Reply to Guest: Well, we'll see how it goes with Selicia. This being a story written to be somewhat realistic, it's just as possible that she could change...

Chapter 54: Beasts

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

23 FEB (Thursday) 1989. 1453.

It was astounding, simply astounding. Phenomenal. While Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were at school, or fighting crime, Professor Utonium had been tending to Bunny all day long, but most importantly, teaching her everything - little by little. And she was simply astounding, phenomenal. The rate at which she was learning… anything really, was far beyond what Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were capable of. While Bunny was unable to really run yet, she was already walking within hours of awakening for the first time. Her first word came mere minutes after that.

'Dadda,' she had said, and when Selicia had joined after she returned from sending the Girls to school, she would follow it up with 'Momma'. Hygienic practices-wise, she understood very quickly how to use the toilet. Like the Girls, she disliked the stink of feces and urine and cried when she peed in her diapers, and so that was incentive enough for her to climb aboard the porcelain train.

The professor, thus, had resolved to teach Bunny everything as fast as he could, to fulfill her potential - her destiny. To be someone who would outperform Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup in every respect. Grudgingly, he had to accept that at the end of the day, it was for her to supersede them as enhanced operatives of the USDO. It still felt like he was using her, but he'd decided that what mattered was that Bunny was going to be treated like family so that, like her trio of elder sisters, her job would be made as comfortable as it could be.

Playtime was spent on a naming game, when the professor would flash cards at Bunny, naming the content of the cards at the same time, beckoning for the newly-born eight-year-old to repeat it.

Bunny never ceased to amaze him.

Within a few hours, breaks included, Bunny was able to learn, with increasing accuracy, the names of over a hundred objects from balls to cars to police officers, and how to pronounce them. She was able to remember them too, with memory and linguistic flair rivaling that of Blossom's.

Time seemed to fly in this voyage of discovery with Bunny the professor had embarked upon, but soon, the spell was broken when Bunny was finally exhausted by all the new things she had learned. The only limiting factor to her mental capacity, it seemed, was mental exhaustion.

But even while Bunny was asleep, all the professor could do was to sit beside her, or lie down in the Girls' bed beside her, mulling, waiting for the next time he could teach and observe the miracle that was Bunny at work. That was, at least until the doorbell rang.

It'd snapped the professor out of what felt like a dream. Rising from the Girls' tri-colored bed, he gingerly left the room to avoid waking Bunny and headed to the door.

'Who could it be at this hour?' the professor thought. It couldn't have been Selicia – she was taking a beauty nap way before Bunny. The Girls would have gone through the second-floor windows and let him know.

He didn't need to take long to find out. On opening the door, he found a gigantic beast of a man blocking the view. The security officer beside him, a woman of corporal rank with brown hair, was tiny compared to him, and less noticeable.

"General Blackwater?" the professor said, before turning to the female security officer. "And you are…"

"Corporal Nana Weston, sir," the younger security officer actually saluted the professor. "It's an honor to finally meet you."

"She's my… aide," General Blackwater revealed.

The professor, however, was nonplussed that a pair of USDO officers had decided to invade his home while he was busy on Bunny's first day.

"What brings the both of you here?" he asked in a matter-of-fact way. He didn't intend to be as welcoming as he could - General Blackwater was one of those people who saw it fit to make use of Bunny.

"Security review," the general revealed. "You know the drill. We have a new enhanced individual, and so we have to take a peek."

"Er… No, I don't know the drill," the professor said, confused. "Security's outside. It doesn't take a general to inspect a house either."

"It's not just about the house, prof," the corporal beside Blackwater said, with a smile on her face that looked out of place for a serious 'security review'.

"Take us to B-50," General Blackwater simply ordered. "I want to see her- it again."

The professor couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the couple of security officers, at General Blackwater's self-correction. He was usually much more sure of himself than now.

Not wanting to question the general, he did as he was told, and brought them up to the Girls' room. Bunny was already awake by the time the professor returned, and it hadn't even been an hour yet.

"The furnishing in this room is… adequate," the general said. It'd only raised questions in the professor about him. What did the furnishing have anything to do with security?

The corporal approached Bunny, who was sitting up in bed. Sitting down beside her, the young security officer waved at her, greeting her as any child-conscious woman would. The general appeared to have nothing against it as he stood by one of the port-windows and looked out of it, down at the security convoy parked across the street.

"She's beautiful! Look at her eyes!" the female security officer couldn't help but burst out in praises. Why would a security officer care about the appearances of a bioweapon?

