Chapter 30: Screens
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
13 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1721.
"Blossom, please!" Buttercup had continued to beg for clemency just as the Girls had touched down on the lawn of their house. "It's not that I- It didn't happen that way- I was just doing it for us!"
Blossom, however, continued to ignore her as she strode up to the stone path to the front door of The House. The windows were lit up - it gave Blossom a feeling of warmth and homecoming, but to Buttercup, it was like a furnace that she would be thrown into. It was death inside, waiting for her. Bubbles followed, trying her best to ignore Buttercup's pleas. She felt sorry for Buttercup even though she had killed a woman for no reason and threatened to kill a helpless, innocent baby. They were sisters; sisters felt sorry for one another no matter what.
But it wasn't the first time Buttercup had gotten innocents killed. Through her negligence, Buttercup had failed to protect a whole group of civilians - men, women, and children all, during the Battle of Morbucks Industries Research Labs, deciding instead to bathe in blood, wading through a battle that wasn't even necessary, all the while ignoring a flanking force of Foundation terrorists who swiftly overran the few normal human defenders who knew better and killed the innocents. Bubbles couldn't bear to defend Buttercup, not after everything she had knowingly done wrong. Even if as her sister, she felt sorry for her.
"Blossom! Please! Don't tell Dad about me!" Buttercup pleaded, tears streaming down her cheeks, tears that none of her siblings knew were real or faked. They had all caught her lying one time or another. Blossom herself hadn't forgotten how Buttercup had lied to Daddy about her just to look good. "We're sisters! I love you! It's not- I killed that woman because I love you!"
Blossom stopped at the front door, standing on the welcome mat as she took a dismissive glance at Buttercup. For a moment, both Buttercup and Bubbles thought that she was going to relent and help hide her secret.
"You were going to kill that baby, Buttercup," Blossom said impassively. "It's wrong to kill babies." With that, Blossom let herself hover and reached for the doorbell.
"YOU'RE NOT TELLING DAD ABOUT ME!" Buttercup exploded as she grabbed Blossom by both legs and pulled her down to the ground before she could ring the doorbell. With both hands, she lifted Blossom off her feet by her throat and slammed her against the door out of desperation and anger.
"Let- let me go…" Blossom struggled to speak, discovering too late, and shockingly, through the pressure in her neck, that Buttercup's hands had gone to her neck, and she was choking her. She had done it such that her eyes were out of the way and she couldn't see her, which meant that she could not use her thermal beam. Blossom tried to fly away, but after getting beaten and cut up so soundly in the last battle, she couldn't overpower Buttercup.
"Not until you promise not to tell!" Buttercup growled at Blossom even as her eyes were rolling up in pain and asphyxiation as she struggled. "I'll break your neck if I have to!"
"Leave her alone!" Bubbles shouted with equal fury before she tackled Buttercup, forcing her to let go of Blossom, who coughed and sputtered as she was clutching her throat and leaning against the wall.
On the ground, Buttercup was shocked by what she saw – Bubbles' pupils had gone glowing, hellish red and the look on her face was pure hatred. Before she could take a good look, Bubbles had swiped at her, making three long gashes in her cheek. And then it was all gone in a flash, and Bubbles seemed as shocked as she was that her BerXerker ability had come about out of the blue. So much so that Bubbles had crawled away, as if she was the victim.
The door opened after that.
"Tell me about what? Why are all of you on the ground?" Professor Utonium had appeared at the doorstep. Looking down at Bubbles and Buttercup, he could sort of put two and two together. Just his smile disappearing alone was enough to scare the Girls – they had all seen what he could become when he's really, truly mad. "What is so important that the three of you had to fight over it?"
"But we weren't fighting," Buttercup muttered, lied as she was wont to do so.
"We were just talking…" Bubbles, to the surprise of her sisters, came up with her own lie. Blossom stared at the both of them disapprovingly, a hand still rubbing a throat, which had developed a bruise from Buttercup's strangling.
Blossom had wanted to speak. Her mouth had moved, but words would not form. She wasn't even sure what to say to any of them, and when Selicia came out to put her arms around Professor Utonium from behind, leaning her head on him, it was completely silenced.
"Buttercup, you're bleeding!" Selicia gasped when she noticed the fingernail markings on Buttercup's cheek. She looked like she had been attacked by some feral animal that had been starved to near-death.
