Chapter 33: How Things Change

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

15 FEB (Wednesday) 1989. 0016.

Bubbles had sneaked back into the Girls' room undetected without waking up Blossom. Clutching her armful of drugs, she scanned the room for a good place to make her stash – her pillow would no longer do because of the number of precious syringes she had just been handed.

When her eyes met the door of the walk-in closet, she knew that it was the only place she could hide her stuff. Hovering up to it, she opened the door silently to enter it, noting that it was no longer creaky because her Dad had oiled it, then closing the door so she could switch the lights inside on without awakening Blossom.

After pulling a cord that lit up the closet, she began looking for a good spot to hide her sinful indulgences. She thought about putting them in a corner behind her dresses, but it wouldn't do; she would be exposed whenever her dresses ran low. She thought about putting them at the bottom of the weapons chest, under guns they didn't like and rarely used, but with crime on the rise, they might be forced to use everything they had.

Then there were the boxes labeled as 'old stuff', even though nothing in The House were really old. They'd contained toys that were broken in the early days when they were careless with their strength, or just toys that were no longer fit for them. Some of the things inside were more fit for babies. Bubbles had no idea why Dad would still want to keep them around, but it was the best place she could leave the fairy godmother's magic behind without being discovered. Her sisters and she had never gone through them before.

The boxes were small, but there were many of them. It was all perfect. No one would ever guess which belonged to her if they were guessing in the first place.

She began unstacking the boxes, aiming for one near the bottom of the pile. Opening up the boxes, she checked the contents to make sure there was enough room for her drugs, and that there was enough junk inside to hide them.

One particular box caught her eye. It contained a vaguely-shaped train coach which was completely white and plastic in texture. By now, she knew that it didn't resemble the real thing in the slightest since it lacked the right color, proportion, and details. But she remembered how she cherished it nonetheless after being given the toy by Dad mere days into their 'birth' when she could barely even walk and talk. Buttercup had tried to take it away only for her to be reprimanded for it. How she had forgotten about it, Bubbles did not know - she just did, in the face of Octi and other toys that fit her better. Hugging the white train coach, Bubbles couldn't help but shed a tear (or two, or three) at how things had changed so drastically. How there was a distance between her and her sisters now, and that she had secrets that had put her at odds even with her dearest Dad.

But she knew that there was no time for nostalgia: she had her stash of precious drugs to hide.

That was when she stumbled on one particular box. It was fairly large, far too big for five syringes. 'Buttercup' was written hastily on the side of the lid, in a small, messy script, misspelled as 'Butercub', probably for lack of time.

It didn't take a genius to figure out who it belonged to. On opening it, Bubbles saw even more syringes, all of which had 'His Secret' written on them. There were about thirty or more of them. There were other things as well, which looked like what a cat or a crow would drag up. There were some bullet casings. It sent a shiver down Bubbles' spine when she saw a small bottle containing dozens of teeth, some of which had dried blood on it. There were buttons, feathers, and bits of animal bones. Buttercup had been busy.

And now she was twice as afraid of being discovered. But it gave her an idea. Taking the weak His Secret drugs she had gathered in the crime scene, she stuffed Buttercup's box with them. Closing it up and sliding it back on the stack as though it was never touched, she went lower on the stack and found herself one with lots of tiny ghost dolls and white pillowcases in them that would serve nicely as cushions and cover.

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

15 FEB (Wednesday) 1989. 0521.

While the sun was still getting ready to put on its show, Professor Utonium woke up with a start. He had been assailed once again by a nightmare. Bubbles and Buttercup going out of control, killing Blossom, Selicia, and as Buttercup broke his back, he was forced to watch them kill each other, and as it just so happened, they were able to do so. Somehow, they each had a Duranium scalpel, and they'd stabbed each other in the throat. And then he was awake, and all that time before he realized it, he didn't think it was a dream, no matter how lucid it was.

