Chapter 39: The Final Wrong

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

17 FEB (Friday) 1989. 0821.

The professor waved Blossom and Bubbles goodbye as they made their way on foot into Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. Buttercup, however, was not with them. Not this time. When two of his kids disappeared into the school building, he rested his head against the steering wheel. The past couple of weeks had been stressful, and yesterday was just plain distressful, but that was just naming one of those days. Deep down, he knew that today was going to be worse.

Blossom had delivered the bad news the previous day. Funnily enough, Bubbles losing control and killing a number of cultists wasn't it.

It was Buttercup.

'She killed lots of people in the sewers,' Blossom had tattled on her. 'And they looked helpless too. They weren't like the others with guns and scary red eyes.'

'Are you sure, Blossom?' he had asked her to make sure. In a way, he couldn't believe that Buttercup would kill again, not after what they had talked about. Buttercup sounded really contrite the last time they spoke about taking lives. When Blossom mentioned Buttercup's deeds, he was already losing confidence quickly that Buttercup was keeping her word to stay pacifistic.

He should have known that one of his three little babies wouldn't stay a perfect little angel for long. Not when she couldn't even grasp the concept.

'I saw Buttercup through the wall with my x-ray vision,' Blossom had said, still sounding horrified then. 'She wouldn't stop hurting them.'

After Blossom had said it, the professor did not pursue the matter immediately. After stitching up Bubbles and after attending to their dinner, he'd gone back down to the lab and sat behind his desk, thinking and thinking. He'd thought about things for a long time. He'd opened a drawer and picked up the picture of Eileen, his late wife, and Bloome, his late daughter, and looked at it. His eyes still misted when he saw it, and remembered what had happened that took them away from him. He rubbed his finger down Eileen's cheek before putting the picture back into his drawer and hiding it again.

He then picked up a photo frame containing a polaroid of his current family. Himself, Selicia, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. They were all squeezed in together in an arcade photo booth. He remembered where they'd taken it. The Mall, uptown, during a shopping trip when the family could actually go out together without the city going at their throats or mobbing them.

He found it surprising that his current ragtag family was still together after everything, considering how much danger they were in, not just because of the Foundation, but also because of crime in the city and even the USDO itself. It was why he'd cherished every second with them.

But the time had come when one of them might not be with them any longer. He had to test the Anti-X he had concocted on a human being sooner or later - and there were only three human beings he could test the Anti-X on. There was only so much data human cheek cells, even if they'd come from Blossom, could provide. The human body was infinitely more complex, and an infinite number of unprecedented things could happen.

He didn't know how long he'd stared at the picture. He loved all three of the Girls. Deciding between Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup was an impossible task. At least, it felt that way when he was fooling himself. The moment he found out he could put the Girls in a hierarchy, he couldn't help but weep, his tears landing on his photo of the family. What kind of a father would love one kid more than the other? He found out that he would rather risk Bubbles and Buttercup than Blossom - it was a toss-up between Bubbles and Buttercup, but even that dilemma was conquered swiftly the same way. He would rather risk Buttercup than Bubbles.

'What kind of a father am I?' Professor Utonium remembered saying to himself, reprimanding himself. 'What kind of a father chooses one baby girl over another?'

A bad father, he knew. A bad father to Buttercup. He'd even rationalized it all, telling himself that he had made the right decision because Buttercup was suffering from an incurable mental disease right from the start, that she was dangerous in her current state. There was no chance that she would just stop killing and hurting people, not with the kind of situations she had been put in - and the only way out for her was to risk her life and take away her Chemical X enhancements using the Anti-X. Even Bubbles in her current state, with her BerXerker ability going out of control once in a while, stood a better chance of coming back from it without any drastic actions taken.

For an eternity after that, he'd tried to regain his bearings. Tried to tell himself that he was just a man placed in terrible circumstances, forced to make terrible choices. He told himself that he loved Buttercup as much as Bubbles, and both Buttercup and Bubbles as much as Blossom. He repeated to himself that fact dozens of times, hundreds of times, as he lay his head down on his desk. Somewhere along the way, he'd fallen asleep, and had it not been for Selicia, he would have been there until morning.

The guilt never went away. Like a badly-swallowed pill, like a wound that needed surgical intervention, it'd stayed with him all the way, and it was just the latest addition.