Bunny giggled at what the security officer said. She pointed at her and blubbered out: "Girl! Girl!"

"That's right, I'm a girl just like you," the young female security officer said. She then proceeded to stroke her head affectionately. "I can't believe you're just a day old!"

The general turned around to pin the professor down with his glare before he could question what was going on any further.

"Did you name her?" the general asked. "What's her name?"

"I didn't name her. Bubbles did," the professor said, tense from the general's visit, but not because he was afraid of him. "Her name's Bunny. Bunny Utonium."

General Blackwater seemed to freeze the moment the professor said the name. As if there was something wrong with it. It didn't help that the general seemed to be studying the professor's face.

"It'll serve," he sighed, saying nothing about how he obviously didn't like it. "Have you assessed her capabilities yet?"

"Does learning ability count in your war-addled brain?" the professor said. By what right did the general came into his home and judge him? He hadn't forgotten about the general's part in the Morbucks' masquerade ball, and certainly not his hand in pushing his daughters to their absolute limit when he should have gone easy on them. They were working harder than even most adults and taking far more risks than it was humane! And soon, he would be doing the same thing with Bunny.

"Yes," the general simply said. He probably knew that the professor was contentious and dissatisfied with his decisions, but chose not to bother with it.

"She started walking, eating, using the toilet and speaking about a hundred words today," Professor Utonium bit at his words as if he was about to get into a fight. "Is that good enough for you? Or do you want to traumatize this one too?"

"You've grown attached to Bunny?" the general asked, his eyes still fixed on him as if deciding whether or not to execute him on the spot. "You love her?"

"Children are meant to be loved. More so by those who sired them," the professor said, this time allowing some venom to seep into his words. "Some of us are more human than others."

"At least some of them think so," the general countered surprisingly. After taking a pause whilst glaring at the professor some more, he continued: "I don't care how you feel about Bunny, as long as you provide for her needs, and make her happy."

"Since when do you ever care about the Girls' happiness?" the professor snapped back at him, at the same time keeping an eye on the lower-ranking security officer with brown hair, who appeared to be completely absorbed in interacting with Bunny. Bunny, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind the corporal as she was making funny faces at her. She was laughing instead.

"Sooner than you think, and more than you know," the general replied curtly, before sighing. "But business is business, and war is war. And speaking of warring - you will teach her as much as you can in the next two days because I'm taking her on the fourth for a three-day crash course. Her and Sergeant Selicia."

"Isn't that far too soon!?" the professor retorted fiercely, flinging an arm at the general, causing everyone in the room to look at him. Even Bunny knew what was up. "It took Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup three weeks to get prepared for their first mission and even then, it was one miserable tragedy after another!"

"And guess whose fault is that?" the general said coldly. "You were supposed to raise those brats as soldiers. You knew they were meant to be soldiers. You've spoiled them instead, coddling them too much when you should be toughening them up. You want to talk about being human? Love? That's love - preparing your close ones for what they must face. No, you're just selfish. They're just replacements for your dead wife and kid."

"Don't you dare mention them!" the professor warned the general, but he wasn't making anyone shrink away from him anytime soon. The general knew that he was more than a match for the middle-aged geek even in his sixties.

The general did not reply. Instead, he turned to the door and started walking away.

"You're wrong about me!" Professor Utonium added.

"Let's go, corporal," General Blackwater said to his aide on his way out of the room.

"Awww, but we just got here!" the soldier said.

"Fine, I'm going to have a talk with Selicia, and then we're going," the general said. The professor thought he was being unusually relenting. In fact, he wasn't acting quite like his normal self. That, however, was the end of his thought process. His guts felt like ice, and his legs had gone numb from it. Collapsing in the Girls' bed, he didn't even notice when minutes went by, and Corporal Nana Weston had bid him goodbye and gone away.

He just started crying. He'd never expected this - it was dangerous enough that Bunny's creation was rushed. It was bad enough that he had only three weeks with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup before they were pressed into service. Now, he had only three days with Bunny before everything would go to shit.

Well, presumably. There was always the chance that Bunny could be the skeleton key to a crime-free future, but even then, she would have to grow up very quickly. She would have far less time to indulge in any kind of childhood. Far less time to be human.

When the professor was crying, Bunny noticed. She knew what it meant - she had been doing that herself sometimes, all day. It meant that her Dad needed something. Attention. Love. Despite knowing only about a hundred words, she didn't need them to understand the vocabulary of human emotions. Standing up from among her toys, she waddled over to the professor, concerned and on the verge of tears herself because her Dad - this pillar of strength, the only pillar of strength she knew - had fallen.

