(To view the early concept of the art for the cover of Act 3 of The Powerpuff Girls: Declassified, go to this chapter on Archive of Our Own)
Chapter 51: Death and Life
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
19 FEB (Sunday) 1989. 1419.
When Professor Utonium had come to, what he saw next made going back to unconsciousness preferable. Blossom and Bubbles – two of his darling babies – were covered in blood. Both of them were injured, one more than the other, and Blossom was cradling Bubbles in her arms, and where she was once full of energy and action, she was on the floor, wailing. Bubbles was lifeless in her arms.
Even from where he was, he could tell how grievous the wound was. There was a bloody scalpel on the floor. Where Blossom had gotten it he had no idea, but it was likely the weapon used to slit Bubbles' throat wide open, and blood was pouring out at an alarming rate.
"I'm sorry, Bubbles, I'm so sorry…" Blossom cried as she hugged her mortally wounded sister closely. "I love you… Goodbye…"
After giving Bubbles a kiss on the cheek, Blossom got up, laying her down on the floor gently and respectfully, oblivious of anyone's presence. She couldn't get far, however, before she collapsed to her knees and vomited on the floor, before rolling over and falling unconscious on her back.
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
19 FEB (Sunday) 1989. 1605.
The professor himself was covered in blood. He was sitting outside the front door of his home. He didn't want to get back inside, no matter how freezing it was outside. His hands, bloody from his previous ordeal, were shaking, but it wasn't from the cold. He stared into the distance, into the empty house opposite the street to his own that was bought out by the USDO. PTF soldiers stood aside and far away, speaking in hushed tones as if they knew what kind of turmoil he was suffering from inside.
He looked to his right and saw the only real neighbor he had. Smith, he thought, just turning around and walking back into his own home.
The world seemed different now – the color, the shapes, the feel of it – even though the only thing that had really changed was his family.
When he had to create reinforcement for the Girls, when he created Chemical X2 just for that, he didn't think that he would be introducing reinforcement in the most literal, military sense of the word. Was it destiny all along? Fate? He was never a man of faith; what faith he had, he'd placed them on the people around him, and most recently, on the shoulders of his family. And now, even that was gone. There was only cold, hard facts and data; science. And it wasn't looking good.
He didn't think that when he was about to create reinforcement for the Girls – be he or she a brother or a sister – that he would be-
…Replacing Bubbles.
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
19 FEB (Sunday) 1989. 1614.
Behind him, the front door opened. A fellow intelligentsia in a lab coat stepped out of the entrance. Gingerly skirting around him, he lowered himself down beside him to join him on the concrete before his front door.
He had old, wrinkled skin, white hair. It was Doctor Simmons, the medical director of the USDO.
"It's nasty, what happened," the old doctor said delicately. "We're sorry about what happened."
The professor continued staring into the distance, into the city center of Townsville, that damned city, that city that was constantly threatening to swallow his Girls whole. At long last, it had succeeded in dragging one into its gaping maw like some monster.
He was still shaking after everything.
"Blossom's stable. So is Selicia and Buttercup," the doctor reported. "Bubbles, however…"
"Look, we did the best we can. You did," Doctor Simmons went on when he realized that the professor wasn't going to open up no matter what. He put an arm around the relatively young man.
"Come back inside. It's freezing out here. Come back inside, your family needs you, now more than ever. The last thing they need is for you to join them in the sick bed, fighting hypothermia. I think your concussion is enough; it's a wonder how you could even operate, the way you are."
"I can't," Professor Utonium said.
"Remember the story I told you about my past?" Doctor Simmons said. The professor didn't reply. "I couldn't save those kids. I didn't try. I gave up and I paid the price. You've been strong. I know it's hard, but you need to keep going."
"I can't, okay!?" the professor yelled, but the old doctor didn't seem shocked by it, as if he expected it.
"Why?" he asked, instead.
"I should have known – it was all going to blow and it happened right under my nose!" the professor cried, his face in his hands. "All the signs were there, all the science. Bubbles' 'new power', her symptoms, the drugs – I've seen the data and the effects. A detective all but told me-"
"Don't beat yourself up over it-" the old doctor comforted him, but it didn't stick.