"Are we going yet, Dad?" Buttercup jolted the professor out of his thoughts, irritation, and impatience in her voice. She was loud too, as she was sitting in the seat beside him. Buttercup had become cold towards him recently - he could only guess why.

This morning, Professor Utonium had decided that he would take her out for an entire day of father-daughter fun. He'd made all the arrangements, calling the school to excuse her from class, pulling strings and using up hard-won favors to get her out of her law enforcement duties for the day. He'd made it a surprise for Buttercup, announcing it while they were right at the door. He'd expected Buttercup to warm up to him, for there to be kisses and hugs, but she'd scoffed at the gesture instead. In the car, she was constantly averting her gaze and whether it was in the rear-view mirror or whenever he would turn around to look at her. Her arms would be folded in that usual Buttercup way, signifying that she was mad - at what, the professor did not know. He'd asked, twice or thrice in the car, but Buttercup had remained stubbornly silent.

"Can't you just tell me what's wrong, Buttercup?" the professor goaded her on. "I'm your Dad, we can talk about anything you want."

"You're lying," Buttercup said. Beneath that cold exterior, the professor could detect a degree of hurt. Being mentally unbalanced would not have prevented her from feeling hurt.

"Is that what this is about?" the professor guessed. "That we haven't been talking enough?"

Buttercup kept her arms folded and turned away, looking out the window. Wouldn't even deign to look at her Dad. Professor Utonium, however, could see the look on her face from the faint reflection in the window. It was still dark enough for him to do so. Her piercing eyes were easy to read. She was mad. Perhaps spiteful. Perhaps even hateful. Buttercup was a wildcard.

The professor sighed.

"Look, you don't have to tell me everything if you don't want to. Just… just let me make up for it, whatever it is, okay?" the professor offered.

"Whatever, Dad," Buttercup said dismissively. "Where are we going anyway?"

"There's a winter fair in Townsville," the professor revealed. "Captain Scott handed me the brochure from the mailman."

There wasn't a response, at least not immediately.

"Why isn't Mom coming with us?" Buttercup asked. At this point, Mom was the only person she could trust, though even Buttercup's concept of trust wasn't conventional. As far as she knew, she had never heard her talking behind her back even though she eavesdropped on her too.

"Someone has to watch out for Blossom and Bubbles," the Dad replied as he was reversing the car, looking behind him as he did. "She's sending them to Elodie Morbucks' place after dinner."

Elodie Morbucks. Given the choice, Buttercup would have considered seeing the Princess. As the sickly little girl was an outsider with no involvement in the Utonium family affairs, she considered her reliable. Buttercup could always trust Elodie to be generous with her gifts.

The only reason why she didn't kick up a fuss knowing that she wouldn't be able to go to the Princess' mansion was that she thought it might be worth it to let Dad be generous instead and give her whatever she wanted.

What Dad didn't tell her was that Mom had second thoughts about taking away her Chemical X enhancements. She'd refused to talk to him in the morning when he told her and made it damn well known that he wouldn't change his mind.

The City of Townsville. Esperanza Acres. Morbucks Family Mansion.

17 FEB (Friday) 1989. 1842.

Dinner at the Morbucks' was magnificent. Extravagant. It always was with them, and now that Blossom and Bubbles had both returned to Elodie's side, it was much more so, to the point of overcompensation. Even Bubbles' poor appetite could not make it any less tempting for her.

After a bath, with all three Girls attended to by servants, they retired to Elodie's bedroom where they would spend the night having a sleepover. It was slow-going but fun at first. They played a game of snake and ladders - Blossom and Bubbles' very first attempt at enjoying a board game, though Bubbles was a little distracted as usual. They would groom the luscious hair of dolls custom-made for such an activity, play nurses and doctors with yet more dolls - Elodie was most experienced with such a thing considering her frequent visits to the hospital.

"I think I need to go," Blossom suddenly said while they were in the middle of a 'surgery' involving a baby represented by a life-like doll. "My tummy feels terrible…"

"Annie will take you to the nearest washroom," Elodie said gracefully to one of her best friends. Blossom practically flew to the door – she wasn't kidding when she needed to go. Bubbles and Elodie were left waiting.

And Bubbles had been sweating. It had been a day since she took a shot of the fairy godmother's magic, and she was getting jittery over it. She was shaken for the entire day. Miss Keane had tried to ignore it, but she knew the teacher was wise to it. The way Elodie's eyes would flit to her before averting her gaze had told her everything she needed to know about her attention. Elodie knew. Everyone knew.