Getting out of bed, he reached for his usual uniform; he'd been sleeping in pajamas, and on the way to the washroom, he took a look at Selicia, and the little bundle of joy in her arms with her head poking out. Buttercup. Her head injuries had healed by then, but it didn't stop him from remembering what Bubbles did. It didn't stop him from remembering what Buttercup had done in the cult compound. Yet, seeing her like this, with an unconscious, innocent smile on her face, perfectly child-like while she was asleep in Mom's arms, gave him hope for the future.

Going into the washroom, he got changed and left his room. Going through the airlock leading down into the labs and to his desk in the labs proper, he started removing slabs of documents from the drawers and began skimming through the back pages.

His latest version of Anti-X wasn't just promising. It was successful, though he had only tested it on plants and small mammals. The experiment with the guinea pigs was hazardous, considering that the animals had discovered that they could chew through steel faster than he expected. But after eating some corn laced with Anti-X, their powers were neutralized and they were returned to normal.

He had combined all three of his ideas for the Anti-X into one. By introducing compounds and catalysts into an organism boosted by Chemical X, both of which themselves were enhanced with Chemical W, the professor was able to create a mixture capable of interacting with Chemical X, dismembering it by removing the bridging molecules and plugging it up with dead-end compounds, ensuring that the Chemical X infused into the organism was incapable of forming any kind of reactions.

But it wasn't the only thing he'd been working on. He couldn't approach the USDO council without proposing to them an alternative to the Girls - a better alternative - and it was just the thing he'd been working on too.

After re-establishing communications with his original staff, he was able to resume work on Chemical X, and recently, born out of the necessity to find a replacement for his Girls to fight crime, he'd decided that he would pursue his previous volition as a lead.

The version of Chemical X Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup were created with was an 'incomplete' version, with 'Sugar', 'Spice' and 'Everything-Nice' serving simultaneously as bridging and stabilizing molecules. There were still three other substances in the original plan for the real Chemical X. He'd often wondered what would have happened had he introduced them all into Chemical X, though his previous expectations had been optimistic. He'd concocted the formula and created the experimental set-up and steps necessary to create it because it seemed like the best possible combination, yielding the best possible results in terms of stability, acceptable mutability, as well as the potential for reactions and the resultant enhancements to an individual infused with it.

A Chemical X with just 'Sugar', 'Spice' and 'Everything-Nice' fused with it, on the other hand, was just the bare minimum, an unintended discovery at that. The professor hated himself and Mojo Jojo that the Girls were robbed of much of their potential and that they were an accident rather than a choice - he could only be happy that they hadn't melted before him just yet. Just yet. In retrospect, his probes into the Girls' version of Chemical X had revealed that it was like a girl on a tightrope, balanced by 'Sugar', which reduced some of the less desirable reactions, 'Spice', which allowed the more desirable reactions and 'Everything-Nice', which provided the most stability of all. The three other compounds that weren't added hadn't been necessary because they were catalytic agents and similar to the 'Spice', allowing other reactions projected to be useful.

The professor had already begun preparing to produce the new 'complete' Chemical X. He'd ordered in the compounds for it - which required that he cut through lines upon lines of bureaucratic red tape considering the top-secret nature of the compounds, but they were due to arrive anytime now.

Soon, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup would be free, and they would get their fairy tale ending - to live happily ever after, as one family.

The City of Townsville. Pokey Oaks North. Pokey Oaks Kindergarten.

15 FEB (Wednesday) 1989. 1107.

To Bubbles, class today wasn't about the joy of discovery and learning, not like how it had always been. She loved class with Miss Keane, especially the art and craft she got to do almost every day. It wasn't that she no longer liked it. She had other priorities, such as hiding her dark secret from everyone else. She knew they were all looking at her. They were all whispering about her. Miss Keane couldn't be trusted either. She was a teacher - and teachers knew everything. But the biggest priority was the fairy godmother's magic, and how she could keep getting and using it. And the fairy godmother's request yesterday was key to a continuous supply of syringes, as long as she followed along with it.