"It was from the farm, Mom," Buttercup lied when she exchanged looks with Bubbles, who still looked like she could tear her throat out from the way she was glaring at her. "The bad guys there had powers too." Buttercup had seen how Bubbles had torn out one of the cultists' throat with her teeth and drank some of the blood. She didn't want to be next.
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
13 FEB (Monday) 1989. 1726.
"What did she do?" Professor Utonium asked as he was helping Blossom to remove her ruined tactical gear, letting them drop onto the floor in a messy heap. The Girls had been brought down to the lab for medical treatment, and once separated from Mom and her sisters, Blossom had taken the opportunity to open up about Buttercup's evil deed.
"She did a really terrible thing, Dad," Blossom said as she unbuttoned her red uniform and as she winced in pain, pulled the top off. It was sticky with blood, and the fabric had fused painfully to her wound. She did the same with the singlet underneath, gasping at the surprisingly stinging sensation.
"All I know is those cultists really did a number on you," the professor said as he began examining Blossom's wounds as she sat down on a stool. There were multiple lacerations on her torso area - she had been hacked in the chest by a Duranium axe, cut in the side with a Duranium sword and slashed behind her back with something similar. Thankfully, none of the cuts was anything more than flesh wounds. The hands behind the attacks weren't strong enough to do damage to Blossom's internal organs.
"Buttercup's worse than any of them," Blossom claimed, finding that her eyes were wet once more. She still couldn't believe that Buttercup, a sister she was supposed to love, could be so cruel. To be violently ruthless to adult bad guys with guns was bad enough, but a mother and baby girl was too much by a mile.
"Don't say that. How terrible could she be?" the professor added, though he didn't say it with any confidence. It was something he'd said to delude himself, perhaps give himself a thin sliver of hope that things weren't as bad as he thought it could be. Alice's warnings were circling around his head like vultures by now. She'd long suspected Buttercup of some nefarious deeds, and in the professor's head, no matter how much he tried to push it away and have faith in his own parenting, she seemed to be coming dangerously close to being right.
"Dad, Buttercup killed a woman today," Blossom finally dropped the bomb on her Dad. He had been palpitating her chest to examine her for signs of fractures in the ribs, but he'd stopped and straightened up as he thought about what Blossom had said, tried to look at it from every possible angle, searching for one that could clear Buttercup of any wrongdoings.
"She was defending herself, right? From a woman who could've hurt her?" Professor Utonium asked, hoping, even though it was all but certain now that there was no hope.
"No, Dad. The woman looked harmless. She didn't have a weapon and she wasn't even wearing any real clothes," Blossom went on. The professor leaned on his desk, sighing. "She was in the attic with a baby. Buttercup tried to kill the baby too but I stopped her."
"She had to be kidding, right?" the professor croaked. The last sentence felt like a gut punch to the professor. His legs had gone so wobbly, he needed to sit down. Unable to breathe, he'd said nothing at first. He closed his eyes, trying to keep from freaking out and letting his anger take control - after all, he'd taught Blossom to do the same not too long ago.
"She pointed her gun at the baby and threatened to shoot it when I asked her to give it to me," Blossom added. "The baby was hurt because of her."
Taking a deep breath, the professor stood up, pushing aside roughly the medical ward screen giving them a degree of privacy (Blossom jumped at his violent reaction) and marched over to the other part of the lab where Selicia had been taking care of Buttercup and Bubbles.
"Thanks, Mom, it feels so much better…" Buttercup was almost squealing with joy after getting treated with some painkillers and having antiseptics applied to her wounds, both fresh and old. Selicia was just about to start cleaning her wounds when they saw Professor Utoniun coming up to them, swinging his arms as he walked as if he was about to punch someone.
Without a word, the professor grabbed Buttercup by the arm and started pulling her towards the stairs leading up.
"Ow! You're hurting me!" Buttercup protested. While her Dad was manhandling her, she had fallen off her stool and landed poorly on a knee. He was pulling at her roughly and it was aggravating her wounds. "Dad! Stop! Owwww!"
Afraid that her Dad was going to do something to her once she was out of everyone's sight, Buttercup pulled back at the foot of the stairs. Try as he might, the professor could never match her strength, but the tug of war was hurting Buttercup's wounds.
"Dad, it hurts!" Buttercup shouted. Frustrated, the professor did finally stopped. Picking her up, he plopped her down on the stairs instead.
"You tried to kill a baby!?" the professor yelled at Buttercup, who was still nursing her wounds, cupping the cut on her arm with a hand. "What is wrong with you!?"
"But- But- It's not like- I didn't kill the baby!" Buttercup stammered as she rushed through her words to try to defend herself. "I didn't!"