"How can I not!?" the professor said. "I'm a scientist and a doctor. The USDO recruited me because I'm one of the best. I let my personal feelings get in the way and my family paid the price for it!"
"You're a human being, one of the most human I've ever met-" the old doctor tried again, but Professor Utonium went on as if he had said nothing.
"I accused Buttercup of deception when she was telling the truth for once, and now look what happened to her," the professor cried. "And I believed Bubbles when I shouldn't have, just because I thought she was sweet and incapable of deception. And Blossom… she had to- she had to-"
"Enough, Upton," the doctor said finally. "All that is past. You can't undo it, just like how I couldn't bring those Jewish children back… no matter how many times I wished upon a star, all those years while I wandered Europe. But you're in the now, you can change things now!"
The professor nodded. Doctor Simmons helped him up; he was surprisingly strong, given his age and it wasn't all thanks to the health regimen given to all USDO personnel. Together, they went back inside and back down to the lab.
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
21 FEB (Tuesday) 1989. 1420.
Beep… Beep… Beep… a heart monitor chanted in its vigil over its patient. Professor Utonium had been sitting beside her almost on a nightly basis too, despite everything that had happened. He couldn't blame her for it, after all, after thinking about it over the course of three days.
Standing up, he stretched, and he could hear his joints cracking. Bending down, he kissed his little patient in the forehead, before walking around one of the arms of the Duranium table she was fastened to, so he could check the heart rate monitor and adjust it for the umpteenth time for calibration. He knew that the machine was fine and functioning as it should be. Just that with everything in his head, with all the anxiety and nervousness he felt, his hands got busy. He needed problems to solve, even if they weren't there.
"D-dad?" a faint, hoarse voice cried while he was tinkling with the monitor. He whirled around, almost knocking it over, and he rushed over to his little patient.
"Bubbles!" he said as he came up to her, holding her head and kissing her in the forehead again.
"I… can't move…" she said while she began to struggle, but she was held in a spread-eagled position by Duranium restraints on a Duranium bed, the same one that was used to disempower Buttercup. She was covered with a blanket for comfort but naked underneath due to her withdrawal symptoms, which meant endless, profuse sweating. It was also for easy access whenever she needed to be cleaned and maintained or if he needed to inject her or poke and prod her with whatever Duranium implements he needed to perform the many medical examinations he had to undertake to understand her condition better.
He couldn't take the chance. He didn't need a repeat of what happened three days ago. Bubbles was going to stay in the table until he was sure she wasn't going to hurt anyone.
"It's for your own good, honey," he said. "I'm sorry if it's uncomfortable, but I'll be here with you, always."
"I'm sorry for everything, Dad," Bubbles cried. "I didn't mean to."
The professor pulled a couple of napkins from a box beside her and helped her wipe the tears away.
"I know," he said.
"How do you know?" Bubbles asked.
"Because I know you're the sweetest, kindest little girl there is," the professor said, holding her hand even though he knew he was putting himself at risk. "That wasn't you, three days ago."
"Three days?" Bubbles asked, confused.
"Yes, it's been three days, Bubbles," the professor said. Bubbles had been healing for three days too. Thinking back, it hadn't been easy even for her superior biology. It was only by dint of her enhanced oxygen capacity and anaerobic resistance that she had survived having her windpipe severed in two. Normal people would have been lost in five minutes; Bubbles had survived the ten minutes it took for the professor to drain her lungs of blood and hook her up to an artificial respiration machine. "You shouldn't feel as bad as you used to without the drug."
"But what about Blossom? And Buttercup? And Mom?" Bubbles said. "And… I killed Mister Mullens…"
"They're all fine, sweetie," the professor said.
"Promise?" Bubbles asked. She was smart and experienced enough to know that adults wouldn't always tell the truth, even the good ones.
"Promise. Here, I'll even pinkie swear it," the professor reassured her by wrapping his pinkie around hers. He still couldn't believe how tiny her fingers were – next to how much power there were behind them. Power that had killed, and nearly destroyed the family when someone had abused her naïve nature, whoever had supplied her with the drugs.