In order to disguise her needs and distract herself, Bubbles tried enjoying art and craft as much as she could. The day's activity for that was sculpturing, but her sculptures would always end up malformed that she had to keep trying, again and again, to make it right. Her only success story when it came to her clay pieces was barely even staying together after a few minutes in the oven. It was a recreation of her Dad, but its head was halfway from falling off, and the arms weren't much better. It wasn't even anywhere close to a perfect cartoon version of him, at least by her standards, which she no longer cared to uphold. It'd served to distract her classmates and Miss Keane though, who patronized her by calling it good, and beautiful and other things she knew weren't truthful.

She was sweating, as usual, thinking about it; thinking about using another syringe of sweet, sweet His Secret 2.0. Her face had gone pale, as she continued in vain to try not to think about it. She took a glance at the USDO hotline in class once more, hoping that it'd ring, and hoping that the next operation would be a big one, so she'd have an excuse to use it, and not just as usual - she'd be able to use two of them at once! For now, however, if the pain and discomfort of not doping herself became too great, she had to ration it by using just one pathetic dose. It felt good, no doubt about it, but just one dose wasn't as good as it used to be, not by a long shot.

"Bubbles, honey, are you alright?" Miss Keane asked as she bent low beside her. Bubbles could feel her large hand on her back, and she didn't like it. It'd put her on edge, made her wonder if Miss Keane knew. "You're sweating all over."

When Miss Keane reached for Bubbles' forehead, she backed away. Didn't allow her to touch her even for a second. Unfortunately, the little girl had accidentally squashed her clay sculpture in her delirious scramble.

"I'm fine, Miss Keane," Bubbles said, trying her best to sound normal. Her voice came out a little raspy and made her sound a little like Buttercup. Miss Keane did not go away, and it was getting on Bubbles' nerves.

"Are you sure, Bubbles? You don't look fine to me," Miss Keane continued to dog her, and Bubbles hated it. "I didn't know you could get sick - but I could take you to the sickroom and make it better."

Bubbles didn't want to go to the sickroom. She wanted to wait for the hotline to buzz so she could use another pair of syringes and make good on her deal with the fairy godmother - all in the name of getting even more syringes of the good stuff. She'd noticed that the fairy godmother had been generous - more so by the day. She started by giving her just one needle to tide her through the Battle of Silver Age Cineplex, then it was two. It was six the third time. Bubbles imagined that it could be twice or even three times that the next time. In her altered mind, she imagined a whole sea of the dull red liquid. Her ideal world had turned from a cartoonish, idealized version of the real world to just a vast ocean of addictive chemical.

"Bubbles?" Miss Keane continued to annoy her.

"I don't want to go," Bubbles asserted. She was crushing her clay sculpture, not to redo it, but as a way to cope with what was inside her. Deep down, she knew she liked Miss Keane - a lot - but the way she was persistently forcing her to do something was making her mad, really mad. The way she was going to make her miss the chance to get more His Secret 2.0 was inexcusable.

"The sickroom isn't as bad as what your classmates say," Miss Keane said with a laugh, believing that Bubbles was afraid of it. "I'm sure you'll get past the smell, and even come to-"

"I SAID NO!" Bubbles slammed her table, making it creak and flattening her clay. Her eyes flashed red for the briefest moment. The entire class turned to her.

Miss Keane's hands went up to her hip as she glared at her. Blossom ran to Bubbles' side, holding her closely.

"I'm sorry, Miss Keane," Blossom apologized for Bubbles. "It's her new power. It's making her angry all the time and she's still learning to control it. That's what my Dad said."

The moment Bubbles felt her sister's touch, she felt more lucid, in control. It reminded her of family and love.

"I won't do it again, Miss Keane. I'm sorry," she apologized to the teacher as she looked up at her. Just days ago, the look the orange-vested woman was giving her would have reduced her to tears. She looked gigantic from her sitting position, like a skyscraper that was about to fall. Now, she was just another obstacle.

