Chapter 55: The Black Car

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

23 FEB (Thursday) 1989. 1816.

Home sweet home, at long last. The day had been terrible. When there was the Purple Man, whom the Girls now knew to call by Lumpkins, it had to be. He was practically a disaster walking on legs, and even when they were stronger and more seasoned than before, they weren't able to defeat him. They had to make him go away by letting him take whatever food he wanted. Blossom didn't like it - she knew that her sisters wouldn't like it either - but though it was like letting a bully have his way, it was the only way. Lumpkins would have gone on to hurt or even kill them, then move on to hurt or kill everyone else around them.

But that wasn't even the worst part…

'I solved the problem, mister!' Blossom had announced proudly when she met the USDO soldier in charge of the operation, half an hour ago at the outskirts of Townsville. The soldier looked distressed when she said it.

'What did you do?' he'd asked, pale as if he'd seen a ghost. 'B-47, what have you done?'

'The 'man in a bear suit' was actually the Purple Man. His name is Lumpkins,' Blossom had explained, at the same time hoping that the soldier was just tired from the operation and cold from the weather. The alternative would be too much to stomach. 'He was actually just hungry, so we gave him lots of food and he left.'

Blossom had said it proudly, wearing a confident smile and expecting nothing but praises. Her plan had gone on without a hitch, no less. Sure, Lumpkins had to run through a hail of bullets out the back, but there weren't that many cops behind the convenience store, just like how she predicted. She'd seen him run, and he didn't lose anything he was carrying away either. Neither was anyone else hurt, and that was the most important part.

'You what!?' the soldier yelled on hearing Blossom's explanation. 'You weren't supposed to just let him leave! I told you! I told you to knock him out so we can arrest him!'

'But he was too strong- and- and- he would have hurt others!' Blossom tried to justify herself. 'My sisters are hurt really badly!' she pointed at Bubbles and Buttercup, who were behind her. Buttercup had put one of Bubbles' arm around her shoulder to assist her with walking and flying. She had an arm and a leg that were mangled. 'He was just hungry, and he was just trying to buy food and-'

'Shut up! Just shut up!' the soldier screamed at her. As if her slash wounds weren't bad enough, it'd shaken her. 'You mean to tell me that you were scared for your lives - like cowards - and you just let an enhanced individual walk because of that!?'

'But-'

'That 'Lumpkins' killed entire squads of soldiers! Some of them were my friends!' the soldier berated Blossom, who shrunk away from the enraged soldier. 'And guess who's going to pay for all those food? It's gonna be the USDO! Guess who's going to have to write a report on this! Me! And guess who isn't going to get any justice! My friends!'

'But we protected the people in the store, and he would have hurt everyone outside!' Blossom stubbornly defended herself.

'You protected yourself! Now get lost! General Blackwater is going to hear about this!' the soldier hollered.

'No! Please! It's not what you think!' Blossom cried, flying up close to him. The USDO soldier took exception to this, however, thinking that the enhanced little girl was rebelling against him. He drew his sidearm quickly and fired a few shots at her.

'Ow!' Blossom had cried in pain, recoiled from it when she felt gunshots on her arms when she shielded herself from the gunshots.

'I said get lost! You're done here! Go home and cry to your daddy about it, because I don't want to hear it!' the soldier had said to end the conversation if it could be called as such.

They had to fly back home carrying Bubbles on their shoulders, as her broken limbs (not that they really knew what was really wrong with her arm and leg) had badly affected her ability to fly. It wasn't a pleasant journey, as their flight packs couldn't be extended while they were huddled together, making it even harder to fly. Bubbles wouldn't stop crying in pain - Buttercup found it annoying while the fact that she was in pain was trampling on the shattered remains of Blossom's heart. Yet, all this wasn't the worst, as it had yet to come.

The Girls flew through their porthole windows and into their room. Blossom and Buttercup deposited Bubbles in their bed, and Blossom flew out the door to look for the professor. As she was traveling at high speeds due to the emergency, she was quick to comb through the entire second floor while shouting desperately for her Dad, and she did the same for the first floor. Where could he be? She wasn't able to find anyone else too - no Mom, not even Bunny.

At least, not until she went through the airlock leading down and into the labs. Her Dad had never done this before. Whenever he knew that the Girls were out fighting crime, he would stay in the living room or somewhere close by, just in case they needed him - and more than once, they did need him.

Instead, Blossom found him in the labs, with Mom and Bunny. He was standing beside a Bunny who was already flexing her Chemical X2-enhanced strength, carrying a 2,000-pound load over her head, and it didn't look too difficult for her at all. And she was showered with praises from both a cheering Mom and a Dad who was recording her progress with a smile on his face, oblivious to what Bunny's elder sisters were going through.