The professor then walked around to the head of the bed and lifted her head up for her gently. Bubbles winced. The traumatic injury in her neck was mostly healed, but not entirely. The damage was severe enough that even her healing factor couldn't fix it overnight, and neither in three days.
"They've been busy, in fact, see?" the professor said. He'd lifted her head up so she could see the entrance leading into the Duranium table room and the glass wall surrounding it.
The glass wall was filled with drawing blocks depicting the Girls. Though the drawings were basic, it didn't matter, and the intentions and meaning showed through. One of them had the three of them playing with the swings in a playground. Another was a scene in school with Miss Keane. One of them was Blossom and Bubbles playing with toys horses in a toy corral and toy barn.
But the next few ones were even more poignant. It was the park, lushly green and filled with colorful flowers and bees and butterflies buzzing about. Another was all three Girls riding ponies, and the ground was green with tall grasses all sticking out.
"Spring…" Bubbles mumbled. The professor had to wipe her tears away constantly after that.
"The three of you are really looking forward to it, aren't you?" the professor said. "The picnic idea's definitely on the table. So is the zoo trip, and the horse riding. Get better soon, Bubbles, so we can experience your first spring together… At your best."
There was distant chatter from the outside. Giggles. Bubbles could recognize who they were even from afar. They were people she'd been with for most of her waking moment. People she tried to kill. A wave of unbearable shame and misery overwhelmed Bubbles when she realized she was about to meet more people she tried to kill and had wounded badly as a result – and they were her sisters, too.
Outside, Blossom and Buttercup were approaching the Duranium table room. They had to weave past numerous soldiers at their posts to get there. After Bubbles' drug-induced, violent and deadly outburst, Captain Scott of the PTF and General Blackwater just couldn't take the chance. As such, they had basically stationed an entire company of soldiers in Professor Utonium's lab just in case. There were machinegun nests pointed at the thin corridor leading to the Duranium table room. Behind them were sniper nests, each with several crack-shot snipers, and each team of snipers had their best armed with the modified Duranium XM9 anti-material rifle. Squads more of soldiers were stationed above ground.
The closer Blossom got to Bubbles, the more she doubted herself, and her sisterhood and relationship with her. Each step became harder than the next to put forward. After all, things had changed far too frequently and drastically, like night to day, winter to summer…
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
19 FEB (Sunday) 1989. 1951.
Concerned about Blossom, Professor Utonium had decided to check on her, bringing along some new dessert for her to try, a strawberry lava cake. It wasn't the first time he had to check on her since… it… happened. Just an hour earlier, after watching Blossom sit through her dinner without taking a nibble, he had to intervene when Blossom decided to shut herself in the washroom and take a bath on her own.
He had to break down the door after hearing her trying to drown herself. She had been trying several times while he was dressing Selicia and Buttercup in fresh bandages.
Thankfully, he didn't need to break another door down this time, but he did hear her grunting and shrieking, tearing things apart. On entering the room, he saw her ripping Bubbles' drawings off the wall and tearing them to shreds.
"Blossom?" the Professor called out to his adopted daughter while he was setting down the strawberry lava cake. Blossom stopped immediately, but she did not turn to face him. Instead, she stood in that corner of the room, shreds of colored drawing block all around her, some still drifting in the air as if infused by Bubbles' powers.
He could tell that she had been weeping from the sniffling. She had fallen silent, likely trying very hard to control her emotions but failing; children her age cried a lot, among other things; it was as much a biological imperative as it was the result of inexperience.
"I'm not mad, you know," the professor reassured her. "You can turn around. Stop standing there like you've broken a vase or something. I've brought something really nice up. I think you'll like it."
"You're just trying to make me feel better. I promised not to hurt her but I did," Blossom cried, wiping tears away. "I broke my promise and I hurt her bad, and her blood was all over me…"
"I lied to her and I tricked her. I hate myself!" she wept.
"You're not being fair to yourself. You were forced to," Professor Utonium reasoned. "You didn't want to."
"I HATE her!" Blossom suddenly shouted and slammed her fists against the wall. The professor could feel a tremor even on the floor. "She did all this! I hate her!"
"No, you don't. This isn't who you are," the professor said. "You're angry and upset. But you don't have to be alone. I'm here, Blossom. Don't push me away."