"No powers in the classroom," Miss Keane reminded Bubbles, wagging a finger at her. She then lowered it, and her facial expression wasn't as severe. "You still sure you don't need to go to the sickroom?"

"She's fine," Blossom said to Miss Keane. Bubbles, in the meantime, had to pick up her only completed sculpture. Her cartoon Dad's head had fallen off and nearly rolled off the table had she not intercepted it. Her head was a little clearer, and the sight of her broken sculpture was upsetting. Deep down inside, even while she was fighting off the fits that her drug was giving her, she'd made the clay representation of her Dad as a way to cope.

"What are you doing, Bubbles?" Blossom whispered to Bubbles harshly when Miss Keane went away to another table full of children. "Is it really that hard to not use your BerXerker power?"

"No, I just… It was an accident" Bubbles lied. "I lost control. I'm sorry."

That was when it finally happened. And Bubbles smiled, smiled widely when it did.

Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! The hotline rang, its clown face smiling alongside Bubbles as if taking her side. Blossom turned and glared at the clown phone, unhappy that it was interrupting her talk with Bubbles. She flew to it without allowing it to finish a second buzz:

Bzzz! Bz-

"Hello? It's Blossom," she said. "Are you Mister Blake?"

"Gosh no, this is Chief McQuinn, Precinct 34. We have a huge shooting in the Financial District, Bank of China at Smith Avenue. 8 armed men holding a few execs hostages. You know the place?" the caller said on the line.

"Yes, Mister McQuinn, we're on way," Blossom said obediently - she'd been taught that anyone who called on the hotline should be listened to. When she turned around, Bubbles was already next to her, excited that there was action. Buttercup was uncharacteristically apathetic. They were practically racing into the storage room where their stuff was after Blossom received the call - Blossom to rein Bubbles in as she couldn't wait to get to the scene of the crime. Buttercup, however, lagged behind, as if she was asked to eat her broccoli.

Within under half a minute, they were already flying out, with Blossom apologizing to frightened teachers and kindergartners both, leaving after opening a window. They ascended, and when they did, they extended the glider wings on their flight packs, and Blossom led them towards the Financial District.

The City of Townsville. En route to Financial District.

15 FEB (Wednesday) 1989. 1115.

"This is Flight Control Five to Bravo-Four-Seven, be advised that the armed perps are on the twenty-first floor. They are heavily armed and dangerous. They have released all but one hostage. Proceed with caution," the Girls' radio crackled and Blossom acknowledged the message.

"What do we do, Blossom?" Bubbles asked the leader, but she had only one thing on her mind - the fairy godmother's magic.

"Just follow me and everything will be fine," Blossom said as they continued to streak across the sky.

Upon reaching the Bank of China, they flew straight through the windows of the twenty-first floor. Blossom had to actually stop and count the windows so they'd go through the right ones before they went full speed ahead. Crashing through the windows, they landed in one of the innumerable offices of the Bank of China, each on a knee, before standing up. Some of the bad guys who'd been keeping watch had to hide behind the office cubicles to avoid the deadly shards of glass flying across the office. Doors leading into the office were simultaneously opened as a few others barged into the office to join the coming firefight, rifles up, clearly too intimidated to even go in guns blazing as if they were weighing their options.

"Give up or we'll make you," Blossom warned the bad guys, putting on a growling voice. She didn't like being taken away from school, just as much as she didn't like innocent people getting hurt.

"It's them, just like the boss promised! Shoot them down!" one of the criminals shouted. They were all wearing masks, which Blossom didn't like. It reminded her too much of the Princess' masquerade ball.

"Buttercup, Bubbles, together, now!" Blossom shouted, speeding through her words quickly. As soon as bullets had started flying, the Girls plowed right into the men, pushing aside cubicle walls and desks, which did nothing to protect the armed criminals.