"Dad!" Blossom called out to him. All three of them turned to her.

"Oh hey-" the professor greeted her with a young, boyish smile on his face until he saw the state she was in. The blood on her vest had dried, but it was still obvious to a caring father. "Blossom!"

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

23 FEB (Thursday) 1989. 1837.

"It's not too bad," the professor said as he was examining Bubbles, who Blossom and Buttercup had transferred down to the labs from their room. Her left arm and leg were still bending the wrong way, and Bubbles hadn't been able to move them since. It was terrifying for her, and in her childish mind, she thought she was going to be a cripple for the rest of her life. "They're just dislocated. Our friend 'Lumpkins' would have to try harder to break your bones, sweetie."

"He's not our friend," Blossom, who was watching from a nearby sickbed, corrected her Dad. "That's what he said."

"I hope he wouldn't try harder…" Bubbles cried, still wiping tears away.

"I'm going to have to reset your joints, Bubbles," the professor said. Thankfully, Bunny was taken away to another corner of the lab by Selicia so she didn't have to see it. It was bad enough that Bubbles' arm and leg were bending in the wrong direction, but when the kevlar plates there were removed, the professor had discovered that the entirety of the affected joints were bruised and swollen, with the black-and-blue spreading across both limbs. There was massive internal bleeding, likely from how serious the dislocations were.

"Is it going to hurt?" Bubbles wept.

"Yes, I'm afraid it will," the professor said. "Be strong, honey. It'll be over quickly."

"I'm here with you, Bubbles," Blossom said from her bed. Buttercup, on the other hand, was just watching and waiting for that satisfying moment when Bubbles would explode in tears.

"I'm going to work on your arm first," the professor said. Taking a baseball, he put it into Bubbles' dislocated arm. "Here, hold onto this tightly."

Bubbles mewled in fear as she gave the ball a tight clench. Despite her dislocation, she was still strong enough to grip it tightly, vice-like such that the baseball was in danger of flattening.

"Now, you're going to feel a little pulling sensation. Be strong…" the professor said, and before Bubbles could speak, he gave her arm a pull and her elbow a squeeze, orientating the limb in a maneuver to reset the joint. Pain exploded in her elbow and there was a popping sound, louder than one a regular elbow would make.

But Bubbles' scream was louder.

The professor was shaken by all of his. It was yet another day that would traumatize his daughters for years to come. But he couldn't stop. He tried to relocate Bubbles' knee immediately after this to make it quick, but despite him informing her about the pain, she was pushing him away with her other leg, using it to fence his hand away.

"Buttercup! Hold Bubbles down!" the professor said to his other daughter. Buttercup had gotten off lightly this time, suffering only bruises and cuts from Lumpkins' shotgun, so she was able to help.

"Gladly," Buttercup said as she flew over to pin Bubbles' arms and single working leg down.

"I'm sorry, Bubbles, but this will hurt much, much worse," the professor said apologetically when he seized Bubbles by her dislocated leg. "But it's going to be… just fine."

The bony snap could be heard even from beyond the curtains of the medical area of the lab, followed by Bubbles' scream.

However, Selicia had prepared Bunny just for that. While Bunny was playing with blocks, she had slipped a headphone on her hooked to a cassette player singing a lullaby into her ears.

Bubbles was barely conscious after her harrowing experience.

"You did it, Bubbles. You made it," the professor comforted her. "It's over now. You'll be fine."

"I'm glad she's okay, Dad," Blossom said from the side.

"You know what would make the three of you feel better?" the professor went on.

"What?" the three Girls asked in unison.

"Bunny! She's learning so fast!" the professor exclaimed, switching gears perhaps a little too fast to make a good impression on his daughters, before gushing at length: "She's already walking, not to mentioning saying her name, and she's mastered about two hundred words too - she called me Daddy not too long ago, and your mother Mommy - she knows your names too. The three of you have got to spend more time with her!"

It wasn't making any of them feel any better, with attention being taken away from them. Only Bubbles, perhaps, was glad that Bunny was doing better than they were.

"Oh…" Blossom said dejectedly, though the professor didn't quite pick up on it. He just thought that she was just in pain and miserable because of it. "That's… great."

"What's wrong?" the professor asked, sensing something else other than joy, though he had no clue what it would be, considering that the subject was Bunny - someone the Girls should be rooting for.

"Nothing…" Blossom said, however.

"Pff, I bet she'll take forever to learn how to fly," Buttercup said. "She's such a klutz!"