Blossom flew to him when her self-imposed isolation grew too unbearable. Hugging him around the chest, she wetted the professor's lab coat with her tears so much that it had soaked through down to his shirt. The professor hugged back. Bringing her to her bed, he sat down and let her off, seating her on his lap.
"Bubbles wasn't herself either," the professor continued. "If it makes you feel any better, it wasn't her who did all that. Don't blame her for it, flower blossom."
"But she nearly killed Mom and Buttercup! And Mister Mullens! And she nearly killed you!" Blossom cried. "And Stanley… And those men with the Mayor!"
"You know about her drug problem, right? I told you about it after Bubbles' surgery," the professor reasoned with her. They had gone back to hugging each other. There was no one else; Mom, Buttercup and Bubbles were all unconscious, and as it stood, none of them could hold a candle to the Dad in Blossom's eyes. "She's been using… it. Which means someone's been feeding her the drug. Someone else tricked her first, forcing you to do the same. You need to understand that. Will you try that, Blossom?"
Blossom took an awfully long time to make a decision, which scared the professor. It could mean that she was hesitating, considering alternatives.
"Yes… I guess," she finally said, dispelling any doubts the professor had in her.
"Take your time, honey," Professor Utonium said. "I know it hasn't been easy for you at all. If it helps, General Blackwater promised to give the three of you a few days to rest. Don't worry your little head over Townsville and its crime problem. Take this time to heal, you deserve it."
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
21 FEB (Tuesday) 1989. 1421.
"Hello, Bubbles," Bubbles could hear Blossom greet her from a distance away, sounding like she was still at the door. She could only count herself fortunate that her Daddy had laid her head back down on her pillow when he'd gone to receive Blossom. She didn't want to look Blossom in the eyes. Neither did she reply. She didn't dare to, couldn't work up the courage. All she could focus on was the evil she had done for the entirety of last week; the lives she had taken, the drugs she had taken. The close sisterhood and bond she shared with Blossom and even Buttercup that she sacrificed, just so she could get her next kick. She felt incredibly stupid in the end because she had taken those drugs to preserve her close relationship with her sisters in the first place. She knew that compared to her sisters, she was an idiot, and now she had given them every reason to call her that.
"She's still recovering, Blossom," the professor cautioned her in a hushed tone. Bubbles could hear him; it didn't sound like he was trying to keep it from her. "Take it easy on her."
"I like her better that way. She should stay in that table for the rest of her life," Bubbles could hear Buttercup sneer at her.
"Buttercup, what did I tell you?" Dad was practically growling.
"I know, I know. I was just kidding," Buttercup apologized, sort of. Bubbles couldn't remember the last time she did if she ever did. She wasn't even sure if it was sincere if Buttercup was ever sincere about anything.
"Not funny, Buttercup," Blossom chided her, but it was too late. Even though Buttercup was being mean, Bubbles knew that she was justified this time. She had, after all, bashed her head against the floor so hard she was KO'ed and bleeding profusely the last time they met. Knowing this, she tried to keep her crying to herself, but a pathetic whimper escaped her lips regardless.
"I'll leave the three of you alone," the professor said. "I'll be right outside if any of you need me." Bubbles could hear him walking away. She wanted to call out to him to make him stay, but she knew she shouldn't make any demands from now on of anyone, as she had no right to do so after what she had done.
"How are you, Bubbles?" Blossom greeted Bubbles again as she came up to her, close enough to be in Bubbles' sight, but she turned her head away and closed her eyes. "What's wrong?"
"Don't look at me…" Bubbles wept as she continued squeezing her eyes shut. Unconsciously, she tried to cover her face with her hands, but they were stuck in their Duranium restraints, and all she could do was strain against them. "Please."
"Bubbles, I'm not mad at you anymore," Blossom said. She caught hold of Bubbles' head with her hands on either side of it so she couldn't look away. However, she was still shutting her eyes.
"I'm ashamed of myself," Bubbles cried. She didn't struggle against Blossom's grip; she couldn't bring herself to disobey Blossom even with such a comparatively minor thing. "Stop looking at me, please. I've hurt everyone who cares about me."
Blossom nodded at Buttercup, who sighed.