"Dada sad," Bunny uttered the few words she knew. She was able to boost herself up onto the professor lap with her enhanced strength. She then wiped some of her father's tears away with her fingers. "Bunny love Dada…"

Bunny's gestures were the remedy he needed for his crying and shaking. It'd filled him with hope. Perhaps, just perhaps, things might turn out fine. After all, Bunny was already capable of things which Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup needed a week to accomplish, which normal children would take a couple of years at least to even attempt.

"Daddy loves Bunny too," the professor replied, and they hugged.

The City of Townsville. Outskirts. The Flying Tumbleweed (Convenience Store).

23 FEB (Thursday) 1989. 1725.

It had been a lousy day for The Powerpuff Girls. Having to leave class within an hour of it notwithstanding, it was another dive into Crimesville, USA, like before Bubbles' final drug-fueled rampage. They were involved in one high-speed chase after another, in quelling multiple random acts of violence perpetrated by mobs of seemingly everyday citizens, but the final topping on the cake was when they had to deal with another incursion by an enhanced individual…

Though the worst had yet to come.

It all started with an erroneously-made call claiming that a man in a furry suit was holding up a convenience store. A USDO patrol unit just so happened to be in the area. Feeling vulnerable over the recent decision by Director Cliff to split up his forces into smaller units to cover a wide number of emergencies, they made the call for an intervention by The Powerpuff Girls after the owner of the store was thrown through a window. They believed the man in the furry suit to be jacked up with His Secret 2.0, but they had him contained with the help of the police.

The truth was worse.

"A man in a bear suit? At least it isn't another gang," Blossom said in her ignorance as she landed next to the fire-team of USDO soldiers attending to the convenience store robbery. While regular criminals weren't much of a danger, they were a nuisance because they usually came in huge numbers. It was like trying to catch some chicks in a wide, open area on a farm.

"Or another chase down the highway," Bubbles added. "I'm tired from all that flying!"

"What's there to be tired about? It was fun, so stop whining!" Buttercup added - though she didn't really believe in her own words, considering that her idea of fun was more than just chasing a car full of criminals around. Bubbles didn't have time to be upset at Buttercup when they were approached by the USDO.

"The Powerpuff Girls, finally!" the officer commanding the fire-team exclaimed.

"What seems to be the problem, mister?" Blossom asked.

"I know it sounds stupid, but-" the officer said, sounding a little too friendly before he stopped himself. He glared at Blossom as if remembering something nasty. "There's a man in there in a black-furred costume. I think he's on drugs, like Bubbles over there, the other day." He pointed at Bubbles with his XM4 Carbine. Bubbles was immediately facing the ground in shame. Blossom knew how it would make her feel, but there was nothing she could do but give the officer a frown. "The weird eyes gave it away. There are no civilians in the line of fire, so just go in there and knock him out. We'll be right behind you to arrest him. Don't mess this up!"

"Sounds easy enough, let's just hurry up and get this done so we can go home for dinner, Bloss!" Buttercup harried her leader sister, with no joy at all in her voice. In any other circumstances, she would have enjoyed beating the snot out of a criminal, but no, she wasn't allowed to enjoy anything. A warm meal, on the other hand, was just about the pinnacle of enjoyment for her these days.

Blossom, however, was less confident. It sounded too easy, far too easy. But all she had to go on was that the man holding up the convenience store was on the same drugs as Bubbles and that he was wearing a furry suit.

"Fine. Follow behind me, we'll go through the door and make him sleep really quickly!" Blossom said to no one in particular - her sisters, the USDO soldiers, the cops. She then launched herself towards the glass doors of the convenience store, bright pink X-contrail in her wake, followed by her sisters, who emitted a lime and baby blue X-contrail respectively.

When they entered the convenience store, they found the man opening a refrigeration unit and cracking open a tall can of beer.

With just one glance, Blossom knew that something was wrong, and the operation wasn't exactly what was advertised.

"The shotgun, I've seen it before!" Buttercup uttered before she could. The man in the fur suit's gun was a modified lever-action shotgun with a thick barrel, reinforced by ribs.

"It's…" Bubbles couldn't even bear to finish what she was about to say.

"The Purple Man!" Blossom finished it for her. The Purple Man turned around, having noticed their frightened squeaking. Ghostly-white pupils stared back at them. After taking a big gulp, without warning and without so much as a word of greeting, he grabbed his shotgun and started firing. His black fur, in the meantime, had turned a shade of gray, blending in together with the generally dull coloring of the convenience store. Either way, he was anything but purple.