"Bubbles, are you sick?" the Princess finally asked now that they were alone. She'd put a hand on Bubbles' upper arm, which was uncovered because she was wearing a sleeveless dress, and it was slick with sweat.

"I'm! Not! Sick!" Bubbles hollered, shrugging off the Princess' hand violently. Her eyes had gone all hellish red. "Stop calling me sick!"

"I… I wasn't…" Elodie stuttered, shocked at how Bubbles had changed. "I just thought you were… were ill…" tears prickled Elodie as she tried to explain herself. It was too much that her best-best friend had shouted at her for being concerned.

It was harder and harder for Bubbles to snap out of it each time she took a shot of 'His Secret 2.0', but it wasn't as difficult this time. Elodie was her closest little girl friend – no one in her kindergarten class could fill in for her. They had some history together, and Bubbles had felt responsible for her ever since.

"I'm sorry…" Bubbles apologized, only to proceed to lie: "It's my new power. It makes me angry all the time and I couldn't help it."

"O-oh," Elodie continued crying and couldn't stop. "I-it's alright."

"I'm sorry again," Bubbles added before giving her hand a squeeze.

"I'm okay," Elodie sniffled as she tried to contain herself. "I get angry too whenever I feel really sick and sad."

"Princess?" Bubbles asked with her hands folded on her lap, as she looked down at those hands – those hands that had killed so many, and she knew that a bit insubstantial number of her victims did not deserve death, even if they were criminals.

"Hmm?" Elodie mumbled as she continued to wipe tears away.

"It's about my anger," Bubbles went ahead, but she paused after that, unsure of how to continue.

"What about it?" the Princess asked. She held Bubbles hands when she realized that Bubbles was extremely troubled. She had never seen her this way before.

"I…" Bubbles paused again, unsure if she should even say a word about her anger problem.

"You can tell me. I'm your friend," the Princess said. Bubbles whimpered and wept as the past few days came back to her. "You helped me before, and I'll help you now."

"I've been taking drugs," Bubbles blurted out, fighting through tears.

"But drugs are good right?" the Princess said. "Whenever I feel really sick, I take drugs so I'd feel better."

"I'm not taking drugs because I'm sick, Elodie," Bubbles corrected her. "I'm taking them because they helped me to fight. I can't help my sisters without them, but it's making me angry and crazy and… It's making me do things I don't want to do."

The Princess was lost at first. How could medicine ever be bad? Weren't they supposed to help people? With her, it had helped with her remission from cancer. With Bubbles, it seemed as if it was giving her mood swings. Elodie had suffered the same effects before – or at least that was what her limited experience told her. But Bubbles' eyes had gone red, shining red. It didn't look like any kind of side effect any sort of medicine could produce. But the Princess' trail of thoughts had gone cold from there onwards. She had no idea what it all meant.

"Did you talk to your doctor about it?" the Princess asked, and for some reason, Bubbles had stiffened up, as if there were terrorists in the room.

"Doctor?" Bubbles asked. What did doctors have anything to do with drugs?

"Didn't a doctor give you those drugs?" Elodie questioned. "My doctors gave me my drugs to make me feel better."

"I… don't have a doctor…" Bubbles admitted, knowing that it was making her look suspicious.

"But where did you get your drugs?" Elodie asked, the concern in her voice growing.

"I don't know…" Bubbles lied, after realizing that the growing silence between them was making her look worse, but she couldn't think of a good one for the life of her. She had never really lied before until days ago. She never liked lying, nor liars. And it was at this time that she realized that she had become something she hated.

"Maybe you should talk to your dad about it?" Elodie suggested. "I'll always talk to my daddy whenever I need help…"

Without knowing it, the Princess had made an irrefutable point, suggested a course of action that shouldn't be avoided, and Bubbles knew it. Yet, the thought of owning up to the fact that she had been abusing drugs to her father was more daunting than even facing Mojo Jojo. She knew she was wrong right from the start. She'd talked to a stranger who was certainly strange and not in any civil service uniform, and she was taking drugs - something her Dad had taken great pains to make them understand as something dangerous, like fire and guns. She'd lied and hid things from everyone, and she'd hurt and killed people.

There was no way she would come clean with her Dad - and that was the final wrong she knew she had committed.