"I think you were awesome, Bubbles," Buttercup said with a half-defeated and half-sincere tone. "You were able to beat me over and over. I think you'll be able to do it without the drug."
Buttercup hated this, getting her arm twisted like this. Blossom had threatened to tell Dad about her past misdeeds, and the ammunition Buttercup had against Blossom no longer applied, considering how smeared her image was.
"I know it isn't your fault, Bubbles," Blossom said. "So stop being like this."
Bubbles willed herself to open her eyes, but when she inadvertently made eye contact with Blossom, she squinted her eyes, as if her leader sister was about to hit her. Blossom did have that look after all, what some less-than-subtle people would call that 'demon look'. Her glowing pink eyes had that penetrating stare, and now it was scaring her. Bubbles absolutely dreaded being strapped to the Duranium table, but what she dreaded worse was to be forced to look Blossom in the eyes while she was stuck in it.
"You know about the drugs?" Bubbles said. Something crashed deep down in her. Her secret had finally been exposed. At long last. If she wasn't weeping hard enough just now, she sure was at present.
"Dad told me about it," Blossom said. "He also told me that someone tricked you into using it. Is it true?"
Bubbles squeezed her eyes shut once more. There was so much going on inside her that it was painful - the shame, the fear, the depression. Hopelessness.
"I wanted it because she said it'd help me fight crime," Bubbles admitted. "She said it was the only way I can help you two, and it was the only way I'll ever be loved."
"She? The fairy godmother?" Blossom asked, wondering. It sounded outlandish, coming out of her own mouth. Bubbles nodded in response, as if afraid of uttering that name. She knew for a fact that it was ridiculous right from the start, and it would just make her look insane.
"Seriously? The fairy godmother?" Buttercup retorted; she couldn't believe a single word coming out of Bubbles' mouth. She knew that Bubbles was the dimmest of the three of them, the most naive of them all, but the idea of a fairy godmother in real-life had taken the cake - she couldn't decide if Bubbles was just stupid for accepting help from someone claiming to be a fairy godmother or extremely naive for doing the same.
Blossom's eyes flitted from one corner of the room to the next as she thought about everything, but ultimately, she couldn't gain much in the way of fresh insights. Her mind was back on Bubbles a moment later.
"Here," she said as she held something she had been working on up for Bubbles to see form her restrained position. It was a paper Dandelion, folded and glued together, a project she'd been working on since school. "I thought you'd like it." Blossom gave Buttercup a nudge after that, and Buttercup did the same.
"Yeah, I've got one for you too," she said. Her paper Dandelion, however, was discolored, being shades of orange and green. The only thing more wrong than the color was the shape of the flower. Severely misshapen, it barely qualified as flora.
"They're beautiful," Bubbles said tearfully. She smiled, but her happiness was short-lived. "People are going to hate me, aren't they?"
"You sure, Bubbles?" Blossom said. "Look around you."
Bubbles did. There were tables around her, and those tables held numerous gifts. 'Get well soon' cards, balloons, both of the normal types and the shimmering, reflective types. There were boxes of chocolate, blankets, scarves, embroidery, just to name some of them.
"They understand what you were going through, and they've already forgiven you," Blossom explained. "Even those who, well, weren't really our friends. What do we even call them? Other than our friends' friends, I mean..."
"I'm still afraid to see them…" Bubbles confessed.
"It'll be fine. I'll be there with you if it helps. Our classmates at Pokey Oaks really misses you, you know. They couldn't come see you even though they were screaming for a field trip to visit you - only Miss Keane was here. I've never seen her that upset before," Blossom said, but on realizing that she was rambling, stopped herself. "Get well soon, Bubbles, so you can pick some real Dandelions in exchange for our fake ones."
Blossom and Buttercup laughed. It managed to coax a tearful smile from Bubbles. The professor had been sneaking peeks at them, and smiled, too. Things were returning to normal. Things were finally looking up, and it was something they really needed because the past three days had been hell for the family, not the mention the tense week before that when Bubbles' increasing drug-fueled madness had loomed over them, whether they knew it or not.
And with him finalizing the procedures for creating reinforcement for the Girls, perhaps, just perhaps, the Girls would finally be able to live in peace.