Shots were fired at the Girls, some of which hit home, and the Girls ducked into hiding behind a shelf full of plastic-packaged pastries and other, less healthy, comestibles.

"What do we do!?" Bubbles squeaked in fear as she trembled – but half of it was out of the fear of backsliding into cowardice.

"Fight, of course, you bobblehead!" Buttercup insulted the meekest of the three. Blossom glared at her - but there was no time.

"We'll go in three directions. Buttercup, you go straight ahead and use the shelf. I'll go up. You go left, Bubbles!" Blossom ordered.

"But-" Bubbles was about to object only to be ignored:

"Go!" Blossom ordered and launched herself into the air. Buttercup immediately shoved the shelf forward, like a professional footballer pushing another back. The shelf, which spanned a quarter of the store ended up crashing into the Purple Man, even managing to pin him down before he could fire another dreaded shot.

Bubbles did as she was told the best she could, but on seeing the Purple Man so swiftly neutralized, she couldn't think of what to do next.

"You again! Tiny little city pixies!" the Purple Man growled.

"Shut up and eat it, stupid!" Buttercup retorted. She couldn't help but admit inside that Blossom's leadership had paid off this time, and she enjoyed seeing the Purple Man brought so low. He might be dangerous out in the woods, but here, where the city was, the Girls were more in their element.

With Bubbles left indecisive, Blossom flew in for the final blow. It still seemed too easy… until the Purple Man's claws had ripped through the steel shelves, sending a mountain of pastries and packaged candies flying up into the air, blinding Blossom.

Blossom felt herself flying backward across the convenience store, blood-like flower petals flowing before her before she landed in a shelf full of cassette tapes and floppy disks. Looking down at herself, she saw blood seeping through her Kevlar vest and plates.

"B-B-Blossom?" Bubbles cried. It was all coming back to her in one big cascade. Her failure back in the woods of Pokey Oaks, she and her sisters getting grievously wounded then, and Blossom screaming at her and hitting her. Then there was Captain Boomer, and how he was nailed on a tree. To this day, she still didn't know where he was or how he was doing. But most importantly: Blossom! "Stop hurting my sister!"

Bubbles hurled herself at the Purple Man, who had tossed away Buttercup as well, and as she was flanking him and he was busy putting a few blood-enhanced shells into Buttercup, he wasn't able to react quickly enough when she gave him a punch in the face, then another, and another.

Being badly wounded, Blossom could only watch as Bubbles went into a frenzy of destruction, quite unlike her usual self from before her drug addiction problem arose. She was incredibly fast! When the Purple Man tried to seize her with his claws, she would flit away and resume her beating. Once, she landed and swept the Purple Man off his feet, and when he tried to get up, was punched several times across the face before he could.

Like an animal, the Purple Man resorted to pouncing on Bubbles while she was low on the ground, but she was able to get away and on turning around, fired the ion beam she had retained from her drug incident, searing the Purple Man, though doing very little real damage except for burning hair and skin - it was an enhanced ability, as the professor would discover in the future, which was more useful in less offensive matters, such as disrupting electronic equipment, than raw firepower.

All good things must come to an end, however, and as Bubbles swooped in for another flurry of punches, the Purple Man was finally able to grab Bubbles by an arm and a leg. The blonde little girl could only pound at the furry monster's arm uselessly when she realized she couldn't move.

"Gotcha, you brat!" he said. "I'm gonna teach you! Teach you all the way!" He started squeezing Bubbles' arm and legs, and she screamed as alarmingly, the sickening sound of bones snapping could be heard.

"Buttercup, go!" Blossom screamed in panic, her voice breaking when she realized Bubbles was in peril. They both dived into the Purple Man at full speed, knocking him fully across the convenience store, with shelves falling beneath him and knocking down others in a domino effect. He was sent flying all the way into a refrigerator, with the glass door shattering and most of him stuck inside. A mixture of all sorts of alcoholic and bubbly beverage flowed past him like a waterfall and onto the ground.

Bubbles fell out of his arms, rolling on the ground, her head lolling briefly, eyes closed. The Purple Man wasn't moving either after that.

"Bubbles… Oh no…" Blossom uttered as she saw what had become of her sister. Both her left arm and left leg were bending in unnatural ways around the elbow and knee. But there was no time to fret and cry. As Buttercup stood guard, watching the Purple Man, who looked like he was out for the count, Blossom started dragging Bubbles away, and while she was doing this, Bubbles' eyes fluttered open, though the first thing they expressed was pain, along with her gritted teeth.