"You mean like you, Buttercup?" Bubbles interjected. She didn't like how Buttercup had found a new victim to taunt.

"Hey!" Buttercup exclaimed madly.

"I see the three of you are in high spirits," came Selicia's voice from the entrance of the ward curtains. Bunny was waddling beside her, giggling in that low voice of hers. Buttercup thought she looked like an idiot. Bubbles smiled when she turned to look at her, and though Blossom felt otherwise, she forced herself to smile at Bunny. It was clear by now that the kind of attention her Dad used to lavish on top of her was a thing of the past. In fact, thinking back, she realized in retrospect that it had been slowly slipping away when her Mom came into the picture, and as the days went by, Dad would devote more and more time to her instead. Bunny had merely made it more obvious when she took her slice of Dad's attention (and it was a big one at that), completing the process.

The professor picked up Bunny the moment she walked through, swooping in after her. Bunny giggled when he did.

"Oof, you're heavy, bunny rabbit!" he said. He could barely handle it when he let her sit in his arms. "Say hi to your sisters - do you remember their names?" He pointed at Bubbles. "Can you remember her name?"

"Bubbles!" Bunny reiterated with a laugh. Bubbles, who was still resting in her patient bed and didn't even dare to get up, smiled at this development. It was a warm, fuzzy feeling, forgetting about everything that had happened in the past and just being in the here and now, enjoying the company of a new sister and her family. Bunny's rapid development was something she could get behind - better that she be talented than useless like her. Bubbles was still unable to shake off the sense of worthlessness and guilt she felt after seeing Lumpkins off in the Tumbling Weed Convenience Store, and especially after her drug abuse episode.

Then the professor turned and pointed at someone else, and Bunny gladly obliged.

"Buttercup!" Bunny read her name as if it was ice-cream to be licked clean off a cone. Buttercup was anything but accepting and celebratory, however. She crossed her arms and frowned instead. She wouldn't even meet Bunny's gaze as the physically eight-years-old looked at her with innocence in her eyes. Another competitor, that's all she was.

The professor then turned to the last elder sister in the room. "What about her?" he asked.

"Blossom!" Bunny recalled effortlessly. Blossom wanted to be happy for Bunny, at having reached milestones she would have taken days, not a day, to stumble onto. But something inside her prevented her from being fully genuine about it, something she had never felt before in her three months of life. She had been the apple in her father's eyes for just as long - and it felt as if Bunny had taken her place, and it was eating away at her.

"Who's the smartest girl there is? You are!" the professor pinched Bunny's cheek playfully and Bunny giggled in her repugnant, low voice. What the professor said had made Blossom felt worse. Here she was, lying in a hospital bed, bandaged up because of her wounds in the chest suffered in the line of fire, while she was away an entire day doing good, and her Dad had hardly paid her any attention! All because Bunny had learned things her elder sisters had mastered months ago! "You're the smartest girl there is, yes you are! You definitely are!"

The feeling was something Dad had rarely talked about. But the one time he named it was all it took for Blossom to remember it.

Jealousy.

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

24 FEB (Friday) 1989. 0755.

"Are you sure you'll be fine, Bubbles?" the professor asked. He couldn't help but look down at Bunny, who was standing next to him, perpetually smiling without a care in the world.

"I'll be fine, Dad," Bubbles said as she was walking towards the door. She was already in uniform and gear, in accordance with General Blackwater's instructions, just like her sisters. Her left limbs were still stiff and sore, which made walking and flying awkward, but at least the unsightly bruises were gone. "You fixed me up really well." She flew up to him and gave him a peck on the cheek.

"Bubbles fly!" Bunny exclaimed when she saw Bubbles doing her 'magic trick' again.

"Yes, I am, Bunny! You'll be flying soon too," Bubbles replied. In the meantime, Blossom and Buttercup had already traveled all the way to the door even though they had done it at a snail's pace. Neither of them was laughing, or smiling, or even feeling okay. Blossom could still feel stiffness in the chest, not that Dad seemed to care. Bubbles was puzzling to her - couldn't she see that she had been pushed aside because of Bunny too?

"Not only that, she'll be better than the three of you at it in no time too!" the professor said, with that stupid, boyish grin on his face that Blossom was beginning to find unlikable. What he said grated at him such that she couldn't help but grit her teeth and glare at the sight of a jubilant Bunny, an ignorant Bubbles and a negligent Dad. "And then she'll be fighting-"

Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! The USDO hotline screamed at the conversation. The clown phone was at it again, stating its opinion. Blossom looked at it, unable to decide if it was on her side this time. Nonetheless, she couldn't believe that she was glad it rang, as it meant she didn't have to take Dad's car with Bunny.