"Blossom said you tried to! She had to stop you!" the professor yelled at her again, not holding back on his anger at all. "And you killed an unarmed, helpless woman. Is that true too!?"
"N-no, I didn't," Buttercup lied, shaking a little from being shouted at, actually afraid that her Dad was going to hit her because that was how he looked like. When he didn't respond to her first lie, she tried a second: "She wasn't helpless. She tried to kill me. She nearly did."
"Stop lying to me, Buttercup! Blossom said you did!" the professor scolded.
"But Blossom's lying!" Buttercup alleged stubbornly. "It wasn't me!"
"And what if I ask Bubbles about it!? Or ring up Mullens to check on the details!?" the professor pressed on. "Lying makes it worse, Buttercup!"
Buttercup did not reply immediately as she was watching her Dad, afraid that he would come flying at her with an open palm with her name on it. She did not reply as a way to buy time to think of a way out.
"Well!?" the professor boomed so suddenly that Buttercup shook from how loud it was.
"Dad- I couldn't control myself- I was hurt and I was scared and-" Buttercup said. At the same time, she'd turned on the tap, and it was easy considering her wounds and the mess she was in and how she was getting sidelined by her sisters, much to her frustration - which meant that she had to slink around and hide her wrongdoings all the time. "I couldn't help myself."
"Blossom and Bubbles are more sensitive than you and yet they could," the professor countered coldly.
"The woman raised a pistol at me and I was hurt and- I hated the pain-" Buttercup cried, holding the wound on her arm, appearing vulnerable. "I was just so angry too- These people were hurting me all the time- and I couldn't control myself-" She let herself go out of control, breaking into a full-on sob, and it was unexpected even to her. "You don't understand how it's like, Dad! I- I just wanted the pain to stop!"
Blossom, Bubbles, and Selicia had been watching all the while. Blossom was hiding behind her screen and so was Bubbles. They looked at each other as though they were both in trouble too, and when Selicia looked at Blossom with an accusing frown on her face, Blossom returned into hiding behind her medical screen. She hadn't thought about Mom while she was tattling on Buttercup. It felt like it was the right thing to do, telling Dad about what Buttercup had done wrong. With or without Mom in the equation, she would have done it again.
"Buttercup, I didn't know you were this… affected," the professor said. Although he knew that Buttercup wasn't quite right in the head, to put it mildly, the way she looked while she was telling him about her bad experiences, the way she cried… got to him. It was impossible not to let it. It then clicked in him that psychopathy didn't remove emotions. It never did. Alice mentioned that it had reduced her emotional sensitivity, but not outright turn her into an unfeeling robot. While Buttercup couldn't empathize with others, she could be upset on her lonesome, which was kind of sad when the professor thought about it.
"I just want you to be proud of me, Dad," Buttercup claimed tearfully, though inside, she was absolutely jumping with joy. He'd fallen for it a hundred percent of the way. "You were always with Blossom and I- I thought that if I act tough and don't ever cry or talk about the pain…" Buttercup switched her crocodile tears factory on overdrive, unable to complete her sentence.
The professor moved to sit down on the steps next to Buttercup, putting his arm around Buttercup's bare shoulders, taking extra care not to touch her wounds.
"Buttercup, you know that I love you as much as Blossom, right?" the professor said - and he believed in what he said with all his heart. "You don't have to go out of your way to gain my attention. I'm sorry if I've ever made you feel that way."
'Yes, you have, Dad,' Buttercup thought bitterly as he'd said this, though she was careful not to let her thoughts spill into words. She'd never understood what love meant, and to her, it just meant attention, gifts, and favors. 'You sure have, and I fucking hate you for it, Dad.'
Blossom, in the meantime, had made extra precautions not to be detected by Selicia. She'd resorted to using her x-ray vision instead to see what was going on, no matter how tiring it was.
"I'm sorry, Dad. I really am…" Buttercup cried. Blossom zoomed in her vision to her face and thought that the performance she was putting up was infuriatingly convincing. She could even feel her heart going out for Buttercup, her own eyes getting wet upon looking at her cry even though she knew that Buttercup was faking it. "I couldn't control myself…"
"Hey... I hear you, Buttercup," the professor comforted Buttercup. Lifting her up, he put her on his leg and let her sit there as he held her. "I'm sorry I shouted at you. But you just have to learn some restraint from now on, okay? You were doing really well before- I guess I should have told you that I'm really proud of you, little Butterfly."