"Oh, Bubbles, what have you done to yourself?" Blossom said, heartbroken that her sister, in trying to prove herself, had gotten herself hurt badly.

"I'm so sorry… Blossom," Bubbles struggled to speak as pain radiated throughout her entire body. "I… I've done it again. Nothing's changed. I'm still a coward. You were hurt because of me."

"No, Bubbles. Don't say that," Blossom comforted her. She bent down to get closer to her sensitive sibling. "You did really well. You gave us a chance to fight back. But- I wish you hadn't done that. I wish you weren't hurt."

"I'd rather be hurt," Bubbles replied.

"He's waking up again!" Buttercup informed the two of them while the Purple Man groaned as he tried to extricate himself from the beverage aisle.

"Purple Man!" Blossom shouted as she forcibly tore herself from Bubbles, more angry than upset now. Turning around, he marched up to the brawny, furry giant, whose fur was returning to its usual shade of purple. "You meanie! Why are you doing this!? Why are you hurting people!? Why hurt my sister!?"

The Purple Man was just straightening up and grabbing his boomstick when he heard Blossom's tirade. He didn't expect to be spoken to, especially not by three little runts who had invaded his neck of the woods a couple of weeks ago, injured him and broke Joe, who he was still trying to repair. Originally, he intended to continue fighting, but after blinking twice and taking in Blossom's question, he lowered his lever-action shotgun and growled - he had his grievances too.

"I came to this here establishment for help, but all I git are these ill-mannered city 'uns screaming my ears off and calling the sheriff and even shooting at me!" the Purple Man rumbled. "I've even brought money, but apparently it's not good enough for them 'posh' folks!"

Buttercup, closest to the Purple Man, was looking back at Blossom, pleading with her eyes to let her take him one, but Blossom shook her head.

"But that doesn't make hurting people right! What do you need help with, anyway?" Blossom asked.

"Winter's keeping on like no other winters. It still feels like December, and it's gettin' harder to find venison and fish. Them deers knew to avoid my neck of the woods, and the river's runnin' outta fish or somewhat, you follow?" the Purple Man explained, but Blossom couldn't understand half of it. The look on her face was obvious, so he went on to simplify himself: "I couldn't find food, so I wanted to buy myself some - but the boys and gals here don't think I'm good enough for 'em!"

Something clicked in Blossom - previously, the Purple Man had attacked a gas station, and it just so happened to have a convenience store in it too. Had he been out for some food back then too?

"If it's food you want, will you leave if we let you take whatever you want?" Blossom proposed. On the inside, she felt proud of herself for thinking of such an ingenious solution. In any case, she didn't think she could handle another bout of fighting. Clutching her chest, she felt like she'd been cut up like a paper with penknives and scissors. Not to mention, Bubbles had literally given an arm and a leg just to equalize the balance of power between furry monster and kindergarten fighters.

The Purple Man couldn't believe his ears. These city girls would let him leave? After everything?

"Yes - if them folks here had been wiser with their words and not forgit what their mama taught them…" the Purple Man mumbled.

"Then take whatever you want and go," Blossom said, still cross with him. She had decided - as much as she hated the Purple Man for hurting her sisters, he wasn't entirely in the wrong, it seemed. Neither was more fighting going to help.

"Fine," the Purple Man growled, before sidestepping them, and backing away, his gun still cautiously held at low port. "Don't you dare try anything." And with that, the Purple Man started gathering his food. Blossom, however, decided to expedite the process as a show of good faith and to just end it all quickly. While he gathered his selected items - mainly meat products - Blossom threw whatever she could get her hands on into a shopping cart and flew up to the Purple Man while holding it out for him.

"My friends outside are mad though," Blossom said as she handed over the spoils to the Purple Man. "So you'll have to sneak out the back. They're still trying to get there. I think the snow's blocking the way."

"Don't you start fancyin' that we're friends," the Purple Man growled after snatching away the shopping cart full of goods and dumping his own selections in. He stuck his boomstick into the baby seat last. "We're not even either - you broke Joe, and that's unforgivable," With that, he went on his way out.

"Urm- Mister?" Blossom said, and the Purple Man stopped. "What's your name?"

The Purple Man turned around, his whitened pupils searching Blossom's frightened pink.

"I haven't figured it out yet, but I go by Lumpkins," the Purple Man introduced himself, at long last. Blossom found it odd - how could a man not know his own name? Not that it mattered - while the battle was terrible, and Bubbles was hurt badly, with herself not far behind, the worst was yet to come.