"-Crime," the professor finished his sentence anyway. Not that he could finish everything he wanted to say. Blossom flew over to the phone and picked it up.

"Hello?" she greeted the phone.

"Is this the Powerpuff Girls?" a man's voice, grating and seasoned and unfamiliar, said through the otherwise happy-and-sunshine clown phone.

"Y-yes," Blossom said. The voice made her feel uneasy. "How can I help you, mister?"

"I am the chief of Precinct 77. I have a special assignment for the three of you," the grating voice continued and would have done so whether Blossom had asked or not. "Go to Wilkins Street at Downtown. A black car will be there waiting for you by a pawnshop at thirty past eight. Don't be late."

"What is it about, Mister Chief-Of-Precinct-77? Who are we fighting?" Blossom asked. Her answer was the phone hanging up and a monotonous tone suggesting a mystery.

"What is it, Blossom?" the professor asked, as usual, apprehensive about the prospect of the Girls going out there again.

"The man on the tele said it's a 'special assignment'…" Blossom said. The only thing she could equate to was that it could be a surprise. The 'special assignment', after all, had come from the police. A chief, no less. For all she knew, it might not even be an assignment. Could it be the Mayor's surprise? Or even something thrown together by the Townsville Police? If it was, it could be the break she deserved - not just from fighting crime, but from the domestic problems she'd been encountering, the latest one being Bunny.

"Oh… I hate missing school all the time…" Bubbles commented, looking just as upset.

"I guess that means we'll be shopping for Bunny's stuff alone," Selicia, who was just coming out of the kitchen, said. She was wearing a red dress - it was her favorite color, it seemed, with black coming in a close second; her accessories were mostly of that color.

Her smirk betrayed the fact that she would rather be alone with Professor Utonium and Bunny than to have the Girls around. Bunny had gotten an instant glare from Buttercup that way.

The City of Townsville. Downtown. Wilkins Street.

24 FEB (Friday) 1989. 0824.

"What kind of surprise do you think it will be, Blossom?" Bubbles asked just as they were descending down to the place where they were supposed to be for the 'special assignment'.

"Maybe the rest of the police wants to throw us a birthday party?" Blossom guessed absentmindedly. Dad was still on her mind. "We've done so much for them. I don't mind getting a cake for it."

"I just want an assignment where we get to beat hundreds of people up!" Buttercup said, referring to the times when they had to go on riot control, donning their riot gear and wielding crowd suppression weapons. That was when she had to go medieval on a horde of people, and she loved it.

"Maybe we'll get to play with puppies together with the orphans. Like that time with the mayor?" Bubbles took her own guess.

"I don't think so," Blossom said the moment they touched down. "At least… I won't be at home with Bunny, no matter what it is."

"You too, Blossom?" Buttercup said to her leader sister, and they exchanged looks. "I don't think I like Bunny…"

Blossom did not reply immediately, feeling conflicted inside. Her feelings were strong in this one - Bunny was taking something from them that she did not deserve, and the three of them had fought with teeth and nails, sometimes literally, for love.

"But Bunny's our sister…" Bubbles said but fell silent very quickly. She never thought she would hear such a thing - who could hate Bunny? After all, she was literally born yesterday!

A car rounding the corner, black as promised, made sure that Blossom didn't have to say anything. It was a vintage Mercedes, something a rich man would have. The car came up towards them, parking beside them. The Girls looked on, unsure of what to make of it. There were no markings. Blossom knew to look at the license plate, but it wasn't there. At first, there was no response from whoever was inside - the windows were tinted, so it made it impossible for anyone to see inside. That is, anyone except someone with X-ray vision.

And Blossom would have used it too, had someone inside not wound down his window. It was the driver, on the driver seat. A man in a clean, gray suit. A fedora hat. Late middle age, looking like he might have missed a few night's sleep occasionally. Perhaps binged on some potato chips while he was at it, though to the driver's credit, it wasn't too obvious.

"Powerpuff Girls? Get in," the man simply ordered them to do so, with a voice deep and commanding.

"Who are you?" Blossom questioned the man.

"I'm not supposed to say," he simply said.

"Is this like an undercover mission or something?" Buttercup added.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," the man answered impatiently. "Now get in."

There was something about this that Bubbles didn't like. It reminded her too much of the fairy godmother, even though she knew that this wasn't her doing. The fairy godmother would have gone to her directly.

Things just kept getting weirder and weirder…

As if the tumultuous changes at home weren't enough.