Bubbles could feel her 'BerXerker' coming up even though she hadn't taken the fairy godmother's magic. After tackling her first enemy, she could feel her eyes heating up; she knew then that it had turned hellish red. But it was preceded by none of the pleasures of the flesh. Within the space of a second though, it didn't matter.

"Rip and tear your guts!" Bubbles screamed as she flew to the next criminal, who was putting half his magazine of rifle rounds into her and punched him over a cubicle wall, the very sound of his skull cracking very audible. Even Buttercup was more forgiving as she wasn't punching to kill, having been pacified by her recent close shave with Dad. "You are big! That means you have big guts!"

Blossom turned her attention to Bubbles as soon as she heard it. Before she attended to her sister, however, she had to fire a couple of beams at a couple of shooters.

"Bubbles, no!" Blossom screamed as she saw Bubbles slashing another bad guy up with her fingernails. She looked like she was about to tear open the poor criminal shooter up. She flew to her to seize her by the arms, getting her off the bad guy, and slam her against a desk.

"Let go of me!" Bubbles struggled against her like a wild animal, trashing on the desk, barely restrained by Blossom, as she swept off trays of documents and a computer in her attempt to escape her and cause more havoc. With a burst of strength, Bubbles broke the desk in two and threw Blossom back, before turning around and staring her down with her red eyes, panting heavily.

"Take deep breaths, Bubbles," Blossom said, following suggestions from her Dad. Buttercup, in the meantime, had knocked down the last gunman and flew over to her side when she was done making sure the bad guys stayed down.

"I can fight the two of you!" Bubbles growled aggressively as she continued panting. She could still remember the fairy godmother's request - she had to. All this - how she was facing off against her own sisters, felt like a prelude to it all.

"You don't want to. We're sisters, Bubbles. Dad said that as long as we have each other, we have a family outside The House," Blossom reasoned. Buttercup had nothing to say - she knew she was beaten the last time with Bubbles' new power activated. Neither did she care for Blossom's little speech. To her, there was no family in or out of the House. Neither was there any fun nor fulfillment left for her - she had tried to enjoy just delivering KOs to the bad guys, but it'd left her empty. It was no different from playing house at home.

There was silence after that, which was only disturbed by Bubbles' panting. Blossom took a sideways glance at Bubbles' latest victim. He was out cold all the same. There were long gashes across his cheek and chest. It was no wonder his lights were out - if the sight of an agitated Bubbles (to put it mildly) couldn't shock him into unconsciousness, then the amount of blood he was losing and the pain from Bubbles' new favorite clawing strikes would.

"B-B-Blossom?" Bubbles uttered as her eyes returned to being normal and baby blue. Her lips trembled as she struggled to hold back her secret, but she bit them in response and shut her eyes so they wouldn't see it in her eyes. "You're right, I don't want to."

"I'm glad you said that," Blossom simply said, none the wiser. She turned around. "Come on, we still need to find the poor man they are holding!"

As SWAT teams were still climbing up the skyscraper and USDO soldiers were rappelling from helicopters on the roof, the Girls were already zipping through corridors and rooms, looking for hostages or any bad guys they missed.

They didn't see any of the former. The latter was only one man, a Chinese executive in a suit who was unguarded and not even bound and gagged.

"That was easy," Blossom said as she carried the man, who was weak from being mistreated and beaten to his feet.

"Yeah," Buttercup muttered - to her, it wouldn't even matter if it was hard. Dad knew about her, and Blossom wouldn't allow her to even look at a bad guy the wrong way.

"Too bad…" Bubbles said, upset. She was hoping for an excuse to use more syringes, which she had hidden in her magazine pouch.

Neither did it sit right with Blossom. Obsessed with puzzles and patterns, she thought it odd that things had become simple after so many operations. But as she waited for the police and USDO to show up, she'd decided to let her guard down a little and start thinking that perhaps - just perhaps - things would go back to the way it used to be in January.