry… I didn't mean it… I'm so sorry…" Blossom apologized. It was painful, how the old wound was dug out. She could instantly remember the look on Dad's face when she accidentally burned him. She could even smell the fire burning away his lab coat and flesh, too. On some nights, she would still dream about it and then come to the same horrible thought: that she was incredibly lucky that her Dad was still with them.

"So you know how I can get when I'm angry, right?" Selicia said. Blossom nodded, afraid. "Don't try me."

Selicia finally stood up after that, walking away to the door. She unlocked and opened it, but before she left, added: "Put that brain of yours to work and add the finishing touches. You better be in the living room before I get there with Bubbles. Understand?"

"Yes, Mom."

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

3 FEB 1989 (Friday). 1915.

Blossom didn't add much to her hair. Selicia had left nothing for her to improve upon, and now she felt vaguely worthless because of it. With nothing left to do, she put on her high heels and headed down to the living room, where Buttercup was. Mom had done her up first, but her tomboy sister did not like it one bit. Buttercup had never worn ribbons or anything else on her head because she hated it, and now she had to bear with a green hairband the entire night!

But that wasn't all. Like her sisters, Buttercup was dressed in the same sequin dress accessorized with a black sash, except hers was green. Her make-up was green-themed, and her neck piece resembled a gorget, made of steel and pretty chains of various metals.

She was still pacing up and down the living room, still practicing how to walk in her high-heels - which, by most standards, weren't even that high. But despite having a week to prepare, she was still having trouble.

"Ugh, stupid shoes - why can't I just wear my boots?" she grumbled in frustration.

Blossom came up to her, walking in her heels quite ably. It helped that they could subtly boost herself with her floating ability whenever she felt she was losing her balance. It'd made things so much easier.

"You need to be more gentle, Buttercup," Blossom advised her. "Stop stomping around. We're not fighting anyone now."

"I wish we were," Buttercup said as she grudgingly tried to apply Blossom's advice - if it wasn't Mom who made her wear the high heels, she would have abandoned them straight away, maybe even chuck them into the dustbin next to the road. She began walking straight a little more gracefully, slowly. Distracted by this little triumph, she had forgotten herself momentarily, letting the silver lining in her head do the thinking - she'd wanted to thank Blossom, but when she turned around, she stumbled on the high heels and twisted an ankle. She floated immediately - it would have been disastrous had she been a normal little girl. It would have resulted in a sprained ankle.

But Blossom had noticed something else about her leg that concerned her. There was a holster just above it and a pistol. A very small one that was hidden just above the hem of her skirt, but she could see it when Buttercup flew up.

"You brought a gun!?" Blossom said in disbelief as Buttercup floated over to the couch to sit down. She straightened her sequined dress as she leaned back.

"Yeah, why?" Buttercup said casually. She then reached for the TV remote but winced as she felt her wound pressing against its bandage a little too hard. "I never got to use it when Mom gave it to me, and I thought I should bring it just in case… Don't talk like I've brought along my machinegun, Blossom. It's just a tiny backup pistol."

"We have our powers for backup, Buttercup!" Blossom lectured her wayward sister further. "and our powers are even better than any gun!"

"Yeah, whatever, sis," Buttercup simply brushed her off as she switched to the sports channel. Her eyes were instantly glued to the screen when it was a game of baseball airing on ESPN right then.

Blossom would have continued the argument had it not been for the sound of another pair of high heels coming down. She knew that Mommy wouldn't like it if she argued with Buttercup in front of her. Looking around at the stairs, she saw Selicia descending the stairs gracefully, despite the fact that her heels were taller and sharper than theirs. Bubbles walked beside her, holding hands with Mom, perhaps partly because she was afraid of goofing up and falling down the stairs. But it was unlikely, as Bubbles had learned fast how to walk in her high heel shoes.

Dad followed behind her, wearing an expensive-looking tuxedo, something he hadn't touched for many months since the last Organization function he attended as the Head of Research.

"You Girls ready?" Selicia asked Blossom and Buttercup. The tomboy switched off the television with the remote reluctantly - she had been nursing an interest in baseball over the month, but Mommy came first, as always.

"Yes…" Blossom said obediently, but she wasn't ready at all. Quite the opposite - she was nervous. She had never attended a party of the scale Elodie 'Princess' Morbucks had described - with hundreds of guests, some of whom were so important and affluent that Townsville would struggle to run without them - and she had to attend in the capacity of a leader. Everyone knew the 'important' things about her, and her position in the trio. In fact, everyone knew more about her than she herself - that she 'worked' for the USDO, and that she was somehow created by the USDO. No one knew exactly how, of course. Some believed that she was an ordinary girl endowed with great power through some scientific procedure, while others rightly believed that she was grown in a lab, though they had no way to confirm their suspicions. Then there were others who didn't care.

Buttercup got off her couch and tried walking in her heels again, making headway towards Mom, who beamed at how she had handled herself confidently. "Very good, Buttercup. I knew you can do it," Selicia praised.

"Why do I have to go there anyway? I'd rather stay at home and watch baseball," Buttercup whined.

"Because there's really good food there?" Selicia said playfully. "I mean, I'm not stopping you from staying. You just have to cook for yourself…"

"I guess I'll go…" Buttercup muttered and made her way towards the door, still trying to impress by doing it while walking on her high heels. She needed as many points with her Mom and Dad as she could get, as she still perceived herself to be on the losing end. She winced when she accidentally rubbed at her wound with her elbow. It made Selicia concerned.

"You sure, honey?" she asked. "If you're not up to it, you shouldn't push it." she gave Blossom a brief death glare as she said this - the pink-eyed one, after all, was responsible for Buttercup's injury, at least from her perspective.

"I'm fine, Mom. I'll go," Buttercup pressed on, now determined to show her parents that she was better than either of her sisters.

The professor laughed at this display. "I just hope the three of you remember why you're going - and it's not just because of the food or the fun," he said.

"Is it because Elodie's our friend?" Bubbles ventured to answer, brightening up at the mere thought of one of her closest friends – and Elodie was a special one, different from Blake and Mullens because she looked similar to them as a child. They were both physically 5-year-olds. They were both little girls, and they were both many of the same things. The professor took her by the other hand as they made their way to the door, such that she was between Mom and Dad.

"Well, Elodie and the rest of Townsville - most of it, anyway," the professor corrected. "Friendship isn't just something you gain - it's also something you maintain."

"Well said," Selicia praised her 'husband' as she took off the Girls' coats from the coat stand beside the door. Green for Buttercup, blue for Bubbles and pink for Blossom.